Golden's Rule (17 page)

Ahead of him, Jaxon slowed and spun.

“I thought so.” Blue eyes lit up, he scowled at the walls. “Damn, that’s an improvement.”

“Yeah, keep your shit together. Now, what do you scent?”

“Yeah.” Jaxon’s eyes widened as his chest expanded on a breath as he seemed to strive for calm. Unlike the rumours, vampires, whether born vampire or changed into a vampire, breathed. They could choose not to, same as eating food, but most kept up the normal human appearance as much as possible. Only a very few, very ancient blood suckers chose to shun all humanity by never drawing breath. Those pasty white creatures were deadly, silent, aggressive, and relied exclusively on blood, human or immortal blood, to survive. Not his idea of a good time, but hey, who was he to say? Jaxon was more his type of partner, just as deadly as the purists, without all the mumbo jumbo.

Jaxon stood silent for a full minute, likely tasting the currents of the air, before his eyes slammed down into blue slits. “Evil, pure and simple. And if she isn’t in the middle of it all.”

“Wait, wait. What are you talking about? Calm down, spill it.”

Jaxon ran two hands through his brown hair and tugged, looking like he wanted to strangle him or race off down the spelled hallway.

The guy was off his game. Completely whacked. Whoever she was, she had his buddy tied in knots. Any other time that would be funny as hell. Now? Not so much. He needed his cocky friend back. And shit, Jaxon deserved this, a female driving him nuts, but not this way. What would he do if Beauty were here? He knew. He’d just told her she couldn’t come with him.

“Get a grip. So this is now a search and rescue. Can you do this? Are you with me, or are you off?”

Agonised eyes met his before Jaxon let go of his hair and looked away. “She’s a human. I need to—I can’t let this happen. There’s a vampire close. Two. Both with the stamp of Death Stalker. If they’re draining her, I’m not allowing it, Torque. Whatever you do, do it quickly because I’m going to kill both of them, then get her the hell out of here.”

“A human? What the hell—?” He broke off. Who the hell was he to say? Rules counted for shit when a man saw what was his. Well, all but Beauty’s rules. Shit, he’d nearly missed that Beauty was his, what would he be doing if he told this male to ignore a woman, human, simply because it was forbidden? “Just keep it together. We’ll get her free, and hell, I’ll take one of the vampires alive.”

“No!” Rage shimmered in his eyes, his fangs dropped down, slurring his speech. The man was two seconds from losing it. “No. If they’ve touched her, they die.”

Suddenly he realised what Jaxon was saying. He was going to change the female. He should stop him. It was one thing to interact with a human, it was forbidden, in a sorta understood way, but hell, changing humans into immortals was outlawed. For reasons. Old, ancient reasons. But what the fuck? He’d do anything to keep Beauty with him. Anything. Jaxon would need to kill a vampire that had tasted her. If he didn’t, the vampire would be always able to find her. Always be a threat.

“I’m not allowing them to live, Torque, and if you stand in my way—”

“Fine, but this was supposed to be a hunt, not a god damn rescue mission.”

Jaxon slowly eased back, his broad shoulders sagged, and he ran his hand through his hair again. He looked completely off his game. Screwed. “Fuck you, Torque.”

“Yeah, you wish.”

A choked laugh filled the hall and that easily, the vampire brought his rage down to a manageable level. At least his fangs retracted, but the guy was still hot for a kill. He felt sorry for the female. If wolf matings were intense, he’d heard the drinking and bonding with vampires was just as crazy.

Still not on his game, Jaxon glanced around, seemed to take in the air once more before he nodded. “Come on. Enough of this shit.”

They took off again, this time halting every few steps so Jaxon could do some sniffing. Hell, the guy was a bloodhound. If things weren’t so tense, he’d have cracked a laugh. Not that Jaxon would appreciate his humour.

Unease clenched his stomach the further in they raced until his hands fisted tight on his sword hilt. When Jaxon paused longer outside the next door, his chest felt warm, the scar there burning slightly. Jaxon met his eyes and nodded sharply as he took the other side of the door. Face set in hard lines, he held up three fingers.

Torque nodded. Counting down, Jaxon released his fangs again, his eyes lighting out to a blue glow. When he reached three, he kicked in the door and sprang into the room.

