Blood Hunger (An Adult Paranormal Romance) (Deathless Night Series #1) (23 page)

     Without a word, he grabbed her backpack and threw it over his shoulder with his, then stalked off, dragging her behind him.

     Unfazed, Aiden smiled fondly as he watched them leave, returning Emma’s cheerful wave.

     Once they got outside, Nik pinned her with his glare.  “Fine. You can come. But you do exactly as I say. No arguments. No questions. If I say jump, you jump. If I say run, you run like demons from hell are chasing you. Got it?”

   
 
“Got it.”

   
 
“I’m serious, Emma. I am NOT fucking around here.”

   
 
She glared right back at him. “I SAID I’ve got it. Don’t forget, Nik, I know
exactly
what we could be running in to, and what they can do.”

   
 
He hadn’t forgotten. It was why he didn’t want her to come with him. He contemplated sending her back in to stay with Aiden, but his possessive nature and the need to keep her close ultimately won out in the end.

     “Here, take this.” He handed her one of the knives. “And let’s go. The night is wasting.”

     Shea checked the time again. Where the hell were they? She hadn’t spoken to either Dante or Christian since they left last night.

     Come to think of it, she’d never heard Christian come home. She always heard him come home.

     Tired of waiting, she walked out of her apartment and down the hall to bang on his door. When there was no answer, she took the spare key she’d brought with her and let herself in.

     “Christian?” she called. Closing the door behind her, she stuck her key back in her front pocket.

     “Christian! Where are you?” Her own voice echoed back to her. He really needed to get some stuff for this place. Stuff like furniture, and throw rugs. Her boots were silent as she walked across the open expanse of living area to his bedroom. The door was closed.

     She rapped hard on the wood. “Hey, whoredog! Get your ass out of that bed! We need to go!” Cracking the door open, she peeked inside. The bed was unmade, blankets and pillows strewn all over. Opening the door wide, she walked in and made her way over to the bathroom.

     The door was wide open. He wasn’t in there. She turned away from the doorway and looked around his room again. Where the hell was he? Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she checked it again.

     Nothing. No messages from either of them. What the hell?

    
The hair rose up on the back of her neck again. Something was wrong. She should call Nik and Aiden, but she wanted to check one more place before raising the alarm. Although she couldn’t imagine Christian being there, it wouldn’t hurt to look first.

     Moving quickly now, she jogged out to the elevator. While she waited for it to take her down to Dante’s quarters, she racked her brain, trying to come up with any reason that they both would not show up at the appointed time. She couldn’t think of one.

     The bell above the door chimed as the car finally arrived. Jumping in, she hit the button repeatedly until the doors finally closed. The ride down to the underground was quick, and she bolted out as soon as the doors opened.

     Running full speed down the passageway, she turned left at the split, away from the area the tourists paid to see. She hated it down here. It was so wet and dark. A musty smell permeated the air and…Wait, was that blood?

     It
was
blood she scented. Some of it so faint it had been here for quite a while. But some of it was fresh. Very fresh. What the hell went on down here?

     She came to the wood and steel barricade that kept out any nosey thrill seekers and effortlessly leaped up to the top of it. Pulling at the top plank, it opened on unseen hinges to make a space just big enough for a body to get through. Crawling over, she dropped down to the other side and took off again.

     Less than a minute or so later, she arrived at Dante’s main hideout. The smell of blood was stronger here. Her fangs slid down in response, but she didn’t see any evidence of it anywhere.

     A damp mattress was thrown on the floor, nothing but a thin blanket on top of it. A few candles were scattered about the small space, unlit. The only other thing in the room was a thick book next to the bed.

     Shea pushed on her temples.
Think, think.
Where would they be? She fought down her rising panic as she came to the conclusion that she just didn’t know. She had no idea what Dante did in his free time, and Christian could be anywhere in the city.

    
Ok. Just calm down, Shea. Let’s not panic until there’s something to panic about. Maybe they’re just running late.
She didn’t believe it. Neither one of them was ever late to leave on a mission like this. Something had to have happened.

