Blake, Abby - Vampires' Witness [PUP Squad Alpha 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

Chapter Two

Benjamin held the woman close, trying to deny the unexpected attraction. It was true that he’d been a long time without a female to warm his bed, but still his body’s unconscious response seemed inappropriate. She was a witness to murder. And a fledgling vampire. Her life was about to kaleidoscope in ways she’d probably never imagined possible.

Modern humans didn’t even believe in vampires or werewolves. How was Skye Hastings going to cope when she found out that they not only existed but that she was now one of them?

He heard Thomas’s distinctive footsteps long before the man used his keycard to enter the room.

“How is she?” Thomas whispered even though the sound was quite loud to vampire ears.

“Tired, frightened, and finally asleep.”

“Was she able to give you a description of the vamps who attacked her?”

Benjamin smiled at his friend’s impatience. “No, the change takes time. She’s likely to do nothing but sleep and eat for several days.” Obviously Thomas knew even less about making someone a vampire than Benjamin did. The fact that Skye was now, according to sacred vampire tradition, his and Samuel’s responsibility until she was capable of existing by herself added a complication Benjamin wasn’t certain he was prepared to deal with. He’d spent the last ten minutes mentally selecting and then discarding every vampire he knew who could possibly take over Skye’s lessons in Vampire 101. Unfortunately, it seemed when it came to fledgling vampires the urge to protect them overrode all other considerations. It seemed the accepted “law” that the maker was responsible for the new vampire was more of a physical compulsion than an actual rule in their society.

Thomas sat down tiredly, his need to catch the vampires responsible for these horrific attacks obviously weighing on him heavily. They’d worked together for more than five decades, and if Benjamin knew anything about his werewolf partner, it was that he didn’t like losing—ever.

“Their trail stopped about four blocks from the nightclub. It dead-ended at a parking lot, so we’re pretty sure they’re using modern forms of transportation.” Benjamin almost smiled at his partner’s dislike of cars. Born during a time when life moved much more slowly, Thomas had never made a secret of his dislike for vehicles that could travel faster than a horse. Apparently his distaste extended all the way to the word “car.”

Fortunately, Thomas was also a soldier who knew that modern transportation was a necessary evil that, over long distances, enabled them to do their jobs properly. Benjamin had overheard Thomas’s whispered self-pep talk more than once—“I don’t have to like it. I just have to do it.”

“So where do we go from here?” Benjamin asked. Technically, he was the commanding officer of their PUP squad but they’d all been working together so long that every man knew the strengths and weaknesses of each of his teammates as well as he knew his own. These days they worked together like a well-oiled machine. It was very rare that Benjamin had to do more than agree with his team’s suggestions.

“Wilson has been trying to trace the e-mail back to its origin but whoever sent it knows an awful lot about tech. Maybe even more than Wilson.” Benjamin raised an eyebrow, laughing softly as Thomas added, “And if you tell him I said that you are going to be one very unhappy vampire.”

It was no secret that Wilson considered himself one of the world’s leading hackers. Fortunately for their PUP squad he was probably right. It sure wouldn’t sit well with him to come across a puzzle he couldn’t break, and knowing Wilson, he’d probably remain hunched over his keyboard doing whatever it was he did until he had an answer.

“What about the club? Did anyone see Skye or the other woman leave?”

“None that we could find. Alex tried the concerned-big-brother routine but all he got was adoring fans wanting to give him their numbers.” Even after fifty years of working together, Benjamin still couldn’t believe how easily Alex attracted women. They practically fell at his feet wherever he went. “The club owner identified us straight away. He seemed friendly enough, but I reckon he’s probably given every paranormal living in town the heads-up as to our presence.”

“It shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The vamps we’re looking for are unlikely to be locals. They’re probably just passing through.” He glanced down at the woman sleeping in his arms. “With a bit of luck the locals will close ranks and protect their town from any unknowns. Did you manage to control the murder scene?”

Thomas looked a little offended by the question. Normally Benjamin was working right beside him on cases like this, and if the woman in his arms hadn’t been in such dire need, this mission would have been like any other.

“Again,” Thomas said on an exhaled breath, “I’m pretty sure every local member of the paranormal community will know all about it by morning, but the humans and their law enforcement should remain unaware. Alex put in a call for a pixie cleaning crew.” Thomas shuddered as he said the last three words. Pixies were well known in the paranormal world as assassins for hire but were often engaged by the Ruling Body to help hide evidence of violent death from humans. The cleaning crews were very good at their job. It was the fact that they looked like seven-year-old human girls that gave Benjamin and the rest of his team the creeps.

Skye rolled in his arms, wriggling closer as she continued to sleep. Absently he ran his hand over her hair, soothing her as he continued his conversation with Thomas.

