Allegiance (The Penton Vampire Legacy) (13 page)

This what? Nik raised his head an instant before Mrs. Aidan shoved him onto his back and smacked something over his nose and mouth. The mud didn’t feel as good oozing down his ass as it had on his face.

He opened his mouth to tell her he didn’t appreciate her bossy attitude but, in doing so, he took in a breath of air. No, not air, but real oxygen. He raised his hand and felt the mask over his face, the tube stretching toward . . .

“Leave it on.”

Damn, but his eyes burned. The woman leaning over him was the strawberry blonde he’d seen helping bossy Mrs. Aidan turn on the fire hydrant.

Nik tried to sit up. His shoulders hovered about two inches off the ground for a couple of excruciating seconds before he gave up, flopping back into the mud.

The woman laughed. “You are one dirty boy.”

Yeah, well. She had a big black smudge across her nose that qualified her for Barnum & Bailey’s clown act.

“Oh, stop glaring at me. I’m Melissa Calvert.” She frowned. “You’re one of the new Rangers?”

He slipped a hand up and edged the oxygen mask away from his mouth. “Yeah.” He didn’t recognize his own voice. Sounded kinda sexy. “How are the others?”

She reached out and slapped the mask back over his mouth. All the women in this freaking town were bossy. Robin would fit right in.

“Hannah’s unconscious, but her burns weren’t bad. Krys thinks it was smoke inhalation and she’ll get it out of her system during daysleep. Fen got burned bringing her out, though. The whole ceiling came down just after Cage got you.”

Yeah, he owed Cage Reynolds a big cigar.

Melissa looked up at the house. “Damn it. This is gonna make even more people leave Penton. It’s like God doesn’t want us to rebuild.”

Nik suspected God had nothing to do with it. He’d be interested in digging around in the ruins after daylight to see what he could find. He was no fire investigator, but Ranger duty had honed his powers of observation pretty sharply—plus, he could use his Touch on whatever was left.

The fact that he remembered he was a Ranger meant the oxygen had finally revived his smoke-saturated neurons. This time, when he tried to sit up, he only wavered once. Might as well be really reckless and pull off the mask.

“How do your lungs feel? You breathing okay?” Melissa turned the wheel atop the small oxygen tank to the “Off” position. “If you get light-headed, tell me and I’ll give you some more.”

“Thanks. I’m Nik Dimitrou, by the way. One of the new Rangers, as you guessed. You’re a nurse?”

No, that wasn’t right. Melissa Calvert. Her dossier had identified her as Aidan Murphy’s human familiar, at least until she was turned vampire by the nutcase who’d tried to destroy the town.

“I had a year of nursing school, so I help Krys out when I can—that’s Aidan’s mate.”

Nik nodded. “The bossy redhead.”

Melissa laughed, and Nik felt badly for comparing her to a circus clown. He just hoped he hadn’t said it aloud. She was pretty, even with the black nose and fangs.

“Krys wouldn’t disagree with you, and neither would Aidan.” Her voice softened. “And here comes your rescuer, who seems to make a habit out of saving people.”

Cage walked toward them from the direction of Aidan’s house. He looked as wiped as Nik felt. “Guess I owe him a . . .” What did one give a vampire as a thank-you gift? “A pint of blood or something.”

Melissa grinned. She was the first vampire in Penton that Nik had seen flash a fang so openly. Maybe she hadn’t figured out how to keep them hidden yet, being a newbie and all. “Better hurry, Cage,” she said. “He’s still kinda delirious and is offering to repay you in blood.”

“Good thing, because my feeder left town tonight.” Cage looked down at the muddy ground, shrugged, and sat down in the spreading mud puddle alongside Nik. “Hannah’s and Fen’s feeder, too, although neither of them will be needing anything until tomorrow night.”

“She’s gonna be okay?” Melissa reached out and smoothed Cage’s hair away from his face. Interesting. The man had been all hot over Robin—and, Nik had to admit, she’d been all hot over him—but Melissa’s gesture seemed awfully intimate. Then again, Cage had saved her from being tortured by Matthias Ludlam. Made sense that they’d be tight.

