Darkest Desire of the Vampire: Wicked in Moonlight\Vampire Island (Harlequin Nocturne) (3 page)

“Is it just me,” one of the men called out, “or does this little bitch smell familiar?”

The one to her far left narrowed his strange, bright-gold eyes. “You related to that reporter who was snooping around here?”

Fury spiked through her system so hard and fast she felt dizzy. “What do you know about my brother?”

Another male gave a low, gritty laugh. “Aw, that’s so sweet. She’s come here searching for her
big bwother.
”

“I’ve probably got a bit of him still stuck in my back teeth!” another called out, making her flinch. Just what did the bastard mean by that? Before Lainey could ask, a few of the guys started taking off their leather jackets, their leering smiles making her skin crawl as she gripped the handle of her knife so tightly her fingers felt numb. Then the unthinkable happened.

Shaking her head, Lainey tried to clear her vision, but the nightmare before her still remained. They were all shedding their clothes now, something strange happening to their naked, aroused bodies, and fear unlike anything she’d ever known rolled through her system. Their muscles rippled beneath their sweat-covered skin, their bodies somehow getting even bigger, as if they were growing before her eyes. She racked her brain for a way out of this nightmarish situation, but she was trapped and she knew it.

“What the hell are you?” she croaked, unable to believe what she was seeing.

“Hey, Jace. What are we?”

“I think it might be more fun just to show her!” someone hollered, tossing several more glow sticks around the cave.

“Good idea! I’m starving!”

“Then let’s do it!”

Monsters...monsters...monsters.

Oh, God. She got it now. As the men began to transform into the horrifying shape of towering, two-legged wolves, they tormented her with the story of Ryan’s gruesome murder. The words were garbled as their mouths shifted into short snouts, their jaws filled with deadly fangs, but she understood enough to realize Ryan had suffered a long, horrifying death at their hands.

According to the...werewolves, he’d been targeted because he was getting too close to uncovering the truth about the pack’s latest killing sprees in the little beach town—and now she was going to be their next victim.

Damn it! She was such a freaking idiot. Why in God’s name hadn’t she listened to Nick Santos when she’d had the chance?

And why was she thinking about the sexy P.I. when she should be focusing on her own horrifying torture and death?

Is that a trick question, Lainey? Why do you think?

Before she could answer her own question, one of the monsters lunged for her, and Lainey screamed as she tried to escape his hold. She didn’t make it but a step or two when one of the other werewolves grabbed her, his gnarled, claw-tipped fingers yanking the knife from her hand. But she wasn’t going down without a fight. Lifting her knee, she jammed it into his crotch, and he roared with fury as he backhanded her across the face. She crashed into the side of the cave, a piercing pain shooting through her head as she slumped to the ground.

Get up, Lainey. Don’t let it end like this.

Gritting her teeth, she struggled up onto her hands and knees, only dimly aware of the strange sounds now coming from the other side of the cave. There was a loud roaring in her ears, the ground literally shaking with violence as she lifted a hand, pushing her hair out of her face. But before she could get a clear look at what was happening, something slammed into her, flattening her against the ground. She screamed beneath the heavy, furry body, realizing she was pinned under a fully shifted werewolf. The thing had to be massive, its weight crushing her chest, making it impossible to breathe.

“Lainey!”

She could have sworn she heard someone shout her name, and a second later the crushing weight was lifted. Dragging in a much-needed breath of air, she started to move back onto her hands and knees when something picked her up as if she weighed little more than a feather. Then it shoved her against the wall before moving away. With her hair still hanging in her face, she felt her knees buckle, and a moment later she was lying on the sandy floor of the cave again, the bone-chilling sounds of what had to be a vicious fight echoing in her ears. But it sounded far away, as if she was drifting in and out of consciousness. Were the monsters fighting each other? For what? For
her?

