Oliver's Hunger (Scanguards Vampires #7) (14 page)

“Yes, too empty. And it smelled clean too, as if a cleaning crew had been through there just recently. Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”

“Doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“I think we should wait until Gabriel is back from New York.”

Zane narrowed his eyes. “What for?”

Oliver motioned him farther away from the car and lowered his voice, not wanting Ursula to overhear his suggestion. “He could look into her memories and tell us what she’s seen.”

“That won’t help if somebody planted false memories in her.”

“I disagree. Gabriel was able to see in Maya’s memories where they had been altered by a vampire. He would recognize it if somebody had tampered with her memories. I think we should wait.”

Zane shook his head almost instantly. “Listen, Oliver. There was nothing in there. If she really escaped from that building last night, why didn’t we find any traces of anything in there? I tell you why: because they were never there in the first place. My order stands. You can either take care of it together with Cain, or Cain will do it on his own!”

“No!” Oliver protested. He didn’t want anybody manhandling her. “I’ll do it.” And he already hated himself for it. But he couldn’t dispute their findings: the property was empty and there was no trace of any other vampires or of the girls Ursula had mentioned. She had lied to him again, and as much as he wished he were wrong, he couldn’t simply set aside the evidence.

Zane nodded, but before he could walk away, his cell phone rang.

“Yes?” he answered it with a bark.

Oliver’s sensitive hearing picked up the voice on the other end, Thomas’s.

“A couple of crazy vamps were spotted in a nightclub downtown! I need all available men! Now!”

“Shit!” Zane cursed, waved Amaury toward the Hummer, then looked to Cain, who still sat in the minivan. “Change of plans: Cain, we need you. We have a lead on those vamps going berserk.”

“Fuck!” Cain cursed as he jumped out of the van.

“If we hurry, I think we can get them this time!” Zane answered, tossing a look back at Oliver and pointing his finger at him. “You have your orders. I don’t like sending you on your own. Don’t make me regret it!”

Then he and his two colleagues jumped into the Hummer and sped off.

When Oliver looked back at Ursula, he noticed her pleading look. Her brown eyes looked like saucers, a rim of wetness around them. He shut the passenger door without a word and averted his gaze.

Oliver got into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut. Without looking at Ursula, he turned the key in the ignition and put the car in drive. Then he turned the van around and watched how the building disappeared from the rear-view mirror when he turned at the next intersection.

He headed toward the freeway that led to the airport which was located a half hour south of San Francisco. Traffic was light.

“Please don’t do this,” she pleaded, her voice sounding choked up.

He kept his eyes on the road, afraid that he would falter if he looked at her. “I have no choice.”

Without Scanguards’ backing, he couldn’t do anything else for her. His trust in her was shaken. He’d actually believed her when she’d told him about her imprisonment, even more so when he’d seen her break after hearing the news that her parents believed her to be dead. What a fool he’d been to allow a pretty woman to cloud his judgment.

“You always have a choice,” she claimed. “You just don’t want to believe me.”

He spun his head to stare at her. “I did believe you! But you lied to me and my colleagues. You led us around by our noses.”
And me by my dick
, he should have added. “I’m afraid, I’m all done with believing in lies for tonight.”

“They’re not lies!” she cried out, glaring back at him.

God, how her cheeks flared with anger, and how beautiful it made her look. And her lips, so plump and inviting despite the lies that rolled over them.

Oliver trained his look back on the freeway. “I even gave you the benefit of the doubt when you didn’t want to tell me how you really escaped. I did everything to convince my colleagues to check out your claims. I stuck my neck out for you!”

“Please, don’t give up on me. There are other lives at stake. The other girls—”

“There are no other girls!” he cut her off, gripping the steering wheel more tightly. “You’ve made it all up. And I don’t even want to know anymore why.” Because he didn’t want to hear any more lies. Not out of that pretty mouth she’d kissed him with. Oh damn, why could he not forget that? Would this image haunt him forever?

