Thirst [All-American Vampires 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (6 page)

He wanted to comfort her but wasn’t sure how. “You weren’t there voluntarily. That makes it rape. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t fight them. It was against your will.”

She let out a bitter-sounding laugh. “What would you say if I told you that I enjoyed what they did to me? That I liked it? Do you still think it was rape?”

Hawk was stunned into silence for a moment before understanding dawned on him. She’d climaxed when they’d forced her. “Did they bite you?”

She nodded. “That’s when I found out what they really were. It was…a shock.”

“Miss Landry—Claire—surely you are aware that a vampire’s bite makes humans feel sexual arousal. It’s an automatic reaction. It wasn’t that you enjoyed their rape. Believe me. It was the bite.” She lifted her gaze and met his, and he knew she was trying to figure out if he was telling her the truth or not. Whatever she saw on his face must have reassured her, because her eyes filled with tears and her body slumped forward.

“Really?”

“I have no reason to lie to you.”

“No. No, you don’t.” She straightened up again. “Okay, then. Okay.”

“What else happened?”

Her face was pale and her eyes were dilated with remembered fear, and he had to hold himself back from taking her in his arms and offering her comfort.

“We were so scared after we’d found out they were vampires. It made everything seem so unreal. Like a bad dream that we couldn’t wake up from. They took us to this huge, old house out in the middle of nowhere and kept us there for a couple of weeks, I guess. They brought more girls in, too. Most of the time they kept us locked up in the bedrooms. Except when they brought me out for…you know. They kept me separate from the others.”

Hawk nodded. “They were drinking from you, too?”

“Yes.”

“How many of them were there?”

“There were three, most of the time, but sometimes only one or two. It just depended.”

“But the same three all the time? Do you know their names?”

“I only know their first names. Jimmy, Buck, and Wayne. I didn’t ever hear their last names.”

“Go on.”

“They were slobs and drunks, nothing like vampires from the movies.” She shuddered. “You know, it takes a lot of alcohol to get a vampire drunk. Sometimes they got so drunk that they could hardly walk. And they would talk about things I don’t think I was supposed to hear. I guess they forgot I was there. Or didn’t think I mattered. Maybe they just didn’t care what I heard. I wasn’t anything but a toy to them, something for them to screw and forget.” She shrugged. “Anyway, they couldn’t keep their mouths shut. That’s when I learned what they were going to do with the girls. With me. They were going to sell us for bloodslaves. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I had a good idea. And I knew that I had to do something.”

Hawk sat back. Of course. Simone’s men had to get the slaves from somewhere. He knew they brought some of them in from Europe, but apparently others had been taken from off the streets in the good old USA. He was beginning to get a better picture of how things had worked with Simone’s operation.

“What did you do then?” He tried to keep his voice gentle so that Claire would open up more. He believed her story. She couldn’t fake the kind of pain he heard in her voice and saw in her expressive eyes, but he wanted as many details as she could give him.

“I told them they couldn’t do that to my sister. I told them I would kill them first. But they just laughed at me. One of them—Jimmy—he said I was like a mama lioness protecting her cub. That all I needed was the claws and the fangs.” Hawk saw her shake her head and close her eyes. “The others laughed and laughed. Then they started biting me. A lot. It was different from the other times. It burned.” She reached up and rubbed her neck, her chest, and Hawk knew she was remembering the venomous bites that had begun her conversion. “Then they all passed out. I felt really weak. I barely made it back to my room before I lost consciousness.”

“They turned you.” He didn’t have to ask. He knew.

She nodded. “I woke up later hurting so bad. God, I threw up over and over. I called out and told them I was sick, but nobody came. It seemed like it took forever. I guess I passed out eventually. The next night, they were mad and a little scared, too, I think, at what they had done. They weren’t supposed to make me into a vampire. You can’t sell a vampire for a bloodslave.”

“No.”

“They taught me to feed on one of the girls.” She looked down, and he could see the shame in her face at what she had done. “At least it wasn’t Cassie.” She reached up to wipe the tears that had trickled down her face. Again, he felt the urge to reach out to her, but he didn’t. He just watched and waited for her to continue.

