Noose (Road Kill MC #1) (42 page)

CHAPTER 6

Holly

Holly came awake and her vision was instantly filled by a huge form, his silhouette overwhelming her.

The memories of the attack flooded her mind in a slipping sludge and she screamed, her voice box going hoarse with it. A large, cold hand covered her mouth, the size so large it cupped her face. Her scream died against his flesh.

She looked up at him, her bladder clenching uncomfortably and knew she would die. Instinctively, Holly knew that they were alone, Jill gone. Fat tears ran down her face. She would die here with a lunatic. He might do things to her. Holly thought of how young she was, inexperienced. She was just a freshman in college.

A virgin. Her wide blue eyes flicked to his, glittering marbles of deep inky black fire stared back.

Then he spoke, “Be still. I mean you no harm, Druid.”

Holly listened in confusion. What was a Druid? She was a woman, she didn't know what he was talking about. And she didn't believe him on the no harm thing, either.

“If I remove my hand, will you stay quiet?” his brows lifted.

She nodded her head. He was huge. If he wanted to subdue her, he sure could.

He slowly lifted his palm away and sat crouched back, ready. She crawled away until her back met something solid.

They regarded each other and after a moment he said, “You are safe with me.”

Holly shook her head and asked, “Where's Jill?”

His eyes shifted away then came back to her gaze. “She is safe.”

Holly's voice trembled and she asked, “What are you going to do with me?”

Nathan thought about softening the blow but thought that her knowing may secure her compliance... or not. “Breed you. I will breed you.”

Holly was stunned into silence. Then she looked at him, her eyes taking in everything. There was something otherworldly about him. His eyes had looked black but with the moonlight coming through a dirty pane of glass they had silvered, reflective in the strange bluish-white light.

“What are you?” she whispered, her voice quaking.

“I am a Reaper,” he said, his eyes never leaving hers.

“What... what is that?”

“I am Vampire,” Nathan said.

Holly made a move to leap from her perch and he was there in a blur of gray, her eyes unable to track his speed.

Her breath came in a hitching gasp and he held her while she squirmed against him, his shaft growing against her with her movements, arousing him.

“Please...” Holly begged, “please don't rape me.”

Nathan kept her against him and as she struggled to get away, he captured her chin and easily forced her gaze to lock with his. “I did not say I would rape you.”

Holly stopped struggling, his erection straining between them. “If you aren't going to rape me then what are you going to do?”

Nathan smiled, his path clear. “Keep you, protect you... breed you. Maybe, eventually, you will come to care for me.”

Holly sagged in his huge arms, she felt the heat climb her body beginning at her feet and knew that she was in the first stage of shock.

Being captured by a mythological vampire that wanted to have babies with her would do it.

Nathan gathered the small Druid in his arms as she fainted for the second time that night. He clasped her against his chest protectively and studied her face. He had been wrong. She was not the Druid that Cole had rescued. But she was a relation. Of that he had no doubt.

Their features were uncannily similar, except for the size. This Druid was built like a doll, and very young.

Untried.

He would be her first.

Very soon.

****

I stretched my arms above me, feeling Zach beside me. He had not pressed me for more, sensing my conflicting feelings about Cole, about my circumstances, about my internal emotions of escape. I didn't know what to think.

What to do.

If I escaped I would have to find shelter, with not a cent. I sighed and Zach's eyes snapped open, instantly alert and ready.

For anything.

He wrapped a muscular arm around me and pulled me close, kissing me softly and I stiffened. Too confused to even pretend to know what to do.

He pulled away with a frown. “You will warm to me eventually,” he said.

Zach got out of the bed and dressed, his ass clenching and flexing deliciously as he put on some soft pants and turned, catching me admiring him.

I watched as his cock grew in the pants and met his gaze uneasily.

“Do not worry, we will go at your pace. But my body grows impatient. And that, I cannot help.”

With a sigh, he threw on a tight T-shirt and strode to the door. His hand clenched the door frame until the knuckles bled white. “I will return in one half-hour to escort you for breakfast.”

I looked at the night sky out the window. “But it's...”

He nodded. “It is breakfast for us. It will be something you grow accustomed to as well.” His face grew wistful. “Maybe one day, the night will not be my prison.”

