Thayne
Something was going to happen, something bad. I didn't know what, but I just had the most horrible feeling that something was going to happen tonight. So far it had been pretty quiet, quieter than normal.
Gideon was in his office doing fuck knows what, as per usual. I needed to go over the video footage from the cameras I’d installed in his office, but with everything that had been going off with Eve and this fucking stalker, I just hadn't had the chance. For the first time in my life, a woman was coming before my job. Shit was I messed up.
Moving around the outer edge of the dance floor, I kept an eye out for trouble, all the while waiting for an update over the radio of Eve’s position. After what I had felt the night before I’d switched Vince with Reese. I knew I could trust him to keep her safe. Vince hadn’t been too happy about it, which made me even more suspicious of the bastard, but headed upstairs to the balcony bar as instructed. Hearing a beep over the radio, I pulled it from my side. “Reese, what’s your position?”
“Eve has just exited Gideon’s office and is heading back towards her own.”
“Good. Stand guard outside the door and let me know if anything changes.”
“Will do.”
Continuing my rounds, I checked in with Dean at the bar from time to time. He wasn’t the same, you could see the pain and sorrow in his eyes from Pippa’s death and probably would for a long time yet, but I was in doubt that he would heal, maybe even find someone else someday.
Just as I was about to move upstairs to relieve Trent from his position so that he could feed Vince’s voice came yelling loudly over the radio. “Thayne, we have trouble.”
“Where?” Nothing was happening here in the club. No shouts or screams. No fresh whiff of blood strong enough to mean more than regular vampire feeding was going on. Where the fuck could there be a pissing problem?
“Outside the main doors… and hurry, I don’t think it is going to be long before the police arrive.”
Shit, that was all we needed. “Guys, did you hear that?”
“Got it!”
“On the way.”
Stepping outside the main doors of the club onto the street, I glanced around at the scene before me. Two girls lay bleeding upon the floor, another just a few feet away, unconscious but no visible injuries. A crowd was quickly gathering, people rushing over the road to stare at the injured girls. Thankfully no sirens could be heard in the distance, but it wouldn’t be long before there was. We needed to sort things out quickly. Find out what had gone off and get everyone the help they needed. All before the human police descended upon us and made things more complicated. It was at times like this that I missed a certain red eyed vampire and her hypnotising stare.
Scanning the crowd I searched for Vince, but couldn't spot him anywhere. The next moment Chad came ploughing through the doors, slamming into my back. "What's gone off?"
“That's what I want to know.”
Reese and Trent joined us a moment later and we set to work, checking the girls out and arranging the appropriate care for them. The girl with no bleeding injuries had a large goose egg on her head, but apart from that seemed fine and was already coming around. The other two were not so lucky. Neither was dead, which was something, but their injuries would need serious medical care and there would be scarring. What the fuck had happened here?
“Thayne, you might want to hear this,” Reese shouted, calling me over to the small group of familiars he was talking to. The guys had been in the queue waiting to get in and had seen what had happened.
“We were in the queue behind those girls. Stuart was working the door when he got a call to see Gideon immediately. He rushed right off the moment someone turned up to take over, that’s when things went to hell. He was letting everyone in. Things seemed normal. Then suddenly he flipped, grabbed the two girls and ripped into them for no reason what so ever. The other one tried to stop him and got knocked back. Then he turned and glared at us before walking right back into the club as if nothing had happened.”
“Who?”
“Vince.”
Dread filled my being, panic threatening to take over as I looked over the scene before me with the knowledge that Vince had been responsible for it. Vince had attacked two girls and injured a third for no reason what so ever. He had called over the radio knowing that we would all respond within an instant. And I had felt his want and desire for Eve the night before when we discovered that girl’s body…
As the realisation hit, my eyes swung to where Reese stood talking to the human police officer that had just pulled up. He was meant to be watching Eve. If he was here, then that meant…
“Trent. Reese. Chad. With me,” I ordered as I sprang for the door.
I had failed her. I had been trying to protect her, and, all this time, I had been assisting the one trying to harm her. How the fuck could I not have picked up on it sooner?
Probably because the fucker always avoided me. But still, this was unacceptable.
“Thayne, what’s wrong?” Chad asked, catching up to me.
“Vince is the stalker.” That was all that needed to be said; they would put the rest together themselves without my help. It didn’t take long either.
“Shit! I left her alone.” Reese almost stumbled as the knowledge hit him. “Thayne, I'm so sorry.”
“We don’t know if anything has happened to her yet,” I ground out, but I didn’t believe my own words. “She may well be fine.”
As we entered the corridor leading to Eve and Gideon’s offices, the faint scent of fresh blood hit me. It wasn’t strong, so at least that meant there was only a small drop that had been spilt, but it was a scent I would know anywhere. A scent that sent my throat burning and my fangs pushing through my gums and into my lip.
