Unforgiven (The Forbidden Bond 2) (6 page)

****

The pixie had kissed his palm and nuzzled him like a lover. Such a gentle gesture had sent heat rocketing straight to his groin. Damn. She had called him beautiful and stunned him with the brush of her soft rosy lips. Beautiful? Really? Some men may have taken offense at being called such a feminine thing, but Greyson wasn’t at all offended. He was secure enough in his manhood to take the compliment as it was intended. He didn’t necessarily agree, but far be it from him to dissuade the pixie. It was so damn good to see some color in those lips and her cheeks. She had been so pale and lifeless just the night before. He sat by her bedside all-night, pulling double duty as a Wrath guard and a doctor.

The ride from the limo where he and his Wrath brethren had found her, along with her half-sister and a human female, had tried his patience. He was working feverishly to stop the blood,which two humans on the scene had so kindly donated,from exiting her body through the holes in her chest and back. With little light and a bad made for TV movie running in the background… Oh, wait. That wasn’t a chick flick. It was the pixie’s mother screeching at her father about a dirty human whore and her gold-digging daughter while the father stonily ignored her and held up his cell phone, utilizing the handy flashlight app to give Greyson more light for his work.

He couldn’t wait to get the whole story on this dysfunctional bunch. If he hadn’t known for sure that the man leaning over the other side of the vampire pixie was Griffin Vaughn, the widely renowned and respected Councilmen and head of the House of Vaughn, he would never have believed it. The image of the perfectly dignified Councilmen and his perfect upper-crust family image did not jive with the scene playing out before Greyson.

There was a bullet still lodged in the pixie’s upper chest near the clavicle. He hoped it hadn’t nicked the artery resting very near the site. Without an operating room, the proper tools, and a couple of assistants, he wouldn’t be able to fix that injury in time to save her life. The bullet was preventing her naturally speedy healing processes from taking over and clotting up the hole. It had to come out now and he had to concentrate in order to make that happen.

About the twentieth time he heard the beautiful but nasty blonde say, “I don’t know how you could touch that filthy mongrel!” or some variation of that theme, Greyson snapped. He leaned across the narrow space in the back of the van and grabbed the woman by the wrist, yanking her toward the doors behind him. He got right in her face and snarled.

“If you don’t shut your nasty hole I’m gonna toss you from this moving vehicle. Do you understand? I’m trying to save your daughter’s life and you’re worried about a human that is already dead.”

A sound of anguish slipped from Griffin and the woman screeched even louder at his rough handling. Blood ran from his glove covered hand down the woman’s arm and she watched it drop from her elbow. Suddenly she looked at her daughter as if she had just noticed the pixie in the van with them was bleeding out and dying.

“I thought you said she was stable?” she keened. Great, now she was crying and getting hysterical.

“I said she was stable enough to move. I need to remove the bullet from her chest.” He barked in her face. He had to get it out before he moved her again. He needed her body’s natural clotting and healing to help him along. The van came to a sudden and jarring halt. The side door slid open and two warriors, along with a host of other people in tuxedos and gowns, greeted him. Greyson turned back to Mr. Vaughn.

“I’m sorry, but we need this bullet out now.” He forced the blubbering woman into the arms of the warriors standing by and slammed the van door shut, locking it. The warrior that had been driving turned around and added the light from his phone on the spot Greyson need to see. He’d never been so glad to have a well-stocked med-kit. Using the long tweezers, his fingers, and a Hail Mary, Greyson dislodged the bullet from her chest. Almost immediately the blood stopped flowing. He packed the site with gauze to protect it until he could get inside and stitch her up.

Griffin Vaughn stayed with him through the entire ordeal, acting as his assistant and nurse. In the immaculately clean and brightly lit kitchen of the Vaughn estate, on a steel table meant for food prep, Greyson cut the clothes off the pixie and thoroughly cleaned the area around the exit wound. Griffin stripped to his undershirt and scrubbed his hands and arms in the deep sink. He grabbed a pair of gloves from the med-kit and stood ready for direction.

