Flowers and Fangs (Stake and Dust series, Book II) (21 page)

"Let's find, Tremayne." He took her hand, not
wanting her to argue with him. He fought monsters, brought them
down and ended their sorry arses. She warned him of what she was
capable of doing and still he hesitated to do what was expected of
a hunter. He should have staked her and dusted her, but for the
first time in his life, he couldn't follow through. Whatever the
connection he had with Sloane, he couldn't pretend it wasn't there.
He'd move heaven and earth to keep her safe. A corny declaration,
but he meant the pledge.

They strode down the hall to the parents'
bedroom, where the gore and destruction was far worse. The parents
had put up a fight. They did not give up their lives so readily.
Most likely because they had a little girl in the other room they
had wished to protect, but in the end they were not strong
enough.

Sloane by all means was not his child, but he
could understand the need to protect, even if it meant his own
demise. "Tremayne?" he called for the vampire's attention.

Tremayne turned to face him. He took one look
at Sloane and he was at her side with a quick flitted movement. He
gripped her shoulders, forcing her to peer into his eyes. "You are
fine. You will listen to me. This is old blood, tainted and not for
you."

Derek had no doubt the vampire was using
glamour to force her into submission. It was a necessary evil and
he wouldn't interfere.

She nodded. "Tainted blood. Not for me," she
repeated in a singsong voice.

"Say it again," Tremayne insisted.

"The blood is tainted." Her hand went to her
mouth as if she were about to be ill. "Excuse me." She whirled on
her feet and flew for the door.

"Take her outside," Tremayne told him. "She
needs to clear her head."

Derek nodded. He found her in the hall,
leaning against the wall, hunched over and gripping her knees.

"I hate this. I hate being like this." She
glanced at him with tear stained cheeks.

"You're strong-willed. You'll get through
this." Only he wasn't sure if he was saying so for his benefit or
for hers. Maybe it was a little of both.

"Will I?" she snapped and stood up straight.
"Is Tremayne going to follow me around and keep me in line every
time I slip up? Is he going to glamour me into not wanting to suck
people dry?" Her gaze shifted to his neck and he fought the urge to
cover the area where she'd bitten him earlier.

"You won't be abandoned," he said firmly.

"And Tim?" Her gaze met his. I know in my
heart he needs to be eliminated, but I can't help but remember him
before… He was kind and this vampire came in and changed him. Made
him a monster. And I'm one, too."

"We all have the potential of being a
monster. Even humans can be evil. Craving blood is not what defines
who you are. It's how the blood is obtained that labels you a fiend
or not." His brows furrowed. How had his way of thinking changed?
A monster is a monster no matter the pretty package.
His
father's words came back to taunt him. He swallowed hard and
ignored his years of training. He took a step toward her. "I have
your back, Sloane. Your compassion will win out and you'll learn to
control the urge."

"How can you be so sure? What do you know
about me, Derek? Kissing and making out behind the bleachers when
we were teens and now sharing a few precious moments between the
sheets, doesn't give you the insight to who I really am. You don't
know me anymore than I know you."

He didn't let her heated words affect him.
She was trying to push him away and he wouldn't let her. "I know
you better than you think. I witnessed you in action when you stood
up to a vampire with only a frying pan for a weapon. I saw a woman
who wept when her dog had been hurt. I see a woman who bravely met
the man who had bitten her, but still hoped to save him. I may not
know everything there is to know about you, but those qualities are
damn well good enough for me."

She took a ragged breath and let it out with
a whoosh. "Well then…" Her hand swept a stubborn strand of hair
away from her eyes.

"I'd hate to break up this tender moment,"
Wade said and they both turned to find him standing in the hall
next to the bathroom door. "I think I've found something you'll
want to see," Wade said and stepped aside with a wave of his
hand.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sloane's stomach clenched into a knot of
dread, but she forced her feet to move. She stepped inside the
bathroom, decorated in blue accents—towels, decorative soap and
shower curtain were all different shades of blue. It was nothing
out of the ordinary, except for the message scrawled on the
bathroom mirror in dark red. It wasn't blood, but nail polish. Her
hand reached for the bottle sitting by the hand soap.
Candy Cane
Red
, the label read. This was the polish she had bought for—
She stared at the scrawled words.
Do you want her back?

