Jules (Golden Streak Series Book 5) (2 page)

“You’ll never make it
, my dear.” As she touched the door she felt him cut her. He laughed and hit her again. This time instead of her arm, he hit her leg. He kept slicing at her over and over until she fell. She had no idea why she thought so, but he seemed to be toying with her. Firing at him again, she hit him in the head this time as well as the gut, and anywhere else she could until the slide snapped back that it was empty.

She
looked down at her body and saw that she was losing blood fast. He’d cut her over a dozen times, and she knew that his next cut was going to end her. When she looked up the stairs, she saw the second creature, and he was…he had his mouth over Mason’s throat, and when he lifted his head, blood dripped off his chin onto his snowy white shirt. Mason was dead; even from where she lay she could see that. The one nearest her moved close enough that she could feel his hot, rancid breath on her face.

“Do you like what you see there? Would you like to join your
fat friend in the afterlife? I’ll be more than glad to take you. I know that we’re only to kill you, but to have you with me for all time would be more than the payment we’re supposed to receive to do this for her. It would be so cool to have her pissed off for a while just to fuck you even for one night.” She shook her head, dizzy now and fading quicker. He lifted his hand up so she could see it and she watched in horror as it morphed into a claw with sharp talons. He pressed it into her vest and through it. As it pierced her chest, she felt something under her hand. Lifting it up, she nearly dropped it twice before she could see what it was…a sliver of wood.

He growled low
, and she felt from his closeness that he was upset, angry with her. She figured he was pissed because she was more willing to die than spend time with him. “Then I suppose you shall have to die.” She was doing that already, but she took the wood shard and, using the last of her strength, rammed it into his face. As she was dying, she heard his screams and smiled.

“Shouldn’t talk when you’re killing someone.
Bad plot line.” Laughing at her own stupid joke, she felt blood spill from her mouth. “Christ, Mason, we should have waited for backup.”

She
must have blurred out for several seconds, she figured. Hell, it could have been an hour, but she didn’t think so. She was bleeding to death, and it wouldn’t take an hour, not with all the blood she’d already lost. A man suddenly appeared in front of her, and she tried to back away.

“I’ll not hurt you.”
She felt his touch and wondered why it felt so warm. “You are going to die, my child.”

“No fucking shit
, moron.” She coughed again and more blood splattered over her shirt. “Can you help Mason?”

“
I am afraid I cannot. He was gone before I arrived.” He pressed something to her mouth, and she tried to pull away. “Just a sip to get you to the hospital. Then you will be in their hands.”

“Not going to make it
to hospital.” She wasn’t stupid. “Dead. Tell Grandma that I’m sorry for all…every….”

Her body was so cold
, and she closed her eyes. A coppery taste seemed to spread over her tongue, but she didn’t care. Her own blood was dripping off her in buckets; some of it was bound to get into her mouth. She looked up again when someone said her name, and she tried to focus.

“Are you listening, my child?”
She tried to speak but nothing was working. “You must hang on for a few moments more. He will need you to save him and the others.”

