The Last True Vampire (32 page)

Overprotective with a violent streak. Her first impression of Mikhail had been spot-on. “I don’t think I need an armed guard to go across the hall with me. Do you?”

His tone brooked no argument. “Yes.”

“All right. Fine. Has anyone ever told you that you’re very pushy?”

Mikhail flashed a confident smile that showcased the wicked points of his fangs. Dear god, he was magnificent. He sheathed the dagger and took her hand just as his cell rang. With a grunt of annoyance he dug the phone from his pocket and answered. “What is it, Jenner?”

Mikhail’s eyes widened a fraction, enough to tell Claire that whatever was going on, it wasn’t good. She released his hand and he plunged his fingers through the length of his hair and let out a frustrated breath. “I should have known better than to unshackle him. Do you know where he’s gone?” A pause followed and Mikhail’s eyes flashed silver. “To Siobhan no doubt.”

Whoever was gone, from the sound of Mikhail’s tone he was in big trouble. The conversation continued on and Claire had a feeling that this was going to take a while. Her vampire paced the confines of her apartment, his conversation fading to the back of Claire’s mind. The sun was about to rise and he’d drag her out of there before she had a chance to talk to Vanessa.

She left his conversation undisturbed and snuck out the door and went across the hall. Her stomach clenched and her vision blurred from a rush of adrenaline as she took in the sight of the girl’s apartment door hanging open, the jamb splintered.

“Vanessa?” Claire’s voice broke on the word, her lungs burning with the need to take a breath. The sparse apartment had been completely destroyed: furniture upturned, cupboards ransacked, and drawers emptied and discarded.

A low moan caught her attention and Claire’s heart beat a frantic rhythm against her rib cage as she rushed down the narrow hallway. Carlene lay facedown on the carpet, her body halfway out of the bedroom. Blood soaked into the cheap carpeting, a deep crimson stain that caused Claire’s stomach to heave.

She dropped to her knees beside Vanessa’s mother. She was breathing, but just barely. Blood oozed from a wide gash in her head.

Claire rushed for the kitchen and grabbed the phone. Her fingers shaking, she dialed 9-1-1. The dispatcher answered, “Los Angeles County Dispatch—”

The phone dropped from Claire’s grip as a hand came around her mouth. She was hauled against the solid form of a body, every inch a wall of unyielding muscle and strength. Shock punched through her chest and she fought against the iron hold. She should have expected this. Should have been prepared!
Cowardly bastards!

How long had the slayers been watching her? Waiting for the opportunity to lure her from Mikhail’s protection rather than fight the vampire here? They would set a another trap, lure
him
in. And they’d baited Claire with Vanessa as surely as they’d bait Mikhail with her.

From the corner of her eye Claire caught sight of Vanessa being hauled out the door by a monster of a man. Helpless, her eyes wide and fearful, she struggled against her captor. Claire fought for all she was worth, kicking and swinging her arms. She sank her teeth into the hand covering her mouth, a grim sense of satisfaction spurring her on as she broke the skin and tasted blood. The slayer cursed, pulling his hand away with a hiss of breath.

She opened her mouth to scream for Mikhail, but the slayer’s hand came back to Claire’s mouth, this time covering her face with a rag that smelled sickly sweet and sucked the air from her lungs. Her head swam and her vision blurred. And though she tried to fight, her limbs became heavy and her arms hung limp. They were going to take her, take Vanessa, and there wasn’t a goddamned thing she could do to stop it.

She tried to form the words as darkness descended, but she couldn’t get her lips to move. Her mind screamed his name; her soul reached out for his.
Mikhail!
But he couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t do a damned thing to help her.

It was already too late.

*   *   *

Gods, how could Claire live in this place? From the sound of it, there was a rave going in full force in the apartment next door. The sound of the music, coupled with myriad voices penetrating the walls, made it difficult to focus on his conversation with Jenner. Or anything else.

“He seemed like he had his shit straight when he left, but who knows.” That Ronan would leave the house wasn’t surprising. Vampires fresh from their transition were restless and hard to control. Once Mikhail got Claire home and behind the safety of his walls he’d deal with Ronan’s disappearance. Until then, the male was on his own.

