Omega (13 page)

Shit.

Randa’s eyes were so bright they practically glowed in the semidarkness. “You should be able to communicate mentally with Aidan—you’re blood-bonded to him already. Try it. Try talking to him.”

Will frowned and tried to send out a mental
yoo-hoo
to Aidan, but he couldn’t concentrate with Randa lying on top of
him, staring at him all disheveled and sexy and, well, excited. Her lips were parted, and in the gloom, he could imagine that tousled brown hair was a deep, sexy red. Plus, she was waiting for him to perform like some kind of trained seal with fangs, and he didn’t have a clue how to do it.

“Stop looking at me. I can’t do this if you’re watching me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Meet Will, the self-conscious master vampire.” But she tucked her head under his chin and closed her eyes, smiling.

He took a deep breath and still couldn’t concentrate. “Turn the phone off for a minute to help me focus.”

Randa slid the Off arrow, and in a few seconds, they were plunged back into darkness. Will cleared his mind and visualized Aidan.
Can you hear me? Aidan? It’s Will.

He waited a few seconds, tried it again, and was so startled to hear an answering voice he moved enough to send a new flurry of dirt down on them.

Will? Where are you? Are you both OK?

“Man, this is some weird shit.”

Randa shifted on top of him. “You hear him?”

“Yeah.” Will closed his eyes and focused again.
We’re pinned under a support beam. It’s holding on by a thread, so you’ll have to be careful coming in. We’re to the left of the tunnel from the steel doors, just inside the exit room.

Aidan’s voice came in and out like a bad radio signal—probably because Will wasn’t very good at this yet. Or hell, who knew? Maybe this was normal. Will’s knowledge of master vampires was rudimentary, at best; he’d never expected to be one. He wasn’t even sure how one became a master vampire—only that Matthias bragged about being one.

We’re already digging from this end but have been going slow so we don’t dislodge too much. Hang in there. Any sign of Matthias?

Sharp pains shot through Will’s skull, but he focused.
No, it’s caved in at the top. We can’t see the hatch.

I’ll warn you when we’re close. We might have to collapse it on you and dig you out. Randa OK? You hurt?

Shrapnel for two, plus something was wrong with his lower leg—as in, he wasn’t sure it was still there since he couldn’t feel it. No point in sharing that. They’d deal with it when they dealt with it.
Minor injuries, both of us. We’ll need Krys.

OK, you’re going to have a headache from this—too much talk, too soon. But good job, Will.

Aidan’s presence disappeared, like a soft whisper that left a vacant spot in his skull—a vacant spot quickly filled with pain.

“OK, you can turn the phone back on.” Aidan had been right. A jackhammer was beating into his skull, shooting shards of pain into the back of his eye sockets.

“What did he say?” Randa’s eager face shone in the cell phone light. “What did it feel like?”

“Like Michelangelo’s sculpting a new masterpiece on the inside of my eyeballs.” Will closed his eyes and tried to convince the pain to recede. “They’re already digging. I was able to tell him where we are. Now, we wait.”

He pondered whether or not to tell her they might have to be buried for a while since the darkness freaked her out a little, but she needed to know. “When they break through, they might have to let everything come down on us. Be prepared.”

Her heart sped up, vibrating against his chest. “I can’t do that. I can’t be buried under—” She tried to move, and a rain of dirt came down on them.

Will shook his head to dislodge the latest rain of debris and locked both arms around her waist. He had to calm her down, or she really would bury them. “It will be OK. Can you imagine how much dirt Mirren can move and how fast? Maybe he’ll get Glory to lift the whole mess off us in a second or two.”

“But we”—her breath came in sharp gasps—“we won’t be able to breathe. Oh God, I can’t do this.” She tried to move again, but Will tightened his grip.

“Shh…” He held her in place with one hand and stroked her back with the other, avoiding the sore spots. “Randa, we don’t have to breathe.”

She raised her head, a look of confusion on her face. “What?”