     She decided to go take a look around the building. Ask the guards if they’d seen anything, see what she could find out. If nothing came out of that, she’d give Aiden a call.

     Back at the elevator, she hit the button that would take her to the underground garage. That was the only way either of them would have come in. The elevators in the lobby didn’t go past the human floors.

     Her heart pounded as she quickly rose up to the next floor. As the doors opened, she saw the guards standing at their station and hurried over to question them.

     Unfortunately, neither of them remembered seeing either of the guys the night before. Shea thanked them and headed out to the street to have a look around.

     She didn’t make it past the first block.

***

     After a brief pit stop behind a large Hemlock tree for Emma, they headed out through the thick undergrowth, winding in and out of the towering trees. The air was cool and misty, and heavy with the fragrance of spring from the recent rains.

     Emma struggled to see as the full moon played peek-a-boo with the clouds. Craning her neck, she looked up towards the top of the rock face she could sense looming above her, to no avail. She couldn’t even see the tops of the trees.

     She stayed close behind Nik, shadowing him, stepping where he stepped, and trying to be as unobtrusive as he was. But it was hard to watch where she was going when she was so distracted by the glorious sight of the male in front of her in full hunting mode.

     She sighed to herself. He was wearing his usual ensemble of combat boots, dark jeans just tight enough to show off the hard, lean muscle in his legs and ass, and a black long-sleeved cotton shirt that hugged his broad shoulders and powerful back. His blonde hair was pulled back with a tie, showing off his strong neck and the whisper of soft curls on his nape.

     Her fingers itched to play with those curls, the impulse so strong she had to curl her hands into fists around her backpack straps to keep them where they were.

     He moved through the brush with the grace of a large cat, the tightly wound power in him simmering just beneath the surface, ready to explode at a moment’s notice. It was a palpable thing that both frightened and attracted her.

***

     They’d walked in silence for about 25 minutes, when Nik pulled up suddenly, putting an arm out to stop Emma and raising his finger to his lips. Narrowing his eyes, he cocked his head and listened. It was quiet. Too quiet. No crickets. No nocturnal animals. He checked out the landscape but didn’t see anything moving other than the leaves on the trees twirling slightly in the breeze.

     Nothing.

     But something wasn’t right. He could feel it. Closing his eyes, he sent his senses out farther, blending them into the night.

     Yes. There. Something was coming.

     They’d been following the rock face at the bottom of the mountain range their hideout was located in, and he quietly steered Emma towards a narrow ravine in the stone large enough for her to squeeze into.

     “Emma, I need you to stay here. Do not come out until I tell you. Do you understand?” Nik’s face was cold, inhuman. His blue eyes shining silver in the night, the unholy glow they took on when his emotions ran high.

     “What is it?” she whispered. Her eyes were wide and terrified as she took in his appearance.

     Nik mentally kicked himself. What the hell had he been thinking, bringing her along?

     “Just stay here. Do not make a sound. Do NOT move. No matter what happens.” Taking off her backpack, he pushed her towards the opening. “Got your knife out?”

   
 
She nodded and showed him.

     His eyes gleamed with approval. “Anything sticks its face in here, stab it. It will slow them down enough for you to get away.”
I hope.

     Once she was out of sight, he turned around, dropped his bag, and paced a few feet away from her hiding place. Far enough to not draw attention to it, but close enough to help her if she needed him. Hopefully, they’d be too distracted by him to notice her in there.

     Standing perfectly still in that disconcerting way vampires had, he waited. Every cell inside of him was focused on one purpose and one purpose only.

     Protect his female.

     He didn’t have long to wait. They came at him out of nowhere and all at once, six of the them. What the fuck? What the hell
were
these things?

     Exactly as Emma had described, these must be the “monsters” she’d told him about. As they rushed him, the shock of their appearance quickly wore off and Nik smiled, his fangs elongating, his muscles thickening, his body immediately preparing itself for the fight…and for revenge.

