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  “I think you’ll be pleased. She’s actually rather attractive, for a human,” the strangely pleasant voice said as they came around the corner and into view. The speaker was tall and slim and had that aura of beauty that so often surrounded elves. That had to be Elm. “And you would actually be doing us rather a favor, since this one’s been busy stirring up trouble for us. I would be willing to give you a discount.”

  “That’s generous of you,” Darien drawled. It was not hard to look shocked when she saw him. He hadn’t shaved for days, and his hair was an unwashed mess. His jeans and boots were clean but tattered and unlike his usual sharp dark-jeans-and-sport-coat style at work. It was almost a relief to recognize the heavy leather motorcycle jacket he wore when he thought there might be trouble. It reassured her that she’d made the right decision after all, because otherwise this was Darien’s significantly less reputable twin.

  “What kind of trouble?” Darien asked.

  “The law enforcement kind. She managed to get the cops we had running interference for us placed under investigation,” Elm said. Darien glanced up at that, with a brow raised.

  “One little girl did that? How the hell’d you let that happen?” He asked.

  Elm shrugged, “Seems she has friends in the FPAA. It’s no concern now that she’s here. All yours if she’s satisfactory.” He gestured towards where Caroline stood, and she watched Darien slowly turn to look at her. If she didn’t know him so well she would have missed the tick in his jaw. It was the only reaction he had to seeing her handcuffed and up for sale in the middle of his sting operation.

  “Hmm,” Darien drew the sound out and tipped his head slightly to the side. He stalked forward and for the first time Caroline really saw the predator that he could be. His movements were too fluid, too careful to be even slightly casual, and his steps made not one sound. She shivered in spite of herself and she knew he saw it.

  He paced a circle around her and her guard who paled visibly and tried to look stoic. Caroline herself tried to look frightened but defiant. It wasn’t too hard to tap into the part of her that knew she would be the prey animal if this encounter weren’t fake.

  Darien stepped close and leaned down to apparently sniff along her neck. “We are going to have a long chat later, Sunshine,” he breathed into her ear and she shivered again. “She’ll do fine. How much?”

  Elm smiled indulgently and waved his hand though the air. “You’re almost doing us a favor, getting this one out of our hair. Call it half of the original estimate I gave you, and make sure you let your friends know of our upcoming sale.”

  Darien reached into one of the pockets of his jacket to pull out a fat envelope and tossed it to Elm.

  “Well, then, I guess I’m paid up,” he said. He turned to smirk at the guard who was making a fairly good attempt to hide his shivers. Caroline could feel it through where he still held her arm, though. “I’ll take possession now.”

  Darien made eye contact with the guy and the guard dropped her arm like it burned him. Caroline tried to look scared and shrink back against him. It was tough not to giggle when the bit, bad thug yelped and jumped back further, but Darien caught her arm and yanked her closer to himself.

  “I wonder,” Elm almost purred as he thumbed through the envelope. “I’ve heard that a vampire’s bite can render the victim unconscious if it’s forced. I’ve also heard that it binds the vampire and his victim, which is why only committed couples are known to partake.”

  “There’s a lot about us that is either made up entirely or exaggerated to scare the weak-minded,” Darien smirked. “And there’s a lot more that’s simply never spoken of. We have our secrets, as I’m sure you understand.”

  Elm nodded thoughtfully. “So you won’t tell us about the effects of being bitten?”

  Darien shrugged. “Why all the questions all of a sudden, Elm? You didn’t seem this curious when you first hinted you’d sell me a snack.”

  Elm shrugged, an elegant, lazy gesture, and handed the envelope to his second in command.

  “I suppose I’m simply curious. It’s not every day that someone gets to ask about this sort of thing. Your kind is somewhat rarer than mine, after all,” Elm said with a smile. “It’s a question many have and the abundance of tall tales make me curious as to the truth.”

  Caroline heard the lies and the manipulations roll of Elm’s tongue like pebbles in a landslide. From the tension in Darien’s jaw, he could too.

