Release, book 3 of The Angler series (7 page)

I breathed a sigh of relie
f. They hadn’t caught Rurik yet. I fiddled with the sandwich Anthony brought me. “Did the vampire kill anyone?”

Anthony shook his head. “No reports have come in from the hospitals or police stations.”

“You have people in all those places?” Impressive. Most slayers worked in small cells. Easier to train, move quickly, and strike. What Anthony described sounded more like a small army.

“Yes, at the port too. I have men who remember your arrival with this vampire
.” He continued to stare at me as if expecting a response.

I didn’t have one. Would the slayers kill me if they knew I came voluntarily? I didn’t know. I had worked for Colby
, who held high standards when it came to slaying vamps. He wanted proof they were killing humans before he hunted them and now worked for Tane sometimes. What about Anthony? Some slayers didn’t even discriminate between vampires and shifters. I treaded rough waters.

Anthony pulled out a black and white picture
of me at the port from a surveillance camera. “Have you no memory of this?”

I did a slow blink and took the picture. “No.”
Thanks for the idea, buddy.
“The last thing I remember was being in Monte Carlo.” I took Kam’s advice and stuck as close to the truth as possible. “How long do I have—can I stay here?”

The guy running my blood test
glanced our way and held up two fingers. “She needs two bags before she can go.”

“We’ll transfuse you then in the morning we’ll find you transport home.” He rose and nodded to a tech
who came to hang my first bag of blood.

I watched him plug me in without a question. Most
slayers donated to their own, so sources tended to be clean. Who knew with such a large group how they ran things? My bond to Tane kept me resilient to disease though.

What the fuck was I going to do about Rurik? He had the city of Rome hunting him
and
the Nosferatu. How long before Tane’s clan heard about this fiasco and came to join the search? Ugh, helping someone who refused to help himself was impossible. This change would kill Rurik. Not from getting ill but from him acting foolhardy. Time was running out and I had to find him before anyone else but first, I needed this transfusion. Otherwise I’d end up passed out before I made it down the street.

Once they released me
, how would I find him? I closed my eyes. Shit. I wouldn’t have to. He’d find me. For some reason he seemed fixated on my blood. Would he try to break in here? I groaned. I hoped part of the real Rurik remained aware enough to keep him from doing something that stupid.

“Well, I’ll
be damned. It really is Connie.” Red’s familiar voice boomed inside the large room I occupied.

My eyes sprung open and I rubbed them to make sure they worked properly. “What are you doing here?” I scanned behind him for Anthony.
Red, Colby’s right-hand-man, could blow my cover as the ‘little slayer.’ He knew my role as Tane’s blood slave and didn’t approve. He was also one of the few people I missed from when I worked with Colby’s slayers. Big as bear, swift as a fox, and skin so pale he could be Tane’s redheaded stepbrother. Even though my question came out sharp, I reached out to him for a hug.

He engulfed me in arms
thick enough to wrestle alligators and squeezed me tight against his chest. “I can’t believe my eyes, kid.” He buried his face in my hair. “I wanted to ask you the same question.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “The others don’t know, but you’re on the vampire’s most wanted list with your boyfriend, Rurik. Colby sent me a text about it this morning. What the fuck have you both been doin’?”

“How did Colby get that information
?”

“He’s hooked up with Gwen. She’s helping with
a vampire problem in New York City. Avoid going there until they get a handle on the problem. Anyway, she still gets news from her pack. They asked me to keep an eye open for ya.”

“Fuck a duck.”

“I doubt the duck would enjoy it.”

“Not as much as you.” The response came out automatically. Nothing like insulting the person I needed help
from the most.

He laughed
, then grimaced as he rubbed his side. “I miss you, sweetie. Our new bait doesn’t give it back as well as you do.”

New bait? That stung more than it should.
I pressed my face against his solidness. I wasn’t alone. Red would help me, though he would hate doing it. Red had been against my leaving with Rurik from the get-go. He’d pleaded with me not to live among the vampires, not because he’d harbored romantic feelings for me, but he’d thought they’d abuse me in the end.

He pulled aw
ay and his gaze locked onto the ragged bite mark on my neck and the fading bruises on my face from Monte Carlo. “Which one of them did this?”

The air I breathed froze from the chill in his question.
“Red…”

“Don’t, Connie. Don’t defend ‘em. Rurik promised to take care of you. This ain’t care in my book.”
His face turned the shade of his name.

“Is Colby in Rome too?” I curled into his arms, hoping to defuse his temper.

“Nah, he’s in New York City and in love.” He chuckled. “Nice ta meet a woman who can knock him on his ass.”

I grinned. So Gwen
had finally caught him. She’d been my bodyguard before Kam, who was her brother. Once she’d laid eyes on my old slayer boss, it had been love at first sight, but he hadn’t returned the sentiment. I guess she’d changed his mind. “Doesn’t explain why you’re here.” I poked him in the side.

He flinched in real pain. Leaning back, he lifted the hem of his shirt up and showed me the incision
across his flank. “Some vamps got a hold of me for a few days. Colby and Gwen pulled my ass out but I was in rough shape. They had to take my spleen out. I decided to recuperate here. Rome’s a good place for an old slayer like me to let his guard down.” He sighed. “Until you showed up. You going to tell me what’s really going on? I don’t buy what Anthony told me about you getting rolled by a vamp and brought here as food.”

