Authors: Hot Vampire Seduction
Aiden whirled around to face his second attacker just in time to watch his younger brother, Troy, deliver the same death by dust to the other vamp.
Troy’s light blue eyes lifted to Aiden’s, glinting with the odd blue crystal they’d reflected for ten years now, since Troy’s long black hair had also turned blonde. Since a werewolf had attacked him, he had not been the same. A wolf created by a virus that turned a human into a killer wolf, that as a vampire, Troy should have been immune to and unexplainably was not.
“So much for conversation,” Aiden said, shoving his knife under a leather coat that worked for hunting, but pretty much sucked on a hot Texas night. “Clearly, our plan to find out what the local bloodsucking population knew about the recent murders isn’t going as planned.”
“I wasn’t in the mood to talk anyway,” Troy said, pushing to his feet and inserting his blade inside a strap under his leather pants at his ankle. “And how about a ‘thank you’ for showing up when I did? I just saved your ass.”
“You were supposed to be here an hour ago,” Aiden reminded him. “What the hell happened?”
“I was hunting,” he said tightly. “That’s what we do. We’re Wardens. We hunt.”
“We aren’t hunting werewolves,” Aiden reminded him. He knew good and damn well that Troy was not only pissed off about being sent here, and being pulled off the hunt for Andres – a wolf with unique abilities, that Troy hoped to also held answers he sought. He was also the wolf that had all but killed their older brother, Evan’s, new wife.
“What if I told you that Andres is here, in Austin?”
“I’d say you’re so eager to find the bastard that you’re seeing him where he isn’t.”
“It’s his blood,” Troy said. “That’s what creates the drug these women are taking, or rather being forced to take. Andres’s blood mixed with a vampire’s. It’s an aphrodisiac, by loosely defined terms. It causes pain in the absence of pleasure. Word is that the vamps are paying big money for this cocktail and then holding orgies. And when the pain and pleasure causes a few of the women to stroke out, the vamps figure – what the hell? – and they drain them dry.”
“Holy shit,” Aiden said, scrubbing his jaw. “How sure are you about this?””
“As sure as the three vamps I was interrogating knew I’d kill them.” Aiden’s cell phone buzzed on his belt and he looked down to see he had a voice mail. The instant he saw the local number, he grabbed it and punched his voice mail button. He listened to the soft, nervous voice of Kelly and then cursed.
“We’re headed a block over to fifth street,” he told Troy. “To a place called “Twilight”.”
***
The question was a shout, the only way to be heard over the thrumming beat of the Twilight club music.
Kelly looked up from the cocktail on her small corner table, wanting to say no, but knowing she had to say yes.
“Thank you,” she beamed, batting her lashes flirtatiously and not missing the way the men scoped out her cleavage. God, she was too old for this.
One of the men ordered her a drink. The other moved around to her side of the table. She turned to face him. “I’m Alex,” he said.
“Kelly,” she told him.
He slid her drink closer to her. “Drink up. Another is on the way.” She grabbed the glass and sipped it, seeing no way out of it. “Thank you,” she said, smiling over the rim of the glass and then downing it. She had to look like a desperate lonely female if she was going to attract the right people and get her drug sample.
He leaned on the table, somehow closer to her now. So close. Too close. The other man came up behind her, his body pressed to hers, his hand on her waist. She wanted to shove him away, but she didn’t dare.
This wasn’t about her discomfort. It was about saving lives. The man behind her slid her empty glass away and replaced it with a new one, then leaned in near her ear, his breath warm on her neck. “Enjoy.” A shiver of unease, much like what she’d felt inside the lab with Derek, rushed down her spine. The first man – Alex – leaned an elbow on the table, close as well. She was sandwiched between them and wondering why she had thought this was a good idea.
“What brings a pretty girl like you to a bar by herself?”
“Boyfriend fucked my best friend,” she said flatly, not sure where the words came from, because she didn’t speak like that. Yet she had now. The words, the piece of her past, had come to her easily – too easily, helped along, no doubt, by alcohol. “She’s my dorm mate. I don’t want to stay there tonight.” He arched a brow. The man behind her slid his hands to her waist. “Drink that drink. It’ll make you forget.”
