It’s Only Just Begun

Delilah

 

He tossed me on the bed.

I bounced, staring at him as he prowled away from me and across the room.

I should have fought. I should have tried to run. I should have done anything but let him take my hand and drag me to his bike.

I didn’t.

When we got there, he didn’t let me go even as he swung astride it. Then he pulled me on in front of him, started up the bike, and we took off.

My dad was a biker. I’d been on a bike so often, if I had a nickel for each time, I’d be a millionaire. Hell, I even had my motorcycle license and my own bike at home in Dad’s garage.

But I’d never ridden up front while someone else was driving.

If I didn’t struggle and run when he took me to his bike, I should have done it when he stopped us in another alley, this one dark, dank, and not smelling all that great, located behind a Chinese restaurant.

And if I hadn’t done it then, I should have done it when he shoved a big Dumpster out of the way like it weighed no more than a shoebox, lifted the grate under it, and dragged me down a flight of stairs into a dark hall, to a steel door, and through, to this room.

No one lived in a scary basement room off an alley under a Dumpster.

At least no one I wanted to know.

Vaguely, as I sat on that bed, it came to me that I hurt. My shoulders had scraped against the pavement when that guy took me down. But I ignored the ping of pain, seeing as I was clearly In Trouble, capitalized in a way that shit should be in neon. Blinking neon. In huge letters.

My mother’s voice all of a sudden came into my head. “You’re nuts. You’ve always been nuts.”

This is what she’d said when I’d told her what I was doing during my vacation days.

She believed this and I knew she did because she said it to me more than once, starting from when I was about four.

It was safe to say I wasn’t real tight with my mother.

“My little girl goin’ on a quest,” Dad had said when I’d told him. He’d also had a big grin of pride and approval on his face and he’d given me a tender cuff up the side of my head. “Good for you, Lilah. ’Bout time you took off and found what you needed to fill that hole in your gut.”

Dad understood.

Dad always understood.

I didn’t.

And now I understood it less.

My mind came back into the room when the guy walked toward me carrying some material in his hand. When he did, I couldn’t believe I’d let my mind wander.

I watched him warily as he moved.

He was tall. Tall and lean. His shoulders were broad, his hips narrow, his legs long.

He had bulk, but it was spare. Regardless, even if I hadn’t experienced what I’d experienced not thirty minutes ago, one look at him and you knew he had power. That scar. The way he held himself. The economical way he moved. He was not a guy who went to the gym to hone his body because he was into fitness or wanted attention. He was a guy who, if he went to the gym rather than drinking raw eggs and doing one-armed pushups on the asphalt of the alley where he’d parked his bike, he did it as a statement that no one should mess with him, because if they did, he’d fuck them up.

He had that scar and it was nasty.

But I’d put money down that the other guy got worse.

“Shower,” he grunted as he tossed the material on the bed beside me and I continued to stare at him. “You reek of them.”

“I…uh,” was the only thing I could get out, seeing as there was no way in hell I was going to shower in this weird basement room with a guy in attendance who I did not know, who also terrified me.

And this was saying something, considering I was covered in blood and I’d never wanted a shower more in my life.

“Now,” he growled.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

He didn’t reply.

It was then I saw his eyes, and in the light of the room I could make out the colors.

One was a startling light blue. The other was a deep, rich brown.

I’d never seen eyes like that. Not in my life.

They were enthralling.

“What are you?” I asked, still in a whisper, this one breathless.

“Shower,” he repeated.

I blinked, pulled myself together, and leaned a bit back. Even though he wasn’t close, just standing beside the bed, that was close enough. “I want you to let me go.”

“Case you hadn’t noticed, not safe for you out there.”

Uh.

What?

“I was…they were—” I began on a stammer, wanting to believe they were just bad guys out to do bad things and I’d gotten in their sights, but knowing in my gut it was something different.

Very different.

Freaky different.

“Hunting you,” he finished for me.

How’d he know that?

“They were just—” I tried again but cut myself off this time when he leaned slightly toward me.

“Hunting you,” he bit out.

“That’s what it felt like,” I said quietly.

“’Cause that’s what it was,” he replied, straightening.

“Why?”

He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “No fuckin’ clue.”

