Chapter One
Jack’s breathsounded loudly in his ear as he sprinted down the hill. His heart raced as adrenaline hammered his system. His fangs throbbed with his need to destroy something, but he couldn’t turn back to go after those who had driven him to this point of fleeing. Their pursuers had weapons, and he doubted it was metal bullets firing from the guns behind him.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Mike running with the girl—Mollie, he recalled Mike saying her name was. And there was Doug, slightly ahead of him as he ran down the hill.
All around them were more vampires running as fast as they could away from the barn where they’d been kept in cages. Somehow, Mike and Mollie broke free of those cages and set him, Doug, and numerous other vampires and humans free.
Jack didn’t look back at their pursuers as he plunged through the trees. He threw up his hands to try to stop the branches from slapping him in the face, but he took a few to his cheeks, and one nearly gouged out his eye. Behind him, gunshots and shrieks filled the night.
They were being hunted. He couldn’t believe it, but he knew it was true as these vamps ruthlessly pursued the escapees.
Since becoming vampires, he and his friends had been the hunters. He’d never considered the possibility the tables would turn on them, yet they were the ones fleeing from the bastards who had taken them from the bar and locked them into the cages in the barn.
Who was hunting them, or why, he didn’t know, but they were vampires or, most likely, Savages. He couldn’t smell the difference between a Savage and a non-killer vamp like a pureblooded vampire could, but only Savages would capture vamps and humans to kill them. And even if these Savages didn’t originally intend to hunt them, they’d always planned to kill them, as Jack seriously doubted they’d been drugged, kidnapped, and caged for these vamps to play patty-cake with them.
He couldn’t believe how fast his circumstances changed. One minute, he was sitting on a barstool, having a couple of drinks with his friends while Doug flirted with the bartender, LeNae. And then smoke was filling the bar and vampires were falling beneath the cloud. They’d tried to get away out the back door, but more vamps were waiting for them outside, and that was the last he recalled of anything before waking in a cage.
Jack threw out a hand to shove aside a branch that would have taken out his eye. As he did so, his foot caught on a rock and, going so fast he couldn’t correct his balance, he plunged forward. Feeling like a bouncing ball in the hands of a five-year-old, he slammed off the ground and bounced up before hitting a tree and spinning around.
Shit.He clawed at the earth and clutched at trees in a desperate attempt to slow his momentum, but the world became a blur as he tumbled faster down the hill. When he hit a rock and flew over the top of it, a bone cracked in his side and pain lanced down his back. He hoped it was just a rib; the vamps hunting them would kill him as soon as they got their hands on him if he’d broken his back.
He crashed into a tree before spinning out into open terrain and tumbling the rest of the way down the hill. Finally coming to a stop at the bottom, Jack found himself unable to move as he lay sprawled at the bottom of the hill, staring at the night sky. He wanted to punch every twinkling star, and he wouldn’t mind kicking the moon; they all seemed far too happy considering his current circumstances.
Taking shallow breaths, because anything deeper caused pain to lance through his side, he took stock of his injuries. Definitely a broken rib, but it wasn’t so bad he couldn’t get his ass up andgo.
Rolling to the side, he gritted his teeth against the agony of his broken rib shifting; it felt like it was scraping against his other ribs. Holding one hand against his side, he remained half crouched as he rested his fingers on the ground while he surveyed the hill that nearly killed him. He didn’t see Mike and Doug anywhere.
A few other escapees fled into the woods as the vehicles of the bastards who imprisoned them came to a stop at the top of the hill. The headlights of the cars shot out over the trees as doors slammed shut and silhouetted figures appeared in front of the vehicles. Then, some of them started down the hill.
He needed to find Mike and Doug, but he couldn’t stick around here. Rising to his feet, he winced when he started running again. Every step made it feel like his rib was digging into his lung, but he didn’t dare slow his pace.
Since becoming a vampire, he’d never considered how he would die. He refused to let it be at the hands of these fuckers. No, if he were going to die, it would be in a blaze of glory. It would not be at the hands of some backwoods vamps who watched one too many horror movies about cannibals eating the tourists and decided it would be a grand old thing to try.
“Assholes,” he hissed through his teeth and tasted the coppery tang of his blood in his mouth. It only pissed him off more. Once he got his bearings, healed, and found his friends, he’d beat his pursuers into a bloody pulp before killing every last one of them.
As he ran, Jack searched the woods for Doug and Mike. He spotted some other escapees fleeing through the woods, but his friends were nowhere to be seen.
Were they recaptured or killed?
He doubted it, but it was a possibility he couldn’t consider right now.
He had no idea where these hillbilly vamps brought them after kidnapping them from the bar, but going by the chill in the June air, he assumed they were still in Canada, which meant they were far from the help of their family and any other vampires they knew. All they had was each other, and he’d kill any vamp on this island who tried to take his friends from him.
When the scent of ocean water drifted to him, Jack veered toward the sea. He didn’t like the idea of being trapped between the woods and the ocean, but he had to get a better idea of where they were.
His rib was already healing, but it grazed against something with every step he took. He’d have to find something to eat soon; that would help him recover faster. Coming to the edge of the woods, Jack froze when he realized a good fifty feet of distance separated him from the sea he smelled and heard beyond.
With his superior vampire vision, he took in details he would never have noticed when he was still human. The open expanse of land didn’t go straight to the sea as it appeared to do when he first saw the moon shining on the waves. Now he realized there was a delineation between the sea and the land and that the ocean lay far below the cliffs across from him.
He was edging back to blend into the trees again when a woman sprinted out of the woods a hundred feet away from him. With no knowledge of what awaited her, she bolted for the edge of the cliffs. Jack opened his mouth to shout a warning, but before he could do so, two vampires burst out of the woods behind her.
The sound the vamps made as they chased her down reminded him of hyenas circling their prey. The woman screamed as they pounced on her. Their laughter echoed in the night as they tore into her like stoners at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
And he should know; he’d once been a stoner drooling over a buffet while in high school. He and Doug had smoked together a few times, but that time they decided they required more food than either of their houses could provide and headed for the buffet a couple of towns over.
They’d stood there and stared at the giant assortment of food before diving in with a gusto that would make any warthog back away. After their tenth trip to the buffet, the manager kicked them out. They left in a fit of laughter and with their pockets full of cookies.
Jack didn’t know why he was thinking about that now when he should be leaving here; the vamps hunting him were closer than Jack had realized, and he was wounded, but he couldn’t walk away.
