Six rules undying book 2, p.22
Six (Rules Undying Book 2), page 22
Paige hopped back up to her feet. She kept her eyes on Nadia’s claws, which were now tapping the edge of the desk.
“You think I’m some spy or something?” Paige asked.
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“I was attacked by some freak named Irvine. I bit him by accident—”
“At first I almost believed that a few of our kind made it out in the wild, but why would they attack you, a supposedly random girl in the middle of a backwater city?”
“My father—”
“Yeah, a conspiracy theorist who threatened to expose vampires,” Nadia snarled. “Who would even believe him if he did come forth with any evidence? He’s a red herring; I can feel it in my guts—”
Paige backed to the door. Nadia took that moment to pounce.
Paige could hear the crack of her ribs as the full force of Nadia’s elbow slammed against her chest. She slashed once with her claws, but it only tickled the beast’s muscled arms.
“Yo, you OK in there?” Toy called from outside.
Paige tried to squeak a reply, but Nadia’s other arm constricted her throat. “I wanted to welcome you in, to see if the outside force would make a move,” Nadia growled. “I thought that Lorcan would be driven mad by killing you, but no, you seem to be some sort of siren
—”
“Nadia?” Toy asked as she opened the door. “Nadia, what the hell?”
Toy grabbed Nadia’s arm and yanked it back. Paige took that moment to sprint for freedom. Nadia actually tore the office door from its hinges as she burst into the gym. A bleeding Toy chased after her, but the Russian simply had too much momentum.
Paige scrambled for the obstacle course and did a flying leap onto the rock wall so that she could scramble for a ledge. The twins and Tina came running into the gym as well.
“Nadia!” Kyle snapped.
The werewolf responded by leaping after Paige and pulling herself onto the course. Before she could lunge for Paige’s leg, however, the shadows in the room coalesced and slammed into Nadia. Both forms ended up crashing to the floor, sending dangerous
splinters flying. Lorcan roared as the shadows peeled away, clutching his shoulder as a sliver of wood poked into his chest.
“You don’t touch her,” Lorcan snarled even as he dropped to his knees.
Paige watched in horror as Kyle ran to the vampire’s side while Nadia and Toy stumbled away. Paige dropped to the floor, stumbling and crawling toward the shuddering form of Lorcan. Kyle ripped out the massive splinter and started clawing out the bubbling angry red section of flesh where the fragments had dug into skin.
They could only watch as the doctor helped the vampire limp back to the locker rooms. Paige tried to follow, but a solid line of growling werewolves held their ground. Paige snapped out her claws, but didn’t dare advance as both Kayleigh and Toy stared at her with canine eyes and bared their fangs.
Paige did the only thing she could do. She turned and ran.
- 16 -
Paige stared in confusion at the heavy leather gloves on her hands as she ran for her life. She looked left and right. Even though she had been running for ages in the forestland tucked in Collierville, Tennessee, it had not yet given way to subdivisions or highways.
She looked down at sandals on her feet and felt a sword at her side.
“What the—” she gasped as the forest parted to reveal not a highway, but a decidedly archaic circle of massive gray stones standing sentinel in a brilliant green field. Paige skidded to a stop on the damp grass and watched as three horses thundered toward the circle while a figure in a black cloak waited between two of the stones.
Paige felt heavy leather and fabric all over her body and became aware of a mask covering her face. The moment she tried to pull the oppressive fabric down her nose, she felt the sun burn to the point of blisters in seconds. She retreated, and as she did, the shadows from the forest wrapped around her body, concealing her from the new, heavily armed group at the stones.
Two of the strangers wore full leather armor and carried swords at their sides and shields on their backs. One immediately pulled off his helmet and sniffed the air. Paige cocked her head as she saw a vaguely familiar set of features buried under an untamed reddish-blond beard. One piercing blue eye scanned the horizon, while the other was hidden behind a wad of bandages.