  She glanced around and several of the guards looked a little green, and a few more looked simply uncomfortable, but they all looked ready to react, whichever way Elm said to.

  “Is that a not very subtle way to ask if you can watch? I didn’t take you for a voyeur,” Darien said.

  Elm shrugged again. “What can I say? I’m a curious fellow. And I do want to make sure that you are satisfied.”

  Darien turned his gaze back to Caroline, tilting his head thoughtfully. His eyes connected with hers with a silent question. It wasn’t hard for her to answer. She was perfectly comfortable feeding Darien if he needed it, and she’d even signed a waiver to that effect while they solved the vampire poisoning case over the summer. Still, she tried to look frightened yet defiant for their audience.

  Seeing permission in her eyes, Darien let his vampire side surface. Caroline was used to seeing hints of it now and then, but the full effect was still stunning. The lines of his face and body sharpened and seemed somehow cold and unfathomable, like a cave pond. The red haze slid over his eyes and his pupils adjusted to the difference in sensitivity to light.

  All of that was visible primarily to Caroline herself and the few guards that stood behind her who started to back away. What Elm and his cronies saw from their places behind him, Caroline wasn’t certain, but they definitely reacted to something. Maybe it was the crackle of menace that suddenly settled over the room. Maybe it was the stark difference in the readiness of Darien’s whole body.

  Caroline looked into the suddenly menacing face of her friend and knew that her eyes were wide and shocked, and she couldn’t help shrinking back when he reached for her. He bent his head over her and slid his fingers around her skull under her ponytail, and whispered into her ear, “Here we go again.”

  13

  She barely felt the prick of his fangs as they slid through her skin to open a wound, but with that first pull he took, that first swallow, she felt the blood bond swell back into her mind even as her skin tingled into numbness.

  The first time Darien drank from her, neither had known what to expect. Darien had a vague knowledge passed through his family, but none of them fed directly from their spouses, viewing it as far too dangerous and had raised Darien to view it the same way. So when he was beaten and dying, Caroline actually had to force her blood down his throat in an attempt to save his life and they both learned from the experience.

  There were several odd effects of the blood bond. The magical connection to him had several benefits for them both, but the strongest and most immediate effect was his soul-deep need to keep her safe. That was definitely something that none of the goons in the room anticipated.

  If these guys had been nervous about having a vampire in the room at all, they had no idea what they were in for now, should they try to hurt her. With an angry, well-trained vampire in the room, protecting his blood-bonded partner and healing super fast thanks to a fresh feed they were likely to have nightmares for the rest of their lives. If they lived at all.

  His teeth slid out of her neck and brushed over her skin, deliberately spreading blood across the collar of her shirt and she felt his tongue dart across the punctures.

  “Look dazed and unsteady when I stand up,” he breathed into her ear.

  “We need them alive to arrest them,” Caroline managed to whisper back. Darien’s answering hum did little to reassure her.

  It wasn’t difficult to pretend. The bite barely hurt, it was true thanks to the anesthetizing effect of vampire saliva, but the blood bond that w
as still forming was a distinctly heady experience, even though she had known it was coming. No wonder couples shared this.

  Darien straightened slowly and she knew he was making a production of licking the smears of blood off his lips and fangs as he turned. One of the guards behind Elm turned almost green and went darting down one of the side aisles, and the sound of retching drifted faintly back to them.

  “That was everything I could have hoped for,” Darien said silkily. He didn’t restore his human appearance as Caroline drooped heavily against his side. Elm’s eyes were shocked, but he managed to keep his voice steady when he answered.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. He started to speak and then frowned very slightly before trying again.

  “She looks,” Elm tipped his head and pursed his lips, apparently seeking the right word. “Drunk.”

  Darien straightened and she let her head move loosely against his shoulder while he steadied her.