Still, he’d want some reassurances. Robin wasn’t Nik’s great romance. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he believed that fairy tale anymore. But if Cage Reynolds hurt one piece of her surprisingly vulnerable little heart, the vampire would find out what Rangers could do during daylight hours.

Nik liked Cage, but Robin came first. Besides Kell, his Ranger buddy back in Houston, she was his best friend. Sure, they occasionally had benefits, but not as often as she’d made it sound. The friendship came first.

“I guess I should go and help Krys.” Melissa dragged the toe of her sandal in the mud. “I wonder where Aidan will want Fen to take his daysleep? And you, Cage? Hannah already goes with Aidan and Krys to . . . wherever they go.”

Which brought up an interesting question Nik wasn’t sure anyone would answer, at least not until they got to know him better. Where did the vampires of Penton take their daily naps? He knew there were spaces underneath the community houses, but those were too obvious. Their enemies could send in humans to knock them all off in one big vampire slaughter if they were that easy to find.

“Yeah, it’s going to take some sorting out,” Cage said. “I think Mirren wants all of us, including you and Nik here, at his place before dawn to figure it out.”

Melissa looked down at Cage. “So we could be bunk mates?” She didn’t exactly look happy.

“Looks like.” Cage didn’t look too elated about it, either. Interesting.

What he did look was as tired and grubby as Nik. He scrubbed his palms over his cheeks and flicked off dried flakes of mud. More like iron-rich clay, Nik decided. In the harsh glare of the portable floodlights someone had set up, it looked more orange than brown.

Behind them, the fire continued to burn, but it had already done its worst. The adjacent house had been soaked enough to prevent the flames from consuming it.

“I’ll see you later at Mirren’s, then,” Melissa said, picking up the portable oxygen tank. “You too, Nik.”

“Right,” he said. “Thanks for the O.”

Cage watched Melissa leave, and Nik watched Cage. Couldn’t read his expression, though. “She seems nice—well, in a bossy sort of way.”

“She is.” Cage laughed. “Both nice and bossy. She’s had a rough few months, that one.”

Maybe he’d counseled her in his psychiatrist role. Or maybe that intimate touch she’d given him meant more. “You’re good friends, then?” At Cage’s sharp look, he added, “I’m just trying to suss out the local dynamics. Friendships.”

Cage shrugged, tugging what was left of his shirt over his head and tossing it in the mud in a heap. “We’re all friends, all the lieutenants and fams—those are feeders that are bonded to one vampire, but you probably knew that already.”

“Yeah, the colonel’s pretty thorough in his dossiers.”

“Then you know Mel used to be Aidan’s fam—had been for a long time. So it upset the balance of things when she was turned vampire.” Cage had been scanning the block while he talked. “I just realized Robin wasn’t here. Is she okay? Have you seen her?” He climbed to his feet, looking farther down the block toward the old mill.

“I haven’t seen her since we first heard about the fire and left Mirren’s.” Nik wasn’t sure if that meant Robin had found something, or if she hadn’t. He rolled to his hands and knees, willing his wobbly legs to propel him upright. Cage held out a hand, and Nik hesitated before taking it. Habit and hard experience had taught him to touch with caution, but he grasped Cage’s hand and accepted the help. It felt good to be standing upright.

“Thanks for that—and for getting me out of there when the ceiling started coming down.”

“No problem. Shouldn’t we look for Robin? She doesn’t know the area and no way that fire was an accident.”

Cage hadn’t quite gotten the big picture on Robin yet, if he still thought of her as a frail flower in need of saving. “She’s a—oh no.”

“What? What’s wrong? Is something wrong with Robin? Oh . . .” Cage’s voice trailed off, but his mouth didn’t close.

Nik waved at the vision of a wood nymph walking toward them from the old mill. “I was about to say, Robin will show up when she’s good and ready.”

And probably naked, he didn’t add, since that was now obvious. She had a beautiful, tight little body and no qualms at all about uncovering it. The moonlight made her fair skin glow, and even when the glare of the floodlights hit her, she looked pretty damned good.

Shaking his head, Nik grinned and took a step back. There was no controlling this particular drama, so he might as well enjoy the show. He didn’t know what would come out of her mouth, but it was bound to be highly entertaining.

