Vengeance of the Demons (6 page)

Slowing her heartbeat was first priority. Her blood pumping so hard would only make her bleed out faster. She studied her map. She was still a good ten hours from her destination. She hoped she could make it that far.

William drove all night, his eyes trained on the blinking red dot that hadn’t moved since he’d awoken. It was close to four in the morning, and he was less than twenty minutes from where the GPS told him Evan’s car sat. The restlessness that had plagued him over the past eight hours was now full-blown panic.

He needed to check in with Danika, but he couldn’t until he knew what was going on. To lose Evan now after getting almost completely across the US wasn’t an option. He cursed himself for not putting a GPS tracker in the clothes he’d given her as well as the car.

Fifteen minutes later, he slowed his vehicle and rolled to where the beeping red dot sat. He crested a small hill and caught sight of it a mile off, upside down in a ditch. His gut churned and he scanned the area. There were no other cars around and nowhere to obscure his vehicle. He’d have to go in with no cover. If it was a trap, he’d be a sitting duck. But if it wasn’t and she was stuck inside…

He lost all sense of reason and hit the gas. He reached the car in less than a minute and slammed on the brakes. Jumping from his SUV, he didn’t even bother to turn off the engine. He ran down the small embankment to the driver’s side. Evan hung upside down.

William grabbed the door, wrenched the bashed in piece of metal off its hinges, and tossed it away.

“Evan!” He felt her throat for a pulse. It was faint. The scent of blood slapped him and made his fangs ache.

He turned her head to face him. Her nose was bloodied, and she had a gash above her eye.

“Evan! Evan?” He shook her but she was limp as a rag doll. He grabbed the seatbelt and yanked it free. She slid forward and he caught her, dragging her onto the grass.

In the glow of his headlights, she was unusually pale. He spotted her left leg wrapped in the now-red dress shirt he’d given her. He unwrapped it. Blood poured from a large gash in her leg.

“Shit.” He wrapped it back up, but the damage was done. He hopped to his feet and raced to his SUV, grabbed the medic kit from the back, and then headed to her side.

He pulled it open, and then scanned for something to use. His mind raced, recognizing everything in turn, but suddenly unable to remember what any of it was for.

“Think, William.” He took a cleansing breath. She needed a sterile bandage, but to take off the shirt again could be catastrophic. Her pulse was already thready and she’d lost too much blood. What the hell had happened to her?

He closed his eyes and swore. There was only one thing to do. The one thing he didn’t want to do and the one thing she wouldn’t want him to do. His gaze traveled back to her pallid face and he cupped her cheek with his palm. She was going to kill him for this.

His limbs shook as he pulled her half-naked body onto his lap and rolled up his sleeve. He’d never fed someone before. He tried to remember what Danika had done when she’d fed him.

He bit into his wrist and placed it over Evan’s mouth. Blood dripped from the shallow wound onto her face. He pried her mouth open and the blood dribbled in. He pumped his fist several times in an effort to get the blood to flow better. It continued to trickle.

“Dammit.” He bit into his wrist again, this time hitting his mark. Blood flowed freely into her mouth. She coughed and gagged. “Swallow, PITA.”

Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. She swallowed once and then twice. He pulled his wrist away and licked it shut, unsure of how much would be too much. She sucked in a deep breath and moaned.

“William,” she whispered.

He stared at her, unable to move. Had she really said his name? He brushed it off. She was only saying it because he was there with her. There was no time to think on it though. He had to move her somewhere safe and cleaner.

He picked up the medic kit, threw it in the car, and tossed all his supplies into the trunk. Then came back and scooped Evan into his arms. Her warm arms pebbled at the contact with his cool skin. Her breasts heaved up and down, barely covered by the light pink, lacy bra. He laid her on the backseat and covered her with his UV blanket and his overcoat.

Jumping into the front seat, he closed the door. He glanced in the backseat where she lay motionless, pulled up the GPS, and located the nearest town. There wasn’t much, but hopefully he could at least find a clean motel to dress her wounds.

He pulled away from the crash, praying she’d be okay.

