Bound by Danger (The Alliance #6) - Brenda K. Davies Page 0,32

to a wall. “A group of us was sent to check on some cameras at an underground site where Savages once lived. While there, Savages ambushed us.”

Now that he could think clearly again, he wondered how his fellow Alliance members had made out after the attack. At the beginning of his imprisonment, he worried about them often, but then his mind became more and more consumed by his obsession with blood while he wasted away.

Had he unknowingly left some of them behind when he fled that underground hellhole? Were some of them now Savages? He hoped some of them survived, but they were probably slaughtered or in the hands of their enemies. He’d tried to hold back the Savages spilling from that hole, but there were so many of them. He didn’t see how anyone could have escaped the tide of evil pouring forth.

“Do you remember how to get back to where we were?” he asked.

“Back to that tunnel?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

“I have no idea how to get back there.”

“Shit,” he muttered.

“Why?”

“Because some of my fellow Alliance members could still be there.”

“What’s the Alliance?”

“It’s what we, those who hunt and kill Savages, call ourselves.”

“Oh.” Callie fiddled with the bottom of her jeans. “You’d really go back there?”

“To save any others who might be trapped there? Yes.”

She didn’t know how to take the revelation that he would return to save others. He’d saved her life, but she still saw him as more of a monster than a man.

Chapter Fourteen

“You’re taking this all really well,” he said.

“What am I supposed to do? Break down and turn into a sobbing mess or run screaming into the night? Neither of those options will keep me alive.”

“Still, many do not take the knowledge of vampires in their world so easily. Many try to deny it.”

“Maybe it would be different if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but I did. I saw you and them, and I felt your bite. I can’t deny any of that and survive, and I am going to survive this. I may not be able to return to my old life, but I will have a life.”

He smiled as he admired her determination and courage. “Yes, you will,” he promised. “So, what do you do, Callie?”

Should she answer him? Would telling him more about herself be dangerous? She didn’t think things could get any more dangerous than they already were, and what harm could it do?

“I’m a vet tech and assist a vet who works with horses. We travel to farms and racetracks in the area. I love my career,” she added wistfully.

“It sounds like an interesting one.”

“Well, it’s no killing Savages, but it pays the bills. Plus, I love animals, and I’m happy.”

Or she was happy until Carter entered her life. But now he was out of it, and she was living this nightmare. She wanted to whine about never catching a break, but she couldn’t complain about how unfair life was when she’d survived what the Savages planned for her in that pit.

She’d been tossed a bag of shit, but at least the bag hadn’t exploded all over her.

“Do you think I can ever return to my life?” she asked.

“I’d like to tell you yes, but I doubt it.”

She closed her eyes as tears pricked them and her heart twisted in her chest.

Sensing her misery, Lucien rested his hand on her knee. His eyebrows rose as he realized what he’d done with the comforting gesture.

He did not comfort others; that wasn’t who he was—or at least not who he became. There was a time when someone loved him and he loved in return, but those days were long gone. Now, he hunted, he killed, and he survived because there was no other choice.

She tensed beneath his hand, and he expected her to move away, but she didn’t. He tried to pull his hand away, but the traitorous appendage gripped her tighter as he gave her knee a gentle squeeze.

“I’ll make sure you get through this,” he promised.

“And then what? I spend the rest of my life running and hiding? Or can I move to another state and hope they don’t find me? And then I can spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder and waiting for them to pop up and kill me. That’s no way to live.”

“I will help you figure it out.”

Callie didn’t know why, but his words were oddly reassuring.

“Where are you from?” he asked in the hopes of changing the