Tempting Gray - Untouchables 02 (9 page)

Isn’t it great?
enthused the naughty
part of her.

What was she supposed to do? Oh, right, explain
her ‘ability’.

“It’s complicated,” she began. “It’s hard to
explain because it’s a bunch of images and feelings inside me. It’s like you’re
asking me to explain gut-instincts. My gift works much like a hunch. That’s all
it is but it’s so much more at the same time. Now that I have a feel and idea
of what I’m looking for I can go track. What I really think we should be talking
about right now though isn’t my ability.”

“It’s your fangs.”

He leaned down, his lips parting to make room
for his fangs. “What about my fangs, Were?”

She stared at the pristine white points. “When’s
the last time you fed?” It came out as a whisper yet sounded loud as a scream.

Immediately something triggered inside him. His
gaze fell to her neck, lingering. He didn’t have to say anything—she read it in
the hunger of his gaze—he hadn’t eaten in too long.

Ara stomped her foot, for the first time truly
growing mad. “Are you stupid or something?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why on earth didn’t you feed before coming
here? Do you think I want my vein used as an emergency snack if something bad
happens? No, thank you. I enjoy my blood inside my body where it belongs,” Arabella
said, shaking her head in a fit.

“It’s none of your concern,” he said.

“None of my concern? None of my concern?” she
repeated even louder. “How is it none of my concern? When I’m the only blood
supply around you and you go flashing your fangs around, I get concerned.”

He sneered, looking like he wanted to say more.
But then an explosion boomed around them. So fast he was there, wrapping his
arms around her to protect her as he dropped them to the floor, his body
covering hers. The floor shook. And noise, so much noise around them. It
sounded like the whole graveyard just caved in on them. Dust from the ceiling
rained on them in gray specs. When the floor stopped shaking a sickening quiet
settled over them.

They were touching. His weight pressed upon her
body like that of a lover, his face buried in her hair.

“Gray?”

And with a graceful move, he stood. One moment
touching her, the next, far away. He didn’t look at her as she stood without
his help. Something had happened—aside from the explosion. “Don’t call me that,”
was all he said.

She didn’t pressure him about his name figuring
he had a reason. “What happened?”

He never had time to answer because suddenly a
man leapt at them from the dusty, dark antechamber. She never had to be
frightened though, because Grayson reacted as if he’d known the whole time the
man lurked in the shadows. Grayson moved so fast her Were eyes struggled to
keep up with the movement. Fact is, he
was
really fast. He pulled two
silver blades from the inside of his jacket then whipped the blades out of his
hands with a flick of his wrists. In mid-air the blades stabbed the man in the
neck. He let out a gargled cry as he fell to the floor, legs kicking. Grayson
palmed another blade, this one longer as he strode to the whimpering man. No,
not man, she realized as she caught scent of his blood. He was Were too.

“Who are you?” Grayson asked.

For some reason this startled Arabella. She’d
never once thought that this man might have something nefarious in mind. Even
after the explosion. Maybe Grayson had been in these kinds of deadly situations
before but she hadn’t and didn’t go around assuming everyone was out to kill
her.

The man grimaced through the pain, hands
clutching uselessly against the blood gushing from his neck wounds. He’d bleed
out enough to go unconscious, but he could live from the wounds.

“I won’t ask again.” Grayson looked terrifying
poised with a knife above the bloodied man. If anyone were to walk in on this
scene they’d assume Grayson was the monster.

The man laughed. Or as much as he could with
the wounds. It was the last sound he’d make. Grayson grabbed him by the hair
then stabbed him through the neck, viciously jerking the blade.
Snap
.
His neck severed. The laughter stopped. Grayson released his hold and the man
collapsed dead.

“What did you do!” Arabella exclaimed, nearly
screaming in hysteria. “You just killed a man!”

“He was going to kill us. I doubt he’s the only
one. You need to be ready,” Grayson said, wiping the bloody blade on the man’s
shirt before pocketing it. How was he so unaffected? Even his voice sounded
calm.

“How am I supposed to get ready? I don’t know
how to fight!” Oh no. This was the exact kind of situation Sissy had warned her
about.

Grayson buried his head in his hands. “First
you can’t shift. Then you can’t track without coming all the way out to this
god forsaken place I swore I’d never return to,” his voice grew louder as he
spoke. “And now you’re telling me you don’t even know how to protect yourself?”

“I’ve never been in this kind of danger before!
I’m usually finding lost things around the pack or lost loved ones. And they
certainly aren’t trying to
kill
me when I track them down. And you knew
I couldn’t shift so how did you expect me to know how to fight? That’s your
problem, not mine.” She was panting and so was he when she finished her tirade.

