Downbeat (Biting Love) (26 page)

I gave Giuseppe the hairy eyeball. “Do something.”

“What would you suggest?”

“Rescue her. He’s choking her.”

“Oh, she’s fine. It’s not like she needs the oxygen.”

“Dammit.” I turned back to Dragan. “What are we going to do? We need to help her.”

Dragan’s gaze flicked over everything in the room as if it were an orchestra, finely assessing. “Strictly speaking, we don’t.”

Vampires. “We need to do something because after he finishes her he’ll come after everyone else.”

“Luke’s no longer here.”

“So? That means he got Mom to safety, hooray…oh.” It also meant he’d have called the cavalry. We only had to mark time until they arrived.

Sure enough, a dozen SWATed-up guards appeared in the doorway, bristling rifles, machine guns and more. “Alliance?” I whispered.

“Not in the heart of Chicago. I’d guess Eleanor’s son-in-law. I hope they’re more effective than their name.”

The stream of guards ran hunched into the room, using tables as cover. When they reached a place near the center they threw tables onto their sides and gathered behind them, weapons aimed at the vampire.

“Dragan!” I grabbed his arm. “There are people between them and Gravloth.”

“I see.” He flickered forward, vampire fast, to where, still applauding, a dozen or so men and women stood between the armed guards and the megavamp. While I wouldn’t have said no to being rich, I hoped money never made me that disconnected from reality. Dragan stopped next to the group. “
Go
,” he intoned.

The men and women stopped applauding. They turned to go.

“
Stay
.” Gravloth hissed his command like a snake.

They shivered with indecision.

“
Go
,” Dragan repeated. “Leave quickly.” To help them decide he swooped down on them, gathering them with his arms, and herded them for the doors.

“No!” The megavamp leaped for Dragan.

A loud hiss was followed by a whoosh of instantly expanding air, a guard shooting Gravloth full in the face with a flamethrower.

The monster roared in pain, swung a screaming Camille in front of him, and shoved her into the yellow stream.

All around me shrieking people scattered for the exits. Dragan flickered between them, shepherding them toward the nearest doors.

A click, then silence. My ears rang. The river of fire had disappeared.

Leaving the megavamp’s face red meat, hair crisped. I punched air in triumph.

But even as I watched, his skin grew back. Within seconds, hair sprouted like time-lapsed photography.

Camille wasn’t so lucky. Her skin was broken, blistered and charred black in places. Blood sweated from her exposed muscles. She moaned.

The guards opened fire. Bullets peppered her and Gravloth. She made a horrible rattling sound and went limp.

But the megavamp held her like a shield and waded into the bullets, slapping at them as if they were flies.

A guard loaded what looked like a lipstick tube into a gun with two long barrels. He ran to one side of the vampires, took aim and fired. There was a crack of thunder. It caught Gravloth in the ribs.

His middle seemed to give as the round penetrated, then exploded. For an instant there was a plate-sized hole where his ribs had been.

With a sucking sound, his chest swirled back into being.

I wrapped arms around me, trying to stop trembling. Good grief, he was indestructible.

The megavamp tossed Camille’s broken body aside and stalked toward the security team, exchanging confused looks and no longer firing. The vampire woman lay there, vulnerable. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

“Dammit.” I looked around for Giuseppe, but he’d disappeared. It was up to me.

I ran for her, a plan forming in my head on the way. Dragan, on the other side of the room, shouted, “Raquel, no!”

As I passed a cart I snatched up a doily.

Gravloth saw me coming. He paused, clearly torn between me and the guards.

Then his nostrils flared and his eyes turned a lusty brick red.

He shot toward me.

The instant he got in range, I threw the doily.

The LLAMA cheese ball erupted from the white paper lace like lumpy steel shot. It hit Gravloth in the belly. He slowed, pawing at the stuff. His fingers started bubbling. His face plate dissolved to a puzzled expression. He raised his hissing, sputtering fingers to his face. One whiff and he keeled over. The snotball began to eat through shirt and skin.

I grabbed Camille and dragged her toward the doors. She left streaks of blood. I swallowed my gorge and kept tugging.

Shots rang out, rapid fire pops. I assumed the guards had gotten their mojo back.

“Raquel, we must go.” Dragan was suddenly at my side, lifting Camille in one arm, his free hand on my arm, guiding me. I glanced back at Gravloth. He’d staggered to his feet, shuddering as the bullets peppered him.

I concentrated on following Dragan. We’d almost made it to the door when the megavamp’s horrible roar rang out.

“He’s coming.” Dragan wrapped an arm under my thighs and lifted and suddenly we were flying out of the room.

Air boomed behind us. Gravloth hit us and we were thrown forward and both Camille and I sailed from Dragan’s grasp.

I automatically tumbled and came up in a fighting stance. Thank you, Mr. Miyagi.

Gravloth grabbed for me, soft, probably because I was a mere human. I flashed my arm up in an automatic outer block, knocking his hand to the side. His eyes widened in surprise. He grabbed for me again, more determined and with more strength, but still soft. I’d seen it coming and spun up a hook kick, the power of my whole body behind it. Yay for full, roomy skirts. I knocked his hand aside a second time.

The monster growled and grabbed for me with both hands, definitely not soft this time. I was about to end up a Rocky juice box.

Dragan seized me by the scruff of the neck and yanked me out of harm’s way. He swept me into his arms, spun and ran so fast the walls blurred.

Over his shoulder I saw Gravloth beat his chest like an ape and light out after us.

I clutched Dragan’s shoulders harder for every inch the monster gained on us until I’d made actual dents. “Camille?” I gasped.

“Luke.” Dragan hit a door near the elevators and started down a set of carpeted stairs. Mere seconds later the crash of cymbal-size boots came after us.

