Up in Smoke (13 page)

Other pretty, mismatched decorations were there that
she slowly took out, most of them reminding her of exactly where and when she had picked them up. Money had been almost non—existent, so when she had been able to scrap together a couple of dollars to buy a small bauble for the tree, it had meant the world to her.

She sat in the corner of the attic, pulling out Christmas decorations until she realized it was getting late. She wondered how the sting operation had gone. Had they been able to save innocent people from a life of servitude and slavery? As bad as she wanted to hear Nathaniel’s voice, she wouldn’t dream of bothering him or any other member of the team while they were on a mission. She closed up the attic and went back downstairs. Sitting down on the old couch, her busy day quickly caught up with her.
She closed her eyes to rest. If she hadn’t been so tired and so caught up in her own musings, she might have been able to realize the danger that was upon her. But she fell asleep, not even realizing that her life was in danger.

*****

Nathaniel worked with his team in extracting and saving twenty young women and children from being sold into slavery across the border. Missions
like this made him appreciate all the hard work his brother had put into the Rangers for years now.

The men that were transporting the women and children were all human, so subduing them wasn’t all that difficult. Handling that many scared-out-of-their-minds women and children became a whole different matter. They had set up a roadblock to stop the two vans carrying the passengers, and while one was stopped there, the other tried to make a run for it. They didn’t get very far. Some days it paid to be a vampire on a sting operation after dark, because you could literally run down a vehicle.

The only frustrating part of the operation for him was that almost none of the women or children spoke English and his Spanish was horrible. It looked like that would be something he’d need to brush up on quickly.

Nathaniel had a nagging feeling in his gut that Susan was sad. He couldn’t figure out why she would be so sad when they had such a great afternoon together. Maybe she was just missing him, because he was sure missing her. He centered all of his energies into getting this case wrapped up, so he could get back home to her.

DSS was just making arrangements to transport the last of the women to the hospital to be checked up on when he felt immense panic overcome him.
Susan
. She had to be in some type of trouble. He quickly stepped away from the scene and called his house. When he got no answer, he tried Susan’s cell. Again, no answer, but the panic and fear was growing in leaps and bounds. Finally, not knowing what else to do, but knowing that he had to find and help his mate, he called over to Walter.

“Susan’s in trouble. I’ve got to go.”

He ran over to one of the vehicles they had brought out and sped away from the crime scene with only one thing on his mind. He had to find his mate.

*****

Susan woke up feeling like she was choking. She couldn’t get enough air. Opening her eyes, they burned, and she realized that her house was full of smoke.
Oh no, my house is on fire and nobody knows where I am at
. She fell to her knees off the couch and quickly got down on her belly, hoping to get a bit of air. She just had to make it to the front door.
It’s not that far, Susan.
You can do this
. She was confused, not able to see anything, not even sure which direction to go in to reach the front door. She reached out, hoping to grab hold of something that she recognized so she knew she was heading in the right direction. She quickly pulled back and yelped, because whatever she had wrapped her hand around was burning hot.

She cradled her injured hand the best she could as she began to belly crawl across the floor, hoping and praying that she was heading for the front door. Lightheaded, she began seeing spots dance in front of her eyes as she slowly inched toward her destination. A board fell right behind her, causing her to yelp out in fear.
The fire from the burning board slowly started to lick at the floor below it. Oh God, she wasn’t going to make it. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, the very floor beneath her was now getting hot to the touch.

Shouldn’t she be at the door by now? It wasn’t but ten or twelve feet from the couch she had been on. She stopped when she ran into something. Whatever it was, it was solid. A wall? A door? She placed her good hand on it and cried out as it too came back burned. Tears stung her eyes from the pain radiating off her two burned hands.

She needed air. Her lungs burned as she lay on the floor, praying for help to come. Didn’t any of her neighbors see her house going up in flames? And poor Nathaniel. She would never get a chance to show him that she could be a good mate. She would never get to tell him that she loved him ever again. As the blackness closed in around her, her heart was full of despair.
She succumbed to the peacefulness of nothingness.

*****

Nathaniel drove like a madman. He had to find her. The increased urgency he was feeling told him that whatever trouble she was in, she needed his help fast. He quickly dialed his sister-in-law’s number while driving.

“Have you heard from Susan this evening?” he asked, not even bothering with hello when she picked up the phone.

“Hello to you too, Nathaniel,” Sissy replied sarcastically. “No, I haven’t heard from your mate. Have you misplaced her?”

“This is no joke, Sissy. She’s in trouble and I’ve got to find her.”

Sissy’s tone changed immediately. “Try her old house. I’ll meet you there.”

Nathaniel could’ve kicked himself for wasting precious time trying to figure out where she might be. Of course she probably went to her old house. She had very little in the way of clothing at his home and she probably stopped by to pick up some things. He sped down the road as fast as he could safely go. He wouldn’t put another human’s life in danger, but he had to get to Susan.

He could see the black smoke bellowing into the sky even before he pulled into her neighborhood. Her house. Her house was on fire! But why hadn’t he heard any fire engines? Surely someone would’ve seen the house in flames and called, wouldn’t they?

But as he turned onto her road, squealing his tires as he went, it quickly became apparent that something was indeed very wrong. No lights were on in any of the houses, no fire engines were sitting in
front of the burning home, no dogs were barking, nothing. The neighborhood looked like a ghost town. He slammed on his brakes and rushed up to the house, well aware of the fact that one of the ways a vampire could die is by fire.