She was dreaming.
She’d read about it, people having these sorts of dreams as they died. She had no doubt that she was dying either; she’d been cut to hell and nothing was going to save her. She closed her eyes again and felt her breath leave her body. “I’m sorry.”

~~~

Peter held her hand and willed her to live. He’d been too late to keep her from going into this house, but he had to save her now. Her partner was gone, as he’d told her, but he’d been changed as well. Peter had taken care that he would not rise, but the man was still dead.

Peter looked at the ash around her. She’d killed one of them while she lay
there bleeding. He had to smile at that. She was going to make a good warrior for the Golden family…if she lived. She had refused his blood and he’d had to use other means to give her a fighting chance.

“She will not die.”
He looked up at the man who was his master. “She is stronger than you think. Much stronger than any of us think. She will need to be.”

“If she
dies today, it is because of me.” Viktor shook his head. “I should have known that they would come for her. I should have been watching her closer when I woke them. It was my plan to have them weak with need when they all arrived, but feeding on the partner helped them harm her. And I should have also known that she would go into this house before backup arrived. She is most stubborn.”

“
That she is. But you did what you could. And she would have come no matter how hard you would have tried to stop her. She is very…strong. She will be of a great help to the others.” Peter nodded and thought,
Only if she lives
. “I can give her more of my blood if it will make you believe me.”

She’d refused
Peter’s so he couldn’t give it to her even if she was unconscious. But she hadn’t been able to refuse his master, and he’d fed her only a few drops of his own blood. It was stronger than Peter’s, but they could not give her too much, for if she was healed completely, it would cause her more problems.

When he heard the
sirens, he faded out but didn’t leave her. She was breathing now, but it was shallow and her heart was beating entirely too slowly for his peace of mind. When the first officer entered the house, he nearly tripped over her, and would have had Peter not kept him from falling. He would have killed her if he had. He called in “officer down” immediately and help was on the way.

“She will make it now.”
Peter nodded at Viktor as they both hovered above the scene. “She has killed one. That will leave only five to go. The one that escaped here and the other group that still lays in waiting.”

“I have tried to find them
, but they are hidden well. But they have formed a nest. They reside somewhere in New York. But I fear after this they will move to where she is going. Things are not going to be easy for her and her mate.” He looked at Viktor. “How did they know about her so quickly? Is it her sire?”

Viktor
told him he didn’t know. They both moved closer as the medics arrived. They were working very hard to save her, but she lost the battle. Peter touched her head with his magic and she took another breath. The team doubled their efforts, and with the help of Viktor, she was loaded into the waiting ambulance.

“Her death
would change things.” Peter nodded, not knowing what it would change but knowing that her survival was going to be important to a great many people, them included. “She will be different, stronger than before.”

“She will need it
, I think. Should we take her memories from her of us?” Viktor said he thought she should have them but to fade them for a time. Peter agreed and put the encounter with them in the back of her mind to pull up later.

“We will need to prepare things
with the Golden artist. He will need to know that she comes.” Peter shook his head. “You think to surprise him with her? He will not like that, I think.”

“He’ll
love her and that’s all that matters. If we need to tell him, I will, but I have found that humans and shifters alike enjoy the chase of their mates. Jules will not want a mate like her, and it would go better for them both if they find each other without our help. For a time anyway.”

They stayed with Lenny until she was stable.
She could still die, they knew, but at this point couldn’t interfere again without repercussions that would harm the girl. Peter went to the hospital to keep her safe, he told himself, but he knew it was only to make sure. She would live, she was needed, but her death needed to be monitored to see what effects it might have had when Viktor brought her back. He could only hope that she didn’t have anything that would terrify her. Although he’d seen her drive and doubted much terrified the young human, he knew that there were some things that could even frighten him, and he’d seen a great deal in his lifetime.

Chapter 2

(Eight weeks later)

“I’m just going to stay until I can make it on my own.”
Lenny’s grandma nodded. “The doctors don’t want me staying by myself until I get stronger. I won’t be a bother.”

Lenny looked away when she saw the tears on her
grandma’s face. She’d been doing that since she’d picked her up last night and all the way on the plane to Ohio. It hurt her to see such a strong woman cry, and she didn’t know what to do.

“You say you’re a bother to me once more and I’ll make you walk the rest of the way home.”
Lenny smiled. It was the same threat she’d used on her when she’d been a child. “You’re staying with me until you’re perfectly healed. Then I’m kicking you to the curb. Understand me?”

“Yes
, ma’am.” Lenny shifted on the seat and tried not to moan. The ride to the airport hadn’t been too bad, but the car was too small for her to stretch out in and her leg was throbbing again. But she was out of the hospital and away from all the newspaper people and the cops…the cops especially.

She’d not told anyone what had
happened. None of it. She knew that something more than just humans had been in that house, and that they’d killed her and her boss. Lenny had been told several times that she’d been resuscitated three times before she was brought in. She also knew that a man had been there after she’d stabbed the killer, but she hadn’t told anyone that either. Actually, she wasn’t sure what to tell them, especially about the man she’d killed.

A thing
had grabbed Mason so fast his shoe had come off and he’d dropped his gun. Whatever it was had tried to take off her head and had sliced her up with nothing more than his hands. And at one point another one like him had bitten into Mason and drank his blood. Yeah, that would go over really well around the big house. She looked out the window and tried to think of anything else but the pain.

“I have your
prescription if you need something.” Lenny shook her head. “I can stop and get you something to eat if you need to take it with food.”

“I do
, but I’m hurting too bad to eat right now, and if I take the meds this close to home, you’ll have to leave me in the car because you won’t be able to carry me inside. I’ll be fine until we get there.” She tried to smile at her but it hurt too much. “Thank you for letting me stay with you. I know that we didn’t part on very good—”

“We’re both too stubborn to not fight. You’re too much like me.
I thought that was a good thing and now…they said you should have been…they didn’t know how you lived as long as you did. I told them you were a MacFinley and you didn’t know the word quit.”

Grandma
was right on that. Lenny should have died and stayed dead. She glanced at the woman she’d once thought of as her grandma and thought about the day she’d left, swearing to never return. Had it only been eight years ago? Lenny had been seventeen and her head full of shit.

The woman who’d been her
grandma, Nicee MacFinley, had been caring for her since she’d been born. Lenny’s mother had dropped her off with her one day, she’d been told, and simply never returned. Lenny had always thought that her parents had found another daughter who didn’t embarrass them as much as Lenny had, but on the day she left, her grandmother had told her the truth.

