The scent of blood was stronger here, more intense as the copper tang of it seared into his senses. Julian didn’t need the light to reveal the streaks of red all over the back of the bar. His muscles tensed as he fully took in the image painted there.
The twisted asshole had used human blood to paint Quinn on the back of the building. Her hair fell over her shoulder, her head bent and turned to the side in the way it often did when she was being playful with him. Few saw that look from her.
The blood mural became shaded in a thick red haze. His muscles shook, his nails dug into the palms of his hands as a low hiss slid out from between his gritted teeth. Beneath the mural, a single word was scrawled: mine.
That was nearly his undoing. Stepping closer to the bar, he reached out to tear the shingles off. To rend the back wall to pieces in order to remove the hideous image from the building. “Don’t tear my bar apart,” Clint said.
Julian almost lunged at him with the intent of ripping his throat out in order to ease some of what was burning so hotly within him, but he managed to keep himself restrained at the last second. Control it. Control it.
But it was so difficult when he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the scene before him, and his body shook with the bloodlust consuming him. Quinn was his. Everyone, especially vampires should recognize this, but this vamp wanted to take her from him.
“Come with me,” Clint instructed.
“No.”
“She’ll be fine. Come with me.”
Julian finally turned toward the short man. “You have no idea what is going on here.”
Clint pointed toward his garage. “Come. I plan to wash this off after.”
Julian glowered after Clint; he turned to head back to the bar and Quinn, but his foot froze in mid-air. His gaze returned to Clint as he pulled open the door of his garage and stepped inside. He didn’t bother to look back at Julian but continued out of sight.
Julian glanced at the bar. Quinn was safe inside, if the vamp did enter, she wouldn’t chase him into the night again. He hoped she wouldn’t anyway, but she might, and if the vamp knew Julian was outside, he might be bold enough to try to lure her away again. The others would stop her, or they would at least try to.
He should go back, but he found his curiosity drawn to the strange little man as the light inside the garage flickered on. Clint was far too calm for someone who had recently found a bloody mural painted on his wall. Perhaps he assumed it was only red paint, but Julian didn’t believe so.
Walking over, he found Clint waiting patiently inside the door for him. Clint closed the door behind him before walking around his souped-up Jeep toward the back wall. He knelt to pull up a panel discreetly tucked within the floor. The opening in the floor revealed a set of stairs already illuminated by a light below. The man vanished down the stairs with far more speed and agility than Julian would have suspected from someone with his build.
“Don’t be a chicken!” Clint called up to him.
If you snap his neck, you could make it look like he fell down the stairs. But he knew it would upset Quinn if Clint died, and he couldn’t bring her anymore distress.
He descended the stairs, prepared to attack Clint if he tried to stake him or attack him. Stepping off the bottom step, surprise slammed into him, but he managed to keep his face impassive as he realized how likely an attempted staking could be. He may get his chance to kill Clint after all, he realized as his gaze ran over the room.
CHAPTER 15
Quinn closed the dishwasher and hit the button to turn it on. Because it was a typically slow weeknight, she was the only waitress on. Clint would jump behind the bar to help if she needed him, but it was rare she ever did, and he’d disappeared out back with Julian. Please don’t kill him, she inwardly pleaded.
She knew how Clint could push Julian’s buttons, but she hoped Julian had enough restraint not to hurt the man who had become the closest thing she’d had to a father since her uncle. Her gaze slid to the kitchen doors. All the customers were set with drinks in the bar right now; she could slip out back and see what the two of them were up to and make sure Clint was safe. It wouldn’t take long.
“Would you like me to check on them?” Melissa asked as she leaned over the bar.
Quinn shook her head. “I’m sure they’re fine.”
“You don’t look so sure.”
“That’s because I’m not.”
“I really don’t think Julian will kill him.”
“That’s reassuring,” Quinn replied with a laugh.