“Wow,” Chad gasped as he and the other guys had the same reaction. “What the fuck is that scent?”
Stopping in the doorway of Eve’s office, I glanced at the smashed remains of her room, my eyes narrowing on a small dark patch on the carpet by the desk. All three guys zeroed in on it, their eyes black with hunger. “That my friends is the sigh that our stalker has got his mark.”
Eve
I was a nervous wreck. Feeding Gideon hurt, a lot. And now he was expecting me to feed him more often than before. I was in no doubt that he would expect that first feed tonight either.
It had actually surprised me at first that he hadn’t demanded that I give him a feed then and there, but when I left the room I knew exactly why he hadn’t. Thayne and the guys had been following me since this whole mess of dead bodies started, and they still were. Reese had been stood a little down the corridor when I’d exited Gideon’s office, pretending to view something on his phone, but I wasn’t stupid. He was watching me, and the moment I entered my office I was in no doubt that he’d informed Thayne of my whereabouts.
I tried my best to concentrate on the papers before me, but it was hopeless. If I wasn’t thinking about the pain that was to come from feeding Gideon, I was thinking about Thayne and how much I wished that it was him that would be sinking his fangs into my flesh, draw my power-giving blood into his body. And then my mind would hit the gutter and the image of Thayne, his naked body pressing against me, would enter my mind. And then all I could think about was those other parts of him that I wouldn’t mind sinking into me.
Argh! I would never get anything done at this rate. Thayne seemed to have taken up residency in my brain since his appearance here, and it seemed like he was in no rush to vacate it.
What was it about him? I’d never had this kind of instant attraction to a vampire before. Not that I’d ever really had the chance. Until I had come to the club, I’d only ever know four other vampires, Gideon being the forth. The three that came before him I tried my best not ever to think about, it just brought up bad memories, ones that I’d done my best to suppress since my escape.
Would Thayne be the same as everybody else if he knew? Would he force me to submit to him? To feed him?
In the past, I would have said yes, he was a vampire after all. But now that I had gotten to know him – I mean, really know him – I wasn’t so sure.
Forcing myself to forget him for the moment, or, at least, attempt to, I managed to work my way through a small portion of the paperwork mountain Gideon had left me to do. Just as I placed another form on the pile of completed forms and reached for the next, I heard Reese curse from outside my door. Something was kicking off in the club no doubt. For the first time in a long while, I wasn’t worried. I knew Thayne and the others would take care of it.
Picking my pen back up, I was just about to put pen to paper when my office door was knocked off his hinges. Scrambling back I made to grab the taser I kept on charge on the shelf behind me, but I wasn’t fast enough.
A huge body slammed into my side, sending me crashing to the floor. On the way down my head caught the edge of an open filing cabinet drawer. Pain exploded through my head, blurring my sight. Hands pulled me, forcing me onto my back. The lights above were blinding for a moment, but as my eyes focused upon the once blurred figure above me, my breath caught in my throat. Black eyes stared down at me. Suddenly I became very aware of the fact that something warm was slowly trickling down my temple. When vampires were hungry, when they hunted, their pupils expanded to cover the entire visible eye. The only thing to be seen was a giant void of blackness. And that’s what greeted me as I looked into Vince’s eyes.
His hands wrapped tightly around my wrists as he leant down and he licked his way up the side of my face, catching the small trickle of blood with his tongue. I knew the moment the taste, the power of my blood hit him. His eyes widened and an evil grin split his face. “I knew you would be delicious,” he sneered. “Now say goodnight.”
His hand clamped down over my nose and mouth and a strong chemical scent swamped my senses. Suddenly the world around me started to become quite foggy.
There was no doubt in my mind what would happen now. He would drain me. I would suffer the same fate as the rest of my family and all those that came before me. I would die at the hands of a vampire.
Thayne
“What do you mean she is gone?” Gideon thundered as I slammed my fist into the wall, the plaster crumbling to dust under the impact. We had spent the past hour clearing out the club and searching everywhere we could think of in the hope that we might find some clue as to where Vince had taken her but had come up with nothing.
Where the fuck did he go?
“Exactly what I said. She. Is. Gone.”
“Well you better get her fucking back then, hadn’t you?”
“Then tell me where he resides during the day. Give me something to work with here.” If we had a possible location for him, we could check it out. Even if he wasn’t there, there might be some clue as to where he might have taken her. If Gideon wanted us to find her, he could damn well fucking help.
“And how the fuck would I know that?”
“Well, you did fucking hire him.” And he was the Master of this region. It was his job to know!
“And what has that got to do with it?”
It was unbelievable. How could he not know where a member of his staff, a vampire under his rule, was staying?
For a few moments, I lost all control, my anger and frustration getting the best of me as I flew across the room. Smashing my fist into another’s face had never been so satisfying; the crunch of bone was like music to the ears.