“Tomorrow,” Thomas said with a slightly amused smile as he glanced at what Benjamin was doing with his hand, “Alex and I are planning to talk to some of the locals. There are quite a few businesses in town owned by paranormals. If the women’s attackers have money they’ll probably be staying in one of the motels. Maybe one of the locals took notice.” He shrugged. At this point in their mission they inevitably hit a few dead ends. “If not, we’ll check into some of the more common vamp hidey-holes in the afternoon.” Thomas’s tone of voice suggested he wasn’t looking forward to going wandering through the underground sewers. With his keen sense of smell it was bound to be unpleasant, but Benjamin knew his team well enough to know that they would all do what needed to be done when it needed to be done.

In years gone by Benjamin would have suggested his friend plan to get some sleep also, but experience had taught him that when Thomas felt this strongly about a case that he should be left to do his job.

“What about Skye?” Thomas asked with an expression Benjamin couldn’t really classify. “Should we consider you and Samuel off the mission for the moment?”

“Maybe,” Benjamin said as Samuel stepped through the door adjoining the two hotel rooms. “We can’t leave her unprotected. If her attackers think she can identify them, she could be in even more danger.” Samuel nodded in agreement. It was most likely that he’d been listening to the conversation from the other room anyway. Vampire hearing might not be as good as a werewolf’s, but it was still way better than when they’d been human.

“And the Ruling Body would be all over us if we left a fledgling to her own devices. There’s no telling what she might do if she wakes alone,” Samuel added.

Benjamin hadn’t even thought of that. For at least the next couple of days Skye’s actions were likely to be ruled by instinct rather than her adult mind. It was probably the main reason why the Ruling Body had chosen to put a maker’s natural inclination to protect a fledgling vampire into their written laws. Protecting the secret of the paranormal community’s existence was essentially the reason they had a Ruling Body in the first place. Fledgling vampires could wreak all sorts of havoc if left to their own devices, and they certainly wouldn’t be aware of how their actions affected the rest of the paranormal community. Human beings as a whole tended to react poorly to things they didn’t understand and if history had taught Benjamin anything, it was that very few humans could be trusted to react calmly and rationally upon discovering that creatures supposedly only found in nightmares actually existed.

There was a good chance that Skye wasn’t going to take the news of her change very well either.

Thomas glanced at Samuel and then back at Benjamin. “I’m going to go bunk in with Alex. It’ll make it easier for you two to care for Skye if you’re sharing the same room.”

Benjamin nodded his thanks, and within minutes Thomas had collected his stuff and moved into the adjoining room. Samuel sat down in the chair Thomas had vacated and, as if he couldn’t help himself, leaned over and ran his fingers through the silky strands of Skye’s long, straight, blonde hair.

“I’ve drafted a report for Higgins, I’m not quite sure how to phrase ‘Oh and we made a vampire,’ so I sort of left it out.”

“It’s probably not something the Ruling Body needs to know. What we do on our own time is our business. If Skye is able to identify her attackers we’ll explain her transformation then.”

Samuel sat back, letting Skye’s hair fall onto the bed. “I didn’t expect the attraction to be so strong,” he said quietly.

“I know what you mean,” Benjamin said as he tried to move so that his hard cock wasn’t pressed against Skye’s hip.

“Do you think it was like this for our maker?”

Benjamin smiled at the man who’d once been his cousin. As humans they’d grown up together, gone to school together, fought in war together, and then died together. They’d been reborn as vampires when a man had found them in the middle of a bloody battlefield, their lives ebbing away so very slowly that Benjamin remembered most of the thoughts that had gone through his mind that day.

“It might explain Elijah’s rush to leave us behind.” In fact it explained a lot of things that had happened back then. Despite their sire’s seemingly callous need to teach them quickly and send them on their way, they had both sensed that Elijah was a loving and generous man. He’d been devastated as he’d weaved his way through the battlefield seeking survivors. When he’d found them, he’d risked his own life by turning two humans at once. If they’d been as close to death as Skye had, they would certainly have killed him with their need for vampire blood.

“Makes me kind of glad that Skye was the first human we changed. I think I’d probably freak out if I felt this sort of attraction for a male fledgling.”

“Me, too,” Benjamin said, watching his friend closely. “But the one thing Elijah proved is that we don’t have to follow through on it. He walked away. Once Skye is capable of taking care of herself we should be able to walk away, too.”

A flash of anger filled Samuel’s face, but it was gone almost immediately. He seemed to hesitate, as if he were going to say something else, but then he nodded once and sat back in the chair.

* * * *

Samuel woke suddenly, his hearing quickly zeroing in on the sound that had roused him. The sun was due to rise in the next few hours. Thanks to his advanced age he no longer felt the physical drain and need for sleep, but their beautiful fledgling would fall into a deep slumber as soon as the first rays lightened the sky on the horizon.

But for the moment she whimpered, caught inside a nightmare she couldn’t wake from.

Benjamin had reluctantly dragged himself out of bed a few hours ago and gone to confer with the rest of PUP Squad Alpha. Samuel had made the somewhat sensible decision to watch over Skye from the chair beside the bed—despite the nearly overwhelming urge to wrap himself around the beautiful blonde and hold on tight.