Allegiance (The Penton Vampire Legacy) (3 page)

“Now’s not the time, but—”

They smiled, and Melissa slammed the trunk. “You want to drive?”

Oh, hell no. “Love, the last thing I drove was a 1941 Peugeot, in Paris. You do not want me behind the wheel.”

She cocked her head. “I never knew you lived in Paris. Or were you visiting? This was before you were turned?”

“Before, yes.” He had no more to say on that subject. “Not a happy subject with me, though.”

Understatement. He hoped she’d let it go, and after studying him a second, she nodded and climbed behind the wheel. He strapped himself into the passenger seat.

They remained silent while she pulled the car away from the loading area and circled the terminal via the byzantine airport roadways. Well, this was damned awkward. Time to turn on the Reynolds charm. It wouldn’t do to get into relationship matters before they reached Penton. For one thing, he didn’t want her turning him out on the highway.

“How did the fam situation sort itself out?” Cage kept his voice casual, but he saw Melissa’s fingers tense around the leather steering wheel. Not a good sign. She didn’t answer until she’d gotten the car out of the airport traffic glut and reached the freeway feeder road.

“We’re short on fams.” Melissa had been Aidan’s familiar—a bonded human feeder and also a close friend—before being turned by Matthias and his lackeys, who’d hoped to use her against Aidan.

“When you say you’re short, how short? Has Aidan begun recruiting in Atlanta again?” Their Irish-born master vampire had a clever system, taking unvaccinated addicts or abuse cases and rehabbing them with enthrallment and counseling. Once they were clean and sober, they could move to Penton as a familiar, or he’d alter their memories and help fund a new start for them wherever they wanted. “How many of the fams left?”

“It wasn’t just fams; scathe members left, too.” Melissa took the exit for I-85 South and settled back as they left Atlanta traffic behind and cruised through the suburbs toward Penton, about eighty miles to the southwest and just across the Georgia-Alabama line. “We’re down to about twenty-five scathe members and ten humans, so fams are doing double and triple duty.”

She glanced over at him. “I think there are some new people coming tomorrow night who can be feeders, but until then you’ve been assigned to Max. He was the only one in the town’s inner circle without three to feed.”

“Bloody hell.” Max Jeffries was one of Penton’s resident Army Rangers. He’d joined the Penton Omega Force team and had butted heads with Cage from the day he arrived until the night Cage left. “Does he still think he can best a vampire in a fistfight?” Because Cage might have to refresh Max on a few facts of life.

Melissa laughed. “Judging by the cuts and bruises he’s always covered with, I’d say he’s still trying. Mirren will have to fill you in on that. He’s going to help with the training.”

They’d moved out of suburban traffic, and the interstate highway stretched before them like a gray ribbon illuminated by the sedan’s headlights. The dark outlines of pine forests buffeted each side of the highway, deserted at 2:30 a.m. except for the occasional big-rig truck hightailing it toward Montgomery and points west.

The headlights’ high beams caught a flash of white in the woods to their right, and then a second flash.

Cage leaned forward. “What the hell was that?”

Mel hit a switch on the driver’s-side door, and all the locks clicked shut. “Open the glove box. Mirren sent you a present.”

Cage opened the compartment cautiously—the big Scotsman distrusted Cage on a number of levels. One, Mirren had been a Scottish gallowglass warrior living in Ireland when he was turned vampire four centuries earlier, and he considered Englishmen high on the satanic scale. Two, Cage had been the newest, and thus least trusted, of Aidan’s lieutenants in Penton. And three, Cage had been, in Mirren’s colorful phraseology, a “fucking brain-shrinker.” Never mind that he hadn’t shrunk a brain professionally in decades.

On the other hand, Mirren Kincaid would be any psychiatrist’s dream study—except Cage figured there was a high probability at any given moment that the oversized oaf would wield his circa-1600 sword and start lopping off heads, starting with the brain-shrinker’s.

So he stuck his fingers in the compartment with a delicate touch lest something cut, latch onto, or bite them. Instead, they brushed across the cold, polished steel of a shape he recognized: a Colt .45 semiautomatic, both Mirren’s and Aidan’s weapon of choice. He approved; the gun was big and heavy, and it fit well in a man’s hand.

Not comforting that he needed a weapon for a ninety-minute automobile ride, however. “So, what exactly did I see in the woods out there?”

“We call them vampabonds. Vampire vagabonds. The numbers have really picked up in the last month.” She gave a halfhearted laugh. “It’s gotten worse since some yahoo in Montgomery got the bright idea of offering one-dollar bus fare from Atlanta. Now, they blend in with all the humans on the late bus and can get here cheap, with air conditioning and Wi-Fi along the way.”

Cage confirmed that the gun had a full cartridge and scanned the woods and fields they sped past. “These vampabonds—are they looking for food or for Penton?”

