The Wolf Fount (21 page)

What about Calhoun
? Morgan remembered asking, and Lance’s head shake of response.
Fire can’t kill the First
.
Only one thing can
.

But he’d changed the subject before she could ask what that one thing was. Calhoun had said the exact same thing.
Bitch, you’re stalling while that cocksucker’s eating Thane. Get busy
.

Morgan closed her eyes and focused on her right hand. Her left side was facing the vampire and Thane, so her body would conceal it until the vampire was right on top of her. All she needed to do was make claws, and she’d been able to do that since her second week of training classes. Just a small push, and the ends of her fingers changed.
Good. Now what
?

Noise would get the vampire’s attention. She closed her eyes, tried to relax, and released a low moan of pain. The slurping and sucking stopped. She moaned again, louder, and twitched her left hand.
I need to pretend to be weaker than I am
.

Which was pretty damn weak at the moment. Stealthy footsteps approached, and Morgan fluttered her eyes open and closed to see how close the vampire had come. He was standing beside her, looking down at her face. His lips and chin were stained with Thane’s blood. She repeated the action, and whispered, “Help.”

“Poor thing. Never been hurt this badly before? You’ll heal, little bitch, not that it’ll do you much good.”

Opening her eyes halfway, Morgan pretended to have trouble focusing on him. The vampire crouched down.
Oh, fuck. It’s him
.

He was the one who’d jumped her, the one she’d tried to convince herself was just a drug-crazed Goth. She forced herself to be still and whimper when he stroked her forehead, baring his gory fangs in a smile. “Do you recognize me, or is your brain too addled?”

I don’t have a clear shot
. The vampire’s leg and arm were in her way.

“I’m going to take now what I wanted that night. I suppose it’s good you were able to escape. Otherwise, you’d probably have died, and my master would’ve been displeased. I was starving that night, and you hadn’t yet Awakened.” He smiled again. “That nasty cut you left me with required the lives of two humans to heal.”

Morgan closed her eyes as a whisper of guilt crossed her mind, but opened them when he prodded her shoulder. “Don’t faint, little bitch. I like my prey awake when I feed, and we don’t have much time to enjoy each other’s company. They’ll arrive soon.”

They? Who is he talking about
?

“Don’t worry, they have no intention of killing you either. My master has contacts, and certain agreements, among the humans. It seems you stole something from one of his business partners, a bag of money? You’ll be payment for a service my master requires.”

Stealing that goddamned bag had been the worst decision she’d ever made. But what about Thane? What was their plan for him? Morgan licked her lips and muttered, “Thane.”

“What’s that, little bitch? Oh, your friend? He’ll be leaving with you, but I doubt you’ll share a cage for long. Your Fount took him from someone who wants him back, and there’s quite a list of people who want a touch of revenge on him before he’s out of reach. Under Calhoun’s tutelage, he’s killed a number of us.” The vampire slid his hand behind her neck. “Feeding as much as I can before turning you two over is part of my reward.”

He lifted her into a recline, turning his body more toward hers while doing so. Pain shrieked through Morgan. “Ahh.”

“Poor little bitch,” the vampire murmured, and she moved, driving her transformed fingers into his chest, his skin parting like paper. His grip on her neck turned to steel, but Morgan gritted her teeth. Bones peeled skin away from her fingers and hand, and then she found what she needed and yanked her arm back.

His heart was black. It smoked and disintegrated into ashes. So did the vampire, leaving her to fall back onto the concrete floor with a jarring thump. No yells, no response at all. Morgan lay there for a few seconds.
I did it. I killed that son of a bitch
.

He’d said others were coming, which meant she needed to get her ass in gear to free Thane and clear out. Morgan rolled onto her left side and levered herself up until she was on her hands and knees. Dizziness struck; swaying, she closed her eyes and rode it out.
I can’t fall, can’t pass out
.

The second the vertigo passed, she opened her eyes and focused on Thane’s slumped figure. It felt like forever until she’d crawled to his side.
Please be rope. Please be rope
.

Luck was with her, because the vampire had used rope to tie Thane’s arms. She hadn’t changed her hand back to full human, and used her claws to tear through the fibers rather than fight with the knots. As the last strand parted under her onslaught, Morgan frowned and lifted her hand for a closer look.

The claws jutting from her fingertips weren’t right. Hers were normally straight and blunt at the tips, angling slightly downward. These were sharply curved, the tips needled into points.
What the hell
?

Maybe they’d formed wrong because of her injuries and current weak state? That had to be it, and she didn’t have time to wonder longer, because Thane fell over without the rope’s support. Crawling around, Morgan patted his cheek. “Thane, you’ve got to wake up. We have to get out of here.”

No response. She leaned down to put her ear to his chest, and was rewarded with a single, faint beat of his heart. Alive, but definitely in no condition to do a damn thing. It was going to be all up to her.

Morgan hoped she could meet the challenge.

T
he poor, young bastard who’d been behind the wheel of the heavy duty pickup hadn’t survived the crash. Cal changed his forefinger and slid his claw into the first of the larger fang marks on the dead boy’s neck. After dragging it through skin and meat, as well as through the corresponding smaller fang mark, he repeated the action to disguise the remaining fang marks.

He wiped his finger clean on his jeans while surveying his handiwork, and decided the gouges he’d made matched the rest of the damage to the kid’s neck and face well enough. The body would have to be released to the boy’s family at some point. Satisfied with the minor cover up, Cal stood and walked over to where Jerome was kneeling, peering into the cab of the crumpled SUV. “Well?”

“Belts were cut. Not a lot of blood. There’s one set of footprints, no drag marks. Vamp carried them away.” The black man rose, his expression as grim as Cal’s mood. “Probably had a second vehicle waiting.”