Good, he’d gotten her attention. “Vampires have to breathe to stay up and moving, but it won’t kill us if we get buried. We’ll just go unconscious until they dig us out, kind of like daysleep, and then we’ll wake up.” Or at least that’s what Mirren had told him in the two years it had taken the scathe to excavate this nest of tunnels and safe spaces in the red clay–laden soil beneath Penton. And Mirren wasn’t prone to making jokes, so it had to be true.

“Are you sure?” Randa’s eyes were wide, on the verge of panic again.

“I wouldn’t lie about impending death.” On impulse, Will cupped her jaw in his palm and lifted his head to brush her lips with his, just a feather of touch. Their gazes met, and Will knew they’d turned another corner tonight. She knew the worst about him and hadn’t judged him harshly.

Well, not the worst. She’d never know he’d been sodomized by force with what amounted to his father’s approval, had been forced to beg for it. Although, he’d as much as admitted it to
Cage. Surely there was some sort of implied rule about shrink confidentiality.

“Kiss me again. Take my mind off being buried.” Randa shifted a little higher on his chest and twined the fingers of her free hand into his hair.

“You sure are a bossy woman.” He slanted his mouth on hers, and the force of her response rocked his head back against the ground. Her lips were hot and wet, her mouth open to his. Their warm tangle of tongues slowed and deepened. His fang nicked her lip, and she pulled away, her pink tongue slipping out to touch the blood.

Will turned his head to the side, exposing his neck. “Feed from me, Ran. Try it this way.”

“I don’t…I can’t…”

“Try it. Do it now.”

Her lips hovered over his throat, her heart pounded against his chest, and she’d have to be totally clueless if she didn’t feel his cock pressing hot and hard against her thigh.

“Are you sure?” Her breath sent hot puffs over his neck. The woman was going to drive him crazy.

“Stop stalling, Randa. Do it.”

Her tongue swept a small path across the side of his neck, and he sighed as she finally bit. Damn, but it felt good to be a feeder. He’d never fed anyone before and had only heard how it was the next best thing to an orgasm. As she pulled at his throat, a fiery tingle shot through his veins, heating him from the inside out and settling in his groin.

When Randa groaned against his throat, he had to visualize computer diagrams to keep from coming. If Mirren Kincaid dug him out with a wet spot on the front of his pants, he’d never hear the end of it.

She pulled away, licking the punctures to heal them. When she looked back at him, her eyes were slightly unfocused. “Damn.”

He grinned. “Ditto that. We’ll have to—”

A crash to Will’s right, the caved-in spot nearest Omega, killed any thoughts of sex, although it was a subject he planned to revisit. Another crash sent a rain of debris on them.

“Will, I can’t do this.”

Yeah, well, he wasn’t wild about the idea, either, but it was going to happen regardless.

Another crash and the support beam on their legs nudged to the right.

He grasped her tightly as the beam across their legs fell with crushing pain. “Tuck your head and hold on. This baby’s coming down.”

A
idan lifted a chunk of rebar and threw it aside. The hallway of Omega was lined with piles of dirt, broken concrete, steel cable, and more dirt. They’d been digging for two hours since the beam over Will and Randa had given way, with no sign of them so far.

“Shift excavations to the left,” he told the team of scathe members and humans, who were taking turns digging and resting. Well, except Mirren. The guy was a machine, taking the heaviest debris and hauling it out of the way. He hadn’t stopped. Aidan remembered a time not so long ago when Mirren had questioned his choice in putting so much faith in Will. Since Will had rescued Mirren and Glory, first from Matthias’s silver-barred jail cell and then again in New Orleans, the big guy had changed his opinion. Will drove Mirren nuts, but he liked him anyway.

“You sure they’re going to be alive after being buried this long?” Aidan had no experience with buried vampires, but Mirren insisted they’d live.

“Positive.” Mirren hauled out another piece of a splintered support beam. “This was a favorite Tribunal torture technique back in the good old days. Didn’t kill the prisoners; just freaked the shit out of them.”