  “Like a glass of water,” Darien smirked. “I wonder if this is a typical reaction, or if she’s in shock. Perhaps she’s in shock? After all, most humans think vampires are just a myth anymore. A fictional movie monster.” Darien shrugged, and Caroline let her head bobble with the motion.

  She was actually pleased at how alert and well she felt, all things considered. The last time Darien bit her, she passed out cold. But then, this time she understood much more about what was happening that it wasn’t shocking. And of course, she hadn’t been beaten up beforehand, and nobody was on the brink of death. So overall it was a much better situation, surrounded by human traffickers or not.

  “This is fascinating,” Elm said. “It has been educational, doing business with you, and I can’t say that often.”

  A few of the remaining guards tipped their heads, as if listening and Darien wrapped his arm around her back, turning her body further towards his side in a show of holding her up. She could feel his whole body tense, even though he looked relaxed and, well, friendly would be way too strong a word for it, but at least not aggressively confrontational.

  She took the opportunity of being slightly shielded from view to reach for the handcuff key in her pocket. Something was about to happen and she thought that having her hands free would probably be a wise choice.

  “Now, if you have no further objections?” Darien let them hear his irritation, and Elm did his best to look nonchalant as he tipped his head and smiled.

  “Of course. Please allow me to see you out,” he said.

  Darien glanced down at Caroline and frowned for a moment, then bent down and swept her up into his arms. She let her face fall towards his shoulder because she wasn’t sure she could completely stifle the giggle that bubbled up her chest. She had never once considered herself princess material, yet here she was. Elm turned to lead the way and the guards formed a loose ring around the three of them, guns still at the ready.

  “You treat your meals well,” Elm said, and Caroline heard the suspicion bad in his voice.

  “Did you expect me to drag her out by her hair?” Darien answered, his voice dry as a cracker.

  Elm was about to answer when a terrifying noise from the front of the store echoed through the space. Hot wind blew through the shelves and knocked whole cases of supplies tumbling to the floor. A sound like a violently enraged bagpipe shrilled through the dusty chaos. In the crashing she heard both Point and Ollie shouting “FPAA! Everyone on the floor!”

  Caroline was whirled around and felt her stomach twist at the sudden speed of movement. Darien put her down gently on her feet and shoved her between him and the pallet of padded envelopes that was a solid twenty feet back, away from source of the crash.

  “The guys certainly know how to make an entrance,” Darien muttered.

  “Honestly, that’s twice in one year I’ve been involved in massive property destruction like this. Haven’t they ever heard of doors?” She grumbled back.

  Caroline was out of the cuffs in a heartbeat, silently thanking Lucas for the key, and when Darien shoved her to the floor behind the pallet, she covered her head. Bullets pinged off the cement floor nearby, and Darien launched himself at the nearest guards.

  None of the thugs had any idea what was going on as Darien and Greg mowed through them. There were more guards fighting, hidden out of sight during the sale likely due to their clearly non-human nature: at least one troll was among the kidnapers and was being taken apart by Point, and something that looked greenish and vaguely reptilian was lunging for Darien with a speed that almost matched the vampire’s.

  She had her own problems as several of the guards lunged at her, being a bit faster on the uptake and realizing that she was the one who had brought the authorities down on them. It was very satisfying when she held her own with only a little struggle. All that hand to hand training she did over the summer was definitely paying off. These guys might be street level thugs and not elite fighters, but it was a good feeling to know she was no longer completely helpless in a fight.

  “You think you’re so damn smart? Did you have a tracker on you or something? Bitch!” Elm’s second in command, the man who had tried to interrogate Caroline earlier, grabbed for her now. This time, she let Peaches’ training take over and in a few moments had the man face down with her knee on his neck.

  “I’m clearly smarter than you are,” Caroline said with a smirk. “And faster, apparently.” She smirked as she grabbed the handcuffs she had worn, and wrenched the man’s arms behind his back to fasten them together. He growled and thrashed, but Darien appeared suddenly and growled directly into his face, which shut the guy up instantly.

