“I think she’s going to be okay,” Harley told him.
The boy nodded and held the girl closer, his gaze filling with hatred as he looked at the vampire stretched out on the floor.
Harley stood and moved to Sawyer’s side as he knelt beside the vampire, checking to see if the thing was still alive. Sawyer had a bad gash on the back of his head, but otherwise he seemed okay. It was impossible to put into words how good that made her feel.
“Um,” Sawyer started slowly, taking his fingers away from the thing’s neck after a long delay. “I think I felt a pulse, but it’s really slow…like two beats a minute. I don’t know if that’s normal for a vampire or if it means it’s dying.”
Harley was about to tell him to check for breathing, then remembered reading something in the STAT files that said while vampires breathe, they breathe extremely slowly, so that probably wouldn’t help. Before she could say that, the little boy spoke.
“It’s as alive as it ever was,” the boy said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Maya doesn’t kill people when she touches them. She just makes them sleep.”
Without another word, the boy went back to holding Maya, no longer interested in what the rest of them were doing.
Sawyer stood a little unsteadily and gazed down at the creature on the floor. “Any idea what we do with an unconscious vampire?”
Harley didn’t have a clue, but as the vampire’s neck began to heal itself, she wondered if it would be wrong to rip the thing’s head off.
Chapter 8
Sawyer sat across the table from the unconscious vampire, counting the creature’s insanely slow heartbeats. It was freaky to think that something could be alive when its heart only beat once or twice a minute. Then again, he’d always assumed that if vampires were real, they’d have no heartbeat at all. So really, was one beat a minute any freakier than no beats a minute?
A quick glance at his watch confirmed that they were approaching six hours since the fight had ended down in the depths of that underground maze, and there were no signs of the creature even thinking about waking up. He had to hand it to that little girl with the silver-gray eyes. When that kid put someone down for a nap, they bloody well stayed down.
When asked how long her touch usually put people under, Maya shrugged and went back to the grilled cheese sandwich Harley had made her. Sawyer wasn’t sure if that noncommittal response was because the girl truly didn’t know the answer or because she had no clue what Sawyer was saying. He was leaning toward the latter, considering the fact that the girl hadn’t said a word since they’d found her. The theory was that she was Norwegian, and nobody on either team spoke the language.
When Sawyer had finally gotten a good look at Harley after the fight with the vampire, he’d freaked out at the sight of the blood all over her clothes. Because she was a werewolf, the wounds she’d sustained wouldn’t be fatal, but the part of him that wasn’t nearly as logical saw her bleeding and started to hyperventilate. Knowing how close she’d come to being shot in the head by that damn vampire hadn’t helped.
Before he had time to get too lost in that moment, Caleb and Erin had shown up, both looking like they’d gone ten rounds with a T. rex. The green, scaly creature had gotten away, but neither of them seemed too upset about that. From the grins on their faces, it was like they’d enjoyed the fight and were looking forward to doing it again. All Sawyer could do was shake his head. Erin had always been weird that way. Apparently, Caleb was no different.
Caleb and Sawyer had dragged the vampire with them on a hunt through the tunnels to find the rest of their combined teams, Harley and Erin carrying the kids. It had taken a while, but they’d finally found Jake and the others, who were as battered and bruised as they were. From there, they’d linked up with the support team and slipped out of the underground maze, using the cover of darkness to get past the local authorities who’d shown up to investigate all the shooting.
Sawyer looked up as the door opened and Jake and Caleb came in, the latter carrying a black gym bag. Both of them glanced at the vampire before giving Sawyer a questioning look.
“The thing is still out cold,” Sawyer said, then winced. “No pun intended.”
Caleb snorted as he moved over to check the ungodly amount of steel cables they’d used to tie up the vampire and keep him strapped down to the chair. They didn’t know how strong the thing was, so maybe they’d gone a little overboard, but better safe than sorry. It was good vampires didn’t have to breathe that often because if they did, this one probably wouldn’t be able to.
Their lack of knowledge on vamps was also the reason Sawyer and the other two werewolves were the only people in the room at the moment. Since they’d found absolutely nothing down in those tunnels to suggest where the other prisoners from Paris had been taken or where this auction was being held, Sawyer and Jake had come to the conclusion the only option they had was to interrogate the vampire. But while the need to question the creature might be obvious, neither of them were naive when it came to how badly this could go if the thing got loose. Which was why there wasn’t anyone in the room the vampire could easily hurt.
Harley would have been in there, too, but Jake wanted her to stay with Maya and the boy. Considering how the little blond girl was the only person who could put a vampire on his arse with a single touch, Sawyer thought keeping her safe was a good idea. Besides, the farther away Harley stayed from the asshole, the better.
Jake and Caleb had just sat down when Sawyer heard a slight change in the vampire’s blood flow. A moment later, the steel cables around the creature’s chest creaked and the thing’s eyes snapped open, flat black and full of rage as it struggled against the restraints.
Sawyer was more than ready to let the creature flail for a while, figuring it would tire the thing out—assuming vampires got tired—but Caleb wasn’t as patient.
“You might want to ask yourself if trying to get loose is really in your best interest,” the omega werewolf said casually from his chair as he leaned over and dug around in the bag he’d brought with him. Coming up with a bloody big machete, he calmly placed it on the table in front of the vampire. “Because if I think you’re getting anywhere close to being a problem, I’m going to separate your head from your shoulders.”
The vampire struggled against the cables again, hissing and showing off a mouthful of teeth as it glared at Caleb. “I’m going to enjoy sinking my fangs into your flesh and hearing your screams as I rip out your throat.”
Sawyer tensed at the heavily accented words, waiting for Caleb to lose control and lop off the vampire’s head. After seeing the way the omega behaved earlier in the tunnels, it wouldn’t be surprising. But when Sawyer glanced at Jake, the other alpha didn’t seem too worried.
But instead of going all berserker again, Caleb merely leaned over and pulled something else out of the bag, dropping it on the table with a thud. The vampire was naturally pale to start with, but it got even pastier as it warily eyed the large pair of locking pliers beside the machete.