Depraved (Tales of a Vampire Hunter #2) (9 page)

“Enough,” he told her,
wanting to drink a vat of the stuff. He needed to keep it down, needed to take
it slow. Needed to get his strength back.

She put the cup on the table
next to the candle and peered down at him. She wore a dark cloak, like a
shroud. No wonder he’d thought of the grim reaper. Her hair was glossy and
black, shining blue where the light hit it at the crown of her head. He
imagined it would be long beneath the lace fabric that covered it. A bride, he
thought. She looked like the grim reaper’s bride.

He
closed his eyes as another wave of dizziness overcame him. Thank you, he
thought. He didn’t know if he was more thankful for the small kindness of the
water or for the oblivion that rushed to meet him as he passed out.

*****

Voices, not the girl’s. Men
speaking Spanish he didn’t understand.

Opening his eyes, Oliver was
blinded by a bright light. A flashlight, held close, someone roughly pulling
back his eyelids. Oliver moaned and shivered, cold and hot. Sweat dripped into
his eyes and pooled in the small of his back.

“He will die if we leave him
here. He needs the doctor,” a gruff voice said behind the bright light.

English, at last, Oliver
thought. Sensible. Yes, a doctor to make him better so he could kill all of
them.

“We really should have bought
that book on how to speak Spanish,”
he heard Miranda say with a laugh almost as if she was there too but no, he was
remembering the other time, the time when she’d been okay, singing along to the
radio and full of hope for their future together.

“Do you love me?”
Miranda asked in his memories.

He tried to remember what
he’d said in response when he should have showed her, yelled it from the
mountain tops—anything so she’d know deep down inside like he did that she was
his other half. His woman.

“Where’s Miranda?” he managed
to say, though his voice was still hoarse and weak.

The men did not answer.

Oliver turned his head as far
as he could to the left, looking for the girl who’d been here before, the one
who’d given him water and had gentle hands and kind eyes, but he did not see
her.

Spanish and English, voices
raised in anger.

“
Es demasiado peligroso
.”

“Then, bring the doctor here!
He must not die.”

Agreed, Oliver thought. Not
before I find out what happened to Miranda.

“If you’ve hurt her . . .” he
said, stopping himself from uttering the threat on his tongue and raging in his
mind.

Block your thoughts. Do not let them see. Think only of pain and water
and the Spanish girl and how kind she was. Think only of getting better. Do not
give them anything else.
These
thoughts he repeated over and over, like a mantra, pulling them around his mind
like a shield before passing out again.

*****

Something cool pressed into
his forehead. Oliver’s awareness swam up from somewhere inside of him that felt
dark and empty. His body was like heavy baggage for the rest of him, the part
of him that struggled for awareness. He felt no bindings on his wrists and
ankles, yet his limbs would not move. It was as if he lay on a bed of honey,
the cloying, sticky stuff not letting him go when he tried to lift even a
finger. His head was foggy, his thoughts dull. And he no longer cared much
about any of it. The body no longer mattered. The part that did was safe, snug
and carefree, swathed in warm cotton in a place where the past or future were
not a concern. They’d drugged him. Unless he was dying, it was the only
explanation.

After some time passed, and
the cool soothing thing on his face was recognized as a cloth, held by a gentle
hand, Oliver opened his eyes. Something that should have been so simple
required all his concentration.

Light greeted him, a soft,
soothing light framing a face he recognized though he couldn’t place it.

“
Que está despierto
,”
the lady said, her voice lilting as she spoke the Spanish words.

Desperate? His brain tried to
make sense of her words. As everything rushed back to him, he thought desperate
was as good a word as any to describe his current state.

Whatever they’d given him was
strong or being fed into his veins in a steady stream. Oliver had always had a
high tolerance for drugs and alcohol. He’d never succeeded in getting high when
he’d tried to smoke the skunk weed his brothers had been so fond of in high
school.

