Blood and Sand (14 page)

She walked toward the dumpsters. “I’m not squeamish.”

“Natalie.” He was still standing near the car as she turned to face him. “This was not your fault.”

Her eyes widened and her heart raced as she turned back to the dumpsters. She started running. By the time she’d reached them, he was already there, bending over the girl. Natalie recognized her immediately. It was the waitress from Bar El Ruso, the one who had been so nervous, the one Natalie had pressured to talk.

“Oh, dammit.” The waitress could have been sleeping. There wasn’t a mark on her that Natalie could see. But her lips were blue and her skin was ghostly pale. “Her name was Socorro,” Natalie said hoarsely. “She said her name was Socorro.”

“This was not your fault.”

“Well, we definitely know Ivan has something to do with all this.”

His eyes were grim. “I guess we do. And he left the body on Ernesto’s property for me to find. Which means he knows I’m aware of it, too. I suspect he’s done his own digging into your background, so he’ll have found out what you were working on.”

She shook her head, walking away to stare down into the girl’s lifeless face. “I need to get back to the city. My notes are at the office. I need to—”

“You’re not going back to the city.” His voice was clipped. “Not until this is over.”

Natalie spun around, glaring at him. “Listen, mister. I know you think you’re protecting me, and I know Dez and Matt said you were trustworthy, but you’re not my boss. You’re not my father. And cy ftanding you have no right to tell me what I can and can’t—”

“Look at her,” he said, his iron control slipping. He spun her around again, pointing at the dead girl on the ground. The grip on her arms wasn’t bruising, but it was firm. “You were talking to this girl a little over twenty-four hours ago. Now she is dead. Do you think they would think twice about doing this to you? Do you see what can happen?”

“I knew this story was going to be dangerous when I took it on,” she said. “Don’t lecture me, I’m not a child.” She pulled away and turned to face him.

“No, you’re not.” His voice was low and fierce. “You’re an infuriatingly stubborn woman who has no survival instincts. You need to drop this and let me—”

“You need to not tell me what to do.” She stepped closer, her chin jutting out as she got in his face. “Because trust me, that never goes well.”

“Why won’t you listen to me?” The anger dropped from his voice; it was pure confusion. “I don’t want to have to force you or coerce you. I don’t want to have to use my amnis to keep you safe.”

“Then don’t.”

“I will if I have to.”

His eyes raced over her upturned face and Natalie realized her heart was pounding. Fear. Anger. And an unmistakable hint of arousal. A faint memory of his lips teased her. Had they kissed that first night? Was she imagining it? Her body responded to his proximity; Natalie could feel the hair on the back of her arms rise and reach toward him.

Baojia’s voice was hoarse when he said, “Natalie…”

She swallowed hard, looking away from him and to the dead waitress as she said, “Baojia, there are some things more important than my safety. Finding the truth about who is killing these girls is one of them.”

He started to say something, only to stop and cock his head to the side. His eyes narrowed, then looked off into the distance toward something she couldn’t see.

“What?” she asked. “What is it?”

“Remember when you said about mindfucks?”

“Yeah?”

“Get ready for another one.” He grasped her hand in his and angled himself slightly in front of her as he squared his shoulders toward the edge of the desert.

“What are we—Oh, whoa.” She felt the earth tremble beneath her. She should have known; apparently vampires were like dogs who could sense when earthquakes—

“His name is Tulio and he’s mostly friendly.”

Natalie blinked. “What?”

Instead of dying off, the earthquake was only growing stronger. And the sound…

“What is it?”

“Elements, remember?” His hand squeezed hers. “Not everyone controls water.”

Elements. Water, wind, fire…
earth
. “Oh, shit!”

The air was knocked from her lungs when the ground opened up and a giant of a man emerged. He was six feet tall, at least, with straight black hair and a smudged face that bore distinctly Spanish features. A broad forehead and heavy brows hung over eyes that looked black in the night. He wore a pair of what looked like canvas work pants and the rest of his body bulged with muscle. No shirt. No shoes. The man took an arm and swiped at the sand that covered his face as he continued walking toward them. The earth that had opened up closed behind him when his feet touched the pavement.

“Baojia.”

“Tulio.”

The vampire bent down and scooped up the dead girl, cradling her in his arms like a child before Natalie could protest.

“Hey!”

Tulio paused for a moment, glancing at her before he looked back to Baojia. “Come to my place. You can bring your human if you want.”

“We’ll be there in a few.”

“There’s more.”

Then Tulio walked back into the desert and disappeared beneath the sand.

“Holy cow.” That’s it. Natalie couldn’t think of anything weirder than that.

“Holy gopher might be more fitting.”

“How’d he do that?”

Baojia shrugged and tugged her hand, leading her back to the car. “He’s an earth vampire. That’s what they do.”

They were back in the Camaro and bouncing over dirt roads when she finally asked, “What did he mean, ‘your human’?”

“Caught that, did you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I knew you were playing at something like that at Ivan’s, but I assumed that was just to get us out of there.”

“That’s partially true.”

“What do you mean partial—?”

“Humans in the vampire world have very important roles.” He interrupted her, turning the subject, if not changing it completely. “We employ you more and more to deal with computers and technology that we cannot. You are necessary for those of us who have professional obligations during the day, like Luis works for me. And you are also…”

“Food.”

He frowned at her. “Human beings are often our companions, as well as being employees. They provide company and yes, sustenance, too.”

“Like a pet?”

“Trust me.” His voice was suddenly hoarse and she glanced over to see the tips of his fangs peeking out as he watched her. “Not like a pet.”

