Evading (Regent Vampire Lords Book 4) (10 page)

Dick one, the monster holding her, licked the side of her face, his unusual eyes never wavering from Mike’s. “That’s it, sweetheart. Fight,” he whispered, but not soft enough they couldn’t hear his threats. “You’ll taste all the sweeter and your scratches get me hard as fuck.”

Mike drew his gun, as did his partner. “Get your fucking hands off her,” Mike growled. The men never even glanced at the life-taking barrels pointed right between their eyes.

He soon found out why.

“Looks like a couple human pigs to me. Wanna see how the better half lives, humans?”

Humans?

“Franco, no.” The taller one holding the cowering girl commanded. “We were supposed to get the female, that’s all. We’re not killing cops. Master would have our heads for that.”

Master? The fuck? Were these guys in some perverse cult?

“We can’t take her back like that. We’ll be castrated before we’re decapitated,” Dick two whined nodding at the shape the woman was in. It’s clear they’d been playing with her, like a spanking new toy. She was in bad shape. Almost in shock already. Dick one loosened his hold and the girl started gasping brokenly for life.

The man holding the girl was the obvious one in charge. The asshole stood silent for a few seconds, rolling around his options, staring at Mike as if he was trying to work out a puzzle and Mike held the clues. Mike put the slightest amount of pressure on the trigger. A move that did not go unnoticed.

The fucker smiled. It was ugly. Vile. Beastly.

Time felt suspended. He knew something life changing was about to go down. There was a very real possibility he may not survive this night.

“How about we give them a little show and a nice good scrub?” Dick two proposed.

Scrub? What the hell were these lunatics going on about? Humans? Master? Scrubbing?

“You haven’t even perfected that yet. They could end up vegetables.”

“At least, they won’t be dead.”

Dick one scrunched up his face and shrugged one shoulder. “I guess you’re right.”

It was the look that did it.

Smug. Menacing.

Bad. Fucking. News.

Mike broke protocol then. These two assholes didn’t have weapons showing, and he had no cause to fire but his gut screamed if he didn’t shoot now, he’d be a dead man. So he squeezed the trigger.

The deafening boom of his weapon discharging in such a small space was nothing compared to the feeling of being tossed through the air like a rag doll. He landed with a sick thud against the concrete wall. His brains were rattling so hard he thought he might have a concussion.

Before he knew it, before he could even catch a stray thought, Johnny and he were each tied to a chair and set in the middle of the room. They had bar towels stuffed in their mouths so they couldn’t talk or call for help. Their pieces were mocking them from the bar top, but it was the bloodcurdling scream of the girl that now had his full attention.

Totally, utterly helpless for the next hour they had to watch this innocent girl be destroyed. Reduced to nothing. And when her body was broken and her soul was shattered, they finished her off. They both callously unleashed the stuff that made up nightmares. Their eyes changed, their teeth sharpened, and they sank them into her flesh, draining her dry. Then they turned their blood-red eyes on him and his partner. This was it. The end of the line.

“
D
ick two started with Johnny
,” Mike said quietly. “He grabbed his head between his palms and I thought for sure he was going to rip it clean off. For a few seconds, Johnny cried out, like he was in unbearable agony. Then he went utterly still. His face was completely blank, devoid of any emotion as if we hadn’t just witnessed the horrific destruction and murder of a young girl by a pair of real-life monsters.

“Dick one then asked Johnny what happened tonight and Johnny said ‘
nothing
.’ His voice was wooden. He wasn’t fighting against his restraints anymore. He was in some sort of daze as if he’d been drugged. Dick two smirked and then he was in front of me, his hands at my head, squeezing ever so slightly.” Mike paused and huffed a sardonic laugh. “I remember that part the clearest. I wondered to myself, where’s the agonizing pain my partner just felt? Why aren’t I screaming? What’s supposed to be happening?
I felt nothing, except a slight pressure in my head, similar to a headache coming on but even that was nothing compared to the pure, raw hatred I felt for these two…things. But when Dick two frowned, I knew I was in trouble. I knew I would be drained dry just like the girl if he wasn’t successful. A sad casualty of some fucking war I couldn’t wrap my head around. So when he tried again…”

Mike turned now to face Ren. The vampire was brimming with rage, but there was something else simmering below the surface. If he didn’t know better, it was confusion. “I faked it. I screamed bloody fucking murder and then acted just like Johnny. He saved my life that night, Johnny did. Had they started with me, I’ve no doubt I’d be pushing up daisies under the old oak tree somewhere.”

Ren nodded in agreement. “And so would your partner.”

Mike stared at him, blinking slowly. He’d often thought that, but it still didn’t quell the guilt he felt. When he probed Johnny about that night a couple days later, he didn’t remember a thing. Swore up and down it was a nightmare Mike had, wasn’t real. He eventually let it go, but Mike had been exposed to the underbelly of evil and he never forgot. It never quite wiped off him.

