What was he, a freaking snack bar? Were more vampires going to come into the room and want a taste of Justin? Was he going to have to drop a pint down into a damn trough? Justin really didn’t want these vampires feeding from him, but really didn’t want to tell them no.
Besides, the prince hadn’t hurt him. Justin stuck his hand out, giving Danny his index finger. “Go for it. While you’re licking the ole positive A, can you tell me if my blood sugar is low. I forgot to take my meds.”
Danny cut his eyes quickly to the prince and then took Justin’s offered finger. Justin winced when Danny pricked it with his fang and then licked at the blood. He suppressed a giggle trying to break free.
It tickled.
Danny leaned back and nodded. “You are a vampire, Justin. I can taste it in your blood.”
“As can I,” the prince replied.
Okay.
This was awkward and weird. Justin wasn’t quite sure what blood the two had been drinking lately, but he was not a vampire. Maybe the two rolled a drunk and now they were a little on the inebriated side. They would have to be in order to think he was a vampire. Justin didn’t crave blood. He didn’t have to hide from the sun. He loved garlic, and he couldn’t bedazzle a beetle if he tried.
And he hadn’t tried.
These guys were nuts. But considering he was in a house full of vampires, the best thing to do was to play nice. He was really fond of his throat and didn’t want them to tear it out for arguing with them.
“Okay, thanks for letting me know. I’ll make sure I drink an eight ounce glass of the bubbly crimson every day. Can I go now?”
As fast as I can run from this place?
“Why don’t you let me call Prince Zacarius and let him know that you are safe and in our care?” Dominic asked.
“Just as long as no one tries to snack on me, I can hang out until the cavalry arrives.” Justin glanced around the elaborately decorated room. He could hang out here. It wasn’t that bad, and these two men were pretty polite…for vampires.
“Justin,” Danny began as he touched Justin’s hand. “No one is going to feed from you unless you are a donor.”
Yeah, like he believed that one.
“Okay,” he said as he smiled at the two. Not only was he in a house of vampires, but it must double as a loony bin. They were nuts if they thought Justin was a vampire. He may not tan very well, but that didn’t make him a vampire. “Have you seen my bag?”
Danny pointed across the room. “That one?”
Justin nodded, and Danny got up from the bed and retrieved the bag, handing it over to Justin.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, while I make that phone call.” Dominic left Danny and Justin alone.
“Nice guy,” Justin said as he snapped his eyes around the room, trying his best to think of something to talk about. Danny was just sitting there staring strangely at him, and it was making Justin a little creeped out.
“
So
, you and Dominic are mates,” Justin stated and then popped his lips. “Sounds, uh, pretty cool.” Why in the hell was the man just staring at him? Justin was just a little too curious and decided to quench that curiosity. Taking a deep breath, he locked eyes with Danny, concentrating hard.
And then the layers of Danny’s mind began to unfold. He caught glimpses and snatches of memories at first, nothing he could grab onto. But then a man’s face became clear as a bell. It was Danny standing in an office, arguing about some contract and stating that the contract was between him and his father. The scene fast forwarded, and Danny was asking to use a phone to call his brother Samuel.
And then Danny was giving blood from his fingertip. But no one was using their fangs. It was almost like the glucose meter Justin used.
“Then sign the contract, Daniel. It’s for the good of your family.”
Justin pulled back, more questions than before whirling around in his mind. “You have a brother named Samuel?”
Danny gasped, leaning away from Justin as his eyes flickered over Justin’s face. “How do you know that?”
Justin shrugged, feeling guilty as hell for invading the man’s thoughts. But Justin couldn’t be blamed. He was in a house full of strangers, that were vampires, and he wasn’t sure if Dominic had really left to go call Prince Zacarius. He just flat-out didn’t trust the nutty vampires. But he had to admit, they were very hospitable, for loons.
“You read my thoughts?” Danny asked. The man didn’t sound mad. He sounded more amazed than anything. “You did, didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” Justin said as he glanced around the room. “Nice curtains.”