“You…you,” I scooted back several inches on the bed, “just killed three men and two dogs.”

He shook his head. “Not dogs. Wolves.”

What?

“Wolves?” I asked, my voice pitched high. “What are wolves doing in a city?”

“Hunting you,” he replied, losing patience. I heard it in his tone, saw it in his face, even in the lines of his body, and actually felt it in the room. “Now shower.”

“You killed them,” I reiterated.

“I did,” he agreed nonchalantly, like he did that crap every day.

And he could.

He probably did.

Yes, neon, blinking, huge letters In Trouble.

“Why did you do that?” I pushed. “How did you do that? There was only one of you and five of them.”

“Jesus, you need to shower,” he clipped.

“I’m not going to shower!” I cried. The terrifying insanity of the situation finally crashing down on me, I lost it—justifiably, to my way of thinking. “You just killed three men and two wolves! You’re covered in blood. I’m covered in blood and in a crazy basement room under a Dumpster where I do…not…want…to be!”

“Would you rather be dead?” he returned.

“No,” I snapped, then went on sarcastically, “but, you know, phoning the police rather than ripping five beings apart might have been a better option.”

“Yeah, good idea,” he retorted, matching my sarcasm. “I call the cops, they come in, and then those boys in blue are all dead because those things, they were not gonna stop until they took you out. They’d destroy anything that got in the way of them doin’ that. You want that on your conscience? Because I sure as fuck don’t.”

“Cops have guns,” I pointed out.

“And those things can take a bullet to the heart and survive it.”

Was he insane?

“That’s crazy,” I scoffed.

Suddenly, his face was an inch from mine.

But he didn’t move.

Or I didn’t see him move.

Even so, there he was.

Right there.

I sucked in a breath.

He spoke.

“You need to take a breath. That doesn’t work, you need to take another one. Then you need to feel it. Feel it. And you know exactly what I’m talkin’ about. When you feel it, you’ll know this shit isn’t crazy. This shit is something else. I don’t know what the fuck it is. I just know you’re not gonna get dead because of it, seein’ as I’ve waited three lifetimes for you, and now that I’ve got you, I’m keepin’ you.”

I stared into his eyes, unblinking, not speaking, my heart racing, his words freaking…me…out.

“I’m gonna go,” he finished. “You shower. I want their stench gone by the time I get back.”

Then he did just that. He went, pulling the big steel door open like it was made of flimsy plywood and slamming it behind him.

I stared at the door.

I’ve waited three lifetimes for you.

What did that mean?

I’m keepin’ you.

I knew what that meant and I didn’t like it one bit.

Then it hit me that I was sitting on an unmade bed in the basement room occupied by a crazy, murderous man who could move as fast as lightning and tear apart humans and animals in the blink of an eye.

That was when I burst from the bed and ran to the door.

I pulled on it, putting all my weight into it, but it didn’t budge.

“Shit,” I hissed and tried again.

No go.

“Goddamn it!” I yelled and whirled, taking in the room.

It was not small, not large. It had cement floors. Down one wall, in the far corner, I could see a shower cordoned off by glass block. No shower curtain. Next to that, a swaybacked, claw-foot tub, which, if I wasn’t in my current circumstances, I would have thought was pretty cool. On either side of that, against the wall, narrow wire shelves holding towels and toiletries, not many of either, most of the shelves bare. A sink next to that, exposed piping under it, a utilitarian medicine cabinet over it. Next to that, glass block walls on both sides of a toilet. No door. No privacy. He either lived alone or his company didn’t mind sharing a variety of intimacies.

I turned and saw stacked milk crates lining another wall, most of them with the openings pointed out, the top ones with the openings facing the ceiling. Jeans, sweaters, tees, boots, running shoes, henleys, thermals, all stuffed into the ones on their sides, a passing try at folding them—a poor passing try. Belts, socks, underwear shoved into the ones on top.

I looked across the way and saw a small kitchenette against the wall opposite the bathroom area. Not much counter space and what there was was taken up with a coffeemaker, a toaster, a microwave, and a dish drainer. Clean dishes in the drainer. Shelves over the sink with food and a variety of mismatched tableware. An old, bulbous-fronted, white fridge to one side, a narrow stove to the other.