“Don’t go out looking for him. I need you at the house.” The slayers had become more brazen in their attacks, their numbers increasing. “I’m bringing Claire back with me and I want the property well protected.”

The air left Mikhail’s lungs in a forceful rush. He crashed to his knees, his vision blurring at the periphery. Raw panic seeped into his bloodstream, contracting his chest to the point of pain, and the room swam in and out of focus as he tried to gain his bearings.

Claire
.

The phone fell from his grasp, crashing to the floor as he pulled the dagger from its sheath, his pace steady and slow as he fought against every instinct to rush into the hallway. Both the doors to the child’s apartment and Claire’s were wide-open.
Damn it,
she’d gone to see the girl without him. Through the raucous music and chatter next door the only sound to reach Mikhail’s ears was that of ragged, wet breaths that chilled the blood in his veins.

Inside the apartment, a woman lay unconscious on the floor. A large gash in her skull oozed blood and her breathing was shallow. Furniture had been overturned and broken in the struggle, and Mikhail cursed the chaotic noise and Jenner’s phone call that had distracted him. He bent over the woman, scored his thumb, and pressed it to the wound. A small kindness but all he could do. “Claire?” His vision refused to focus as he searched the cramped space. “Claire?” His illogical mind refused to acknowledge what he already knew. “Claire?” His voice ripped from his throat in a ragged shout.

Taken
.

A roar of unfettered rage shook the walls of the apartment. Mikhail’s fingers curled around the dagger’s hilt until the guard bit into his flesh, drawing blood. Despair welled within him, threatening to bring him to his knees. Mere feet had separated them and the slayers had taken her right from under his nose. They’d used the child, knowing of Claire’s affection for her, staging the perfect ambush. Had they been aware of Mikhail’s presence in the building? Or was it just cruel chance that he’d been close enough to keep Claire safe and yet she’d fallen into their hands with ease? His soul cried out for hers, the loss almost too much to bear. It would be a race against the sunrise if he had any hopes of finding her, and even then—

He’d had her blood, and she’d taken his.

Relief washed over him as his panic began to ebb. He could track her. Find her with ease. Mikhail sheathed his dagger and rushed from the apartment. He retrieved his phone and just as quickly fled from the apartment building, nothing more than another fleeting shadow in the darkened cityscape.

He would find his mate. And he would kill every last soul who had a hand in her kidnapping.

CHAPTER

25

Ronan’d been given no opportunity to say good-bye to the sun.

Though he had wanted this, yearned for the transition for as long as he could remember, it still stung that Mikhail had given him no choice in how and when it would be done. However, his choice in the matter was a small price to pay for the power that swirled within him.

His first order of business, post-transition, had been to feed. And Ronan had glutted himself on blood. The dhampir female had been a willing participant, giving him as much as she could before she’d become too weak to further nourish him. While Jenner tended to her well-being, another hunger had grown inside of Ronan. One that had him climbing the fucking walls with unparalleled need. And he knew exactly where he could go to get the necessary satisfaction.

He entered Siobhan’s stronghold, unconcerned with the looks he received from the dhampirs lining the corridors of the ramshackle building. One of them no longer, he saw them through new eyes, ones that could discern even the slightest weakness. And in a beat he was able to calculate how to exploit those weaknesses. Knew what course of action to take should the situation escalate to violence. It was no wonder Mikhail had been such a famed warrior. But it also prompted Ronan to wonder just how formidable the Sortiari slayers were to have managed to nearly exterminate the entire race of vampires.

Because right now he felt like a fucking
god
.

“You have to be announced,” a frantic female said as Ronan approached Siobhan’s private rooms. “My mistress is otherwise engaged at the moment.”

“Well, that’s too damned bad, isn’t it?” Ronan flashed Siobhan’s attendant a wicked grin and her eyes grew wide as she backed away. His tongue flicked out at the tip of one of his elongated fangs. Already he couldn’t wait to sink them into Siobhan’s creamy porcelain flesh.

He burst through the doors to find her spread out on top of her bed, wrists and ankles bound to the headboard and footboard as two males attended her. From the looks of it they’d barely started, and he was about to send them both packing. If he didn’t bury his cock inside of her soon, he’d go out of his fucking mind. The transition had brought with it such intense sensations and urges that Ronan was finding it difficult to cope. “Get out,” he growled at the surprised dhampirs. “Before I throw you out.”

