Luther's Return (Scanguards Vampires Book 10) (13 page)

“How many prisoners do they keep here?”

He shrugged without looking at her. “The facility is built to hold 480 prisoners.”

“That’s not a lot of blood for that many prisoners.”

Curious, Luther turned to look at her. “Trust me, it’s enough.”

Katie pointed at the bags of blood. “Maybe for one day. Haven says—”

“Whatever your brother told you doesn’t apply here. There are different rules in prison. The daily rations… they are…” He hesitated, not knowing why he even bothered explaining and decided to say no more.

“They’re what?”

The honest curiosity in her gaze made him reconsider. He couldn’t brush her off now, not when she showed concern about men she didn’t even know, convicts, prisoners,
vampires
.

He reached for a one-pint bag and held it up. “This will feed one prisoner for four days.”

Katie’s chin dropped slowly and her bottom lips quivered from the cold. “That can’t be. I know how much Haven and his mate consume. No adult vampire can survive on so little.”

“It’s a prison, not a country club.” He turned toward the door. “Let’s go, you’re cold.”

Her trembling lips and chattering teeth weren’t the only indication of her sensitivity to the cold environment. Underneath her cardigan, her nipples were hard. And as much as the sight enticed him, this wasn’t the time or the place to act upon it. Nor did he expect a warm reception from Katie should he be so stupid as to touch her again.

Why he’d let his baser instincts rule him twenty-four hours earlier, he didn’t understand. If prison had taught him one thing, it was how to control his emotions and his needs. But then, even the best had the occasional relapse. Didn’t mean it had to happen again.

Luther walked up to the door. A small window was cut into it, allowing him to look into the anteroom, which was equipped with carts and trays used to distribute the blood every day. He knew the schedule well. It never changed. In an hour, four guards would enter the cold storage and divvy up the rations, then distribute them to the ravenous prisoners.

At the thought of the blood, he felt an acute pang of hunger roil through his stomach. He’d gorged himself on a street person just before he’d been arrested by Scanguards, and considering the amount of blood he’d taken—more than he’d had at any one time during his twenty years in prison—he should be thoroughly sated, but he wasn’t.

Katie stood next to him now. Too damn close. He could smell her blood, hear it even as it was rushing through her veins. He could feel the low drum of her heartbeat, the tap-tap-tap of her pulse. Temptation gripped him. He wrenched himself away from it and turned the doorknob.

Luther stepped into the empty prep room. “Close the door to cold storage,” he said over his shoulder as Katie followed him. “If the temperature rises in there, the guards will get an alert and show up.”

Katie pulled the door closed. “Where to now?”

“Just follow me. And stay quiet. A vampire’s hearing is ten times more sensitive than that of a human. Even if you whisper, they’ll hear you.”

“I know that.” And her facial expression told him she didn’t appreciate the lecture.

He decided not to comment and opened the door to the corridor just a sliver. Enough so he could listen for sounds.

Footsteps. Coming closer, not retreating.

Luther put a finger to his lips and focused his ears on the sounds coming closer.

“…could take the time off.” The voice he heard belonged to Dobbs.

“What, and go where?” MacKay replied.

“To some cool place.”

“You mean like Norris? Did he tell you where he was heading?”

“Nope. He was all cryptic about it. He only said that he would leave everybody in his wake.”

“Whatever!” MacKay said.

Both vampires’ voices echoed in the empty corridor. They were almost at the door now.

“So what would you do on your vacation?” MacKay asked.

A chuckle broke from Dobbs’s mouth. “New York City or Chicago. With all those dark alleys at night, hey, that’s the ideal hunting grounds. Lots of chicks and junkies who don’t even see you coming. That’s what I call a vacation!”

Dobbs and MacKay were right outside the door now.

“Cool.” MacKay grunted. “Want a snack?”

Shit!
Luther suppressed a curse. That’s just what he needed now: two heavily armed vampire guards raiding the fridge. His fingers automatically lengthened, and sharp barbs emerged from his fingertips, readying themselves for a bloody battle.