“Both. Some are heading for Penton, hoping Aidan will take them in and let them stay, thinking it’s an easy way to get unvaccinated blood. Some are just moving farther into the rural areas, hoping to find humans they can feed from.”

Neither of those would necessitate a gun. After all, someone wanting to move to Penton would want to cooperate, and the ones looking for humans would avoid other vampires so they could keep unvaccinated feeders to themselves.

There had to be more. “What part are you not telling me?”

“The vampabonds are increasing,” Melissa said, disgust clear in her tone. “Word travels, and they know there are unvaccinated people in Penton. We’ve had a few coming into town thinking if they get lucky and kill Aidan or Mirren or Will, some of those humans would be free for the taking.”

Every vampire and human in Penton had to be bonded to one of the three master vampires: Aidan, Mirren, or Will Ludlam, Matthias’s much-abused son. No one outside the scathe could feed from a bonded human—unless the master vampire who held their bond got killed.

“That’s inconvenient.” Cage had hoped his fellow vamps would see Penton as an idea to emulate, not a feeding buffet. “We shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. Some humans are bad people. When they become vampires, they don’t suddenly develop morals.” Like he was any judge of morality.

He stared out the window as they whizzed past the black shadows of pine forest. “Any chance some of our old enemies from the Tribunal are behind this influx, and how many are we talking about?”

“There’s been nothing to make us think it’s Tribunal related.” Melissa shook her head. “Numbers . . . I don’t know, maybe six or seven coming into Penton every week or two? Enough that Mirren’s got the patrols going around town again.”

So much for easing back into Penton life and training leisurely for whatever the Army Rangers had in mind for the special unit. Cage fought back a smile, his blood moving faster. He might be looking for a place to settle down, but he still got off on the rush.

The one good piece of news was that Matthias Ludlam was about to be truly and finally dead. “How’s Will doing? I mean, Matthias is his father, as well as being a right evil bastard.”

Melissa shrugged. “Randa says he’s either ignoring talk about Matthias or making wisecracks. Typical Will, in other words—bottling everything up inside.” She flipped on the turn signal as they approached an exit where the lights of a convenience mart shone through the trees. “I need to get some gas.”

“What about his—”

“Damn!” Melissa stomped on the brake at the flash of movement in front of the car, holding the vehicle steady while its back end decided whether to shimmy left or right. Cage braced his boots hard against the floor and was glad he had buckled his seat belt.

They lurched to a stop less than ten yards from a gaunt man who’d careened onto the pavement of the feeder road in front of them, arms waving.

“Good reflexes, love. Pull off the roadway and stay in the car.”

Once the sedan was safely off the pavement, Cage studied the man for a couple of seconds and then slowly opened his door and slid out. He held the Colt in his left hand, hidden at a slight angle behind his back.

“Oh God,” the man said, “so sorry. I thought you were somebody else.” The man’s dark hair was cut short on the sides, longer on top—a modern, fit-in-with-the-humans style that complemented his high cheekbones, square jaw, and the ball cap he wore. “Hope the car’s okay.”

What was this man’s game? Finding unvaccinated humans, or finding someone driving Aidan Murphy’s car? Cage might not be a master vampire, but his senses were keen and he recognized another vampire when he saw one.

Especially this one.

  
CHAPTER 2
  

M
elissa had expected Cage to shoot the skinny guy who’d jumped in front of the car and almost given her heart failure. Well, not that she could actually have heart failure. Probably. Another thing to add to her endless list of vampire questions for Aidan’s mate, Krys, who had the patience of a saint.

Not a quality Melissa possessed. Never had. And instead of shooting the guy or running him off, Cage stood there talking to him. She’d forgotten how much Cage talked. Well, how much Cage asked questions without ever saying much about himself—a trait Melissa had always attributed to his human occupation as a psychiatrist. That comment about Paris had slipped out unintentionally; she’d seen it on Cage’s face.

If Cage and the vampabond planned on having a set-to, as her grampa used to call it, here at exit 42 next to I-85, she might as well join them.

Melissa opened the door and took a deep, appreciative breath of night air. Her favorite season was imminent, with cooler days, longer nights, and the leaves turning brilliant colors in the soft autumn sunlight. Not that she’d see them unless she set up a spotlight under a tree. Living in darkness, plus the weirdness of feeding, were the worst parts of becoming vampire.

Forget autumn. Winter would be her new favorite season; it had the longest nights of the year.

She walked up behind Cage, appreciating his slim hips in their tight jeans and his broad shoulders filling out the black sweater. A few months ago, he’d intentionally starved himself to infiltrate Matthias’s camp and pass himself off as a stray, but he’d obviously been feeding steadily in London and again had the muscled, hard-planed body admired by most of the women in Penton when he’d first arrived in town last spring. He’d been unofficially voted as having the best ass in Penton, something she doubted he’d ever know and would be mortified by if he did.

