Darkened Days (14 page)

There was a wildlife rehabilitation facility nearby that she really wanted to visit.  They did not have nighttime hours but that wasn’t a problem for her. 

Just a few moments after leaving the club she had a strong sense of a vampire presence.  No.  More, several.  And it was more intense than any presence she’d ever felt.

From behind one of the two
-story businesses that lined this street, six men came out. Enormous.  Bigger than Jacob.  They stared right at her.

Shit!
  Even if her senses hadn’t told her they were vampire, their size would have.  And there was no way she could defend herself it they meant trouble for her.   She turned back toward the club as she flipped open her phone and auto-dialed Henri.   He didn’t pick up. 
Fuck!

“If you get this
soon, I may be in trouble.  I’m being followed by a group of six very large vampire males. I’ll try to get back to the club.”

The club was her only chance.  Most vampires would not make a scene in a crowded club.

Just before she hit the door, she felt herself freeze in place.  She recognized the feeling from the warehouse.  Like the big male that had trapped them in Paris, they had skills she did not understand.  Yeah.  She was in trouble.

The largest of the six picked her up gently in his arms after he released her muscles.  She started to struggle and fight but she knew better.  She was outnumbered with a superior force and struggling would just be ridiculous.  The man smiled at her.  Held her carefully and carried her to an outdoor café across the street from the club.  It surprised her that he kept her in a public place.

He sat her gently in one of the chairs that she’d probably sat in sometime in the past few days since she and Henri had arrived.

For a second, she considered trying to hyper-speed and outrun them, but the man in front of her laid a hand on her arm.

“Brave.  But don’t try it.  You cannot outrun me or my brothers.  I am Ahmose.  Please tell me your name.”

His deep voice had just a slight middle-eastern accent and he spoke perfect English.

Starla looked from man to man.  They were all handsome and smiling at her.  She didn’t sense any hostility at all.  What was going on?  Wetting her lips with her tongue, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to seem compliant.  For now.

“You can call me Star.”

He looked up at each of his “brothers” and smiled back at her. 

“Star.  That is exactly what it should be.  You are the most lovely heavenly body I have ever seen.”

“Um…thank you?”  She said it as a question because she wasn’t sure what the right response was.  She decided to go for it.

“You’ve detained me. What gives you the right?  What do you want?”

The largest man, the one who’d picked her up, was obviously the leader.  And he was staring at her rudely without answering her questions.  She stared back in defiance.

He was gorgeous.
  Swarthy skin, long smooth ravens-wing black hair bound into some kind of metallic clasp.  Dark eyes, although that seemed to be a given for most vampires.  But his eyes had striations of silver that seemed to come and go.  Odd.  Deep.  Almost hypnotic.  And his scent was nearly as compelling as Jacobs.

Because of her self-imposed lengthy celibacy, her heightened state of sexual awareness made her body respond to
his intensely masculine, sexual nature.  Her respiration picked up and the place between her legs twitched.   His breathing changed.  It was apparent he was feeling the same sexual arousal.

He smiled, showing even white teeth.

“You are just as delightful as I knew you would be.”

What the hell?
  As he
knew
she would be?  This wasn’t random?  Had he been looking for her?

“Shit!  Did Jacob send you looking for me?”

He looked upset at that.

“Jacob?  Who is Jacob?”

Uh, oh.
  Not sent by Jacob.  Maybe she really was in trouble.

“None of your damn business is who he is.  I want to know what you want.  I have the rest of my entourage on their way here.”

Ahmose relaxed again.

“Little Star.  I know you are here with one young vampire.  He is no threat.  Even if you had ten of him, they would still be no threat.  We are first blood and you have no power over us.”  He paused, his eye
s gliding over her face. 

“I am here to honor you.  To make you a child of the moon.  You are Shoazan.”

“I don’t understand what that means.”  She also didn’t know what he meant by first blood.

“It is simple.  It means you are to be my mate and carry my children into the future of our ancient race.”

On instinct, Starla pushed the chair back as far as she could and stood up.

“Whoa.  Crossed wires here, buddy.  I am
nobody’s
mate.  And I’m vampire like you.  Vampires can’t have children, you should know that.  So you and your merry little men can run along now.  See ya.”

She started to move past his men and froze again.

What the fuck was this freezing thing?

Ahmose walked up to her and took her face in his hands.   She could do nothing about it.  His scent overwhelmed her, his thumbs caressing her cheek felt more sensual than predatory.

“You do not know.  Little Star, you are extraordinarily unique.  And you are destined to be with me and bring my children into our world.  Neither of us have a choice.  I am grateful, however, that you are so lovely.  Making our children will be pleasurable.  We will begin after rising tomorrow night.”  He put his hand over her eyes and said, “Sleep.”

Starla lost consciousness.  Ahmose lifted her into his arms as she collapsed.  He leaned in to kiss her brow and breathed in her scent, which shot straight to his groin.  The celebration could not come soon enough.   Filling her
with his seed was only slightly more important to him at this moment than his desire to be inside her.  He nodded to his men and they were gone.

Henri heard the buzzing of his cell but since he wa
s busy with an explosive orgasm, he wasn’t paying any attention.  Now, minutes later, he swatted the girl strewn across his chest lightly on a buttock and asked her to hand him his phone.  She exacted a toll, a kiss to that spot on her buttock he swatted, and handed it to him.  After listening to the message, he flew up, dressed, and shot out of the room.

