The Way You Bite(42)

One of his bulky guards replied, “Likely. They were well trained.”

Lexan ducked behind a large ornamental bush when two vamps came walking around the house, guns out. They examined the broken window and stalked away. He moved back to the window.

“I want Lexan. Alive, if possible.” Ambrose whipped out a cell phone, scrolled through several screens, and then put it to his ear. “It’s Ambrose DiFalco. We found Vee. I was about to phone you so you wouldn’t worry, but my house was attacked. Wolves took her before, and now they have her again. Why do you think they want her so much that they’d attack my house? Lexan Dimitrov in particular?”

He paused for a few moments. “My men picked her up about an hour and a half ago. She had just escaped from the wolves. I tell you, Dominic, she was a real mess. One of them bit her. As in marked her. They usually only do that with their mates. I don’t know what the hell it means in this case.”

Ambrose listened for a few seconds. He tapped his fingernails on his marble kitchen countertop. “Give me an hour and I’ll locate them. I’ll find out what’s going on.”

“Sir, the girl is going into a juvie shift panic.” TC’s voice came through the communicator in Lexan’s ear.

Lexan ran, finding TC within seconds less than a quarter mile away. “I’m right here.”

TC jumped and whirled with his knife ready. “You’re a scary bastard sometimes, sir.”

Lexan moved toward her slowly. “Look at me, Vee.”

She was zoned into her panic. Her breaths came in shallow pants. Bloody furrows tracked up her arm where she raked at the aberrant paw as if dismembering herself would stop the shift.

Lexan locked both her arms behind her back with one of his hands and gripped her chin with his other to force eye contact. The terror and vulnerability reflecting back at him squeezed his chest. “Stop hurting yourself. It won’t help.”

“I am not a wolf.”

“We can argue the semantics of that later. Right now, you can’t go all fur on me.” Not with DiFalco’s guys about to be on top of us.

“Make it stop.” She struggled wildly in his grip to resume her frantic scratching at the anomalous hand.

Lexan pulled her tight to him and pressed his lips to hers. At first she tensed, but within seconds her lips parted, allowing him full access. Violent need gripped him. His plan had been distraction only. Now he felt himself slipping, losing his edge.

His tongue swept her mouth. She melted into him. He released her hands and let the pad of his forefinger drift beneath the scrub top to gently rub his mark. He smiled against her lips at the reactive tremor that ricocheted through her body. Her fingers gripped his back, pulling him tighter to her. Her canines drew blood from his lower lip. The act wasn’t accidental. When the metallic taste of blood filled both their mouths, she groaned.

She pulled away from his mouth and kissed a path to his neck. He breathed an emotional sigh of relief, ready for her strike. Needing it. He’d been born to crave this woman.

Fire streaked through his body as her lips teased his skin on the path toward his jugular, jolting him like mini-lightning strikes. His heart thudded rapidly in anticipation of her piercing kiss and subsequent euphoria. He wanted those teeth in his skin again…deep in his neck. He wanted her to suck at him, to take her fill and live off him.

Vee continued to nibble around his neck. His heart rate escalated as if he was in the middle of a workout.

A voice cleared loudly behind them. “Uh, sir…as fascinating as this is rapidly becoming, we’re about to be face-to-face with about ten pissed-off vamps. Fifteen seconds. I need your permission to kill this time.”

Like a blast of cold water, they jumped away from each other. But Lexan pulled her back into him with a firm band around her waist. He couldn’t risk her running again.

“You have permission.” He then addressed her in a gentle tone. “Time to get out of here.”

She rotated her now normal hand, streaked with bloody scratches, and whispered, “Thank you.”

Her small grateful smile was enough to make him almost forget the escalating disaster around them. And the political implications of him attacking Lexan to steal Vee back.

He grabbed her hand and sprinted, following TC through the dark forest.

Sensing danger in front instead of behind, he halted. He telepathically ordered TC to stop. In his peripheral, he saw TC dive for the cover of a large oak with knives ready.

“What’s wrong?” Vee asked.

“Shhh. Stay behind me. No sudden moves. Back up.” He pushed her behind him while backing them up slowly into the shadows, not that shadows would provide any sort of impediment to the sharp vision of a trained vampire.

In his communicator, TC said, “One on my left. Got him. One on your right.”

“Stay here.” Lexan pressed a knife into her hands. “Kill anything that’s not me.”

Lexan stalked through the woods, cringing when he crunched a dry leaf. He picked up the whisper of movement to his right. With a pivot, he prepared for attack. A vamp leaped at him, knife in hand ready to tear him to shreds. Old school. For a moment, he basked in the pleasure of a physical fight without guns. He even respected this warrior.

Lexan dodged. No time to prolong and enjoy the battle, though. Not with Vee relatively unprotected. “Leave now and I won’t pursue you.”