Beyond that, two wooden hutches, their front door handles linked with chain and locked with padlocks. Secrets behind those doors, and in my current situation, I wasn’t a big fan of secrets.

On the opposite wall to the milk crates, the bed I was on, shoved against the wall. Iron. Old. Unattractive. Though, the mattresses were good. The sheets light blue. The comforter rust colored. Lots of pillows. A standing lamp at the headboard, a nightstand beside it.

By the kitchenette, an ugly, old, round metal table with three chairs, none of them matching.

Rounding this out, a comfortable-looking-but-nevertheless-ratty armchair, a small round table beside it, a standing lamp next to the table, and sitting dead center in the room, the lamp’s plug attached to an extension cord that snaked to the wall. A trip hazard if there ever was one.

But whatever. I wasn’t going to be around long enough to trip.

I scanned the space and noted there were no rock concert posters on the walls. No calendars depicting Camaros or scantily-clad babes draped over Porsches. No racks filled with weapons. No insane manifestos written in precise, tiny handwriting on every inch of wall. All of this how I would guess that guy would decorate.

There also weren’t any books. No stereo. No CDs. Not even a TV.

But there were two long, narrow garden-level windows, bars on the inside, blacked out.

If I was correct, these windows faced the street.

It was late; it had to be after one in the morning.

But I had to try.

I ran to the kitchenette, heaved myself up to my knees on the counter, and reached to the window.

I tried to find a latch to open it, but there wasn’t one. I looked to the other and saw it didn’t have one either.

Foiled again!

Not giving up, I commenced pounding on it and shouting, “Help! Help! I’m held captive in here! Basement room off the alley under the Dumpster! If you can hear me, please help me! Call the police! My name is Delilah Johnson! Help me! Please!”

I kept pounding and shouting and heard nothing. I did this for a while, until my voice started to get scratchy and my hand began to hurt.

I kept doing it until I heard the door behind me start to scrape open.

I stopped pounding and shouting, jumped from the countertop, and frantically searched around me. I pulled open a drawer in one of the two cabinets on either side of the sink and grabbed a steak knife.

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

I whirled toward the door and froze when I saw who was walking in.

A petite, elderly Chinese lady and, with her, a very not elderly, not petite, very good-looking Chinese guy.

The woman came to a halt four feet in. The guy closed the door and moved in, looking around.

Then he muttered, “Jeez, what is it with Abel? This place looks like a safe house for terrorists.”

I couldn’t agree more.

“And would it kill him to put a door on the toilet?” he carried on.

“Chen, quiet,” the woman admonished.

He shut his mouth, stopped staring at the toilet area with amused disgust, and turned his gaze to me. His eyes dropped to the knife I held out in front of me. He grinned, settled in, and crossed his arms on his chest.

The woman took a step forward and I kept the knife where it was but moved it toward her an inch.

She stopped.

“I’m Jian-Li, niece, sister, mother to Abel,” she announced bizarrely, then motioned to the guy behind her. “And this is my son, Chen, nephew, then brother to Abel.”

Well wasn’t that just brilliant? I had hoped with the Chinese guy’s opening remarks that these two were sane and might help me escape.

But from her introductions, which made no sense, I was thinking not.

“And you are…?” she prompted.

“Wanting to leave,” I replied. “Like, right now.”

She tipped her head to the side and her lips curved up in a soft smile. “Abel came to us and shared you were distressed about this evening’s events. He’s asked me to come down and explain a few things to you, thinking perhaps you might find me a little less…imposing.”

She was right.

But seeing as she was crazy, she was also wrong.

“And since Ma can’t open the door, I’m here,” the son put in. I looked to him and he was still grinning. “Another thing I don’t get about our boy, why he has steel doors installed in every pit he occupies. It’s whacked.”

I blinked.

Every pit he occupies?

“Chen, your opinions are not needed at this juncture,” the woman noted.

“Ma, look at her.” He swung an arm out toward me. “She’s freaked.”

“I can see that, and if you’ll be quiet, I’ll do something about it,” she shot back.

He again settled in with his arms on his chest, mumbling, “This oughta be good.”

“Chen!” she snapped.

“Ma, no joke, what you’re about to say is gonna freak her more,” Chen retorted.