I pulled the sheets up to my chin.

Because of me. The Druid mates could supposedly tolerate daylight. Because of me. Because of my blood.

He smiled, seeing my internal machinations and strode out the door.

I exhaled in a rush, my thoughts a distracted tangle of two men, my life and escape.

I began to dress when I heard the doorknob rattle.
What was he doing back so soon,
I wondered?
He'd said one half-hour.

I put my pants in front of me, shielding the view of my panties. My bra was half exposed through the shirt I'd thrown on and I met Erik's hungry gaze.

Oh fuck
, I lamented and turned to run, slamming the bathroom door behind me. I turned the lock just as his shoulder slammed into it, the wood giving and splintering against the lock.

He came through the door, slamming it against the wall and I ran behind the tub, my hair still damp from the bath chilling against my skin, damp with stress and fright.

“Get over here you uppity bitch!” he hissed at me, his hands balled into fists. “You're gonna give me what I need and that stupid vamp isn't around to stop me.” He grabbed his crotch with one hand and my stomach fell. All this talk of not raping Druids and how important they were to the Vampires and this loser human was going to rape me. It didn't matter how precious I was to them, he didn't care. I was just another woman to abuse to him. My importance to them became lost in the face of his perversion.

*

Cole

Cole came upon the house easily enough. The scent of the
rogue
was thick in his nostrils. The lair was within reach. But he mustn’t just charge in. There would be too many guards. He would watch and see the perfect time to infiltrate their hideaway. He looked up at the place, maybe at one time an old hospital from the war, built stout and large, it looked like it was the right size to hold a coven the size of the
rogue.

Cole chose his perch carefully and began his grim watch. All the while knowing that Rachel was within those walls. His nose told him so.

It also told him she was near her fertile time.

He sat for a moment or two and heard a high keening noise. It was a sound that made him leap to his feet. He would know it anywhere.

The sound of a female in distress and under attack.

He moved with a speed he did not know he possessed.

*

I struck Erik in the face with the back brush that was located beside the tub I'd just relaxed in. His nose opened cooperatively and blood fountained out of it like a fire hydrant.

He swung with his body and backhanded me, sending me careening into the wall. My head struck first and I saw stars. He was on me that fast, wrapping his hand in my long hair and crushing his mouth to mine, blood and spit mixed in with his assault. He dragged my panties down and grabbed my sex roughly, hurting me. I moaned in pain with the last little bit of consciousness I had as I clamped down on his lip with my teeth, nearly meeting them together. He howled, staggering backward and I slid down the wall until my bare butt hit the cold tile, panties at my ankles. My bell had been rung by the blow and I didn't have the strength to pull them up.

Even when Cole blasted through the window I didn't stir. It couldn't be him... he was, I couldn't think where he was, glass spraying in a brittle rain all around me.

“Rachel!” he roared, coming at me.

I pointed to Erik thinking thickly that he needed to have his ass taken care of. Forget me for the moment. Cole turned to where I pointed and in a spinning leap he was on Erik who mewled for mercy underneath him.

Too late.

Cole plunged his fangs into his large throat and tore out his esophagus. I felt my head go light and threw it between my knees. It spun when I closed my eyes, a vision of Erik's breathing tube like a grotesque worm on the tile, his vile blood spilling everywhere.

Then Cole was before me, gently lifting my face to meet his. The first words out of his mouth were, “Has he had you?”

I began to cry and he shook me gently. “Has he?” he asked softly, his eyes belying the tenderness of his voice.

I shook my head.
He'd been very close to having me,
I thought dismally, but by some stroke of luck they hadn't. Probably because Zach was good. Somehow, he was Vampire but he was a good vampire.

I began to laugh and Cole looked at me, puzzled. I realized that getting hysterical was not good.

Didn't matter, I couldn't stop laughing then the laughter turned to sobs. It wasn't until the other
rogue
filled the doorway and I met Zach's eyes that I stopped crying. Cole pulled my panties up one handed, my dizziness slowing the awkward maneuver to a snail's pace.