Cage turned and smiled, beckoning her alongside him. “Mel, this is Fen Patrick. Fen, Melissa Calvert.”

“It’s Fenton Patrick, technically, but everyone calls me Fen—unless they call me something that can’t be repeated in front of a lady.” Fen Patrick’s accent was a bit like Aidan’s, only much heavier. Irish, then, maybe. And despite the nylon jacket and Atlanta Braves baseball cap that screamed rural Georgia, he was a vampire.

Make that a hungry vampire with a smarmy gift of gab. The lights of the sedan created blue glints on his short, dark hair as he leaned forward to shake her hand. “And always trust Cage to have the prettiest ladies with him, vampire or not.”

“You two already know each other, then?” Melissa thought Fenton Patrick had a hungry, desperate look that fit a starving vampabond, but he also had a glimmer of arrogance that set off her fraud radar. Plus, what were the odds of someone Cage knew appearing on the road just as they were passing? “That’s quite a coincidence—or is it?”

Fen paused a moment, a smile playing on his lips in an expression she couldn’t decipher. Or maybe she’d imagined it, because it was gone in a heartbeat.

“It’s a tremendous coincidence, perhaps an act of God Himself, if He still hears the prayers of those who live in the dark.” Fen’s accent grew more florid as he talked. “Of course, I’d heard my old mate Cage was in Penton, so I hoped he might put in a word for me with Aidan Murphy—a fellow Irishman, I understand.”

If Fen thought an acquaintance with Cage and an Irish accent would get him in good stead with Aidan, he might be surprised. Melissa knew Aidan probably better than anyone in Penton besides his mate and Mirren, and he was tougher than most gave him credit for.

“Fen wasn’t a vampire when I knew him.” Cage’s frown had deepened the longer Fen talked—or had Melissa imagined that, too? “We did a lot of missions together in the ’80s and ’90s, mostly in Central America. He was the only human who’d voluntarily sign up for the hazardous night jobs. He knew what I was and kept his word that he wouldn’t tell anyone. As far as I know, he kept his promise.”

“Always.” Fen grinned. “Hell, I even let you feed from me, and I don’t ever want to get that feeling from another man again. Nothing personal.”

An eighteen-wheeler rumbled past them and then slowed with a flash of brake lights.

“Damn it, go on.” Cage stepped onto the edge of the pavement and watched the truck slow further, its brakes high-pitched and loud in the still night air. “He’s stopping. Probably thinks we need help. Let me send him on his way.”

He strode toward the truck, which had finally come to a stop a couple hundred yards down, near where the exit lane ended at a state highway running east-west. The truck driver, a heavyset guy wearing a baseball cap, climbed down from the cab, stretching his back with his hands on his hips before walking to meet Cage.

Fen blocked Melissa’s view of Cage, forcing her to look at him. “The two of you been together long?” he asked her. “Perhaps you can give me some insight into Aidan Murphy; I’m rather desperate to stay in Penton and get away from all the Tribunal politics and starving vampires in Atlanta. Any tips on how to win him over?”

She didn’t like him, but she tried to shake off the dislike. He’d done nothing suspicious other than simply being there, and there was no way Fen could have known his former colleague would be in Aidan’s car heading for Penton at what had to be almost 3:00 a.m.

Plus, at least some of her dislike stemmed from the fact that she’d hoped to spend this time alone with Cage, figuring out how they felt about each other. These months away from him had given her some perspective. She suspected that her love for him had been born out of fear, insecurity, and gratitude, but she needed some time around him to be sure—and to see how he felt about her. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him.

She did some quick mental calculations. “I’ve known Cage for about six or seven months.” Penton had been a real, whole place then instead of a burned-out shell they were trying to rebuild.

“Practically newlyweds then. Or mates, as the vampires call wedded bliss.” Fen cocked his head, glancing at her left hand. “Or perhaps you’re just friends, I might hope?”

Seriously? “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but we don’t know each other well enough to be having this conversation. What’s taking Cage so long?”

Melissa frowned and glanced around Fen’s shoulder, relieved to see the trucker climbing back into his cab and Cage heading their way.

“Sorry, no offense meant.” Fen held up his hands in surrender, turning to Cage when he finally reached them. “Feisty mate you have here.”

Cage raised an eyebrow, and Melissa shrugged. He could trust this guy all he wanted. Didn’t mean she had to. And she’d ignore the “mate” assumption. What she and Cage were, or weren’t, could in no way be considered his business. “I was just about to ask Fen how long he’d been turned.”

“I’d like to know that as well, but we need to get back in the car, get our petrol, and move along toward Penton.” Cage glanced down the exit ramp where the truck driver was pulling his rig onto the road, heading away from the lights of the convenience store. Two other eighteen-wheelers had passed by on the interstate, and there were more oncoming in the distance. “Otherwise, we’ll get more well-meaning freight drivers stopping to help.”