Before Melissa could respond, the door opened and five more men entered. They walked up to the bar and settled onto some stools. She recognized Jeb, Ernie, and Ross, but she’d never seen the other two. That wasn’t unusual, sometimes new hands rotated through to work the ranches, depending on the needs of the ranch at the time.
Still, her instincts went on high alert as she smiled and approached the group. “Good to see you, Quinn,” Jeb greeted. She’d always really liked Jeb; he was easygoing with a charming smile. He’d had a bit of a romantic interest in her over the years, but she’d made it clear it wouldn’t happen even before Julian walked into her life.
“You too, Jeb. Where you been hiding?”
“Been having a lot of problems out at the ranch. Someone’s been slaughtering the livestock.”
“Who would do such a thing?” Melissa gasped.
“Don’t know,” Jeb replied. He pulled his cowboy hat off to run a hand through his curly blond hair. “We put up cameras and still can’t catch whoever it is. It’s a mess. Losing a lot of money. We had to move what remained of the animals to the boss’s main ranch up north. Can we get a round of shots?”
“Sure.” Quinn walked down the bar and pulled a bottle of Jack she knew was Jeb’s preferred choice from the shelf.
Luther and Chris had moved closer throughout the conversation. Lou sat on the other side of them with his head tilted toward the men. “How come you haven’t caught them on the cameras?” Luther inquired.
Quinn placed five shot glasses on the bar and filled them all.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Jeb muttered before lifting his glass and downing the liquid.
He put the glass on the counter and gestured for Quinn to refill it; she lifted an eyebrow, but poured the drink. Jeb was more of a beer man. When he did do a shot, it was usually one a night and he was done. In her three years here, she’d never seen him do two in one night. The other men all drank their shots and made the same gesture to refill as Jeb had.
“You’d be amazed at the things I’ll believe,” Luther said. “I’ve seen shit no one would believe.”
Jeb downed his second shot. He turned toward Luther, his elbow resting on the bar as his hand gripped the glass. “Ever see something move so fast it can’t be caught on camera?”
The hair on Quinn’s nape stood up. She was half-tempted to take a shot for herself as she studied Jeb’s profile. His normally tanned skin had paled considerably; his fingers on the shot glass trembled, and she knew it had nothing to do with the whiskey he’d consumed. Behind him, the other four cowboys had their heads bent and their eyes focused on the bar. One of them crossed themselves before kissing the cross hanging around his neck.
“Because that’s what we saw,” Jeb continued. “Just this blur and then a dead sheep. Another blur and a dead steer, another and my favorite horse was killed. There were so many of them…” He broke off with a shudder and lifted the shot glass toward Quinn. “Another?”
“You know Clint’s rule,” she said, but she still took the glass from him and refilled it. Under these circumstances, she was pretty sure Clint would understand the breaking of his ‘two and done’ shot rule.
“We’re staying at the motel tonight, before heading back north. Ross wants to spend some time with his wife before we go back, so no driving for us.”
“You’re not going to the ranch?” she asked.
“No.” His eyes were haunted when he
lifted his head to look at her. “We’re going to be working up north for a bit. Probably come back in the spring, maybe.”
She refilled the other glasses and slid them toward the rest of the men. Luther’s eyes were troubled when they met hers; he pulled his glasses up and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.
“It sounds crazy,” Jeb murmured as he stared at the amber liquid in his glass. “But we saw them, and when we showed the video to the boss, not only did he not fire our asses, but he ordered the remaining stock be taken somewhere safer. We weren’t imagining it.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Quinn said quietly.
Jeb’s normally jovial face was grave and remote when he looked at her. “I did,” he admitted. “Even when these guys saw it too, I still believed we were all imagining it. That it was some sort of strange, group hallucination. I mean it’s insane.”
Quinn rested her hand on his and gave it a pat. “Sometimes there are things in this world none of us can explain.”
Jeb snorted before consuming his shot. “You’re telling me. Beer, please.”
