Chapter 6 #2
Rafe grunted. “He’ll adjust to the rest soon enough,” he murmured, but his mind was on the enormous redbrick building rising up across a large open lawn.
The edifice was older, with five floors of windows across two broad wings.
It was highlighted with columns and ornate decoration above the front door.
But there was something about the behemoth structure. A heavy weight of death and sorrow.
“What’s this place?”
“It’s a nursing home.”
His eyes ran over the building. Everything looked tidy, but there was a weariness to it all, as if there wasn’t the time, money, or energy to keep up with all the things that needed doing.
There were fewer lights on in the building than in the surrounding homes.
These residents weren’t the night-owl type.
On a whim, Rafe started across the wide lawn dotted with partially barren maple trees.
The ones closest to the road were smaller and younger.
Maybe only a few years old. As if the place got some unexpected funding to try to improve the appearance of the grounds.
While larger, older trees were positioned closer to the building.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Philippe demanded, taking a couple of jogging steps to catch up with Rafe. “You don’t think that Piper actually preyed on senior citizens?”
Rafe frowned. Had he thought that? It would be odd. Most vampires didn’t seek to kill their victims. It drew too much notice. And someone old enough to be living in a nursing home would definitely be too frail to feed upon without seriously risking death.
But then, hunting so close to a nursing home seemed like a strange choice as well.
Piper’s entire hunting ground selection felt strange.
Residential areas were hard places to hunt in.
Going into a person’s home was an unnecessary risk, and the selection was slim when it came to waiting on someone to leave their home.
Busy cities with their shopping areas and restaurants made it much easier to find prey.
“I don’t think she was hunting at the nursing home, unless she has a taste for older, more mature blood,” Rafe said.
“No. She wasn’t hunting there,” Philippe snapped.
Rafe shrugged. “We’re just looking around.”
He had no plan. When he’d suggested searching the last area where Piper would have been, he’d thought it would be a potential area where other vampires might have crossed through, a place where someone might have seen her at one time.
At the very least, he’d hoped to get a sense of what other vampires might be in the area.
People he could lean on for information if they ever hoped to get access to Blush again.
But no. Piper had to hang out in an area where no sensible vampire would hunt. A place where he couldn’t find a single damn lead to get him one step closer to having this whole fucking charade completed.
Of course, finding out what happened to Piper would likely mean putting an end to his visits with Philippe, something that left him feeling extremely conflicted.
Seeing Philippe again was a very bad thing.
But he still couldn’t forget their encounter in the hallway at Blush.
He wanted all that to happen again very soon and so much more.
Rafe was pulled out of that thought by…something he couldn’t quite define. It was shadowy and half-hidden. Or it was trying very hard to be hidden. And that usually meant it was a threat.
Grabbing Philippe’s arm, Rafe pulled the vampire behind his body, keeping him at his back as he turned toward the vague ripple of energy.
They weren’t alone. There was another…something.
Vampire? The feeling shouldn’t be so vague and weak if it was another vampire.
Rafe didn’t sense other vampires the same way he sensed his brothers.
Their power was incredibly clear and distinct.
He could identify them all. Even now, he pinged them all in his mind. They were a distance away.
Other vampires all felt roughly the same. Just a discordant note struck within a melody that played endlessly like a bit of white noise.
But this…this he couldn’t make sense of.
“What’s wrong? What are you doing?” Philippe demanded. He pulled against Rafe’s hold, but not enough to break free. Rafe had no doubt that Philippe could slip away from him if he truly wanted to. For now, he was following Rafe’s lead.
“Someone else is here.”
“Shouldn’t I be the one protecting you?”
Rafe snorted. “If something happens to you while on my watch, Marcus will have my head.”
“Funny. I feel the same way about you right now.”
A strange feeling shimmied through Rafe at his words, but he tamped the warmth down. He couldn’t get a bead on the newcomer. The wrinkle of energy would drift in and out, the location so damn vague. All he knew was, someone was close.
Pain sliced through Rafe’s shoulder followed by the crack of gunfire. The impact of the bullet ripping through him spun his body halfway around. A second bullet slammed into his side, knocking him to the ground.
Rafe blinked up at the black sky, stunned to find himself on his back.
The motherfucker was using a gun. A vampire was shooting another vampire.
That couldn’t be right. Vampires didn’t use fucking guns because they couldn’t kill each other with them.
Well, not with the regular handguns. An attacker would need one of those monstrous hand cannons to do that.
Philippe’s worried expression appeared above him a second later, tearing Rafe from his swirling, useless thoughts.
“Are you—” Philippe started to ask, but Rafe didn’t give him the chance to get the words out.
Grabbing Philippe’s shoulder with his uninjured arm, Rafe pulled himself upright.
The second he reached his feet, he shoved Philippe behind him again.
There was another gunshot, but this time the bullet kicked up dirt not more than a couple of feet from where Philippe had been kneeling.
“Stay behind me!” Rafe commanded.
“You’re already injured!”
Yeah, and it hurt like hell, but he wasn’t going to die from it.
He needed to keep Philippe safe. With his good arm behind his back, partially wrapped around Philippe, locking the damn vampire to his side, Rafe retreated.
He headed for the older maple trees closer to the nursing home.
The thick trunk would offer them some much-needed cover.
Of course, getting Philippe to move in that direction wasn’t the easiest when the clan leader kept trying to place his body in front of Rafe’s.
Additional shots were fired, but none of them hit either Rafe or Philippe.
The shooter must be having a little trouble now that they were moving. Rafe would take it.