“Why is he chasing us? What does that monster want?”

Dragan was ominously silent.

Once he hit the street he set me down, then grabbed me by the shoulders and nailed me in the eyes. “Listen.” His tone was the orchestra conductor commanding immediate obedience. I riveted my eyes and ears on him. “I’m about to change. The instant I do, get on my back, wrap your arms around my throat and don’t let go. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He blew into a cloud of black dust.

The door slammed open. Feet crashed behind us.

My bowels quaked. I clutched my fingers tight, nails denting my palms, and kept my focus on Dragan’s reemerging shape.

The dust collapsed into a huge hawk.

And I mean huge. The thing’s head was as big as mine and its wingspan was as long as a car. Before my thudding heart could jump out my mouth I launched onto its back and wrapped arms around its neck.

It—or rather he, because I knew the hawk was Dragan—took off, so fast and near vertical that my stomach came out my feet. At least it felt like it.

The megavamp chased us on the ground for a good mile.

But he had to follow the city streets and dodge buildings. After what felt like hours but was probably only ten minutes, we finally lost him.

Then the Dragan hawk soared a few moments, apparently enjoying kiting in the updrafts. I didn’t relax. I’m not afraid of heights or falling but the only thing between me and a sudden pavement-assisted stop was my trembling arms. I put my mouth at the side of his head and murmured, “If you don’t land this instant I’m going to yuck up on your feathers.” I don’t know where hawks’ ears are, but Dragan made a squawk like a chuckle and headed for a tall building.

“You knew about that monster all along, didn’t you?” I called through the bathroom door. Steam curled from under it. Dragan was taking a shower. I tried not to imagine him naked, water streaming down his long black hair, dripping along the curved muscles of his chest, sheeting down each rib of his flank…yeah. “Trying not to” only made it more real.

He’d brought me to the penthouse suite of a hotel where he stayed so often they knew his preferences for black towels and red roses, both of which came within minutes of our arrival.

The romantic roses reminded me he’d said that when we made love, it would be on a bed. Surprise! Here was a bed.

I shoved the thought aside. We’d nearly lost our lives tonight.

After we’d arrived here, the first thing I’d done was call my mother. I’d tried her at home—she didn’t have a cell phone—but there was no answer.

I’d have made Dragan fly me out immediately to look for her, but he called Luke’s cell, and Luke put Mom on. She told me Luke was taking her home by a circuitous route, and they were seeing half of Chicago on the way. I could tell by her rapid delivery and frequent squeals of delight that she was having the time of her life. She told me not to worry. After I made her promise to call the instant she got home, she hung up.

Then Dragan announced he was taking a shower and I’d started my long vigil of trying not to imagine him naked.

“I told you I’m a bit of an information broker.” Dragan’s deep voice curled under the bathroom door with the steam, just as hot. Steam and voice and that damned alluring naked image of him wrapped around me, beckoning.

I nearly let myself in.

After which, I would…I would do what? What the hell did I know about seducing a sophisticated male?

Besides what said male had taught me, that was.

Which started me remembering the backseat of my car, and the strip motel…and before I spontaneously combusted I found the remote and clicked on the large television opposite the foot of the king-size bed and sat down to watch some mindless entertainment to cool off.

As I flipped through channels, I called, “Are you sure he won’t follow us? The megavamp, I mean.”

“I’m certain. We lost him visually, and there was no scent on the ground for him to track.”

“But if this is your usual hotel, won’t he be able to find that out?”

The shower turned off and I imagined him toweling himself dry, briskly rubbing his magnificent torso, his arm muscles jumping powerfully as he worked… Better than worrying about the megavamp, right?

“I use several hotels equally. Each has a well-trained staff; they wouldn’t tell random people my whereabouts. Besides, the Soul Stealer doesn’t have the most winning personality so I doubt he could coax details. Even if he checked all the hotels in person he couldn’t be sure we were here because we entered by the roof. There will be no scent to give us away, at least not at the entrance. I have to make a phone call now.”

“Soul Stealer, huh?” Figured he’d have a more elegant name for the megavamp. I went back to flicking channels.

Dragan came out of the bathroom with a cell phone at his ear, clad only in a black towel wrapped low around his lean hips.

Fresh from the shower, his hair damply curling, a few droplets of water still caressing his sleek skin, he was so attractive I wanted to run my tongue all over him. The remote dropped from my suddenly nerveless hand.

His eyes flashed to mine and flared red. His fangs slowly descended from between his lips. “I will speak with you later.” He thumbed the phone off and tossed it onto a nearby nightstand.

I rose to my feet, my arms crossed over my chest. I don’t know why I stood, maybe to run away, maybe to meet him. But he streaked and suddenly he stood before me, so close each quickened breath brushed his naked belly against me, only my thin black-and-white dress separating us.

Heat poured off his skin, damp and steamy from the shower but also from the desire shimmering between us. His eyes blazed down into mine.

“Who…who was on the phone?” My chest rose and fell rapidly, my heart pounding. This wasn’t slow, careful seduction. This was male lust, immediate and overwhelming. A fever skittered across my skin.

His arms wrapped around me and he bent over me. “Nobody.” His lips met mine and his tongue demanded entry.

I gasped and opened. Fire rushed into my mouth. His fangs slid against my lips as he kissed me, startling and exciting in their sleek, cool lengths, so foreign and forbidden. I arched into him, my crossed arms caught between us, wanting more but not sure how to ask for it.

He backed me a step into the bed. I collapsed under him, his lips roving down the side of my face. “The more I taste you, the more I want.” His tongue ran briefly over my neck. “Open to me, Raquel.”

My arms were still trapped between us. I didn’t know what he meant. He crawled over me until his knees were beside my head. I blinked up at him. He smiled down at me, and stripped off the towel.