“I’m not worried,” I replied, watching as we sped through red light after red light and then swung onto the freeway.
“I’m Charlie,” he said, glancing at me and then back out the front windshield.
We were going so fast that it was nearly impossible to look away from the road ahead of us. It was instinct, the urge to see where we were going.
“Rosemary,” I replied.
“Pretty name.”
“Sorry I didn’t untie you back there,” I said distractedly. “That looked uncomfortable as hell.”
“How could you have?” Charlie asked skeptically. “You were tied to a chair.”
“Right.”
With a small jolt, I remembered hearing about the death of one of the Boucher brothers. The youngest one. That’s why he hadn’t been in the garage with the others. It had been pretty big news for a minute because the highly trained Vampire had been kidnapped and tortured. I tried not to look at Charlie again. I’d never met a human who had lost their mate before, and I didn’t want to stare like some creep.
Forcing myself to look away from the cars we were passing, I pulled the magazine out of the pistol in my hand and checked the ammunition. The weight of it assured me it was loaded, but I had a feeling that I’d need to know exactly what I had to work with. Whatever situation we were walking into was bad. The brother in the passenger seat—I couldn’t remember which Boucher he was—kept calling for a man named Sven through his comms.
Eventually, Sven stopped answering.
My stomach was in knots by the time we turned off a windy road onto a long private driveway lined with old growth. My skin was damp with clammy sweat even though the night around us was cool. I was pretty sure I had a fever, but I’d deal with it later.
Absolute carnage greeted us as we pulled up in front of a massive house.
“Oh my god,” I mumbled under my breath.
There were bodies everywhere. Lying in the yard. In heaps on the front porch.
“I’m coming with you,” Charlie announced. Bravely, I thought. His voice shook a little, but he’d still said it.
“No. Keep watch,” the brother ordered. He jumped out of the car while it was still moving.
“Fuck! Ambrose!” Daniel yelled in frustration.
Right. That was Ambrose Boucher. I should’ve known he was the oldest. Something about the way he carried himself indicated that he was used to being in charge of the others.
We slid to a stop in the gravel as I unbuckled my seat belt and clicked off the pistol’s safety.
I’d inadvertently stepped into a situation that was clearly fucked and none of my business, but I wasn’t about to cower like an infant. I refused to be caught unaware, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to sit in the car.
“Stay here,” Daniel said as he threw open his door, leaving the car running.
“Not a fucking chance,” I argued, following him.
Distant shots had us both snapping our heads toward the east side of the property.
“How good are you with that?” Daniel asked, nodding toward the pistol.
“Very good.” I’d been training since I was eight, but that wasn’t information that needed to be shared at present.
He watched me for a moment, tilted his head sharply from side to side, and finally nodded. “Stay close.”
We quietly jogged across the expanse of lawn and stepped into the trees. I stayed near Daniel, but chose my own route as we picked our way through the foliage, our steps nearly silent. The trees were so thick above us that what little moonlight we’d been using to see had all but disappeared. My eyes adjusted slowly to the dark, but I’d been in worse places at night. Using my other senses and pure instinct, I rounded bushes and picked my way through ferns as the sound of a struggle came from somewhere ahead of us.
When we finally found the three men, the differences between them were stark. Two of them were wearing camouflage tactical gear, their faces painted so dark that only the whites of their eyes shone in the dark. The other was in plain black, functional work pants and a long-sleeved shirt, and he was kicking their asses like it was nothing. The fluidity and speed of his movements were instantly recognizable. Another Vampire.
“Did all of you make it back?” he asked casually as he snapped the neck of one of the men, letting him drop silently to the forest floor. The other man roared and dove for the guy in black.