Putting the tree between them and the shooter, Rafe sighed as he pressed his back into the bark.
The rich scent of dead leaves and wet dirt rose up around them.
He had a matching set of four new holes in his body, thanks to the bullets passing straight through.
They all hurt like the fucking devil and were steadily leaking blood he could ill afford to lose.
Intellectually, he knew they were all healing, but it was little reassurance.
And to add to it all, his phone was insistently vibrating in his pocket. He knew who was calling.
“Can you see the shooter?” Rafe asked as he carefully reached for his phone.
“No, and the gunshots have stopped. Do you think he’s left or…”
“Moving to a better position?” Rafe supplied when Philippe’s words drifted off.
“Not sure. Can you feel him?” Rafe couldn’t any longer.
The power he’d detected earlier had been difficult to pinpoint.
Now with the pain surging through his body mixed with worry over Philippe’s safety, he couldn’t concentrate enough to locate the vampire.
“No.”
“Keep searching,” Rafe ordered as he answered the call. When he spoke into the phone, his voice instantly became gentle but firm. “Hey Bel, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not!” Bel shouted, causing Rafe to wince. Bel was not one to shout, but Rafe didn’t need to hear the panic in his twin’s voice. He could feel it crawling along his flesh with the sharp points of pain. “Where are you? What’s happening?”
Rafe glanced at Philippe to find the vampire watching him with a stunned expression. He had to agree that it wasn’t the best time to take a call, but Bel needed him. “I’ve just found a bit of trouble with Arsenault—”
“Did he attack you? I will rip his fucking eyes out. I’ll drag his screaming body to my lab and experiment on him. He’ll beg me to turn him into fucking goo if he laid a hand on you!”
Rafe winced, trying to curl around the phone. Bel was shouting loud enough for Philippe to hear him. The worst part was that he completely believed Bel would do all those things and more.
“No, Philippe hasn’t hurt me. I’m fine. Already healing. Just go back to your lab. Everything is in hand, I promise.”
Bel growled into the phone. Rafe moved the device from his ear and actually stared at it for a heartbeat. Bel growled at him again.
“Don’t patronize me, Rafe!”
“I’m not. I swear, I’m fine. Healing up nicely and I’m going to grab a bite at home very soon.”
There was a long pause and Rafe closed his eyes for a second, praying to whatever gods there may be that Bel didn’t come hunting for him.
“Fine,” Bel bit out. “But I’m sending Ozzie to you.”
“Don’t you dare send that bloody bird!”
“I’m sending him!” Bel ended the call abruptly. He had a feeling his brother wished he could slam the thing down in his frustration, but there was little good that would do with a cell phone.
“A brother?” Philippe asked softly.
Rafe looked up at Philippe again to see him peering around the tree. He had placed his body over Rafe as much as he possibly could in protection. Hints of his cologne drifted past his nose, but the delightful scent was marred with hints of fear. He didn’t want Philippe to feel such a thing.
“Beltran.”
“He can feel when you’re hurt?”
Rafe sighed and closed his eyes again for only a second. “It’s a twin thing.”
He could feel Philippe stiffen a little, and Rafe opened his eyes to find Philippe looking at him now. “He’s your twin? I knew you were all brothers, but I had no idea that you had a twin.”
A half smile lifted one corner of his mouth. This was not the time to discuss it, but he couldn’t look away from the surprised wonder in Philippe’s soft green eyes. “We’re not identical.”
“Thank God for that. The world could not handle two of you.”
They were so close now. It wouldn’t take much for Rafe to lean forward those last couple of inches to press his lips to Philippe’s.
As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, Philippe quickly looked away, staring around the tree again.
“I don’t sense any vampires. There’s no one out there, and the shooting has stopped.”
“We need to get out of here regardless. Plenty of humans would have heard the shots and the police have likely been called.” Rafe pushed against the tree with his good arm, straightening.
He swayed only a little once on his feet and Philippe was quick to place a steadying hand on his uninjured shoulder.
“You said that Piper hunted close to the Arsenault home? A safe place?”
Philippe pressed his lips into a tight, hard line as he stared at Rafe.
There was pain in his lovely eyes, but there were no words coming out of his mouth.
It was crystal clear that he had no desire to take Rafe to his clan’s safe haven.
Rafe wanted to shout at the vampire that he’d taken two fucking bullets for him.
That his brothers had agreed to help his clan.
How could he not trust them? Not trust Rafe?
But he got it. Sure, Philippe had said Rafe would get safe passage to the Arsenault property, but it was another matter entirely to actually put those words into action. Especially when it was clear they’d be dragging trouble with them.
There was a severe shortage of trust among vampires, and there was very good reason for it.
His own brother’s home had been attacked twice already this year.
Their mother had been killed as a result.
It didn’t matter if Rafe was bleeding for Philippe.
The clan leader had to think of the safety of his own family first.
“Come on,” Rafe grumbled. Stomping around the tree, he led the way toward his car.
“My penthouse is less than twenty minutes from here. But you’re going to have to drive.
” Very carefully, he reached into his pocket with his left hand.
Pain surged through his shoulder at the movement, but he managed to grab the keys.
He held them out, and Philippe quickly snatched them.
“Rafe—”
“Don’t!” he snapped. He drew in a deep breath and slowly released it through clenched teeth.
The worst of the pain had receded so that the gunshot wounds were down to just dull, throbbing aches.
His shirt was plastered to his skin, soaked with blood.
“I understand. I don’t have to like it, but I do understand. ”
Protecting your family always came first.