Out of the Night (Harlequin Nocturne) (15 page)

The first ray of sun hit her shoulder right as Campbell stumbled back inside, his body burned and smoking, unsteady on his feet.

“Oh, my God!” She grabbed his arm and shoved him away from the windows and into the large walk-in freezer and closed the door behind them. She fumbled in the dark for the light switch as he collapsed at her feet.

When she finally turned on the light, she gasped. Campbell looked as though he’d walked through a fire.

Chapter 14

C
ampbell didn’t dare think about how many layers of skin he’d lost or the pain he’d go through as it regenerated. What he had to concentrate all his strength on was not attacking Olivia, not after she’d decided to trust him. He craved fresh blood so his body would heal faster, but he couldn’t give in.

“Pull the cuffs off my belt,” he said as he met Olivia’s wide eyes. He could tell how bad he looked from the horror on her face.

“Why?”

“I need you to cuff me so my fangs won’t descend.”

“You...you need to feed?” She took a step backward, the memory of that first day they’d met plainly written on her face. He didn’t think she even realized it.

“The craving is there, to help with the healing.” He winced when he tried to sit up.

Olivia stood frozen, and he hated the idea that maybe she was doubting her decision to invite him inside.

“Please.”

She inched forward.

“The quicker, the better. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Olivia took a deep breath and met his eyes. “You won’t.”

“While your confidence in me is flattering, it’s not wise. I may be a Souled vampire, but I’m still a vampire. You know what I’m capable of.”

She knelt beside him and unhooked the handcuffs that had been dipped in holy water, her hands shaking. “I see a lot of people every day who nobody believes in, so I’ve become a good judge of character.” She snapped the handcuffs gently around his wrists in front of him then met his eyes. She lifted her hand to his burned face and gently caressed the outer edge of the damaged area. “Anyone who is willing to face a horrible death to protect someone else is the very best kind of person.”

He tried to smile but stopped when it pulled his tender skin too much. “But I’m not a person.”

She touched his shoulder, hoping it wasn’t burned beneath his shirt. “Yes, you are.”

Something moved in his chest. His heart hadn’t beat in years, but he’d swear he felt it do exactly that.

“Olivia!”

She jerked at the sound of another woman’s frantic voice. “Stay here,” she said as she jumped to her feet and headed for the freezer door.

As if he had any choice.

* * *

The moment Olivia
emerged from the freezer and quickly shut it behind her, Mindy screamed and pointed a gun at her.

Olivia threw up her hands. “It’s me!”

Mindy lowered the gun and pulled her into a one-armed embrace. “Oh, thank God you’re okay!” Mindy was shaking as she stepped back, dropped the gun into her purse and grasped Olivia’s upper arms. “There are two dead bodies outside the back door.”

Nausea and dizziness hit Olivia simultaneously, and Mindy guided her toward a chair. Once she was seated and out of danger of falling on her face, she took a long, deep breath. “They broke in this morning. They...” Her voice faltered and she had to stop to collect herself and try to bring her shaking under control. “They were trying to take me.”

“God, humans working with vampires. Just when you thought life couldn’t go down the crapper any more.”

Mindy marched to the refrigerator, pulled out a beer and downed half of it before she faced Olivia again. Olivia didn’t point out that it was a little early in the day for a beer, because, honestly, she wanted one herself. But she had to keep a clear head and figure out what she was going to do about Campbell. What would happen when night fell? Would he leave? Or was she now facing having to walk away from the diner and her home? She’d told him she believed he was a good person, but his nature might trump those good intentions if he got hungry enough.

“Olivia.”

She looked up and realized she had more immediate problems—helping Campbell and convincing Mindy to not kill him while he was vulnerable.

Mindy nodded toward the back door. “Did you kill them?”

Olivia shook her head. “No.” She hesitated. “It was Campbell.”

Mindy took another swig of her beer.

“He saved my life. Again.”

Mindy started to take yet another drink but stopped with the bottle halfway to her lips. She scanned the scattered dishes, the busted sack of flour. Olivia knew the moment she figured out what had happened.

“You invited him inside?”

