***
Quinn dropped the tray onto the bar and pulled her apron off. A hot bath sounded like a little bit of heaven right now. She’d forgotten the extremely popular, local band, Kerosene was playing tonight.
Not only did her feet throb and her head ache, but she’d been groped more times than a tour guide in a dark haunted house. At least a dozen men had walked out of here tonight having received a good zap; she’d smacked more than her fair share of hands, and one of them wouldn’t be having sex again for a good week.
She had bills to pay, but there was only so much she would tolerate. If she was too tired by the time she got home to take a bath, she was at the very least going to scrub herself down.
Chris, Melissa, and the others were still in the poolroom, talking with the members of the band as they packed up their equipment. They were all that remained in the bar, and she couldn’t wait for them to head home.
Angie glanced up at her from behind the bar, her eyes were bloodshot and her hair straggled around her pretty face. Quinn was about to ask her how she’d faired through the night when the door opened. Her hand instinctively went to the stake strapped at her side; it fell away when Julian stepped inside.
He met her questioning gaze and gave a barely discernible shake of his head no. Quinn’s shoulders slumped, she plopped onto the bar stool and dropped her chin into her hands. It was more than the crowd that had worn her down, but also the ever-present worry some Chucky-like child would barge in here to try and kill them. She didn’t think she could take that horror again.
Her skin prickled from the aura of power he emitted seconds before Julian’s hands came down on her shoulders and he began to massage them. Quinn relaxed into his touch, her body swayed instinctively closer to his. Angie’s mouth parted, her eyes shot back and forth between them.
“Long night?” The low rumble of his voice caused her body to tingle all over.
“It was a ball buster,” Angie replied. She dropped her rag on the bar and leaned across it toward them. “Good tips though.”
“Yeah,” Quinn murmured but she didn’t care about anything else as his hands continued to knead her flesh. He could work miracles with those hands, something she knew well from earlier. Right now, he made her feel cared for in a way she hadn’t felt in the past six years.
Her eyes closed, her back pressed against his chest. His hands slid from her shoulders down her arms, the warmth of his lips pressed against her ear as he spoke. “If you like, when we get back to your place, I can get some lotion and give you a proper massage.”
Her eyes flew open; her mouth went dry as she met the wicked twinkle in his eyes. She’d thought he was teasing, but meeting his gaze now, she knew he’d been dead serious. She didn’t know how to respond.
“If you’re ready for me?” he murmured.
That was the question, was she ready for him? She definitely felt more for him than anyone else she’d ever encountered, but was she ready to give herself over to him so completely? Her heart had been destroyed once already; she’d spent many years keeping it safely tucked away, but this man insisted upon wiggling his way into it.
“We haven’t even been on a date yet,” she managed to choke out. It wasn’t the best way to deflect his question, but it was the best she could come up with right now.
His gaze searched hers; his smile was endearing as he leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her forehead. “We’ll just have to remedy that now won’t we, Dewdrop?”
The vulnerability in his eyes pulled at her but the idea of having her heart shattered again caused a lump to form in her throat. He was putting himself out there right now, and she couldn’t think of one word to say in response.
Thankfully, she was saved from having to answer by the band trudging into the main bar area. “Quinn, Angie,” the lead singer said with a tip of his cowboy hat. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing you ladies soon.”
“Have a goodnight, Raylan,” Angie said and Quinn gave a brief wave of her fingers.
“You guys should be getting out too,” Quinn said to Julian. “While we lock up.”
She reluctantly moved away from the fingers making her muscles quiver and rose to her feet. Angie walked around the bar and began to gather empty glasses from the tables as Chris, Melissa, Luther, Lou, and Zach emerged from the poolroom. Melissa and Zach had their heads bent close together; they were both laughing as they walked.
Luther had told her earlier he’d looked up her family and confirmed they’d been listed as dead years before their actual deaths. Her birth had never been recorded, her existence never known about. These were things she’d already been told, but it was still a relief to know that no one had ever known about her, until now. Luther hadn’t discovered anything else of importance in his search through her family’s history.
