Found, a Vampire Romance (4 page)

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not, but I should be. It’s cold here, isn’t it?” A line formed between her brows.

“You’re better. That’s why you don’t feel cold.” Sure now he was making the right choice, Dorian stood and pulled Nancy to her feet too. He led her out of the cave.

Despite the hour— well past eight in the morning, Dorian calculated— there was little light in the canyon. There was never much light here, part of the canyon’s curse, but this morning an additional fog crowded the area, and a light drizzle fell to the ground.

Nancy slicked her hand over her arm, sending water splattering off of her skin. “Still not cold,” she murmured.

“Here.” Afraid she would continue to analyze how she was feeling and realize her body had changed, was changing, Dorian broke the pact he had made with himself and, draping his arm over her shoulders, pulled her against him.

She slid her arms around his waist. “The road. How far is it?” she asked.

Dorian couldn’t focus on her words. He couldn’t focus on anything but the feel of her body against his. It felt so right. She felt so right. How could he let her go?

He tightened his jaw. He just would. Because he had to.

“Not far,” he replied, although he knew the mile walk would feel like eternity. 

The cave was tucked back from the main part of the canyon. They had to walk through a narrow pass littered with rocks that had fallen from above.

Nancy stumbled, and Dorian pulled her closer.

Her legs were still shaky. She wasn’t well yet, but she was already recovered enough anyone who saw her after the accident would question what had happened since.

Nancy would have no answer for them, and Dorian had none to give her, not that she could share.

“Do you go to school?” she asked after they had walked a bit.

“No.” Dorian pressed his lips together. He needed to begin distancing himself from her. Answering her questions, pretending they could share even just conversation, would only increase the difficulty of what he had to do.

“Oh, so you have a job?”

A job. Yes, that’s what you could call it, one dirty job after another, working for his father.

“Family business,” he replied. A twig cracked, not nearby but close enough that Dorian twitched at the sound. He hadn’t sensed or smelled anything strange since leaving the cave, but he had been focused on Nancy, focused on pretending he
wasn’t
focused on Nancy.

“That must be—” 

Something dropped from the sky in front of them. A body, a male, landed in a crouch on the ground.

Dorian shoved Nancy behind him, into a line of brush where she wouldn’t be seen, and spun toward the threat. His fangs extended, he hissed.

His brother, Cameron, hissed back at him.

“What have you done, Dorian? What have you done?” Silver glinted from Cameron’s hand.

Dorian’s loving brother had come to find him, stake in hand.

Chapter 5

Nancy stumbled backward, startled and unsure what was happening. Her foot hit a root, and she fell into a bush. Thorns and branches tore at her clothing and hair. She heard a hiss, loud and unnatural. The hair on the back of her neck rose, and, using her heels, she pushed her body farther away from the sound and whatever had created it.

Her back hit a wall of brambles, blocking her from moving further. Her first instinct was panic, pure selfish panic. She couldn’t move. She was trapped. Whatever had confronted Dorian would soon find her.

Shame quickly followed.

What was she doing? Dorian had saved her from the wolves. She couldn’t cower in the bushes while something attacked him. Still shaken but now determined, she rose to her knees and forced herself to peer through the thorny mass to see what was happening. She’d heard a hiss. Not the wolves. A mountain lion then?

She shivered. Mountain lions scared her. They had since she was six and had lost her dog to one. And they, unlike wolves, were known for attacking humans.

She wouldn’t stand a chance against a mountain lion, but then neither would Dorian alone. 

She closed her eyes for a moment to screw up her courage, and then focused on the area where Dorian still stood.
No mountain lion
. Instead, a human figure, male and roughly Dorian’s size, rushed forward. Dressed in a white shirt, he was easy to see. His arm rose as he moved, and something in his hand glinted.

A knife.

Her fear was forgotten. Adrenaline and the need to act now pushed it aside. Heart thumping hard in her chest, she moved onto her hands and knees and searched the ground for a rock, something, anything she could throw or use in some way to help Dorian.

Her fingers touched a jagged stone as big as her fist. She grabbed it and leapt to her feet. With the rock held at her chest, she watched for the perfect moment to launch her missile.