Excellent.

“Uh, if I could butt in here,” I butted in there, “your boy kidnapped me after committing five serious felonies, so I’m not sure I can get more freaked.”

I didn’t know if it was a felony to kill a wolf with your bare hands, but if I were a lawmaker, it would be.

After I said this, something changed in the woman’s face that made me brace, and considering I was already alert and ready for attack, this meant every muscle in my body strung tight.

“Qīn ài de,” she said quietly. “Perhaps you should sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down,” I returned. “I want to leave.”

“That cannot happen and I think you know why,” she replied gently.

“All I know is,” I retorted, “I’m in a basement room that does look like a safe house for terrorists. I’m here not of my own accord. I’m covered in blood. And I watched one guy murder three men and two wolves not an hour ago. I should be at a police station. I shouldn’t be talking to two Chinese folks who seem nice, but who are somehow connected with that man, and that man scares the absolute pants off me.”

“Abel would never hurt you,” the woman stated.

“Maybe not,” I replied, “but he has no problem hurting other people…like a lot. Like until they’re dead.”

“Those other people were vampires,” she announced and I stared, feeling my mouth drop open. “And, of course, werewolves.”

Slowly I closed my mouth and whispered, still staring at her, “Brilliant. Awesome. Fucking fabulous. You’re crazier than he is.”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but she’s telling the truth,” Chen put in.

“Great, and you’re crazy too,” I muttered, turning my stare to him.

He grinned again, shook his head, and declared, “Abel will just have to transform in front of you.”

Transform?

“What?” I asked.

“He’s a werewolf too,” Chen told me.

I blinked.

“And a vampire,” Chen finished.

I said nothing.

They didn’t either, both watching me, assessing my reaction.

Eventually, I gave it to them.

“You’re both totally insane.”

“We’re not, we’re—” the woman started but stopped when it happened to me.

She didn’t miss it, but then again, it would’ve been impossible to miss. As the agony sliced through my innards, I sucked my cheeks in, lurched back, bent double, and dropped the knife so I could wrap my arms around my stomach in a futile effort to contain the pain.

“What is it?” Jian-Li asked the same time Chen asked, “Hey, you okay?”

My mouth filled with saliva and the pain twisted, taking me down to a knee.

Chen was close in a flash, kneeling next to me, hand to my back. “Hey, hey, hey,” he crooned. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

My head jerked back. It did it. I didn’t make it.

And then my mouth moved.

“He’s in danger.”

Chen swore under his breath.

“Where?” Jian-Li demanded, also now close.

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” I chanted, feeling the pain at the same time feeling a panic that was so extreme, it was nearly consuming. I reached out a hand and clasped it on Chen’s biceps, curling it tight and yanking him to me even as I leaned his way. “We have to get to him.”

“You’ll guide me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Let’s go,” he said, straightening and pulling me with him. We were both racing to the door when he called back to his mother. “Call Xun and Wei.”

“Of course,” she replied, her tone urgent, and we were out the door, up the stairs, and down the alley where he stopped me by a motorcycle.

The man they called Abel had a Harley Sportster.

Chen had crotch rocket.

My father rode a Harley. My father had ridden a Harley since before I was born. My father got a job at thirteen and worked it, saving every penny to buy his first broken-down Harley at the age of fifteen. And my father would disown me if he knew I did what I did next, that being jumping right on behind Chen after he mounted it and turned the ignition.

I wrapped my arms around his flat stomach and leaned deep, lips to his ear. “Left out of the alley, right at the next street. Hurry!”

We shot out of the alley and Chen turned left, then right at the next street.

The wind whipping my hair, Chen wasting no time, impossibly, since I didn’t know how I knew, I just knew that I knew, I said into his ear, “Right at the light.”

We hit the light and slung low, our bodies straining to the heavens, our knees nearly grazing the blacktop as he took the turn at the light.

“Alley, alley, alley!” I cried when he’d made the turn and righted us and the bike, then, “Left!”

He took us left and I nearly flew off the back of the bike and over his head when he braked so fast, the rear wheel came off the tarmac.

I looked around him and got what made him stop so fast.

Abel was fighting three men. Three huge men.

Three huge men with swords.

“Okay, my night just officially went off the charts, batshit crazy,” I breathed.