     With a roar, he grabbed the closest one by the head with both hands. Its razor sharp teeth inches from his face, he twisted it sharply to the side until he felt the grey flesh tearing and the bones in its neck popping. Its red eyes bugged out of its head as death quickly descended upon it.

     Launching the limp body
into the creature coming at him from the front, he shot out a left elbow to the face and followed it up with a back kick, throwing the next two off of him.

     A low spin kick to the knee took the next one down. Yanking his knife out of his thigh sheath, he dropped his knees down onto its back, jerked the head up, and slit a gash in its throat so deep only a few tendons were left attached.

     As he shot to his feet, the remaining four came at him with supernatural speed. Fists, elbows and kicks flying…fangs tearing into putrid flesh…Nik was a nightmare of destruction. His roars of rage mixed with their shrieks of agony as bones crunched and blood flew. For a few heart-stopping minutes, it was hard to tell who was coming out on top.

     And then, suddenly, it was over.

     Nik swung around with fists up, prepared to kill anything else coming at him, but nothing moved. His chest heaved with his ragged breaths, his head throbbed from a particularly vicious blow he took, and his fangs ached to rip through more flesh. Blood dripped from his mouth and down his arms and chest, some of it his own, the rest of it belonging to the pieces of shit laying in disintegrating heaps all around him.

     As the high of the fight dissipated and awareness slowly came back to him, he straightened up, searching. “Emma?” Where was she? Did they find her? “Emma!”

   
 
A small scraping sound to his left had him swinging around, dropping into a fighting crouch with a feral hiss, fangs bared.

     Knife held shakily in front of her, Emma cautiously slid out from her hiding place in the stone. Wide-eyed, she took in the carnage on the ground, and then her gaze skipped up to Nik. He raised his hands, palms out, and slowly straightened up, spitting the blood out of his mouth and wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

     “Emma. Em, it’s ok. I won’t hurt you.” He kept his feet planted where they were for fear that she’d flee if he moved. Her face was as white as a sheet, her freckles standing out in harsh relief. And her eyes had a glazed look to them as they darted from him to the things on the ground, and back to him.

     Once her eyes hit him again, they locked on to his face and stayed there. His jaw dropped open in disbelief as she dropped the knife and ran, not away from him, but straight into his arms. She threw herself into him so hard he had a difficult time staying upright.

     “Are you ok?” she cried. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding!”

   
 
“I’m fine. I’m fine. Most of it isn’t mine. Besides, vampire here, remember?” He hugged her close, surrounding her in the safe shelter of his arms and resting his cheek on the top of her head.

     The feel of her subtle curves trembling against him was wreaking havoc on his fragile self-control, but he couldn’t bring himself to push her away. Instead, he rubbed comforting circles on her back, trying to soothe her. The smell of her sweet blood and warm skin permeated his nose, and he inhaled deeply.

     Fresh from the fight, his senses were raw and exposed, and like a starving man, his body responded eagerly to the attack upon them. His mouth watered, and his fangs ached to pierce her flesh, as his cock swelled to a painful size. He wanted nothing more than to throw her down on the blood-soaked ground and sink his fangs into her flesh and his hardness into the moist softness between her legs. He groaned aloud at the thought before he could stop himself.

     Emma pulled back just far enough to be able to look him over, her hands gripping his forearms. “Am I hurting you? You said you were ok!” she accused.

     As she frantically checked him for injuries, Nik felt branded everywhere her eyes touched, and a raging lust tore through his insides. Resisting the urge that came with it required an act of will he didn’t possess at the moment. He needed more distance between them, needed her to back off a bit. He became aware that his head was still throbbing, and he actually felt almost…tired. How strange.

     “You’re not hurting me, not like that.” Nik gently, but insistently, pulled away from her. “These are the monsters like you were telling me about?” At her stiff nod, he looked around at what remained of them. “I’ve never seen creatures like this before, Em. I have no idea what they are.”