“Cameron. Stop!” Dorian raised his arm, blocking the other man’s downward strike. The two stood locked that way for a second, the one— Cameron— pressing down, the blade he held clearly visible now, and Dorian with his arm upraised, holding the deadly weapon at bay.

Nancy stilled.

Cameron
. The name was familiar. Dorian’s brother, but surely this wasn’t—

Before she could react further, Dorian twisted to the side, slipping under his brother’s arm and out of his reach.

She lowered the rock and took a step forward, but the fight wasn’t over. Cameron moved the blade from one hand to the other and advanced on Dorian again.

“I know what you’ve become, Dorian. I can’t let you hurt her or anyone else.” He charged Dorian again. This time Dorian met him with his arms extended, as if he was inviting his brother to skewer him with the blade.

“No!” Nancy screamed and jumped out into the open.

Both men froze and turned, slowly, as if the scene wasn’t in real time, as if it was being played back second by second, each movement the men made grinding slowly into the next.

Or maybe it just felt that way. Maybe it was all part of some delirium caused by what Nancy saw next.

Fangs.

Vampire fangs in Cameron’s and Dorian’s mouths.

Nancy dropped the rock. Her hand flew to her neck. Her mind raced backward to tasting blood, to liking it and wanting more.

Horror, shock, disbelief. The emotions warred for dominance.

She didn’t know what to think, what to believe.

She only knew she had to get away.

Now.

As she did, she heard voices behind her yelling, telling her to do as she’d already done— to run.

o0o

“Run. To the road,” Cameron yelled, lowering the stake for one fateful moment as he did.

Dorian hesitated, torn between chasing after Nancy, letting Cameron pierce him with the blade, and overpowering his brother.

Being with Nancy, seeing Cameron, and now potentially losing Nancy… He couldn’t keep up with how or what he felt. Couldn’t remember if he was monster, man, or vampire.

Or maybe he was a bit of all three. And maybe that was good enough.

He leapt forward, and as his shoulder slammed into his brother’s, he grabbed the stake and tossed it across the small clearing where they had battled.

“I’m not. What. You. Think.” He grabbed Cameron by the ears and slammed the back of his brother’s head into the ground.

Cameron’s fist flew from the side, striking Dorian in the temple.

Dorian fell, and Cameron rolled on top of him.

“I can’t let you trick me, Dorian. Not anymore.” He scrambled off of Dorian and raced in the direction of the stake.

With a snarl, Dorian was on his feet. He threw himself after his brother and tackled him.

Again they rolled across packed earth, each struggling to overpower the other.

They had never fought like this before. The animosity, anger, jealousy, whatever it was that each had felt for the other, had always been hidden behind polite, if cool, words.

This was different and, Dorian realized, better.

He hit Cameron again. His knuckles cracked, and his brother’s jaw popped. Both growled.

Cameron wrapped his hands around Dorian’s throat and squeezed, but his grip didn’t hold. Dorian slipped free and kneed his brother in the groin.

Cursing, Cameron grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it into Dorian’s face.

Dorian’s eyes burned, and he couldn’t see, but he didn’t let his brother’s surprising mode of attack rattle him. Sensing his brother would take the opportunity to swing again, he dropped to a crouch. Cameron’s fist flew harmlessly over his head.

Then Dorian drove forward again, hitting his brother in the knees. Cameron flew up and over Dorian’s back. He hit the ground with a thump, but Dorian’s perfect brother didn’t so much as grunt. He rolled onto his side and then, in one quick seamless move, to his feet.

In seconds, the two faced each other again.

Dorian dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. “She changed me.”

Cameron’s white sweatshirt had gotten torn in the fight. He jerked it over his head and dropped it onto the ground. The gray tee he wore beneath it blended into the gloom. “How? How did she change you? How is she even alive? Her friend said she was near death, but the woman I saw walking by your side looked healthy. How is that, Dorian? Again, what did you do?”

There was no answering the question, not with anything that would satisfy Cameron. Dorian had known all along that what he had done for Nancy, for himself too, went against everything his brother preached.