Olivia swallowed. “I had to. I couldn’t break free of those guys. I couldn’t let them drag me away to... I wouldn’t survive a blood den. And Campbell was...burning.” Tears stung her eyes at the thought that she could have been forced to watch him go up in flames.

Mindy’s eyebrows shot up. “He was here after daylight?”

“He wouldn’t leave, not while those men had me.”

Mindy sank onto another chair, looking as if she’d been given a good jolt to her core belief system. “Nothing makes sense anymore. Humans working for vampires. Vampires saving humans.” She looked one surprise short of a nervous breakdown, and Olivia was afraid she was about to send her over the edge.

“Min, I need your help, and I need you to stay calm.” She paused. “He’s still here.”

Mindy’s eyes went impossibly wide. “What! Where?”

“The freezer.”

Mindy’s gaze shot to the freezer door. “Oh, my God.”

“It’s okay. He’s cuffed.”

“As if a pair of handcuffs will hold him.”

“He said they’ve been blessed with holy water. As long as he wears them, his fangs can’t descend and he can’t feed.”

“But he’s still strong. He could kill us both in the blink of an eye, break our necks.”

“He won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

Olivia let the question sit there in the air for several seconds. “Because he just risked himself to save me.” She was either crazy or naïve—or something beyond her understanding was happening here. It made no sense how her attitude toward vampires had changed so quickly, but it had. And she needed to make Mindy understand.

Mindy stood. “Let’s get out of here while we can. You can move into my place.”

“I can’t leave. This is my home, my business.”

“And he can waltz in anytime he wants now and kill you.”

“You can leave if you want to. I’ll understand. But Campbell has saved my life more than once. It’s time I return the favor. The least I can do is let him hide here while he heals and the day passes.”

She could see the argument in Mindy’s eyes, but she kept quiet. Though her entire body was so tense she might pop soon.

“I’ve got to call the police,” Olivia said. “I’m begging you not to say anything about Campbell.”

For a horrible moment, she thought Mindy wouldn’t agree. But then she gave what was obviously a reluctant nod.

After Olivia called the police about the bodies and told them a story about hearing a fight in the alley the night before, she and Mindy righted the kitchen.

As the police examined her attackers and questioned her about what she’d heard, she noticed one of the officers looking at her with an odd expression on his face. He approached her as the officer in charge of the scene finished his questioning.

“Olivia DaCosta?”

“Yes.”

“You were one of the women who helped stop that kidnapping.”

“I was.” She did her best to look confused, as if she didn’t know there might be any connection between her ticking off the Nefari and the two dead guys outside.

The officer nodded behind him. “You think the two events are connected?”

“Why would they be? To my knowledge, they didn’t even try to get in here.”
Please don’t check the front door. Please don’t notice the lock is broken.

“Someone thought you were in danger even before your moment in the spotlight. He called the police requesting a protection detail for you.”

Shock jolted her, but she couldn’t bring Campbell into this. Not when he was inside her freezer and vulnerable.

“You seem surprised.”

“I am.”

She hoped the officer chalked it up to disbelief that had nothing to do with a vampire. But Campbell had been serious enough about protecting her that he’d reached out to the human police. She fought the urge to run to the freezer and pull him into her arms.

“I can’t imagine who it was, or why,” she said.

He didn’t look as if he believed her, but he didn’t press the issue. “Well, whoever it was, looks as if he was right to be concerned. These two have a rap sheet as long as Broadway. We might need to rebuild the human population, but I can’t say I’m sorry to see these two out of the gene pool.”

The cop, an Officer Cortez, judging by his nametag, looked down at the dead kidnappers, a pinched look on his face.

“Is something wrong?” Olivia asked.

Officer Cortez sighed. “The person who called about protection claimed some humans were working with the vampires. Sounded crazy to us at the time. But recent events have proven he was right about that, too.”

Olivia did her best to play dumb. “You think these two were working for vampires?”

“The fact that they were out here at night tells me yes.”

“Were they killed by a vampire? I thought they were fighting with each other.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. There are no bite marks, but their necks were broken. Hard for them to break each other’s necks, don’t you think?”

The visible shiver that shook her wasn’t manufactured. Campbell had killed them so easily, so quickly. That he’d done it to protect her didn’t calm the nausea rising in her stomach. She didn’t dare make eye contact with Mindy.