Which meant Morgan and Thane could be anywhere, captives of at least one vampire—two if there’d been a driver. Cal nodded. “He has a two-hour head start on us.”

“He has to go to ground before sunrise, and he’ll need time to secure them.” Jerome scowled, his teeth clenched. “Thane was in bad shape. Barely conscious. I should’ve...”

“Stop.” Cal put his hand on the other’s shoulder. “This was not your fault. Shit happens.”

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Jerome nodded. “Right. Shit happens. But this shit means Morgan’s on her own, with Thane down.”

“I know.” And she only had a few brief weeks of training under her belt. “But it’s Morgan. She’s smart and she’s tough.”

A reluctant grin spread across Jerome’s face. “Yeah.”

They both knew a new, barely trained Were was seldom a match for one vampire, much less two. Cal didn’t want to dwell on that. Dropping his hand from the other’s shoulder, he turned as Lucas approached them.

“I have one extremely pissed highway patrol officer up there. He is not happy we’re keeping him away from the scene, boss.”

The ambush had occurred three miles from the base, close enough for Lucas to discover the wrecked vehicles first, and secure the scene before they’d arrived. Cal sighed. “My badge is in our truck. I’ll go wave it at him, send him on his way. Arrange to clean this up. We’ve got all we need from it.”

“Will do.”

Jerome fell into step with him as Cal headed up the embankment. “Morgan doesn’t carry a phone. They’re trying to locate Thane’s.”

“Which may or may not do us any good. Too bad the vampires like technology and keep up with its advances.” Thane’s phone was probably destroyed, or had been thrown out somewhere random as a red herring. “Let me take care of the cop and we’ll start driving.”

M
organ’s next attempt to wake Thane also failed. After looking around and noticing the doors at one end of the building, she used the support column to climb to her feet and left him lying there to see what was outside. The doors weren’t far away, maybe twenty feet, but Morgan was panting and sweating by the time she reached them.
At least my head feels better
.

The doors were corrugated metal, and screeched when she pushed them open. Wincing, she sniffed before cautiously sticking her head out. No vampire smell, nothing that indicated someone was waiting outside. After a quick scan, she pushed the doors wider open and limped out.

It was a clear night with a nearly full moon, allowing her to see the dirt track leading up to the building, and the dirt road where the track ended. But she didn’t see a vehicle. Morgan looked back into the building at Thane’s motionless figure. “I’ll be right back.”

She chose to go left first, and pressing a hand to her side—
do I have broken ribs
?—limped to the side of the building. A sleek black muscle car sat there, its trunk open. Morgan sighed. “Yes. Wheels are good.”

But not without the key. She moved as quickly as she could, shutting the trunk and then opening the driver’s door. It was a new model, with a push button starter. She’d test driven one like it for the hell of it when she’d been car shopping, and knew a key fob was required. “Where is it?”

Morgan searched the glove compartment and the center console, before checking under the seat. No key fob. “Oh, come the fuck on!”

She hit the seat in frustration, noticed the trunk button, and pushed it. The trunk opened. Staggering down the side of the car, she looked inside. No key fob there either. “Son of a bitch!”

Okay, think. He’d have it on him, right? I didn’t hear anything fall when he poofed, so it wasn’t in his pockets. Unless it burned up with him
?
Wait, he was wearing a coat the night he attacked me. A long, black coat
.

Morgan shut the trunk again and limped back into the building as fast as she could, frantically scanning the dark interior. She nearly missed the coat, tossed over a stack of boxes behind the pillar Thane had been tied to. “Please have pockets. Please be in a pocket.”

An urge to cry hit when she reached the coat and checked the pockets. Closing her hand around the key fob, she pulled it free. “Baby, we are getting out of here.”

Morgan stuffed the key fob into the front pocket of her jeans and went to Thane. This time, she briskly slapped his cheeks, ignoring the twinges of pain that shot through her shoulder. “Wake up. I can’t carry you.”

The were-liger’s groan sounded like music to her ears. “Thane, I need you to help me. I can’t get you out of here by myself. Okay?”

His eyes fluttered open, a grimace baring his teeth. She leaned closer. “The person who held you prisoner all those years is coming to get you.” Thane growled, his eyes focusing on her, and she saw fear filling them. “You have to get up so we can leave before he gets here.”

The were-liger blinked, and she backed off to watch him roll and push. He made it to his hands and knees, his head hanging. “If all you can do is crawl, then start crawling. There’s a car outside, and I have the keys.”

Which is what he did, with her limping alongside. They made it to the door, and then to the corner of the building. Morgan touched his back. “I’m going to open the passenger door for you. Keep moving.”

He gave a single nod and she moved ahead of him. By the time she had the door opened, he had reached the end of the car. Morgan fidgeted, straining her ears for the sound of anyone coming, but didn’t hear an engine. “Come on, baby. Not much farther.”

She had to help him climb inside, and took a few seconds to recline the seat and buckle him in before shutting the door. Elation filled her, helping Morgan walk faster, and she slid into the driver’s seat a moment later. One foot on the brake pedal, she stabbed a finger at the starter button, and swallowed a whoop as the engine purred to life. “We’re outta here.”

The car wasn’t made for cross-country driving, so Morgan backed it up until reaching the track before turning it around. At the road, she paused. “I don’t know which way to go. He said they’d be here soon. What if I pick the wrong direction and we run right into them?”

Thane grunted, and she looked at him. His eyes were closed, but he lifted his hand from his thigh and pointed toward the car’s nose. “Look at the road. See any fresh tire tracks?”

Leaning forward, she studied the dirt. “Yes.”

“Go the opposite direction.”

“Got it.” Turning the wheel right, Morgan let off the brake. “Now shut up. You’re going to make yourself sicker.”