“You’re the only one who can help us. I would have gone to the police if I believed that they had a chance to defeat those vampires. But they’ll just be slaughtered. You and your colleagues, you’re the only ones who can do this. I need you.”

His heart clenched.
She needed him.
It was an admission that would have made him rejoice only hours earlier, but after seeing the empty building that she claimed had been her prison, the words made him almost nauseous.

“I don’t care anymore,” he replied, the words cutting deep into his own heart.

“What do I have to do for you to help me?”

He ran his hand through his hair. “You want me to help you?”

“Yes.”

He tossed an angry glare at her. “Then give me something . . . just one piece of information that will help me believe you. Something, so I know you’re telling me the truth.” He kept his eyes on her and noticed her pull in a breath. Her eyelids lowered, and he saw the apprehension in her eyes, the hesitation that made her remain silent.

Disappointed, he tore his gaze away from her. “I knew it. You’ve never had any intention of telling me the truth.” He shook his head and gave a bitter laugh. “How stupid I’ve been. To think that I actually liked you. And not just because I wanted to sleep with you.”

“And now, you don’t want that anymore?” Her voice was suddenly calm and sounded almost resigned.

“No,” he lied. Because if he touched her now, he would never be able to wipe her memory and put her on that plane.

“Liar,” she said softly.

“I don’t care what you believe.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw her nod. “Fine. I’ll tell you everything. But only you. None of your colleagues can ever find out. If you don’t believe me after that, then put me on a plane home. But if you believe me, then help me and those girls.”

He glanced at her, trying to figure out what she was up to.

“Take the next exit and pull over, please, so we can talk.”

He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “If you think you can get your way by seducing me, think again. I’m not that gullible.”

She gave him an unexpected smile. “No, you’re not. Even though you’re very cute—for a vampire.”

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off before he could come back with an answer.

“What have you got to lose? Even if I were trying to seduce you, which I’m not, would it be such a hardship? It’s a win-win situation for you. I’m the one who’s risking everything.”

Oliver instinctively let his eyes travel over her body, then lifted them back to her face. “What are you risking?”

“I risk you draining me once you know what my blood is capable of.”

17

Oliver crossed three lanes to veer into the exit lane and get off the freeway. At the next intersection, he turned and found a small side street which led to a copse of trees next to a dilapidated house with a foreclosure sign in its front yard.

He killed the engine, before turning in his seat to face Ursula. Her words had made him more curious than he liked to admit.

“I’m all ears.”

He watched her swallow before she spoke. “There were about a dozen girls. At first we didn’t know why they had captured us. But there were similarities between us. All of the girls were Chinese, originally from mainland China. All of them had been captured in the US. Some were older, some pretty, others not. So we knew it wasn’t beauty they were after. Or youth. It was our blood.”

He nodded, still skeptical about where she was going with this. “Go on.”

“They brought in vampires to feed from us. Two, sometimes three times a night. But during the feedings they kept a close eye on the vampires who fed from us. They made sure they didn’t take too much. But we all noticed a change in them when they stopped drinking from us: they looked delirious, spaced out. As if they were stoned.”

Oliver arched an eyebrow. “Stoned? I’m sorry, but vampires don’t get stoned. We aren’t susceptible to any human drugs. Not to alcohol, coke, or heroine. Nor to pot or anything else.”

She nodded. “I learned that. But nevertheless, the vampires got high—on our blood.”

“Impossible.” Yet even as he said it, temptation made his gums itch, indicating that his body was longing for blood—preferably Ursula’s. This was a bad time for his hunger to creep up on him.

“That’s what we thought too, but we knew it was happening. And then there were other signs: the guards never drank our blood, even though they looked like they were tempted. And they talked about us: how valuable we were, how much our blood sold for to their clients. The amount they charged seemed staggering. I have no idea what an ounce of cocaine costs, but the guards were saying that our blood sold for more. You questioned how I escaped. The guard was called to help in another room because one of the clients was going wild—probably as a result of the blood—and I used the time to make sure the vampire who was feeding off me took more than he should. I drugged him. He passed out and I was able to escape.”