“I’ll be right outside,” Julian told her.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Placing her hands in his back, she nudged him toward the door.
“Oh wait!” Melissa cried and spun back toward the poolroom.
Lou, thrown off by her abrupt change in direction took an awkward step to the side. His foot became entangled in the bottom of one of the tables. It skittered to the side when he fell heavily against it. Angie let out a startled yelp and lunged forward as a glass slid over the wooden surface toward the floor. Julian’s hand shot out; he snagged hold of the glass before it could crash to the floor and create a much bigger mess.
Angie gawked at the hand that had moved with the speed of lightning. “Ah, thank you,” Angie stammered, her fingers brushed over his when she took the glass from him. Quinn started to turn away when Julian stiffened perceptively, his nostrils flared and his hand shot out to wrap around Angie’s wrist. “Hey!” Angie cried out. Julian kept hold of her wrist, his eyes burned into Angie’s as he searched her face. “Let go of me!”
He released her so abruptly that Angie took a stumbling step back. Grabbing hold of her wrist, she held it against her chest as she rubbed at it. Julian continued to loom over her, his jaw locked as he stared at her relentlessly.
“Asshole,” Angie muttered before hurrying past Quinn and toward the bathroom.
Quinn rounded on him when the bathroom door closed. “You hurt her!” she accused. Julian’s eyes remained focused on the bathroom. “Julian…”
“It’s her.”
“What?” Quinn demanded and even the others looked at him as if he’d just said the sun had fallen from the sky.
“She’s not a vampire but she is who the memories came from.”
“Impossible,” Quinn said flatly. “Angie’s a good person, she’d never harm anyone.”
The muscles in his arms stood out as his hands clenched and unclenched. She was half-afraid he was going to launch himself across the bar, break down the door to the bathroom and rip Angie out of there. He remained where he stood, a muscle jumping in his cheek as his teeth grated together.
His head turned toward her. Quinn’s eyes widened when she came face to face with the barely leashed savagery running below his surface. He’d told her he was lethal and not to be messed with. Looking at him now, she fully realized how brutal he could be.
“She’s a good person, Julian,” she insisted again.
“Maybe she is, but you’re not going to be alone with her in here again.”
“Angie would never hurt me and she’s human.”
“She is,” he confirmed. “But she’s mixed up in this somehow, and there’s a vampire involved. I will not take the chance of you getting injured.”
“Julian…”
He was on her so fast she never saw him move. His arms wrapped around her waist; he jerked her up against him and spun his back toward the window. Less than a blink later the large front window shattered inward with a resounding crash that echoed through the bar.
A startled cry escaped her; flying shards of glass sprayed the air around them. It had to have sliced into his back, but he showed no sign of injury as he
dragged her to the ground and plastered his body over the top of hers. Glass fell to the ground in a tinkling wave; loud bangs resonated throughout the building. Confusion swirled through her; it took her a few more seconds to realize it was bullets rattling through the building and shattering the bottles and glass mirror behind the bar.
Julian’s hand wrapped around her head, his weight pressed her more firmly into the floor. Across the way she saw Melissa, Chris, and Zach with their backs against the wall. Lou and Luther were lying on the floor with their hands over their heads as more bullets smashed into the walls and shattered bottles. Bits of wood exploded around the room and fell to the ground around them.
“Julian we have to help them!” she cried. The bullets wouldn’t kill the two of them, they’d sting worse than a Box jellyfish, but they’d survive. The humans wouldn’t.
“They’ll be fine. Stay where you are,” he growled in her ear.
He wrapped his arms more protectively around her face as a jagged piece of wood sliced across her cheek, spilling blood. The sound that issued from him when he spotted her blood brought to mind a wolf defending its mate.
His cheek pressed against hers as more bullets crashed throughout the building. The smell of gunpowder and chipped wood filled the air; she flinched away from more splinters of wood shooting around the room.
The blessed hush that descended upon the bar seemed almost too good to be true. Terrified to draw more fire on the bar, she didn’t move. Her gaze drifted back to the humans still huddled in their defensive postures. They all remained unmoving, waiting to see if more bullets would come flying into the building as the seconds stretched into a minute.
