He gaped.
Becca fought the vampire.
“What the hell?” Nicole blurted.
Becca swung two sais she had hidden Sean-didn’t-know-where.
Reed drew two bowies and stumbled backward as he parried the blows.
“Who are you?” Becca snapped. “Why do you want me?”
Sean released Nicole’s legs. As soon as she slid down his back, he drew the daggers hidden beneath his shirt and started forward.
Becca must have been training with the Seconds, because she was actually holding her own.
“What the fuck?” Reed blurted, and actually took a step back.
No. She was more than holding her own.
“Tell me!” she shouted as one of her blades sliced into Reed’s arm. Another carved a path across his stomach. “Why did you attack me?”
His face darkening with fury, Reed swung his bowie. “Fuck you!”
Becca blocked it despite his greater strength. “Fuck me?” she snarled. “Is that your answer?” She swung again, drawing blood.
Sean stared.
Gun drawn, Nicole kept pace with him, watching in awe as they approached the duo. “Damn. Becca has skills. Do you think she’s like Krysta?”
Krysta’s ability to see vampires’ auras had helped her defeat vampires—with their enhanced speed and strength—long before she’d become immortal.
Sean shook his head. “I don’t know.” He didn’t think Becca had ever mentioned her ability.
“Is that why you want me?” Becca’s voice acquired a French accent as she cut Reed again. And again. And again. Then swept one of Reed’s weapons from his grasp. After dropping one of her own, she grabbed him by the throat.
As Sean and Nicole watched in dumbfounded disbelief, Becca’s form changed, growing taller, bulkier, her clothes straining to contain it, then tearing and falling away.
Nick now stood before Reed, his face twisted with fury.
Reed’s eyes damned near popped out of his skull. Swearing, he swung his other bowie.
Nick yanked it from his hand and hurled it away.
Sean and Nicole ducked as it flew past.
Lifting Reed by the neck, Nick shoved him up against one of the buildings. While Reed kicked his feet and clawed at the hand that choked him, Nick leaned in close. “Is that why you took my daughter?” he demanded, his voice deep now and nearly vibrating with rage. “You wanted to fuck her?”
“Oh shit,” Nicole whispered.
“I was… I wanted to save her,” Reed wheezed.
“Bullshit!” Nick roared, and motioned with the sai in his other hand to a bloody patch on his neck. “You sank your teeth into her neck. Into my neck, thinking I was her. I still bear the marks.”
“I… I just wanted to calm her,” Reed sputtered as he squirmed, making no headway in securing his release.
“Don’t lie to me!” Nick roared. He drew Reed away from the building, then slammed the vampire back into it hard enough to crack the brick. “If you wanted to save her or protect her, all you had to do was walk up to her and tell her so. Instead, you bit her and whisked her away. And this was the second time you did so!” He slammed the vampire into the wall again, the cracks in the brick lengthening.
“Fuck you!” Reed shot back, anger seeming to overcome fear. “Yeah, I took her.” Or perhaps the madness that afflicted all vampires had begun to kick in. Because that dumb bastard started telling Nick in nauseating detail everything he’d wanted to do to Becca.
Nick dropped his sai and proceeded to beat the shit out of Reed.
Sean remained where he stood, allowing the elder immortal to vent his rage. It didn’t really matter what condition the vamp was in when they questioned him. They would kill Reed anyway once they elicited the answers they sought. And Sean thought the vampire deserved an ass-kicking. If Reed had been sincere in his desire to protect Becca, he wouldn’t have bitten her. Nor would he have spewed the vile things he’d said, even in bluster. Honorable men just didn’t think that way.
Reed tried and failed to get in a few punches. Nick was hundreds of years older, far stronger, and couldn’t care less that he fought naked.
Nick grabbed one of the fallen sais and prepared to strike what would surely be a killing blow.
“Wait!” Sean called, and took a step forward.
Nick glared over at him as Reed struggled to pick himself up off the ground. “What?”
“Don’t kill him, Nick. We need to know for sure why he took her.”
“He just told us why he took her,” Nick growled, and turned back to Reed.
Weaving where he stood, Reed peered up at Nick through swollen eyes. “Nick? Did he say Nick?” he asked through swollen, bloody lips and staggered. “Are you Nick Belanger?”
The smile that curled Nick’s lips was chilling. “Yes. And now you know the name of your executioner.” He swung.
Sean and Nicole both lunged forward. “No!”
Reed’s head tumbled from his shoulders and hit the ground. His body sank into a lifeless heap beside it.
Jerking to a halt, Sean stared at Nick.
No smile graced his face as he stood, chest heaving, glaring down at Reed as if he wanted nothing more than for the vampire to open his eyes and stand up so Nick could kill him again. His bare form splattered with Reed’s blood, Nick turned to face them. “He can’t hurt her now, can he?”
“No,” Nicole said softly. “He can’t hurt her.” Glancing up at Sean, she caught and held his gaze. “Becca’s safe now.”
Sean nodded.
But was she?
Chapter Four
Nicole drew her cell phone out of her back pocket and dialed Seth.
“Yes?”
“We need you,” she told him.
In the next instant, the Immortal Guardians’ leader appeared beside her.
While Nicole floundered mentally and wondered how to explain what had happened, Seth studied Sean, arched a brow at his altered appearance, then glanced over at Nick, who stood over the decaying vampire’s body, as naked as the day he was born, with rage painting his features alongside the blood.
Seth strode toward Nick. “Let’s get you home before someone sees you.” As soon as he touched Nick’s shoulder, the two of them disappeared.
Nicole turned to Sean.
“We fucked up,” they blurted in unison.
Swearing, Sean paced away a few steps. “We should’ve run this whole thing by Seth first.”
She nodded. “I know. I just… It didn’t occur to me that—”
“Something like this would happen. It didn’t occur to me either.”
“At most, I thought Reed would appear, play the good guy like he did with Tessa, and I’d tranq his ass.”
“And I figured if I tagged along and pretended to be human, he wouldn’t consider me a threat, and I could keep him from hurting you both if shit went sideways.” He dragged a hand through his hair, then grimaced at the feel of the product that coated it. “Did you know Becca wasn’t Becca?”
“No. Did you?”
“No.”
Seth reappeared.
Nicole’s stomach fluttered nervously. They had just lost their only lead in terms of discovering why Becca was being targeted. And based on Reed’s last words, it seemed like she was definitely being targeted.