“You got it.”
She looked to the others who all gave her their orders before she walked away to pour their drinks and pop the tops off their beer bottles. Her mind spun as she contemplated Jeb’s words. Why would vampires be slaughtering livestock? Unless they abstained from human blood like her, Julian, and his vampire friends, but they didn’t kill the animals. However, not every vampire who didn’t kill humans wouldn’t kill animals. As much as she didn’t like it, better an animal than a human, she supposed.
But for some reason, she didn’t think these were vampires like her. There was something awful and off about what they were doing. Why would they keep going back to the same place? Why weren’t they hunting the animals? She didn’t like that it happened, but she couldn’t deny a part of her thrilled at the hunt. The excitement of the chase may be the best part of feeding.
Yet these vamps were denying themselves that thrill. And how many vamps were there that they were decimating livestock numbers to the point where they had to be moved?
Her hand trembled so much she clinked two of the beer bottles together when placing them on the tray.
“Do you have any idea how many are doing this?” Luther asked as she set the tray on the bar before Jeb and the others.
“At least ten blurs,” Jeb replied and bowed his head in thanks when she pushed his beer toward him.
A sick feeling twisted through her stomach as she handed out the rest of the drinks. What was going on? She glanced back at the doors, but Julian and Clint had yet to return. She highly doubted Julian had ever heard of anything like this before either.
Grabbing a shot glass, Quinn broke another of Clint’s rules when she poured herself one and downed it. Her face twisted as she stuck her tongue out at the potent taste of the whiskey. It wasn’t as good as her rum, but she enjoyed the burn.
***
“Red,” Julian greeted when he spotted Hawtie sitting in a chair across the way. She bowed her head in greeting, but didn’t say anything. Her thick red lips were pursed and though she rarely looked her fifty plus years, there were lines etched around the corners of her mouth and eyes. His gaze slid back over the cache of weapons stored within the room. “Are we preparing for the zombie apocalypse?”
“Let’s not play games,” Clint replied as he settled himself onto a crate.
“Oh, yes, let’s not,” Julian drawled as he looked pointedly at the hundreds of crossbows, stakes, axes, swords, and guns big enough to take down an elephant, hanging on the wall. There were more weapons leaning against the wall, or stored inside glass cases. It made the stash in the RV look like a joke, and Julian had believed them over-prepared. “What is your point here, Clint?”
“My point here, Julian, is I know what you are. I have a good idea what your friends are, and I know what Quinn is.” Julian’s jaw locked. He shifted his stance so he could be across the room and have Clint’s neck snapped before either he or Hawtie blinked. “There’s something nasty out there after her, hunting in our town, and it has to be stopped.”
Julian’s gaze ran over the stout man as he tried to figure out exactly what he was. Not a Hunter, he would have sensed the power in him. Certainly not a vamp as both he and Hawtie had steady heartbeats. Guardians? But wouldn’t Luther have known if they were?
He tried to recall the times he’d touched either of them. He wasn’t sure he’d ever touched Clint. He was almost certain he hadn’t, but he’d certainly touched things Clint had. Hawtie, he’d touched a few times, and he’d touched things she had. But he’d almost always had his ability shut off around them and in their places of business, and he’d never been focused on them when using it. Even if he’d had it on, he couldn’t have guaranteed he’d see something from them, not with the rotating amount of people they had coming in and out of their businesses every night.
Clint and Hawtie were humans, and he’d wrongly assumed both of them would have little useful information for him. He kept his ability turned off most of the time, unless he believed he needed it. Years of seeing things he didn’t want to had made it so he preferred not seeing them now. Not to mention, most people were beyond boring. He’d rather beat his head against the wall than see into the life of one more soccer mom in a mini-van.
“And how did you come by this information?” Julian inquired of Clint.
“Someone painted a bloody picture of her on my wall.”
