Arctic Fire 2 (19 page)

Quinn managed to avoid Rat-Face’s grasp, but the arms of another wrapped around her waist and hauled her up against a massive chest.

“Got her!” a man shouted triumphantly, then groaned in anguish when Quinn threw her head back and smashed it into his nose with a loud thwack.

The fresh scent of coppery blood filled the air as another vampire backhanded Clint and sent him flying across the room into the wall. Hawtie cried out when he slumped to the ground. Quinn drew on the life force of the vampire holding her as she thrashed to break free of his hold. He made strange, gurgling noises as his life force filled her cells with vitality once more.

Instead of growing tired from the repeated use of her ability, she felt invigorated as it greedily sought to replenish what it had lost. She suspected Julian’s blood had helped to make her stronger, or perhaps her power was growing and changing. She’d only taken life or zapped people away from her before, but now she’d given life, twice—a sign her power had already begun to expand.

She bared her fangs, snapping as Rat-Face came closer to her. She jerked away from the vamp who had grabbed her and lunged toward Rat-Face again. Swinging her stake outward, she sliced open his shirt and chest. The smell of his blood filling the air caused bloodlust to surge within her.

She’d tear his throat open, sink her fangs deep into his vein, and drain him until he could barely move. Then she would take her time with him. She swung at him again, but though she’d managed to refill some of her life force, she was still underweight and moving at a slower pace than normal.

He managed to avoid a blow that would have spilled his intestines by jumping back at the last second. Quinn snarled and dove at him. Her hands grabbed hold of his chest when something hit her from behind with enough force to crack her skull. She cried out as pain exploded through her head. The stake clattered to the ground when her hands instinctively flew to the back of her caved in skull. It felt as if her brain was compressing, and she supposed it actually
was
compressed.

The world around her lurched, and she took a stumbling step to the side as the wooden floor of the bar became the sandy desert. Was she inside still? Was she outside? She couldn’t bring anything into focus as the synapses in her squished brain misfired. Falling to the side, she hit something hard enough to break it. The world went dark.

Julian shoved dark sunglasses on to cover eyes he knew were red as he pushed his way through the crowd gathered outside the bar. A pudgy man tried to block him, but Julian shoved him out of the way as he climbed the steps.

“I’ll arrest you for assaulting a police officer!” the man shouted at him.

Julian spun on him. “I’ll tear your throat out if you try!”

The man took an awkward step back and bumped into the doorway of the building. Clint hurried forward; his hand wrapped around Julian’s arm as he pulled him away. A large bruise in the shape of a hand covered the right side of Clint’s face.

“Sorry about that, Ed,” Clint apologized. “This is Quinn’s boyfriend. He must have assumed she was still here. You know how it is to worry ‘bout someone, I’m sure.”

“Oh,” Ed replied, but his hand still rested on the butt of his gun as he gave Julian a scathing glance. “You’d think he’d know where his girlfriend is.”

Julian snarled at the reminder that he had absolutely no idea where she was, and that was
his
fault. The tracking app said she was still here, but Clint had just said she wasn’t. He didn’t see her anywhere amongst the crowd, nor could he
feel
her close by.

“Easy,” Clint murmured to him. “Killing him won’t get us anywhere. Just walk away. It’s the best thing you can do for Quinn right now.”

“Where is she?” he hissed between his teeth.

Clint shook his head, drawing him aside as paramedics lifted a stretcher with Hawtie strapped to it. Her hand reached out to Clint, and he hurried to her side. He bent low so Hawtie could whisper in his ear. Clint nodded briskly and gave her a brief kiss before stepping away. Julian’s eyes scanned the blood splattering the bar floor, the broken shelves, and mirror behind the bar.

“What did she say?” he demanded of Clint.

“To stay with you until we find Quinn. It’s all she cares about right now.”

Julian’s eyes landed on the black body bag on the floor. It wasn’t Quinn. He would know if it was. A piece of him would already be broken. He would be a monster, unstoppable in his determination to destroy anything that got in his way. Was it Dani?

Walking over, he grabbed the zipper and jerked it back to reveal the ruined remains of Jeb’s head.

“Hey!” Ed shouted at him. “I don’t care who you are! You touch one more thing in this room, and I’m throwing your ass in jail.”

“What is wrong with you?” Clint demanded as he pulled him away.

“Where is she, Clint?”

“Not here. They took her.” The entire bar became enshrouded in a haze of red so thick he imagined it was much like what Hell looked like. And that was exactly what he was in right now, Hell. They’d taken her, he had no idea where, and the sun was about to rise. “The police don’t know that. I told them I’d sent her home early, and we need to keep up that appearance.”

Julian barely heard Clint’s words through the thrumming pulse of fury pounding in his head. “Her phone?”

“It fell out of her pocket when they carried her out.”

His gaze slid over the bar again as he sniffed at the blood in the room. Some of it was Quinn’s. The rest was human and…

His head turned as he caught a different scent. Hurrying over, he peered behind the bar to where two male paramedics knelt on either side of Dani. They were taking her pulse and blood pressure. She grabbed hold of one of their hands when they tried to put a neck brace on her and shoved them away.

“I told you, I’m fine,” she said testily.

“You could have a concussion and you should be checked out,” the other one argued.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I’m not going to the hospital. Now leave me be.”

“You have to sign paperwork saying you refuse.”

“Yeah, whatever, just get away from me with that thing.”

The other one shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Idiot,” he muttered, earning him a wrathful glare from Dani.

Sensing his presence, Dani’s head tilted back and her eyes widened on him. He could almost see her rethinking the hospital option, but in the end, she took a deep breath and pushed herself to her feet. She wobbled unsteadily for a minute, but managed to regain her balance before one of the paramedics grabbed hold of her arm.