She tried to crawl away, keeping her head low, not wanting to watch the gruesome scene. Blood covered the sandy floor, dripping from the walls, and she knew she was in shock. When a body hit the side of the cave, then landed in front of her, she crawled around the fur-covered beast and kept going until something rank and hairy swept her off the ground, throwing her over its massive shoulder. Her stomach heaved, and then there was a terrible collision, like her abductor had been slammed by a Mack truck and she was suddenly falling again, feeling like she’d landed on some kind of life-threatening carnival ride. She landed with a thud, her breath knocked from her lungs as a hot spray of something wet and slick splashed over her. She felt something hard under her hip and reached down, coming back with one of the glow sticks clutched in her hand, the eerie green glow shining through the tangle of hair that covered her face. Before she could get her bearings, she was swept up into another powerful pair of arms, but the chest she was crushed against this time wasn’t covered in fur. It was hard and hot, and as she lifted her hands, finally managing to shove her hair away from her eyes, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

I must be dreaming,
she thought,
because this can’t be real.
A bloody, furious-looking Nick Santos couldn’t possibly be holding her in his arms, running through one of the winding tunnels like a madman. But he didn’t look like he had that afternoon. Bathed in the eerie green light, she could see that his sunglasses were gone, his dark eyes glowing with a blue, preternatural light, a sinister-looking set of fangs gleaming beneath the sculpted curve of his upper lip.

Wetting her own lips, she managed to mutter a single stammering word. “W-werewolf?”

He gave a curt shake of his head, not even bothering to look down at her as he kept running from the monsters she could hear chasing them, their harrowing howls echoing through the tunnels. She thought that nod was the only response Santos was going to give her until he worked his bruised jaw and growled, “I’m not a werewolf. I’m a...vampire.”

“A v-vampire?”

He replied with a sharp nod, still running.

Lainey’s response was little more than a hoarse croak. “Well,
shit.
”

She didn’t catch whatever he said next. She’d already passed out.

Chapter 2

P
acing from one side of the metal room to the other, Nick Santos kept a careful eye on the female he’d chained to the king-size bed wedged into the far corner and gritted his teeth.

Fuck! How the hell did I let this happen?

A mere hour ago, he’d been taking his nightly run on the beach, going hard and fast, hoping to work off some of the tension that had been riding him since that afternoon. It’d been hours since his little head-to-head with Lainey Maxwell, yet he hadn’t been able to banish the human’s face from his mind. Or her damn scent from his nose. When he’d argued with her that afternoon, she’d looked like a colorful, delectable little ice cream cone that he’d wanted to lick from head to toe, savoring all that creamy skin and those ripe curves with deliberate slowness.

Unfortunately, those were
not
the kind of thoughts he normally had about human females, and he’d let it screw with his head. He should have known she’d try some stupid stunt like she had tonight, going into the caves by herself. And look where it’d gotten her.

Careless, infuriating, mouthwatering woman.

More times than he could count this past week, Nick had seen Lainey Maxwell prancing that sweet ass of hers all over town, acting clueless and cute. But it was a damn act. Not that she wasn’t easy on the eyes. But he wasn’t buying the ditzy blonde routine. She’d been carefully asking questions about Ryan Martin from the moment she hit town. Was she the journalist’s girlfriend? And what the hell was she doing trying to track him down on her own? She should have left the investigating to the cops. They didn’t have any more chance of solving Martin’s disappearance than they did the others in the area, but damn it, at least she wouldn’t be in the shit situation she was in now.

He should have been keeping a closer eye on her; instead, he got called away on a quick mission tonight, then arrived back in town just in time for his nightly run. He hadn’t been running for more than ten minutes when he’d caught the scent of the wolves, wanting to go for their blood. For weeks now the bastards had been thumbing their noses at him by using his own goddamn caves for their kills whenever he’d left town on a hunt. But they’d screwed up tonight. He’d obviously made it back sooner than they’d thought he would, and he’d believed he finally had them.

But from their scent, Nick had known there were too many for him to take on single-handedly. Especially when he and his brothers had been given the directive to bring the wolves in for questioning rather than outright execution. The vampire council he and his brothers answered to wanted to know why the beasts had chosen Moonlight Bay for their new killing ground. They shared Nick’s belief that the pack had learned his true identity, and the ones in power wanted to know how.

In his line of work, it was imperative that the preternatural killers he hunted never knew where he made his home.

Hating it, but fully aware that he needed to call his brothers for backup, Nick had reached into the pocket of his sweatpants for his phone only to realize he’d left it back at his house. Another frustrating sign that his fascination with Lainey Maxwell was screwing with his head because he never made mistakes like that. Cursing under his breath, he’d started to run back for it when he caught something light and sweet under the heavier, animal scent of the wolves. He’d known in an instant who that mouthwatering scent belonged to, and a cold terror had gripped his insides, as if the woman were something he badly needed to keep in this world.

At that point, he’d had a hell of a shitty choice to make. Reveal his true nature to the human female by going after her in an attempt to rescue her...or turn his back on the troublesome woman, leaving her to suffer the consequences of her recklessness on her own.

