Twilight Vendetta (28 page)

“It doesn’t look as if they took much, at least,” Devlin said.

Emma said, “All Dad’s radio equipment. Both computers. It’s enough.”

“Was there a lot of what they would consider incriminating evidence on the computers?”

“
God
no. My father is a genius.” She shook her head. “He’s got backup hard drives secreted away in places I don’t even know about. But there is one thing I do know about.” She walked through the living room, into the kitchen, where there was a lot less destruction. Then she opened a canister and dug around in the sugar it held. Eventually, she pulled out the keys that were hidden there. Two of them hung on a small key ring with a heart shaped locket charm dangling from it. Using her thumbnail, she pried open the locket, revealing the tiny photograph of a beautiful woman, copper red hair that tumbled in careless ringlets around her face. Full lips, blue blue eyes. It wasn’t the same picture as the one in her own locket, but her mother looked just the same.

“She’s beautiful, Emma.”

“I know.” She blinked rapidly, maybe against moisture.

“And what are the keys for?” he asked to distract her from her heartache.

“My mom’s other baby. We don’t want to travel across the country on foot, do we?”

“Not particularly.”

“Come on, then.”

Her mom’s
other baby
turned out to be a red and white 1962 Corvette convertible in the same condition it had probably been in on the showroom floor. It was in a storage unit, all by itself, covered in padded throws to keep it safe. One of the keys on Emma’s key ring opened the unit. The other started the engine. It fired up easily and purred. Her father had clearly taken very care of the car. Perhaps he, too, had been expecting to reunite with his wife one day, vampire or not.

That DPI had robbed Emma and her father of that chance made Devlin’s blood boil.

But riding in that car beside her in the dark of night, with the top down and the wind in his hair, that made it sing. They drove all night that first night, as they would for many nights to come. She seemed to thrill in being behind the wheel of her mother’s machine. He thrilled in being there beside her, watching her eyes gleam as the wind whipped her hair. “She must have been adventurous, like you,” he observed as they sped along a deserted midnight highway.

“I never thought of her that way. Then again, I was a kid. What did I know? I saw her as Mom. The lady who did my laundry and told me to eat all my broccoli. I remember she loved this car, though. She’d never let anyone else drive it. Not even my dad.”

“Really? Did he want to?”

She smiled, but it was a sad expression. “I doubt it. He would’ve been afraid he’d break it or something. Dad was never the muscle-car type.” Then, tipping her head to one side, “After she left, he told me that before I was born, before they were even married, she would take it to drag races. None of the boys wanted to race against a girl, or so they claimed. But Dad said it was more that they didn’t want to lose to a girl, and Mom always won.”

“So that’s why you were so determined to drive in a drag race that night you almost got yourself killed.”

“A
blowout
almost got me killed,” she said. “I’d have been fine if the tires had been in the shape they should’ve.”

She drove a little farther in silence, lost in her own thoughts, he suspected. Maybe about her mother. And then she said, “I’m starving. And I want to be strong as hell when we get to White Plains. Do you suppose we could find a blood bank somewhere?”

“There’s one right there,” he said with a nod.

She followed his gaze and frowned. “All I see is a truck stop.”

“All night dining for the weary traveler. Go ahead, pull in.”

Emma put on her signal and eased the car into the right lane, and eventually onto the off ramp and into the truck stop’s parking area. “I’m angry with humans for what they did to my mother, Dev, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to just launch a midnight feeding frenzy at a sleepy truck stop.”

“No frenzy. Just feeding.” He got out of the car and waited. “Do you trust me?”

It was a great question. Did she trust him? He’d got himself captured to get her out of DPI’s clutches. He’d risked his life to rescue her from the bastards. He’d been furious enough to kill them all. And he hadn’t given her a hard time for nearly killing that wounded crow while questioning him about her mom. He hadn’t even given her any grief about the secrets she’d been keeping. Her blog, her book. They were going to have to talk about that sooner or later.

“I do trust you,” she said at length.

“It took a while for you to reach that conclusion.” He pretended offense.

She shrugged. “That should tell you that I took my time to consider it and gave you an honest answer. I wonder, do you trust me?”

His eyes widened a little at the question.

“Aha!” she said. “You don’t, do you?”

“I haven’t trusted anyone in a very long time, Emma,” he said at length. “And to be honest, when Tavia told me what she’d found on your tablet–”

“Tavia. I knew I made a mistake leaving my tablet behind.”

He shrugged. “She sensed you were keeping secrets. And she was right.”

She nodded. “Yeah, she was right. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But Devlin, I couldn’t take the chance that you’d be furious enough to send me away. And finding my mother and rescuing my father meant more to me than being honest with you did.”

He nodded twice. “I understand that. But you can’t go around posting our secrets on public blogs.”

“I didn’t tell any secrets!”

“Everything is a secret. Everything we say and do. Every ability they don’t already know about. Every weakness they haven’t figured out. Anything you post about us can be used as ammunition against us, and a book…? Emma a book is out of the question.”

She chewed her lip. “You can’t tell me what do to,” she said. Then she lifted her chin, met his eyes. “But in this case, I’m beginning to see your point. And I’m rethinking everything.”

He said, “Then I’ll answer your question. Despite everything, Emma, I think I trust you more than anyone I currently know.”

She made a face and wished the words “think” and “currently” hadn’t been in that statement. Then she shrugged and said, “Guess I’ll take what I can get.” She looked around the parking lot they’d pulled into. She was still behind the wheel. He was leaning against the car on her side. “So tell me, Devlin, what are we doing here?”

“You need to learn about your nature. Your power. We might as well use this road trip to teach you. And tonight, we begin. Come on.”

He held out a hand.