“You know they count that stuff,” Dobbs cautioned.

“We can always blame Summerland,” MacKay suggested.

“Don’t be stupid. That jerk’s gonna be up your ass so quickly, you won’t even see him coming.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of Summerland.” MacKay laughed.

A growl came from Dobbs. “Do whatever you need to do, but don’t expect me to cover for you.”

Footsteps moved away.

“Hey, wait up, Dobbs.”

A second set of footsteps followed the first.

Luther waited until the sounds grew fainter, before he released a breath. Then he looked back at Katie.

Her eyes were glued to his hands. His gaze shot to them. They had turned fully into claws. Deadly instruments. Luther lifted his eyes, meeting Katie’s. There was no fear in them, but something he could only interpret as fascination.

19

Katie held Luther’s gaze. The orange-red rim around his irises slowly disappeared, turning his eye color back to a rich brown. She’d watched him closely when he’d listened to the guards passing in the corridor outside and seen the tension harden his entire body, readying himself for a fight.

Maybe she wasn’t scared of that side of Luther because he reminded her so much of her brother Haven at that moment, of how he’d used his vampire side to protect her. To save her from a human who’d meant her harm. Perhaps that was the reason why she associated glaring red eyes, piercing fangs and hands that took on the form of claws with safety rather than danger.

Katie reached for his hand, but before she could clasp it, Luther turned his back to her and opened the door.

“Come,” he said quietly and walked into the corridor.

She followed him, her eyes darting up and down the corridor. She couldn’t hear anything. It was eerily quiet. She’d always assumed that it would be noisy in a prison. But maybe that was only the case for a human prison.

The corridor was lined with doors. As she walked past them, keeping close to Luther, she read the signs on them. It appeared that they weren’t cells, but rather supply rooms, mechanical and electrical areas, and most likely administrative offices. This had to be the area of the prison the V-CONs had no access to.

Luther guided her through a maze of corridors, turned left, then right, again and again. Within minutes, she had lost all sense of orientation. But Luther seemed to know exactly where he was heading.

At the next corner, he ducked into one of the many niches that held closets. He ripped open one of the doors and jerked her to him, shoving her behind the open closet door. Her mouth was already opening to voice a protest at the rough treatment, when he pressed a hand over her mouth and shielded her with his body. His eyes told her what he couldn’t express with his voice: to keep quiet.

She blinked in acquiescence and he removed his hand from her mouth, yet continued to hold her tightly to his broad frame. A few seconds later she heard it: several people came marching down the corridor. Involuntarily she held her breath. But her heart began to pound so loudly in her ears that she was sure every vampire in the entire prison could hear it.

Beneath her fingers, which she realized were suddenly clawing into Luther’s shirt, Luther’s chest muscles were flexing. Despite the fear of discovery that gripped her, she couldn’t help but marvel at the strength that pulsed beneath her trembling fingers. If she were strong like him, she would never again have to be afraid. A yearning went through her and made her aware of her own shortcomings: she was a witch without powers, and right now she hated her mother for having robbed her of the magic she’d been given at birth. If only…

Luther released her.

The corridor was empty again. The guards had passed without noticing them.

“Why didn’t they smell me?” she murmured to Luther.

He motioned to the open closet.

She stared at the shelves and noticed the bottles of bleach, soaps, sponges, and rags used for cleaning.

“You really know your way around here.”

He put a finger to her lips, before taking her hand to lead her away wordlessly. The spot where his finger had been for such a brief moment tingled, and she wanted to rub her hand over it, not because she didn’t like the feeling, but because she wanted it to spread to the rest of her body.

That’s crazy,
she cursed herself silently, when Luther suddenly stopped and looked at his watch. She cast him a curious look then assessed her surroundings. There were three doors on one side of the corridor, and one on the opposite side.
REC-1
was stenciled in black letters next to the door, right above a keypad.

Katie exchanged a look with Luther, who now turned away from the door and opened the middle door of the three on the opposite wall. He pulled her with him, stepping into the dark room, then pulled the door toward him, leaving it slightly open. In the dim light of the room, which, from the little she could tell, was some sort of storage area, she noticed him looking at his watch again.

