Bitten by Darkness (10 page)

“What?”
She tucked her phone back into her jeans. “Is there something wrong?”

“Too many
stars,” he muttered, opening the door. He shoved her inside.

“That's
weird,” she said. She glanced at him as he buckled himself into the driver's
side. “That’s weird, right?”

He nodded
shortly and started the car.
“Yeah.
Weird.” He
wondered how many ships there were and how they’d escaped radar detection. If
he could see them with his naked eye, then others could, too. And how did
Alucard
get his thugs here so fast? They had to have been
in transit even before he’d left
Dekcol
.
Dammit
.

“You’re
not going to take me to my apartment, are you?”

He smiled
grimly. She knew him well, even after so little time. “No.”

“Trying
to pry answers out of you is extremely unpleasant. You could try, oh, I don't
know, volunteering information once in a while?”

He
glanced at her, worried about the sarcasm, only to find her smirking at him. He
laughed. “Yeah, well, I'm not much used to talking to anyone.”

She
frowned. “I know you just moved back here recently, but you must have lived
somewhere else.
With other people, who you talked to, right?”

He
shrugged. “Not so much.” He started the car. “I had a servant.”

“A servant.
Okay.
And?”
She made a rolling gesture with
her hand.

He
smothered another laugh as the extra stars in the sky winked out suddenly.
Shit. Those were definitely ships. The only good thing about them was that they
didn’t seem to be following them. “He was a spy.”

“You had
a servant who was a spy. Whose spy?
Yours?”
She was
holding the handle of the door now, her fingers whitening with her grip as he
accelerated sharply.

He shook
his head. “No. Jack was a spy for my enemies.” He sensed her mulling that bit
of information over.

“Hmm.
And you were okay with that?”

“Not
really.” He glanced at her. She was staring out the windshield. The moon washed
her face in pale light so that he could only see the shadows of her nose and
cheekbones. She was beautiful.

“Those
extra stars are gone now.” She turned to him, worry chasing across her brow.
“What’s going on?”

He eased
onto the highway and sped up, trying to think of a good way to explain. “You
told me that you're different. That you've felt different your whole life.”

She
nodded. “You’re changing the subject.”

“Just
bear with me,” he ground out, frustrated. “You know about vampires. Did your
mother ever tell you anything else?” His heart pounded, unusual for him. He'd
fed yesterday, but even so, he shouldn't be feeling this much adrenaline. It
had to be the taste of her blood that was doing this to him.

“Anything else about what?
She said the vampires would try to eat me. She said we
were different, but never explained why,” Sienna said, her voice low. She
seemed calmer, but still held the door handle tightly. “Why do I trust you? And
my heart is pounding, but that could be from irritation. You make me crazy. And
you didn’t answer my question.” She frowned, biting her lip. Jasper nearly
growled as he watched her teeth push down on all that gorgeous lushness.

“We're
going to your mansion, aren't we?” she said.

He nodded.
“It's the safest place I know.”

“What
about Linda and Dillon?
My mother?”

He eased
off the highway and onto the side road that would take him up the mountain.
“They should be okay.”

“Are you
joking? If I’m at risk, they’re at risk, too.”

“Maybe,
but they’re not
here
,” he said,
letting a little of his anger thread through the words.

She
rolled her eyes. “What’s really going on, Jasper?”

He didn't
answer her. He wanted to grab her and fuck her against the door. He wanted to
hold her and kiss her hair. He wanted to tuck her into his bed where she would
be safe forever. “Sienna—”

“Jasper!
Watch out,” she yelled.

He jerked
the wheel, cursing as the car slid onto the gravel shoulder of the road. He
stomped on the brake, but cursed again as he watched two black SUVs pull up
behind them. The one in front that had run him off the road turned and drove
back, slowly.

“Sienna, listen to me.
This is important.” He stopped the car and grabbed her
arm, then slid his hands up to cup her face when he realized she was panicking.
She stared at him, frightened as she hadn't been at the café. “The men in those
vehicles, they’re not human. They're vampires—
“ He
broke off, grimacing at the inaccuracy. “They’re revenants. They want me dead
and they won't hesitate to kill you, too, simply for being in the way. I want
you to run. Go to the mansion. Don't wait for me.”

She shook
her head angrily, dislodging his hands. “No! Are you insane? You can't fight
them off by yourself.”

“Sienna!
Now isn't the time.” He kissed her, hard.
God.
If she
didn't get away, he didn't know what he'd do. How the hell had she gotten under
his skin so quickly? “Go.
When I open the door, just run.”

She
frowned and in that moment, he knew she wasn't going to listen. She was
stubborn and oh so perfect for him and he wanted to punch something, but it was
too late. The door behind him gave a sharp groan and then disappeared as one of
them tore it away. He shoved Sienna down and pulled out the gun he'd taped
beneath the steering column, baring his teeth as he turned to face the
monsters.

Chapter Ten

Sienna
yelped as Jasper pushed her onto the floor. She was pissed that she let herself
get so scared a moment ago and she was angry with him for shoving her to
safety. She didn’t try to calm down. She needed the strength her rage would
give her if she were going to help him, but the sudden boom that made her ears
ring seriously upset her equilibrium.

“What the
hell was that?” she yelled as she wiggled her knife out of her jeans pocket.

“Will you
just stay the hell down?” Jasper said as she heard a click and another boom.

