Alpha Mine (The Alpha Council Chronicles) (14 page)

“She’s perfect,” said the larger man who was now wearing an evil grin. His chair creaked under his weight as he leaned back to leer at her.

Her flesh crawled. She couldn’t get away from these two fast enough. She felt the weight of their stares when she made her way to the bar. Unfortunately, it only took a few minutes for the bar tender to fill the beer steins, then she headed back to table thirteen.

One of the men looked up at Jasmine as she placed the mugs on the table. “So what time do you get off work tonight, honey?”

“That’s the oldest line in the book, buddy. Sorry I don’t go out with customers.”

“Don’t be that way. Let me make introductions. My name is Trace. And this is Alvero.”

“If you’re looking for company, try the bar down on 4
th
Street.”

“I don’t want to go to another bar,” the one who called himself Trace countered, palming his beer. “I happen to like this place just fine.”

“Suit yourself, but I’m not on the menu.” Jasmine pulled her order pad and pencil from her apron. “Do you guys know what you want to order?”

“We’ll have a pizza, extra pepperoni and mushrooms,” Alvero answered quickly.

“Got it.” Jasmine wrote down the order. “Anything else?”

“No, just the pizza,”
Alvero replied.

“And you,” Trace muttered under his breath.

Jasmine’s eyes blurred as she stared at their order on her pad. The strange tingling came back. Off at nine. The image of her car. She shook her head trying to vibrate her brain into lucidity. Everything cleared and she turned crossing the bar to place the order with the cook.

The creepy men ate slowly, killing the hours until it was almost time for Jasmine to get off work. At eight thirty they left money for their meal and a small tip on the table. Bastards. Luckily things were still hopping, so she easily put them out of her mind once they left.

Having finally made it to quitting time, Jasmine took off her apron, slipped her tips into the back pocket of her shorts, and pushed open the back door of the bar, heading toward her car. She climbed into her rusty nineteen eighty Chevy Citation and kept her fingers crossed hoping it would start as she turned the key in the ignition. After three tries, the engine finally turned over and she was off. She planned on stopping by the video store and picking up a romantic comedy to watch, hoping it would make her forget about the shift she just completed. Suddenly, an urgent need to just go home struck her, the kind of do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 type of need.

She paid no notice to the cars around her, just wove her way through the streets. Her only thought was to get to her house, though for the life of her she could not remember why she needed to get home so badly.

After turning into her drive and shutting down the engine, she sat for a moment in the quiet car. She felt hazy like she’d driven home in a fog bank, and didn’t remember the drive, only the unending need to get there quickly. She shook her head trying to clear away the fuzzies and stepped from the vehicle.

Suddenly, a set of steel bands clamed over her mouth and around her waist simultaneously. For a moment she stilled, not comprehending what happened, then she realized a hand and a very strong arm engulfed her. She kicked and flailed like a wild animal caught in a trap.

Her struggles seemed to barely register to the person holding her. As he pulled her back toward the waiting van, the man leaned down and bit out beside her ear, “Stop fighting. It’s useless.”

She recognized that voice. This was one of the men from the restaurant. Trace? Was that his name?

The back doors to a black van opened of their own volition. Trace threw Jasmine unceremoniously into the back causing her to hit her head on the metal wheel well. The cold metal floor made her shiver as she lay holding the back of her head with both hands. She could feel the knot rising. It throbbed in time to her beating pulse, bringing tears to her eyes. She began to cry as much from the pain in her head as the fear of being taken.

“Who...are…you?” she sobbed out. “W-why are you…d-doing this? W-where…are you taking m-me?”

Alvero looked back at her from the driver’s seat. “Shut up. No questions,” he barked as the van tilted from Trace’s weight when he entered the passenger’s seat.

Jasmine whimpered on the metal floor in the van. She tried to get her bearings as they drove, but with the limited view out the windshield, she could not tell where they were.