*

Cole jerked Rachel behind him, his anger beating a staccato rhythm in his temple. His vision of Rachel half naked and her face bearing the mark of a fist made him want to kill everything in sight. He took in the human, his windpipe laying beside him and wished with a vicious lust he could have beat him with it had he still been alive.

Zach also took in the scene.  Rachel had been beaten and his Intimate dispatched.

His eyes shifted to hers and he felt a remorse more profound than any he had ever known. He had tough choices to make. Not the least of which was: if he harmed Cole, without knowing more of her relationship with him, would she ever mate with him? Yet, if he did not get rid of the primary competition for her affection, all was lost.

Zach smiled coolly at Cole. “I see thanks are in order, Reaper.”

Cole met his eyes, Rachel a trembling presence behind him. “I thought that you would take better care of a Druid of this purity,” Cole responded. Rachel saw Zach's eyes flinch. “Yet, here she was, ready to be savaged by a human. Common livestock,” he enunciated with derision, his palm indicating Erik.

Zach's eyes narrowed. “I was negligent. Leaving him to guard her when I knew there was a disobedient streak with that one.” He looked at Rachel. “I am sorry that I left you unprotected with him.”

Rachel didn't know what to think. They were a violent people, race, whatever.

It was a stalemate. She knew that Cole would fight for her. But as she looked at Zach, the stern lines of his face, the determination etched there said the same.

They squared off. Cole moving forward.

Rachel clenched her eyes together, the wind from the broken window chilling her skin into a riot of gooseflesh.

A
rogue
rushed into the room, causing both vampires to swivel into a defensive crouch toward him.

“Captain!” Zach straightened, focusing one eye on the newcomer and one on Cole.

Cole was honorable, he would not attack another vampire unawares.

“What?” His eyes narrowed on the
rogue
, who shifted in nervousness but said, “There is another on the grounds.”

Cole's eyebrows shot up and, picking up Rachel as to avoid the shards of broken glass on the floor, he traveled to the window, scenting.

He would recognize that fragrance anywhere, Druid. His nostrils flared and he picked up another. A familiar scent wafted on the wind, hitting his acute network of olfactory senses. All of them ringing together, matching the signature to the vampire.

Nathan had come.

And with him, another Druid.

CHAPTER 7

Holly was cold. The mammoth creature by her side did not generate a lot of body heat and between being terrified of the next five minutes and feeling dazed because of fainting she just wanted to check out on reality. It was impossible for her to believe that just three short hours ago she and Jill had been walking back from study group. A boring thing, more of an excuse to get together and gossip about guys and the latest scandal than to get any practical work done.

She was too much of a coward to ask about Jill. She didn't know if she
wanted
to know. It was pretty daunting just holding her own with the male that was named Nathan. At least that's what he called himself. Then he'd told her that he'd caught the “scent” of his buddy, Cole.

Of course,
Holly thought, he hadn't called him his buddy, but “comrade.” He spoke really weird. Holly couldn't put her finger on it but he sounded a little like that hot guy out of the old movie,
Kate and Leopold.
Her initial fear had quieted. Holly was innately practical and knew that if she wanted to get away from this freak that she'd have to bide her time. She had to admit though, when he wasn't looming over the top of her and talking about breeding all the time he had a real pull on her.

Like a magnet.

It was a little scary. She'd felt him up against her when she struggled and he was built huge. She didn't want
that
inside her. She wanted her first time to be with someone she loved, not some crazy guy that sucked people's blood. She felt a hysterical bubble of laughter well up inside her and recognized, on some level, she was in a state of shock.

She stood next to Nathan. He looked down at her dark head and pulled her in closer to his side for warmth.

For protection

*

Nathan stood underneath a great sweep of trees, the small Druid pressed to his side, his weapons cold comfort against his body, necessary bulges underneath his lightweight clothing.

Vampires were naturally impervious to the cold.

Looking up at the old building he saw a curtain like a gauzy flag waving out of the shattered pane, loud voices coming from inside. His sensitive hearing picked up and triangulated the position of a familiar voice.

Cole.

He would know what to do. Together, they could escape. There would be a chance with the women. He would not return to Alexander's coven. There the Druid virgin would be passed around like meat, their only motivation to impregnate her and get their coveted vampires that walked in daylight. As long as Nathan had breath in his body, he would not let that be her end.

