Found, a Vampire Romance (6 page)

So he wasn’t doing this to help Dorian. He wasn’t even saying he believed or trusted Dorian.

But he was going to help.

It was enough.

Once Dorian knew Nancy was safe, nothing else would matter.

He ignored his brother and concentrated on the trail, concentrated on finding and saving the only person who had ever made him feel whole.

Chapter 7

As Nancy walked into the clearing, Dave and Brandon at her side, the group that was gathered around the fire cheered. Her concerns melting away, she smiled and looked for Rachel.

She wasn’t there, which made sense. She was probably at the hospital being checked over. Except there was no one who looked in any way “official” present either. No police. No EMTs. No firemen.

And no one approached her to see how she was doing.

Instead, they flocked to her companions, pounded them on the back, and said things like, “About time,” “We’d given up,” and, most disturbing, “She’s all you have?”

The last was said with a leer as the drunken boy uttering the words leaned forward and stared into Nancy’s face.

She pulled back, but hands on her arms stopped her from moving away completely.

Dave and Brandon both had hold of her. She tried to jerk away.

Their fingers dug into her arms.

“Enough of this.” Brandon dragged her forward.

Her heels dug into the ground, and she tried to force her body backward. “Stop it. What are you doing…?”

No one listened. They were too caught up in their own conversation and the keg of beer that sat beyond the fire.

“Last round. Then the hunt is on!” Another boy— they all were boys, she realized now. All clean-cut. All college-aged. All, in any other circumstances, the type of boy she would have chatted up at a party.

But not this party. Not now. This wasn’t right.

Fear mobilized her. She jerked again and threw her body to the side. Dave lost his hold on her, and Brandon cursed. She swung her fist at his head, making contact. Blood spurted from his nose and, with a sense of satisfaction, she swung again.

“Someone grab her.” Brandon’s voice was low, with an edge of authority she hadn’t noticed before. The boys surrounding them jumped into action. Three grabbed her. Each held an arm or a leg. They carried her, spread eagle, past the fire.

The boys still drinking hooted and cheered.

Nancy thrashed and screamed, but no one seemed to care. She heard a clink. Then she was tossed, head first, into a metal cage, and the door was slammed shut.

She sat in the back, shivering, unbelieving, and terrified.

“Hunt starts in twenty. Get changed!” Brandon slapped the top of the box and leaned down to stare at her. “Dave fucked up. Be a good little rabbit, and maybe he won’t have to pay the price for that.”

Nancy had no response. She had no words. She had nothing. Her body, her mind, and her soul had all gone completely numb.

o0o

Nancy hadn’t sat in the cage for long before new activity began among the boys.

Brandon waved his hand toward her. Two of the boys grabbed her cage and lifted it onto their shoulders— as if she and the steel cage weighed nothing.

She gripped the metal bars and tried not to show the fear that was shooting through her.

What the hell were these boys? Not regular college students, that much was for sure. Despite the chill, her palms were sweating. Her hands slid down the bars with each of the boys’ jostling steps.

“Over there, in the gulley.”

The boys hefted her cage off of their shoulders and then dropped it into a small ravine. Her body bounced up, and her head hit the top of her prison. When she landed, it was in water. Water trickled through the ravine and over the bottom of the cage. Nancy’s jeans and shoes were soon soaked.

“Time to run, rabbit.” Brandon jerked the cage door open. She stared at him stupidly.

Adrenaline pumped through her. She wanted to run, but some small piece of her also said
don’t
.

Fight or flight
. Given the choice, she had never been one to choose flight.

“I said run!” Brandon leaned closer, his expression pulled into a snarl. Then his face twisted, and his body jerked. A grunt followed by a growl fell from his lips. Hair sprouted on his face, and his back bent.

His body jerked again and again. Until he was no longer human— he was a wolf.

Nancy knew she should scream, knew it was the rational response, but her lungs were frozen. She couldn’t pull in air, and she couldn’t push out a noise.

Brandon, the wolf, snapped his teeth and grinned.

The horror clicked something in her brain. This was real. Everything was real.

