Noose (Road Kill MC #1) (34 page)

“No, but the blonde one's fear is an aphrodisiac,” Nathan said.

“Yes, but think on this Nathan: has she not already been degraded enough by the human scum we dispatched?” Cole said.

“Yes,” Nathan ground out. “You speak true.”

“Then scrub her and we take the female breeder.”

Nathan approached Michelle and she started to wail, her screams broken only by her next breath.

The blonde was suddenly in front of her. Squeezing her throat lightly, he cut off her screaming and the sudden silence filled the parking area. The snow was falling softly around us, some of the flakes catching in my eyelashes. Nathan stared deeply into Michelle's eyes. Finally he moved away and she stood there, blank faced, in a zombie-like stupor.

“What did you do to her?” I whispered.

“Something we cannot do for you,” Cole remarked.

I backed away and they tracked me. “I am not going with you,” I said, proud that my voice only shook a little.

“We understand your fear, but you will come with us. How do you humans put it? It is
non-negotiable
.”

“You don't understand anything! You two... whatever-you-are, sucked our attacker's blood. They died and
now
you're calling me some kind of 'breeder'. No offense, but it's not looking too good on my end.”

My eyes bounced from one to the other of them. I couldn't follow their movements, just when I thought I had one in my sights they moved so fast they were both suddenly one foot away from me, each holding an arm. I opened my mouth to scream and Cole put his mouth on mine, stifling it. His kiss blossomed and spread to the center of me, making my panties instantly moisten. I'd never had a reaction like this in my life.

Of course, I'd always made out with human men.

My fear was in my throat but my biology was never touched by it. I couldn't move my arms but as my mouth moved against his, he released my arm and I wound it around his neck, pressing his lips harder against mine and he groaned and pulled me against him. My mind played tug-of-war, my intellect was screaming that he was some creature of the night. He'd killed two men before my eyes but my center bloomed for him; heat stretching and spreading from between my legs. My nipples hardened and he reached behind me, placing his hands under my thighs. Never breaking from the kiss, he lifted me up and I wound my legs around his waist.

“She is so eager,” Nathan said, releasing my other arm. He circled us, grabbing a piece of my hair and flicking it behind my shoulder.

That broke through the heat of the moment and my intellect slammed back into place. I broke away and shoved at his chest with my hands. He let me slide down his body and when my feet hit the pavement, the cold moved up my legs, freezing that searing heat before it progressed.

I gave Nathan a dirty look, noticing Michelle still stood there in the same position, gooseflesh covering her arms, her teeth chattering.

“I don't know what you are, or why this is happening but I just want you to go... now. I will get my friend and I home without any help from you.” I folded my arms across my chest.

“Your body speaks for what you want. It speaks for what you are.”

“Oh?” I arched my eyebrow. “What is it that
I
am?”

“It is what is in your blood, you are of Druid blood. They are the only humans that may breed with us.”

Druid? What the hell was that?

Okay, next question:

“What are you?”

They looked at each other. “We are Vampire,
witch,
” Cole said as if that should have been obvious.

Witch? Had the conversation devolved to name-calling at two a.m.?

“Do you know of your people?”

I couldn't believe I was standing out here in twenty degree weather talking to a couple of guys claiming to be vampires. I felt incredibly stupid to have kissed the one..
. Cole.

“Ah, no. I'm adopted. Okay, while all this is interesting, it's time to go.”

I turned to Michelle, who had a spot of drool coming out of her mouth. God, what did they do to her? I walked over to her, grabbing a limp arm and started dragging her to my car.

Suddenly, they stood in front of me.

“Would you stop doing that!” I said, fear choking me.

A smile spread over Cole's face. “Doing what?” His fangs were smaller now that he wasn't trying to French me.

Sirens began in the distance and we all looked in their direction.

“The human police,” Nathan said.

“Yes.”

“Another time,
breeder,
” Cole said. He licked his finger and touched it on my forehead. “I mark you for another time, very soon.”

They disappeared into thin air and I was left with Michelle, the approaching cops, and a pulsing core that wept for the vampire that was now gone.

