Dalton, Tymber - Love and Brimstone [Brimstone Vampires 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (16 page)

“For my
safety
?” She snorted
. Oh, isn’t that just a tad on the melodramatic side?
She balled the card up and flung it across the room where it hit the wall and landed on the floor.

A loud thump shook the back of the house, startling her. She slipped on a pair of sneakers then grabbed the 9mm from her purse, chambering a round and checking the safety.

One of the back windows shattered as she opened the bedroom door. She raced to the bedroom phone. Dead.

She didn’t have time to power up her BlackBerry.

From the bedroom doorway she yelled, “Whoever you are, get out! I have a gun, and I will kill you.”

She heard a growl. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She heard more glass breaking.

“That’s what you think.” The voice sounded barely human. There was something so cold, so harsh about it that made her want to crawl into her closet and hide.

Taz fought the urge to run and released the safety, bringing the gun up. Moving to the other side of the doorway, she kept the wall between her and the voice. It was large, whatever it was, with loud, ragged breath.

“I’m warning you, leave now!” She put the hall corner in her sights and tried to quiet her breathing. Her pulse raced, in her throat, in her head, in her chest. Praying she could keep the gun still, she held her breath.

There was another growl, closer. “Don’t run. You’ll only make the meat tough.”

What fresh hell is this?
She had to be dreaming, still in the tub, right?

Wake up, Taz.
Wake up
now
!

A misshapen shadow loomed around the corner. She prepared to pull the trigger when her front door exploded. The intruder howled as she jumped and squeezed the trigger. The bullet plunged into the hallway wall three feet up. A dark blur and a flash flowed past her, down the hall, and sounds of a violent struggle ensued.

She moved to follow but two pairs of arms were on her, pulling her toward the front door. She tried to fight. Robertson whispered in her ear, “Taz, it’s us, hurry!”

Taz let him take her and realized Albert was with him, and as they left she heard the sounds of a vicious fight. She managed to thumb the safety on the gun before they none too gently shoved her, headfirst, into the backseat of Matthias’ car. Thompson dove for the wheel, and they roared off, tires squealing.

She saw through the back window that her front door was splintered. “What the hell was that?” she screamed once she’d caught her breath.

Robertson ended up in the backseat next to her and exchanged looks with Albert in the mirror.

“Oh, stop that,” she yelled, close to hysterics. “Don’t do that. Tell me, goddamn it!”

Robertson grabbed her hand, the one without the gun. “It was an Other.”

“Another
what
?”

He shook his head. “Not ‘another.’ An Other.”

“What
was
it?”

“If we were casting a movie, we’d be looking for someone to play a werewolf. But that’s not what they really are. Shape-shifters are totally different, and they are our allies. These…I can’t begin to explain it right now, but if you were to call it a werewolf, you’d be close. They have always been called ‘the Others.’”

She felt her sanity slip yet another notch. “But what—” She stopped. “Wait. Who was with you? Did someone go after it?”

They exchanged looks again, and it hit her. “Matthias. That’s what I saw?”

Robertson nodded. “He went after it with the sword—”

“A
sword
? Are you shitting me? Fuck that, I’ve got hollow points!” She swatted the back of Albert’s seat. “Go back, turn around!”

Thompson tightened his grip on the steering wheel, speeding through the dark to I-75. “I can’t do that.”

“We’ve got to help him!”

“We can’t. We are under orders to get you to safety immediately. If the Others are after you, you are not safe.”

“But what about—”

“Taz,” Robertson said quietly, “Matthias knows what he’s doing.”

She didn’t like it. Whatever it was, the growling, gravelly voice she’d heard sounded like pure evil. She feared for Matthias. She also hated that she worried about the big fink and felt scared for him. She tried to cling to what little bit of sanity she could.

They coaxed her out of the car at Hawthorne’s compound. They’d parked safely inside the garage, and the men took up secure positions around her, Albert ahead and Robertson behind, as they led her inside the house.

She curled up in a large chair in the corner of Hawthorne’s living room and glared at them, not speaking, the gun lying in her lap. There was no word from Matthias. She tried not to worry, but it broke through her anger, and she kept thinking about the growling voice, the fearsome dread that filled her when she heard it.

Will Matthias be okay?

Thirty minutes later, Albert quit pacing and left driving Hawthorne’s Hummer. Yes, totally incognito, that huge, yellow vehicle.

Not
.

Five large, stone-faced guards had arrived minutes after she did and kept watch on her in the house. How many outside, she didn’t venture to guess.

“If you were so worried about my safety,” she asked Robertson, “why did you all let me leave? And how did you just happen to show up in the nick of time? How do I know this isn’t some elaborate hoax?”

Robertson smiled kindly. “Matthias had a security team check the house before you got home. We were outside the whole time. We thought it best to give you space tonight. You were rather upset when you left.”

“Understatement of the year.”

When Robertson’s BlackBerry buzzed, he glanced at it before racing from the room. “Keep her here,” he told the guards. She tried to follow, but one stepped in front of her and shook his head.

