Hunter probably saw through Riker’s BS, but he didn’t press. “I’ll get a couple of your teams together to go wide on a search, and I’ll have everyone in the clan scouring the warren.”
There were miles of tunnels where Nicole could hide, but Riker’s gut said she was in the forest. “She’s out here.”
Hunter’s obsidian eyes narrowed to slits. “You fed from her? You can track her?”
Nicole’s heady wine flavor lingered on his tongue, but a large amount of ingested blood was needed to track the donor. “I didn’t feed, but I tasted enough to get a general feel for her.”
The leather thong around Hunter’s temples held his midnight hair out of his eyes, emphasizing his Cherokee ancestry as he inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Good hunting.”
Riker took off, his adrenaline surging hotly through his veins. He loved a good chase and takedown, and this one was going to be especially gratifying.
He smelled her before he saw her, two miles from clan headquarters. Her pear-and-ginger scent made his mouth water . . . until he caught more scents. Human. Male. At least ten. And from the unwashed stench of them, they were poachers, the worst kind of vampire-killing scum.
He went balls to the wall in a massive burst of speed, leaping fallen logs and cornering hard by pushing off trees. Nicole was ahead, making enough noise to alert a deaf man to her presence.
A flash of strawberry-blond hair between a pair of firs put Riker at thirty yards from his prey. But the stink of a couple of poachers came from maybe a hundred. They were close. Too close.
He sprinted the final distance, catching Nicole as she tried to navigate a gully lined by thick ferns and gnarled berry bushes.
“Riker.” She gasped as he swept her up and over the gully, taking them both to the forest floor on the other side.
“Disappointed to see me alive?” He rolled with her, pushing her beneath him as a bullet sailed over their heads. “You might get your wish soon enough.”
“What the—”
“Poachers.” A spark of hope lit her pretty wide greens, but he was about to dash it. “Chill, Sunshine. They’ll only chop me up for body parts. If I’m lucky, I’ll be dead when they start. But you? It’ll be a while before they put you down.”
“But I’m human.” Her dry swallow made the wound he’d sealed on her throat writhe. “I’ll tell them who I am. That they’ll get a reward if they return me safely.”
“You can try that tactic.” He yanked her to her feet and dragged her behind a massive tree. “But more likely, they’ll say they found you dead and ransom your body. What they’re doing is illegal, and they won’t want you alive to tell anyone what they did to you or what they were out here for.”
“I don’t believe you,” she ground out.
Two shots rang out at the same moment that three men in camouflage burst from the brush. Nicole, the slippery minx, took advantage and wrenched away from him to dart toward them.
“Nicole, no!”
Riker ducked the swing of a machete, only to be nearly laid out by a baseball bat from behind. The blow smashed into his lower back, knocking him off balance. Gnashing his teeth against the pain, he palmed two daggers and struck out at the nearest poacher with a devastating one-two slice that took both sides of the man’s neck down to the spine. As the human’s spasming body hit the ground, Riker dodged more gunfire in an effort to catch Nicole, who had tripped and was scrambling to her feet.
“Help me!” Nicole reached for a burly, black-bearded dude who held an ax like a lumberjack.
Lumberjack’s smile was psychotic, as if he’d just struck gold and was going to take out everyone who knew about it. He put out his hand . . . and slammed his fist into Nicole’s face.
Riker snarled, his anger sparking to insanely dangerous levels. With a roar, he dived into Lumberjack, not caring that several other assholes were closing in. His focus had narrowed to a needle-thin pinpoint that would only end in the ax-wielding poacher’s bloody death.
The man grunted as he hit the ground with Riker on top of him. Riker plowed his fist into the human’s throat, but as he reared up to deliver the death blow, pain lanced Riker’s chest, nearly as intense as what he’d experienced back at the den. Exhaling on a curse, he looked down at the hilt of a throwing knife vibrating between his ribs.
Riker spared the thrower a glance, judged him to be a lesser threat than the poacher beneath him, and prepared to finish him off. In a single powerful motion, Riker drilled his fist through Lumberjack’s breastbone and ripped his beating heart from his chest.
