Vampire in Crisis (23 page)

She wished there’d been more opportunity to get to know Jared. The more she got to know the humans, the more she realized the similarities between the species. That didn’t mean she wanted to have more to do with the Human Council though. Lord, they were stubborn. They still sent regular requests for Tessa to come and help them. Some of those requests were demands couched in softer words and others were downright pleas. They were trying to clean up their house but didn’t appear to have many tools to do so. They also weren’t a harsh enough people to make good on their threats of punishment should people not want to talk. Vampires had no problem applying torture tactics to get what they wanted.

Humans were wusses in that department. But they took action whereas vamps sat around and discussed options for decades. But she still didn’t want Tessa making the decision of who got to live and who got to die. She was a kid to the vampire clans. She wouldn’t want her to lose her innocence until she was over fifty years old – preferably a century.

That Tessa was the only one to see the poison in each person – human or vamp – was disturbing, but it was also difficult in that no one else could help her out. Cody and Goran were happy to sort the people into each group, but only after Tessa gave the command as to which group.

The traffic light stopped her one block away from her destination. Damn. She’d gotten some very garbled texts from Wendy and Ian earlier. She’d set them aside to deal with Taz and Jared but now needed to figure out what the hell was going on at the Council. There shouldn’t be problems there.

Sian pulled up to the next stop and yawned. She wondered if she’d ever feel rested. The baby was adding to her fatigue as well. She dropped a hand to lovingly caress her rounded belly. She was so happy. Of course this bullshit going on around her was a different story altogether. She just wanted it all over with and her family safe at home. If she could, she planned on taking Taz away alone for a bit. Just the two of them. There were a few vampire hideaways she’d like to show him. That he was going to die well before her was concerning, but she had hopes she might find a solution to that down the road. She knew he’d never agree to become a turned vampire and it was against her rules to do such a thing, but there was something she knew about him now that made her wonder about his biology. He wasn’t aging at the same rate as the other humans. When she’d brought it up, he’d just laughed and said she was imagining things and besides, men who were happy were known to age slower.

She’d left it, but the thought of spending centuries alone…

The light changed in front of her. She waited for the car in front of her to move, only it appeared to be stalled. She groaned and looked out the windows to see if she could drive around him. Another vehicle was in the second lane and she had no shoulder.

Damn. She settled back to wait when a third vehicle, exactly the same color and model as the second one, came up behind her – too close behind her.

She grabbed her cell phone and sent a warning to Taz and gave him her location, and then she repeated the message out to her friends. She had no idea what was going on, but there was no room for error here. Not when she was carrying her precious baby.

And this baby was half vamp and half human. Something that many on both sides of that genetic marker might not like.

The driver’s door on the car in front of her opened and a huge vamp got out. She smiled, a feral sound coming from deep inside the back of her throat.

Let them come. They hadn’t met a wild Amazon vampire until they turned on a pregnant one. There were few pregnant vampires ever, and most hid away until the term was up. Not Sian. She’d done the same as Rhia. She’d walked around proudly. Screw her critics.

Now these assholes would see what happened when they threatened a baby vamp while the momma was still around to avenge the insult.

A second man got out of the truck in front on the other side. Then two men stepped out from the vehicle behind her. Her grin turned lethal.

“You’d better have sent more men than that or I’m going to be very insulted.” She glanced to the other vehicle parked beside her. Sure enough, there were two more men getting out of each vehicle.

Her cell phone beeped. She glanced down to see a text from Taz.
We could use them alive to find out about Chelsea and Tobias.

Damn.

She frowned. Then a second one came in from him.
They are after your DNA and that of the baby. Watch out for the drugs. I’m on the way.

Drugs. Her blood froze then shattered into icicles. That would hurt her child. And she’d kill both of them before she’d let them have her baby – or her baby’s DNA. She wasn’t sure how yet, but she knew this was likely the end of the line for her. She closed her eyes. Damn. She thought she’d have more time.

She quickly texted Taz. Just in case –
I love you.

*

Jared waited impatiently
for Taz to get off the damn phone and point them in a direction to move.

He stared out the window. Then heard
shit
.

He spun around, for the first time seeing the doctor’s face go sheer white and panic setting in. Instead of bolting out the door, he called someone else and immediately yelled into the phone, “Sian is a block away from the Council Hall. She’s been surrounded. Get help now.”

He’d hung up, but he was already halfway to the car. Jared raced to catch up, his own stomach churning. Jesus, was there no end to what these guys would do to one of their own? Sian was pregnant, for God’s sake. And then he considered how they’d view her baby in their eyes. As an abomination or a curiosity.

Taz jumped into the car. Jared threw himself into the passenger seat and was almost thrown out again as the powerful sports car took off. With his door flying open, Jared clicked the buckle in place. The door slammed shut as Taz ripped around the next corner.

His knuckles turned white as he clutched the seatbelt to his chest. He thought Taz had driven like a crazy man on the way to the hospital. Now he realized that had been Taz impersonating a senior on a Sunday sightseeing tour.

He swallowed as they screamed past a line of cars on the sidewalk.

“Holy shit,” he whispered, then he started a quiet prayer in his head.