“I’m sorry, miss. Please, don’t.” Taz sensed she could wave her gun in his face, probably shoot him, and the other guards would keep her in the room instead of getting him help. They were under orders to protect her and keep her there, and they would to the exclusion of their own lives, if she knew Robertson.

Taz heard a commotion through the garage door. One of the guards left to help, and a few moments later, the group returned. She went to the doorway, and when another guard tried to keep her from leaving, Albert said, “It’s okay. Let her through.”

They carried Matthias. Unconscious and bloody, his clothes shredded. Albert’s clothes were stained with dark smears she instinctively knew were Matthias’ blood.

Her anger fell away as she ran to him. “Oh my God! Is he—”

“He’s hurt very badly,” Albert confirmed. They reached his room at the far end of the upstairs hall, and two guards helped get him into bed.

“We have to get him to the hospital!”

Robertson grabbed her hand as she reached for the phone and pulled her into the bathroom. “Taz, you don’t understand. He can’t go to the hospital.”

“We can’t let him die.” The irony that she wanted to kill Matthias hours earlier was not lost on her, even under the circumstances.

“There’s nothing they can do that we can’t do for him here.” Robertson still had her firmly by the hand, apparently not about to let go until he knew he made his point. “Taz,” he said softly, “he’s not human. If they pull blood work, he’ll end up in isolation and the CDC will get involved. His blood looks nothing like normal blood under the microscope. It doesn’t react like normal blood. It’ll cause a lot of problems. If you can’t be objective, I’ll have to take you out of here. Please, trust me.”

She looked into his eyes. He’d never talked to her like this before. He obviously cared about Matthias, and she couldn’t imagine he would deliberately jeopardize his life.

She nodded.

Robertson touched her cheek. “That’s my girl.”

Albert stood alone at Matthias’ bedside after the guards left. She watched as he cut off Matthias’ blood-soaked shirt. Disgust, fear, and rage battled for control of her emotions. She couldn’t lie to herself anymore and say she didn’t have feelings for Matthias, especially when he lay there, near death, after having saved her life.

Across his chest several deep gashes still oozed blood. There was nothing fake about those. She could see the white of his ribs through one, even smell the blood. The men cut his pants off, and the soaked and shredded fabric gave way to more deep rips in his flesh. His face was bruised and battered. He struggled for each breath.

“Did he…?” Robertson asked Albert.

Albert nodded. “The head’s in the Hummer. And the sword. I barely got him in before more showed up. I’ve already phoned Rafael. He’s flying in to the executive airport. He’ll be here in about two hours.”

“Will he last that long?” Robertson asked.

Albert looked at Matthias. “He has to.”

“What? What’s going on?” Taz tried to stay out of their way but wanted to help.

Robertson used a wet washcloth to swab blood off Matthias as best he could. “His cousin, Rafael, lives south of Atlanta. If Matthias feeds from him, it will help him heal. Rafael has enough of the line in him.”

“Feed?” Her head was spinning. “What? He said he doesn’t drink blood?”

“We don’t, usually,” Albert said, now with large paramedic kit. “But in an extreme case like this, if Matthias feeds from someone strong of the line, it’s like a blood transfusion. Tim and I don’t have enough of the line in us to be any use. Rafael is much more powerful than us.”

She stared at them and tried to process what they said. She looked at Matthias’ battered body. He was dying, every ragged breath weaker than the last. She could feel it.

“I’m of the line. You said so.”

“No!” they both yelled, making her jump.

Robertson stood and went to her. “Yes, you’re of the Clan, and you have the line in you, but you’ve never done anything like this before. This isn’t like the movies. You have to know what you’re doing. It could kill you, and we can’t let you do that. Matthias wouldn’t want you to risk your life. We can’t even guarantee you’ve got enough of the line in you to help.”

“You can’t just let him die. The DNA report said I had a lot of the markers. Can’t you draw my blood and give it to him?”

The men exchanged looks. “It doesn’t work that way,” Albert said. “It has to be direct from the donor. There’s a ritual—I can’t get into it right now.” He turned to Robertson. “I’ll start an IV. That might help get his BP up until Rafael gets here. I’ll need your help to carry everything.”

Robertson nodded and handed Taz the washcloth before following Albert, leaving her alone with Matthias.

Obviously, this was no hoax. No one was crazy enough to rip themselves to shreds. Were they?

She touched his arm where an ugly gash ran from his shoulder to his elbow. This was real. This wasn’t her imagination. She wanted to take it back, take it all back. The angry words, everything. He’d saved her life.

Again. Twice in less than twenty-four hours.

The least she could do was repay the favor.

She quietly locked the bedroom door. Racing to the bathroom, she opened his medicine cabinet and found what she needed. She dropped the disposable razor and stomped it with the heel of her shoe, grinding it against the tile floor. Then she fished out the blade. She used a bottle of alcohol to sterilize the blade.