I nearly fell off the bike as Chen dismounted swiftly, a phone at his ear and him talking into it. “Alley behind Guzman’s. Hurry.”

I heard the loud clang when one of the guy’s swords crashed against the long length of pipe Abel was using to defend himself. I looked that way as Chen dashed toward the fray.

Unarmed.

“Chen!” I shrieked.

And I shrieked this just as a huge wolf came flying out of the shadows.

It was heading toward Chen.

It didn’t make it to him.

This was because Chen leaped incredibly high at the last second and grabbed hold of a pipe sticking straight out of the brick of the building. He did a loop-di-loop like he was a male gymnast on the horizontal bar, flew off, then fell, aiming and connecting a vicious kick into the wolf’s jaw before he landed. The wolf let out a canine howl and scuttled back three feet.

Chen didn’t waste even a second in recovery. Having landed in a deep squat with one leg out, both hands to the tarmac, he whirled in a flash to standing. Using his legs and clearly martial arts moves, he beat the wolf back with brutal kicks, even turning full around to get his momentum going, connecting, and the wolf flew to his side, cheek-first in the asphalt, and skidded away.

“Holy shitoly,” I whispered.

“Chen!” Abel bellowed, still defending himself and scarily retreating under the onslaught of three swords. “Get her to safety!”

“Kinda busy here, brother,” Chen replied, still kicking at the wolf.

“Get her…” Abel roared, rounding his pipe and connecting savagely up the side of one of his attacker’s heads, blood flowing out in a spray. The man fell down on a knee with one hand to the ground. “To safety!”

It occurred to me I was standing there, staring at this lunacy, and not doing anything.

So I did something.

But that something was not running away.

No.

That something was looking around for a weapon so I could help.

I hadn’t found anything when Abel thundered, “Move!”

Instinctively, I sensed he was talking to me and leaped out of the way, toward the wall of a building.

I did it in the nick of time. Two crotch rockets rounded into the alley and they did it fast.

And they did not stop.

One fell to its side, the rider rolling off, the motorcycle skidding uncontrollably, bowling over two of Abel’s attackers.

The other one stopped on a rear-end-whipping-around brake. The guy on it pulled out one of the two swords crisscrossed in a scabbard at his back, whipped it around, and lopped off the third attacker’s head, the one who was still knee to the ground.

I pressed into the wall.

The guy who did the skid was running toward Chen. He leaped, going high, hitch-kicking in the air like a long jumper, landed on top of the wolf, and started raining what could only be described as karate chops all over the wolf’s head and neck as Chen kept kicking the beast.

I heard a grunt of effort and looked back to Abel and the other guy. The other guy had unsheathed his second sword and was whipping them around his body so fast I could hear the blades slicing through the air. This was good, considering one of Abel’s attackers was flashing around him at inhuman speed, stopping, carving his sword toward his target only for it to glance off those whipping blades. Then he’d flash somewhere else and try again.

Through this, I saw that Abel somehow had the dead guy’s sword, and when he got his opening, he drove it into the other guy’s stomach. While the guy was bending over his injury, Abel let the sword go, lifted his hands to the guy’s head, twisted, and tore it clean from his body.

Oh my God.

“This isn’t happening,” I whispered, pressing deeper into the wall.

“Off!” I heard on a growled roar. My eyes darted back to Chen and his friend with the wolf only to see the wolf mid-transformation, turning into a dark-headed, seriously built, naked, humongous man.

“No,” I breathed. “That didn’t happen.”

Hand-to-hand combat commenced and I instantly saw how a martial arts champion could kick the ass of a heavyweight boxing champion because that shit was happening right before my eyes.

Another almighty roar came and I looked back to Abel to see him appear, then disappear, appear, then disappear, again and again as he flashed around the alley in a swordfight to the death with his last armed attacker.

I held my breath just as Abel disappeared and reappeared by his friend. The attacker appeared and started to aim his blow, but Abel’s friend stuck the guy in the back with both of his swords, whereupon Abel instantly swung high and took off his head.

My ass dropped to my ankles.

I caught a blaze out of the side of my eye. I looked back to Chen and his friend and saw the man was back to wolf and he was racing out of the alley.