“I heard them talking later, whispering. They said Simone would be angry. That’s the first time I heard her name. Simone’s. They said that they had to get rid of me before she found out what they had done. I could tell they were scared of her, and that frightened me even more. I mean, what scares a vampire?” She looked at him again. “They were going to kill me so they wouldn’t get in trouble with this Simone person. I knew then that I had to get away. I had tried before, but I couldn’t get to my sister and get her out, too. Finally, I decided I didn’t have any choice. I couldn’t get us both out. The bathroom window was nailed shut, but I guess they forgot vampires are really strong. Or maybe they forgot they’d made me into a vampire. Stupid, huh?” She laughed again, mockingly.

He nodded, hating the look of self-hatred he saw in her eyes.

“I climbed out of that room, and I ran. I ran just as fast as I could. I could hear them chasing me when they realized I’d escaped. I ran and ran, and I left my sister behind.” She stopped talking and dropped her face into her hands. He could see she was trembling. It took her a few minutes, but she pulled herself together and looked up at him. He could see the tears streaming down her face. “I promised that I would find her, and I’ve been looking for her ever since. I’ve been chasing any information I could find without much luck.”

Hawk was beginning to understand all the traveling around she had done.

“I didn’t know what to do until I heard about the Buchanans and the bloodslaves they’d rescued. And the name Simone d’Amboise.” She gazed earnestly into his eyes. “I need to look at that list of names to see if Cass is on it. That’s all I want. Please.”

Needing a few minutes to think, Hawk stood and walked across the room to a small refrigerator. He pulled out a couple of bottles of blood and took one to Claire. As he opened the top of his drink, he went over everything he had just heard. She was telling him the truth, he was pretty sure. Of course, he’d have to check things out, but he was usually good at reading people. After all, he’d made a career out of it.

He considered Claire’s request. “You know the odds of her name being on that list are ridiculously small, don’t you?”

She nodded but sat forward eagerly. “I know. I know. But it’s better than no chance at all.”

“Why, if she is free, wouldn’t she have come home or contacted you in some way?”

A shadow crossed her features. “Maybe she hates me for leaving her behind when I escaped. I wouldn’t blame her if she did. And like I said, we didn’t exactly get along the greatest to begin with. I guess I tried to replace our mom, and she didn’t need that. We butted heads a lot. She was always pretty strong willed.” She shrugged. “Besides, I don’t know how she would have gotten in touch with me. Like you said, I haven’t been home since right after I escaped. I’ve moved around a lot, trying to find her. But none of that matters now. I just need to know that she’s okay. No matter how she feels about me. If she doesn’t want to see me, I can respect that. I just need to know she’s alive. That’s all.”

“And if she isn’t on the list? What then?”

“Then I’m back to square one, I suppose.” She lifted her chin. “I’m not giving up. I’ll do whatever I have to do to find my sister, if it takes me the rest of my life. Whatever it takes. I might not be the bravest vampire around or the strongest. But I’m not giving up until I find her.”

Hawk almost smiled. Almost. He considered everything she’d told him and came to a decision. “All right. I’ll make a deal with you. I’m going to check out your story. I’m also going to talk to Quinn and see what he thinks. If you’re telling me the truth, I’ll do what I can to help you locate your sister. But if I find out you’re lying to me, you will wish you were back with the ones who turned you.”

She shut her eyes for a moment before she opened them back up and nodded. “That’s fine. That’s just fine. I’m not lying. And I understand that you need to check things out.”

Hawk stood and indicated to Claire that she should as well. He escorted her to the door. “I want you to go back to work. Stick to your usual schedule. Do not under any circumstances leave town. I will find you. Do you understand me?”

He saw her eyes widen. “Of course. There’s nowhere for me to go, anyway.”

“I’ll be in touch, Miss Landry.”

He saw her lips curve up in a slight smile. “Please call me Claire.”

He considered her request, not sure if he wanted to be on such informal terms with her. But he knew he was just kidding himself. He wanted to be on intimate terms with her. “Claire, then. I’m Hawk.”