They deferred to their would-be queen, who gave a slight nod of her head. The males walked past Ronan with scowls on their faces and he took in the sight of their naked bodies, cocks upright and straining with the need for release. He almost felt sorry for them. And also aroused. He’d refused Siobhan’s offer to bring another male into their trysts, but Ronan was so wound up that the idea of a full-on orgy made his own cock hard as fucking marble inside of his jeans.

He’d have to fuck her until sunrise before he felt any relief.

From across the room Siobhan studied him, her emerald gaze keen and sparkling with desire. Her thighs and swollen lips glistened with her arousal and the scent caused a low growl to build in Ronan’s chest. Always the dominant one, he’d never seen Siobhan in such a submissive position, her legs spread wide and bound to the footboard at the ankles. Her wrists were bound as well, held taut to either side of her. She arched her back and her breasts rolled with the motion as though begging for his touch.

“What makes you think you can walk in here unbidden?” Her tone hinted at rebuke, but her expression begged for him to come closer. “You should be punished for your arrogance.”

Ronan smirked as he approached the bed. Her scent bloomed around him, settling on the air in a heavy haze that damn near drove him mad with desire. “I don’t think you’re in any position to punish anyone, Siobhan.” He reached out to test the steadfastness of her bonds and her hips rolled up, exposing the petal pink flesh of her sex. Ronan’s gut clenched and he stripped bare, tossing his clothes behind him in a flurry of motion.

“What’s he done to you?” Siobhan’s scent changed. Her anxiety spiked with a tangy citrus edge. “He’s turned you?” Angry silver flashed in her eyes. “That bastard made you one of the
soulless
.”

Ronan flashed his dual sets of fangs and another burst of citrus hit his nostrils. He liked to see her squirm for a change. The female who’d been ballsy enough to extort his body as payment for a simple book struggling against her bonds. “Are you afraid?” The predator in him surged to the surface, exulting in her fear. But the male in him couldn’t wait to take her, to fuck her so deep and so hard that she’d be too exhausted to worry about what he’d become or how.

“Of course not.” Her tiny fang nicked her full bottom lip, where a drop of blood welled. A strategic move if ever he’d seen one. “I’m disgusted. Not to mention disappointed.”

Ronan scoffed at her scandalized tone as he stalked to the bed. She tilted her head up defiantly, her pouty bottom lip begging to be sucked. Ronan braced one arm on either side of her head and bent down. With a slow flick, he caught the ruby droplet on his tongue. Siobhan’s breath came in shallow pants and her heart beat a mad rhythm in her chest, music to Ronan’s ears.

He reached down between her thighs and caught her pussy in his palm as he slathered her mound and thighs with her own wetness. “Are you ready to be fucked without mercy, female?”

Siobhan arched her back and drew her arms and legs in tight, breaking her bonds with snaps of the nylon. The cords dangled from her wrists and ankles, the sight almost as arousing as that of her trussed up to the bed. She launched herself at him, wrapping one of the cords around his throat. In a graceful maneuver she settled on his back, her legs wrapped around his waist as she tightened the cord.

“You’ve betrayed me, Ronan.” She choked up tighter, but he didn’t need to breathe anymore. “You pledged your body to
me
. You are
mine
. And I did not give you leave to allow Mikhail Aristov to turn you.”

Ronan tossed her from his back as one brushed off an inconsequential fly. She landed on the bed with a bounce and he took a moment to enjoy the view before he joined her on the mattress and pinned her down. Emerald fire lit her eyes as a corner of her mouth hinted at a smirk. She might have pretended as though his transformation disgusted her, but the scent of her renewed arousal told another story.

He lowered his mouth to hers and Siobhan snapped her jaw at him. Her defiance only made him want her more, and he risked the nip of her tiny fangs, pressing his parted lips to hers. She bit down and the sweet tang of blood ignited his lust for both her body and her vein. He had to be careful, though. His thirst was still unmanageable, and the slightest slip would see her body drained. Likewise, if he fed her from his vein she’d turn, and he doubted that either Siobhan or Mikhail would be too happy about it.