Torque was only an instant behind but what he saw stopped his feet like he’d landed in glue. Two male vampires held a small, short-haired redhead between them. One drank from her inner thigh above her knee high brown boots, the other her breast where he held her on his lap. They’d ripped her brown T-Shirt off to expose a black bra, and the short jean skirt she wore was shoved up to reveal lace black panties. Her closed eyes, pale skin, and listless appearance didn’t bode well for Jaxon. Torque doubted her heart would last more than another second. She looked like a broken pixie. Hell. This was Jaxon’s human? She was tiny. Young. And nearly dead.

He needn’t have worried. Jaxon attacked like some wild cat. He ripped the first vampire from her thigh, breaking his neck with such casual strength Torque grimaced. The next vampire didn’t even have time to lift his dark head before Jaxon cut his throat clean open with his blade. The next instant, Jaxon crouched over the female, hiding her with his larger bulk. In a blink of an eye he picked up the small human and disappeared, leaving him flatfooted in a room full of blood and death.

And television monitors full of strapped-down individuals in an assortment of painful poises.

“Holy shit.” Stunned, he tried to come to grips with what he saw. Rooms. Endless rooms, or at least six, since there were six televisions going. What they revealed had his skin crawling. Six rooms, each one with a large, metal chair or a huge metal table. Each one with a different breed of immortal, possibly human strapped down. He concentrated on one, seeing the tubes and strange equipment attached to the body, something either pumping in or pumping out of a large male on the table. His dick wanted to crawl up his body when he noticed where some of those tubes were connected.

The next monitor revealed the same scene. Even the females had tubes and wires attached, but most were at least dressed. All the victims were in different degrees of pain, but all of them looked enraged. A vampire in particular was tensing so hard every muscle looked ready to burst. His blond head whipped from side to side and his fangs snapped at the air. The tubes rising off his erection jerked and Torque felt bile rise up from his stomach and lodge in his throat. The male was coming? And what the hell were they doing with the seed he spilled?

The next screen revealed a woman, whether witch or human, or something else, he couldn’t tell, but she fought against the thick leather straps holding her down and blue sparks shot out of her skin, pinging around the room before they hovered over her like she was in the centre of an electric storm. She trembled so violently the metal table shook. Arching up, she must have screamed but without any sound from the monitors, he couldn’t tell. With a suddenness that left his heart racing faster, she collapsed back down.

Dead?

He had no idea.

But he was in some serious shit. And alone.

Could the night get worse?

A soft sound behind him followed by the slim edge of a knife against his throat answered his question.

It could.

* * * *

Beauty tossed and turned but when she couldn’t fall back asleep, she got up, showered and dressed. Still Torque wasn’t back. Instead of going back to their empty bed, she turned to the library. The fireplace was cold and the room chilly. She busied herself with the kindling, and slowly got the flames high enough to add the larger pieces of wood. The room gradually grew warm enough for her to settle on one of the bigger leather couches with a book she’d been trying to finish on the customs of the Fay.

Some of the chapters almost seemed familiar.

Odd, but then what isn’t?

Her thoughts turned to Torque as soon as she opened the large tome, blurring the lines of neatly handwritten text. Was he safe? What if he wasn’t? What if he were in danger? She’d have no idea where he was, or how to reach him. He used a hub, a travel hub here in the library, but she had no idea how to use such a thing. It required a spell, she’d discovered, but she didn’t know the spell. Even if she did know the spell, she didn’t know where to go.

A picture of him filled her mind, the way he’d looked leaving, concerned and worried that he’d upset her. She filled in the details, how he’d run his hands through his black hair and made it stick up all sexy and rumpled. The rough dark edge of his jaw where he’d needed to shave, and the darker goatee he used to rub all over her when he went down on her.

Suddenly her stomach dropped and felt like it quickly bounced back up to her throat. Darkness surrounded her and the next instant she stood in a room with Torque, television monitors, and two very dead vampires.

“Holy shit!”

“Beauty, what the hell?” Torque grabbed her to him and spun to face the closed door. Then when he realised she’d not walked in, he turned to look down at her.

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

He blinked.

