Page 51 of Taste of Forever (Vampires of Sanguine #3)

Laith

M y skin and throat stung like hell, but when my vision finally cleared enough to see, it wasn’t difficult to follow Heather’s trail.

Her blood called to me, pulling me to her on an invisible lead. It had nothing to do with sight but everything to do with instinct and the bond we shared. Her lifespan may not have been tied to mine yet, but her blood was in me. We were already two parts of a whole, never meant to be separated.

Temkra herself seemed to guide me, showing me the correct turns to take with a gentle hand. I drove as fast as I possibly could without laying my bike down on the hairpin turns winding through the mountains.

It wasn’t too far from the park Heather hiked through to find Sanguine, although at a much higher altitude.

After roughly forty-five minutes, I spotted the van from her apartment parked in front of a remote cabin, along with a small army of humans, kitted out with guns, masks, and body armor, surrounding the structure.

I cursed under my breath as I counted at least a dozen.

Even in my current state, I could handle three or four humans on my own.

The two at the apartment had had the element of surprise, not to mention that liquid silver.

If I’d been ready, we would have been evenly matched.

I’d been hoping it would be just the two of them again, but no such luck.

Without backup, I couldn’t rush in all fangs and fury. I had to go in peacefully. Or least, give the impression I was doing so.

I pulled up next to the van and was immediately approached by the two guarding the front entrance. By the time I dismounted and turned the bike off, they had their assault rifles mere feet away from my chest and spray canisters lifted toward my face.

My hands went into the air, palms open. Surrendering was the last thing I wanted to do, but one hit of that liquid silver would put me at a serious disadvantage. I probably should have called Thorne on the way over, but I’d been too messed up about Heather. Getting her out was the priority.

“I won’t fight,” I announced. “But I’m not leaving until Heather is released.”

“You got any weapons on you?” one of the humans demanded.

I moved slowly, retrieving the silver daggers from inside my boot and my jacket and tossed them in the dirt a few feet in front of me.

One human collected my weapons while the other brandished a pair of metal cuffs. “Turn around. Hands behind your back.”

I complied, turning to face the dark, surrounding woods. More humans arrived with rifles trained on me. The bite of metal around my wrists was expected, but the sudden burning heat was not.

I hissed in surprise, jerking against the cuffs which only drew them tighter. The man fastening them chuckled at my reaction.

“Silver alloy. Got those made especially for you, fangface.”

He took hold of my elbow and led me into the cabin. For the first time, I felt no small amount of alarm at how much these humans knew about us. The liquid silver wasn’t just some hokey experiment based on superstition. They had made cuffs and now had my weapons. What else did they know?

They brought me inside and I scanned the small space.

It was a single room, with the barest of essentials.

Instead of beds, several sleeping bags stretched out on the floor.

The circular dining table’s entire surface was covered in laptops, cell phones, guns, radios, and other devices I couldn’t name.

No sign of Heather.

“Where is she?” I could feel her nearby, sense her heartbeat and the deep sorrow that overcame her.

The humans didn’t answer. They instead patted my legs and torso, inserting their hands into my pockets.

“I gave you my weapons,” I snarled, straining against the cuffs. The burning was a constant irritation, but it didn’t feel like there was enough silver to burn my hands completely off my wrists. I suspected the liquid silver was also a small concentration. Enough to be a deterrent, but not lethal.

The humans continued to ignore me. One held up my phone that he took from my jacket pocket and placed it on the table with all the other devices. Then they shoved me toward a door at the far end of the cabin. It was pushed open to reveal a set of stairs going down to a basement level.

The air from below wafted up with the scent of salty tears and the woman who made my life complete.

“Heather!” I broke free from the two humans grasping my elbows and hurried down the rickety stairs.

“Laith!”

Her voice was desperate and full of pain, but it made my blood sing with relief. She was alive and well enough to talk, at least.

I hit the basement floor to see Heather sitting slumped over in a chair that was bolted to the ground. Her hands were cuffed in front of her and there was a swelling bump on her head. In front of her stood a man with a gun, facing me with only the slightest surprise on his face.

“Get away from her,” I snarled, heading straight for him. Even if I couldn’t use my hands, I still had my teeth.