He tried to wiggle his
fingers again and, this time, they lifted from the bed. His toes worked too. He
moved his head from side to side, remembering the pain he’d felt before,
surprised to find none now. Even his shoulder that had stung like fire seemed
better. When he tried to sit up he found he couldn’t, not yet. He lay back
down.

“
Por favor, no te muevas
,”
the girl said, laying a hand on his bare chest.

She was not a vampire. Not a
vampire hunter, but not exactly human. He tried to reach into her mind and
found he could not. He could, however, see her aura if he concentrated, which
in his current state was difficult. Her aura was unlike any he’d seen before,
shimmering white at the center, surrounded by a thick, black cloud.

“Get the doctor,” Oliver
said.

The girl, or whatever she
was, wore a look of relief now that he’d stopped moving around. She smiled at
him, her lips full and pressed together.

A Madonna, or that lady in
the famous painting, all done up like an old-fashioned Spanish lady, Oliver
thought, his brain still trying to make sense of everything. He shoved those
thoughts away. She was the least of his worries now.

“Go. Get. The
hombre
,”
he tried, pulling out one of the few words he knew in Spanish.

They were alone in the room,
a cave-like space cut from stone. Unlike the catacombs, which had been filled
with skulls and dirt, this place had been fitted out as if for a gypsy king.
The walls were warmed by tapestries, the bed piled with fine linens and
blankets of what felt like silk and velvet under his hands. Everything gilded
and embroidered and layered.

“
No lo entiendo
,” she
said, her huge brown eyes darting to the doorway.

“Get someone who speaks
English . . . English. The boss,” he growled, making a grab for her arm.

She squealed and ran from the
room, trailing black lace and the scent of her perfume behind her.

“That’s right. Run, little
Spanish mouse,” Oliver muttered, closing his eyes to wait until whoever was in
charge, and had gone to the trouble of fixing him up, came. It was only a
matter of time, which Oliver suddenly had plenty of.

“You frightened Adonia, and after
she was so kind to you.”

The man Oliver had called wolf-dude entered. He wore the
familiar long, black leather coat. He was tall, powerfully built but slim. His
steps were light, reminding Oliver of a bullfighter. He stopped at the foot of
the bed and wrapped his fingers around one of the carved wood posts. His eyes
were black, the whites almost non-existent.

This time, when Oliver pushed himself up, hands clutching
snowy white sheets, he succeeded in putting his back to the pillows piled
behind him. He lounged with what he hoped was an air of indifference and ease.

Careful to mask his anger, thinking only of the moment and
this man who held the power for now, Oliver shrugged. “I’ll thank her next time
I see her.”

The large man chuckled. “Sure of yourself, for someone in
your position, aren’t you? I like that in a man.” He spoke in unaccented
English, though a hint of stiffness suggested the tongue was not his native
one.

“What position is that?” Oliver quieted his brain when it
started to list the frightening possibilities for him while flooding him with
useless emotions this man might be able to use against him.

He studied the man’s face, noting the way he wore his long,
black hair scooped back from the top of his head, gathered in the back so most
of it tumbled to his shoulders. Though perhaps a bit old-fashioned in clothing
and hairstyle, he appeared human on the surface.

“At my mercy, it would seem,” wolf-dude answered, with a
faint smile.

“Mercy would certainly be a shift from the other times we
met. Why the change?” Oliver kept his tone casual.

The man smiled, flashing even white teeth. The smile did
nothing to soften his sharp features. “Misunderstandings, the times before,
over-zealous minions and the heat of the moment. Surely, a vampire hunter
understands how these things can so easily spiral out of control?”

Oliver raised a knee and rested his arm on it. No shoulder
pain and his head felt fine. He met the man’s eyes and pulled out a talent from
his vampire hunter’s bag of tricks, expanding his energy into the room,
cloaking himself with an aura of allure a vampire would have found
mouth-watering. He didn’t know what this man was—wolf, werewolf, vampire,
Perro Negro
, devil or something else, and he
smiled when the man’s eyes widened slightly as his gaze roamed over him. So
wolf-dude was not immune to the allure Oliver could cast. Good.