The past crept up on Greyson for a moment and he fought to hold it back. The entire situation, the making do with what he had, the stress, the blood, and the near death condition of his patient took him back to his days as a field surgeon in Vietnam. For a split second he was up to his elbows in blood, standing over the body of a twenty year old kid. The handsome kid hadn’t known he’d seen his family for the last time, hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to his troop, or write one last letter to the sweetheart waiting for him at home in the states. He had died, in a foreign country on a metal table, with his chest blown apart.

Shit.
Now was not the time to deal with his demons. Griffin stepped up and they set to work. Griffin never once complained about the strain of bending over the table, or winced at the blood and gore. He followed orders and, in the end, Greyson came away with a renewed respect for the Councilmen.

During the surgery, a gurney, along with all the other equipment he needed, had been brought in from the Enclave. That made transporting the pixie to her room and monitoring her vitals much easier. The heart monitor had beeped reassuringly all night and into the next day before she had finally stirred for a moment. He still sat there with her face pressed into his hand after she slipped back into sleep. The door pushed open behind him and Greyson reluctantly withdrew his hand. Her parents, along with her twin who looked nothing like her, rushed into the room. The twin went directly to her sister’s bed, knelt on the floor to hold her slack hand and whispered to her reassuringly. He reassured them that she was doing well, and had awakened for just a moment, but that was a very good sign. She had seemed lucid and not in much pain until she moved to get up.

“Dr. Drake, why don’t you let us make you up one of the guest rooms so you can get some rest? There are two guards at the door and a nurse on duty to monitor Brandi. You must be exhausted. Our family is indebted to you for the service you provided. ” Griffin shook Greyson’s hand and pulled him in for an uncharacteristic man hug, pounding Greyson on the back the way men do when they’re fond of each other.

“Please, call me Greyson. I haven’t been Dr. Drake for a long time.” He smiled a bit weakly.

“If you don’t mind, sir, I would prefer to continue monitoring Brandi myself.” That was actually the first time anyone had bothered to mention her name in front of him. He liked it, but felt like pixie or nymph was going to stick.

“I’ve been taking regular combat naps and the blood and food you sent up hit the spot. It’s been a while since I’ve had such a critical patient. Nowadays I usually don’t do more than patch up my teammates on the fly out in the field.” Okay, so he was making excuses to stay with the pixie. So what? He could admit that. To himself. Maybe.

“You still feel like she’s critical, Dr. Drake? I thought you just said she was doing well.” Mrs. Vaughn challenged him, but had the grace to look sheepish after her performance the night before.

“Brandi is not out of the woods just yet. She is doing well for someone who took two bullets to the back yesterday. Her body is healing nicely, but the amount of blood she lost combined with the extent of her injuries is going to take a toll on her immune system and healing is going to be a taxing ordeal for her. We may heal quickly, but we are not impervious to all infection. She had a bullet removed in the back of a van and surgery on the kitchen counter. She will have a difficult time fighting off an infection right now, should one arise.”

He looked to Griffin for help explaining when Mrs. Vaughn began tapping the toe of her stiletto and looking at him as if he were telling the teacher his dog ate his homework. Maybe she knew he was making excuses. Honestly, he had very valid reasons for being concerned. Sure, the nurse could monitor Brandi just as well as he could, but who wouldn’t want a trauma surgeon caring for their child instead of a rent-a-nurse? This bitch was… well, she was a bitch.

“Of course, we would love you to stay and provide the best care available for our child. Wouldn’t we, Sarah?” Griffin eyed his mate until she nodded her agreement and went to the bed to take her daughter’s hand.

“I believe we have a rollaway bed that will be more comfortable than that chair. I’ll have it sent in for you.”

More pleasantries were exchanged before Greyson left the room to give the family privacy to visit with the resting pixie. He called to check in at the Enclave and got the green light to stay and care for the daughter of the Councilmen. When he returned, the room was empty of visitors and he quickly and professionally checked her wounds for infection and reviewed her vitals. Looking down at her, after meeting her sister, he felt a bit ashamed for being attracted to such a young girl. Guessing a vamp’s age can be tricky, but judging by her bedroom décor and her sister, she couldn’t be more than twenty. After seeing her last night in a gown, dressed for a party, he had made some assumptions. She had been blood covered so that hadn’t helped, but her curvy body said ‘all woman’ to his senses. She was beautiful even in her worst hour. With her face scrubbed clean of makeup and her curls hugging her cheeks, in sleep she was even more so. Maybe there would be a better reason than the Wrath teams for him to stay and adjust to life on the Enclave. Maybe a pixie could make him feel alive again.