“Yeah, they’re lovely. Dominic had them imported from France,” Danny replied as he crawled onto the bed, making Justin pull back. “What else did you see?”
“You signed some contract and gave up a pinprick of blood.” Why did Danny looked as excited as a puppy with a new chew toy?
Oh hell, Justin prayed he wasn’t the new chew toy.
“Did you also see that I was telling you the truth about being a vampire?” Danny asked quickly. “Did you read my mind and figure out that we are brothers like I did?”
Wait, what?
“Oh, hell. I didn’t mean to blurt that out,” Danny said as he sat back and started wringing his hands together. “Sorry, you are probably already freaked out about being a vampire. I didn’t mean to add more to your plate.”
Right. Now the nutty man thinks we are related. I better play nice with the man with sharp teeth.
“Uh…sure, I saw that.” Where in the hell was his rescue team?
When the door opened, Justin looked toward it eagerly. His heart sank when Dominic walked in instead of his rescue team. He was really hoping that he was going to be sprung from vampire loony bin.
“Prince Zacarius has gotten in touch with Alpha Nash,” Dominic said. “He will be sending someone for you in the morning.”
Crap.
Justin smiled politely. “Thanks.”
“Um, Dominic,” Danny said. “I’m afraid that I kind of let it out that Justin was my brother.”
“Oh, my.”
Justin could feel Dominic’s eyes on him. He felt like squirming, but he didn’t want either of the vampires to know just how uncomfortable he was. That was kind of like waving a red flag in front of a raging bull.
“And what do you think about that, Justin?”
“Oh, well…” Good god, was he really supposed to tell these people that they were nuttier than bed bugs? Honesty was not his best option here. “I don’t remember my parents, so anything is possible, although I don’t understand how we could be related and have such different colored hair and eyes.”
“I don’t understand how we could be brothers either,” Danny said. “I know both my mother and my father, as much as I wish I didn’t. My mother would never dream of being unfaithful to my father, but I can’t say the same for him. He’d do whatever he needed to do to get what he wants. He sold my ass to Dominic.”
Justin narrowed his eyes. “He’s not friends with a man named Teacher or a man named Philip Spencer, is he?”
Danny shrugged. “I haven’t got a clue. I don’t really know any of my father’s friends.”
“Well, let me tell you,” Justin said, “you are better off not knowing them. The Teacher and Philip Spencer are the scum of the earth.”
“Who are they?” Dominic asked.
“The Teacher held me and my friends captive for twenty years. Because we have certain”—Justin swallowed past the lump in his throat, not really feeling comfortable sharing this bit of information—“abilities and the Teacher wanted to use us to gain him power and money. With the help of Joe and Nate Nash, and a few of their friends, we were finally rescued and set free.”
Dominic growled. “And Philip Spencer?”
“Philip Spencer was the owner of Spence Corp.”
“The investment firm?” Dominic asked.
“That’s the one.” Justin nodded. “He kidnapped the mother of my mate and held her captive for years, experimenting on her. He even took her son, Elliot, and raised him as his son so he could continue to experiment on him, only Elliot met his mate when he visited Wolf Creek and everything changed.”
Justin pushed his hand through his hair and wished he could forget the whole mess. People like the Teacher and Philip Spencer needed to be locked up for the good of everyone, especially anyone that they could exploit.
“We believe that the Teacher and Philip Spencer were working together to create some sort of mutant shifter super soldier thing, but so far ,we haven’t been able to prove it. But Joe suspects that—”
“Joe?” Danny asked curiously.
“Joe Nash. He’s sheriff of Wolf Creek Valley and the enforcer of the Wolf Creek Pack. He’s also the son of the alpha and the mate to one of my best friends, Nate.”
“He sounds nice,” Danny said.
Justin grinned. “He is, and he’s crazy about Nate, who can drive just about anyone off their fucking rocker.”
“Justin, please,” Dominic said, “continue with what you were saying about what Joe suspected. I need to know if this is something I need to look further into.” Dominic’s eyes darted over to Danny. “I need to know if there is a threat to Danny.”