Of course, it was really no choice at all. Which meant he’d run into a lethal situation with no regard for his own safety, blatantly disregarding the orders he’d been given in regard to the pack.

He’d been lucky enough to get her to the bunker and seal the door behind them before the bastards caught up to him—but there was a time bomb ticking on her life, and now she was trapped inside with it.

And they were definitely trapped. The wolves’ harrowing howls were echoing through the small air vents that led to various tunnels, their deadly claws making god-awful screeching noises as they tried to batter their way through the reinforced door.

You can keep on knocking, you bastards—but you won’t get in.

Only problem was, he and the human couldn’t get out either. And he could already feel himself starting to—

No, damn it. Don’t even think about it!

When she gave a soft moan, slowly coming to, Nick braced himself for what was sure to be a screaming tantrum fueled by shock and terror. She shifted restlessly against the bed’s gray, military-issue blankets, making her incredible scent even stronger.

From the middle of the room, he watched her eyelids tremble, then slowly open, her confused gaze whipping around the room before landing with a wide, fascinated look of shock on him.

“Don’t panic,” he scraped out, the thick sound of his voice catching him by surprise. Clearing his throat, he added, “I just saved your life, Miss Maxwell. Wouldn’t make much sense for me to turn around and kill you, now would it?”

“I g-guess not,” she stammered, cutting a dark look toward the shackles that looped her wrists, each manacle connected to a thick chain that was secured to a heavy metal hook high on the wall above the bed. The chains had been pulled tight enough that her arms had to rest above her head, and he tried like hell not to notice the provocative thrust of her breasts that was a result of the position. Tried...but didn’t come anywhere close to succeeding.

“Are you okay?” he asked, still standing in the center of the room, not daring to move any closer. “Do you hurt anywhere?”

She brought her gaze back to his, her astonishment increasing, appearing surprised that he genuinely seemed worried about her condition. “I’m f-fine,” she murmured, sounding a little rattled but not as terrified as he would have expected. Maybe she was still in too much shock to fully process what was happening. But at least she was no longer covered in blood.

After cutting off her blood-drenched hoodie—it’d thankfully been covered in wolf’s blood and not her own—Nick had used a warm washcloth to wipe the spatters of crimson from her face and hands, though her hair had been more difficult to get clean. While he’d worked, it’d been hard as hell not to lose the cloth and touch that soft skin and silken hair with his bare hand. By the time he’d finished the task, his hand had been visibly shaking. He’d opted to leave her jeans and T-shirt in place, knowing better than to tempt himself by redressing her in something of his own, and they hadn’t been splattered nearly as bad as the hoodie.

Determined to get his mind off the way she looked all trussed up on the bed and into safer territory, Nick crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Since you’re all right, now might be a good time to go ahead and tell me who you really are.”

Her eyes still had that shocked look in them, but her voice came out a little steadier. “Ryan’s sister.”

“Ryan? Are you talking about Ryan Martin?”

“Yes,” she whispered, subtly tugging at the chains as if she didn’t want him to notice. “Martin is his p-pen name. He started using one when he got death threats because of some articles he’d written. He didn’t want to make it easy for some jackass to trace the members of his family.”

Nick narrowed his gaze, wanting to throttle her for being so careless with her safety. “You came here looking for him after he went missing, didn’t you? That’s what you were doing in that fucking cave! Am I right?”

“There’s no need for you to go all potty mouth on me, Mr. Santos.” She sounded a little feistier, her own gaze now as sharp as his.

“I’ll speak however I damn well please, lady. And call me Nick.”

“My name isn’t lady,” she growled, her breasts quivering as she tried to wriggle herself into a sitting position against the pillows. “It’s Lainey!”

“I know that!”

“Then use it!” she shouted.

“I don’t believe this shit,” he muttered, shoving both hands back through his hair before dropping them to his sides. Shooting her a frustrated glare, he ground out, “I’ve got you chained to a fucking bed, and you want to argue about your name?”

She gave him a withering look. “You could always unchain me if it makes you feel better!”

“Like hell.”

“You told me not to panic—” another mouthwatering jiggle before she collapsed back on the bed, glaring up at the chains “—but restraining me like this hardly inspires confidence.”

“The chains stay. And since they’re for your protection, I wouldn’t waste your breath arguing about it.”

“Oh, come on,” she scoffed, turning her head to glare at him. “They’re for my
protection?
Seriously? Do I look like a freaking idiot?”