“Miss, you really should be checked out. A concussion is nothing to mess around with,” the man told her.

“Not the first, won’t be the last,” she muttered. “No sleep for this girl, I promise.”

Finally giving up, the paramedics put away the last of their medical supplies and walked around the end of the bar. Dani rested her hands on the bar before him, her head bowed, but she finally forced it up. A long gouge had dug across her cheek toward her ear. The upper part of her right ear was a jagged mess as part of it had been torn away. The blood had been cleaned from the wounds and no longer flowed forth.

“I’m sorry. I tried.” She shook her head, then winced and grabbed hold of it. “We’ll find her, I swear it. I just don’t remember…”

Julian could only stand and stare at her as her voice trailed off. He was scared if he moved even a millimeter, he would kill everyone and anyone standing nearby. He’d leave a trail of destruction wherever he went until he found her again.

When he did finally find her, would she even know who he was?

The possibility she wouldn’t know him once he found her made the red haze intensify. Her captor could control minds; what would he do to her? What would he make her do? His fingers tore into the bar top, shredding the wood as his shoulders hunched up. His fangs sliced into his bottom lip.

“Everyone has to get out of here,” Ed called from the front of the bar. “Even you, Clint. Hawtie’s out now, you need to be too.”

“We’re going,” Clint said.

Julian felt the man standing beside him before Clint’s hand rested against his forearm. “You’re a brave man,” Julian grated.

“Perhaps, but we have to leave now. You have to get it together enough to get past the crowd out there.”

Splinters dug beneath his fingernails. “He’ll warp her mind—”

“Don’t think of it. Keep it together. You’ll find her, but if you spiral out of control now, it will never happen.”

Julian reluctantly released his death grip on the bar and turned away from it. He kept his head down so he wouldn’t be tempted by the pulsing heartbeats of those he passed as he made his way outside. Luther and the others fell in around him as they made their way to Quinn’s apartment.

The first rays of the sun barely touched the horizon when he stepped inside the building. He stared at the rising ball of fire, despising it and his weakness to it.

“We need the RV,” he said to Luther.

Luther nodded and hurried back out the front door. Julian remained unmoving, his gaze focusing on the sun as it crept higher into the sky to spill across his skin. His flesh began to sizzle and smoke curled around him. He welcomed the pain; he deserved it and more for allowing Quinn to be taken.

No, she had needed to draw her stalker out, and he understood her reasons for that. He’d wanted her far from here, but if their roles had been reversed, he wouldn’t have left either, and he would have done everything he could to find and kill that bastard. The vamp had destroyed her family. Now he was tormenting her and menacing her town; she’d longed to make him pay.

“Julian, please,” Melissa whispered. She rested her hand on his arm, trying to pull him back as blisters formed and burst on his flesh. “Someone could see, and you have to be at your strongest to look for her.”

He hadn’t felt the searing of the sun’s warmth, and he didn’t feel the coolness of the shadows when he stepped back into them. He leaned against the wall, his eyes fixed outside as he watched the RV approach. Luther hadn’t come to a complete stop when Julian shoved open the door and strode over to the vehicle. He barely noticed the flames leaping to life on his fingertips as Luther shoved the door to the RV open.

He strode into the RV, the shadows smothering the flames from his body. “Hopefully no one saw that,” Clint muttered as he climbed inside and settled at the table.

“Head toward the ranch,” Julian commanded Luther as the others settled in around him. “The vampires were feeding there a lot. They may have a hideout nearby.” Luther climbed into the driver’s seat and shifted the engine into drive. Julian braced his hand against the ceiling as he focused on Dani and Clint. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Dani’s head fell into her hands. “It’s kind of a blur. I remember being outside and someone was attacked. Then we were inside and someone was shooting. Quinn, she became thinner?” The last statement was more of a question as she turned toward Clint.

Clint rested his hand on her arm. “That’s the extremely shortened version. I’ll tell them,” he assured her.

Julian remained mute as he listened to Clint’s retelling of everything that had occurred.

“He waited until you were both weaker before making his move,” Chris said and pushed against Lou so he could slide into one of the bench seats around the table. Lou shot him a disgruntled look, but eventually slid over. “He purposely went for someone he
knew
Quinn would save.”

“Yes,” Julian rasped. His throat was parched from the fire and smoke that had drifted from him. His body had already begun to heal but hunger licked across his veins like lightning. “I need blood.”

“There’s some bags in the fridge,” Luther replied and glanced at him in the rearview.

“I barely remember any of it,” Dani muttered.

“It will come back to you,” Melissa said. She opened the fridge and pulled out a half a dozen bags of blood before closing it again. “One good thing about being a Hunter, we heal fast. What happened to your ear?”

“My ear?” Dani reached up to touch her ears. She winced when her right hand made contact with the jagged wound. “What happened?”

“You were shot,” Clint said. “But you’re fine.”

“Just missing a piece,” she said.

“Yeah,” Chris said.

“Quinn was shot too, in her shoulder,” Dani recalled.

A sound he didn’t recognize came from him at her words. Melissa kept her legs braced against the rocking of the RV as she made her way toward him. She handed the blood bags to him and rested her hand against the cabinets as he ripped the top off the first one and drained the contents in one swallow.

He tore into the next bag with the same enthusiasm, then the next until they were all gone. It did nothing to ease the bloodlust pulsating within him, but by the time he was finished, his skin had completely healed and he felt stronger.

Sliding past Melissa, he tossed the bags into the trash next to the sink and walked toward the front of the RV. Luther glanced at him as he rested his hand against the bed over Luther’s head to brace himself. Tuning all of his senses to the world around him, he strained to catch any hint of Quinn’s smell or presence amongst the endless desert.