Once Bitten, Twice Shy (26 page)

She rolled her eyes. “Dammit, I’m glad you thought of that.” Then she reached over and lowered the passenger side seat.

I moved over the seat and on to the floor board in front of her. Donna reached forward and grabbed the car keys out of the ignition, shoving them into her pocket.

“We’re going to get out of the car on the driver’s side, at the same time,” she said. “But, first, I’m going to look on top of the car and beneath it just in case something nasty is waiting for us.”

I nodded, glad she thought to check. I watched, holding my breath, as she opened the door just enough to stick her head out and look up. Then she peeked quickly beneath the car. She pulled the door closed without latching it shut.

“We’re all clear. We’re going to move quickly and as quietly as possible. There’s nothing to hide behind in the fifty feet between the trees and the building, so you have to move as fast as possible.”

I nodded.

“Ready?”

I nodded again, scared out of my mind that we were taking too much time, and that Conner and Lex would be dead by the time we got inside.

Faster than I could see, Donna was out of the car, pulling me right along behind her. She quickly opened the driver’s door, locked the car, and shut both doors almost silently. I just barely heard the latches catch, but she winced as though they were a gunshot.

“Move, move, move,” she urged, running so fast I could barely keep up. “Any supernatural being would have heard that.”

I knew she was right and my heart turned to stone in my chest when I realized exactly how much danger we were in. We reached the edge of the building. Donna held a gun in one hand and my arm in another. She wasn’t taking any chances that we would be separated. She peeked around the corner and the coast must have been clear because she made a beeline for the front door.

A few seconds later, we were inside. I released the breath I had been holding when my vision began to turn black around the edges. I sucked in a breath as quietly as possible, but Donna gave me a look that said even that was too loud.

We crept down the hall, my front practically against her back. The building was oddly silent. My heart was pounding so hard, I was sure that any vampire in the building could hear it. We drew closer to a door at the end of the short hallway and Donna gestured for me to stop. There were faint noises coming from the other side.

She brought my hand to her belt at the back of her jeans and gave me a look that said to hold on tight. Then used her now free hand to slowly and silently turn the door knob. The door made no sound as it swung open. The room in front of us was pitch black.

Donna kept her gun tucked close to her front as she peeked around the door frame. I knew her night vision was much better than mine, but my skin still crawled when she nodded to me and began to move into the room. I followed her step for step, praying that the room was empty of bad creatures.

The noises I heard before were getting louder and the muscles in my neck began to lock up. I just knew that something was behind me, but every time I glanced back, all I saw was the rectangle of light coming in from the open door behind us.

Finally, Donna stopped and she must have been opening another door, because a dim light began to fill the room. I barely suppressed a gasp when I saw that the floor around us was strewn with bodies. There were at least five men and women scattered around the room, but I couldn’t tell exactly how many because some were missing body parts, such as legs, arms, and even heads.

I wanted to puke at the sight of so much blood, but I was frozen in shock and fear. Only the tap of Donna’s hand on my arm brought me back to the present. She was staring at me with concern in her eyes, but I swallowed back the sickness that wanted to spill into my throat and nodded at her, telling her to go on.

She repeated the process of peeking out the door and I realized that the noises I had been hearing were the thuds of fists on flesh and grunts of pain. When Donna turned to look at me, she lifted five fingers and mouthed the words, bad guys. I nodded. She then mouthed Lex and Conner’s names and gave me a thumbs up.

I blew out a silent sigh of relief. Even if they were hurt, at least Lex and Conner were still fighting. She grinned at me and held up three fingers. Setting a slow beat with her fist, she began a silent countdown as her fist dropped, she tucked another finger in. When all three fingers were down, she began to move out into the room.

I tried not to scream when I saw that Lex was fighting off two other vampires that carried freaking swords. He only had a huge iron rod that he picked up from somewhere and his shirt was in tatters, his torso covered in cuts and blood. Conner was taking on three men, a fourth lying headless on the floor. In Conner’s hands was an enormous battle axe. I assumed he took it off the dead vampire because I knew damn well he hadn’t gone in carrying one.

Conner must have seen us out of the corner of his eye because his head snapped around, breaking his focus on the fight. One of his opponents slashed his thigh with a sword, causing him to cry out and go down on one knee.

I flinched at the loud boom of the gun as Donna raised it and fired at the vampire who had cut her man. The bullet caught him in the shoulder, but all it seemed to do was piss him off. He started toward us, a blur of motion. The gun went off so many times I lost count, until it was empty. The vamp was still coming.

I was frozen in shock, unable to focus enough to try and make the mental connection needed to stop him, when I saw the battle axe swing through the air and sever the approaching vampire’s head.

I gave a short scream as blood sprayed everywhere and the bad guy’s body flopped lifelessly to the floor. Without sparing me a glance, Donna dropped the spent clip and reloaded the gun. Conner had turned away from us to face the other two men.

I looked over at Lex and almost cried out again when I saw that he was distracted by our arrival as well. Somehow he managed to take out one of the vampires he had been fighting when we entered, but his other opponent had used the opportunity to pierce him through the gut with his sword. I watched in horror as the vamp yanked the sword out of Lex’s stomach, causing a rush of blood to leave my man’s body.

The shock that froze me earlier disappeared and rage filled me. Without thinking twice, I reached out to that thread that I felt connecting me to all the vampires in the room, determining who was who. Within a split second I grasped three threads with my mind.

“STOP!” I shrieked.

Amazingly, all three of the remaining bad guys froze in place, not even batting an eyelash or making a sound. Lex, Conner, and Donna were all staring at me in shock. I pointed to the two Conner had been fighting.