“Vampire hunters work hard to keep things under control when
dealing with their enemies. To lose control means certain death,” Oliver said,
letting the sheet slip from his leg, pooling in the spread of his thighs.

“You’re not exactly an ordinary hunter, are you, Mr.
Ripley?” His dark gaze roamed over Oliver. “You are part vampire, just as I
am.”

Very aware of his naked, unarmed state, Oliver forced his
thoughts in line, refusing to let confusion over the man’s words overwhelm him
and strip him of his flimsy vampire hunter weapons. Seduction would only take
him so far with one who knew what he was up to.

“There’s nothing ordinary about me, but you already know
that.”

The man chuckled, his gaze sweeping over the display of
Oliver’s well-muscled chest and then dropping to where the sheets had pooled in
the V of his legs. “Indeed.”

Enough of the cat and mouse games, Oliver thought. “You said
our meetings until now have been a series of misunderstandings. Please,
enlighten me,” he said, trying to dip into the man’s mind for the truth, but
finding nothing but blackness there.

“First, please allow me to introduce myself. I am Micah
Lobo.” The large man swept Oliver a smooth bow that seemed well-practiced.

“
Lobo
. Wolf.” Oliver
chuckled softly, discovering another Spanish word he knew. “Clever.”

Micah joined Oliver, smiling and laughing as if they were
the best of friends just having a chat about their favorite sports teams. The
smile did nothing to change the menace in those sinister-looking dark eyes.

“So what do you want from me?” Oliver’s gaze stayed on the
other man’s face, lingering on his mouth.

“It was never my intention to do you or your pretty friend
any harm.” Micah Lobo’s tone was conciliatory, though not apologetic.

Again, Oliver refused to let him steer the conversation,
focusing on the things he was most concerned with now. “After tying me up and
leaving me for dead, you had a doctor patch me up. Again with the contrasts.
What am I to make of you?”

Oliver strained to pick up the man’s aura now that Lobo’s
guard had dropped, and he seemed entranced by his hunter’s spell, but all he
saw was a black swirling cloud that clung tightly to Lobo. Like the young
Spanish girl’s aura, Lobo’s was unlike any Oliver had seen before.

“You were very ill. A concussion, a dislocated shoulder. But
the worst was the broken rib. It had punctured something inside. You would have
died without the doctor’s care.”

Oliver’s thoughts darted away to Miranda. Worry sluiced
through him before he got a grip and shoved it deep within.

“I’m fine now. Perhaps it is you I should thank, not the
little Spanish mouse.” Oliver stretched lazily, capturing the man’s gaze once
more.

“The doctor said you healed faster than any man he’s ever
worked on.” The man’s eyes narrowed, though he licked his lips and could not
seem to stop himself from stepping closer, letting go of the bedpost, coming
around the side of the bed.

“Yes, we’ve already established that I’m out of the
ordinary. What do you want from me, now that I’m all better?” Oliver was
careful not to react to the other man’s movements. He was still too far away to
attack.

“Surely you’ve figured that out by now? There’s only one
thing a vampire hunter is truly skilled at, besides seduction, which you are
clearly a master of.” Once more, Lobo chuckled, running a fingertip over the
velvet cover draped over the end of the bed.

“You have a vampire in need of killing?”

“Very good, Mr. Ripley. I do indeed.” He smiled, pleased and
at ease just the way Oliver wanted him.

“You seem capable enough. Why not take him out yourself?”

Oliver had witnessed Lobo change from a wolf into a man. He
must have a posse of humans and creatures like the Spanish girl working for
him. Why did he need his help? It didn’t make sense, and Oliver had learned to
question things that tweaked his bullshit alarm.

“This is no ordinary vampire. No, this one requires someone
special for the job, someone like you.”

“And if I do this for you, I suppose you’ll let me go?”