down the drain, he remembered the recent events. He craved the day he got his hands on the leader. He fisted his hands, thinking about the leader’s neck.
Stepping out of the shower, he dragged a towel across his body, wrapped it loosely across his hips and stepped back into the bedroom. Pausing, he stared at Denver. She lay prone on the bed, her breathing purring out in soft rhythmic motion. Watching her sent a wave of warmth through his body. The sensations he felt for her were like nothing he’d ever felt before. He wondered if it was love. He didn’t know, not ever being in love before. What he thought was love in the past, wasn’t.
He backed into the bathroom, turned the water on in the tub and waited for it to fill.
Slowly he divested her of clothes, dropping them into a heap on the floor next to the bed. Concern stabbed at him when she didn’t awaken. He needed to be careful in his quest. She wasn’t used to this. She would fight this battle until her body ceased to exist. Her claims earlier that she wouldn’t feed from him any longer were a useless point. He wouldn’t let that happen, couldn’t. It was the only way for her to gain her energy. She could be a master vamp if only she hadn’t allowed her body to become so weak. He refused to allow her to be broken more than she already was. He slid his arms around Denver’s body, lifted her into his arms. She moaned, stirred, her arms flailing above her head.
“No baby, shh.” He cradled her tighter. “I’ve got you.”
Stepping into the bathroom, he lowered her into the water filled bath. Her eyes fluttered open, closed and then a soft moan purred from her throat. “That’s right, baby. Relax.” He sponged water across her shoulders, arms, back. Gathering soap into the sponge, he lathered her skin, massaging as he slid the sponge across her skin. Long moments later, he was lifting her into his arms and carrying her to the bed. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her head pillowed on his shoulder. He slid into bed next to her, pulled her to him.
Knowing she needed to feed for the energy if nothing else, he placed her mouth to his neck. She turned her head away.
“No,” she murmured. “Don’t want it.”
“Denver, it’s the only way for you to maintain your energy. You know this.” He rocked her so her mouth rubbed against the pulsing vein in his neck.
“Damn you, Reed.” She drew in a breath.
The quick prick of fang was like a frozen ice pick and then soothing as her lips closed around the puncture mark and suckled, her fingers kneading the muscles in his back as she tried to pull him closer, tighter.
When she crooned, snuggled her face to his body, he glanced at the bedside table. The clock displayed oh-three hundred. Daylight wouldn’t come fast enough. He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms tighter around Denver and prayed for sleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Who the hell are these people? I want more. Where’d they come from. I want to know every God damned thing about them!” Brian Schemellie sat tense on the edge of the chair. Steve, his right hand man, stood behind him with tweezers and antiseptic in hand. “Son of a bitch!” He growled as Steve poured the burning liquid over his torn back.
“Whoever they are, we’d better find them and soon, Steve said.”
For the next hour, he painstakingly picked tiny pieces of glass from his skin. Another of the men paced behind him. “It really fucked you up, man.”
Brian cut his gaze at him, the thoughts about to purge from his mouth vile. He drew in a haggard breath, blew it out. “I want you to find out everything you can on this man. It’s got to be the same one from before. The last one. I don’t know who’s with him but find out. Somebody’s got to know him. Where the hell is that other one we stowed away?”
“Buried in the basement in a wooden box, but--”
“Get him out. Revive him. Do whatever you got to do, but find out who this fucker is.”
“But the other one’s gone boss. I was trying to tell ya,” Paul said and took a step back. “Got out some kinda way.” He hunched a shoulder.
Brian screamed a throat full of explicit words, stood, grabbed his shirt from the arm of the chair and stormed from the