“I didn’t fucking do anything,” Zander snapped. “She’s the freak,” he added, earning a glare from James.
“Pot calling Kettle,” Lily shot at Zander then turned to James. “I still think you made up that whole bad boy reputation of yours. You way too goody goody for it. The kid here has more ‘tude in his cocky smirk than you do in your whole body,” Lily teased him.
Zander started to snicker, but before James could say anything back, Nick pointed to a small box of a building. “That’s next. Let’s go and quit wasting time,” he ordered.
When he turned, Lily stuck her tongue out at him before following him. The smell of dust made her sneeze as they walked in what apparently was a small museum on local history. Rubbing her nose, Lily suddenly picked up vampire musk behind dust. “Vampires,” Zander said before she could.
“And lots of them by the scents,” James added.
Lily sniffed, the dust almost making her sneeze again. She smelled several vampires, including Veronica and Vincent. Eager anticipation filled her as she took out the smooth wooden stake from the holster on her thigh along with her silver knife. “In the basement,” Nick said in a low voice. “Remember, we want Vincent and Veronica alive,” he added, giving Lily a hard look.
“What? I can follow the rules,” she shot back, narrowing her eyes at Nick when he had to choke back a laugh. “Whatever!”
The door to the basement was locked, but it wasn’t fancy so James broke it easily. He insisted on going first, then Nick, Zander, and Lily brought up the rear. She was still debating if she wanted to be offended or not that none of them seemed to believe she could restrain from killing Vincent and Veronica.
It took Lily a moment to adjust to the darkness. There were fifteen vamps laying on cheap cots all cramped into the small space. That they almost looked human, sleeping there like that creeped Lily out even more. “So freaking creepy,” she mumbled.
“No fucking kidding,” Zander mumbled in agreement, looking just as unnerved as she was.
They silently walked through the group, and Lily had the biggest inane desire to poke them to see if they were actually asleep or did they go into a death-like coma or something. Somehow she didn’t think the others would appreciate her leaning over a vamp to poke him while she demanded: “Hey, can you hear me?” Tightening her fingers around the weapons in her hands, she forced herself to focus on their faces, looking for anyone familiar.
“I don’t think Vincent is here,” Zander said in a harsh whisper.
“This must be the lackey quarters,” Lily replied in an equally harsh whisper when she paused. Anger flooded her veins like life’s blood. The wooden stake creaked from her tight grip. “Veronica,” she said, saying the name like a curse. Quickly, She slammed the stake through Veronica’s neck only to have Nick practically toss her across the room. She hit the wall hard and slid to the floor. None of the vampires even flinched.
“What the hell, Lily? I said we need her alive,” Nick demanded, but a strangled sound bubbled out of him when James’ arm snaked around his neck and pulled him into a perfect headlock. The alpha tried to jerk him off, but James was obviously the stronger of the two. He couldn’t even speak with the amount of pressure on his neck. Zander jaw dropped as he watched the two wide-eyed. Shock and uncertainty freezing him on the spot.
“James,” Lily said gently. A shiver of fear ran down her spine when she saw the look on James’ face. His eyes glowed golden, and his lip was curled in a snarl, giving him almost psychopathic look to him. She wasn’t sure he was all James at the moment. With a grunt of pain, Lily got up off the floor and took a step towards the two men.
“Don’t,” James said, his voice rough and feral. “Don’t you touch her like again,” he growled to Nick. “I will rip off your hands and feed them to you if you ever touch her like that again! She’s mine, and you will not hurt her!”
“Fuck, he’s totally lost it,” Zander said, still looking unsure what to do.
Nick struggled to say something and Lily were pretty sure he was starting to turn a little purple. “James…” she said again then just to make sure she got the right guy she added, “Beast…” Never had Lily seen James like this, even when he lost control to the beast. She had no clue what made him flip out like this. “I’m fine. He didn’t really hurt me, and he wasn’t trying to. He just thought I killed Veronica,” she explained. “Now you need to let him go.”
James grip loosened, but he didn’t let Nick go. He was definitely purple now. Although it was rather inappropriate, she had to admit she was impressed. James had downed the powerful alpha with just one move. Lily walked over to him, carefully laid her hand on his arm. After a moment, the golden glow dimmed, and James finally let Nick go. The alpha sucked in a breath and started to cough.
“What the hell was that James?” Nick demanded, his voice rough and dry.
“I’ll be outside,” James said and brushed past all of them and up the stairs as if the devil was chasing him.
Lily watched him with a frown then shook her head at Nick who looked like he was going to follow James. “Give him a minute,” she told him.
“You know what’s going on?”
She shook her head. “No, but you going all alpha on him isn’t going to help. You need to take care of them,” she told him, lifting her chin towards the vamps. “Veronica isn’t dead. I pierced her throat, not her heart. I was just paralyzing her and keeping her from speaking and possible waking the other vamps, which I obviously didn’t need to worry about because they seem pretty dead to the world.”
“Oh,” Nick said, rubbing his throat and glaring at Zander, who turned his snicker into a cough. “You go see what make him flip out, and we’ll take care of leeches.”
She gave him an appreciative nod and went up the stairs to follow James. He was outside, sitting on the sidewalk with his head in his hands. Lily sat down next to him, feeling pains of being tossed like a sack of potatoes disappearing quickly. “Okay, fine you may be a little bad ass,” she said with a teasing tone and frowned when he didn’t say anything, laugh, or show any kind of reaction at all. “James, talk to me because you’re kind of freaking me out right now.”
“Sorry,” he said without lifting his head. “Just…” he started then stopped. “There was so many of them and the smell… I can still feel it after all these months. I can still feel their fangs ripping at me before they leeched off me,” he said slowly.
The surprise hit Lily, and she set her hand on his bicep. They had never actually talked about what happened to him when Silvano had kidnapped him. “I’m sorry James. If I’d…” she started, but he brushed off her hand as he stood up and put some distance between him.
“Vincent wasn’t in there,” He said, his voice flat and clearly dismissive.
“James,” Lily said, not wanting to just sweep under the rug what happened.
“I can see him staying in a cot in a basement,” He said as if she hadn’t spoken.
“James,” she insisted but heard the others coming out of the little museum.
“Everything okay,” Nick asked, carrying Veronica over his shoulder.
“Yep,” James said before Lily could say a word. She narrowed her eyes at him even though he couldn’t see it since he was looking anywhere but at her.
This isn’t over James! Not by a long shot, Lily vowed. “Men,” she grumbled, marching over to Zander. “The others took care of?”
He looked a little confused that she was asking him instead of Nick. Nick answered her despite that she didn’t ask him. “Gasoline and old newspapers made the basement go up quick. That should take care of them. If not the sunlight will. There is no other place to hide in that building. Let’s keep moving. I have a feeling there is going to be more vampires hidden around.”
It was nearly sunset before they finished going through the entire town. There were several vamps hidden in various locations, but Vincent was nowhere to be found. Bill thought he found the vamp’s daytime hideout in Nick’s house, but he wasn’t there now. Lily could tell everyone was disappointed that they didn’t find him. Maybe he knew they were coming? But then why would he have sacrificed all his vamp lackeys and Veronica?
During their search, Nick made James rear guard now, and Lily noticed he kept his distance from her. James was doing the same thing, except he wouldn’t even look at her still. It was enough to make her want to tear her hair out. She didn’t like not knowing what was going on with James, and she hated that he was purposely shutting her out. Only finding Veronica’s research and makeshift lab in the high school chemistry class was able to distract her from her brooding and ever growing anger.
“What happened?” Bill asked as they drove back to the hotel.
“What makes you think something happened?” She replied back, flipping through the vampire’s research.