“I don’t understand why they couldn’t scrub me the way they did Johnny,” he said absently. It was something he never got. He’d always been immune to the mind tricks of bloodsuckers.

Ren’s mouth turned up slightly. “Because you’re fated to a vampire, that’s why. And all Fateds have some sort of special skill. Unless a human finds and bonds with their vampire mate, they never really understand why they’re different from other humans. They just go through life confused. Maybe alienated.”

Mike took his time digesting that information, trying to make sense of it.

“So, how did you come to the conclusion that vampires were responsible for Jamie’s kidnapping? Because humans can be monsters as well.”

Fair question.

“You’re right. We can. But it was what they said afterward when they were ‘cleaning up.’ They were chatting lightly like they’d just slipped in there after a hard day at the fucking office for a pint of Guinness. They mentioned they’d have to find another girl to replace this one to take back to someone they called Master. Then they started talking about heading over to Marquette. How those college girls were easy prey after they’d been drinking all night, stumbling home from a party. One of them said they shouldn’t go back because two girls had already been taken from there in the past year and a half and they didn’t want to raise suspicions. The other said it had been long enough since the last one, that it would be safe and they should try it.”

“And Jamie disappeared from Marquette I take it?”

He nodded once.

“Along with another co-ed a little over a year later.”

After a few beats, Ren said, “Not all vampires are monsters, Mike.”

Mike
. He almost laughed. That plain name sounded so foreign coming from this hulky, imposing vampire’s mouth. “I know that now, Ren.”

Ren smirked. “Dev, Damian, Rom, the rest of us…we fight evil like Xavier every fucking day. One bad apple doesn’t really taint the whole bunch, but it’s the perception, right?”

“Touché.”

They stared at each other for a long while. He’d never intended to take a jarring trip down memory lane, but now that he had, he couldn’t help the sense some bridge had been gapped between the two men in this room. But now, Mike wanted to get back on track, get back to the discussion of Giselle. To what he really cared about. “So…about this bonding?”

The question hung until Ren finally started evenly, “About this bonding.” He pushed himself off the stool and headed toward Mike. “Vampires can only bond with their Moiras, so even if they exchanged blood with another human, they wouldn’t forge that mating bond.”

“Moiras?”

“A fated mate. For us, there is only one true human Fate pairs us with. Some of us may wait hundreds of years to find our Fated’s. Some of us never do.”

Mike knew Ren didn’t have a woman. He searched Ren’s voice for melancholy but found none. “And you think I’m her fated mate then?”

“I do.” His answer was clipped but not heated.

“And how do you know?”

“Worried?”

“Not in the slightest. I know I am, I just want to know how
you
know.”
Had she talked to Ren about them?

Ren sighed heavily, looking away briefly. “I’ve known Giselle a very long time, Detective. Well over a hundred years. She’s a stone-cold bitch.” Mike bristled and stood tall before Ren added, “Calm your shit down. Just hear me out.”

With his jaw ticking and his temper flaring, he reluctantly eased back against the windowsill. Facing him, Ren leaned against the solid oak table, crossing his arms and feet, mirroring his position.

“Let’s just say she had less than a stellar childhood. She’s wound this fortified fortress around the very soul of who she is in an attempt not to get hurt by anyone again. She doesn’t do friends or relationships and she sure as hell doesn’t fall in love.

“I
know
you two are destined, Detective, because you’ve changed her. She cares. You’ve unearthed emotions I’ve never seen in her before. She’s…mellowed since you two met and I know that may be hard to comprehend because soft on Giselle doesn’t look anything like soft on someone else, but that fortress she’s resurrected has big fucking fractures in the walls now. And it’s crumbling the fuck down around her. Thanks to you.” He nodded in Mike’s direction.

“It sounds almost as if you’re accepting of this lowly human detective,” Mike mocked.

The corners of Ren’s lips turned up. “You make her happy. What makes her happy makes me happy.”

He thought on that a minute, his respect for Ren growing. “What’s this life-tying thing you mentioned?”

“You really going to do this, human?” Ren asked with a little surprise.

He stood up straight. “You’d better fucking believe I am, vampire. I love her. I’ll only ever love her.”

“I don’t know how she’s going to handle this new version of her. She’ll be raw for a while, like fresh skin after a wound,” Ren warned.

Didn’t he know it? “I’m helping her adjust.” But he hadn’t pushed her to talk about her past and he needed to. They both needed to clear the air so they could take their steps forward in peace.

“Why aren’t you asking her this?”

“Because I…I want to do this my way and I want to be sure I’m getting all the facts so I don’t fuck it up. And you know how Giselle is.”

