Quinn's Undying Rose (Scanguards Vampires #6) (29 page)

“Blake, please remain calm. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I wish I could have spared you this, but—” Her gaze strayed to Quinn, who answered with an encouraging nod. “—you need to know who we are. Quinn and I, we’re your great-great-great-great-grandparents. You’re our flesh and blood, and we’d do anything to keep you safe.”

As Blake pushed back in his chair, its legs scraped on the tile floor, making an eerie sound in the kitchen. Nobody was saying anything, as if they were all waiting for his reaction.

“Bullshit!” He reared up from his seat and instantly swayed, gripping the backrest for support. Clearly, the blood loss was still affecting him.

But his mind was sharper than ever. They were vampires, all right, but no way in hell was he related to any of them.

“I’m no bloodsucker!” he protested. “I’m not like you!”

“Of course not,” Quinn interrupted calmly. “You’re entirely human, because  Rose’s and my daughter was conceived and born when we were both still human, back in 1814. Rose and I became vampires after that.”

Blake looked at him, allowing his eyes to inspect his face, then did the same with Rose. The two looked nothing like anybody in his family. And besides, they looked younger than him!

“You’re barely 25!”

Unexpectedly, Rose smiled at him. “One of the advantages of being a vampire: you don’t age.” She exchanged a warm smile with Quinn. “We’ll always look as young as the day we were turned.”

“Well I knew that, of course! I watch movies. I’m not stupid,” Blake quickly replied. “But that doesn’t mean we’re related. So spit it out, what do you want from me?” He glared at them, then motioned his head toward Oliver. “Cause I already know what
he
wanted. And he’s not getting it. I’d rather slit my own throat!”

Because nobody could ever find out that he’d found Oliver’s bite arousing as hell. That’s why he’d fought him with all he had. Because, fuck, he was no homo! He loved women, one hundred percent, and no fucking bloodsucker would ever get another chance at making him doubt his sexuality. No fucking way!

For good measure, he glared at the other two gays in the room: Thomas and Eddie. No matter how masculine the two had looked when he’d met them the day before, all dressed in their biker gear, there was no doubt in Blake’s mind that the two were queer.

When Rose suddenly stood up from her chair and took a step toward him, he shrank back, hitting the kitchen counter behind him. As much as he didn’t want to display fear in front of these predators, he couldn’t help himself. He was outnumbered, and that alone freaked him out.

“Men in Black, my ass,” he murmured under his breath. “More like Dracula.”

“It’s the truth. Quinn and I are your ancestors. And you’re here because somebody wants to take revenge on me by hurting you. That’s why we had to come up with this ruse; so we could protect you twenty-four-seven.”

He shook his head, because he didn’t want to believe it. It changed nothing about the facts. They were what they were. And somehow he had to get away from them. Outsmart them, since fighting them was not an option. There were too many of them. And if they were all as strong as Oliver, Quinn, and Rose, he had a snowball’s chance in hell at landing even a single punch.

Mixed emotions battled for supremacy inside him, stirring him up. He’d never been so confused in his entire life. While fear for his immediate future was still at the forefront of his thoughts, other emotions invaded. Confusion and disbelief were paramount, but annoyance crept in too. They’d tricked him into believing that he’d landed a fabulous job, when they’d lied to him from the start.

He felt like an idiot that he hadn’t spotted their deception any earlier. Hell, they’d fed him all kinds of crap, and he’d eaten it up like it was mother’s milk!

“I’m not stupid, you know!” he ground out.

“Nobody says you are,” Rose cooed, her soft tone only underscoring that she thought him to be a dimwit.

When she reached for him, he recoiled from her touch. At any other time, he would have welcomed her hand on his skin, but not now. And hell, if she was really his great-great-whatever than the fact that he’d thought her hot was just utterly gross and disgusting!

“Don’t touch me!”

He tossed a warning look at the vampires that all stared at him like he was food and they were starving. Instinctively, he pressed his hand to the spot where Oliver had bitten him only minutes earlier. Shit, they were all after his blood.

“Nobody will hurt you,” Quinn assured him. “Oliver is young, he hasn’t learned yet how to control himself. It won’t happen again, I swear it.”

