Chapter 18
“Well, you’re pretty. I’ll give him that much.”
I shot up in bed and scrambled as far as I could from the stranger sneering down at me. Well, he wasn’t really a stranger. I mean, he’d torn into me, pinned me to a wall, and watched me nearly bleed out as he tried to kill me. I supposed that meant we were somewhat acquainted.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Ralph as I grappled for the blanket and pulled it up to my chin.
“I think the more interesting question,” he said as he stepped closer, “is what you’re doing here, dog.”
I was in the corner of the room, an angry vampire between me and the door. Things could have been better.
“This here is Miguel’s room,” I answered.
“Yes.” Ralph put one foot on the mattress. He was fully dressed, shoes included. That there was just poor manners. “It is Miguel’s room.” His second foot joined the first. I hoped he hadn’t stepped in any mud. “And yet you’re here. In his bed.” He shoved his foot under the blanket, kicked it up, caught it with his hand, and then yanked it off me. “Naked.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, shielding as much of myself as I could from his prying gaze.
“Well?” he said.
Was he expecting me to say something? Because I hadn’t heard a question in there. It seemed he had summed things up quite nicely. Plus, anything I could have said was right likely to antagonize him further. I was young, not stupid, so I kept my mouth shut. Seemed to me from the little bit I knew about this particular vampire, that there was a lesson he could have taken to heart.
I heard a door open and somebody running down the stairs. I already recognized Miguel’s gait, both by sight and sound, so I knew it wasn’t him. I must have been really out of it to have slept through Ralph’s descent into the basement. Miguel had been right to tell me I needed sleep.
“Ralph?” That was Ted’s voice. “Hector said you were down here.”
I was guessing Hector was one of their vampire friends. I’d never received formal introductions.
“In here,” Ralph shouted over his shoulder.
Ted came running in and stumbled to a stop just inside the doorway. “What’s going on?” he said, looking back and forth between me, cowering naked in the corner, and Ralph, towering over me and tracking who knew what onto the mattress.
“I was just asking Miguel’s dog here the very same thing,” he said as he gestured to me with his chin.
It wasn’t technically a true statement. I mean, he’d said a few things, sure enough, but he hadn’t asked any questions. I reckoned correcting him would just rile him further, and seeing as how he seemed more than a bit off-kilter, I decided against it.
“Shit!” Ted said. “We have just enough time to find shelter nearby before the sun rises, but we can’t lose any more time.” He sounded downright panicked. “Come on, we need to leave now.”
Ralph crossed his arms over his chest. “Now why would we do that? I just got here and I’m in no rush to leave.”
“Are you kidding me?” Ted asked disbelievingly. He looked at Ralph like the man was just eat up with stupid. Which, bless his heart, seemed to be an ongoing problem. “When Miguel finds you here, he will kill you.”
“Well, then, it’s a good thing he’s not going to find me, now isn’t it?” Ralph said darkly.
Ted’s jaw dropped. “What have you done?” he asked in a near whisper, fear laced through every word.
“I took care of our problem.” Ralph shrugged his shoulders and smirked at Ted, who seemed to be finding no humor in the situation.
“Our problem?” Ted repeated. “What problem?”
“What problem,” Ralph scoffed. “Your bossy unbalanced friend, that’s what problem.”
“Oh, fuck.” Ted’s face paled before my eyes, which was quite a feat because the man wasn’t exactly sporting a tan under the best of circumstances. “What have you done?”
“I just told you, I took—”
Ted moved forward and grasped Ralph’s upper arms, shaking him hard. I rather hoped it would bring the man to his senses, but to that point I’d seen neither hide nor hair of any sense nearby. “This isn’t a joke!” Ted shouted. “Do you have any idea who you’re messing with? Miguel Rodriguez is—”
“You have a thing for him, I get it!” Ralph said as he planted his hands on Ted’s chest and shoved him back. “But he’s gone, so you’re going to have deal with it and move on.”
“What, are you jealous?” Ted said, sounding truly surprised.
I didn’t know why. I was on Ralph’s side on this one; to my mind, Ted seemed a fair bit too infatuated with my mate. I would have said so and let him know he didn’t stand a chance, but my good buddy Ralph seemed to have things under control. That, and I reckoned he’d kill me if I so much as opened my mouth and reminded him that I was still in the room.