Before he’d finished it, Taz had run two red lights, jumped the sidewalk again to pass someone going too slow, and came to an earsplitting stop in the middle of the road.

He was also out of the vehicle, his tracks a blank whirr of moving energy. Shaking and so damn glad to be alive, Jared forced his fingers to unlock their grip on the one safety line he’d been able to grab – his seatbelt. Still shaky, he made it out of the car, realizing more and more vehicles were screaming around them. Great, he was surrounded by vamps again. Shit. The only place he felt safe was with Taz. He didn’t know any of these vampires. And worse, it was nighttime. Nothing quite like it to make one feel more vulnerable.

He managed to make his way to the center of the vehicles and stopped.

Sian, the most ferocious look on her face, completely covered in blood, stood, spinning in a slow circle as if looking for more enemies. Jesus. Vamps were down and disabled around her, some dead and some still moving sluggishly.

Taz’s voice cut through the night, a caring, soothing sound that Jared had never heard. “Sian, it’s me, Taz. Take it easy, sweetheart. You’re safe. The baby is safe. Easy.”

A howl slid out of the back of Sian’s throat. Jared caught the blind look in her eyes. She didn’t know where she was or who was here. She’d gone into some animalistic mode and wasn’t hearing or seeing anything but danger.

Taz kept up the same soothing tone as he talked to her calmly and lovingly. As he walked toward his wife, Jared had to wonder how he could trust her in this space. From the heap of vamps – dead ones, maybe – he knew she’d been on a killing spree.

He’d known she was capable, but to see this kind of evidence in bloody clarity…yeah, that was a visual he’d be a long time forgetting.

“Sian,” Taz said, his tone sharper now, “It’s over. Come down from battle mode. Please.”

As if she’d been dipped in ice water and pulled back out, the shift in her demeanor was as startling as the shift in her circumstances. She dropped her head and closed her eyes. The crowd around him all sighed and the tension in the air cut back. It was over.

She was going to be okay.

“Taz,” Sian’s trembling voice said. “They wanted our baby to do experiments on.”

An angry murmur whistled through the place, and tension immediately spiked as everyone understood what this had been about.

“Maybe,” Taz said, his voice hard, edgy. “And they might have just said that to torment you.”

She shuddered, a long, bone-wracking movement that left her slumped in place. Taz immediately walked through the blood and took her into his arms. He held her close.

Cheers erupted around them.

*

The noise directed
Wendy to the scene. Ian’s hand in hers, they’d raced out as soon as they realized something major had happened. With all the yelling back and forth, they’d gotten the gist of the situation. Now as cheers rang loudly around them, they realized that something good must have happened too, but what?

They squeezed through the black-thronged crowd until they got to the center.

“Jesus,” Wendy whispered in shock. Sian, held tenderly in Taz’s arms, was covered in blood, and so was the scene around them. The cars, the cement, everything was dotted with the stuff. And the vamps on the ground were in one large heap. A couple still moaned as they were tugged free of the pile. Good. She hoped the bastards paid for what they’d tried to do.

Then she realized something. “Hey, everyone, one more thing.”

Ian at her side looked at her in surprise. “Huh, Wendy?”

“No,” she said in a loud voice, “this is important.”

The other vamps ignored her.

She put her fingers to her mouth and blew a hard, loud whistle. Everyone stopped talking and looked at her.

“Not only were they after Sian and possibly her baby, but they were also after her DNA. This entire area is covered in blood. I realize,” she said, raising her voice, “that most of it is going to come from these sorry ass vamps, but Sian likely left some of hers behind as well. It needs to be cleaned up. These vehicles need to be impounded and decontaminated. Those assholes have enough of our heritage. They. Don’t. Get. More.”

She glared at the shocked surprise in everyone’s faces. At the same time, there was an understanding and a growing respect.

In a louder voice, she continued. “Our numbers are dwindling. Theirs are growing through artificial means using our genetics. They don’t get any of hers today.”

She waited a beat, then added in a harsh voice, “Understood?”

There were loud shouts of agreements as everyone got to work.

“Wow,” Ian said. “I didn’t know you had that in you.”

“I didn’t either,” she said with a sigh. “But when a cause is worth it…”

“Well, I for one am grateful to you for thinking of that, Wendy.” Taz half-supported an exhausted Sian in front of them.

“So am I,” Sian said in a faint voice, “But if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go lie down.”

“And stay down this time,” Ian said in exasperation, coaxing a laugh out of all of them.

Her smile wan but valiant, she said, “I plan to, but one of the men said something before…” She stopped and swallowed heavily. Several of the vamps cleaning up around them stopped and gathered around.

In a heavy voice, she said, “He said something about a secret weapon within that would destroy us all. And he couldn’t wait.” A dark rumble filtered through the crowd. “I didn’t give him the satisfaction of staying around that long.”

And damn if that look on her face didn’t make Wendy want to back up. She was seriously scary.

“But he never said what that weapon was?” asked Taz, his face creasing with worry.

She shook her head. “No. Just that we wouldn’t know until it was too late and that one of the ancient lines was now bad news.” She shuddered. “The laugh he gave was horrible. He knew something but wasn’t prepared to share.”