“Were we followed, Kai?” the other soldier asked as he dismounted. He then turned to help the third stranger down, a much
slimmer, slighter figure in a dark red cloak. Her blonde braids poured over her shoulders, and she whipped back her hood.
“Guinevere, please be cautious,” Kai warned as he continued to survey the forest edge. Paige trembled and curled into a little ball of shadows as she tried to avoid both his gaze and the equally steely expression of his female companion.
“It’s a wee bit late for that, isn’t it, brother dear?” she said with a bitter laugh. “What does it matter, now that my love is with me?”
She darted back to the other soldier and pulled off his helmet.
Paige felt her heart thundering in her chest as she recognized the green eyes, pale skin, and dark brown hair.
“Lorcan,” Paige gasped as her eyes snapped open. She found herself nestled in some sort of shed, tucked between blue tubes and retching at the overwhelming aroma of chlorine. Even amid the dust, mold, and pool chemicals, she could still smell the faint mix of musk and cold medicine.
She grabbed her head. Every time she closed her eyes, flashes of the trio would appear. The only face she couldn’t see was that of the man in the black cloak.
“What is happening now?” she whispered. She stumbled to her feet and crept out of some stranger’s pool house. She slipped into the subdivision and tried to act casual as she wandered the streets of a nice Collierville neighborhood in a filthy shirt and pair of sweatpants. She double-checked and quickly shoved her tail down her pants before anyone could notice. She only had to walk a block before it occurred to her exactly which subdivision she had wandered into this fine evening. Her feet seemed to know the way instinctively to the brick house at the end of a quiet little street. She shuffled past the sign and approached the side door cautiously, even though there were no signs of any cars in the driveway.
Her hand reached toward a slightly askew brick. Sure enough, when she pulled it out, a spare key waited for her. She sniffed the doorway warily before sneaking inside. Only a night-light in the kitchen remained on, but it was enough for her to navigate to her purse on the counter and her phone charging innocuously on a tray.
She reached, but jerked away as the shadows in the room didn’t match the reflection on her phone. A hand clamped around her mouth and jerked her into the darkness.
“I knew you’d come back to me, a rún,” Lorcan hissed in her ear. He didn’t wait to sink his fangs into her, and they ended up collapsed on the kitchen floor. As her head landed on the cold laminate, Lorcan let the shadows peel away so she could just see his face. He brushed the hair from her eyes before he bit his own wrist and then pressed the fresh cut against her lips.
“Drink, Paige. I’m so sorry.”
This time when she drank, she could feel something thick and sticky pushing into her mouth and then into her nose. She gagged and fought for breath for a moment before passing out.
Paige woke up this time in Lorcan’s arms, wrapped in a blanket and nothing else. She groaned and smacked her lips as a terrible metallic taste coated her tongue. This time the vampire was cold and frightfully still, the whooshing in his chest faint and intermittent. His shoulder and chest were bandaged, and angry purplish striations radiated across his torso.
Footsteps sounded outside the bedroom. Paige curled to her feet, but Lorcan remained utterly still. “Lorcan,” she hissed.
She yanked on a shirt and crept behind the door. As it creaked open, she let her claws pop out.
“Grandpa?”
She snapped around the door and grabbed a stunned Kyle. He barely managed to mutter, “Paige, stop,” as she shoved him into the wall. “Paige . . . not . . . your . . . ene—” he wheezed.
Paige stumbled back. Kyle wasted no time pulling back the bandages and checking on Lorcan’s wound. He injected something into Lorcan’s neck and let out a sigh.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.
“Nothing. He’s just hibernating, sort of. It takes a lot of energy to maintain a human body after a few centuries,” Kyle said. “He warned me that he was going out, and he wanted me to make sure that I found you.”
“What?”
“It’s complicated,” Kyle muttered. He grabbed his medical bag off the floor and pulled out a bag of blood. Paige did her best to help him set up the IV and held the bag while Kyle redid the bandage.