“No, I really don’t think so,” Justin said. “The Teacher was killed by—” Justin felt tears spring to his eyes when he thought of his lover. “Someone killed the Teacher to protect Nate. And Philip Spencer was attacked by Elliot’s mate. He’s still recovering from his wounds and awaiting a pack judgment.”
“Wow. What did he do?” Danny asked, then flushed as if he had realized Justin had already explained that. “I mean besides kidnapping your friends.”
“He tried to create a werewolf virus.” Justin laughed nervously. “And he actually succeeded, just not the way he had hoped. There is no wolf virus the way most people think of it, but mixed with the vampire virus and genetically manipulated, there is one, and it has already infected one man. All of the research was destroyed, but there’s always a possibility of someone else having a copy or making the same discovery that Dr. Banning made.”
“Creating a virus that could infect people and make them into wolf shifters?” Dominic asked.
“Beats me.” Justin shrugged. “If this virus has both wolf-shifter DNA and vampire DNA in it, I suppose it could create just about anything.”
“But what would someone need with a virus like this?” Danny asked as he glanced between Dominic and Justin. “There are already vampires and wolf-shifters in the world. Was Philip Spencer trying to create a crossbreed between the two?”
“Again, I don’t know. What I do know is that both Philip Spencer and the Teacher hurt a lot of people in their bids for power. They didn’t care what they did or how legal it was. They just took what, and who, they wanted.”
“Pack judgment is too lenient,” Dominic sneered. “Let me get my hands on them and then they would really see some judgment. Vampires are not known for their mercy.”
Yeah, Justin was afraid Dominic was going to say something like that. “When is my ride getting here?”
“Taylor, wake up.”
Taylor groaned as he rolled over—and right into a warm wall of flesh. His eyes popped open, and he found himself staring into Chase’s deep-amber eyes. He swallowed hard and then licked his lips, realizing how dry both were as he remembered exactly why he was in bed with the big wolf-shifter.
“We need to go,” Chase said as he bent down and grabbed his clothes off the floor and started dressing. “Alpha Nash called and he knows where Justin is.”
“Justin?” Taylor blinked for a moment, still caught in the memories of the previous evening. And then Chase’s words started to sink in. “Daniel Nash knows where Justin is?”
Chase nodded as he hiked his pants up his muscled thighs. Taylor almost groaned, remembering those thighs, that gorgeous body pounding into him. Justin was going to kill him when he found out what had happened.
“Justin apparently got into a little scuffle with someone and he was rescued by the second–in-command of
Prince Dominic Ruelle. He was taken to the prince’s coven for safe keeping. After Justin told the prince who he was, the prince called Daniel.”
Taylor rolled to the side of the bed and sat up, pulling the covers over his naked body. “Where is he?”
Chase chuckled and shook his head. “Believe it or not, he’s just a couple of hours south of here.”
“What kind of a scuffle? Was he hurt?” Taylor’s voice lowered to a growl as he quickly stood, ignoring the fact that he was naked as he scrambled for his clothes. “Who hurt him, Chance?”
“Slow down, tiger. He’s fine. But that’s all I know. If we want to know all of the facts, we need to get moving.”
Taylor slid his pants on, hitching them past his hips and then fastened them. He hated wearing yesterday’s clothes, but at least he had a clean shirt to put on.
He felt a bit awkward this morning around Chase. He wasn’t sure if the wolf was going to start acting like they were mates, or if he was going to shove that stick back up his ass. Taylor was dreading this ride.
“We can pass a drive-thru if you’re hungry,” Chase said as he grabbed his keys and opened the door to the motel room. Taylor shoved his feet in his shoes and then quickly tied them, grabbing the rest of his clothes, and brushed past Chase.
“Hey,” Chase said as he curled his fingers around Taylor’s upper arm. Taylor paused, looking down at the clothes in his arms, afraid to look at his mate, afraid of what he was going to see in Chase’s eyes.