I glanced around the empty room. So much of me wanted to tell him everything. To lean on his shoulder and let him make everything better. I sagged in his arms. He knew about Rurik and Tane. He knew I loved them both and chose to stay with them of my own free will.
If he wanted to betray me to the Rome slayers, he didn’t need my confession. Still, I kept my voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “Something’s wrong with Rurik. He’s changing and we’re on the run.” I met Red’s gaze to make my point. “From
them
.” Not even slayers knew about the Nosferatu except for Colby’s crew. To reveal their existence meant death. I wouldn’t chance someone over hearing us.

Red’s eyebrow rose. “Tane’s
them
?”

I nodded.

“Tane too?”

“No, he’s trying to help in his way
,” I answered

“Which means he’s not doing mu
ch. Who did this?” He traced the bite mark.

I left the security of his arms. “Rurik attacked me
last night. If not for my bodyguard, I think he would have killed me. He’s loose on the streets, Red, and I can’t figure out how to help him get better.”

“Sometimes you have to put a sick dog down.” He touched my wooden stake that Anthony must have left on my bed.

I ground my teeth. “Everyone keeps saying that and I’m getting fed up.” I jabbed my finger against his chest. “Fuck, he deserves a fighting chance. I would hate to depend on any of you if you were sick.”

“You’re not an indestructible vampire. Should we wait until he kills someone for you to see the light? Are you prepared to sacrifice an innocent life so easily?” He frowned. “That’s not the Connie I remember.”

I mirrored his expression and hugged myself. “I’m still that person. This change has only taken place in last twenty-four hours.”  I took a deep, shaky breath to relieve the growing pressure in my chest. “I can’t stay here all night. I have to find him.”

“
Stay. They have the whole community searching the streets for him. There’s not a hole dark enough for him to hide in.”

“They want to kill Rurik and
I
want to help him. Tane might be able to get him under control.”

Red closed his eyes
and hung his head. “I feel like I’m at your funeral.”

I lay my small hand upon h
is huge one. “Don’t let me down.” We’d been in some tough scrapes together and he had always had my back. “Please.”

“You finish the transfusions first.”

“That can take hours.” I released the clamp that controlled the rate and let the blood pour into my vein.

“You
’ll have a bad reaction doing that.”

“I’ll have a worse reaction if they get to Rurik before I do.”
My blood-slave-boosted immune system should be able to handle the blood faster than a regular human’s. Part of me knew the transfusions could be futile. If Rurik caught me unprepared, he’d just drain me again. I needed to return to the orphanage and find out what happened to Kam. From there I could devise a plan. I glanced at Red.

“What?” He scowled at me. “You have that
I need a favor
look on your face.”

“Can you get your hands on a light grenade for me?”
It was a fallback plan in case everything else failed. Everyone thought I was a patsy for my vampires, but the rules of the game had changed. If nothing remained of the person I loved within that body, I’d take care of business before I let him kill anyone. Including me. I prayed it never came to that. Life without Rurik didn’t seem worth living. He wasn’t just my lover, he was my best friend. But killing might be for the greater good if he turned into a monster. He’d be anguished if he knew he had hurt people.

It
also ate my soul that I might have sent Kam to his death. How could I have guessed that Rurik could take on a full-grown male shifter? As far as I knew, only vampires of Tane’s caliber could match their strength and agility. Maybe Rurik had escaped before Kam had returned. That was my only hope.

He lea
ned toward me. “You ever use a light grenade before?”

“It was part of my initial training.
” I didn’t mention that I’d sustained second-degree burns to my hand and singed Colby’s eyebrows off. Some things were just too private to share. Light grenades sent a burst of UV light, kind of like a sunlight bomb. It fried any vampire in the area and could burn any humans too close to the detonation.

Rising from his spot, he gave me a grave look. “Ya really have the gonads to pull the pin on your boyfriend?”

I pointed to my stake at my side. “I haven’t so far.” I stared at the empty transfusion bag. “Hook me up to the second?” Just because I’d be armed didn’t mean I would use the weapons. It only meant I’d have a hard choice.

Red switched the blood bags. “How do ya convince me to do t
hings that are against my better judgment? Is that some kind of power you’ve developed?”

“Nah.” I smiled. “I’ve always been able to do that. You of all people recognize that if you try to stop me, I’m going to do it anyway. It’s better
to help me than work against me, Red.”

He snorted and pulled something from his backpack. Holding up the light grenade, he pointed at the pin. “Pull this
, and you have fifteen seconds to toss and find cover. It works better if you find cover before you pull it.”

Duh, I learned that the hard way the first time I
’d used one. After that, Colby never let me touch a weapon again.

“Got it.” I caught
the grenade when he tossed it to me and tucked it in my front pocket of my loose pants. “So how do you plan to smuggle me out? No duffle bags this time.” He had actually carried me in one when we’d been in Budapest to transport me to their secret slayer lair.

He shrugged. “Let you walk out the front door.”

“That’s it? I thought you liked to keep your locations secret.”

“Not here. It’s suicidal for vamps
to come to Rome.” His frown grew deeper. “Connie, I can’t keep them from hunting him. He’s as good as dead.”

I glared at the blood pouring into my body, urging it to go faste
r, and tempted to cut it short but not if I had to run later this evening. I reached out to Tane once more and found nothing again. My mouth went dry. What would I do if they killed Rurik? The last time I’d lost someone I loved it had ended with me trying to drink my sorrow away. This time I’d have someone to catch my fall. I’d have Tane, if I could find his sorry ass.

The bag appeared mostly empty. “Ok
ay, that’s enough. I’ve gotta run.” I yanked out the IV before Red could protest and pressed my thumb to the insertion site to stop the bleeding. “You going to pass me a Band-Aid or just glare at me all night?”

Shaking his head, he searched the drawers until he found what I asked for.

I got to my feet, only to be swept into another bone-crunching hug.