It was her last rational thought before she shoved open the cage door and ran.

o0o

It hadn’t taken Dorian and Cameron long to locate the werewolves. For animals known for their stealth, their human-shifting counterparts seemed to feel no need for secrecy.

In one of the darkest parts of the canyon, they’d built a bonfire, and a dozen werewolves, all in human form, were gathered around it drinking beer from plastic cups.

However, there was no sign of Nancy. Dorian turned to leave. Cameron placed a hand on his arm. “Where are you going?”

“To find Nancy.”

There had been a time Dorian would have dove into the middle of the gathered werewolves, torn a few apart just to appease his rage, but tonight he had more than his anger at stake. He had to find Nancy, alive and totally unharmed.

After he’d done that, he’d come back for the werewolves.

He crept around the circle, listening and watching for some clue, any clue, as to where she was now.

“You got ‘em under control?” A college-aged male held a walkie-talkie to his mouth. “Gotta wait until Brandon says it’s okay.” He lowered the device and stared across the clearing, watching for this Brandon, Dorian realized.

In a moment, a wolf trotted into view. It lifted its head.

The male with the walkie-talkie uttered one word. “Go!”

Dorian didn’t know who the male was talking to, or why, but every instinct he had told him it had to do with Nancy.

Careful not to alert the werewolves gathered around the fire and keg, he crept around the side of the clearing until he reached the spot where the wolf had first appeared.

There was another trail, this one leading to some kind of creek or gulley, and inside the gulley, the bottom covered with muddy water, was a cage.

If Dorian had been a wolf, he would have howled. Instead he gritted his teeth and swore to himself, promised himself that the werewolves standing around the fire, laughing, and slamming down beers, were going to pay— in blood.

o0o

Nancy heard howls. She stumbled over a rock that lay in her path but caught herself and kept from falling. She was running wild, she knew that— no plan, no idea how she was going to outrun a pack of wolves. No.
Werewolves
.

Her heart beat so loud and hard she could hear the pounding in her ears.

Dorian had taken care of her, shown her nothing but love and respect, and she’d run from him because he was a vampire.

Run from him and into the grasp of perfect, clean-cut, college boys who were monsters inside and out.

She wanted to stop and retch. She wanted to run back to Dorian and tell him what an idiot she had been.

But she couldn’t. All she could do was run and keep running until the wolves found her... and took her down.

She stumbled again, and this time she fell.

A howl broke through the night. The hairs on Nancy’s arms rose, and she scrambled on the ground, trying to stand.

But she was weak, exhausted, and the adrenaline that had fueled her was gone. She fell down, her forehead touching dirt and a sob leaving her throat.

An arm wrapped around her waist, and she was lifted into the air. Her elbow flew back, and she twisted to the side. Her hand made contact with a cheek. Her knuckles popped, but her attacker didn’t lower her to the ground.

“Nancy. It’s me. Dorian.” The words were soft and unsure, as if he didn’t know how she would react to his appearance. And until that moment, she hadn’t known how she would react either, but then he was there, his eyes soft with worry, and all thoughts of him being anything except welcome fled from her mind.

She threw herself against him. “Werewolves.”

He held her tightly against his chest, her face pressed to his shirt. “I know. A pack. We have to get you away.”

She nodded; she wanted to leave. She wanted to leave now.

“Cameron is near. He’ll take you to the road.”

“No.” She stepped back. How could he think to hand her off to his brother? “I—”

Four wolves smashed through the brush, and something that sounded like a walkie-talkie squawked, “You got them in view?”

Dorian’s eyes narrowed. He pushed Nancy behind him.

“Yeah, they’re here. Rookies. If it was any other type of game, they wouldn’t have a shot.”

“I told you this latest batch of pledges were weak. They barely found those dead bodies we scattered around, and some of those were rank. They’d been rotting in that cave for weeks.” The voice came from their right. Nancy recognized it. Dave.

He didn’t seem to know she and Dorian were so near. The “they” he was talking about was obviously someone else— pledges turned into werewolves and hunting, first dead bodies and now her.

She pressed her lips together. Then she looked at Dorian.