“Riker!”
Nicole’s breathless shout for help came from a distance. Riker burst to his feet, barely avoiding a crossbow bolt aimed at his head and another chop of a machete.
“Enough with the fucking machete!” Twisting, he ripped the blade from his attacker’s hands and spun, turning the machete into a blender that sliced into two men. Both fell. One wasn’t going to get up. The other would be lucky if he ever ate solid food again.
Holding his ribs, Riker lurched in the direction Nicole had gone. Slowed by his injury but still faster than the humans, he loped through the woods. As he closed in on the asshole chasing Nicole, he wrapped his blood-slick fingers around the hilt of the knife in his chest and yanked the blade free. The poacher was nearly on her when Riker pitched the weapon into the bastard’s spine, dropping him like a rock.
Riker didn’t have time to stop. A hail of gunfire rained down on them, chewing up leaves, tree trunks, and clumps of dirt.
“Son of a—!” He grabbed Nicole by the hand. “Come on.” He half dragged, half carried her through the forest at a blind, desperate run in the general direction of their only hope: caves.
There was a series of caves to the north, built and later abandoned by one of the first colonies of vampires in the area. Now they served as both overgrown lairs for wild animals and temporary hideouts for any vampire needing a place to evade enemies, be those human or other vampires.
“You were right,” Nicole said between labored breaths. “They weren’t going to help me.”
She sounded so surprised. Must suck to learn that some humans were worse than vampires. “No shit.”
A bullet exploded into a tree just inches from Riker’s head. A split second later, another blasted apart a tree branch, and splinters ripped into his jaw and neck.
He dived into Nicole, and they both tumbled down an incline, skidding over dead leaves and banging into dead branches and mossy rocks. At the base of the trench, he pulled her to her feet, hating the fear in her eyes.
“We’ll be okay,” he whispered. “I promise.”
He didn’t stop to think that they were in this position because of her. He just hauled ass with her through the forest, listening as the hunters fell back and, finally, were no longer on their trail. The bastards were tenacious, though, and they’d keep hunting, call in reinforcements, and form a net to catch them.
“Where are we going?” Nicole asked, her voice low and hushed, punctuated by exhaustion.
“To a safe place.” He eased them to a stop and gave her a second to catch her breath. Gave himself a second to rein in the burning in his upper body. He couldn’t tell if the lava pouring through his chest cavity was from the stab wound or the acid Nicole had dosed him with, but it was getting worse. They needed to get to the caves before he passed out and made it easy for the poachers to butcher him into dozens of different pieces. “I’ll carry you from here.” At her questioning look, he added, “The people hunting us are experts at what they do. They’ll be looking for two sets of tracks.” He eyed the landscape, mapping out a route in his head. “And I can move faster than you can, even carrying your weight.”
She glared. “You don’t have to make it sound like I weigh five hundred pounds.”
No, she definitely didn’t weigh that. She was tall and muscular, probably a little self-conscious about her size, but he’d always liked a woman who didn’t look like she’d break in half in a
strong wind—the way his mate had.
“Let’s go.” Roughly, he hauled her over his shoulder and leaped a fifteen-foot gully, landing feather-soft on a fallen log.
Nicole squeaked in surprise but wisely kept quiet as he forged his way through the wilderness. He used his ninety years combined of Army and vampire experience to leave minimal evidence of their passing, but he had to waste precious time making sure his blood didn’t leave a trail. They moved more slowly than he’d have liked, and by the time they reached the system of caves, his various minor cuts and scrapes had healed, but his lungs and ribs were screaming in agony.
He scaled a rocky ledge and slipped through a narrow cave entrance concealed by boulders and brush. Once inside the dark, dank cavern, he eased Nicole to the ground and caught her when she stumbled backward on wobbly legs.
“You okay?” An ugly bruise was spreading from her cheek to her temple. Frowning, he put his fingers to the swollen flesh around her eye, hoping nothing was broken.