No. She looked...
Shit.
Scratch that thought. No way in hell was he going
there.
The last thing in the world he needed to be thinking about was how incredible she looked stretched out over that bed, her tight clothes hugging every inch of her sweet little body.

When it became clear he wasn’t going to answer her question, she said, “Will you at least tell me where we are?”

“In one of my caves.”

She cast a suspicious look around the grim, gray room, and then stared up at the chains that hung from the walls by long, sturdy hooks that few creatures would have had the strength to break. “This doesn’t look like a cave.”

Feeling restless as hell, Nick crossed his arms again and explained. “I’ve built a bunker inside one of the larger caves that was buried deep in the cliffs. The walls, floor and ceiling are reinforced steel and titanium. So nothing’s getting in, no matter how hard they try.”

A shadow of fear moved through her light brown eyes. “Does that mean those things that were chasing us aren’t...dead?”

His jaw hardened. “Not all of them, no.”

“Oh.” She swiped her tongue over her bottom lip, leaving it glossy and pink. “Are they, um, still after us then?”

As if in answer to her question, a bone-chilling howl sounded outside the thick, reinforced door.

“I guess that’s a yes,” she said a little unsteadily.

Forcing his attention away from that juicy lip, Nick locked his gaze with hers. “The good news is that we’re protected here,” he told her. “The bad news is that we’re essentially trapped. There’s no cell phone coverage either, so calling someone is out of the question.”

* * ** * *

Of course it was. If they could call for help, Lainey assumed Santos would have already done it. From the tense looks he was giving her, it was obvious he wanted to be anywhere in the world but trapped in this bunker with her. Hardly flattering, but then, she hadn’t expected any less from the man...er,
vampire.
He’d made it clear that afternoon that she wasn’t his type.

She’d heard the term “vacation hell” before, but she was pretty sure it had never so appropriately applied to a situation as it did to this one. So many questions crowded her brain. How was it that nobody knew vampires and werewolves truly existed? And exactly what did being a vampire entail?

More than a little unnerved by the situation and everything she’d been through, she asked, “What do you use this place for?”

He cast her an uneasy look from the corner of his eye as he started pacing, and for the first time since she’d lifted her lashes in this bizarre room, Lainey noticed the bloodied gauze wrapped around his right biceps, just visible beneath the sleeve of his black, lightweight T-shirt. “Interrogations,” he said in response to her question.

Oh...yikes. From his cold tone, she could tell it wasn’t a topic she wanted to pursue at the moment. Maybe later, but right now she was trying to process everything else that was happening. She didn’t need to start thinking about what kind of “interrogations” a vampire would hold in an underground bunker that had chains hanging from every wall.

“Can’t we...you know. Just sneak out through a back door or something?”

Shaking his head, he ran one of those large hands through his dark hair. “There’s no back door, Lainey. No escape route.”

“You didn’t think to put in an escape route when you built this place?”

His response was wry, as was the look he cut her from those impossibly sexy, dark blue eyes. “After this clusterfuck, you can be sure it’s going on the top of my To Do list.”

Lainey started to laugh, but the sound quickly dissolved into something wrenching and raw. From the moment she’d opened her eyes, she’d been focusing on the shock and fear coursing through her system. But the crushing truth she’d learned about her brother in that nightmarish cave was never far from the surface. Like a dam suddenly buckling under the pressure, her emotions rushed to the surface, her laughter becoming the choked sobs of someone who had lost something they loved that could never be replaced.

When she’d finally managed to calm down, Santos spoke in a low voice. “I’m sorry about your brother.”

She sniffed, swiping her fingertips across her damp, puffy cheeks. “Thanks.”

“You were close?” he asked, sounding a bit closer to the bed than he’d been before.

She nodded as she pressed her head into the pillow, staring up at the metal ceiling with burning eyes. “Always. He was never one of those pain-in-the-ass older siblings who detests the sight of their brothers or sisters. Our mother died when I was only two, and Ryan took me under his wing. I was lucky to have an incredible dad and grandmother, but it was Ryan who walked me to and from school. Who dealt with bullies, making sure no one ever messed with me. My dad lived with his head stuck in his books and computer programs, but Ryan was my rock.” She turned her head on the pillow to look at him, her voice thick with pride. “I bet he gave those assholes a hell of a fight when they attacked him.”

Standing with his hands in his pockets, no more than a few yards from the side of the bed, he said, “I’m sure he did.”