She took it, loving the feeling of it closing around hers. Strong, big, certain. He led her toward the rear of the truck stop where semis were parked side by side. They stayed in the shadows, moving quickly and silently, seen by absolutely no one.

“Search for a human who is alone out here,” he told her. “Use your mind to locate them. Go on, try it.”

Frowning, she looked at one truck, focused hard, but felt nothing. Then she said, “It’s not working. I don’t feel anything in that truck.”

“That’s because it’s empty. Keep going. Find one that isn’t.”

She was surprised, but kept on going, probing into one rig after another, certain her mind wasn’t picking up on anything at all, until she came to the farthest one away and felt a human male snoring softly in his truck’s sleeper.

“That one,” she said at length. And when she looked at Devlin, he nodded in approval even though she was sure he’d known within seconds of their arrival here where the sleeping mortal was.

“Come on, then,” he said, tugging her toward that truck.

She resisted. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. These people haven’t done anything to us.”

He stopped and met her eyes. “I give you my word as a vampire, we’re not going to hurt anyone tonight.”

She held his gaze, then finally nodded. “All right.”

They continued to the truck, which was large and dark green and had a bulldog mounted to its hood. Devlin said, “Now, try to focus on the man in the truck. Do that until you connect to him alone, closing out all the other noise that comes in when you open your mind. Focus just on him, and when you feel you’ve connected, tell him to come out.”

Emma looked at the truck, took a deep breath, and thought of the man sleeping inside. She closed her eyes, opening her mind, and immediately the sounds of countless thoughts and conversations came rushing in like a flood, but she just kept focusing, searching for the man in the truck. She would know him when she found him, she thought. And sure enough, she did. He was tired, very soundly asleep, not even dreaming. She followed that feeling right into his mind, and then she thought,
Get up and come outside. I need to talk to you. But don’t wake. Just get up and come outside.

Then she waited. And it wasn’t fifteen seconds before the truck’s door opened, and the man climbed down, dressed in boxers and a T-shirt, eyes open but unseeing, mouth slightly agape.

Very good, Emma.

I can’t believe it worked! So now what?

Devlin looked at her, crooked one brow.
Now, you feed.

But you said we wouldn’t hurt anyone!

You’re not going to
hurt
him, Emma. It’s going to feel like heaven to him. And you won’t take enough to do him any harm. No more than he’d give at a blood drive. Go on. Keep feeling him as you drink, so you’ll know he’s in no pain. And tell him he’s having a dream so he doesn’t wake up halfway through.

Swallowing hard, Emma stepped forward.
This is all just a dream, my friend,
she told the sleepwalker with her mind.
It’s not going to hurt at all. It’s just a dream. Don’t wake up. Stay asleep.

She was standing nose to nose with him by then, and she looked at his neck, saw the soft pulsing of his jugular, and her mouth watered. Okay, she was into this now. She leaned in, tipping her head sideways, lowering her hands ever so carefully to his shoulders. She expected he would startle awake when she bit him, but Devlin was there to back her up if he put up a fight. She tightened her grip on his shoulders, parted her lips...

...and sank her fangs into his throat.

The blood came then, and with the first drop, the blood lust came with it. Her eyes heated, her mouth sucked greedily, and the lifeblood flowed into her, setting her cells to tingling, then throbbing. Every part of her came alive with hunger and not just for blood. There was a sexual hunger that came with it. The two went hand in hand, and she imagined letting the human’s limp body fall to the ground, then turning and ripping Devlin’s clothes off. And beyond and beneath all that, she felt her victim. She felt his homesickness, his love for his wife and two little red-haired boys. He even missed his dog, a white beagle named Boo.

That’s enough, Emma. That’s just about the limit. There you go, ease back now.

Devlin’s voice cut into the red haze of pleasure that was filling her entire being. She didn’t want to stop, but she managed to withdraw her fangs from the man’s neck and step back. She was aroused, didn’t dare look Devlin’s way, because she knew he’d see it in her glowing red eyes. And maybe he’d do something about it. And then they would lose time. Precious time. She had to save her father.

To distract herself from looking at Dev, she stared at the tiny puncture wounds in her victim’s neck and saw droplets beading from them. She was half afraid he would begin to bleed out.

“He’s fine,” Devlin said. “The holes are tiny, and in a healthy individual they seal over immediately almost every time.”

“Almost?”

He nodded. “If it’s one of The Chosen, then there’s a bleeding risk. Or a hemophiliac. Or someone who’s been drinking a lot of alcohol. But in a healthy human, you’re fairly safe. The wounds vanish at the first touch of sunlight. You knew that, yes?”

She nodded. “But what if one of them starts to bleed on me? What would I do then?”

He smiled and pulled out a tiny pen sized device from a pocket. He clicked it and it lit up. “Watch yourself now,” he said. “It’s UV light. It’s not our friend.” He aimed the thin beam at the man’s neck, and to her stunned surprise, the light erased the tiny wounds. Then Devlin said, softly, “Get back in your truck, friend. Go to sleep. Be well.” And the man ambled away with a goofy smile on his face.

Devlin clicked the light off and returned it to his pocket.

“Nice.”

“There are other methods, but this works for me. Now, if you’ve had your fill, I think it’s my turn.”

“All right. Should we look for another sleepy truck driver?”

“I’ve already summoned my willing donor for the evening,” he said with a nod toward the diner whose lights spilled out into the parking lot. A woman stood just at the spot where sidewalk met pavement. A forty-something brunette with a dazed look in her eyes and a pencil in her hair.

She lifted her overly tweezed brows as Devlin ordered her to come closer. He didn’t have to let Emma hear that command, but he’d opened his mind to include her. She was still tingling all over, still hot in her center, still yearning for him to fill that deep hunger that couldn’t be quelled in any other way.