Out of the Night (Harlequin Nocturne) (3 page)

Kaja slapped him on the back of his head. “Behave yourself, potty mouth. You’re the one who allowed yourself to get in this state.”

He bit down on another curse because despite how far gone he was he realized she was right. He was so dangerous at the moment, in fact, that it wasn’t one of the nurses who came in but Ethan Ferris.

“Hey, Doc,” Len said. “We’ve got a hungry moron for you.”

“So I see. And I’m not a doctor.” He’d said the same thing to the various members of V Force’s Team 1 a thousand times if he’d said it once, but for some reason Len and Colin refused to call Ethan anything else. Though he had been on the verge of getting his medical degree when he’d been turned.

Ethan went to a refrigerator in the corner and pulled out three bags of blood. “We’re running low on AB-neg, but I think we have enough to give you a full feeding.”

The moment Kaja uncuffed him, Campbell grabbed the first two bags and downed them in a handful of gulps. The red clouding his vision began to lessen.

The radios hanging from Len’s and Kaja’s belts crackled to life.

“Guys, we just got a call about the movement of a blood slave,” Colin said.

Campbell started to stand, but Ethan pushed him back down. “Oh, no, you don’t. You still need more before I’m letting you out of here.”

Campbell met Len’s gaze. “Go, both of you. I’ll catch up.”

They didn’t look convinced that was a good idea.

“That’s an order.”

Ethan motioned that it was okay, so Len and Kaja hurried out the door.

“Don’t let the bastards get away!” Campbell yelled after them.

It was all he could do to sit still long enough to feed. Ethan, being a smart man, didn’t comment on his agitation or the fact that he’d made a colossal mistake in letting himself get so hungry.

When he finally sated his craving, draining a good half of the blood bank’s AB-negative supply, Campbell stood and pitched the last empty blood bag in the trash. He shook the kinks out of his arms and rotated his wrists where the cuffs had dug into his skin as he’d pulled against them. Renewed power surged through him, and new urges took over—to fight and have sex, but not with the same person.

A picture of the woman he’d nearly killed popped into his head, quickly followed by an image of pushing her against a wall and having hot, sweaty sex with her. He’d always had a healthy sex drive, but when he’d been turned, it had ratcheted up a few hundred notches. Seemed that was part of the vampire prize pack.

So the last thing he needed to do was be anywhere near a human woman, one he could break in half with two fingers. Humans were too fragile. He’d seen that firsthand, beginning on the night he was turned.

With a curse, he stalked toward the door.

“You okay?” Ethan asked.

“Peachy.”

Ethan gave him a disbelieving look.

“Nothing some ass-kicking won’t cure.”

That and shoving those long-ago memories of Bridget Jameson back down to the dark depths of his brain where they belonged.

Chapter 3

O
livia held on to one of the metal rings on the truck’s wall as Colin, the vampires’ driver, careened around a corner.

“Sorry, looks as if it’ll be a little longer than we anticipated before we can take you home,” the female vampire said.

She’d heard the others call the vampire woman Sophia. The other female was Kaja, and she looked familiar for some reason.

“Just let me out anywhere,” Olivia said, about at the end of what her nerves could take.

Kaja stared at her. “Are you stupid?”

“Kaja!” Sophia gave her a scolding stare.

“Well, she can’t be that bright if we save her from the streets crawling with vampires and she wants to go right back to that.”

“You’re vampires,” Olivia said, wondering if maybe she was indeed stupid the moment after the words left her mouth.

“Yes, but we’re not hauling you off to a blood den, which is what there’d be a fifty-fifty chance of happening to you if we tossed you out.”

Olivia’s skin crawled with that image, or the other option of simply being drained and her body being tossed aside like useless garbage. God, she’d been dumped into a devil-you-know situation, one in which it felt as if the night would never end.

“Don’t worry,” Sophia said. “We’ll take you home, just as soon as we take care of this call. We have to move fast when we hear about a blood den or the trail goes cold.”

“Then they’re real?”

“Very.”

Olivia went silent as Colin sped through Midtown so fast that the buildings looked like no more than blurs through the windshield. By the time he stopped, she had no idea where they were. Colin looked back and met Olivia’s eyes.

“Stay here, out of sight. I don’t like leaving you here, but we don’t have any choice. We don’t know what we’re facing inside, so we need to go in full strength.”

The vampires filed out of the truck, Sophia going last. “Please, don’t try to run.”

Olivia didn’t say anything, not even when the door shut behind Sophia and she heard the locks engage. Alone, she became acutely aware of the rapid thudding of her pulse. Could the vampires outside hear it? Would they be able to get inside? Her hand tightened on the beer bottle in her sweaty hand. It was a useless excuse for a weapon, but she still couldn’t let go of it.

The minutes stretched along with her nerves. Her ears strained to hear some indication of what was going on outside. Were the vampires who’d brought her here even out there? Had they gone inside one of the surrounding buildings?