With one final glare, she spun and left the
room only to march straight into the arms of another Were. The man, clothed in
black just like the other one, also had a strange stamp on his neck. The Donato
seal. He was one of them. The thought had no sooner crossed her mind before the
man grabbed her around the neck and pulled her close. He pressed a silver blade
to her neck as he and Grayson faced off. Fear rooted her in place. Why had she
let her emotions get the best of her? If she hadn’t stormed out of the room
then this wouldn’t have happened. The last thing she wanted to do was make
herself look like a feminine fool unable to take care of herself in even the
simplest of ways.

“Drop your weapons, Blackmoore, or I stick her
like you stuck my friend there.” The blade bit into her skin drawing blood. The
warm rivulets dripped down her neck, surprisingly itchy.

Only Grayson didn’t do that. Instead, he used
his incredible speed again. Suddenly he was behind them and the blade at her
throat vanished as the man screamed in agony as his wrist snapped in half at
Grayson’s grasp. She didn’t look as Grayson held the man down and questioned
him. The man revealed nothing before Grayson finished him off. Two dead. How
did he do it? She was shaking for god’s sake.

“Come on. There will be more and they’ve blown
in the entrance. They’re trying to trap us in.” Grayson grabbed her hand and
they took off running down one long stone corridor after the next. It was a maze
of hallways and rooms. It went on forever. When they finally stopped she felt
as though they were even deeper in the catacombs, far below the surface.

They stopped in one of the rooms with spare
couches and little else. She’d worked up a sweat and an appetite, not that she
as complaining. “They’re Donato’s men,” she said.

“I know. I saw the seal. Are you all right?” He
asked it the same way Sissy asked her if she wanted grilled cheese for dinner.
The comparison made her laugh and he gave her a calculating look. “This was
your first time watching someone die. It’s hard.”

For some reason his understanding did not
mellow her out as she might have thought. In fact it seemed to do the opposite.
Her spine snapped straight and she lifted her chin wanting to appear as cool as
he. “I’m fine. I was taken off guard. That’s all.”

He gave her a doubtful look before taking out
his cell phone. He tried for several minutes to call out before giving up. “No
signal this deep. We’ll have to find another exit.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Arabella
asked.

Grayson arched a brow and only looked at her.
Then it sunk in. He expected her to find the exit. She was this amazing
tracker, supposedly. Yeah, right, she thought, taking a deep breath.

“Touch something and find us an exit. And
unless you want to be stuck in this forsaken hell hole with a hungry vampire, I
suggest you do it quickly.”

“No offense, but what’s the rush?”

“Aside from my enemies hunting us down room by
room at this very moment, it is also—” he checked his watch— “only an hour
until sunup. If you don’t find that exit before then we’ll be stuck here no
matter what until sundown.”

“Oh,” she said as the implications sunk in.

“I’m glad you finally understand the magnitude
of the problem. Now start finding us an exit.”

Do you have to be such an asshole?

No
.

Yes!

I cannot afford to soften toward her. Already
my past with the girl is tumultuous.

Arabella should be already fed up with him, but
he had to admit he admired her resilience. She hadn’t complained or screamed
after he’d killed two of Donato’s men. Vincent Donato was not messing around.
He must want Grayson’s head on a platter as much as Gray wanted his.

“Well I’m not getting anything in this old,
dusty room. Let’s move out and see if I can pick up anything. No guarantees
though. Really, the best chance I had would have been to try to get a read off
anything in the morgue, but seeing as that’s ground zero of destruction that’s
out of the picture. I’ll have to walk around touching everything since I have
no one specific object to touch. This could take forever. Or I might not be
able to find it at all.”

“Then let’s not waste any time,” Grayson said.

He left the room, checking for any sign of
Donato’s men. Immediately she began touching the walls—anything to pick
something up. Her breath caught. “This way I think!” She darted ahead of him.
He cursed and ran after her. She zoomed down the hall and made a sharp turn
taking them down a spiral staircase.

“Arabella, let me stay in the lead.”

She sent him an aggrieved stare. “Please don’t
say my name. You sound like my father when you say it. I go by Ara.”

“Hush!” he commanded, his senses picking
something up. Someone was headed for them and fast. “Quickly!” He grabbed her
hand and took off down the narrow stone corridor. Sticky spider webs wrapped
around his face. Along the way Ara touched everything she could with her free
hand.

He turned the corner and she sucked in a
breath. “The other way. Go right! I think I saw something. A hidden door. The
image came and went so fast I don’t know what I saw though.”

He turned them the correct direction, his skin
prickling with apprehension. He’d gotten his client killed and then his
bruid
.
No one else would die because of him. Even if he had to sell his damned soul he’d
do whatever it took to ensure no one else joined them.

They were rushing down the corridor so fast
that when Ara stuck out her hand to touch a chipped, dusty vase on a side table,
she inadvertently knocked it over. The crash sounded far too loud for his
liking as it slammed to the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her small hand
flexing in his.