Nik pulled his own singed shirt over his head and held it out to her when she got within reach. “You might want to put this on before ashes fly into Cage’s open mouth.”

She snatched it out of his hand and held it up. There were more holes left than shirt, so she tied the sleeves around her waist in a smoky approximation of an apron. “I thought I might see something if I flew over the area, but it was too late. Whoever set it was already tucked out of sight. You two all right?”

Cage’s expression had gone from open-mouthed gape to appreciative astonishment, and he seemed incapable of speech.

Which Robin noticed as well. She walked to within a foot of him and reached up to flick more mud off his cheek. “Is the little girl okay?”

Cage nodded and cleared his throat with some effort. “She’s fine. You’re, uh . . . fine as well, I see.”

Robin laughed, a surprisingly sweet sound that always took Nik by surprise. “Get over it, vampire. I’m naked. If you haven’t seen a naked woman in your, what, seventy or eighty years of life, then it’s time you did.”

She huffed out a frustrated breath and edged around Cage close enough for her breast to brush against his arm. Not an action he missed. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.

“Any female body parts I need to explain to you?” She stared at him until he shook his head in a quick negative. “No? Good. I’m hungry, then. Let’s go.”

  
CHAPTER 13
  

A
pang of longing swept through Melissa as soon as she opened the door to the community house. Soft music, something vaguely Celtic, filled the dimly lit room. The banked embers of the fire flickered in orange and gold shadows on the polished floor.

Mirren sprawled on one of the plush leather sofas with Glory curled up next to him, her hand resting underneath the hem of his black T-shirt, his arm around her both possessive and protective.

Melissa recognized the signs of post-feeding euphoria mixed with love. She’d had enough brushes with violence to know that the experience left you desperate for the warmth of another, desperate to hold the most important people close, desperate to be held.

If you hadn’t run away from Mark after you were turned, you could’ve had that.

She put on a bright face that belied the thoughts buffeting her inside, as thick and heavy and choking as the smoke from the house fire. It was the internal storm of a woman who’d thought she knew her own heart, only to fear she might have been wrong.

“Hey guys, sorry to interrupt.”

Glory answered without looking around. “You’re not interrupting. We’d have to actually be doing something for you to interrupt, and we’re too tired to do anything except sit here.”

She sat up and yawned, which set off another unexpected wave of longing in Melissa. Vampires didn’t yawn; they simply had a slight fading of power as dawn approached. Her arms and legs were already growing heavy in anticipation of daysleep, still two hours away. She envied Glory her humanity and the sureness of her heart.

Glory settled back, propped against Mirren’s shoulder. “Krys says a couple of other scathe members—Shawn and that guy who’s running the gas station—are gonna spend their daysleep in the space beneath the house across the street, along with Fen and Hannah. There’s nothing else anyone can do tonight.”

Melissa scratched her nose and a sprinkle of dried Alabama clay flaked off, settling to the front of her shirt like a red snowflake. “I need a shower before daysleep, for sure. What about Cage? He staying to keep an eye on Fen again?”

Except for Cage, all the lieutenants and their mates were spending their daysleeps in an underground bunker somewhere in Penton; even Melissa didn’t know its location. The rest of the scathe had an elaborate setup west of town. Cage had spent his first daysleep under the now-burned community house so he could keep an eye on Fen until the newcomer had convinced everyone, particularly Mirren, to trust him.

Mirren leaned forward. Shadows from the firelight danced across his face, but not so much that Melissa couldn’t read his somber expression. “We need Cage to move in with the lieutenants tonight,” Mirren said. “Aidan wants you there, too. Both of you. From now on.”

Melissa’s heart sped up. “Why?” Not that she didn’t welcome the news that she would be spending her daysleep near Cage. Maybe if she could spend more time with him, she could finally get the chance to put things to rest between them. Plus, he should stay with the lieutenants since he was one of them. She, however, wasn’t. “I get why he wants Cage there, but why me?”