Oliver listened intently. Was it at all possible that it had happened exactly as she claimed? “Did nobody notice your escape?”

“I’m sure they did, but they were too late. I used the fire escape and ran until I bumped into you.”

He remembered all too well. Was that why she’d been so close to death, because she’d made that vampire drink excessive amounts of her blood? As he thought back to the moment he’d met her, he remembered hearing footsteps in the distance. He hadn’t waited to see who was approaching.

“They must have packed up when they realized that I escaped and couldn’t find me. They must have feared that I would bring somebody back to their hiding place.”

Oliver nodded slowly. “The building was looking a little too clean for that area. As if somebody had made sure to erase their tracks. Who was running the show?”

“I don’t know. Whoever he was, he never came to the floor where we lived and . . . where they fed off us. In fact I don’t think that even the guards knew who he was. I got the feeling that whoever was behind this was guarding his identity. And the guards were afraid of him.”

Oliver had to continue questioning her, not only because he needed to find out as much as possible, but also because he had to distract himself from his hunger. And the more she talked about blood, the more he wanted to sink his fangs into her. “What did you hear?”

“That any guard would be severely punished if a girl in his care died because he didn’t stop a leech from taking too much blood. The guards suspected that their boss had snitches in the building to make sure he knew what was going on at all times.”

The whole story still sounded bizarre. But why would she make it up? “Why only Chinese girls? Did the vampires have a preference?”

“I think it had something to do with our blood. Why would they only have about a dozen girls, when they could surely capture more in any big city? It made me think that what we have is rare. Maybe something genetic, maybe only something that is found in the blood of Chinese women.”

Blood.
The word pulsed through his body. “Did they ever actually tell you that you had special blood?”

She shook her head. “Only indirectly.”

Oliver pursed his lips. “I don’t know, Ursula, your story is fantastic. But I have no way of verifying it.” He sighed. “I’ve been ordered to buy you a plane ticket and give you enough money to get home. Give me a reason to defy my orders. One tiny proof.”

Her breath suddenly hitched. “The money. Of course!” Then she put her hand on his arm, the contact sending a heat wave through his body, intensifying his hunger. “Oliver, wait, wait! I have proof!”

The way his name rolled off her lips made him hot all over.

“There’s more. How could I have forgotten? I managed to steal a wallet from one of the leeches when he and the guard were distracted.”

“Why didn’t you tell Zane that earlier?”

“Zane scared the hell out of me! I tried, but I couldn’t think straight with him glaring at me.”

Oliver frowned. “He has that effect on people.”

“So much happened in the last twenty-four hours. I just didn’t think.” When he gave her a questioning look, she continued, “I’d planned that if I ever managed to escape, I would use the money and credit cards in the wallet to get home. I hid it in my room. The name on the credit cards will lead us to one of the leeches. All you need to do is question him and you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”

He allowed the news to charge through his body, rejoicing silently, but then he sobered. “The building was completely empty. All the furniture is gone. So, wherever you hid it, the wallet is gone.” And therefore another possibility of trying to verify her story had vanished with it.

She shook her head. “No. It’s still there. I hid it underneath the floorboards. They wouldn’t have found it.”

“So you want me to drive you back there, is that it?” And damn it if he wasn’t just a tad bit curious as to whether she was right. No, it was more than that: he wanted her to be right. He wanted the story to be true. Because then he could prove his colleagues wrong and investigate further. And he wouldn’t have to wipe her memory and send her home. And then maybe, just maybe, whatever was brewing between them would have a chance to develop.

Ursula looked straight into his eyes, her gaze open and direct. “Yes. So I can prove to you that I’m not lying.”

The drive back to her former prison seemed long. Maybe it felt that way to her, because she was anxious about going back inside the place that she considered hell. Or perhaps she was afraid that against all odds her captors had found her hiding place and removed the wallet, leaving her empty handed.