An animal’s growl echoed off the wall as if the
sound had skipped a long ways to them. Another growl came, this one sounding
much closer. “We have to go.” Shapeshifted Weres, especially more than one of
them did not help his odds and he counted on keeping his promise to her.

Ara took off running. This time he kept close
pace behind her as they zigzagged deeper and deeper into the catacombs. They
passed rooms of entombed corpses, hundreds of years old. It smelled like
mildew. At least this deep the horrendous lemon and flower odor vanished. He’d
rather smell the rotten corpses than ever have to smell lemon and flowers
again.

She tripped on a jagged stone and shouted. Gray
corrected her swiftly and pushed them on. That shout just revealed their
location to their enemies. Time was running out.

“We’re getting close,” she whispered back at
him, panting. “I can feel it.” Her flashlight lit her way, also something he didn’t
like but couldn’t fault her for. Her vision in human form lacked pathetically
compared to his. He was a creature of the night.

A howl crooned through the halls. The hair on
his arms stood on end as he pulled them to a stop. She squeezed his hand tighter,
probably not even realizing she did it. “They sound closer. Quick, this way!”
She turned and tugged on his hand, but he didn’t budge.

“You need to go and hide. I’ll find you after
it’s done,” Gray said.

“W-what do you mean after it’s done? Are you—you
can’t mean to send me off by myself and sacrifice yourself like a lamb!” Her
concern for him surprised him. The fact that she’d care at all.

Gray flashed her a grin as dark as this damned
place of death. “I won’t be sacrificing anything.”

Surprise flashed across her face. She had a
very expressive face; she revealed everything and hid nothing. It was a curse
in the hands of the wrong person. He wanted to warn her, tell her to be wary of
her weakness, but he shouldn’t. To help her in any personal way would be to
show her consideration.

My bruid’s burnt ashes still linger beneath my
fingernails and I think of another…

There cannot be a hell worthy of his disgrace.
Mother would be ashamed.

As the thoughts ate at him he watched her shake
her head and plead with him to come with her. Could she see it wasn’t worth the
risk? He’d dispose of them and with this being the only hallway to Ara, the
weres would never make it past him alive.

“Go now, Arabella. Do not disobey me.” He
pushed her shoulder enough to get her feet moving. Her jaw wavered up in down
like she wanted to say something.
“Now!”
he said. It wasn’t until after
her footsteps faded away and she disappeared from view that he realized he’d
fallen back on his native Turkish tongue. The unusual lapse would have to be
considered later though. For now…

More howls danced through the halls. Snarls and
heavy breathing came next, the heavy sniffing like that of a dog. They were
coming. This, he loved. The hot-blooded anticipation that fueled his body and
made his heart pump. This always made him feel alive when nothing else could.
All those years of Anita’s depression had sent him into his work with concentrated
ferocity. He’d been working the second time she miscarried.

An animal barreling down the hallway toward him
shoved the bitter thoughts away. Claws clicked on the stone. Heavy breaths
labored, the sound growing louder. Loud, noisy beasts Weres were. Vampires used
stealth and speed to their advantage, usually requiring a blade to finish the
job. Two of them. Without Ara to worry about, he relished the oncoming fight.

Gray rushed down the hall, his steps making no
sound at all as he moved so quickly he nearly moved on air. His speed blurred.
He caught the first lumbering Were with an arm to the throat. The Were yelped
as it slammed backward with the force of Grayson’s strike. He did not hesitate
to pull out his blade and bury it deep in the Were’s heart. The silver blade
did its job. Shuddering, the creature foamed at the mouth before it exhaled its
last breath.

The last two Weres were on him. One jumped in
the air trying to catch Gray in the chest while the other ducked low and
launched at his knees. Gray knew he couldn’t dodge both attacks so he went the
path of least resistance and took the hit to the chest. The blast hit him like
a wrecking ball. He shot backward soaring through the air and crashing into the
wall. The Were who hit him wasn’t so lucky.

Gray stabbed the Were’s furry belly repeatedly.
As the beast cried out, its claws stuck into Grayson’s skin tearing the flesh
apart. Grunting as his shoulder muscle tore, Gray grabbed the Were’s head and
jerked it backward. They both fought to gain the upper hand as they rolled
backward. The creature was powerful and strong, its legs bucking, teeth
snapping.

“Fuck!” Gray cursed as the Were landed a lucky
bite to the meat of his thigh. He palmed the blade one more time; it kept
slipping from the slick blood coating his hand. And he stabbed the beast
straight through the eye.

Gray finished the job, not giving this Were as
nice a treatment as his friend received. He severed the beast’s head, then
sprinted after the other Were

Before it could get to Arabella. .