“Okay then. Here’s everything you need to know.” In a look Mike could only label as impressed, Ren began describing everything a vampire mating meant in vivid detail.

A while later, Giselle popped back in and stole Ren for the meeting with the all-powerful Vampire Lords, leaving Mike alone to digest everything. But not before he had a chance to ask Ren for one more favor.

“
Y
ou ever hear
of a vamp with mind-scrubbing skills?” Ren asked Dev as they entered his office. Damian and Geoffrey tagged behind. Rom was absent—after the strategy-planning meeting he had gone to make amends with Sarah for pissing her off, which he seemed to do a lot. Ren didn’t have a mate yet, but even he knew better than to make his female mad. Vampires may be a stronger, superior species, but it wasn’t any different for vampire males than it was for human males. The woman held the keys to the kingdom. Every fucking one of them.

“Can’t say that I have,” Dev replied.

“Me either,” Damian quipped. “But it would sure be fucking handy.”

Ren wasn’t so sure about that. It could be beneficial in certain circumstances, yes, but devastating in others.

“What about you?” Ren nodded in Geoffrey’s direction.

“No. Where’d you hear of such a thing?” he responded, easing onto the couch.

Ren didn’t answer his question. Instead, he asked the next one on his mind. “You ever hear of a vamp named Franco?”

Geoffrey rolled his eyes to the ceiling, clearly in thought. “Don’t think I have, but it’s not like I get out much. Why?”

“I’m asking the questions here, rogue.”

Geoffrey just smirked but shut his mouth. Fucker knew he was on shaky ground with the other vamps in the room, but a part of him had to respect Geoffrey’s position and all he was willing to risk to make things right, helping them bring an end to the devil’s spawn that was Xavier.

“What’s this about, Ren?” Dev asked, dragging his attention from Geoffrey back to his leader.

Ren leaned one thigh against Dev’s desk and put most of his weight on it. The heavy wood creaked slightly and he just smiled when Dev frowned. Dev was so protective of that fucking desk and it was always fun to push his buttons a bit.

“Well, I just had a nice little conversation with our detective. He said something that caught my attention is all.” He glanced quickly in Geoffrey’s direction, not sure if he should continue the discussion with the rogue present.

“Go ahead,” Dev encouraged. He understood Ren’s hesitation. It appeared Dev trusted Geoffrey more than he did.

Ren wondered if he was making more of this than he should. Though after Geoffrey’s little nuclear bomb about Xavier’s secret scientists and “new” vampiric powers they’d developed, there may be more credence to give it than he originally thought.

“Well, it happened quite a long time ago. A year or so after Jamie was kidnapped.” Everyone had somber faces and Damian threw Geoffrey a look chucked full of malice. Ren ignored Damian, relaying the
Reader’s Digest
-version of the story. “He ran into a couple of vamps assaulting a young girl. It got violent, the girl didn’t make it, and a vamp named Franco had some mind-scrubbing skill that worked on his partner but not the detective. The two rogues carried on with a little chitchat while they cleaned up and from what the detective said, there’s no doubt they were talking about Xavier. They talked about kidnapping another girl and said he’d have their heads if they killed cops.”

Three sets of eyes turned toward Geoffrey. He threw his hands up in self-defense. “Jesus, fuck. I know nothing about this. Except the cops part. Xavier has minions all over the damn country in law enforcement, and while he’s a soulless bastard, he doesn’t appreciate their indiscriminate killing without his say-so. Dead cops are not the kind of attention he wants.”

“Right. But young, innocent girls are like snack food,” Damian spat.

Geoffrey stiffened, ready for battle with Damian. It was clear Damian wasn’t going to forgive and forget the factoid that Geoffrey was directly responsible for his mate’s kidnapping and more than a one-night “stay” with Xavier recently.

“But it could be possible,” Dev cut in, also cutting the tension that had mounted. “This so-called power isn’t something that’s completely
impossible
, even though none of us know any bloodline with this skill, is it?”

Geoffrey blew out a long breath, letting his head fall against the cushion, almost in defeat. “At this point, I think anything is possible with that sick fuck.” He was clearly as disturbed about this as the rest of them, which earned him another couple of points in Ren’s book.

“We need to find this Franco,” Damian said earnestly, rising to his full six-six frame.

“We’re not even sure he’s still alive or if he will be after tonight,” Ren replied. They planned to end every single one of Xavier’s minions tonight except for the young ones they recovered. Finding this Franco would be like recovering a single gold bar at the bottom of the Pacific without any sonar. Who the hell knew where he was. Hell, he was probably dust by now. Didn’t seem to him that many vamps had a long life span with Xavier as their “Master.”

