Vampire Romance Series - Coffee And Vampires 1-7 (Vampire Romance Bundle) (9 page)

“
Donovan!” she called. It came out as more of a croak. She swallowed heavily. “Van! I’m here.”

The blow came without warning, a heavy blunt weight to her left temple that sent her reeling into the darkness. Red spots exploded in front of her eyes as she rolled further away from the entrance. She patted the ground around her frantically, trying to regain her bearings, ignoring the fragments of glass that cut into her fingers. Her hands encountered a warm body – a slim face and long, tangled hair.

“
Janine?” Page whispered. The form was terrifyingly still, but her breath felt warm and moist on Page’s palm. The other woman let out a stifled sob. “Can you walk?”

“
I don’t think so, Page.” It was Janine, though her voice sounded thick and muffled, as though she were speaking around cotton. That she could talk at all came as a relief to Page.

A light flared in the door, painfully bright to Page’s addled vision. The lantern-style camping flashlight was one of Armand’s, used in the coffee house when the power went out. It was bright enough to send vivid yellow light through one end of the warehouse, crates and hanging chains casting dark, sinister shadows over the concrete floor.

Nicholas was squinting through the light. He adjusted his glasses, shoving them a little further up on his nose. He still saw Van before Page did, and managed to set the lantern down before the werewolf attacked.

Van was fully transformed, a giant misshapen hulk of fur and teeth that was only nominally bipedal. Next to him, Nicholas seemed thin and fragile. In fact, Van’s weight bowled him over, the two tumbling over the floor.

Page saw her opening and grabbed Janine under her arms, hauling her bodily toward the door. Janine whimpered again but pushed against the floor with one leg so the two women could scuttle along that much faster. For an instant, Page was grateful for the discolored, flickering light. It meant she didn’t have to see just how badly Janine was hurt.

They’d almost reached the door when Page heard an anguished howl from Van. She dove over Janine’s prone body, hoping desperately that Janine would keep crawling away. She landed badly, the concrete floor scraping painfully against her bandaged arm, but she’d gotten Van’s attention away from the door.

That was the thing, with a fully-transformed werewolf on the night of a full moon. The man within might still
think
he was in control, and to an extent this was correct. But it was the same sort of shaky control logic retains over a mind sodden with alcohol. The wolf was strong, predatory instincts surging toward the surface of consciousness.

To the wolf, the women were prey rather than prizes.

And a wolf could not keep its mind on more than one prey at a time.

Van had never liked admitting his own limitations, and thus had holed himself up in the warehouse alone. Nevertheless, he was still much stronger than Page, and he lifted her with one massive hairy hand which tightened inexorably around her throat. Page clawed uselessly at him, gasping and gurgling for air, darkness eating away at the corners of her vision.

A loud impact seemed to shatter her hearing, and she was dropped unceremoniously to the floor. Blinking furiously and clutching her throat, she looked up to see the remains of a broken crate scattered around her. Van was crouching nearby, seemingly stunned, while Nicholas’s arms were still half-raised in a throwing motion.

“
Page, run!” he cried, leaping to get between her and the beast.

Page turned for the door and ran, footsteps echoing hugely in the warehouse. Behind her, she heard a frenzy of snarls from Van, followed by the dull thuds of flesh against flesh.

Janine had kept crawling past the door and had nearly reached the car. Page threw the door open and pushed the driver’s seat forward, hauling Janine into the tiny back seat where she could at least almost remain lying down.

“
My leg,” Janine said weakly. Page glanced down. One leg of Janine’s jeans was dark and mottled with blood, the ripped fabric revealing a mess of open flesh.

“
It’ll be fine,” Page said. She moved to get into the driver’s seat, ready to get as much distance as possible between them and Van. That hadn’t been part of her original plan, but it had been the one alteration to it that Nicholas had insisted upon. She was to use the time he took to fight Van to get away. She’d gotten as far as pulling the keys out from under the seat when an all-too-human cry of pain cut through the air.

Nicholas
.

Page tossed her phone onto Janine’s lap. “Call an ambulance,” she ordered before running back to the warehouse.

Inside, Van had Nicholas pinned to the floor. His jaws lolled open, seeking to fasten around Nicholas’s throat. Nicholas had his hands locked on Van’s open maw, but his arms trembled with the strain of holding the werewolf back. A trickle of blood slid down Nicholas’s white arm.

Page pulled the vial from her pocket, tugging frantically at the cork. The noise caught Van’s attention, and he jerked his head up, nearly dislodging Nicholas’s grip. He growled and tried to lunge at her, but Nicholas still wouldn’t let go, acting as an anchor to the monster.

The cork finally popped free, and Page flung the vial and its precious contents directly at Donovan.

Van howled as the wolfsbane hit his face, the sound so great that it seemed to make the whole building rattle. He pawed frantically at his eyes as though Page had thrown hot ash in his face. She could smell burning hair and seared flesh. Nicholas took advantage of Van’s distraction and pulled the beast into a choke hold, slowly dragging him toward the door.