He pressed her closer while he made his way toward the structure.

*

Cole stepped away from the window, his vision picking up Nathan with a Druid clutched under his side. She looked like a girl, not a woman. Cole frowned.

I didn't see what Cole was looking at but he turned with purpose. “Do not follow me. Leave this alone,
rogue
. Leave Rachel alone,” he commanded.

Zach narrowed his eyes as Cole backed us toward the open window. “I cannot,” he said softly and rushed Cole in a blur of speed.

Cole pushed himself backward with one arm pressing against me as we fell backward out the window, the cold air hitting me like a punch in the gut. He did a spin midair that made me want to throw up and landed on his feet, scooping me against him as he fell.

Zach barreled into the two of us and my body slipped out of Cole's grasp and I tumbled into the snow, my bare legs instantly soaked and freezing.

I wouldn't last long in this weather without proper clothing.

The vampires went at each other in a flurry of hands. Too fast for me to track, the meaty sounds of flesh connecting with flesh were the only noises in a forest surrounding a building gone silent except for them.

The remaining
rogue
poured out through the door, circling the fighting vampires cautiously.

I stood on shaky legs. My feet were screaming with pain in the cold snow, my body starting to shiver, teeth chattering. Behind me I heard a small noise. Turning away from the fighting I saw a girl that looked about nineteen. Even in the gloom I could see we could have been sisters. She looked so much like me I gasped in surprise.

Holly looked at a tallish woman in nothing but panties, bra, and half a ripped blouse, while two huge men beat the snot out of each other behind her, blood splattering the snow like oil flung, the blackness pockmarking the whiteness.

She tried to leave Nathan and go to the other woman but he held her. Holly felt immediately connected with her. Her chest tightened uncomfortably.

I came toward the girl and the... Reaper. I could definitely tell what he was. I remembered him from the meadow.

“Nathan?” I asked. And suddenly Zach and Cole were beside me, their ragged breathing and beaten faces tense.

Nathan hissed and stepped in front of the young Druid while Cole tried to tear me away from Zach.

I found myself wanting to sleep. The beginnings of hypothermia were setting in.

Cole gave me a worried glance and picked me up where I stood.

Zach said, his mouth bloody, “The
rogue
will not let you take her, Reaper.”

Holly looked at the two vampires. Because that was what they were, their fangs sprung and dark, wearing the blood of each other. The one that was slightly bigger held the woman in his arms, cradling her. Her hands and feet were turning an alarming shade of blue.

Holly looked around Nathan, his big body blocking hers and met the stare of the male with silver eyes.

Something clicked inside Holly like a hammer on a gun drawn and ready to strike. It reverberated in her chest, a bell struck.

Zach looked at the small female before him, pressed up against the Reaper that claimed her as protector and felt something integral in his chest slide into place as if it had been waiting for this moment to come together. His body righted itself.

Holly moved toward him before she realized she was and Nathan roared, “No!” in a bellowing wail, rushing Zach.

Cole backed up, realizing how the tide had turned.

A true mate had been imprinted upon. It was the
rogue
and the new Druid. They were meant to be together.

A true mating pair. A thing of legend.

Cole would have to stop Nathan. He looked down at Rachel, her warmth perilously slipping away. She would die if he could not attend to her.

Holly ran for the man in front of her. Needing to touch him, connect to him, as if he was food and she was starving. She didn't question the instinct, but acted on it like a compulsion. Her feet propelled her forward into the dark, into the arms of a vampire.

He was the one for her.

Zach saw the girl come for him and he rushed forward to meet her even as he saw a group of vampires enter the clearing.

*

Alexander entered the clearing with his finest contingent of Reapers. They had scented the Druids to these coordinates. The very location they knew to be a
rogue
coven.

He saw Nathan and Cole, a
rogue
and the two Druids. One was Rachel. His mouth salivated as he thought of his fingers buried in her core and what he almost had within his grasp. Shoving his lust away with an effort he looked at the other breeder, who bore a startling likeness to Rachel. He compared the two. Then something strange happened. The young Druid rushed the
rogue
and leapt onto him, causing him to stagger back, the moonlight revealing wounds that had been inflicted by fists. He knew that damage. His eyes shifted to Cole, who was holding a shivering and comatose Rachel. His jacket was wrapped around her to conserve her body heat.