“You’re right about that!” Because he’d be out of here as soon as he could find a way to escape. He had no intention of waiting around until the next one of them got hungry and took a bite out of him. Not even if that hottie Nina was the one to do it.

Blake thrust his chin up in a show of defiance, when inside him everything was crumbling. He’d put all his hopes into this new endeavor. When he’d moved to San Francisco, he’d hoped to finally find something that interested him, a job he could dig into and make his own. For a few short days he’d believed himself in luck. Scanguards probably didn’t even exist. It wouldn’t surprise him if the whole things was some front for a criminal operation. No wonder Quinn had made it sound so mysterious. And been so secretive.

“Are you feeling better?” Quinn suddenly asked.

Blake shrugged. “How do you want me to feel? You imprison me here under some pretense and then you let one of your guys attack me.” He pointed at Oliver. “He would have drained me!”

Oliver whirled around to face him. “I said I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. I told you to run, I did . . . ”

“Don’t think I didn’t try,” he shot back.

Quinn shot a surprised look at Oliver. “You used mind control to paralyze him?”

Oliver shook his head. “I didn’t. I don’t even know how yet.”

“I suppose your instincts kicked in.” Then Quinn looked back at him. “As I said, I’ll make sure Oliver behaves from now on. And from the rest of us, you have nothing to fear either. We don’t attack humans.”

He wanted to believe it, for his own sanity’s sake, but when Blake looked at the other vampires, his gaze fell on Zane. There was something mean looking about him, and he knew that he never wanted to meet that guy in a dark alley. Something told him that he was dangerous. No, he wasn’t safe here, even if Quinn and Rose tried to convince him of it. Even if they were his 4th great-grandparents.

“I don’t feel so good right now,” he pressed out.

“Of course, the blood loss,” Rose agreed quickly. “Why don’t you lie down in your room a little, and when you’ve rested, we’ll talk more, okay?”

He nodded, then looked toward the kitchen door. Without saying anything, the others parted to make way for him. Zane even held the door open for him until he’d stepped through it.

Blake briefly eyed the front door at the end of the corridor, but remembering how quickly Oliver had moved when he’d attacked him, he knew that even a mad dash for it wouldn’t succeed. He’d never reach it in time.

But he wouldn’t give up.

Determined to find a way out, he walked upstairs, leaving the vampires and their quiet murmurs behind.

31

“Zane, Cain, Amaury, watch the doors,” Quinn ordered as soon as Blake had walked upstairs. “Wesley, Nina, stand by. It’s still daytime for a few hours. Thomas, Eddie, you might as well get some rest while you can so you can relieve the others in a few hours.”

As his colleagues left the kitchen, Quinn was alone with Oliver and Rose.

“Quinn, I’m—”

He held up his hand to stop Oliver from saying anything else.

“Rose, can you give us a minute alone please?”

She nodded quickly and left the room. When the door fell shut behind her, he looked back at his prodigy.

“I blame myself. I knew you were having trouble keeping the thirst under control. Hell, all of us struggled with it at the beginning. I should have been there when you needed me. Instead, I . . . ” He glanced toward the door through which Rose had just left.

Oliver took a hesitant step toward him. “I understand. You have enough stuff going on right now. Rose . . . well, it’s important that you and she work things out. She’s worth it.”

Quinn felt a smile tug at his lips. “She is. But it’s no excuse for me to neglect my duties. I’m your sire, and you need to be able to rely on me to guide you through the worst. I haven’t done that. Far from it. I’ve pulled you out of your familiar environment, made you move in here, and then practically abandoned you.”

“I don’t feel abandoned. All my friends are here. Cain’s been helping me.”

Quinn combed his fingers through his hair. “The point is, he shouldn’t have had to.”

“Hey, man, don’t take it so hard. I’m the first one you’ve turned, right? I suppose it’s like being a new parent. They don’t get everything right at first either.”

Surprised at Oliver’s no-nonsense answer, he stared at the kid. Was he really as grown up as he pretended? But even if he was reacting rationally to this situation, it didn’t change anything. Quinn was still responsible for him.

“How are you feeling now? How is the thirst?”

Oliver’s gaze shifted past him, suddenly uncomfortable. “It’s ok. I can handle it.”