Her car was sitting in front in the driveway, so Nathaniel knew she was inside the burning house. He reached for the doorknob, knowing it was going to burn him, but he was past caring. The door was locked and it looked as if someone had tried sealing it shut. He took a quick step back and raised his foot, ready to bust down the door, just as Sissy came running up beside him.

“Here, these may help.” She handed him a pair of gloves before putting a pair on herself, ready to go into the blazing furnace to save her friend. He placed his hand on her arm. “No, Sissy. You stay here. If something happens to you, Walter won’t…just stay here.” He didn’t give her time to argue as he turned.
One good kick later, the door slammed open and he ran inside the burning building.

He didn’t have to look very far, because she was curled up against the wall, right next to the door. She had almost made it to the door. Unfortunately, whoever had set the house on fire was determined for her to never make it out alive. She would’ve never have been able to get the door unsealed to make it out in time.

Flames licked at his skin as he quickly picked her up and started to head back out the door. Two more beams fell behind him and he knew
the house would be totally lost in a matter of minutes.

He lay her down on the ground, a safe distance away from the fire. He couldn’t worry about the house now, because it was too far-gone. But he could worry plenty about her. He started checking her over, assessing her injuries. The palms of both of her hands were already blistering, red, and swollen. Sissy came up beside him with a large first aid kit that she’d retrieved from the Ranger SUV he’d driven. Carefully, she started putting salve on one of Susan’s hands and then wrapping it in a dressing. Meanwhile, Nathaniel continued to survey her body.
Other than smoke inhalation, she didn’t appear to have any other injuries that he could see. There were a few minor burns on her body, but those were already being healed up from the strength she received by her ingesting his blood earlier.

His blood! He quickly looked around, making certain no humans were around them. Everything was still as can be, even with the house behind them roaring in a blaze. Where the hell were all of her neighbors? He quickly opened her mouth and checked her airways. Blowing a couple of good puffs of air into her lungs, he then released a claw long enough to slice his wrist open.
He brought his bleeding wrist to her mouth. “Come on, baby, drink for me.
It will help heal your wounds.”

He waited for what seemed like forever, even though in reality it was less than a minute, as the blood trickled down his arm and into her mouth. Finally, she coughed and sputtered, coughing up some of the blood he was trying to get into her. They helped her roll onto her side as deep, racking coughs had her entire body convulsing.

What no one realized was that high up in a tree across the street, a pair of eyes were watching their every move. “Son-of-a-bitch!” the figure murmured in frustration as he watched Susan being rolled over onto her side while she coughed. “Why can’t you just die you stupid, dumb human?”

“Because she is protected by the best, dumbass,” a voice growled behind him.
The figure in the tree felt a sharp pain in his back, piercing through his heart.
It immediately immobilized him.

Walter jumped down out of the tree, holding the immobilized vampire by the back of his neck. This fucker had terrorized Susan for the last time. Landing safely on the ground below, he noticed a light coming on in one of her neighbor’s houses, and then another. “Asshole!
You managed to mind control everyone in this community all at once?”

The vampire, unable to move, just barely pushed the words out. “Sleeping, easy.”

“Are you Susan’s brother-in-law, Parker?” Walter asked while standing over him.

“Bitch, die…” the prone vampire whispered.

Walter raised an eyebrow as he glared down at the vampire lying on the ground. “I’ll take that as a yes.
And no, she is not going to die today, but you are.” He hauled the vampire up over his shoulder, fireman style, and headed for the burning building.

As he approached the group on the lawn, Nathaniel looked up. “Is that Parker?”

“Yep, want to help with the door? I think it’s time to burn the trash, don’t you?”

The two Rangers made their way around back, where they were less likely to be seen. There were no streetlights back there to illuminate their activity.

As he kicked in the back door, Nathaniel looked over to his brother. “I want him to suffer.”

“He will, Nate. He will. You’ve heard the stories as many times as I have about the excruciating pain death by fire can be to our kind. He’s getting exactly what he deserves. Besides, I smell the humans that we just arrested on him. That tells me he was involved in the human trafficking case, as well.”

Both Rangers watched Parker attempt to grin at them, but unable to move any of his muscles, there
was just a slight twitch around his mouth.

“Yeah, we stopped both vehicles, asshole. And my guess would be that once you’re out of the picture, your entire little empire is going to crumble. Because those humans we arrested? We’re going to interrogate the hell out of them until they sing. Then it all will be over,” Walter stated.
He then threw the body into the raging fire that blazed before them.

Nathaniel looked over to his brother as they headed back to where the women sat. “You followed me? How did you get here so fast?”

Walter shrugged his shoulders. “I always go with my instincts. And I was damn glad I did when Sissy called to tell me she was heading to Susan’s old house and that Susan was in trouble. I was already halfway here.” He clapped his brother on the back of the shoulder. “I’m glad tonight turned out to be a good night, brother.”

As Nathaniel fell to his knees in front of his mate, he replied, “Me, too, brother.
Me, too.”

Chapter Eight

Nathaniel looked down at his sleeping mate. He had come so close to losing her tonight. Dr. Weathers walked up beside him. “She’s going to make a full recovery, Nathaniel. Her body just needs to rest right now.”

Nathaniel had brought her back to Ranger Headquarters, to their own Dr. Weathers, since some of Susan’s injuries were healing way too rapidly for humans to understand. Her old house was gone, burned to the ground. Even after the fire engines finally arrived, they’d said that it was too far-gone to be saved. If he hadn’t shown up when he did, if he had been a couple of minutes late, it would have been too late. He would have lost his mate. But thankfully, other than having two burned hands and lungs full of smoke, she had walked away from the disaster.