She could already feel the buzz of downing the other drink. She studied Alex, cast him a pleading look.
“Sometimes a drink isn’t enough.” She grabbed his hand, desperate to avoid letting herself slip into a deeper haze of the booze she knew she couldn’t handle. “Let’s dance.” He wrapped his arm around her and spun her so that her back was against the wall, pressing up close to her. “Kiss me first,” he said.
“Get the fuck off of her,” came a familiar male voice that Kelly couldn’t quite place.
Alex turned sharply but he didn’t say anything. He stepped to the left, away from her and Kelly was shocked to see Detective Wright standing in front of her. Slowly his lips curved into a sardonic smile, before he grabbed her and pulled her against him, sliding his hand in her hair. “I knew you’d come.” She blinked. “What?”
He lowered his mouth just above hers. “I got you your sample from your two boyfriends. Their dealers, you know? I told them my girlfriend wanted to ride me long and hard tonight so you better convince them I meant it.” He tugged her mouth to his and kissed her. It was all she could do not to push him away, not to bite his tongue when it slid into her mouth. And when his hand slid over her breast, she barely contained a scream of fury. Somehow though, she reminded herself that he had a sample of the drug she sought, he’d gotten what she needed to help save lives. She’d endure, she’d survive. Suddenly he released her mouth and grabbed her hand. “Come with me.”
He all but dragged her until they were alone and in a hallway behind the bathrooms. He shoved her against the wall. “Enough with the role playing!” she objected.
His hand slid roughly into her hair and then he buried his face in her neck. A sudden piercing sensation shocked her breath from her. As quickly as the sensation started, he was gone, jerked away from her. She flattened against the wall, her heart pounding so hard she thought it would explode from her chest. She blinked Aiden into focus at the same moment he shoved Detective Wright at another tall, blond male and growled, “Get him the fuck out of here and make him talk.” Her fingers went to her neck, instantly wet. What had he done to her?
The sorry bastard had bitten her. Though without the sharing of blood she was in no long term danger, but Aiden was furious that she’d been hurt. He stepped closer to her. The scent of her blood, sweet and feminine, called to the vampire in him. The scent of her fear, her panic, called to the man. He positioned his body against hers, his thighs framing hers so that he blocked her from the sight of anyone who might enter the deserted hallway behind them.
His hands caressed her cheeks, bringing her gaze to his. “You’re going to be okay, Sweetheart. You have my word.”
“I’m bleeding. He…I don’t know what he did to me.”
“Let me look,” he urged softly, knowing what he would find, knowing there would be bite marks he should never have allowed to happen. He’d resisted playing with her mind, her memories. In turn, he’d almost gotten her killed. He’d given her a weak, too vague, compulsion to call him before acting on a lead.
She nodded, trust overflowing from those gorgeous hazel eyes. The significance of her trust in him, someone she barely knew, given to him after an attack by someone she had known, didn’t escape him.
Given to him when he didn’t deserve it, when he shouldn’t want it, anymore than he should want the attachment he was forming for her. But he did, damn it to hell, he did in a bad way.
Aiden brushed the silky strands of her hair away from her neck, an image of that hair draped over his bare chest impossible to avoid. He wanted her. He’d wanted her from the instant he’d seen her. He tilted her head slightly to one side, dipped his head to the blood seeping down her neck. There was nothing as erotic to a vampire as blood. Hot fire bled through his veins. His tongue slid over the wound, the small droplets of blood teasing his taste buds and his senses with the sweet ruby wine flavor.
“Oh,” she gasped. “What are you — I…”
His hand settled on her waist, his lips moving from the sealed wound to her ear. “Kissing it to make it better,” he whispered, electricity charging the air around them. His cheek slid across hers, his lips lingering just above hers, every nerve in his body aware of her in ways he didn’t remember ever being aware of a woman. Voices sounded just around the corner, approaching quickly, jerking him back to his senses. He cursed under his breath at the distraction and grabbed her hand. “Let’s get out of here.” He didn’t wait for her answer. He’d almost gotten her killed once tonight, he wasn’t doing it again.