It's a
gun
, she thought, kicking at
the hand that tried to grab her shoulder. She knew instinctively that it wasn’t
Jasper. It fell away and she twisted around, smashing her boots into the creature's
face. It didn't do much damage, no surprise, but she managed to tip it off
balance. She surged up, trusting Jasper to keep her back safe and slashed out,
cutting the monster's throat. Blood gushed out, black and sticky, and she
kicked again. The vampire went down. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to kill
it. She glanced behind her, not surprised to see Jasper was no longer in the
car. She climbed out, careful to keep the vehicle behind her and slashed at the
next one that came for her, attacking on her left.

“Jasper,
I hope you have a plan, because all I've got is this little blade.” She slashed
again and she must have hit an artery because the creature went down, landing
near the one she'd cut earlier. That one had almost healed and she looked
around frantically for a better weapon. When she saw the dead branch she
grabbed and prayer that what her mother had told her about killing vampires was
right. She snatched up the stick and jammed it into the monster's chest all in
one motion. He disappeared in a puff of red ash, but before she could grin or
yell or even take a deep breath, the next one was attacking her. She slashed
and ducked, flinching as the deep boom of Jasper's gun reverberated again
through the darkness.

“Jasper!”
she panted, ducking. She slashed at the legs and the creature went down. She
stabbed the branch into it, not even pausing as it exploded into ash.

“Sienna, hang on!”
Jasper called from somewhere up the road.

She
looked around frantically then stabbed the wood into the nearly regenerated
vampire who'd just stood up again. “I got three. I don't see any more,” she
called, voice harsh. What the fuck was going on? Her mother told her they never
attacked together. And there were never enough of them to ever worry about.
What was happening? Vampires were rare. She leaned against the car, trying to
catch her breath. When Jasper appeared next to her like a ghost, she nearly
shrieked.

“Don't
sneak up on me like that!” She grabbed his arm and hung on, desperate to feel
someone who was alive and not trying to kill her.

He
squeezed her forearm. “It's okay. I think we got them all.” He slid a hand down
to her hip.

She
leaned into him, eyeing the monstrosity of a gun he was still holding loosely
in his free hand. The barrel was huge. It looked more like a sawed-off shotgun
than a pistol. “What the hell kind of gun is that?”

He urged
her back into the car. “It's not a gun. It's a projectile weapon I made for
emergencies.” He tossed it onto the dashboard where it sat like a big, fat hunk
of lethal potential.

“Guns
are
projectile weapons,” she argued, falling into the passenger's seat and buckling
her seatbelt tightly.

“It
shoots wood bullets. I designed it a long time ago,” he said, starting the car.
He grabbed the weapon and jammed it into the cup holder.

Sienna
stifled a giggle. It looked ridiculous stuffed into the console. “What about
the missing door?” she asked, looking out past him into the darkness as he
pulled away from the now-silent roadside.

“I'll
come back and get it tomorrow.” He eased onto the road. Cool air rushed in from
his side of the car.

“Jasper,
I don't know about you, but this is totally fucked up.” She hung onto her door
handle, not caring if he could see her fear. She was allowed to freak out,
especially after killing vampires, with a stick, no less.

“Remember
those not-stars we saw a little while ago?” Jasper swerved around some road
kill, then slowed down and turned onto a dirt road.

“Yeah.”
She wondered where he was going. He took a deep breath, glancing at her as if
he was worried about something. She grimaced as he hit a particularly deep rut
and hung on. Nothing he told her now would top the freakiness of a flock of
vampires attacking them.

“They're
spaceships.
Small ones.
The kind my people use to come
to Earth.”

She
frowned.
His people?
The car hit another hole
and Jasper cursed as he fought the wheel. He was kidding right? Surely he must
be—she’d really thought he was a non-crazy guy, but she’d been wrong about
people before.

“Sienna?”
He reached a hand out, touched her on the shoulder.

“You're
insane,” she said, blinking when he swerved again, pulling into a clearing. His
mansion loomed up in front of them, white stone against the darkness. She'd
never seen it from this side.

“No, unfortunately not.”
He parked, but didn't unbuckle his seat belt. The car
ticked as the engine cooled.

“Spaceships,”
she said flatly. She injected everything she felt into that one word:
disbelief, irritation, sadness that she finally found a man she liked and he
turned out to be crazy.

“Come
with me, around back,” he said, clearly unfazed.

She let
him open the door for her and help her out of the car. The adrenaline she felt
from the fight was wearing away, leaving her shaky and confused. “Jasper, maybe
we should just go inside.”

“We
will,” he said grimly, steering her around the corner of the building and onto
a little-used path. “This takes us to the courtyard.” He stopped, catching her
when she turned a foot on a loose stone. “There, see? That's my star-skimmer. I
used it to come here from my birth planet.” He looked at her and took a deep
breath, probably seeing the disbelief on her face. “It’s a spaceship,” he
clarified.

She
stared. A sleek little ship sat squarely in the center of the courtyard, the
sides curving elegantly over top of the cracked flagstones. It was the size of
a helicopter, except it looked like a bullet, or a shark. The front had a
viewport that faded into the metal.

“A
star-skimmer,” she said faintly. What the hell was a star-skimmer?

He nodded
and gently urged her closer. “Go ahead. You can touch it.”

She shot
him a wary look, but did as he asked, reaching out and putting a palm on the
silver metal. It was cool and felt somehow alive under her touch. When it began
to warm up and glow a little she snatched her hand away.

“Hmm.
I
should've known,” Jasper muttered.

“Known
what?”

He pursed
his lips, but didn’t reply.