Fear gripped her chest as her bare legs absorbed the chill from the metallic floor. Her fear coupled with her sobs took the breath from her lungs, making it hard to breathe. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs, making herself as tiny as possible. Her mind raced in time with the speeding van.

The two men were absolutely silent while they drove. No radio played, no sounds came to her other than her own sobs. There were no sounds of other cars, she realized. No hope of being discovered.

Dread settled in her heart. Where were they going? What would happen to her once they arrived? One thing she did know was that she wasn’t sure she wanted her questions answered, for those answers were sure to be bad. That thought brought another round of tears streaking down her cheeks.

Arriving at their destination, Alvero backed the van up to the old rundown hotel room they’d rented the previous evening. He put the vehicle in park and stilled, his hands resting on the steering wheel.

Alvero turned in his seat, glanced at their victim and pushed into Jasmine’s mind. He silenced her cries before he immobilized her limbs, but left her conscious.

With their victim completely under his control, Trace moved silently from the van and walked around the back to open the doors. He pulled Jasmine from the vehicle, cradling her in his arms, so if anyone noticed them, they would think her asleep.

“Got her?” Alvero asked as he joined his fellow guard at the back of the van.

“Of course.” The larger male shot him an incredulous look.

They opened the door to the room and walked in. The room smelled of stale smoke. The worn, dirty carpet contained the same brown and orange color as the stained bedspread. It was the kind of place that had seen its share of drug deals and prostitution. The kind of place people minded their own business, hoping to keep others from discovering their own misdeeds.

Trace dropped Jasmine onto the unoccupied bed. She lay sprawled, still unable to move because he maintained his mental control. Only her eyes were free to move. They darted around the room, wide with fright.

“We should get going. Let’s grab the woman from last night and get them both to Gage,” Alvero said.

A malicious grin crossed Trace’s face. “I have a better idea. We have a few hours before we have to leave. Let’s stay here for a little longer and have some fun. We’ve been working hard, we deserve a bonus.”

Alvero glanced at his watch. “I don’t know if we have time. Besides, Gage won’t be happy if we bring him damaged goods.”

“Then let’s not damage the goods. We’ll just sample the goods before we deliver them. We have time. It’s early yet.”

Alvero looked pensive, his gaze darting between the two women as he considered what Trace suggested. “Well, that one was fun last night,” he said gesturing with his thumb toward the naked woman still asleep in the bed.

An evil leer took Trace’s face as he watched a single tear escape down Jasmine’s cheek. “That’s what I’m talking about. Which one do you want?”

Chapter 17

Marcus gradually slowed the Mercedes and pulled over to the shoulder of the highway. Bringing the vehicle to a stop, he grabbed his high power binoculars and silently exited the car. He started down the road at a brisk jog, since he’d parked two miles away from Gage’s home—far enough his car would not be seen from the house.

Marcus hung in the shadow of the mountain as he made his way toward the Lucio compound. He came to a stop just south of the homestead and stared up at the large rock wall that awaited him. The mountain side loomed before him, stealing the moon from his view. He needed to find a place where he could lay unseen as he watched the large compound.

Damn I wish I could dematerialize,
he thought when his eyes located a potential opening high up in the rock face.

Marcus slid his hands along the mountain until he located a place that offered the small slits and ledges he needed to scale the rock. His fingers found purchase in tiny fissures, and he began his perilous climb toward the small cave he would be calling home for the evening.

Half way to his goal, the fingers on his left hand came loose as he prepared to push up to the next ledge. Suspended from only three fingers, his body bounced hard into the rock. His breath sawed from his lungs, his heart beat a furious pace when he looked down and realized he hung more than one hundred feet in the air. He bobbed along the rocks. They bit into his skin with each impact.

When his body stilled, he looked up and discovered a small ledge above and to his left. With a mighty heave, the fingers of his left hand found the ledge, and he pulled himself up. He held himself still, taking a moment to take a deep stealing breath. Marcus let it out slowly to center himself before continuing his climb.