Ralph snorted. “Oh, please. Why would I be jealous?”
There were lots of reasons, actually, but it didn’t seem the time or place to get into them. Besides, trying to explain something to Ralph was as useless as tits on a bull.
“I don’t know, and you know what? I don’t care. At this point I’m just trying to keep you alive long enough to see another sunset. It’s too late for us to go anywhere, but I can probably talk Miguel into letting us stay in one of the rooms upstairs just for today. I know he said you couldn’t come back here, but maybe if I—”
“He’s gone!” Ralph shouted furiously. “Why aren’t you listening to me? I got rid of him, so it doesn’t matter what he said. We can stay here as long as we want. I can stay here as long as I want.”
All right, now I had to admit I was getting a tad nervous. Not much, mind you, because I was certain I’d be able to feel it in my soul if my mate was gone, so I knew Ralph was mistaken. Still, hearing that sunrise was so near and not seeing Miguel in the room, well, it was cause for some concern. All in all, I decided that a bit of worry was a good thing because it distracted me just enough to keep me from laughing at the vampire in front of me, who seemed to be doing an impression of a toddler throwing a fit.
“What exactly do you mean, you got rid of him? You can’t get rid of Miguel. He’s four centuries old, did you know that?”
Not having any idea about the age of other vampires, I didn’t realize Miguel’s age was unusual. It must have been at least a bit out of the ordinary, though, because for the first time since he walked into the room, something other than haughty confidence crossed over Ralph’s face.
True to form, the vampire shook off any indication of common sense right quick. “Well, as soon as the sun rises, those centuries are coming to a close.”
“And why is that?” Ted asked, his voice taking on a high-pitched quality. “What’d you do, Ralph?”
The vampire shrugged. “We all came down here to buy land, and your buddy thinks he can just sweep in and take it all out from under us. He had no right to do that. I decided he needed to be taught a lesson.”
“You—” Ted gulped. “You and your three friends together barely have enough money to buy a tiny plot of land and you decided to teach him a lesson?”
“Well, you have enough, and you were going to let me stay with you, right? But then he ruined it all, so we tied him up outside.” Ralph looked very pleased with himself. “See? I told you I got rid of him.”
“You tied him up and you think it’ll hold him?” Ted asked. “Don’t you remember how he got out of the chains you used last time? You think he was mad then? When he gets out of the restraints this time, he’ll—”
“He’s not getting out of them this time! We used twice as many chains.”
“We?”
“Yeah. Me and Pedro and Anthony and Andre. Your friend Hector is a pussy, but we didn’t need him anyway. Because after I heard Miguel bought up all that land, I called in reinforcements. They’re all watching him now. Eight vampires. He’s hanging out a window and the chains are long enough to reach inside where they can hold onto them. So you see? I have it all handled. He’s not getting out of it this time. Just as soon as the sun rises, Miguel Rodriguez will burn.”
It all sounded pretty ominous, and I’ll confess that my heart might have sped up just a hair, but I had seen my mate’s strength firsthand, and I had faith that he’d come back to me. Ted, on the other hand, looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Well, that was, if vampires could have heart attacks, which I was fairly sure they couldn’t.
“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” Ted said under his breath in horror. He glared at Ralph. “What building? Where are they?”
“Why do you want to know? You won’t get there in time to save him.”
“I’m not trying to save him!” Ted shouted. “He’s strong enough to save himself.” It was comforting to hear Ted speak aloud what I knew deep in my soul. “I’m trying to save your idiot friends from him. You weren’t turned long ago, so you don’t understand how rare it is for a vampire to survive as long as he has. It doesn’t happen by accident. Miguel is strong, even more so now than he’s been in all the years I’ve known him. This plan you’ve hatched is going to backfire and—”
“It’s too late anyway,” Ralph said. “The sun is rising.”