Natalie could feel the blush hit when she saw them. Apparently, fangs were stimulated by more than just hunger or violence, and suddenly, they seemed a little more interesting and a lot less scary. “Oh.”

“Were you just looking at my fangs?”

“No!”

He laughed, a low, knowing chuckle that made her heart take off at a gallop. “Liar.”

The rest of the trip to Tulio’s was filled with silence as Natalie began cataloguing the questions she had for the odd man who had taken the girl’s body without a murmur of protest from her vampire.

There’s more.

More bodies? More to tell? There had to be more to tell, because he hadn’t told them anything. She was assuming Tulio was not the murderer for several reasons. One, Baojia had seemed at ease with him, and he would probably know if Tulio was in league with Ivan. Two, the giant man—vampire—had picked up the dead girl with exquisite gentleness, not like someone who could kill and leave the body out by the trash. Three, Natalie had a gut reaction to the man, and it didn’t say dangerous.
 

Of course, she’d trusted Baojia when she met him at the bar, and he’d turned out to be a liar, so maybe her gut wasn’t as accurate as she thought. Or… maybe George was closer to Baojia than she was ready to admit.
 

She glanced at him in the moonlight. He was so determined to keep her safe. Maybe she was just an assignment to him. cmenan>

Or… maybe her first impression of him in the bar wasn’t all that far off.

I never lied.

She didn’t know what to believe anymore.

“Where does this guy live?” She hadn’t seen a light for miles.

“Away.”

“From what?”

“Everything.” He smiled. “He’s a bit of a hermit.”

“A bit?”

Just when she thought she’d never see a sign of civilization again, Natalie spotted the shadow of an old truck and a barn leaning near some old sheep pens. The boards were broken-down and the barn was breaking apart, but the truck, though old, appeared in good condition. And when the car’s headlights landed on it, she realized the barn was in better condition than she’d thought.

“Is this where he lives?”

Baojia smiled. “Sort of.” He stopped the car and before she could open her door, he was there, opening it for her and helping her out. Then he nudged her against the car and stepped closer, leaning down as if he were going to tell her a secret. But he didn’t say anything; instead, she felt his breath blow cool on her neck and the skin of his jaw brushed against hers.
 

“Hey.” She tried shoving him back, but he didn’t move. “What are you—”

“Shhh,” he whispered. “Quietly. Tulio thinks you are mine. This is good and will protect you. But you don’t smell like me, which he will notice unless I mark you.”

She couldn’t speak; the unmistakably erotic images the feel of his skin on hers brought to mind choked out rational thought. “But—”

“I’m not going to bite you.” Baojia’s voice was a low growl. He had never sounded less human. She shivered when his lips brushed her neck. His fingers teased the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck. “I am only going to mark you.”

She let out the breath she’d been holding and managed to speak. “If you lift your leg on me, I’m gonna kick you in the balls.”

He laughed again; she could feel his lips smile against her skin. He pulled back for a second and his face was illuminated by the dim moonlight. Eyes dark and focused on her neck. Fangs long and gleaming. She could see the edge of his tongue when he flicked it against the tip of one tooth, but he only bent down to her neck on the other side, stroking his cheek along hers like…
 

A cat, she thought with a sudden smile. He was brushing his skin along hers like a cat looking for a friendly pat. Without thinking, she lifted her hand and stroked along the back of his neck, feeling the thick black hair under her fingers as his body shuddered, then stilled.

Before she could blink, he pulled back; his jaw clamped shut and his nostrils flared.
 

Okay. Not a cat.

He let out a slow, even breath and said, “Careful.”

“Right.” Her voice was high and she could feel herself blushing again.

“Stop that.”

“What? Blushing?”

“Yes. The scent on your skin becomes more enticing.”

“The mo
re you talk about it, the worse it’s going to get. I don’t exactly have control over it. Trust me, I wish I did.”

He muttered something else she couldn’t hear, then tugged her away from the car and toward the barn. “Let’s go see Tulio. You’ll be fine. Last time I checked, he had his own woman.”

She rolled her eyes. cledeg on me “How very caveman of him.”

He only laughed. “You have no idea.”

CHAPTER NINE

Baojia tried to ignore Natalie’s scent as they approached Tulio’s strange house. The blush made her cheeks heat and her blood-scent stronger. He couldn’t help wondering just how much of her body that blush would cover if properly encouraged. He was betting a lot. Perhaps that was something else the clever little human would like to help him investigate.
 

He took a deep breath and focused on the reason they had come to the hermit’s home.

“Tulio likes to be left alone, but in his own way, he considers this whole area his territory.” He grasped Natalie’s hand a little tighter and walked toward the low rise of hills behind the barn. “Not that he would ever challenge Ernesto—he has no interest in business or politics—but he doesn’t like strange people or vampires wandering around.”

“So he’d notice someone dumping bodies on his front lawn?”

The woman had the most amusing way of stating things at times. “Exactly.”

“So when he said ‘There’s more.’ You think that’s what he was referring to? More bodies? If Tulio doesn’t like vampires wandering around and there are more bodies—maybe some that the police haven’t found but he has—why hasn’t he stopped them? It sounds like it would be characteristic of him, from what you’ve said.”

He grimaced. The human was becoming more attractive with every intelligent observation. “Yes, he would stop them. If he knew where they were. But I also noticed there was no strong vampire scent around the girl’s body.”

“I thought you said she was killed by a vampire.”

“She was.” He saw the entrance and stood back, letting their host become aware of them in his own time. Baojia glanced at the dark, empty horizon; he was beginning to worry about the sun.