Page 18 of Vampire Lee

“This the place?” Hanna looked skeptical. Neither Dillon nor Devin replied. They’d followed the van here. It had driven into a warehouse where a door had shut behind it. There was no way Dillon could’ve followed without being seen.

“So…Do we sit here and do nothing?” Devin looked around, but everything was dark and deserted.

“We wait.” Hanna wrote something on her phone, and a few seconds later it buzzed, but she didn’t say anything, so Dillon didn’t ask who she was talking to.

Time stood still. They sat there for an eternity, and yet the digits on the clock didn’t move.

When there was a knock on the window, Dillon yelped. Faelan tilted his head to the side right before the door to the backseat opened and he got in. “Evening.”

“How did you get here?” Devin clutched the gun he still had in his hand. “I could’ve shot you.”

“Which was why I knocked first.” Faelan gave him a nonchalant look. “I ran. A nice late night jog. Murrie and Mars will be here any minute.”

Dillon took a steadying breath. Faelan was dressed in black jeans and a black slim-fit, long-sleeved T-shirt, showing off a lot of muscles. In his hand he had a heavy-looking black bag. No one who saw him running would believe he was out for a jog. Bank robbery, yes. Exercising? No. “And what happens when Mars and Murrie get here?”

“We storm the place, I suppose. Rei’s in there?”

“We think so. Murrie is the one who can see the trackers. He wrote one is left at The Rambling Rogue, but the other is here.”

Dillon curled his fingers around the steering wheel. “I have faith in you guys, but how do you plan on storming the place? It’s a fucking warehouse. You’d be exposed wherever you went.”

Faelan shrugged. “I suspect Mars will circle the building. He’s the fastest of us. He’ll look for surveillance cameras and dismantle them. If we’re lucky, it’ll lure some of them outside, so we can thin them out. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have to force our way in.”

He was too calm. Dillon had a hard time getting his lungs to allow air in, and Faelan was all smiles and anticipation. Or he wasn’t smiling, but he could have. The air around him was…amused.

“But we have no idea how many are inside.” What if there are thirty people ready to fight Mars, Murrie, Faelan, and Hanna? They wouldn’t stand a chance.

“No, it’s not great, but we’ve been through worse things. I don’t think they’ll start slaughtering their fighters as many do when we raid places with blood slaves, so it’s a plus.”

“But what if the fighters are on their side? It would make it worse.”

Faelan shrugged. “I’m no expert on fighting rings, but if I’ve understood it correctly, they have a few main fighters who might side with their owners or business partners or whatever they are, but the weaker guys? They don’t want to be here and are most likely locked up.”

Before Dillon could ask anything else, a car turned the corner.

“Is that Mars and Murrie?” Judging by how quiet everyone had gone, Dillon anticipated the no before it came. Hanna spoke so low he had a hard time hearing her, but he got the no.

“Do we…eh you…want to take them out?” Hell, this wasn’t good. A blonde woman stepped out of the car, grabbing a crate of beer from the trunk.

“Jala.”

Dillon glanced at Hanna. “Who?”

“Lee’s boss.”

“Lee’s boss? What the hell is she doing here?” Was she the one behind Lee being taken?

“Providing alcohol. I guess we can assume Jala is in on it.” Faelan didn’t sound too troubled, whereas Dillon felt betrayed at Lee’s expense.

“Should we grab her?” Hanna looked at Faelan. “If we take her now before she walks through the door, we don’t have to fight a fucking lion inside.”

Faelan nodded and opened the car door.

Jala turned around at the sound, and Dillon was unable to breathe.

“Fuck.” Devin clutched the gun, but Hanna and Faelan were already moving. Fast. When Jala dropped the crate, the noise of the crashed bottles reached inside the car. Claws swiped through the air, and Dillon winced. She started to shift, but Hanna kicked her legs out from under her, and Faelan pushed her against the ground.

Headlights swept over them, and Dillon cursed out loud. Fuck, another car. What should they do? He leaned over Devin and fumbled to reach under his seat. His fingers curled around what had to be a knife. Not what he wanted, but better than nothing.

The car stopped abruptly, and both the driver and the passenger door opened. Then two forms moved toward the fight at such rapid speed Dillon could only see the blurred shadows of them.

“It’s Mars.”

Dillon glanced at Devin. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s his car. No one is allowed to drive his car other than him.” He rolled his eyes.

The next time Dillon looked toward the fight, they were hauling Jala toward the car—Mars’s car. “Is she arrested?”

“I assume so or taken in for questioning at least.”

Devin hadn’t finished the sentence before the door Jala had been heading toward opened and three men rushed out.

Damn. “Is there another gun under your seat?”

Devin bent forward and rummaged around. He came up with a weird-looking rifle. The pipe was short, but it looked like a rifle.

“I think it has darts.”

“Darts?”

Devin shrugged.

* * * *

Lee was shown to an office of sort. It had tin walls and there were no shelves or anything, but there were a couple of chairs and a desk.

On one of the chairs was Rei. A little roughed up, and his hands were zip-tied to the armrests. Lee’s eyes lingered on them. Couldn’t he break zip ties? There were several around each wrist, but still. Rei was a jaguar.