But he hadn’t lied. He
had
changed. Nancy had changed him. And he wasn’t ready to die, not any longer.

Convincing his brother of that, however, would be impossible. And every moment he spent here arguing, Nancy was wandering the canyon alone. Or worse, with the wolves. 

o0o

Shaking, Nancy bent at the waist and gulped air. She’d run as far and as fast as she could.

Fangs
.
Vampires
.

If anyone had told her there were vampires in this canyon, she would have laughed. She
had
laughed. No one had mentioned vampires, but the stories of the curse— cars disappearing when they drove the road that traced the canyon’s edge, the never-ending darkness inside the place, and hikers going out for a quick commune with nature never to be seen again— those tales were rampant. Nancy had heard them all and laughed at them all.

Goosebumps dotted her skin.

She wasn’t laughing now.

Dorian. She’d trusted him. She’d even thought…

She shook her head and hugged herself.

What was real? What wasn’t? She’d been in an accident, hit her head. Maybe all of this was a product of that. Maybe she’d wake up in a warm bed, hospital machines beeping comfortingly beside her.

Exhausted, from running and emotions run amuck, she pressed her back against a tree trunk and slid down to a squat. Then she closed her eyes and willed this nightmare to be over.

“Where’d they go? Can’t be far.”

Nancy’s eyes flew open. Her fingers pressed into the dirt beneath her. A man or men. This was good. Someone to save her, someone maybe even looking for her.

A few hours earlier, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She would have screamed out her location, but now... after everything... after trusting Dorian so completely...

Her head hurt. Her heart hurt.

She didn’t know what to do, whom to trust. She realized she was trembling.

“Not my problem. I wasn’t the one bragging…”

The second man’s sentence broke off.

Nancy lowered her butt to the ground and hugged her legs to her chest. She would wait a bit more and listen. If they started to walk away, she could follow them, but she couldn’t announce her presence right now, not yet.

Knowing she was acting irrationally but unable to shake the feeling that she needed to stay hidden, she kept her lips firmly pressed together and her body as still as she could make it.

“Hello.” A boy around Nancy’s age peered at her from around the tree trunk.

Her teeth ground together.

“You find—” Another boy bumped into the first one. When he saw Nancy, he grinned.

A chill passed over her, but as the first boy held out his hand to help her to her feet, she told herself she was being ridiculous. A few hours earlier, she had trusted a stranger completely.

A stranger who was a vampire
, her mind whispered.

Or not
, her logical brain argued.

Vampires weren’t real. And Dorian had been.... She shook any further thoughts of Dorian away. They were too confusing. Too disturbing.

“Your car wrecked.” The first boy moved his hand a little, urging her to take it. “You’re Nancy, right? They sent us to find you.” 

“They did?” She peered up at him. Clean-shaven, with hair that looked like it had been trimmed this morning, he looked safe. In fact, he looked familiar. “Do I know you?” she asked, still shaky, but moving to stand.

“We met at a party, in Greek Town.”

“You bet me our pledges couldn’t last a night in the canyon.” She stuttered a bit. His prods and her pride were the reason she was here. She shook her head. The girl he’d talked to that night was gone, dead with her two friends in her car.

“I…” He dropped his gaze to the ground. When he looked up, his brown eyes were filled with regret. “So, you know why I’m here. When I heard what happened, I had to help.”

His obvious regret reassured her. His hand was still extended. She placed her fingers on top of his. “It isn’t your fault.”

And it wasn’t. He hadn’t known what would happen. He hadn’t caused the accident. And he hadn’t forced her to take his bet.

No, this tragedy was all on her.

He closed his fingers over hers and squeezed. “You’re with us now.”

She forced a smile, forced a warmth she didn’t feel. “So there’s a search party?”

“That’s right. A group of us came.” He nodded toward his friend. “We’ll take you to them now.”

The other boy moved beside her, so she was sandwiched between them. Nancy stumbled. The first boy, Dave— she remembered his name from the party— caught her elbow and stopped her from falling. She pulled herself free. “Do you have a flashlight?” she asked.