"Omigod. He has Kylie." Sloane's voice was a
hoarse whisper. She fished out her cell from her pocket ready to
call Tim, but Derek placed a hand over hers.

"No." Derek shook his head. "If he has her,
she's dead or he's made her like him."

"How can I take that chance? My God, she's
only a child."

Derek's gaze riveted to Tremayne's. "Tell
her."

The vampire didn't look unsympathetic, but
his words were straightforward. "I'm sorry, but Derek's correct.
Tim has shown very little control and a child is too tempting to a
newly made Nosferatu."

Sloane made eye contact with Wade, but he
lifted a brow with a look that clearly stated,
you've gotta be
joking.

"You saw the blood in her bedroom," Derek
reminded her.

"The blood." She pushed by Derek and sprinted
to Kylie's room.

Derek and the others were close on her heels.
She hunkered down on her hands and knees to examine the blood. She
inhaled. The scent filled her nostrils, strong and…familiar. "It's
not hers." She looked over her shoulder and met Tremayne's curious
expression. "I know it's not hers. Tim forced me to drink from him.
This is his blood." She stared at the dried blood, a large pool
that had spread through the carpet fibers. "He died in this room."
The realization hit her. "Maybe he was in here trying to save
Kylie. Maybe Kylie got away from the vampire that attacked Tim and
his family."

"You're making a hero out of Tim when he's
incapable of being one," Wade insisted, but even his voice held a
note of uncertainty.

"He wasn't always a fiend!" she snapped. "He
was a young man who loved his sister. You didn't see him with her.
He took care of her. He would have died for her."

"He may have saved her from an attack, but
the vamp who ravished this family would not have let her go," Derek
said. "As soon as he was finished with Tim, he would have gone
after Kylie." He looked to his brother. "I thought you said
everyone was accounted for except for Tim."

Wade cleared his throat. "You saw the blood."
He gestured toward the floor. "We assumed the vamp…you
know…devoured her. Like you said she was only ten, she hadn't
matured..."

It wasn't a sloppy assumption. Sloane knew
this from what Derek had told her. Some vamps didn't just drain the
children; they devoured them, leaving nothing behind. She swallowed
back the dread, not wanting to believe what Wade hinted, but the
alternative didn't sit well either. How could a ten year old
survive when all the adults in the family had been either turned or
drained dry?

Derek strode to the window that had been left
open. The pink frilly drapes blew softly in the wind, both graceful
and haunting. He glanced outside, where he would be able to see the
backyard. "Maybe she did get away." Derek pointed. "There."

Then she remembered. Perched on the lower
limbs of a large oak tree, sat a wooden structure. Tim and Trent
had built the tree house for their sister last year for her ninth
birthday. "Could she have hidden in there?" Derek asked and she
knew it was for her benefit. Clearly, everyone had written the
child off for dead. She could have kissed Derek for the effort.

Tremayne moved closer to the window. His
light eyes narrowing in on the tree house sitting among the leaves
like a child's playtime haven. "Hmm… I'd like a closer look, but I
believe the tree house is lined with—"

Sloane didn't wait for Tremayne to finish.
She flitted in a whoosh of wind. The frilly pink curtains whipped
around, slapping Tremayne and Derek in the face, their curses
following in her wake.

Tremayne called after her, but she was beyond
hearing his warning.

She didn't climb the tree. She leapt with
ease to the lowest limb where the tree house sat, but once she
touched the door to the tree house, sparks flew. She screamed and
fell back, her arms flailing in the wind before she landed on the
ground with such force it knocked the breath out of her.

"Sloane!" Derek called to her. He slid to a
stop and plopped down beside her, his features a mass of
concern.

Burnt flesh hit her nostrils and she
grimaced. She sat up and stared at her blistered palm. Her flesh
showed signs of healing, but it didn't stop it from hurting any
less. "What happened?" Confusion knitted her brows as she glanced
at the tree house above her.