“Kill him,” I commanded. I was speaking to both of them.

Woodenly, they turned to one another and swung their swords simultaneously. I watched with cold satisfaction as their heads separated from their bodies and they fell to the floor. Then I turned to the vampire who had been ready to kill Lex.

“Ivie, wait,” Conner said. “We need him alive. He may have information we need.”

I barely stopped myself from giving the vampire the order to disembowel himself. I wanted to see him suffer for what he had just done to Lex.

“I’ll take the bastard,” a voice said.

I looked around and didn’t see anything. Suddenly Finn appeared out of thin air, causing Donna and I both to jump. He was grinning at me.

“Good job, Ivie. I couldn’t have done better myself if I had arrived in time.”

I nodded to him, the adrenaline hitting me out of nowhere, causing my hands to shake as I pushed my hair off my face.

Finn walked to the other vampire and placed a hand against his forehead while I forced the bad guy to remain still. He fought me hard, but the rage and adrenaline coursing through my body made me strong. I wasn’t sure what Finn was doing to the vampire, but his eyes rolled back in his head and he trembled as though he was having a stroke. All the while, Finn kept his palm on the vampire’s forehead, eyes closed.

A few moments later, he opened his eyes and the vampire went limp, falling to the floor.

“I know where the women are and everything this sad sack of shit knows about The Faction. You can do what you wish with him.”

Before I could react to Finn’s words, Lex grabbed the sword that had fallen to the floor and cleaved the vampire’s head from his body. That done, he tossed the sword to the side, looking every inch the battle-hardened warrior he’d been while human.

“Donna, I do believe you and I need to discuss what the words
wait in the car
mean?” Conner said through clenched teeth.

I watched in horror and awe as my friend waved a hand at her pissed off vampire mate. “Pipe down, Fangboy. We saved your ass, didn’t we?”

“It was under control,” Conner said softly.

I chanced a look at Lex. Whether I saved his ass or not, I knew from that one look that I probably wouldn’t sit comfortably for at least a week. Not for the first time, I wondered why I had to fall in love with a fucking kinky vampire.

T
hough Lex looked
as though he were ready to strangle me, I walked slowly over to him, stepping around headless bodies and one head.

As I got closer, I said softly, “I’m sorry I made you angry, but I’m glad you’re going to be okay.”

When I was within reach, he grabbed me by my shoulders and jerked me into a hard embrace.

His lips brushed my hair in a light kiss. “Don’t ever scare me like that again,” he whispered. “I thought I would lose you for sure.”

I pressed my body closer to his, not caring that I was getting his blood all over my clothes. I was just relieved he was still standing.

“I can’t promise that,” I murmured, tilting my head back to meet his eyes. “Any time I think you’re in danger, my first instinct will be to protect you. I love you.”

Lex sighed, brushing my hair back from my face and kissing my forehead. “That is a pretty apology, little one, and it makes me happy to know how deeply you care for me, but it won’t save you from punishment.”

I scowled at him. “I don’t give a damn about punishment. I just want you safe.”

“And that’s what I want for you,” Lex said.

I continued to frown at him. “We’ll discuss this later.”

He nodded and released me. I turned to Finn. “Where are Ricki, Kerry, and Shannon?” I asked.

He was grinning at me. “They are in a small storage room at the back of the building. I think it’s best if the two of you are the ones to open the door. I do believe your friend, Kerry, intends to fry any vampire, werewolf, or witch that dares to enter.”

We followed Finn through the building. I tried not to look at the carnage that surrounded us. There were a great deal more than ten vampires in this building. And I was pretty sure most of them were the enemy. Anxiety tightened my chest when I thought about the number of vampires that might already be in The Faction. The thoughts I was having terrified me.

We approached a door and Finn stood to one side. “This is it,” he said.

I stepped closer. “Kerry? Shannon? Ricki? It’s me, Ivie.”

At first there was silence, before I heard Kerry’s voice. “Prove it.”

“Well, I guess we could talk about Pete from college who begged to dip your toes in chocolate and suck….”

I never finished the sentence.

“Okay, I know it’s you,” Kerry yelled.

I grinned as Donna giggled. “I’m going to open the door now. Donna is with me and so is Conner. Lex and Finn are here also. Please don’t zap any of us, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed.

I stepped back and Conner grasped one of the three padlocks on the door, breaking them off one at a time. When he was done, Donna and I opened the door slowly.

Kerry, Ricki, and Shannon were all standing in the farthest corner of the small room, backs to the wall.

“About time you got here,” Ricki quipped. “And why didn’t anyone tell me about the fucking vampires?”

I smiled and shook my head. “Well, what are you waiting for, an invitation? Get out here.”

They all smiled and came out of the room, blinking in the harsh overhead lighting after being locked in the dark for two days. Donna and I moved forward, the five of us hugging each other tightly.

When I released the girls, I realized that Kerry hadn’t met Lex yet. She had been absent at Conner and Donna’s engagement party. Probably because she was a witch and she knew that the place would be full of vampires. I realized that the only time she came around was when it was just Conner and Donna alone. Any other vampires and she disappeared.

“Kerry, this is Lex Dimitriades. We’re sort of together now,” I said, lifting a hand toward my vampire.

She nodded to him. “Hi, Sexy Lexy. Thanks for saving our asses.”

Conner chuckled and Lex merely smiled, seemingly unaffected by her silly nickname. Then I gestured to Finn.

“And this is Conner and Lex’s friend, Finn.”

When Kerry looked at him, her face paled. For a moment I thought she was going to faint. I glanced at Finn and saw that his expression was similarly dumbstruck.