Aidan shook his head. He loved Mirren like a brother—hell, he loved Mirren better than the sad excuse for a man his brother had been. But he didn’t want to know half of what that vampire had done in his life, first as a Scottish gallowglass warrior and later the Tribunal’s best executioner—or worst, depending on which side of the torture one sat on.

“We found ’em!” One of the scathe members stuck his head out of the opening to the steel door. “We’ve got feet—looks like she’s on top of him.”

“Bloody miracle they didn’t kill each other.” Aidan led the way into the opening and watched while three scathe members dug furiously, gradually unearthing Will and Randa.

“Doesn’t look like they were fighting.” Mirren arched an eyebrow, and Aidan chuckled before moving alongside them. Will’s arms were wrapped tightly around Randa’s waist, but he could see angry red welts in four or five spots across her back through her shredded shirt. Will had a similar mark on his cheek, and his left leg was…Holy hell, it was bent about six inches above the ankle, in a place legs weren’t supposed to bend, in a direction they weren’t supposed to bend. This was no minor injury.

He sent a mental message to Krys to meet them in the makeshift medical room they’d set up and gently pulled Will’s hands away from Randa’s waist. He shifted her enough to get his arms underneath her knees and shoulders and roll her into his arms, avoiding her injured back.

“Mirren, get Will. Watch out for that left leg. Krys is meeting us at the med room.” He pushed through the piles of debris
and waiting people. Liv, Will’s feeder, was standing at the edge of the group, eyes red and puffy.

“They’ll be OK.” He passed her, then paused, turning back. “Hang around, Liv. They’ll need to feed—see if you can find another feeder too.” Healing sapped a vampire’s strength, even a brand-new master vampire’s.

Mirren wasn’t far behind him, carrying Will and barking orders. The man’s idea of multitasking. “Don’t leave a fucking millimeter of open air in that hole,” he barked at the scathe members lined up to work. “Fill it in, and then solder the steel door closed. And do it fast.”

Aidan turned the corner and saw Krys waiting in the open doorway to the med room. Her dark-auburn hair was pulled back, and she had her doctor face on, dark-brown eyes serious as her glance flicked across Randa. She stopped Aidan just inside the door and leaned over to look at Randa’s back. “Put her on her stomach.”

Mirren had arrived with Will. “Where you want him?”

Krys stopped in the middle of pulling on exam gloves to look at Will’s leg. “That’s a bad one. Put him in the bed across from Randa. I’m going to need your help setting that leg, both of you. See if Glory can do nurse duty and get them cleaned up.”

Mirren stood with his hands planted on his hips. “Why can’t Liv do it? She’s their feeder.”

Aidan had been leaning against the wall beside the door, watching the exchange with bemusement. He knew exactly what Mirren was balking at.

Krys had been gently trying to get Will’s left shoe off but straightened up and narrowed her eyes at Mirren. “Liv’s too emotional. Glory won’t mind. What’s your problem?”

“He doesn’t want Glory giving Will a sponge bath, or something like that.” Aidan grinned, and Krys deepened her doctor glare at Mirren.

“Aw, fuck me. I’ll go and find her.” Mirren strode out of the room, scowling.

“He’ll probably get less possessive after they’ve been mated a little longer. It’s all new to him.” Then again, maybe not. Aidan watched Krys cut off Will’s sweater and run her hands over his abdomen, feeling for internal injuries. He wanted to growl at her, but refused to act like a Neanderthal. “What do you think?”

“Will’s leg was broken, obviously. Badly broken. The explosion happened right before daysleep, so I’m guessing it healed in the only way it could, given the way he was pinned down.”

Holy hell. The scenario gave him the shudders. “Can you fix it?”

“He needs an orthopedic surgeon who’s also savvy about the vampire world—in other words, something that probably doesn’t exist.” Krys took her scissors to Will’s pants leg, cutting up to midthigh and pulling the fabric away from his skin. “We don’t even have access to an X-ray machine down here. The only thing I know to do is to have one of you hold him down or tie him with silver while the other breaks his leg again. We’ll secure it as straight as we can and pray it re-heals in some way that at least lets him walk again. Once we get out of this mess, we can break it again and set it properly.”