“Thank you, Hawk.” She held out her hand, and he took it in his, not shaking it, just holding it for a moment pressed in his own. It felt soft and delicate, the bones fragile—though he knew her strength— she was vampire after all, not a fighter. She was cut from a different cloth.

“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t done anything.”

“You’ve given me hope. It’s something I haven’t had in a while.”

He just nodded, releasing her hand, and watched as she began walking down the hallway to the elevators.

Just as she reached the end, she turned around and nodded. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.” Then she was gone.

After she disappeared from his sight, he strode down the hall to Mick’s office. The vampire looked up when he walked in.

“Hawk.”

“Mick. Can you pull up the list of the bloodslaves we rescued from Simone’s men and see if there’s a Cassidy Landry on the list?”

“Sure.” Hawk waited as Mick typed in a few commands and studied the screen. “No. Sorry. No Landry at all.”

“Any Cassie or Cass? Anything similar to the name at all?”

“Nope. Nothing even close that I can tell.”

“Were all of the bloodslaves human?”

“Five human. One werewolf.”

“Americans?”

“No. It looks like they were from Eastern Europe—Latvia, Russia, the Ukraine.”

“Okay, Mick. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

As he walked back down the hall, he considered how Claire Landry was going to take the news. If her story was true, she’d gone to a whole lot of trouble for nothing. When he got back to the conference room, he perched on the edge of the table and flipped open his phone.

“Kirby? Hawk here. I’ve got a job I need done. Can you do some checking on a recently turned vampire named Claire Landry? She’s from Glen Acres, Georgia. I want to know when and how she was turned. Also I need the current whereabouts of her half sister, Cassidy Landry. Supposedly she was a student at Georgia Tech University up until last November.”

“Okay. Got it.”

“Then see if you can locate anyone who has seen the sister recently. And look into any missing-person reports in or around Atlanta between six months to a year ago. Concentrate on young females, between the ages of eighteen and, oh, say, thirty years old.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

He grinned. “Charge everything to the Buchanan account.”

“Right.”

“And, Kirby?”

“Yes.”

“I need this ASAP.”

“No problem, boss man. I’ll get right on it.”

Hawk hung up and dialed another number.

“Quinn? Hawk here. I’ve got some news.” He quickly relayed to Quinn everything he’d learned from Claire.

“What do you think?”

“I’m double-checking as much of her story as I can.”

“Gut instinct?”

He grunted. “I believe her. Her story makes sense, and, well, I just don’t think she’s lying.”

“Okay. What do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know. If she’s telling the truth, she’s in a tough spot. Damn tough. I think if we can find her sister, maybe we can get some information on Simone, both from Claire and Cassidy. And we could possibly find out more about the bloodslave operation. Who knows what we might discover. We might even be able to locate the house where they were keeping Claire and the others.”

“I agree. Whatever information we can find out will put us ahead of the game with Simone. But if you get any hint of anything that seems off, like she’s playing you, you take care of it. You hear me?”

“I will. When do you think you’ll be back?”

“Probably not for another week or so.”

“How’s everything going up there?”

“About what you’d expect. They’re trying to feel me out. See where I stand on things.”

“If they don’t know that by now, they never will.”

Quinn laughed. “Ain’t it the truth?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything here. You just watch your back up there.”

“I will. Be careful, Hawk. Call me if you find out anything else.”

Hawk hung up. He wasn’t exactly sure why he felt so compelled to help Claire, or why he was so drawn to her.

He thought it was because she reminded him a little bit of his wife. She didn’t look like her, of course. Ahawi had been petite but curvy, with big, dark eyes and hair so black it looked blue in certain lights. No, Claire was taller, boyishly slender. She hardly had any breasts or hips. Her blue eyes were the color of the cloudless days he remembered from his youth and her hair a pale blonde. But her love for her sister, her passion, her determination to find her no matter what it took, were so much as Ahawi would have reacted. He felt himself pulled to her in a way unlike any woman since he’d been turned.

Unfortunately, he shouldn’t let himself get personally involved with her. Even if they had met under different circumstances, it wouldn’t have worked out between them. He liked his sex rough. Very rough. And he suspected that Claire had limited sexual experience and would probably run screaming from him if she had any idea at all what he would want from her if she ever found herself in his bed.