“Grandfather thinks that one of the other clans is gunning for him. Fucking vampire politics,” Kyle grumbled. “Nadia is pretty convinced it’s the Lungs and that you’re their spy, but no one is sure of anything. Lorcan ordered her to stand down, but you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to convince a Russian hit woman not to kill someone when they think they have good reason.”
“So what happens now?” Paige asked.
“Right now, I have my orders. I’m supposed to get you to one of Grandpa’s safe houses, and we’re going to find out everything that we can about these mysterious berserkers who recruited you.”
“What?”
“Toy has a false tip that you’re skulking around your mother’s house. That buys us thirty minutes, forty tops with traffic,” Kyle said.
“Grandpa is in stable condition, and Nadia is going to protect him better than anyone—”
“But what about my mom?”
“She’ll be fine. Nadia only wants you dead right now.”
“Great.”
“Did he drink from you last night?” Kyle asked as he felt for a pulse on the vampire’s neck.
“Yes,” Paige said.
Kyle nodded quickly. “Fresh, living blood, that’s good. Of course it would have been better if it wasn’t full of a virus, but it’s doing more good than harm right now.”
He took the blood bag from her. “Grab some clothes. Leave your purse and your phone”
“What?”
“Please don’t argue. Toy drives like a maniac.”
Paige scrambled to get a few clothes and shoved them in a plastic bag, saving one skirt to shimmy into quickly. She then grabbed the final container of pasta from the fridge and ran back to Lorcan and Kyle.
“Where are we even going?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you more when we’re on our way. Stay strong, Grandpa,”
Kyle muttered before squeezing Lorcan’s arm. “Nadia may very well kill me for this, but let’s go.”
Paige dropped to her knees and gave Lorcan a quick kiss on his cold lips. “You’re going to explain this,” she hissed before scrambling after the redhead. He stopped to program something into the keypad by the door.
“No one is getting in here for thirty minutes,” Kyle said as they left. “I’m so glad he stopped boarding himself in an old coffin when he needed to hibernate.”
“You drive a Fiat?” she muttered as they made their getaway in a teeny, tiny bright blue import.
“Actually, I’m stealing my sister’s car for the first leg of this trip. I really wish we could have caught a flight,” Kyle grumbled.
“Why not?”
He raised a brow. “Which one will work better for you, the pat down or the X-ray?” he asked.
“Good point,” she said as her tail tucked itself under her thigh.
“We’ve got three choices that Nadia probably doesn’t know about—Cincinnati, Kansas City, or Chicago,” Kyle said as they pulled into a gas station parking lot. “I would have said Detroit, but Mina is running that town at the moment, and for some reason I don’t think you want to run into Lady Pendragon smelling just like her husband.”
“Chicago,” Paige said. “We should go to Chicago.”
“Any reason why, or is it just your kind of town?”
“Because that’s where Irvine and his creepy nephew came from. I remember the other girls in the office talking about them.”
“Works for me,” he said as he started up the fuel-efficient dinky four-cylinder. “We should have stolen Grandpa’s car.”
They ended up riding in relative silence on the highway for a few hours while Paige dozed fitfully. Once they reached the Kentucky border, Kyle stopped to stretch his legs and buy every pack of beef jerky in the gas station convenience store.
“I’m glad you picked Chicago. I have an actual lab there,” Kyle said. “What is that heavenly smell?”
“The last of my mom’s leftovers,” Paige said. “They’re cold, but probably light-years better than anything in there.”
“I’m gonna get us two forks then.”
The pair wolfed down pasta and puttered a few more hours north. As the night grew long, Kyle tugged at the collar of his shirt. “Is it warm in here to you?” he asked.
Paige fiddled with the AC until it was going full blast. She tried her best not to notice the surprising amount of muscles on Kyle’s freckled arms. I-57 seemed to stretch on for an eternity until they finally reached the outskirts of the Windy City in the wee hours of the morning.
“I really wish werewolves could tolerate coffee,” Kyle moaned as he stared bleary-eyed at all the lights.
“Yeah, I can’t stand the taste anymore,” Paige said as she rubbed her eyes. “I wish you’d let me drive some.”