Mirren glanced at Glory before he turned those searing gray eyes her way again. “Matthias escaped. We have to assume he’s alive, and you’re pretty high on his hit list—even more than Glory and Krys. You’re the one he turned and kidnapped. And Cage not only helped you escape but played Matthias for a fool by infiltrating his organization.”

Old fears and weighty dread settled on Melissa’s shoulders like a yoke. She was so tired of being afraid, so ready to move on, so sick of being a victim.

A new thought poked a tender root into her fear and gradually took hold. Why was she afraid? Matthias had killed her once. She’d been through the worst. If he came after her again, as a vampire she could fight back. Maybe even be the one to finally kill him.

The firelight grew warmer and brighter with her epiphany. She had options. She was not weak. She lived in fear only if she chose to, and she chose not to. Not anymore.

“Let me train with you, and then let Matthias try coming after me again.” Melissa’s voice came out stronger and more sure than it had in months. “It’s time we stop hiding and rebuild our lives.”

“Don’t even think that—you know better than anybody what Matthias is capable of, and you don’t want him coming after you.” Glory’s brows met in a frown, but Mirren nodded slowly—once down, once up.

“Mel’s right,” he said, laying a hand on Glory’s knee. “And it’s just the thing our old friend Melissa Calvert would’ve said. I was beginning to wonder if that fire was ever gonna return. Welcome back.”

Melissa stared at him. Mirren had considered her fiery? Aidan had used that word for her, too. When Matthias’s hired hand had cut her throat, and then she had turned, she’d lost herself. Until now, she hadn’t realized how much.

She’d been wandering around in confusion and self-pity long enough. Too long.

“Will you let me train with you?” Determination replaced doubt, and it felt damned good.

Mirren nodded. “Not with the lieutenants, not yet. But I’ll work with you tomorrow night.” He looked down at his mate. “You need some training, too, Glory. Even though you have the telekinesis, you need basic self-defense training—whatever humans are taught. Dimitrou should be able to help with that.”

“One more thing.” Melissa wasn’t the only Calvert Matthias might go after. “You need to warn Mark. Getting at him is a good way to get to the rest of us, and he’s vulnerable during the day.”

Matthias might have to spend his days as zonked out as the rest of them, but he likely had humans on his payroll.

“That’s Ashton’s job,” Mirren said, and paused a moment before adding, “In the meantime, I want you and Cage with the lieutenants. Tomorrow night we’ll figure out how to find Matthias, and how to rebuild our city.”

Melissa nodded. “Does Cage know where to go?”

Mirren shook his head. “Didn’t get a chance to tell him, so we’ll wait till he gets back.”

That, she could handle. “Tell me, and I’ll wait on him. I need to talk to him anyway.”

She wanted to see Cage alone, to see if her newfound backbone made her consider him in a different light.

One thing was for sure. Penton’s recent string of bad luck made more sense now that she knew Matthias was out there, pulling strings like some evil puppet master.

Mirren handed her a napkin, on the back of which he’d sketched out a simple map. “Memorize that, and then throw it in the fire.”

Taking a deep breath, Melissa studied the drawing. “The lieutenants’ daysleep space is under the old Quik Mart between here and LaFayette?”

At Mirren’s nod, she tore the napkin in shreds and threw the pieces into the fireplace, watching as they blackened and disappeared into soot.

“There’s a four-digit lock that gets you into both the first and second levels. The combinations are different.” Mirren gave her the numbers and made her repeat them back to him until she’d mastered them. “We change the numbers every day. Find me or Aidan to get them. You sure you want to wait for Cage?”

Almost as badly as she wanted to take a shower. “Sure. He should be here soon—I left him sitting in a mud puddle in front of the burned house with that Nikolas guy. They can’t stay there forever.”

“I like Nik,” Glory said. “He seems quiet but, I don’t know, competent. And then, of course, there’s—”

“Ro-bin Ash-ton.” Mirren drawled out the name, and Melissa would swear he almost smiled. “What a fucking menace.”

“F-word. Show me the money.” Glory held out a hand and Mirren, grumbling, pulled a roll of bills out of his pocket and handed her a five. “That leaves me with four credits. Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck.”