~~~

“They’re in prison, both of them. And have been since the day you moved in here.”

Lenny had stared at her grandma for several seconds
, not understanding or maybe not wanting to. “Why?” Grandma started to tell her what they had done, but Lenny shook her head. “Why did you lie to me? I don’t care what they did, but you lied to me.”

“It was for the best. I didn’t think you knowing would
help you in life, so I told you that so you’d think they might come back for you. I didn’t want you to know what horrible people they were.” At that time she had no idea how right her grandma was in calling them horrible. All she could think about was that she’d been lied to. “If you had known, you would have told someone and others would have found out. I did it to protect you.”

“You
can’t protect someone from the truth. You can’t stand there and tell me you did this all for me. You just didn’t want your garden club to find out. You didn’t want to lose face.” Her grandma hadn’t denied it, and Lenny took that to mean it was the truth and had left without a backward glance.

~~~

“They’re…my father is dead. I did some investigating and found out.” She glanced at her grandma when she heard the sharp intake of breath. “And they weren’t in a regular prison, as you know, so they don’t have the sort of records that are easy to get to or hack into.”

“
So you were able to find out about them then?” Lenny knew that her grandma had never liked her parents for some reason. She didn’t know her whole story yet, but hoped with this visit she’d get some answers.
Hell of a way to find out
, she thought.

“
I know who they were and that they weren’t human. My mother was supposed to be a vampire, and my father…I don’t know what. There was some confusion as to what he was, and it’s doubtful that he told the truth concerning it either.”

Her grandmother
didn’t say anything, but Lenny could see the relief on her face. Her parents were not nice people, and their record, what she was able to find out about it, wasn’t anything that surprised her so much as it made her raise a brow. Why weren’t these people dead by the hand of the law? Even after she’d left home, Lenny had made no effort to see them, not after she’d looked them up.

The house came into view a few
minutes later. It was the same, but someone had given it a new paint job. There were bigger bushes out front and the lawn needed to be mowed, too, but it looked the same.

When
the car stopped, Lenny waited until her grandma came around to help her. Lenny had promised the doc if he let her go early, she’d be extra careful and learn to ask for help instead of thinking she was invincible. She knew she wasn’t, but the man had a point about asking for help.

She was sweating by the
time she made it to the little room that had been set up for her. The bedrooms were on the second and third floor and she would never have made it up the stairs. The insurance she had through the police had provided her with the equipment she needed to use…a bed and all the exercise equipment she would need to regain her strength. She was set for life, it seemed.

After her grandma brought her some soup and a glass of water
, Lenny took a pill and let the pain meds take her away. She was feeling the effects of them when her grandma came back in the room to take the tray.

“I have a friend coming
over to help me give you a bath.” Lenny could only nod. “She’s a real sweetheart, and you’ll probably hate her on sight.”

“Will not
. Sooner.” Her grandma laughed. Lenny smiled and closed her eyes. She hoped that whoever this person was had a strong stomach. Even she had a hard time looking at the destruction done to her body by that monster.

~~~

Bronwyn pulled into Mrs. MacFinley’s driveway at six-thirty. She’d meant to be there sooner, but Gabby had taken her first steps, and she’d been so excited that she’d called everyone and had forgotten about the time. She went to the back of her car, pulled her daughter out of the car seat, and took her up to the big house. When the door opened, she smiled at the elderly woman.

“I’m so sorry I’m late.
Gabby walked from the desk to the couch and I simply forgot the time.” Grandma shushed her and took the baby. “I think she likes you more than me sometimes.”

“It’s because I give her cookies.”
Nicee, as she had insisted she call her, snuggled Gabby to her body and kissed her. “Come in, come in. Lenny is still asleep, but she wanted me to wake her soon. She had to take a full dose of medicine and I think it put her out.”