It didn’t take him long to reach the club where he’d last seen Starla.  No one was around except a young dark skinned boy who had been there earlier.

“Do you remember the beautiful brunette I was with earlier?”

The boy nodded.

“I saw her,” he said in heavily accented English.  “I saw big men take her.   You will not see her again.”

“What?  Why do you say that?  What do you know about them?”

“They are night walkers.  No one ever comes back.  You may say goodbye and go home.”

Night walkers.  Vampires.
  The boy did not know Henri was one too.  He could not know Henri was far more  than the college student on holiday he and Starla had been presenting themselves as on this journey.  Not that anything in this world would stop him from finding her.

“You wouldn’t have any idea where these night walkers stay, would you?”

The boy pointed toward the forest.

“Big men stay in big trees.  No one know
s where.  No one comes back to tell.”

“Yeah, I get that.  Here. Thanks.”

He pitched him some money and continued into the club to ask around.  Nothing would stop him from finding his companion, but he wasn’t exactly sure where to start.

“Eillia traced her here to Victoria Falls.  If she’s here, I hope I am able to get us closer.”

A vampire could track their blood
-bonds as long as they had exchanged blood from one to the other.  Both ways.  But vampires generally had little ability to track other vampires.  Eillia’s first blood skill was the only thing that could have gotten them this far.  Now, it was going to have to be some good, old-fashioned detective work. 

Finding a restaurant as soon as they arrived in the city of Victoria Falls, they started with dinner since they had been traveling for some hours.  They needed the calories to
keep strong and efficient for the search that Jacob felt would not go easily.  Nothing had from the beginning.  And Koen had been so distracted since he’d joined him, he almost told the man to go home and deal with whatever was on his mind.  But he wanted the first blood’s superior power in case it was needed.  His priority was finding Starla and getting her back to Koen’s villa.  For Starla and Eillia’s sake, of course.  He refused to acknowledge his own stake in this.  He would deal with his own feelings and repercussions once she was safe.

Shoving a huge bite of some unusual meat into his mouth, Koen looked at Jacob.

“Any sense of her yet?”

“No.  I’ve tried the method Eillia recommended. 
It didn’t work.  We should start with restaurants and nightclubs.  From what I saw in Paris, that’s what the kids did for entertainment.  If she is with any of that crew, that’s our best bet.  If they’ve been around here, someone is going to remember her.”

“Really?”  Koen asked. 
“I mean she was pretty, yeah, but there are a lot of pretty girls.”

“She’s much more than pretty.  She’s a knockout.  With attitude.  I think she’ll stand out.”

Koen watched Jacob’s face.  He wasn’t nearly as empathic as Eillia, but he was a man.  Jacob had a thing for her.  And it was more than casual.  Strange.  Koen knew he’d had very little contact with her, so when did he have the chance to fall for her?

T
hen he laughed out loud. 
No, a man can’t fall in
love in an instant, right?

Jacob looked a
t Koen, who washed down the huge bite with half of a bottle of beer.

“What’s so amusing?”

“That an old vampire can still learn a few things after a thousand years.  So, kill that plate and we’ll get started looking for your woman.”

The beer bottle at his lips, Jacob started to protest that she wasn’t his woman, but it didn’t come.  Somewhere in his mind, unacknowledged until now, he admitted that is exactly how he thought of Starla.

No one knew anything.  Most of the patrons had gone home, but those that remained had been in here dancing and drinking all night.   Henri felt a moment of pure panic.  What could he do now?  He knew it was six larger, probably older, and as such,
stronger, vampires that took her.  Even if he found her, how would he get her back?  All he knew was that he had to find a way.

With no notice, he felt the strange sensation that let him know a vampire was near.
  It got stronger and he began to search the room.  His eyes stopped on two large men who had just entered.  He recognized one.  The vampire who took Starla away to talk that night from
Incognito. 
And started her strange behavior.   Suddenly he was furious. 
That motherfucker!
  He had no right to abduct her!  Henri surged forward through the other people, shoving them aside, eyes locked on Jacob.

Jacob felt him coming.  And recognized him as the vampire with Starla that night.  Thank god! 

“She has to be here with him,” Jacob told Koen.  “Maybe we’re not going to have to fight for every scrap of information now to find her.”

Although the kid advancing toward him was violently angry and looked like
he
was looking for a fight.

“Where the fuck
is
she?”  the young vamp yelled so loud it actually cleared the level of the music.

Jacob shook his head.  “Who?  Starla?”

“Star!  Get it right old man!  Where is she?  You’re not taking her!  She has the right to do whatever she wants and she isn’t going anywhere with you!”

Jacob grabbed the irate young man and yanked him out the door into the street.  Koen showed up a second later with a bottle of something dark and what looked like a cookie.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”  Jacob asked quietly.

Henri pulled his shirt free from where it was balled up in powerful hands.

“Star!  Let her go!  I don’t care if there are six of you, I won’t let you take her.”

“Six?”  Jacob looked at Koen.

Koen killed the bottle and tossed it into a rubbish bin.

“Looks like there’s going to be a fight after all
,” Koen said and went back into the club.

With a shove, Jacob put Henri against the side of the building.

“I don’t have her.  Koen and I just got here.  We are looking for her.  So tell me what happened.”

Grimacing, he looked into Jacob’s eyes. 
He didn’t want to trust the older vampire, but he didn’t know how else to find and save Starla if Jacob was not the one who took her.  Time wasn’t on his side.