* * * *

A motel flashing a large arrow with a vacancy sign appeared at his right. Probably one of the last small businesses left in an outskirt town.

He stopped the SUV outside the lobby and hopped out. An old vamp greeted him and took the cash without so much as a question to William’s name. He simply nodded and handed William a key.

William didn’t want to get noticed, but there was no way he was going to chance it at another deserted motel again. Even though this motel had only one vamp cashier and two other cars in the parking lot, he was pretty sure anyone looking for an easy mark would go elsewhere.

Hefting his bag over his shoulder, he then reached in and grabbed Evan, still wrapped in a blanket. He cradled her against his chest, her temperature now cool on his skin. Her head lolled to the side, revealing the fact that her skin color was no closer to normal than it had been on the ground. Dammit.

He unlocked the room and pulled the key from the door. Stepping inside, he then kicked it closed behind him. He lay Evan on the first of the two beds and set his bag on the second bed. Then he rushed into the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and wet it. The second one he ripped into strips. He located the lamp and flipped it before opening the medic kit and locating the small bottle of peroxide and a tube of antibiotic. It still amazed him how easy those simple things were to procure in vampire society. A brown bottle and a yellow tube. The two things that could have saved his mother’s life.

He set them on Evan’s bed and stared at her for a minute. He was going to have to strip her down to get the bloody pants off. He stared at the beautiful slender waist and her belly button that peeked out from over her waistband. The tips of several tiny silvery scars snaked down below the belt line.

Gently he unwrapped the two pieces of dress shirt from her leg. The gash was worse than he’d originally thought. Though the bleeding had slowed, it hadn’t stopped and the wound wasn’t healing. It should at least be closed from how much blood he’d given her. At least… he was pretty sure it should. Something wasn’t right.

He ripped the leg of her pants apart so he could get a better look at the wound. The edges of the fabric clung to the gash. He blew out a breath and grabbed the wet towel. Dabbing at the wound, he tried to wiggle the pieces of fabric loose.

Evan moaned and stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, and he continued to wipe at her leg.

“Where am I?” she croaked. She scanned the room and then locked glassy eyes on him. “Who the hell—” She sucked in a breath. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Nice to see you as well.”

Panic traced her features. “Have you been following me this whole time?”

“You crashed the car.”

She looked down at her leg and threw her hands into her hair. “Crap! I passed out.” She probed her face with her fingers. “Great. I messed up my face. I liked my face.”

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t be so concerned with that right now as with this leg. What happened?”

She stared at him for a moment and bit her lip as if trying to decide something. “I got stabbed,” she finally said.

“By who?” He tried to keep his temper in check.

“Some stupid vampyr dick. I shot him.”

William stopped and looked up at her. “Well I hope you got him good.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have stopped there for gas.”

William blew out a breath. “Okay, look. You need help with this wound. It isn’t healing like it should.”

“Well it just happened a few hours ago. I don’t heal that fast.”

His gut clenched. “You should though.”

“Why?”

Telling her not to freak out wouldn’t get him far, so like a bandage, it was best to rip it off and deal with the consequences. “I gave you some of my blood?”

She opened and closed her mouth several times. He waited for her fury to rain down on him like venom.

“Well that won’t work on me,” she said simply.

Not what he’d expected at all. “Okay, and why is that?”

She licked her lips. “Because I was inoculated against it ten years ago.”

He stared at her, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry?”

“It was a test to see if we could become immune to the bite.”

His brain worked in overdrive. “And it worked?”

She shrugged. “For the most part. We can’t be bonded as slaves or turned, but the healing bit doesn’t work on us very well either. And we age slower and move faster and stronger but we have no bloodlust.”

“How?”

“Like all the immunizations. We were injected with dead Vampire cells. They bonded with ours and made us something else.”

“Daywalkers. Humans made you what Vampires failed to do with the V2000 virus.” So it was possible. Someone had done it.

“Yeah, well, whatever it did, it makes it impossible for your blood to help me.”

“Then we need to get you to a doctor.”