She jerked away from him. “I’ll have a black eye soon, but it could have been worse.”
He dropped his hand, strangely offended by her reaction, even though he’d expected nothing else. “Yeah. You could have been poisoned with boric acid and then stabbed.”
Dead silence. She probably didn’t realize he could see her in the pitch blackness, and the sudden guilt in her expression was a surprise. Guess she didn’t think she’d be around to watch her victim die.
“Look,” she finally said. “What would you have done if someone had kidnapped you from your house, put you in a cell, and threatened to torture and kill you?”
“Do you even hear yourself? Humans have been doing that to vampires for decades.” He didn’t bother waiting for a reply.
He strode through the darkness as easily as if the place was wired for lights and pushed aside a recliner-sized rock that concealed a recess loaded with supplies. His arms shook with the effort, which had been far more work than he’d have liked. His injuries were draining him fast. Too fast.
“What are you doing?”
He lifted a burlap sack out of the hole and returned to Nicole, his gait faltering for the last couple of feet. Not good.
“We might be here for a little while.” He dug matches and candles from the bag and lit one. Nicole looked around the cavern, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the flickering light.
“You stay here often?”
“Let’s just say that we have a lot of hideouts.” He plucked a first-aid kit from the bag. “You never know when some asshole is going to try to poach or enslave you.”
She flushed. “I didn’t realize . . .” She trailed off, rubbing her arms.
“You didn’t realize what? That we live our lives looking over our shoulders? Or that we’re smart enough to be prepared when humans hunt us? Or that your precious humans aren’t always the good guys?” He tossed a blanket and a bottle of water at her and dug a roll of gauze out of the first-aid kit. “Don’t try anything stupid. The poachers are going to be swarming the area.”
“So we’re just going to sit here? For how long?”
“Until I say it’s safe or until I’m dead. Whichever comes first.” He shrugged out of his coat, trying to keep the pained winces at a minimum. “I don’t suppose there’s an antidote for the poison you gave me.”
“It’s available through our labs. If you can get me to the Norwalk research facility on the west side of Seattle—”
“You’ll save me?” He snorted. Which hurt. “I think it’s more likely I’ll be captured and either experimented on or gelded, defanged, and turned into a slave. Probably yours.”
His fingers found the buckle to his weapons harness, but his right arm wasn’t working right. Pain speared him from his biceps to his knuckles with every movement, and to his utter humiliation, he kept fumbling the leather strap and the buckle. Finally, when his muscles turned to water, he dropped his hands, hating himself for admitting defeat.
Then Nicole shocked the shit out of him by leaning over to unbuckle the harness. Her strong, slender hands eased the straps from his shoulders, and his cheeks heated when she helped him out of his bloody T-shirt. He didn’t like that he needed her help, but he wasn’t so full of pride that he’d refuse it.
“I don’t have vampire servants,” she said quietly.
“Really.” She averted her gaze, and something occurred to him. “It’s not because you think slavery is wrong, is it? The reason you don’t have a slave is that you hate vampires so much.”
“I admit I don’t harbor any love for vampires.” She handed him the gauze he’d dug out of the first-aid kit. “But I’ve never supported slavery. Believe it or not, there are people trying to end vampire ownership.”
Vampire ownership. Sounded so . . . pleasant. He’d have laughed, but merely breathing was becoming an effort. “That’s a damned joke. Those groups want slavery to end, but they also want to make sure every vampire is either confined or destroyed. Slavery is wrong, but vampires are too dangerous to be loose in the world, isn’t that right?” He tore a strip of gauze off the roll and packed his wound. Why was it still bleeding so badly? It should have been halfway healed by now. “But even those groups are few and far between. You humans love slavery.”
“How can you say that?” Nicole scooted closer and groped around in the first-aid box. “You’re painting everyone with the same brush.”