His shoulders widened, and his head lowered. Nancy couldn’t see his face, but she didn’t have to. She’d seen it when he was fighting with his brother. She knew his expression now would be even more disturbing. She could feel the rage radiating off of him. If possible, it equaled her own.

He crossed the space between them and where Dave’s voice had come from so quickly she didn’t notice that he had moved until she heard Dave’s curse. The walkie-talkie squawked, and Dave yelled. She wasn’t sure at whom, and from where she was standing, she could see very little.

Her hands opened and closed at her sides. This was her fight. Dave had lured her here, convinced her to bring her friends so he and his pack of wolves could
hunt
them.

The rage she had felt before multiplied. She crept to the side, hidden behind a bush, but now with a full view of what was happening.

Dorian had Dave by the neck. He was shaking the werewolf like a dog shaking a squirrel.

Dorian had the upper hand, but as Nancy watched, that changed. Dave began to shift. His body jerked and, as had happened with Brandon, fur sprouted from his face. He twisted side to side and fell from Dorian’s grasp.

Barking a warning to the others, he bounded to the side. Dorian, fangs extended, leapt after him. He landed on the werewolf and forced him to the ground.

The other wolves, the four who had smashed through the brush, who had been hunting her, turned tail and ran.

There was no one here now, no one except Dorian and Dave. Nancy crept forward.

From the side, she saw movement, a body leaping. Then she was down, and a wolf stood over her. It stared into her eyes, anger and disgust clear in its gaze.

Brandon.

His face loomed, and he surged forward. She tried to hold him off, but he was too quick. His teeth gouged into her neck and tore her skin.

Pain flooded over her. She was bleeding, dying. There was no hope.

“Nancy!” Dorian. Panic and anger were clear in his voice.

She wanted to close her eyes and let the nightmare end, but she couldn’t. Dorian wouldn’t let her. She could feel him reaching out to her, ordering her to fight.

A new strength flowed into her. She threw out her arms, groping for a weapon, a rock, a stick, anything, but her hands came up empty.

“Dirt!” a new voice yelled. Cameron, Dorian’s brother, telling her to what?

Her fingers touched the ground.
Dirt
. She grabbed handfuls and threw them into the wolf’s face. The animal snorted and stepped back, enough she was able to roll to the side.

Behind her there was a growl. She didn’t stop to analyze it; she kept rolling until her body hit a bush and she could roll no more. Then she shoved herself to a stand and looked back from where she had come.

And saw nothing. Her world was black. Her knees bent. She touched her hand to her throat and felt blood, warm and sticky.

Then she collapsed.

Chapter 8

Dorian grappled with the wolf. He’d bitten and been bitten. The creature refused to die.

He balled his hand into a fist and slugged the animal in the snout. It stumbled backward, allowing him to glance to the side to see that Nancy was okay.

Except she wasn’t. A second wolf had her on the ground.

He yelled her name and tried to run to her. The wolf he’d been fighting jumped on his back and sank his teeth into his ear.

A new rage filled Dorian. He slammed his elbow into the creature’s gut and his fist into its face.

From what sounded like miles away, he heard Cameron yell. Caught up in his battle and his need to get to Nancy, he couldn’t make out his brother’s words. He grabbed the wolf by the throat and shook. The animal flailed, but this time Dorian wouldn’t be eluded.

Images of Nancy lying on the ground, possibly bleeding, possibly dying, drove him.

The animal tried to twist once more, but Dorian grabbed its head and body and gave a twist of his own. Bones popped, and the wolf fell helpless to the ground.

If werewolf lore was true, the creature wasn’t dead. It wouldn’t be until silver finished what Dorian had started, but it was out of commission, at least for now.

It was enough. Dorian couldn’t worry about revenge now— he had to get to Nancy.

She was on her feet, but her throat was torn open. Blood flowed from a torn vein, not an artery but, given time, just as deadly.

Dorian’s gut hardened. He started to move. A hand landing on his shoulder stopped him.

“She’s gone. She can’t survive that.” Cameron stared at him, his gaze level and resolved.

Dorian shook him off. It wasn’t over. He wouldn’t let it be.