Charlie slapped her forehead. “Whydidn’t I think of that?”
Then she mentally kicked herself. It wasn’t like she hadn’t suggested the same thing to Mal, except he’d been a lot nicer to her with his reply. Why was shesobitchy with Jack?
It wasn’t just because she’d lost to him. She didn’t deny she could be a pretty sore loser, and often stewed about her defeat for days, but this antagonism was a new level of bad for her. When she looked at him, she wasn’t surprised to find a gleam in his eyes that suggested he was contemplating throttling her.
When she smiled at him, he turned away from her. She took the time to study his profile. The swelling was already out of his nose, but it crooked slightly to the right and had a bump in the middle.
She wasn’t the first person to break his nose, and she doubted she’d be the last, but even with those imperfections, she couldn’t deny he was good looking with his striking eyes and narrow face. The stubble lining his chin and cheeks was a shade or two darker than his short, light brown hair and brought out the intriguing contours of his bone structure. And those eyes…
Charlie tore her attention away from him as she suddenly understood why she was so bitchy. It was because shedesiredhim. It had been years since she allowed herself to feel any attraction to a man. She’d been burned once; it wouldneverhappen again.
No, she was more than burned. She’d been doused with gasoline, tied to a stake, and set on fire. After all these years, Charlie clearly recalled the day when everything she knew burst into flames and she was left as nothing more than a pile of ash with only a small spark to cling to.
“Where are these boats?” Jack asked.
“The other side of the island, and they’re heavily guarded. You might not think they are, but there’s a fair amount of security hidden in a cave nearby that watches them. There’s usually a human stationed near them too. Sometimes they use the boats to lure in the unsuspecting prey. Kind of like a bait pile for deer.”
“And there’s no way to get around the guards?”
“Not without a fight, and they have much better weapons and more numbers than we do. Plus, they have wooden bullets. The people running this hunt don’t screw around; they want a good game with lots of blood, and they’re going to get it. Since you and your friends broke out of your cages, I bet they’re not taking any chances and have doubled the guards on those boats.”
“So this hunt has been going on since before you came here?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get here?”
“They tied me up, blindfolded me, and threw me in the trunk of a car before transferring me to a boat.”
Her mouth went dry as she recalled the mind-numbing terror of being locked in that trunk. They’d separated her and Dylan, and she’d spent the entire ride screaming against her gag while kicking and beating on the car the best she could while bound.
Never had she been more desperate for anything as she was to see her son’s face again, and when Charlie finally saw him, she sobbed with relief, but with her hands tied, she couldn’t clutch him against her as she longed to do.
Charlie didn’t tell him about Dylan; she would keep her son’s existence from him until sheknewhe was trustworthy.
“They tied me to a post in the boat, or I should say yacht as it was bigger than my apartment.”
But then, that wasn’t saying much as her apartment was barely big enough for her and Dylan to pass each other in the hall. They’d tied Dylan up across from her; she couldn’t reach him, but at least she could see him through that leg of their journey.
“I listened to the hum of the motor while I attempted to free myself; it was pointless,” she said.
She spoke in a monotone and kept her face schooled to reveal no emotion; she’d perfected the expression after years with her parents. She didn’t want Jack to know how much the memory of her kidnapping still rattled her.
However, she couldn’t keep the tremor from her hands when she recalled Dylan’s tear-streaked, dirty face sitting across from her on the boat. His lower lip quivered while he tried to hold back his sobs. She yearned to tell him it would be all right, but even if she weren’t gagged, she wouldn’t issue the lie.
“By the time they came back for me, I’d torn my skin away, and blood flowed down my arms,” Charlie continued. “I’ll never forget their laughter or the rough brush of one of their tongues licking away my blood.”
She’d bit back a scream when she realized they were drinking her blood and theylovedit. She was sure her heart might explode, and if Dylan hadn’t been there, she would have started screaming and never stopped. However, she couldn’t suppress a whimper when one of them pressed their mouth to her ear and whispered,“Delicious.”
“That was when I realized I wasn’t dealing with normal humans,” she said.
The more she revealed, the more his jaw clenched until it ached. He’d like to stake every one of the assholes who harmed her. And then, her words fully sank in.
“Wait a minute; you didn’t know they were vampires when they took you?” he asked.
“No. I didn’t learn what they were until later when the other captives told me. Even if they hadn’t, some of the captive vampires were starting to have trouble controlling themselves. Their red eyes and fangs were pretty much a giveaway.”
“When didyoubecome a vampire?”