“Humans have been obsessed with slavery since the beginning of time,” he said tiredly. “Any group a majority views as inferior—animals, other humans of different race, sex, or religion—has either been persecuted, hunted, exploited, or turned into workhorses. When you discovered the existence of vampires, no longer human but able to perform as well as humans, we were your guilt-free dream slaves.”
“Maybe.” Nicole’s long, graceful fingers measured out a length of medical tape, and he had a sudden, unbidden image of her using those fingers on sensitive parts of his body. Clearly, blood loss was making him delirious. “But there have always been other humans fighting for human and animal . . . and vampire . . . rights.”
“And what have you done . . .?” He trailed off, a sudden blurring of his vision and a light-headed spinning in his head whisking away his concentration. What had they been talking about? The gauze Riker held to his chest grew sticky and wet. Every breath was like breathing water.
“Dammit.” Nicole leaped across the distance separating them and lifted his palm from the wound. “Riker? I’m going to need you to lie down.”
She sounded so authoritative. So strong. He’d think it was hot if he didn’t hate her. And if he wasn’t about to bleed to death.
As if his body was in tune with his thoughts, the scent of his own blood became overpowering, and a trickle of warmth began to stream down his torso.
“Know this, human. I will die before I allow myself to be taken.” Suddenly, every breath was a firestorm of pain. He gasped, choked on his own blood. “Looks . . . like that . . . might happen.”
“You’re not going to die.” She didn’t sound very convincing. Hell, she’d probably slit his throat the second he lost consciousness.
He sagged against her, felt her easing him backward. “If poachers find us . . .” He inhaled a raspy breath, trying to find the words to tell her about the tunnel leading to another exit at the back of the cave. Instead, agony ripped him apart.
He felt her hands on his shoulders. “Riker. Stay awake.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. “I know . . . you hate us.” Desperate to convey his urgency, he searched blindly for her hand. When he found it, he squeezed, and for the briefest moment, he took comfort in the fact that she squeezed back. “But please . . . when you get back . . . let Neriya go.”
The pain took him.
NICOLE’S CHEST WAS tight as Riker went limp and passed out. He’d suffered what appeared to be a deep puncture wound between his fourth and fifth ribs, but it took a lot more than that to put down a vampire. The problem couldn?
??t be the boric acid; she’d lied about that. Oh, she’d dosed him with it, and it was lethal to vampires, but she’d only given him enough to lay him up for a few miserable days.
His medical condition wasn’t her concern, though. Her only concern was getting home alive, and with him incapacitated, she had a shot at it.
She hurried to the cave entrance, pausing in the early-evening shadows thrown by the surrounding trees and rocks. How far would she make it in the dark, especially given her lack of appropriate clothing? Even if she didn’t die of exposure, night was the domain of vampires, and clearly, these woods were crawling with them. If not them, hunters and poachers.
The memory of being chased by the men, some of whom had fangs and other body parts hanging from their belts and necks, sent a chill up her spine.
They’ll only chop me up for body parts. If I’m lucky, I’ll be dead when they start. But you? It’ll be a while before they put you down.
Riker’s matter-of-fact words put a damper on her eagerness to leave. Maybe she should wait until morning.
She cut a tentative glance over her shoulder. Riker lay on the ground, drenched in darkness, a pool of blood spreading around him. Vampires could lose far more blood than humans and still recover, but it usually took massive trauma to lose that much. With the rapid way vampire blood clotted and wounds sealed, even the loss of a limb or a severed artery rarely resulted in death. But Riker wasn’t clotting.
So what? He kidnapped you, threatened to kill you, and . . . saved you from poachers.
Snort. He’d saved her from poachers so he could kill her himself after he got what he wanted.
Neriya.
Who was she? Why did Riker want her so badly that he’d begged Nicole to release her if he died? He’d actually been desperate enough to use the word please. She had to wonder how hard that had been for him.
A howl broke in the distance. A wolf, maybe? Another howl joined the first, this one much closer, and Nicole’s heart skipped a beat. Bad enough that she was stuck in the middle of the wilderness with vampires and poachers. Now she had hungry wolves to worry about.