Quinn put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. “It’s fine if you want to lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself.”

Oliver sighed. “I didn’t want to believe you when you told me it would be hard at first. You guys all make it look so easy. I’ve never seen any of you go off the rails like that and attack somebody for blood. I thought it would be the same for me. I never realized . . . ” His voice died.

“That the thirst for blood would have you in its grip, control you, guide your every thought? That you could smell a human hundreds of yards away? That even now Blake’s blood smells more delicious than any of the stuff that’s sitting in the pantry?”

Oliver’s eyes widened. “How do you know that? That’s exactly how it feels.”

Quinn smiled. “We all went through it. We had to learn to control ourselves, to bury that part of us so we could begin to function in human society. It’s a choice we make. For some it’s easier than for others.”

“Zane never made that choice,” Oliver added, a hopeful glint in his eyes.

“Don’t go there, Oliver. Zane had his reasons. And he had himself under control even when he was feeding from humans. The point is not to never feed from humans again, but to make sure that if you ever do, you won’t put their lives in danger—and you make sure they don’t remember. Both things you’re not capable of yet.”

“So you mean later I can feed off humans again, when I have myself under control, I mean?”

There was an eagerness in Oliver’s voice that Quinn couldn’t dismiss. The kid wanted fresh human blood, not the bottled stuff. And who could blame him? Fresh blood still held the life force of a human and carried more strength and healing power.

“The idea is to get you used to bottled blood so that you won’t resort to biting humans unless it’s an emergency.”

Oliver pushed his lips forward in a stubborn gesture. “But if I always drink bottled blood, how am I going to control myself when I do have to bite a human? I mean if I never really practice it on a live human, how would I know when to stop?”

Quinn shook his head. “They’re not guinea pigs. We don’t practice on them. And that’s an order.”

“But—”

Oliver’s protest was interrupted by an angry shout coming from upstairs.

“Fuck!” Zane cursed. “Wesley! Nina! Blake’s outside! Go get him!”

“Shit!” Quinn echoed and immediately ran into the hallway.

Wesley and Nina already came running from the living area.

“Back or front?” Nina asked.

“Back of the house!” Zane yelled as he shot down the stairs. “He’s running toward the neighbor’s fence.”

***

Blake tossed his bag over the fence and followed.

Vampires! Fuck, he couldn’t believe what he’d gotten into. At any other time he would have liked the idea of meeting a bunch of vampires, hanging out with them, finding out how they lived, what it was like to be immortal. All that shit. The idea was way cool. But to be bitten by one? That went too far for his liking! Maybe if one of the women had bitten him, he wouldn’t have panicked like that, but to feel the fangs of a guy in his neck, that was just too creepy. He wasn’t swinging that way.

Grabbing his bag, he ran through the garden, heading for the street, not caring that he was trampling through flowerbeds. He had to get out of here.

“Blake!”

Shock coursed through him when he heard Wesley’s voice. Tossing a quick look over his shoulder without slowing his pace, he saw him vaulting over the fence.

What the fuck? Why wasn’t he turning into dust under the rays of the sun? What kind of vampires were they? Could they go out in the sun after all? Shit, that meant they could hunt him down even during the day.

Next to Wesley, Nina appeared too, jumping over the fence just as gracefully. Knowing he had no time to lose, he ran faster.

“Wait, Blake!” Nina called out now. “You’re safe with us! Come back!”

Her voice came closer, but he didn’t dare waste any time looking over his shoulder again. He needed to put some distance between him and those vampires. The extra 20 pounds of his bag were slowing him down. No wonder they were gaining ground on him.

Shit! It was either getting caught by them or parting with the designer clothes that he’d packed. The decision was easy. He dropped his bag when he hit the street corner. Without the added weight, he instantly ran faster, crossing the street like a bullet.

Panting for air, he felt his lungs burn from the exertion, but he didn’t stop. He had to try to lose his pursuers.

“Stop, Blake!” Wesley shouted after him, and Blake could hear that he too was exhausted from the chase.

Maybe vampires weren’t that much stronger than humans after all. Maybe he had a chance. Blake chanced a look over his shoulder and saw that both Nina and Wesley were about a half a block behind him, not giving up.