CHAPTER 4

My eyes felt like they had crushed glass in them but I wasn't going to bed any time soon. These assholes had made me repeat the same answers to the same shit about two hundred times. I was getting pissed. Poor Michelle was curled up, sleeping on the couch, a rape kit finished and being processed.

“Okay, Miss Collins, I want to ask you one more time,” the detective ran slim hands through his hair, making it whack out in all different directions. Its honey-colored goodness would have been fun to look at had I not been at the Anchorage Police Station at going on four-oh-hell in the morning.

“You claim your friend,” and he threw a look at Michelle, who was a small mound under the gunmetal gray blanket they'd thrown over her on the lumpy precinct couch, “was attacked.” He looked down at his notepad, scrolling down with his finger until he found the detail he was looking for, “...by two men, claiming to be vampires. That, inadvertently,” he made airquotes here, “saved you from the attackers.”

I wanted to punch him in the snout, he was just
that
condescending.

I was so done here. “Listen... Detective...”

“Jewel, Christopher Jewel.”

Fine. “Anyway, my friend just got a
fun
rape kit done, and you have three bodies without any blood... right?”

He tapped his pen on his notepad. “Actually, we have evidence that suggests there was an incident at that location, but there has not been any bodies recovered.”

Wow... the vampires had done away with the evidence. My heart sped thinking about how fast they'd been to go back to the scene and get rid of three men before the police got there.

“And the vampire story...” he looked at me like,
you really expect me to believe this?

“That's what they told me,” I replied.

“That is a myth, there are no such thing as vampires. However, I know from the minute that you came in here I have not been able to get touching you out of my mind.” His eyes stared into mine and I got up so quickly from the chair it fell over with an echoing clatter of metal against tiled linoleum.

He walked over to me as if he was in a fugue. “You smell,” and he leaned in as I leaned away, “very good.”

Okay, now things were getting weird. Mr. Professional Cop was coming on to me in the middle of the police station when he should be getting my statement.

“It says here that, 'he was kissing me, then heard the police sirens and he and the other vampire left',” he resumed his questioning.

I nodded. Maybe he'd get off all the personal weirdness then. I covertly looked around in the hopes of spotting another cop. There was only Michelle on the couch and a lone secretary waaayyyy down the hall.

Shit.

As if on cue, he walked over to Michelle. “She smells fuckable too,” he said and with that, he whipped off the cover and spread her legs.

She stirred in her sleep when I yelled, “Hey!” This couldn't be happening. Where was everyone? What-the-hell?

What the blue fuck was wrong with him?

But he'd already put a finger inside her, and started pumping it back and forth. “Yeah, she's still really lubed up from all that cum that got dumped in there.”

I ran over there and shoved him and he turned, my friend's crotch spread to the world. He backhanded me and I spilled on the floor as he all but ran over to the door, closing it and locking it in place. My face stung unmercifully having just been hit in the same spot a couple of hours before.

It felt like days.

Where the hell were all the other cops?

I tried to scramble to my feet but he tackled me, tearing at my skirt and ripping down my panties. I responded with a knee to the crotch, my jaw on fire.

As if from a distance, I heard a crash and glass shattered behind me, falling like crystal rain all around us, my arms shielding my face.

I didn't open my eyes as Detective Jewel was torn off me. I became aware of the fact that there wasn't any more noise and cold air was rushing in and... I had no clothes on
.

I closed my legs all the way and threw my hands down to cover the apex of my thighs.

I opened my eyes and there were Nathan and Cole, the vampires were back.

“Has she been... violated?” Nathan asked.

Cole bent down, putting his nose right above my crotch and I flinched, he laughed. He shook his head. “No, there is no human taint upon her.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the secretary and said, “Take care of the human female and all that you encounter in the interim.”

Nathan nodded and sped down the hall, a blur of gray, the black softened by the motion of his body.

Cole swung his gaze back to me. “Are you alright?”

I nodded stiffly, his voice was like velvet gravel and I became aroused again. I was instantly furious with myself. I had just about been raped by a police officer for shit's sake and here I was: ready-to-hump a stranger that wasn't even human. I started shaking from shock and cold.