By the time he reached the cave he sought, his muscles screamed in protest. His skin itched from the healing cuts as he shimmied into his hidey hole.

He pulled himself into the crevice. Tight and confining, it required him to lie on his stomach. The cold, damp space combined with the hardness of the stone made an uncomfortable berth. Marcus brought the binoculars to his eyes and looked across at the compound.

The Lucio home backed up to the adjacent mountain, at least two acres of grass surrounded the place—the only green within a ten mile radius. The large house contained two stories with roll down shutters to keep out the sun and a heavy oak door painted red at its front. All the windows were extra-large, no doubt built to allow for a wide view of the surrounding countryside.

Looking through the binoculars, Marcus observed a set of four men, all dressed in identical black uniforms, casing the perimeter of the house. He watched them walk the sides of the home like hornets buzzing around their hive. They were precise, their paths did not cross, but clearly were designed so no area was left untraversed. They were guards. He knew a patrol when he saw one.

Marcus trained his binoculars on a large window located on the second floor. His eyes widened as the scene played out before him. A male and female lay naked on a bed while another woman, dressed in sheer lingerie, stood beside the bed watching the activity. The male was motioning for the standing brunette to join them on the bed, and she willingly obliged. She slipped down along side of the other female, and lifted the woman’s red hair to her nose. The male pushed the red head down on her back and blanketed her with his body. As he began working his hips against the young woman, the brunette bent her head to one side and sank her fangs into the woman’s vein. A pained look came upon the young woman’s face, but she didn’t call out or seem to be distressed.

Marcus lowered the binoculars in revulsion and sighed. Some vampires really disgusted him. He would definitely not be looking in that window again anytime soon.

Marcus noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He watched a black van pull up by the side of the house. Bringing the binoculars back to his eyes, he saw a tall, brawny man exit the van dressed in the same black attire as the patrol around the house. A second male jumped from the vehicle and joined the first at the back of the van.

The two carefully looked around as if to assure no one was watching. In tandem, they opened the doors and removed what appeared to be two females from the back of the van. The two men casually flung the lifeless women over their shoulders like sacks of oats. They loped around to the front of the home, pausing briefly to talk to the guard posted by the front door. He opened the door and the two bodies were taken into the house.

That was suspicious.

Marcus continued to watch throughout the evening. He wasn’t sure whether the females from the van were alive or dead. They did not move when they were carried in and he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that the two women he’d seen were in trouble. If they were alive, were they a snack or would something more nefarious be their fate? The Alpha closed his eyes in disgust and shook his head, fighting his instinct to charge into the home to demand their release. He’d be outnumbered by those guards. It would be wiser to wait until he could bring back-up and execute a rescue plan.

There were those of his breed who could be quite cruel, using their enhanced strength and power to degrade others. He’d witnessed much in the two hundred years he’d been on the earth. He had seen much senseless bloodshed, watched as people were tortured simply because they were weaker.

It still amazed him how those with power, be they human or vampire, could become such monsters, taking what they wanted when they wanted without thought or conscience. The inhumanity, the immorality sickened him.

Marcus kept his vigil until two hours before dawn. Then, when nothing more of interest happened, he carefully descended the mountain and made his way back to the Mercedes. He slid behind the steering wheel and tossed the binoculars onto the empty seat beside him.

He scrubbed a tired hand down his face, drawing the skin taunt. The images of the home played in his mind like a never ending reel of a horror flick. He started the engine, it purred to life as he gave it gas and cranked the wheel. With a quick U-turn, he headed home.

He drove back to the penthouse, pondering the fate of the women from the van, wondering if they would live to see another day, hating the feeling of impotency that came with the knowledge there was nothing he could do for them at this time.

Chapter 18

Kat pulled on her white jeans and tucked her navy shirt into the waistband. It had been a long night. Having just completed her third show of the evening, she felt bone-sore tired. She hung her costume on the garment rack then headed for the exit.