She was about to ask him what he was waiting for, when she heard a door opening. She peered past Luther to try to glance through the tiny sliver between door and frame and saw a man, clad in heavy Kevlar gear, emerge from the room opposite,
REC-1
.

A recreation room? It didn’t appear so. The vampire wasn’t dressed as if he’d just come from a gym.

As soon as the vampire disappeared Luther sprang into action. He flung the door open, charged toward the door with the keypad and typed in a six-digit number. When a click sounded, he pushed the door open and marched inside, waving Katie to follow him.

The door shut behind her.

“We have about four minutes until he’ll be back,” Luther said.

“How do you know?”

Luther rounded the large desk and plopped down into the office chair. “I know everybody’s routine. When you spend twenty years in this joint, you find all kinds of things to pass the time.”

Katie looked around. This wasn’t a recreation room. The room was packed with filing cabinets, computers, and servers. A records room, yes, that’s what this was.

“And the code to the door?”

Luther was already typing away on the computer and clicking with the mouse. He didn’t even look up when he answered, “I have exceptional hearing and a musical brain. Every number on that keypad makes a slightly different sound. I can recognize the numbers by their sounds.”

“But the guy who left, he didn’t punch in any numbers.”

Luther looked up briefly, smirking. “The code is changed only weekly. I was on the detail to clean these corridors for the last three years. I can rattle off the code for each and every week that I was here.”

Katie blew out a breath. She had to admit she was impressed. Exceptional hearing, a musical brain, an extraordinary memory. What else did Luther have up his sleeve?

“Got it!”

Katie rounded the desk and stared into the monitor just as Luther clicked on the print icon.

“Cliff Forrester?” she read on the electronic file.

“Do you know the name?”

She shook her head. “No. And the letters weren’t signed.”

The printer on a cabinet along the wall started humming.

“Let’s grab this and get out of here,” Luther said and stood up.

Katie turned to the printer and snatched the sheet from its tray the moment the printer spat it out. She folded it and shoved it in the front pocket of her jeans.

“Let’s go!”

A blaring signal nearly deafened her. The eardrum-piercing high-pitched sound lasted for several seconds.

“Shit!” Luther cursed.

20

“What is that?” Katie stared at him, panic in her eyes.

“Intruder alert.” What that entailed, Luther had neither the inclination, nor the time to explain. The shit was gonna hit the fan any moment. “How about some witchcraft now? Otherwise, I’m afraid we’re gonna be in trouble.”

“Witchcraft?” she choked out, her head moving from left to right and back. “I don’t know any witchcraft.”

“What?” He ground out the word, making an involuntary step toward her.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have any powers. I was born a witch, but I don’t know any spells.”

Luther clenched his fist. “Oh that’s just peachy, isn’t it? I have to fall for the tricks of a witch, and then she isn’t even a real witch! Perfect, that’s just perfect!” His ears perked up. “Fuck! He’s coming back!”

His eyes darted around the room, looking for a weapon.

“I know what to do,” Katie claimed and pointed to the wall next to the door. “Stay there behind the door. I’ll distract him.”

Luther would have laughed, had the situation not been so hopeless. “What the fuck with?”

“Acting.” Katie peeled herself out of her cardigan, then pulled her T-shirt over her head and tossed it on the desk. She was wearing a black lace bra that presented her boobs as if on a silver platter.

“What the—” His sensitive hearing picked up the sound of the code being entered in the keypad outside the door.
Shit.
He jumped next to a tall filing cabinet just as the door was swung open. As long as the guard entering looked only at the desk where Katie was standing, he wouldn’t detect Luther.

“What’re you doing in here? This is a classified area.”

The guard—Luther recognized him immediately as Bauer—stepped into the room, hand on his hip where his UV gun was holstered, while the door fell shut behind him.

“Hi!” Katie batted her eyelashes at him, strutting out her enticing female assets, while running her hands over her torso.