She was still trying to get her bearings when Julian launched himself off of her. Quinn flipped herself over in time to see him leap out the missing front window in one easy bound.
“Julian!” His name tore from her throat, leaving it raw and brutalized.
Adrenaline pulsed through her; she shoved herself to her feet and bolted across the floor. She leapt out the window behind him, landed easily in the parking lot and dashed into the road. She spotted Julian’s rapidly fading figure already halfway down the road. Putting her head down, her arms pumped as her legs eagerly ate up the ground in between them. She would never be able to catch up to him, but she had to keep him in view or else she could lose him completely.
The world raced by her in a blur of speed she’d never achieved before. The driving urge to get to him gave her a powerful strength she’d never felt before. She didn’t know how far or where they were running to, location didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was staying on his trail.
Rounding a corner, she saw Julian zipping in between two buildings. Following behind, she had to turn sideways in order to squeeze in between the two houses. Forced to slow down her rush, she attuned her senses to her surroundings as she searched for any hint of menace up ahead.
She didn’t hear, see, or smell anything out of the ordinary, but she knew they might be running into a trap. The wood of the one house nearly pressed against her nose, the scent of the old, rotting wood of the abandoned home filled her nose.
Pausing halfway down the narrow alley, she pulled her stake from its holder at her waist before continuing. At the end of the alley, she stuck her head out cautiously. Julian stood around the corner, pressed against the wall. He glanced back at her and made a staying gesture with his hand. She saw nothing abnormal behind the two homes. Her head tipped back, the rooftops above her appeared to be clear.
Julian’s eyes were upon her when she looked at him again. ‘Stay,’ he mouthed.
Like hell, she thought as he slipped further into the shadows.
She glanced around again before stepping out from between the two buildings and following him down another alley running behind the double line of homes. The sagging and dilapidated houses had been beyond their prime twenty years ago, now they looked like a good wind would blow them over.
She was half-afraid some of them might fall down upon them if they hit the structures the wrong way. If she was right about where their run had taken them to in the desert, these homes had all been abandoned years ago when the bridge in this town had washed out during a flashflood. The economy had quickly followed the collapse of the bridge and the people had left the town behind.
The rotting houses faded away to be replaced with the crumbling buildings and store fronts that had once made up the center of the deserted town. Being stuck in this maze of dilapidated buildings, and unable to see more than ten feet in front or behind her, was a disconcerting sensation she didn’t like. Nor did she like that she kept losing Julian in the maze.
If something happened to him…
She refused to let herself think about the possibility. Nothing would happen to him if she had anything to say about it.
Turning the corner, she nearly ran into his back. He’d stopped in the middle of the alley and turned to face her. “I told you to stay,” he whispered.
“And?”
Tension radiated through his vibrating muscles; he gave her one of those smiles she’d hated so much in the beginning. Even now, she scowled back at him, but she couldn’t deny the smile put her a little more at ease. It bolstered her to know he was still so cocky while standing in the middle of a ghost town, hunting vampires. It sounded insane in her head and yet so entirely right for her life.
He gave a brisk jerk of his head and pointed upward. Before she could figure out his intent, he braced one foot against the back of one building and the other foot against the back of another. Like some kind of humanoid monkey, he began to climb rapidly up between the structures. Quinn stifled a groan; she put her stake back in its holster and braced her feet and hands against the buildings too.
She’d never done anything like this before. As she moved rapidly up the three feet of space dividing the structures, she felt like Spider-Man and had to admit it made her feel a little badass.
Reaching the top, Julian leaned back over to look down at her. He took hold of her hand and pulled her onto the roof of the building. Quinn warily eyed the sagging roof that bowed and dipped toward the middle. The last thing she needed was to fall through the thing, with her luck she’d be staked upon landing. Julian started across the roof toward the front of the building.