“You know where the hidden vampire safe house is?” he snapped. They snipped at each other for a few more twists and turns until Kyle made his way into a parking lot under a high-rise somewhere near Lake Michigan. He double-checked the dash and glove compartment before gallantly grabbing his bags and Paige’s.
The two of them stumbled, exhausted, into an elevator. Kyle produced a key card that let them ride all the way up to the top floor.
“Of course the vampire has a penthouse,” Paige muttered as they arrived at a state-of-the art, sleek, modern apartment with a wall full of windows.
“First thing he bought after decent UV film was commercially available,” Kyle said. “There are blackout shades hidden in the valances though. It’s the only safe house he keeps that I think he bothered to decorate.”
Paige ran her fingers along the back of a slim leather sofa. All the fixtures taunted them with reflective chrome. There was even a large mirror over the fireplace in lieu of a television.
“Why would—” She trailed off as for the briefest of moments she could see a shadow move in the reflection.
“Vampire humor, I think,” Kyle said. “Grandpa said it was a sign of security. If a vampire feels safe, he doesn’t care who sees the
truth.”
“Apparently he doesn’t feel safe enough to have any wooden furniture though,” Paige said as she surveyed all the glass, stone, and metal. She wandered over to find an empty fridge and barren cabinets. Only the bar was fully stocked, with all manner of well-aged spirits.
Paige grabbed her head as the world started to spin. She stumbled right into Kyle. Much to both of their surprise, he grabbed her waist, pulled her to his height, and covered her mouth with his.
An awkward moment later, he dropped her and stumbled back.
“Eww,” he spat.
“What the hell?” she said. She immediately grabbed his neck and kissed him again. The terrible, sticky feeling from the previous night filled her mouth, and she gagged. “Oh, that is not right,” she said as she recoiled.
“That is definitely Grandpa in there—yuk,” Kyle said. “You might be the first girl I’ve ever found attractive, but that killed it. That totally killed it. Please never speak of this to anyone—ever.”
“My lips are sealed. What the hell is happening to me?”
Kyle pointed to a door with a keypad. “Step into my office and let’s find out,” he said.
He led Paige into a windowless room with an examining table, lights, cabinets, and all sorts of scientific-looking equipment. She eyed the chains in the floor with suspicion.
“It’s a lab meant to be werewolf proof,” he explained. “Wow, you are distracting, and creepy. I need blood from both of us; and can you boot that computer?”
Kyle licked his lips again as he grabbed a sample kit. “Oh god, Grandpa risked it, didn’t he? Paige, how much blood did he give you?”
She sat down on the examination table and held out her arm.
“Not much, but it was different somehow, thicker. It went up my nose, I think. I passed out soon after he fed me. Have you got any vapor rub or something? You’re really distracting too,” she said as his musk permeated the contained room.
“Good idea,” he said as he fumbled in a drawer. “Grandpa always keeps it around.”
Both of them breathed in the brain-numbing menthol for a few seconds before Kyle drew the samples. He pulled a needle pen out of his pocket and injected his arm.
“You’re gonna want to be in the other room for a while. I’m not going to be nice once these stimulants kick in,” Kyle said. “This entire apartment is designed to be werewolf proof. To open the bedroom door, you’ll need a passcode—”
“Camlann—2265266,” she replied without missing a beat.
Kyle nodded. “Please get out of here quickly,” he said as his green irises began to expand across his corneas.
She hurried out of the lab, and found the bedroom door without effort. Paige watched in amazement as the light turned green after typing in the numbers. Her eyes widened as she realized just how werewolf proof Lorcan liked his bedrooms to be.
A magnificent wrought-iron cage surrounded the bed. A sliding door at the foot of the bed was open for the moment. She counted the keypads in the room—one over each nightstand and one conveniently on the opposing walls. All of them had the same big red button she had seen in Tennessee. She ran her hands along the exposed brick, feeling just how solid and cool the masonry could be.