Perfect.

“I'm fine,” I said, getting up unsteadily and searching for my skirt without a shred of dignity. Difficult to have
any
when you were wearing a top, thigh-highs and nothing else.

Cole-the-vampire held out my skirt, which dangled from a finger but the panties were beyond repair. I grabbed it and threw it on, hopping twice to get it zipped up. As I'd been getting the skirt on Cole stared at my body, his eyes missing nothing. I was still flushed by the scrutiny and feeling vulnerable. There was no place that was safe
.
The police station was not safe,
obviously
, and the dangerous vampires were back. Their motivations were suspect.

Nathan burst back into the grim interrogation room and nodded at Cole. “It is done.”

Cole looked at me. “Time to go.”

“No,” I said, backing away.

“It is not safe for you here. The human males smell us on you...
on her
.” He gave a dismissive glance at Michelle. “They will try to take you by force.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Nathan shrugged. “They are little more than the basest animals. They smell vampire pheromone and it causes a territorial urge that they can't intellectualize away.”

“They wish to mate with any female that comes into close contact with one of our kind. It is primal. They think if
they
can impregnate
you
, then we obviously... cannot.”

Made a warped kind of sense
.
I had a sudden thought. “But Michelle isn't a 'breeder'.”

Cole smiled, turning to Nathan. “I told you the Druids were superior. It is more than just bloodline. It is many things.”

Nathan grunted. He didn't sound convinced.

They looked at me and I stared back. Finally, I shook my head. “I'm sorry, I don't know you and you're obviously dangerous... I have a life here,” I said by way of explanation.

“We know of your life, Witch,” Cole said.

“It's Rachel.”

“Rachel,” his voice caressed each syllable and I was
so
into that sound, like spoken velvet caressing things down low in my body. I had to shake my head to get rid of the urge to undress right there.

Nathan laughed. “She is ready for you, Cole.”

“Yes.”

That was so unflattering.
What? Could they smell my arousal?

Nathan nodded, interpreting my expression. “We know when you are ripe, female. We must. How many breeders are in existence for us?”

“Too few,” Cole responded.

Jewel was coming to his senses. He swung his head from side to side, trying to clear it. He got up from all fours and started to come for me and Cole turned to him. “Not her,” baring his fangs with a hiss.

Jewel looked bewildered but only for a moment, then his gaze fixed on Michelle and he walked toward her.

“No!” I yelled. “He can't rape her!”

But Cole and Nathan shook their heads, holding me back from saving my friend.

“We need him to be distracted from taking you. He will not remember. He will fuck the human female and they will be caught up in dealing with him and... her.”

I watched in muted horror as Jewell dropped his pants, inserted a finger inside her and with a satisfied nod, he pushed his shaft in deeply, working it in and out, never even glancing our way. Michelle's eyes flew open and she started to holler and Nathan stalked over to her, looking deeply in her eyes he said, “You're coming.”

Michelle began to scream in a whole different way, her core grabbing onto Jewel's cock as he ground it into her. He sped his pace as we all watched, tears silently streaming down my face. My friend used a pawn on the chessboard of everyone else. As Jewell finished up, his balls slapping her ass, he groaned, “Ah, yeah...” and with several quick thrusts, he collapsed on top of her.

“I can't do this,” I said, backing away from everyone. I couldn't help Michelle as Jewel flipped her over on her stomach.

“What's he doing?” I nearly yelled.

“Her ass, I think,” Nathan said casually.

I ran then.

I ran down the hall, past people that stood in a stupor and didn't see me. I rushed outside in a ripped skirt, heels and a torn blouse moving swiftly to my right, heading straight for the first building I could see.

I could get help,
I thought.

Suddenly, a large hand clamped on my shoulder and whirled me around.

It was Cole. “You
will
come with us.”

He put a bag over my head and Nathan tied my wrists together. A feeling of weightlessness overcame me, causing me to feel at once heavy and light. My vision receded to a small point of light. Then... even that went black and I knew no more.