Her gaze fell on the tears and blood crisscrossing the back of his shirt from the glass and wood that had sliced across his flesh during the attack on the bar. There may even be a bullet embedded in his flesh, but the wounds were already beginning to heal, his skin had knitted itself back together. Even still, she couldn’t help but wince at the reminder of the damage he’d sustained while protecting her. Her heart ached for him, she longed to reach out and soothe him in some way, but there was no time for that now.
Quinn followed behind him; they stayed toward the more stable looking edge of the roof. Julian knelt against the two-foot high wall running around the entire roof. She knelt beside him and rested her shoulder against the wall. He placed his hands onto the wall and rose to peer over the side before ducking back again.
He pulled his phone out and began to type something into it. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Letting the others know where we are and turning on the tracking app on my phone.”
“You have a tracking app?”
He slid his phone into his pocket. “We all do. With what we do, we tend to get separated far more often than we’d like.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say to that.
He leaned closer to her. “I don’t suppose telling you to stay here would do me any good, would it?”
“None at all.”
“That’s what I thought. When we get in there you have to be prepared for at least one of them to be able to control minds.”
Her hand flew to her mouth as realization dawned. Sickness churned within her stomach, anger rose up in her. “Angie,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
Her nostrils flare
d as another notion hit her. “My family.”
Julian rested his fingers against her cheek and shook his head. “No. This one is newer than the one who killed your family.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because Angie’s memories weren’t solidified, there are holes in them. She doesn’t recall what she’s witnessed, but I was able to see it the first time I touched her. I made the wrong and stupid assumption the killer was a human male and not a human with tampered memories. The vampire who murdered your family was smart, he had a lot more power if he got to your cousin and recognized what you all were. He was far older than these vamps. We’ll find the one who killed your family, but he’s not in there.”
Uncertainty swirled through her; she so badly wanted one of the bastards inside to be the one she’d been preparing to run across for the past six years. But even if he wasn’t in there, these monsters deserved to die for what they’d done to Angie. He clasped hold of her cheeks, leaned forward and kissed her.
“Stay calm and stay near me,” he whispered against her lips.
He sat back to study her; she nodded her agreement. She had no idea what he’d intended when he’d climbed onto this roof. She didn’t get a chance to ask as he rose to his feet, climbed onto the wall, and then stepped off of it.
Quinn shot up like a firecracker. The sight of him standing only a foot beneath the wall and grinning up at her doused her panic. “Ass!” she hissed.
“Shh,” he said and put his finger against his lips.
He was lucky she had to be quiet; otherwise, she might have staked him herself. Instead, she swung her leg over the wall and suppressed a gasp when he grabbed hold of her waist and lifted her effortlessly into the air.
Goosebumps broke out on her flesh when he slid her back down the broad expanse of his chest. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he kept her pinned against his body on the set of fire stairs running down the front of the three-story building.
“Don’t move.”
She thought he might actually be enjoying this, and she couldn’t deny the thrill of pleasure the feel of him gave her, but she kept her senses focused on the world around them as they remained immobile on the stairs. She tried not to think about how old these stairs were and when the last time they’d been maintained was. If the stairs gave out beneath them there would be no keeping their presence here a secret. Every vampire in a hundred yard radius would know where they were. And they would come for them.
The breeze tickled her hair and chilled her skin. She didn’t move so much as an eyelash as she strained to hear. She thought she caught the sound of voices and tuned out the lonely howl of the wind over the sand. Yes, there were definitely voices.
She couldn’t make out what was being said or how many there were, but they were coming from inside the building. Grunting and the hollow thump of fists hitting flesh followed the voices. She frowned at the noises, unable to understand why they were fighting amongst each other.
She turned her head and rested her mouth against his ear. “How many?”
“Seven, maybe eight,” he whispered. “You really should stay here.”
She shook her head. “You’re not going in there alone.”
“You’re to stay near me, Dewdrop,” he told her again.
He released her and slid around to stand in front of her. She followed noiselessly behind as they crept down the dilapidated stairs. With every step they took, she was certain the stairs were going to collapse beneath them. Miraculously, the stairs held firm until they arrived at a second floor window.