  “D, you uh. You got a little something on your face,” Caroline said more steadily than she felt. She hadn’t actually seen him fight before. Not like this, all out with tooth and claw. Taking Beckett down had been mostly fists and insults, but this was a much more primal fight, and the blood smeared over his chin now definitely wasn’t hers.

  Darien swiped his sleeve over his face and grimaced. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Are you?” She peered up at him, still scanning the end of the fighting. Greg swept two more shifters into a shelf with his wing, and managed to slam his tail into a third without hitting the guy with his stinger. It was probably against regulations to poison suspects, even in a pitched battle. She saw half a dozen wolf shifters lying on the ground around him.

  The few fully human thugs were huddled behind Point, who stood glowering down at them as he tossed gun to another agent. More of them were sweeping in now, with handcuffs and other restraints, and pulling the freshly arrested prisoners out to the waiting vans.

  Elm himself was unconscious and bloody on the floor near where he’d been standing at the beginning. There was an odd looking gun near him, where Caroline guessed it skidded when he fell. Darien followed her gaze and shrugged.

  “He was going to shoot Greg. Mage-enhanced gun and I’d bet it’s loaded with scribed ammo,” Darien said. “There’s going to be a ton of paperwork for this mess, but I think it was worth it.”

  “Darien, what did you— oof!” Caroline was almost tackled to the floor by a very large, very deadly creature butting it’s head into her chest and pushing it’s face all over, sniffing at her while hooting at her like the woodwind section of the orchestra was aimlessly warming up.

  “Hey, hey! Greg! Watch the…” Caroline wrestled uselessly with him, shoving his head out of her face and finally grabbing a handful of mane and yanking as hard as she could. It was a little like trying to pull on a tank. In the back of her mind she could hear Darien growling and knew he was barely holding himself back from attacking his own friend. “Human shape! Use your human shape you big lunatic! And don’t piss off the vampire!”

  The shimmer of magic took her breath away, being this close to his transformation, but then she was wrapped up in a bear hug and being squeezed and ranted at, at the same time.

  “Goddamnit, Kitten! You don’t ever do this to me again! You are not allowed t
o get kidnapped again, do you hear me?”

  “Greg! Can’t breathe!” She gasped into his chest. She hoped he heard her at least. “Greg!”

  “Okay, Greg, she gets it. Let her up for air,” Darien’s voice was a lot calmer now that the sharp teeth and lion’s claws and deadly, venomous tail were put away.

  Greg reached over to clamp a hand on Darien’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay, too, D,” he said, then turned back to glare at Caroline. “But so help me, Caroline. When Lucas called and told me that you were in a freaking cage I almost had a heart attack! How did you get yourself kidnapped after I left you safe behind a locked door in your own dorm room?”

  “That’s an excellent question, Sunshine,” Darien said. He nodded acknowledgment to a medic who was eyeing them, and jerked his head to indicate that they should take this conversation outside.

  “It’s a question I’d like to know the answer to as well, Miss Peters,” Point interrupted.

  “Um,” she looked at the troll who had a surprisingly calm expression on his face. “Greg tells me that he left you inside your room with your roommate, behind a locked door in a well-populated building, and perfectly safe. From all we know of these guys’ habits, they prefer taking their victims unaware, when they’re alone in the open.”

  Caroline flinched. Somehow the calm tone he was taking just highlighted the anxiety and stress and lingering fear in everyone’s voices.

  “Um, Shelly called,” she said. “When Greg dropped me off, my roommate started asking all kinds of questions and stuff, and I told her that there were some students that we think were kidnapped— Oh my god, what about them? If you’re all here…?” She looked around at the three men in front of her.

  “Peaches and Zanna are leading the retrieval team. They’ll call in when they’re clear, but I don’t foresee any problems, and the information we received suggested that the bulk of their force was here,” Point said. “Now then, your roommate did what, exactly?”