Something heavy landed on the roof of the truck, causing her to scream before she thought that wasn’t the smartest move. She raised the bottle and stared at the back door, ready to fight. She jerked her attention to the front when the sound of tearing metal sent her heart into overdrive again.

From where she sat she watched, horrified, as the locked driver’s-side door peeled away and was slung to the street by a powerful arm. In the next moment, an incredibly pale young woman was flung into the back with her, landing at Olivia’s feet. Olivia started to lean forward to help her but froze when she saw the vampire staring at her. He was huge, and his fangs made her think of a saber-toothed tiger. And they were bloody.

“Bonus,” he said as he slipped into the driver’s seat, stripped the steering column and started the truck in what seemed like one fluid motion.

Before she could grab the injured woman and make a run for it, he shoved the truck into gear and took off. Every time she thought this night couldn’t get worse, it did. She was still frightened of the other vampires, but her survival instinct told her that this one was way worse, that if she let him flee with her and the other woman, they were doomed.

She’d had enough! Careful not to fall in the moving vehicle, she stood and stepped over the woman, who was weakly trying to pull herself to a sitting position. Before Olivia lost her nerve, she slammed the beer bottle against the side of his head.

It didn’t faze him. He simply glanced at her with an angry look on his face then shoved her back so hard that she bounced off the wall of the truck and crumpled to the floor beside the other woman. Pain like she’d never experienced before consumed her, and she couldn’t breathe. She collapsed to her side and stared at the other woman, who was so incredibly pale and whose neck bore obvious puncture wounds.

Dear God, she was going to end up the same way.

She blinked hard against the black spots invading her vision. For the second time that day, she faced the very real possibility of her death.

* * *

Campbell reached the blood den just as Colin and Len raced out of the building onto the sidewalk. Colin cursed a mighty blue streak.

“What?” Campbell asked.

“This big bastard took the truck after he made me feel like a stupid rag doll,” Colin said. “We got the rest of them, but he jumped out the flipping window.”

Campbell’s anger roared to life. They didn’t need a V Force vehicle in the hands of a criminal. He glanced at something in the middle of the street, the door to their truck.

Len and Colin saw it, too. “What the hell?” Len asked.

“I’m telling you, this guy is strong, as if he’s juiced up on ’roids or something,” Colin said as he kicked the mangled door.

The sounds of squealing tires and horn blasts in the distance gave Campbell a good idea where the truck was. He glanced over as Kaja, Sophia and Billy came out of the building with the vampires in custody as well as the former blood slaves. The humans all needed medical attention. “Get Team 2 over here to help with this mess. I’m going for the truck.”

“This guy’s powerful, Camp, like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Colin said.

“So am I.” With a fresh supply of blood amping him up, he was ready to do some damage. And with AB-negative vamps being stronger than other vampires after they fed, he was their best bet for retrieving the truck.

Colin grabbed his arm as Campbell turned to leave. “The girl’s still in the truck, along with one of the captives.”

“Bloody hell.” Powerful bruiser or not, this guy was going to pay.

Campbell took off at a dead run, pausing occasionally to listen for sounds to lead him in the right direction. As he rounded a corner, he caught the ripe smell of human fear. He recognized it as the woman from earlier and followed her scent.

By the time he caught up to the truck, it was heading toward Brooklyn. With an extra burst of speed, he leaped onto the back bumper and grabbed one of the handholds next to the door. Just as his hand wrapped around the grip, the driver swerved wide, causing Campbell’s boots to slip off the bumper. He swung to the side but managed to hang on. As the driver steered sharply in the other direction, eliciting a chorus of car horns from other drivers, Campbell used the momentum to swing himself onto the roof of the truck.

As he steadied himself, he sensed two heartbeats below him, both of them beating like jackhammers. He knew if he were inside, the smell of the women’s fear would be overwhelming. No doubt it was tickling the nose of the driver and making him salivate, regardless of his blood type.

Before the jackass could swerve again, Campbell lunged for the front. When he saw it was the driver’s-side door that was missing, he swung over the edge of the cab and slammed into the guy with his boots, knocking him halfway across the truck. Left unattended, the steering wheel veered sharply to the right as they approached the Brooklyn Bridge, sending Campbell swinging wildly by one hand again. Horns blared all around him, and headlights cut across his vision. The women in the back of the truck screamed.

His biceps strained as he pulled himself back to a safer two-handed position. But as he reached for the steering wheel, the other guy recovered, slid back into the driver’s seat and punched Campbell hard in the face. He felt it to the root of his fangs.

“Wrong move, asshole!” Campbell yelled as he got in a good punch of his own, drawing blood from the guy’s nose.

They traded a few more blows before the driver slammed on the brakes and the truck started to skid sideways. Campbell’s grip slipped off the truck’s side mirror and he fell to the pavement with a loud thud. He barely had time to roll to the side of the bridge before a car drove over the spot where he’d landed. Granted, there wasn’t as much traffic as there had once been and all these cars were driven by his kind, but he’d still be every bit as flat if their tires rolled over him.