Tremayne hunkered down on the other side of
her and took her hand, giving it a once over. "If you had waited,"
Tremayne said with a note of annoyance ringing through, "I was
about to tell you the tree house might be lined with aspen. Thanks
for confirming my suspicions." He indicated the burnt flesh as
evidence.

"Okay, I'm assuming aspen burns vampires,"
she said as Derek helped her to her feet, being careful to hold
onto her elbow and not her hand.

Wade and Cassandra had joined them now.

"Aye," Tremayne said as he glanced at the
tree house. "Aspen can harm a newly made Vampire. Even an old
vampire knows to keep away from it. The wood does not burn as most
woods do. It absorbs the heat. So touching the wood would be like
touching an open flame."

"In that case, move aside vamps," Cassandra
said. "There's only one way to find out if the girl hid in there."
She shimmied up the tree, making Derek smile.

He glanced at Wade who threw him a grin
before he followed after his sister. "Are you coming?" he yelled
over his shoulder to Derek.

"Right behind you, Bro."

A few seconds later, Cassandra opened the
shudders and peeked out. "I believe she was here." She held up a
blanket in one hand, and a soda can and chips in the other. "The
place is littered with wrappers. The poor kid must have been
raiding the pantry for days."

"I have to call Tim," Sloane turned her gaze
on Tremayne. "Even if he doesn't have her or worse he's changed
her, I have to make the call. Besides it'll give us another chance
to nab him. Isn't that what you want?" She held the cell phone in
her hand and waited for his approval.

Derek jumped from the last step of the latter
and strode over to her.

"You do know what this will mean for Tim,
right?" Tremayne asked her. "If he's taken the child and harmed
her, not only must he be eliminated, but the child cannot be
allowed to exist."

"Kylie's only a little girl," she argued the
point.

"And she will think like a little girl,"
Tremayne continued. "She'll be rash and out of control, acting
before thinking of the consequences. It is forbidden to change
human children. They never age. They never mature to adulthood, and
they become selfish and vicious when it comes to what they
want."

She didn't bother pointing out if vampires
were forbidden to change a human child, how would Tremayne know the
outcome of such an act? Obviously, mistakes had been made in the
past. She shuddered to think of what became of those mistakes. "I
understand, but I have to know for sure. If Kylie is still human, I
have to try and save her." She put the call through.

Tim must have been waiting for her call. He
picked up on the first ring.

"Ah…so you finally deciphered my message,"
Tim said. "I knew you would."

"Kylie… Is she all right?"

"Of course. She's my sister. I'll take care
of her. Don't you worry."

"Let me speak to her." She wanted proof that
the little girl was alive.

"You don't trust me," Tim said and he sounded
hurt at the prospect.

Tim had bitten her, and he had killed others
to survive. No, she didn't trust him. "If I meet with you, I must
know Kylie is…" She swallowed back her fear. "That she remains
human."

There was a long pause, but finally Tim
chuckled. "Sure, why not. It'll be my gift to you. Kylie's life for
yours." There was another pause then hushed tones before she heard
Kylie's voice ring through.

"Sloane?"

She gripped the phone tighter. "Kylie. Are
you okay?"

"I'm scared." Her voice wavered and she knew
the child was on the verge of tears.

"I know, honey. It will be all right."

Kylie didn't have a chance to say more. Tim
took over. "It will be all right only if you come alone. No
hunters," he warned.

"I'll come alone. Just tell me where?"

"I'll text you the information soon."

"No, wait." But he ended the call without
even a goodbye. She closed her eyes, willing back the tears. "He'll
text me soon," she whispered, knowing what could happen to Kylie
the longer she was with Tim.

"This is crazy." Derek paced in frustration.
"The girl is as good as dead." He leveled his gaze on Sloane. "You
aren't meeting him. He's only buying some time so he can set his
trap."

"I have to go. Tim will kill Kylie if I
don't."

"He's going to kill her anyway," Derek
insisted. "And if he manages to hold back until you meet with him,
he'll make you watch. This is some kind of sick game he's playing
and nothing more."