“No way. If we do that, they’ll figure out what was done to me for sure, and I’m not becoming some Vampire doctor’s guinea pig.”

“But your leg—”

“Do what you have to. I’m not going to a doctor.”

He blew out a heavy breath. “What about your people? The enclave you were going to. I can take you to them.”

She searched his face. “You think I’m gonna take you there? Wait a minute. How did you know where I was going?”

“We knew you’d try to escape.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You set me up.”

He nodded.

“Man, you’re a dick.”

“And you’re a pain in the ass that doesn’t listen. Are we even now? Unless you want this thing to get infected, we need to scrub it out.”

“Fine.”

“Take your pants off,” he ordered.

“Excuse me?”

“Your pants. They need to come off so I can get to the wound more easily.”

“Do you have a knife?”

He searched his pack and handed her a knife. She slit the pant leg in the back and ripped it off, revealing her entire silky leg.

“You already get to see my boobs. I’m not letting you catch a peek at the rest of me as well.” She flicked the knife closed and shoved it in her waistband.

“Really? After all this you still don’t trust me?”

She gave him a winning smile. “Nope.”

He shook his head. “You have issues.”

“You have no idea.”

For the next thirty minutes, he picked the pieces of fabric from the wound, making the bleeding begin afresh. She held back cries of pain, but the way her fingers dug into the bedspread, he knew she was in agony.

“It’s down to the bone,” he said. “You really need some stitches. I don’t know how to do that, so please let me take you somewhere.”

“Just tape me up and I’ll heal fine.”

“Evan—”

Her gaze iced over. “Tape. Me. Up,” she said through gritted teeth.

William sighed and shook his head. He poured the peroxide on her leg, though the warning label cautioned against it, and waited for the bubbles to settle before dabbing the wound with the wet towel once more. Then he put the antibiotic gel on a sterile pad and taped it to her leg, before covering it with the dry towel strips.

Anxiety shook his body. He didn’t know what else to do for her. If he took her to a hospital, they’d possibly find out about her blood anomaly, and she’d definitely be tested on. If that happened, they’d never find the enclave.

When he finished taping her up, he rinsed out the towel and came back. Her head still needed to be checked out.

He sat next to her and she scooted away.

“Let me clean your face,” he offered.

“No thanks.”

He glared at her. “Stop being such a PITA and just let me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. But this doesn’t mean I forgive you.”

“I didn’t expect you would.”

She scowled. “Really? JA?”

“JA?”

“Figure it out.”

He leaned in, his arm brushing her breasts as he dabbed her bloodied nose. Her eyes stayed fixed on his face, and he tried to concentrate on the task at hand instead of her perfect, half-naked body and the peachy swells of her breasts begging to be kissed.

* * * *

Confusion clashed inside Evan like a tidal wave. Her anger at being set up jabbed her pride. But she had to admit that if William hadn’t come along, she’d probably be dead.

He pressed the cloth lightly onto her forehead, sending a pain coursing through her temple. His gaze flicked to hers, but for the most part, he concentrated on what he was doing.

His handsome face and bright blue eyes made her stomach quiver. If he’d been a human, she probably would have kissed him as a thank you. She wrapped her arms around herself tight, trying to keep her stomach in check. There was no way she was falling for a vampyr. No matter how sexy his smile or how gentle his manners.

Dirt and blood smeared his blue dress shirt. She wondered what it would feel like to slide the rumpled cotton off his hard body and run her fingers over his chest. She closed her eyes and sucked in a sharp breath. She had to pull it together.

“Did I hurt you?”

She opened her eyes and he dropped his hand. She swallowed hard. It had been almost two years since she’d been with anyone. Why was it now suddenly becoming an issue?

“I think I’m done for tonight,” she said.

He nodded and pulled open the first aid kit. He grabbed a small bottle and opened it, pouring two pills into his palm. He handed her the pills and then a bottle of water.

“Take those. They’ll help with the pain.”

“I’m fine without them.”

His eyes grew serious and she reluctantly put the pills in her mouth and chugged them down with the entire bottle.