“Thayne!” Reese yelled as I continued to pound my fist into Gideon’s shocked face “That’s enough.” When both Chad and Trent joined in attempting to drag me away, off the so-called Master vampire, I allowed myself to be pulled back. Hitting the object of my frustration might feel good now, but there were more important things for me to be doing.
“You’ll pay for that,” Gideon growled, spitting blood on the floor as he stormed away.
The moment he was gone I turned to give orders to the guys. If Gideon didn’t have any information for us then we would have to find it ourselves.
We spent the next hour getting in contact with every vampire, human staff member and familiar we knew. Not one of them knew where he rested during the day. After all that time wasted, the chance of getting Eve back alive was growing slimmer by the minute. The best we had was an old phone number that we doubted was still in use.
“Call it. It’s a long shot, but it’s all we have.” I couldn’t think of anything better to do. How could I have let this happen? How could I have not seen that the person we had been guarding her from was hiding in our mists?
Looking around the room at the guys, sending my senses out, I knew I wasn’t the only one that was feeling guilty over that fact. All three of the guys were radiating the emotion, Reese more than the others. It would be a long time before he cut himself any slack over it. Me? I would never forgive myself.
Pulling a phone out of his back pocket, Trent dialled the number we had been given by one of the older familiars that no longer visited the club. She had been given the number the night before she met Christian, the vampire that she was now shacked up with down south. I got the feeling that if it hadn’t been for her leaving the area with Christian within hours of meeting him, she would have endured the same fate as all the other females Vince had gotten his hands on.
“It’s ringing,” Trent announced the moment before we heard a strange vibrating sound from somewhere above. “What the fuck?”
“Where is that coming from? Surely that can't be...” Hanging up the phone, Trent stared wide-eyed as the vibrating noise cut off. Pressing call once again, the tension in the room ramped up another notch. The moment the call connected the same noise picked back up.
It was here. Not Vince, apparently, but his old phone at least. We continued to call the number, hanging up and redialing every time it switched to voicemail.
“It's above us,” Reese said as we stood staring up at the ceiling above our heads. We had followed the sound upstairs to a door next to Eve's apartment. It was nothing but a storage cupboard for cleaning supplies.
How the fuck could Vince's phone be in the ceiling? There was no access further up from out here. “Open that door.”
Within moments, Reese had picked the lock and was holding it wide for me to enter. “Why didn't you just smash it?” That would have been the quickest way in which to do it.
“Gideon’s already pissed. The less damage we do, the more likely he will give her some slack when all this is over.”
He was right. It was obvious to everyone from Gideon’s reaction to the news of her kidnapping, that he thought she was to blame. What punishment he would reap on her when we got her back – and we would get her back – I had no idea, but I would stop any harm coming to her at all costs.
Stepping into the small room I looked around, taking in the shelves of chemicals, the brooms and mops leaning against the corner… and the broken air vent above me. Grabbing hold of a ladder in the corner, I climbed, ripping the loose cover off completely to give me more room.
As my eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom, I spotted a group of items in the air duct leading back towards the door. Vince’s phone being one of them.
I quickly passed the items off to Reese and was just about to descend the ladder when I noticed something. The vent opened up into a cross section. One section had held the items I had passed off to Reese. Another two disappeared off into the darkness. It was the last one that drew my attention. While the other three were filthy, the bottom of this section was shining clean as if someone had slid down there on multiple occasions. “I’ll be right back,” I called to the others. “Just want to check this out.”
Pulling myself up, I moved down the duct. It didn’t take long to know why Vince had been coming down here. Just a few metres down I came across the first vent. Looking down, I had to grit my teeth in an attempt not to let loose the growl that was growing in my chest. The vent looked right down into Eve’s living area. Continuing, I came across a second and third vent, those last two sealing Vince’s fate entirely. One looked down into her bedroom, directly over her bed. I was in no doubt that the noise that had sent Eve running to me the night before had been Vince moving around up here. Had he still been there when things had got heavy between us? Was that why he had suddenly decided to do this, because of me?
The last and final vent, I didn’t even want to think about. The damn thing was located directly above the shower. We needed to find her… now.
“He’s been using the ventilation system to spy on her, watch her in her apartment,” I in-formed the guys as I descended the ladder and exited the storage closet. “You found anything on that thing?”
While I had been searching the air ducts, the guys had been searching through the phone and the other items I had found.
“We got two possible locations from some old photos on the phone. The idiot has location settings turned on so it records the location of the pictures.” The anger and rage coming from the guys were almost overpowering.
“What pictures?”
“Ones that prove this isn’t the first time he has done something like this and show that we need to move fast if we have any hope of finding her alive.”
We had too. It had only been a few weeks but Eve had come to mean more to me than anyone ever before. For decades, ever since my turning, all I had thought about was hunting, tracking and taking out whoever I was asked to. But now… all I ever thought about was her. I loved her. It may have been too soon, but there it was.
“Then we better get a move on.”