“We need him!” Abel bellowed.

“On it,” Chen shouted, running toward his bike.

“Not you,” Abel stated, stalking toward Chen, still carrying his bloody sword. “Xun and Wei go.”

“My bike may be outta commission, brother,” one of the other dudes stated.

Abel turned his head to the man. “Take Chen’s.”

“We’re wasting time,” the other, other dude pointed out on a rev of his crotch rocket.

Then he decided not to waste one second more and tore out of the alley after the wolf.

Xun, or Wei, ran to Chen’s bike, hopped on, started it up, and turned it around in the narrow alley at freakadelic speed, zipping by me and, not joking even a little bit, flashing me a grin as he went.

I stared after him for a nanosecond before I was hauled up with a hand clamped on my upper arm.

“You brought her to danger?” Abel bit out toward Chen, manhandling me until I was in position for him to let my arm go, but he then locked his arm around me so my front was plastered to his side.

“She felt you were in danger and knew how to get to you,” Chen explained.

I felt Abel’s eyes on me. Slowly and cautiously, I tipped my head back.

Yep, he was looking at me.

“You felt I was in danger?” he asked in a calmer voice, and if I was myself, which I was not, I would have noted the incredulous vein that threaded his tone intermingled with one that was undeniably tender.

But I was not myself.

I was a quivering mess.

Therefore, as a response, I demanded, “Okay, priority one, find me a place where I can have a total mental collapse.”

“We need—” he started.

“Now!” I screeched, my body calcifying, cutting him off.

He might be a murderous badass, but he was not a stupid one. I knew this to be true when he looked into the eyes of a hysterical woman and hesitated not a second longer before he let my shoulders go, grabbed my hand, and dragged me to his Sportster.

“Xun’s bike and the weapons,” he stated simply as we went, throwing his sword to the side.

“Gotcha,” Chen replied.

He got on the Sportster, which was parked at the side of the alley.

Instead of running for the hills, for some lunatic reason, I got on behind him and away we went.

Again, I did not run or fight or even say a word when he took us back to the alley behind the Chinese restaurant. I continued to do none of these things as he got off the bike, grabbed my hand when I alighted, and he took me to the still-opened grate, down the stairs, and back to the basement room.

However, I did yank my hand from his and advanced swiftly into the room when we got there, whirling and demanding to know, “There are werewolves?”

He studied me closely but did it replying immediately. “Yes.”

“Are you a werewolf?” I asked.

His answer came slower, his body tightening visibly as he took his time doing it, but he eventually said, “Yes.”

“The ones whose heads you cut off,” I stated, but it was a question.

“I don’t know,” he answered, and kept the impossible, unhinged, but apparently true information coming. “But they move like me and have my strength, though they can’t transform. So my guess…vampires.”

“So you’re a vampire too.”

Another hesitation before he stated, “Yes.”

“That’s impossible,” I declared.

He opened his mouth, bared his teeth, and I jumped back a foot when two razor-sharp fangs snapped over his eyeteeth.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered, my hand snaking up to curl around my throat.

The fangs retracted before he said, “Nothing to worry about. I’ve already fed.”

“On,” I gulped, “blood?”

He shook his head but said, “Yes, now—”

“Human blood?” I asked.

“Yes,” he clipped and moved toward me. I moved back as he kept speaking. “Now—”

“You feed on human blood?” My voice was rising.

“Fuck,” he hissed. He stopped moving toward me but went on talking, and he did it sharply. “Yeah. I do. I’m a werewolf vampire. I transform to wolf and I feed on human blood. The bitch I had earlier didn’t feel a thing, got off while I was doin’ it to her, just like they all do. I’ve had her before, though I ’spect, you in the picture, I won’t have her again. And I didn’t harm her.”

“So that’s not another one to add to your body count for the night?” I asked.

“Nope,” he answered casually.

I felt my brows go up. “She got off on it?”

“Helped I was fuckin’ her at the time, but yeah, she did. Bitch begs me to bite her. Seein’ as I need the blood, it works for me.”

More of what he said hit me.

“Me in the picture?”

“You might have missed it with all that’s gone down, but told you straight up you were mine.”

He did.

He did do that.

It was uh-oh before.