“So whoever they were working for turned on them?” Olivia asked.

“We may never know. But I’d be very cautious if I were you.” He pointed toward the bodies now zipped up in body bags. “This is bad news, whatever really happened.” With a nod, he walked away and started talking to another of the officers drawing the attention of her neighbors. Just what she needed, curious stares turned in her direction right when she needed people to look the other way.

She did her best not to fidget, irrationally afraid she’d somehow reveal that she had a vampire hiding in her walk-in freezer next to her frozen foods. Would he freeze in there? Did cold affect vampires at all?

“He knows something,” Mindy said.

“Shh.”

When the police left and the coroner hauled away what was left of her attackers, Mindy strode to the sink and poured a large glass of water. She downed it before turning back toward Olivia. Her face was drained of color. She glanced toward the freezer. “I don’t know if I can stay here, not with him so close.”

“He can’t hurt you.”

“Like he didn’t hurt those guys?”

“He’s in bad shape, Min. Give him the time to heal today and he’ll leave.”

Mindy didn’t speak for what seemed like endless minutes. “I’ll stay, but we’re both leaving well before sunset.”

Olivia nodded, though she didn’t think she could leave unless Campbell looked well on the way to mending. She’d deal with that later. Now she had to somehow get Mindy and herself through the day wearing a facade of normalcy.

Mindy started preparing breakfast while Olivia headed to the freezer to check on Campbell.

Mindy stopped her. “Don’t.”

“It’s daylight. He can’t step foot out of there.”

After a moment, Mindy released Olivia’s arm. She even followed as Olivia approached the freezer and gripped the handle.

When Olivia opened the door, she saw that Campbell had managed to drag himself to a sitting position against some cartons of sausage. And he didn’t look as if he’d healed at all.

“Hi, Mindy,” he said, his voice weak and raspy.

Mindy gasped, though Olivia had no idea if it was because Campbell had spoken to her or because he looked as if he’d walked through hell. Without speaking, Mindy retreated. Olivia would be lucky if Mindy managed to stay in the building.

When Olivia returned her attention to Campbell, beyond the pain she saw a sense of relief in his eyes. As if he was glad not to be alone anymore.

She approached him and he tried to move away. He stilled only when she touched his hand, his badly burned hand.

“Why aren’t you healing? Do the cuffs prevent that, too?”

“No. I guess I just got smoked more than I thought.”

She met his eyes. “You need to feed to get better, don’t you?”

He hesitated before nodding.

“What happens if you don’t? It’ll just take a long time to heal, right?”

“Afraid not. I’ll stay like this. It’s too much damage.”

She bit her bottom lip. After what he’d done for her, she couldn’t let him suffer, too weak to heal or even to leave the relative safety of her freezer.

“If I take off the cuffs—”

“No!”

She flinched but didn’t move away from him.

“No,” he said more calmly. “I won’t take the risk of hurting you.”

“But I can’t let you suffer like this. I won’t.”

A look of disbelief invaded his blue eyes. Then he turned his damaged hand over and held hers. “Call St. Patrick’s. Tell Chloe what happened. She can help you get what I need.”

Olivia tamped down a twinge of jealousy that he was turning to another woman for help. It didn’t matter as long as it aided in his healing. And it was Chloe. Through their time together, she knew that Campbell and Chloe were nothing more than friends. Olivia and Chloe had bonded over the fact that they were perhaps the only two humans in Manhattan who could say they were true friends with vampires.

Campbell squeezed Olivia’s hand despite how it must make his tender skin pull. “Why are you doing this?”

She met his gaze then jumped off the proverbial cliff. “I think you know.” And before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. It was over before he had a chance to react, and the look of surprise on his face when she pulled away made her happy.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, she couldn’t help smiling as she stood. But she let the evidence of how Campbell made her feel fall away before she left the freezer and closed the door behind her. At least that kiss might give him something to think about other than his condition. Judging by the rapid beating of her heart, she certainly wasn’t going to forget it anytime soon.

Mindy looked up from where she was flipping sausage patties on the grill. “Is he dying in there?”

“No, but he’s not getting better. He needs to feed.”