He raised the gun. I dodged. A shot fired and Heather screamed. I wasn’t sure where the hit landed. Not until my shoulder blazed with pain.

The shock of it sent me stumbling into the wall.

My vision still wasn’t fully healed, but I could make out the damage to my jacket shoulder.

The smell of burned leather hit my nose.

But I couldn’t feel any blood dripping and the pain was quickly subsiding.

A graze, most likely. And no silver in the bullet, if my healing was already taking over. Thank Temkra.

I pushed off the wall with my opposite shoulder and faced the human.

He was about my height, with the coldest blue eyes I’d ever seen.

It wasn’t that they were the color of ice, but they lacked any emotion whatsoever.

Humans usually had instinctive, visceral reactions when meeting the eyes of a vampires.

Often it was fear, or at least caution. This human had no reaction at all.

The sound of his heartbeat confirmed that.

There had been no spike of his pulse since I entered the cabin.

The pumping of blood through his body was calm, if even slow.

As if he were completely at rest. Even his scent held no markers of stress.

I’d never run into a human with such flat emotional responses before.

I wanted to look at Heather, to inspect the injuries on her head and make sure she was all right. But my full attention needed to be on this cold human if I wanted to get her out.

“Are you him?” I said after a few seconds of staring each other down. “The one who’s been threatening her?”

His face lit up like he was actually pleased. “So she’s told you about me.”

“Oh yeah.” I put on a feral grin. “Enough to make sure that you will absolutely not make it out of here alive.”

“How do you figure that, vampire?” The human nodded at the others who stood behind me. “You’re cuffed and outnumbered.”

“I’m a pretty lucky guy.”

If my hands were free and I had access to my weapons, I was pretty confident I could take at least the ones here in the basement. But, right then, my bravado was almost as much for myself as it was for Heather. This shit didn’t look good, and Blood ‘til Dawn had no idea where we were.

The clan would hunt these humans down and make them pay, but that could be weeks from now. At this rate, I wasn’t certain I’d be alive to see it.

But Heather would be. She had to be.

The only solution became increasingly clear as seconds passed.

“Look, I’ll do you a solid.” The cuffs bit and chafed at my wrists. I felt a trickle of blood run over my palm as I lifted my chin. “Let Heather go and I’ll turn myself over to you. No resistance. No tricks.”

The human’s eyebrows lifted as Heather said, “What? No.”

I forced myself to ignore her, focusing solely on him. “I’m what your government really wants, right? A real, living vampire in the flesh. You won’t need to do your shadowy intel gathering if you’ve got me.”

“We took his phone,” one of the humans supplied. “He can’t call anyone.”

“Laith, no.” Heather shook her head desperately from the chair. “Don’t do this.”

“We could just keep you both,” the cold one said. “It’s not like you have any leverage to make an exchange.”

I lunged forward faster than he could perceive, raised my leg, and kicked him squarely in the chest. He went down, dropping the gun exactly as I’d hoped. I kicked it away, then pressed my boot down firmly on his sternum before the others could react.

“Pull those triggers and I’ll break all of his ribs before I go down,” I hissed as they raised their guns.

Heavy footsteps clambered down the basement as more heavily armed humans filed in. The small concrete room soon became filled with various scents, heartbeats, and guns trained on me. But I had their leader at my mercy, which had to count for something.

The human on the ground groaned as I transferred my weight to the foot on his chest. “Hold your fire,” he wheezed.

“How’s this for leverage?” I looked between him and the others.

“If she’s in this basement in another five minutes, at least one of you is dead.

Maybe two. You might have me outnumbered, but if you don’t let her go, you will not get out of this unscathed.

Who wants the 25% chance of leaving here in a body bag? ”

A long pause followed. The human under my foot’s ragged breathing was the only noise.

“Fine,” he rasped at last. “Un-cuff the girl.”

One of them rushed forward, pulling a set of keys from his pocket. I didn’t raise my foot until Heather’s wrists were unbound.

“Laith!” She came to me, hands shaking as they ran up my torso and touched my face, then my shoulder. “Oh God, your eyes are so red. And you got shot!”

“I’m okay.” I forced a smile, leaning down toward her. “Bullet grazed me. And I can still see my hot Science Barbie.”