Now it’s a big, steaming pile of smelly uh-oh.

I looked side to side, still backing up, now whispering, “This shit is crazy.”

“It is. Absolutely,” he agreed, and him doing that made me stop and look back at him. When I did, he continued, “Until tonight, I didn’t know there were others like me. Obviously, there are. And obviously something’s up, because I never saw another like me, not in all the years I’ve been on this earth. You hit town and they’re everywhere.”

“Me?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“You felt I was in danger?”

I shook my head but admitted, “Yeah.”

“Knife through the gut, pain so extreme you’re sure you’ll bleed out in a second?” he pushed.

Oh God, how did he know?

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“Felt that too, earlier tonight, when those guys were chasing you. Never felt that before in my life. Knew exactly where you were and had no idea how I knew. Knew exactly what you were the minute I laid eyes on you. You calm down, take a breath like I told you to do, I figure you’ll know it too.”

I was taking no breath and trying to feel anything, so I shook my head. “I just want to get out of here. Get out of here and go home.”

That not being home to my apartment, but home to my dad’s compound.

Though, it wasn’t a compound, exactly. But considering the amount of guns he owned, the tall fence he’d built around the place so “no motherfucking asshole can be in my business,” and the land he had (because when he said he didn’t want anyone in his business, he meant it), I teased him by calling it his compound.

I didn’t know if he could protect me from vampires and werewolves.

I just knew he’d die trying. And he had enough ammo to make that fight last awhile.

“What’s your name?” Abel asked.

I blinked out of my thoughts and focused on him.

“Please take me to my hotel room so I can—”

He interrupted me again, “After I set those vampires on fire, seein’ as I’m not takin’ any chances, that’s where I went so I could get your shit. They were crawlin’ all over it, got a whiff of me, came after me. That ended swords against pipe in an alley. So you aren’t goin’ to your hotel room.”

Shit!

“How did you know which hotel I’m staying at?”

His gaze traveled over me, then back to my face. “You a biker bitch?”

This correct assumption did not prove he also had clairvoyant powers, just deductive ones. I was wearing a leather choker, feather earrings, leather wristlet on one arm, abundant silver bangles on the other wrist, a Harley tee, faded jeans, and motorcycle boots—my uniform when I wasn’t at work (though, I didn’t always wear feather earrings…or bangles).

And, incidentally, he was in much the same outfit. His jeans more beat up, his tee older, faded, and totally kickass, and obviously he wasn’t wearing a choker, earrings, or bracelets. Though he did have a chain wallet attached to his belt and a number of rings on his fingers.

“I would use the term ‘motorcycle aficionado,’” I snapped. “But yes.”

“Bikers stay at one place in Serpentine Bay.”

He was right. I’d been there before with my father. It was a biker mecca. Every biker worth being called a biker went to Serpentine Bay at least once before they died. Dad had taken me on my eighteenth birthday, but he’d been here five times.

And when in Serpentine Bay, bikers stayed at one of two places: the campgrounds north of town or the biker-friendly hotel on the water called The Chain, also north of town.

I gave up on that and asked, “What do they want with me?”

“What’s your name?” he asked back.

I shook my head.

“Could do this all night, and will, you don’t tell me your name,” he warned.

“Lilah,” I gave in. “Uh…Delilah Johnson.”

He stared at me a second before he lifted a hand, ran it through his dark hair, and looked to the floor, muttering, “Terrific. I’m named after the brother who was murdered and you’re named after the bitch who stole her man’s strength and betrayed him to his enemies. Fuck.” His eyes came back to mine and he dropped his hand. “We’re screwed.”

“I would never do that,” I hissed.

“Good to know,” he kept muttering.

Our conversation was way off target so I commenced in getting us back on track.

“Seriously, honestly, please listen to me.” I leaned toward him. “I want to leave.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t ten feet away from him.

Suddenly, I was pressed to the wall and held there by his body.

“Searchin’,” he whispered, his different colored eyes burning into mine. “My whole life, searchin’ for something, missing something, something I did not know. Until I found you. And my whole life is a long fuckin’ life to be needing something I could not find.”

A long fucking life?

He looked in his early thirties.