Almost as if on cue, footsteps and shouting rent the air. We all turned toward the door to see two vampires dragging themselves in. Their clothes were hanging in shreds and soaked in blood, their exposed skin was covered in abrasions, and their expressions showed pure, unadulterated terror. It was like something out of a ghost story we used to tell each other as kids. I had to turn my head from the sight before I emptied the contents of my stomach on the bed. That would have been worse than the dirty shoes.
“What’s going on?” Ralph shouted.
One of the vampires, whom I was fairly sure I recognized from the warehouse interactions, though it was hard to tell with his face coated in blood and dirt and scratches, opened his mouth to answer, but instead, blood gurgled out and he clutched his own throat and collapsed. Ted immediately dropped to his knees and pressed his hands onto the largest gashes, trying to curb the bleeding.
Ralph turned to the other vampire. “Pedro?” he squeaked out, his voice quivering.
“They’re gone,” Pedro said.
“Who?”
“All of them.” Pedro’s eyes were wide. “He was killing all of them.” He shook his head as if hoping to shove out the memory. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He gulped. “He…he somehow climbed up the chains and into the window. They were around his throat, he should have choked, but he didn’t. He just kept screaming something about his mate; it didn’t make sense.” He dragged his trembling fingers through his hair. “And then he got in and we tried to run, but he was too fast and there was screaming, so much screaming, and blood.” He paused for a few moments and gasped for air. “He pulled their hearts out of their chests with his bare hands, tore their heads off. Anthony and I were closest to the door, so we were able to get away.”
He looked up at Ralph, his face anguished. “Why?” His voice broke on the word. “Why did we have to do that? He’d been letting us stay with him, teaching us things. Everything was fine until you started fighting with him. And Hector told you it was a bad idea! He told you. But you wouldn’t listen and now…” Pedro’s legs seemed to give out from under him, and he curled up on the floor, shaking and crying.
I don’t know how I expected Ralph to react to that horrifying scene, but it certainly wasn’t to have him turn his angry, hate-filled eyes on me.
“He thinks he can kill my friends?” he asked, though I could only assume it was rhetorical because Pedro had just explained to us in graphic detail that not only did Miguel think he could kill Ralph’s friends, but he had in fact done so. “Well, let’s see how he feels about me killing his new little pet.”
“Ralph.” Ted sounded tired. He was still crouching on the ground over an unconscious Anthony, and I noticed that he’d peeled off his own shirt and torn it into strips of fabric that he was now tying around Anthony’s wounds. “For your own sake, stop.” He looked up at Ralph. “Leave. Run as far as you can and hope he won’t bother looking for you.”
Ralph was now within arm’s distance of me, and there was no way for me to curl myself into a smaller ball. He looked at Ted over his shoulder. “You’ll come with me?” he asked.
“No.” Ted shook his head. “I’m not leaving Miguel.”
“You don’t think he’ll kill you too?” Ralph asked. “You brought me along.” He waved his hand toward the door. “You brought all of us along. He’ll blame you for what happened just as much as he’ll blame me, and then you’ll end up like them.” He cocked his chin toward Pedro and Anthony’s bodies.
“If he does, then he does,” Ted said. “I’ll take what’s coming to me for my part in all of this.” He tore another strip from his shirt and wrapped it around yet another bleeding gash on the other vampire. “Miguel turned me. I won’t leave him.”
“But you’ll leave me? You turned me.”
“I did,” Ted said, not raising his gaze from his task of tending to the wounds. “And it was a mistake.”
Ted was looking down at the injured vampires, doing what he could to save them, so he couldn’t see the rage that crossed Ralph’s face, couldn’t see him flip around so he now faced Ted, couldn’t see him leap forward, aiming at Ted with murder in his eyes.
But I was off to the side, so I could see it all. And though I’d been jealous of Ted’s history with my mate, something that wasn’t at all alleviated by the new knowledge that Miguel had turned him and that Ted was willing to stand by his side even at the risk of his own death, I found myself admiring this particular vampire. His feelings ran deep, I could tell. He’d cared for the injured vampires at his own peril. He was loyal to my mate. In a roundabout way, I reckoned that made him a friend, even if he didn’t know it. And I didn’t exactly have a swarm of friends buzzing around.
“No!” I shouted as I jumped out of my crouch and stole Ralph’s attention back to me. “Don’t!”