****

It was dark and the smell of old blood mixed with other bodily fluids and mildew assaulted Derek. The sounds of a crying woman drifted to him from somewhere down the corridor. Was that his mother? Derek listened closely, but the sound was too faint to be distinct. He had really screwed up this time. The
Master
, as he liked to be called, was none too happy about the failure of Derek’s latest mission. The goal was to abduct the girl from her bonding ceremony and bring her back to The Nest. Danielle Vaughn was important to his plans for crushing the ruling Council of vampires. Returning without her had brought a world of hurt down on Derek.

The Master had this insane Hitler-like concept of the superiority of their species. He believed vampires, being at the top of the food chain, should rule the world, and humans should bow their heads respectfully and serve obediently or die. Naturally, he would be the leader, master of all, and all would worship at the altar of his genius for bringing about this new world order. No kingdom or nation would survive the coming of his warped Shade army, the blitzkrieg of the vampire nation.

The Shade consisted of vampires from the darkest corners of the vampire nation organized into loose military units. They were thugs, thieves, and rejected members of society looking for a way to get out from under the Council’s rule. The Master believed this roughneck band of misfits could defeat the warrior class of vampires that protect the Council and the vampire nation before they moved on to take over the human world.

Never mind the fact that vampires only make up about a fifth of the world’s population, and who cares if the US military itself, without the help of the rest of the world, could crush his growing league of likeminded vampires. The eminent goal of crushing the Council is all that mattered to the Master. First, the Council falls, giving him control over the vampire nation. Then, he planned to take over the world like some megalomaniac from a B movie.

The crying stopped when footsteps began to pound down the corridor of the underground network of cells where human cattle had been collected to keep the Master fed, alongside prisoners and vampires that had failed to please the Master were held. Chained to the floor, bloodied and defenseless, he waited for the end to come. Would this be the day to end his servitude to the evil he’d been forced into for longer than he could remember? Had the Master finally made good on his promise to murder Derek’s mother if he weren’t completely obedient? It would be the killing blow to what was left of his fragile human psyche, if his failure had caused the death of his mom. His sweet human mother was the only thing holding Derek to this world anymore. He had murdered, kidnapped, stolen, and abused all in the name of protecting the only family he had, his mother.  

The footsteps passed his cell and stopped not far away. A shrill scream ripped through the darkness as the sounds of a weak struggle ensued. The woman was being taken to the Master. It was dinnertime at The Nest and she was the main course tonight. Panic and trepidation poured from the woman as she pleaded to be released, but the guard backhanded her. There was the too familiar sound of skin striking skin before she fell silent. It was completely within their power to trance her into submission and make the experience comfortable, even pleasurable for her, but they didn’t. She was only cattle. Why worry about her feelings? Humans don’t comfort livestock before they’re slaughtered to be sent to market. The Master had no sympathy for his human delicacies.

Guilt battered Derek for being grateful the guard had come for the woman instead of him. His ravaged body might not survive another beating right now. Oh, he could fend off an attacker, but he submitted to the beatings, and being the half-human mongrel he was, healing from his last beating would take some time. He was as strong and fast as any full blooded vampire but, when injured, it took twice as long for him to recover.

Derek had become the best of the best fighters in The Nest, because the best defense was a good offense. Preventing injury was the best offense against his blood thirsty brethren. If his humanity were to come to light he would be an instant target. It was the threat of exposing him to the rest of the Shadeand the safety of his mother that kept him in line. The Master could not be seen as weak or lenient. Derek took the beatings and smiled inwardly. He knew down deep the Master feared him. He was stronger, faster, and more deviant then any of the other soldiers. Derek had been raised on beatings as if they were mother’s milk. The result was a vampire with a will to survive andtake down anything in his path.No one could defeat him alone and everyone, including the Master, knew it.