Why she was in her underthings remained a mystery. She had better not have been tried, he thought, signaling the Reapers to flank the group.

*

Cole brought Rachel in closer to his body and with one arm put a restraining palm on Nathan.

“No!” Cole yelled, straining against Nathan's charge. Nathan whipped his head around to Cole and said, “She is mine! I found her, she is not for the
rogue
!” His eyes were wild and pinned on Holly.

“Look with eyes not consumed by lust!” Cole shouted. “They are a true, mated pair.”

Holly slammed into Zach and got up on her tiptoes and began to kiss him, touch him. The blood on his face was inconsequential to her. She could not get close enough to him. He groaned into her mouth and wrapped her up in his arms, picking her up against him, even as his eyes took in the leader of their enemy coven.

Zach felt every protective instinct he possessed fire up and come together into a pure rage, focused at the threat at hand. He watched the Reapers spread out and surround their group.

He turned with the young Druid in his arms, assessing where his vampires were and saw that the match was even, their bodies already poised for battle.

He let the girl slide down his front and felt a loss at their parting.

Holly whimpered to the man that held her and clung to him. She knew that she shouldn't feel like she did but every fiber of her being screamed for him.

Zach stroked her hair, pressing her face against his chest, hissing at the newcomers.

His fangs dripped toxic venom onto the snow.

*

Alexander entered the deepest part of the clearing, taking in the two Reapers that appeared weary, the
rogue
that had been beaten and had all the protective hallmarks of a mated vampire. His eyes flicked to the girl pressed against him, mewling and whimpering in the first throes of Impression. If that
rogue
fucked her, she would be unable to bear offspring with another.

Worthless.

Alexander made up his mind quickly. “Take the Druids, kill the others.”

He did not need Reapers in his coven that did not follow orders.
Or
who took a female breeder he wished to have for himself.

Cole barely had time to lay Rachel down on the cold ground, her breathing shallow, her skin freezing in front of him before the first Reaper was on him.

A Reaper he had been paired with before in battle, against others, who now fought him as an enemy.

Nathan fought by his side, as before. Cole stayed in front of Rachel and the other Druid. Even though it was clear he could not have her.

Duty prevailed. Protect the breeders.

Zach moved Holly behind him protectively. “Stand back, little one,” he said to her, caressing her cheek with the pad of his thumb. She wrapped a small hand in the back of his shirt and clung to him. He turned and removed her hand. “I cannot protect you while we are under siege.”

“Look out!” Holly screamed and Zach ducked as the swipe of a hand ending in talons narrowly missed where his head had been. He turned and launched himself at the Reaper, his own talons punching out of fingertips that had lengthened to accommodate them.

Holly got low to the ground, crawling to the woman that lay there in the center of the firestorm of fighting. Immediately Holly saw that she was slowly freezing to death and took off her own shoes, putting them on the woman. She took off the parka she wore over another jacket and wrapped the woman's bare legs in it. It was the best she could do and not freeze to death herself.

She covered the woman with her body and watched as the vampire she could hardly breathe without pummeled the other that had come to take her. Holly saw a large vampire advance on her and the woman and she burrowed in deeper beside her, making herself smaller. He looked bad. Worse than the one named Nathan.

Nothing like the one that defended her.

Cole watched Alexander advance on the women and redoubled his efforts to dispatch the Reapers. Nathan and he worked in tandem very well.

It was no different now. Nathan got a strangle hold on with one Reaper, the breath torn from his body and Cole stabbed him in the skull with a talon, twisting it at the last moment, so the brain was scrambled, its signals--gone. The Reaper's body imploded into a pile of ash, as effective as removing the head. He and Nathan turned in time to see Alexander grab the young Druid and she shrieked.

For the
rogue
.

The
rogue
turned from the body of a Reaper he had just decapitated, dumping it like trash at his feet and flung himself toward Alexander. His Druid's blood made him choose rashly, impulsively. For Alexander was a thousand years old and this
rogue
was no match for his stealth.