curse was worse for you when you used it to save us, even though we didn’t really saving,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“More fool was I for trying to save Rhys because I assumed you were the Van Helsing alpha.”
“You thought I was the Van Helsing alpha? Please tell Rhys that,” he laughed, pulling into the reserved parking spot next to the front of the building.
Cole’s phone rang again, and he smirked, staring at the screen. Answering it, he held up his finger, exiting the car, and came around to open my door. I slipped out of the seat, standing against him. He dropped his mouth against my ear, sucking the lobe between his teeth while I listened to Rhys bitching him out for blindsiding him. Cole pulled the phone away, studying my face before lifting his head, and turning to look behind him.
“I need to call you back, brother. Something is…”
A gunshot echoed in the parking lot. Blood painted my face as I peered through Cole’s chest. I screamed, moving to help him. Something slammed against the side of my head, sending me to the ground as pain rang out through my head. Sobs filled my chest. My body was hit repeatedly by something hard, and solid.
Cole dropped to the ground, lifeless. I curled into the fetal position, groaning as Rhys’s voice echoed through the phone beside me. Another blow caused a scream of pain to escape my lips. Covering the phone with my body, grabbing it, I slipped it into my pocket. I was grabbed and dragged over concrete painfully.
My eyes refused to regain focus, pulsing light into my vision. My head dripped a steady stream of blood from a deep laceration in my forehead. Someone lifted me and tossed me into the trunk of a car. Cole was dropped on top of me, smashing me into the jack that stabbed into my neck. The trunk was slammed closed, and I felt the engine’s vibration as the vehicle peeled out of the parking lot.
It took everything I had to pull the phone from my pocket, lifting it to my still ringing ear. I could barely make out Rhys screaming orders as I whispered.
“Help us,” I pleaded.
“Remington? Are you okay?” he asked with worry etching his words.
“No,” I sobbed. “Help us, Rhys. They shot Cole, and he’s dead,” I cried, covering my mouth with my hand to smother the sobs.
“Tell me what you see around you?”
“The phone is on,” I swallowed. “Find us, Rhys.”
“You’re slurring your words, Remington. How badly are you hurt?”
“Bad… mmm…” I exhaled, losing consciousness as the phone dropped from my hand.
Chapter Thirty
I woke in a barn, chained to two posts with my arms spread, stripped to my panties, soaked in mine, and Cole’s blood. Squinting through my swollen eyes, I found Cole’s body, dumped on a pile of hay beside the corpses of a man and a woman, drained of blood and discarded like rubbish. I could hear the sounds of feeding and rough sex, raping women, and using them for food while they wept and cried out for help.
Turning to face forward, I saw Laura studying me, sitting patiently while waiting for me to regain consciousness. I lifted my head, only for the vampire beside her to punch me in the face again, causing me to cry out as my head jerked to the side. Spitting out the blood in my mouth, I looked down to see blood pouring from knife wounds that covered my body. They had carved me up, sliced me open, and left me to hang in a pool of blood.
“Do you think I’d forgive you? Stupid little whore. No one hurts me and lives,” Laura ground out, her head moving closer. She sank her painful incisors deep into my thigh, causing me to scream. Her bite sent fire burning through my leg as her nails sliced through the flesh she held. Laura pulled away with my blood coating her lips and smiled, “How does it feel to know you’re about to die for what you did to me?” she asked, her eyes glittering with excitement.
I searched for any silver to wield against Laura, but a fist slammed into my jaw, making me focus on the pain. For hours I’d been knocked around, my focus remaining on the pain her companions forced on me. My head dropped forward as consciousness slipped from my grasp. Darkness swelled around me, and then Rhys was there.