Bronwyn had read what had happened to the young woman
from a report that Brock had had done when she’d said she was going to help out some. Bronwyn didn’t know the younger woman, of course, but she was sure that the papers she’d read were guessing on what had happened to her and didn’t know the actual truth, whatever that had been. The investigator had said that the young detective couldn’t remember much other than pulling up to the house. Bronwyn wondered if that was true. It had apparently been very horrific, so much so that Nicee could hardly talk about what had been done to her granddaughter.

“I’ll just go and check on her.”
Bronwyn stood up and said she’d go, but Nicee warned her first. “She’s a tad on the…she’s never been one to hold her tongue. You should let me go and wake her, and warn her as to what’s going on.”

“I have five brother
s-in-law, Nicee. Whatever Lenny says to me, I’m sure it won’t hurt my feelings.” She moved to what would have been the parlor when the house was built and knocked on the door. The crash on the other side made her open the door quickly.

“Get the
fuck out of here.” Bronwyn ignored her and went to the bed to help. “I’ve fucking got it. Christ. I’m sick.”

Bronwyn handed her the trash can
, which she guessed the girl had been going after. As soon as she put it up to her face, Bronwyn could hear her retching hard. Bronwyn straightened up the room while Lenny rested.

“Feel better?”
The girl glared at her. “Let me help you get those clothes off. You’ve gotten them covered.”

“Get out. I can do it myself.”
Bronwyn took the can from her, set it by the door, and came back. “Are you listening to me? I said to get out.”

“Oh
, I heard you all right, but I’m here to help give you a bath, so we do this my way or the hard way. Either way, you’re not going to lay there in your own puke.” Bronwyn reached for the buttons and Lenny grabbed her. For someone as pale as she was, she was incredibly strong.

“I…I’m a mess.”
Bronwyn nodded. “No, I mean they sort of had to slap me back together, and I’m a mess. I can do this. I can’t…the trash can is full and you might need it.”

“How bad is it?”
Lenny looked away but didn’t let go of the shirt. “Lenny, let me help you. You can’t do this on your own. Please?”

“Don’t say I
didn’t warn you.”

Bronwyn’s heart went out to the woman.
She opened all the buttons but didn’t open her shirt yet. She looked up at her. This was not the victim of a heart attack and a fall as she knew the grandmother had been told.

“Should I get your grandmother?”
Lenny shook her head. “Has she seen you yet? Seen what happened to you.”

“No.
I won’t…I won’t do that to her after what I’ve done to her before. She’s…she’s all I have left.”

Bronwyn no
dded and pulled open her shirt. Peeling back the bloodied gauze, she could see why the girl had warned her.

Claw marks.
They went from one side of her belly to the other. Long, pink, and ugly scars as wide as an inch marred her pale skin. There were dark stitches still in some areas, while staples were along the rest of them. Bronwyn wondered if Lenny should be there or at the hospital still.

“I couldn’t stay any longer.
I was…it was too hard on me there with all the press and police wanting to know what I remembered or knew. And then Mason’s daughter showed up, wanting answers. I couldn’t tell her anything and she cried, begged for me to give her a reason why someone would cut off her dad’s fucking head.” She turned to look at her, and Bronwyn was shocked at the hatred she saw there. “Could you tell a kid that the reason someone cut off his head was because a fucking vampire was drinking from him? Can you imagine how well that would have gone over with the brass? But that’s what I fucking remember…a man drinking from my friend and blood dripping from his mouth, all while another one played with me and sliced me to shit with his claws.”

“No.”
Lenny turned away from her as she continued. “No, I wouldn’t be able to either. I think you moving here with your grandmother is the best move.”

Lenny helped her as best she could
as she got out of the bed. The linens needed to be changed, and giving her a bath proved to be exhausting enough as it was without trying to do it in a hospital bed. Just as she was helping Lenny pull on another set of clothes, these made of soft terry, her grandmother came in with Gabby.

Gabby usually didn’t take well to strangers. It had taken her nearly two months
to let Nicee hold her without crying. Now she loved the woman. But she crawled right to the chair that Lenny was sitting in and pulled herself up to see her. Before Nicee could go and pull her away, Bronwyn’s daughter tried to crawl up in Lenny’s lap.

“Hey
, kid, I’m not much of a baby person.” Gabby laughed, and Lenny smiled at her. “So you’re a charmer, are you? You must get that from your dad. Your mom is a pain in the as…butt.”

“She does take after her father a great deal.”
Bronwyn tucked the sheet into the mattress and went to pick up her little girl. “I’ll hold her. She just wants to say hi to you.”