“Funny, foul mouth; this is buying me a car.” Which was ridiculous, because Mirren had as much money as God. He and Aidan both did, thanks to Mark’s investment genius. He could buy her a dozen cars—but Glory wouldn’t take what she hadn’t earned.

“Mel, I’m guessing you haven’t met our other new Omega team member yet?” Glory smiled, too.

No, but now she was intrigued. “Not yet, why?” Melissa reclaimed the corner of the adjacent sofa. “Something about him I need to know? Or, wait, Robin, you said? The other Army person is a woman?”

“Not Army,” Glory said. “She’s a shape-shifter recruited to be part of the Omega Force team in Houston, although I think the colonel made them go through a special version of Ranger training, right?” She looked at Mirren, who nodded with that unsettling half smile.

Mirren distrusted newcomers on principle; Melissa had never known him to find one vaguely amusing. In fact, only Glory—and Will Ludlam, although Mirren probably wouldn’t admit it—consistently amused him. “She’s some kind of eagle,” Glory said. “Weird, huh?”

Not as weird as they were acting. “What are you not telling me? Mirren Kincaid, come clean.” Melissa had seen through the big guy’s rough exterior a long time ago, and thanks to being Aidan’s familiar, had mostly gotten to know him through Aidan’s eyes. He didn’t intimidate her for a minute. “What’s so funny about Robin Ashton?”

Mirren made a big show of stretching before standing up, a broad spread of long arms and packed muscle beneath his short-sleeved T-shirt—there was a lot of him to stretch. “She’ll show up here soon enough and you can draw your own conclusions. Maybe you can train with her.” He held out a hand to Glory. “Come on, woman.”

Glory’s face came alive when she looked at Mirren, and Melissa’s sense of emptiness returned as if on cue. She missed the easy intimacy she’d had with Mark before she was turned. Funny how she had forgotten it until now, when he wanted to move on. Now that she’d pushed him away until she no longer had to push, it came back to her.

Glory wished Melissa a good daysleep before heading down the hallway to the back door, but Mirren remained a second longer, looking at her with an expression she couldn’t interpret.

“What is it, Mirren? I swear, you’ve been acting weird since I got here. Weird even for you.”

One side of his mouth quirked up—the normal version of the Kincaid smile. “Decide what you want, Mel. And that’s all I got to say on the subject.” He turned and disappeared down the hallway. In a couple of seconds, Melissa heard the back door open and then click shut again.

Well, that was oblique.

Except the more she thought about it, the more sense his comment made. She hadn’t discussed with them the conclusions she’d reached about her relationships, so Mirren and Glory probably thought she still was torn between Cage and Mark.

That question, she’d finally answered. The one that remained was whether she could get over Mark. Until tonight, when he’d hinted that he and Britta were getting close, the possibility that he might love someone else hadn’t occurred to her. Until tonight, she’d taken for granted that if she ever decided to try again with him, he’d be there. It had been unfair to him and naive of her.

Until tonight, she’d thought she could walk away from Mark first to spare herself the agony of his eventual rejection. Now, she wasn’t so sure. The thought of him with someone else tangled her heart in knots. He was still a part of her; she’d just been too fearful to admit it.

Melissa shuffled down the hall into the back bedroom on the left, pulled out clean jeans and a sweater, and stopped at the drawer of lingerie. She usually didn’t bother with the sexy stuff anymore; it wasn’t like anyone saw them. But tonight . . . well, tonight everyone was tired, but at dusk tomorrow, maybe she and Cage could figure things out and lingerie might help.

She wanted him to see her as a woman, not a pathetic newbie vampire who needed him as a security blanket. Unless he saw her as a woman, whole and healthy, neither of them would know if they were together because of natural attraction or because she was needy and he had a savior complex.

And women who wanted to attract a man didn’t wear old university sweatshirts to bed.

Opening the drawer of the utilitarian wooden chest, identical to the one in every community house on the block, Melissa fingered the sheer dark-blue fabric of a negligee, closing her eyes as she remembered the first time she’d worn it. She’d liked the black one better, or even the red one, but she’d bought this color because Mark loved the way she looked in it. She’d worn it no more than fifteen minutes before he had slid the straps off her shoulders and left it in a heap on the bedroom floor.