She’d shocked him. Hell, she’d shocked herself. “I shifted. Oh, shit, I shifted. I thought of you and then, well, here I am.”

“You shifted. To me.”

She nodded. He was shocked, she could see that. “I didn’t mean to.”

He let out a long breath and released her arms to run his hands over his head.

A sound behind him had him spinning, sword out and at the throat of a female vampire dressed like a Goth. Black hair braided in two pigtails, red colour streaking through it, she gasped and revealed fangs. He dragged her in by a braid to the monitor closest to them, sword at her throat. “What the hell is this?”

“Fuck you!”

Beauty looked at the monitors seeing what was displayed on them for the first time.

“Oh goddess,” she breathed and reached out to steady herself on the table behind her.

Torque gripped the girl tighter and cut her, deep, on the side of her neck, the slice so deep she’d bleed out in minutes. Beauty froze, and tried hard to not distract Torque. The vampire girl went still and clutched her throat.

“Tell me what is going on.”

“Tests, tests, I don’t know more. Just tests.”

“Fuck that, what the hell is going on?” He wrenched the girl’s head around to face the monitor and froze. So did Beauty.

The first monitor, where a big guy had once been strapped down, was gone. In his place was a beast, not a Lykae, no, this was something else altogether. Something evil, red-eyed, muzzle more like a cat than a wolf, eyes deranged, and body too huge for the table. It broke free and immediately began tearing up the room. As he watched, it destroyed the table with a snap of its jaws then suddenly howled. Pain-filled sounds emanated from its monitor, before the beast fell to the ground, motionless.

“What the hell was that?” Torque demanded.

“A new pet.”

The male voice had them both spinning around. Torque threw the girl at the intruder, while Beauty grabbed a sword off the fallen vampire at her feet. The mage—she could sense his power, young but still there—grappled with the girl who was losing consciousness.

“Stay there,” Torque murmured. “I need you at my back in case something else happens on those monitors.”

The dark-haired guy managed to drag the girl out of the room but stumbled back into the wall.

Torque was all over him. He threw a spell to freeze them both, tossed the girl aside, and flung the lifeless mage over his shoulder and slammed the door to the hallway. He dropped the mage and faced her looking hotter than anything she’d ever seen before and determined.

“Explain this again.”

“Look, do we have time? I mean, you saw what was going on in those monitors. Can we talk or should we act?”

“Shit, Jaxon is gone. I need to call some backup. This guy can’t be the one in charge—”

“He’s too young, not powerful enough.” She nodded.

“Right.” Torque drilled her with a firm, pissed-off look but finally pulled out his phone. “I need more weapons. If you can shift here, you can shift to the Lodge.”

She nodded.

He waited.

“I can do that.” Sure she could, right?

* * * *

Ten minutes later, they were back at the lodge. Torque had made three phone calls, hauled the mage over his shoulder and ordered her to shift them to the lodge. She’d done well, she thought. Considering that he’d not said more than those few words to her. He’d gone off with the mage, she supposed to tie him up or something and she’d paced the bedroom.

Torque stalked back in, went to the walk-in closet, and disappeared inside, but she could still hear him gather his gear.

“Get your things. I need to secure the mage there.”

She stared at the closet for a full minute before his words penetrated. Not his words, his meaning. He wanted her to go with him to the compound, while he spoke to a Death Stalker.

“Beauty?” Torque must have realised she simply stood there, flat-footed and frozen because he finally re-emerged from the walk-in closet with his weapons strapped on, leather trench coat over his arm, to give her a quizzical look. “Did you hear me?”

She nodded, swallowed past the lump in her throat, and nodded again.

His silver eyes searched her face before a quick grin split his handsome face. “Surprised you, didn’t I?”

“You could say that.”

“Get your jacket, let’s hit it.”

“Hit it?”

“I’m trying, remember? Let’s go before I change my mind.”

His disgruntled tone set her in motion more than his order to get her jacket and hit it. She fought to struggle into the dove-grey pea coat, and felt him come up behind her. He caressed her cheek gently before he helped pull her long braid out of the way to slip the coat on for her. “Don’t leave my side, unless I tell you to. And don’t be upset if I, well, hit someone.”