“Look who’s here.” Maybe-Aaron was sitting by the desk, grinning like a madman.

“Aaron.” Lee dipped his head in greeting. “What’s going on?”

“We brought your boyfriend, so he can take your place.”

Lee grinned. He didn’t know why, some manic gene choosing this moment to manifest most likely. “Oh, no need. I was settling in fine.”

Maybe-Aaron looked confused for a moment, but Rei huffed a laugh.

Lee walked closer to Rei, placing a hand on his wrist on top of the zip ties. Four. But still, were four zip ties enough to hold a jaguar? Maybe it was. He assumed Maybe-Aaron had experience with these things. Lee could’ve gotten out of four zip ties, it wouldn’t be pleasant, but he could snap them.

Was a jaguar’s front leg thinner than a human arm? Probably not. Jaguars were fucking massive.

“I can keep you both, of course. I only offered you up as a bargain, since I have enough vampires already.”

“That’s kind of you, but—”

Rei sucked in a breath and leaned closer to him. “Who have you been with?” His hands curled into fists and sharp teeth peeked out from under his upper lip. He leaned closer still, and Lee met him, allowing him to scent him. It was most likely Dillon’s blood he was picking up on.

“Whose scent is on you?” This time his voice was growly.

Maybe-Aaron chuckled. “Oh, do we have a jealous boyfriend? I didn’t think you were mated.”

They weren’t, and Rei was acting strange as hell. Maybe it was to confuse Maybe-Aaron. “It’s Dillon.”

“Not Dillon, the other scent.”

“Angelo?”

Rei met his gaze, his eyes all cat. “Angelo?”

“My cellmate.”

“You held him?” Rei looked ready to snarl, but Lee didn’t think it was aimed at him.

“He was injured. I helped him clean up.”

Maybe-Aaron huffed in amusement, and Lee curled his hands into fists so as not to fling himself across the room and attack him. It wouldn’t end well since Rei was incapacitated, and Maybe-Aaron had both the fucking vampire who was gonna die and another guard standing right by the door.

The next moment, the sound of someone running reached him. The bear who’d pricked Dillon’s throat with his claws pushed past the guard and the vampire blocking the doorway. “They’ve taken Jala.”

Jala. A wave of nausea washed over Lee. Who had taken Jala? Was she hurt?

“Who?” Maybe-Aaron shot to his feet.

The bear pointed at Rei, and Lee turned to look at him. “You?”

“I haven’t touched Jala.”

“Your friends.” The bear looked ready to shift.

The grin stretching Rei’s lips wasn’t pretty. “Oh, they’re here or at The Rambling Rogue?”

A bang sounded, followed by shouts and more running footsteps. Lee met Rei’s gaze. “My guess is here.”

“Awesome, let’s go.” Rei curled his hands, flexed his arms and hissed. The zip ties cut through his skin, blood oozed, and Lee’s fangs dropped. He didn’t have time to watch though. Whirling around, he planted a fist in the bear’s face.

A roar that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge came from behind, but then he heard snapping sounds.

The zip ties were off.

Rei leaped over Lee, still in mostly human form, though the claws on his hands gleamed in the fluorescent light. He clawed Maybe-Aaron across the face as he landed more or less sprawled over the desk. He was quick to move though, and everything turned chaotic when Maybe-Aaron bellowed.

There were hisses and growls, bites and claws, and the scent of blood filled the room. Something sharp speared Lee’s side, and he looked down in surprise at the bear’s claws buried there.

Snarling, he grabbed the bear’s head in a bruising grip and buried his fangs in his throat and ripped. He needed to feed to heal the injury, but there was no time, so he tore instead. A gurgle followed, then Lee buried his fingers in the gaping wound and pulled, freeing the larynx from the bear’s body.

He didn’t have time to gloat before he was pushed to the floor. The vampire snarled in his face, and Lee saw stars as he grabbed his head and smashed it against the floor several times. He managed to get a hand up and clawed at the vampire’s eye. He found the eye socket and pushed in. A gooey mess fell into his hand as the vampire shrieked. Dots were swimming before his eyes, but he was aware enough to notice a clawed hand reaching around the vampire’s throat and slicing it. Blood sprayed over Lee, but he didn’t care.

“Damn, Lee. Why do you make everything so gory?” Rei looked down at the dead vampire in distaste, his eyeball resting against his cheek, still attached to…something. Next to him, on the floor, was the bear’s voice box.

Lee grunted as he tried to get the black dots under control. Then he rolled over on his hands and knees and got up. Four bodies littered the office. “Are they dead?”

“I think so. We’ll clean up later. If anyone’s still breathing when we get back, they go into custody.”

Lee nodded.

“Where are the cells?”

Lee motioned in the direction he’d come from. “There are ten cages. Everyone’s weak and starved and more or less hurt. I don’t know where the good fighters are.”

As they exited the office, sounds of fighting in the opposite direction of the cages reached them, and Rei gritted his teeth. A snarl echoed in the warehouse.

“Hanna.” Rei looked as if he wanted to head for the cages but turned toward the sounds. Lee followed.