Cage walked toward the sedan with Fen on his heels.

“You’re going to take him to Penton?” Melissa didn’t want to hear Mirren’s tirade when Cage arrived with a stranger an hour before daysleep. “We could drop him off in Opelika and let Aidan talk to him tomorrow night when there’s more time.”

Cage stopped and turned, looking from her to Fen and back. “I’m pretty sure Aidan got rid of all our safe spaces in Opelika and Auburn after the dustup with the Tribunal. He thought they’d all been compromised.”

What? Where would Cage get such a stupid idea, unless . . . Melissa gave herself a mental slap on the head. Cage didn’t trust Fen, either. He wanted him close at hand until they found out whether he was trustworthy.

“Right.” Melissa shook her head. “Sorry I’m such a ditz tonight. Driving in Atlanta traffic always shorts out my brain.”

“Understandable, although it’s not half as bad as any large city in Europe,” Fen said, hesitating when Cage opened the front passenger-side door and motioned him in. “Dublin is a nightmare. I sincerely believe Irishmen weren’t meant to operate automobiles.”

Damn it. It was bad enough this guy had interrupted what might be her only chance to talk to Cage alone. Now, he was going to sit next to her the rest of the way into Penton while Cage sat in back?

She shot Cage a look to convey her annoyance over the whole Fen Patrick situation and got behind the wheel again. Cage sat in the backseat behind her, where he could keep an eye on Fen. Good sense from a security standpoint; bad timing from a sorry-but-we’ll-always-have-Omega relationship standpoint.

As soon as they got to Penton she’d lose him to Mirren and the Army guys, and no telling how long she might be left wondering how he felt about her—and examining her own feelings for him.

Cage leaned forward and put a hand on her shoulder. “Wait a second, Mel. I need to make something clear to Fen before we take him to Penton. My apologies, mate, but the only advantage our old acquaintance will get you is a foot in the door. Aidan Murphy will make the call as to whether or not you can stay. Our security chief, Mirren Kincaid, will have a say in it as well.”

Melissa looked for any glimmer of irritation to cross Fen’s face, but she found none. He turned a wide smile toward Cage. “No problem. Can’t be too careful these days given what all happened in Penton, from what I’ve heard. And would that be
the
Mirren Kincaid, the Slayer? I’d heard he was around, but one never knows which rumors are true and which ones are sheer fabrications.”

Cage relaxed against the seat back. “The one and the same Kincaid. Only I wouldn’t call him ‘Slayer’ to his face. He can be a bit surly.”

Melissa had to smile. Surly was the Mirren Kincaid version of jovial.

Once they’d bought gas and gotten back on the interstate, the final forty minutes of the drive into Penton told Melissa more about Cage’s life than she’d ever heard. Not so much from what he said—he was as unforthcoming as ever—but from Fen’s easy reminiscences that shone a small bit of light on Cage’s shadowy pre-Penton days.

She knew he’d spent a lot of time in military duty; she had wondered how he’d managed that as a vampire. He couldn’t exactly operate in the normal armed forces and be unaccounted for during daylight hours. A willingness to take night duty would only carry a soldier so far.

Fen kept mentioning night raids and forays into foreign villages, however, all of which had apparently been filled with free-flowing alcohol and available women. Finally, Melissa couldn’t stand it any longer. “Exactly whose army were you in?”

Of course, it was Fen, not Cage, who answered: “Our own army, darlin’. Cage and I were what you’d call soldiers of fortune. We had dozens of names, dozens of passports, and for a price you could hire us to do the dirty work you didn’t want to be associated with. Guess I’d still be at it if regular meals weren’t so scarce.”

Mercenaries, then. Melissa raised her gaze to the rearview mirror and caught Cage giving Fen a narrow-eyed look through green eyes that shone silver with annoyance.

“Sounds like perfect work for an adrenaline junkie like Cage.” She smiled into the mirror, hoping it told him that his past didn’t matter. People changed. Mirren was proof of that. Good grief, she herself was proof of that. A year ago, with Mark at her side and as Aidan’s familiar, she couldn’t have imagined being a vampire herself. After she’d been turned she became afraid of hurting Mark, rejecting him because she knew he’d ultimately reject her. “Well, an adrenaline junkie psychiatrist.”

Fen laughed. “Well, I think he gave up head-shrinking after the POW camp, right, Cage? Something about learning what evil lurks in the hearts of men, or some rubbish as that?”

Cage had been in a POW camp? Melissa glanced in the rearview mirror again and found Cage looking out the window, his face set into rigid lines, the occasional lights of an oncoming vehicle flashing across a countenance both grim and haunted.