“So Delilah,” he went on, “you aren’t leavin’. You aren’t getting your ass killed. You’re stayin’ right here where I can keep you safe. And the first thing you’re doin’ is takin’ a goddamned shower so you stop reekin’ like those fuckers who laid their hands on you and tried to take you from me before I even gave you our first kiss.”

Our first kiss?

Yep.

A big, fat, steaming pile of uh-oh.

“You scare me,” I shared.

“I’ll stop doing that, you get used to me,” he replied.

This was doubtful.

I lifted my hands out to the sides (the only place I could move them) and dropped them. “This whole thing terrifies me, everything about it, and there are lots of everything about it, including the fact you took seven lives in one night all in front of me.”

“You said you didn’t want to die. Do you want me to die?”

At his words, that pain sliced through me again, gutting me in a way I could not hold back my wince.

“Yeah,” he whispered, his quiet word eradicating the pain like that simple piece of proof of him alive, breathing, and talking had that power. Something, by the way, that freaked my shit way out. “They wanted you dead,” he continued. “They wanted me dead. But they got dead. And hopefully Wei and Xun will get that wolf so maybe we can get some answers. Now I need to get out there and help them so you need to take a shower, put on my tee, and get some rest, because whatever shit is happening, I know one thing…it’s only just begun.”

I stared up at him knowing I should do everything I could to get the hell away, get to my dad, my dad being the person who would make me safe in a way that was safe for me, just as I knew I wasn’t going to do that.

I was going to take a shower, put on his tee, and try to get some rest.

Because I had a feeling he was not wrong.

And there was the not-so-insignificant part of the whole night where I knew he was in danger, reacted to it violently, and led Chen to him without knowing how I did it.

I’d come to Serpentine Bay on a quest and I had a feeling I’d found my Holy Grail.

It was just that my Grail was scary as shit.

“I need to call my dad,” I said quietly.

He moved away three inches, reaching in his back jeans pocket and pulling out his phone.

He handed it to me.

I took it, tipping my head down to stare at it in my hand because this surprised me and made me feel a lot more protected and a whole lot less of a kidnap victim.

“It’s after two in the morning,” he stated, and I looked up at him.

“Right,” I whispered.

“You call him, you’re gonna freak him. You two close?”

“Very.”

“Can he take care of himself?”

“Absolutely,” I answered firmly.

“You want reinforcements.” Although a statement, it was also a guess.

I nodded.

“I hear that,” he said. “But I’ll ask you to give me the rest of the night, see if the boys got that wolf, see if we can get anything out of him, this meaning you’ll have more information to give your dad so he knows what he’s getting into.”

The idea of telling my father I’d hooked up with a werewolf vampire and was unexpectedly under attack during my vacation quest to Serpentine Bay was not one I relished.

The good part of this was that Dad would totally believe me. I knew that sounded screwy, but he would. He was just that kind of guy.

And he loved me that much.

The bad part of this was that Dad would totally lose his mind, rally his brothers, and ride on Serpentine Bay ready for a fight and willing to go down in order to take out any being, natural or supernatural, who was a threat to me.

“I’ll wait until morning,” I said.

“Good,” he murmured. “You keep that phone. It’s good you have one, just in case. I’ll get Jian-Li’s before I find the boys.”

I nodded, though I did this ignoring his “just in case” comment.

“Where’d you leave your purse?” he asked.

“I, uh…” I thought about that evening’s events, remembering I had my purse when I went to the bathroom in that bar. I also had it when I left the bathroom and saw the men at the mouth of the hall and instinctively knew they were after me (another thing that freaked me, and not just that they were after me, but that I knew with one look they were). I still had it when I turned the other way and ran out the back exit.

I threw it aside somewhere in my dash.

“It’s somewhere between the Mad Helmet and where you found me,” I told him.

He nodded. “I’ll see if we can find it.”

“Thanks,” I said softly.

“Shower.”

It was me nodding that time.

“Rest,” he went on.

That would be impossible.

I nodded again anyway.

He held my gaze before he said, “You’re safe, Delilah.”

I took in a deep breath.

He watched me do it, looked back into my eyes, stepped away, then, in a blur, he was at the steel door, opening it.

He went through and didn’t look back when he pulled the door closed behind him.

 

Wild and Free is available in eBook, audio and print.