“Let’s not play games,” Julian said. “That alone wouldn’t lead you to believe Quinn and I were somehow different, or my friends.”
Clint folded his arms over his chest and tilted his head to the side. “I pay attention.”
“And what exactly do you think you’ve learned by paying attention to us?”
“That you’re not human.”
Julian held Clint’s steady gaze as a patronizing smirk curved his lips. “So I see someone hopped on the crazy train. Enjoy the ride.”
“Enough boys,” Hawtie interjected. “Jesus, the two of you are like dogs circling a bone.” She turned toward Clint. “He’s good for Quinn. You’ve seen the change in her, how much happier she is now. And you,” her warm brown eyes seared into Julian, “we protected Quinn this whole time. We’ve looked out for her and tried to keep her safe for three years. Even while knowing she was a vampire—”
“Chelsea,” Clint groaned, and despite what Julian had already suspected them of knowing, a jolt of disbelief went through him at hearing her confirm it.
“We welcomed her here,” Hawtie continued as if Clint hadn’t spoken.
“Why would you do that?” Julian inquired.
“Because when she first came here, she was a broken soul. More broken than anyone I’d ever seen before, and in my business, I’ve seen my fair share of haunted and hurting people. All I wanted was to hug her, but she wouldn’t let anyone near her. Gradually, she came out of her shell, but it took a while,” Hawtie replied. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes as she spoke. “We never had children—”
“Maybe if we’d gotten married,” Clint interrupted.
“Pfft,” Hawtie said with a wave of her hand at him. “Marriage wouldn’t have made you want children.”
“And you know why I didn’t,” Clint muttered.
Hawtie patted his hand reassuringly before turning to focus on Julian again. “There was something so forlorn about Quinn that I couldn’t help but care for her, even if she was supposed to be a monster.”
“But she’s not,” Clint said.
“Of course she’s not,” Julian growled.
Clint’s eyes narrowed on him. “You are though. You may be better than most vampires, but there’s a viciousness in you.”
“There is.” There was no point in denying it. They were all laying everything out on the table, subtlety and denial had no place in this conversation. “But I don’t kill humans. I don’t feed from them, unless it’s necessary, and then I will do what has to be done.
Quinn will do the same.”
Clint nodded, but Hawtie shook her head. “No, she’s—”
“A survivor,” Julian interrupted. “One of the strongest survivors I’ve ever encountered. You’re right; she’s vulnerable and kind. She’s been broken, and she’s done things she regrets, but in order to be a survivor, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to keep going. But she also loves with all she has, and she loves you both very much,” Julian told them, sensing Hawtie needed to hear this bit of truth. “You’re the whole reason she won’t leave this town, even if it would probably be safer for her to do so.”
Hawtie dabbed at her eyes again. Clint rested his hand on her thigh and gave it a squeeze. “It wouldn’t be safer for the town if you left,” Clint said.
“And she knows this.”
“As do you.”
“Yes, but I’d have her out of here faster than either of you could blink if it meant ensuring her safety.”
There was actually a grudging flicker of admiration in Clint’s eyes as a smile curved his mouth. “I don’t like you, but I do like that she has you looking out for her now too. What is this thing in our town?”
“It’s the vampire who ended her mortal life,” Julian said.
“And turned her?” Hawtie asked.
“Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“What do you mean?”
Julian ran a hand through his hair before glancing at the stairs. “I think that’s something for Quinn to tell you, if she chooses to.”
Hawtie and Clint exchanged a look before they focused on him again. “Fair enough,” Clint replied.
“What do you suspect my friends are?” Julian inquired.
“Hunters, Guardians, maybe both.”
“What gave you that impression?”
Clint shrugged. “I know what to look for.”
“And how do you know what to look for?”
Clint’s mouth clamped shut. Hawtie leaned against his side, nudging him with her elbow. “Tell him.”
Clint heaved a large sigh before rising to his feet. “My grandparents were Guardians,” he finally answered.