“I don’t want us distracted by this tonight. If we stumble across him, we capture him. But I don’t want anyone’s life in danger,” Dev stated. “We don’t know anything about this power or its effectiveness or side effects. It’s too…dangerous. Too unknown. In fact, it would probably be best if he was eliminated.” He paused, pinning Geoffrey with a concerned look. “If you make it through this next week alive, rogue, I want you to put out some feelers just in case. We have no idea what the fuck Xavier has set loose with his experiments.”

“Of course.” Geoffrey nodded respectfully.

“I’m outie,” Damian announced, striding toward the door. “I need to spend some time with my mate before tonight’s bloody battle.” In other words, he needed to do the horizontal bopty-bop.

“Damian,” Dev called. Damian stopped and threw a look over his shoulder. “Good luck tonight.”

Damian hesitated. He opened his mouth but swallowed whatever it was he was going to say. Tonight would be a hard-fought bloodbath. They all knew it. None of them were cocky enough to guarantee they would be coming home afterward, even Damian, the King of Cock. Rephrase (because he didn’t need that visual).
Arrogance
. King of
Arrogance
. “You too,” Damian replied in a low voice. Then he was gone, leaving the three of them.

“You sure you’re all set for tonight?” Ren asked Dev. Thane, Manny, and Giselle would stay back with Dev and the Lords’ mates. Ren needed to protect his leader, but it was equally—or more—important to protect the Lords’ females.

“You act like I’m not capable of caring for my mate,” Dev snapped.

He was pissed.

Ren didn’t care.

“And you act like I shouldn’t be doing my job. My lord,” he tacked on, though it lacked the respect it should have. There’s no one besides Kate who could get away with talking to the Midwest Regent Vampire Lord like Ren did. But that’s what over three hundred loyal years together bought him. Carte blanche.

“Ren.” Dev sighed, shaking his head. Skirting around his desk, he clasped his hand on Ren’s shoulder, squeezed, and said, “Be careful tonight.”

Huh. Not what he was expecting.

“Would you miss me if I didn’t return, my lord?” Ren’s smirk was wiped away when the mood perceptibly shifted to one he knew would be a “bro moment.”
Shit
. He didn’t feel completely comfortable with those. Okay, truth? Hives. It gave him hives.

Dev inched slightly closer to Ren. Because Ren stood just about an inch above him, Dev had to shift his eyes upward to meet Ren’s. “More than you know.”

The moment seemed to stretch on forever, and memory after memory together with his best friend slammed into him like a speeding freight train. He loved Dev like a brother. Hell, he
was
his brother for all it mattered. And even the fleeting thought these were their last seconds together hit him hard in the chest. Then it passed and he could breathe again without his lungs being constricted.

“Don’t worry.” His signature smirk was back as he clasped Dev on the opposite shoulder. “I’ll be around another three hundred years to keep you on your toes.”

“You mean be a pain in my ass,” Dev corrected, his own smile playing on his lips.

“Of course, that’s what I meant. Regarding the other matter we discussed earlier, is…” He paused, realizing Geoffrey was still in the room. Fucking great. Now his “bro moment” had a witness. Just what he needed. “Is everything set?” he finished.

Ren hadn’t seen Elle in three days until today. Not since he
may
have happened to drop a hint where she would be able to find her detective. And since he hadn’t seen or heard from her, he knew the cop had finally, finally managed to snare her. Finding him here this afternoon was just the icing on the cake that was already baked. So, he put the second phase of his little Project Elle into motion and Dev was going to help. Actually, Ren hadn’t given him much choice.

“Yes, it’s set. I had to do a lot of convincing with Kate, but when tonight is over, I’ll talk to Elle.”

“Perfect.”

“You sure this is a good idea?” Dev hedged. He was as worried about Elle’s reaction as Ren was.

“Good? Eh. Necessary? Absolutely.”

“Okay then. I’ll support you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to check on Kate. Make sure she’s resting comfortably.”

“Of course, my lord.” Dev gave him a brief smile that held all the unspoken words between them. Then he, too, was gone.

Turning his attention to Geoffrey, who still sat quietly on the couch not even pretending he wasn’t listening to the last ten minutes of conversation, he said, “You’re going to help me with something.” The rogue simply raised his brows in response.

The first two “to-dos” on Ren’s list had now been ticked off. Uniting Elle and her mate. And after the enlightening convo in the kitchen with Mike Thatcher, he knew their official bonding countdown clock had started ticking.

Now, tonight they would scratch off another. Annihilating Xavier. He felt victory already vibrating in his bones. Tonight it would end, he was sure of it. Then he was headed out to track Siobhan like the fucking animal he was and Geoffrey was going to help.

Ren was removing this excuse from Elle’s plate. Not one person on the face of this planet deserved happiness like she did.

Not one.

“Here’s what I need,” he said, taking a seat beside a once enemy who had suddenly become a very valuable asset in more ways than one.