She tugged against him. “Wait. No. Aiden, please, I need to get that sample. I need-” His senses tingled with warning and in one swift movement he drew his knife, whirled around to face the incoming attack, and slammed the blade into the chest of a vampire. The body dropped and it didn’t explode into ash. This vampire was free of bloodlust and that was bad, very bad. This drug ring that was going on was well plotted, and well organized.
He turned to find Kelly wide eyed. “You just…you…”
The backdoor burst open and Troy shouted behind him. “Incoming trouble! Move, move, move!” Anything that got Tory, Mr. Bad Ass himself, this riled up was big and Aiden knew it. He sent Kelly a mental compulsion and put her to sleep. He had her in his arms, stepping over the dead vampire, before her lashes fully closed. He exited the club to find Troy’s truck parked at the doorway. Troy was driving the instant Aiden shut himself and Kelly in the back.
Aiden sunk against the seat, cradling Kelly in his arms when he knew he should set her down. He didn’t.
“Talk to me,” Aiden ordered to Troy.
“Six against one. I wasted four of them. Two got away. The detective was one of the two and he’s no good guy. He’s a part of this. I heard the orders he was barking at those bloodsuckers.” Aiden cursed, for all kinds of reasons, but the most important was lying in his arms. Kelly was in the line of fire. “He could have been undercover.”
“He was trying to kill me,” Troy said. “If that’s undercover, it’s too damn deep undercover to suit me.
Mark my word, I saw enough to know that vamp is as high up in the mess as it goes – and that’s a direct path to Andres.”
Aiden went colder inside than he’d been anytime in the last hundred and thirty-two years. He knew his brother and Troy was too certain to be wrong. Kelly was a target of a vampire that was somehow wrapped up in the murder of six girls. And that vampire, was deeply entrenched in her world, which ensured she would stay on his radar. There was no wiping her memories and sending her back to her life, without putting her in harm’s way. Kelly was now in for a wild, bumpy ride and he had a feeling she was going to take him for one too.
“He’s coming for her all right,” Troy said, as Aiden settled Kelly on the black leather sofa they’d rented at the same time as the downtown Victorian style house, they now stood inside. “You’re one hundred percent right about that. Either she’s too close to figuring out the secret behind his little blood cocktail, or he’s simply got his sights set on her.”
Aiden’s gaze lingered on Kelly a moment, drinking in the pale perfect skin, her pretty heart shaped face, before he glanced up at his brother. “Then we kill him now, tonight, before I ever wake her up.” Troy plopped down in a leather chair. “Hey man, I’m always down with killing a few bloodsuckers gone bad, but this dude has been playing mafia and getting away with it. He’s working as a human detective, employing an army of vampires, and he’s now working a drug scheme with a werewolf. We can’t kill him, until he leads us to his minions, and to Andres, or Andres will just move on, and replace him with someone else.”
Aiden’s teeth ground together. “You let him go intentionally.”
“Hell yeah I did,” Troy agreed. “We have to get Andres.”
“We don’t put innocents in the line of fire.”
“Every ‘innocent’ that crossed Andres’s path gets their throat ripped out.” He sat up, his elbows on his knees. “What’s up with you Aiden? You know the big picture.”
“Since when, is revenge against the werewolf population the big picture?”
“This isn’t about fucking revenge,” Troy spat between his teeth. “This is about saving lives, many lives, not one woman’s.” Troy narrowed his gaze, glancing at Kelly and then Aiden. ”Don’t do it brother. Don’t go and get attached to a woman. You and me, we aren’t Evan. We don’t get the happily-ever-after. For us, it always, always ends badly.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then act like it,” Troy said. “Wake her up and let’s talk to her. She’s the only link we have to Detective Wright and he’s the link to Andres.”
He was right again. Personal feelings got in the way of duty, they got people killed. Aiden pressed his hand to Kelly’s head, finding the memory of the man he’d killed in the bar, and wiping it. He didn’t need her morals, or her fear, getting in the way of keeping her safe. He’d learned his lesson. He followed the memory cleanse with a command to wake up. The instant she blinked, he stood up and walked to the opposite side of the coffee table, putting distance between himself and her, for good measure.
***