He jumped to his feet just as a horrible crunching noise filled the night. A car sat sideways in the lane with a gash down the side. The V Force truck had spun around and was hanging over the side of the bridge, the front wheels spinning in open air.

With a curse, he sped to the side of the truck and jerked the guy out of the cab. The vamp retaliated with a punch to Campbell’s gut that tossed him back several feet. “Give up, loser.”

Okay, this guy had officially pissed him off. “We’ll see who the loser is.”

Campbell lost count of how many times they slammed fists into each other, but he had to be dripping blood from half a dozen wounds, including one above his eye that was messing up his vision. He swiped at it as he ducked another blow and swept his leg in an arc that buckled the other guy at the knees.

The sound of metal on metal drew his attention. He looked toward the truck in time to see it tip a little more over the edge. Damn, he had to get those women out of there, and that meant ending this knockdown. The guy flashed his fangs and took another swing at Campbell, but he ducked out of the way.

“Just remember you brought this on yourself,” Campbell said. With that, he slammed the full force of his fist against the guy’s family jewels. Man or vampire, that always did the trick. When the guy doubled over, Campbell dragged him to the side of the bridge and tossed him over. He didn’t wait to hear the splash but ran to the truck and leaped inside.

Both women screamed when they saw him.

“I’m not here to hurt you. You’ve got to get out.”

The woman from earlier headed for the back door.

“No!” He moved to grab her but froze when the truck tilted again. Instead, he slowly extended his hand. “Give me your hand.”

“Like hell.” After everything she’d been through tonight, he was surprised to see she still had some gumption left. Even though it was stupid at the moment.

“Unless you want to end up in the East River with that vampire who was here before, give me your damned hand.”

The younger woman who’d been in the blood den roused herself enough to scuttle toward the front and take his hand. Campbell grabbed her but didn’t miss the look of betrayal and disbelief on the other woman’s face. The former slave was so weak she couldn’t manage to drag herself out of the truck, so he left the other one behind to move her to safety. Len and Colin pulled up in a black Camaro they’d
borrowed
from someone.

“Watch this one,” he said as soon as Colin hopped out of the car.

The stubborn woman screamed. When he looked over his shoulder, the front of the damaged truck was tipping upward. He ran to the front bumper and grabbed it, keeping the truck from toppling over the side of the bridge.

“Len, hold this thing.” When Len took his place, Campbell eased back into the truck.

Shock slammed into him. The back door had swung open and the woman had slipped out. She hung on for dear life, her feet dangling in thin air. Her slim fingers were white with the effort of holding up her weight, and her heart was pumping so fast that it momentarily distracted him.

He shook his head and edged into the back of the truck, trying in vain not to scare her even more. He didn’t want his appearance to cause her grip to give way. Her eyes were huge when she spotted him. As he drew near, he extended one of his hands.

“Take my hand.”

She simply stared at him. Even in her current state, she couldn’t trust him. He saw the very real possibility that she would let go, choosing to drop into the frigid waters of the East River rather than accept his help.

“You won’t survive the fall.”

A shudder went through her and her hands slipped free. She screamed in that split second when she realized she was falling to her death, but that was all the time it took him to leap forward and grab her arm. He jerked her back into the truck and into his arms, trying to ignore the rich coppery scent of the blood trickling from a cut on her left cheek.

Good Lord, this woman was going to be the death of him.

* * *

It all happened so fast she barely had time to take a breath. She didn’t, however, have time to exhale before the big bloody vampire yanked her back from certain death. He held her tight against his side, making it evident that his clothes were hiding plenty of muscles as hard as iron. She had to remind herself that he was a monster, and that those muscles didn’t matter.

“What are you doing?” she managed to say.

“Saving your ass, again.” This close, and without his fangs diving toward her neck, his voice was a sexy rumble that reverberated throughout her body, making a part of her tingle that hadn’t in two long years.

Good grief, she must have cracked her head worse than she thought when the truck had shifted that last time.

Before she could attempt to free herself, he’d pulled her free of the truck and set her on her feet on the bridge. But he kept a firm grip on her shoulders. “You okay?” His eyes flicked to her forehead.

Her breathing stopped again as she realized he was looking at the spot that was stinging, a cut that was likely producing blood. His type of blood.

“Fine.” It came out as a raspy whisper as she pulled against his hold.

“Camp,” Colin said from where he was standing guard over the injured woman.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure about that? You look as if you’ve gone a few rounds with Freddy Krueger.”

“I said I’m fine. If I wasn’t, you’d know.”

He met Olivia’s eyes and for the life of her she couldn’t look away from that unnatural shade of blue. He finally broke eye contact and directed his attention to the other guys. She became aware of cars slowing down so the drivers could gawk, and she got the distinct feeling it wasn’t the precarious position of the truck that had drawn their interest. He stepped to the side of the guy holding the truck in place. If she’d needed any more evidence of vampire strength, there it was staring her in the face.