He slammed the wolf’s head into the ground, ignoring the shrill cries of pain Van gave with each fresh blow.

“
Stop!” Page said, then clapped a hand to her mouth. She couldn’t believe it. Van had kidnapped Janine, nearly torn Sam to pieces, and even attacked her and Nicholas. Yet here she was crying for mercy.

Nicholas obeyed, though he kept his arms taut around Van’s throat.

Page approached cautiously, making sure to keep out of Van’s immediate range. Part of her wanted to scream at him, to condemn him for daring to invade her life, for attacking her and her friends. But suddenly she just felt massively tired. “I want you to leave,” she said. “I never want to hear from you or see you ever again.”

Nicholas tightened his grip a little, enough to make the werewolf wheeze for breath. “We’ll know if you don’t leave town,” he said, voice calm and even. His glasses had gotten knocked off in the fight and his blue eyes were strangely intent. “You made a mistake, thinking I couldn’t see in the dark. We all can and we have eyes everywhere. If you ever so much as touch Page again. . .” he leaned a little more weight on the wolf’s windpipe. “Well, I’m sure you understand by now.”

Nicholas stood and followed Page out the door of the warehouse. They’d nearly reached the car when the sound of heavy footsteps betrayed Van’s actions. Nicholas wheeled around, catching Donovan by the arm. He sidestepped to drag Van away from the car and the two women, and finally gave a great heave, every muscle in his body trembling under the strain. Van tumbled down the slope to the river, his body disappearing into the surging water with a splash.

Nicholas turned and embraced Page with all his might. She could feel his heart pounding – a different rhythm from her human heart, but a rhythm nonetheless.

“
I love you,” he whispered fiercely, holding her as close as he could.

Page felt tears forming in her eyes, though whether they were from emotion or sheer exhaustion she couldn’t be certain.

“
I love you too,” she replied as the siren of the ambulance began to approach. “I love you, Nicholas.”

****

“
You’re getting released today?” Page asked.

Janine’s hospital room was bright, sunny, and absolutely packed with flowers and colorful “GET WELL SOON” balloons. Janine was sitting up on the bed, heavily-bandaged leg propped stiffly in front of her.

“
Yeah,” she said.

The week in the hospital had brought back the color in her cheeks and even a shine to her hair, but there was a haunted look in her eyes that the doctors hadn’t been able to heal even after patching up the lacerations on her cheek from the rough concrete floor of the warehouse. Her leg had required twenty-four stitches to repair and would always be scarred, just like Page’s torn-up hands.

Page, for her part, had regained the use of her fingers and only her palms were still bandaged. “Nicholas let me borrow his car,” she said, jingling the keys. “I can help you get all this stuff back to your apartment, and you’ll be back at the café in no time.”

Janine smiled wanly. “Maybe not.”

“
What?” Page asked, genuinely startled. Janine had loved every part of working at the café, even dealing with customers who hadn’t yet had their morning coffee.

“
I’m thinking maybe I should change some things up,” Janine said, smoothing the sheets under her hands. “I don’t think I’ll be going back to the café.”

Page sat heavily in the stiff armchair next to Janine’s bed. “Do you know where you’ll be looking for a new job?”

“
Idaho.”

Page stared, wondering if Janine had slipped into some kind of delirium again. She’d been hysterical for two days after being admitted. Well, Page thought of it as hysteria, but the doctors had diagnosed it as a psychotic break. After all, she’d come in babbling about a man who grew fur and fangs when he abducted her and had screamed uncontrollably at sundown whenever a nurse forgot to draw the blinds against the waning moon.

Page wished that she’d been able to argue with the doctors, but what could she tell them? That Janine hadn’t gone briefly insane from trauma because werewolves really did exist? She’d just end up committed herself.

“
My mom lives in Idaho,” Janine explained. “I’m going to move back home for a while.”

“
Do you really feel that’s necessary?” Page asked. She half-expected what the answer would be but felt that she had to ask anyway. Janine was her friend, had been her best friend for years, after they’d gotten assigned to the same shifts at the café.

Janine nodded firmly. “Yeah. My parents are all excited about it.” She grimaced briefly, then laughed. It was almost a real laugh, too. “Already cleaned out my old bedroom.”

A nurse walked in then, clipboard in hand. “Looks like you’re good to go, Janine,” she said cheerfully. Page stood and picked up the crutches leaning against the wall.

Janine was able to navigate the corridors well enough, though Page ended up appropriating an unused gurney in order to carry all the flowers. Loading Janine into the freshly-washed Volkswagen was another challenge, but finally the two women were seated and strapped in. They drove in near-silence for the twenty minutes it took to reach Janine’s apartment building, the back seat filled up to the rear window with flowers and bobbing balloons.

It took three trips for Page to get all of the gifts into Janine’s small apartment, where they crowded the living room.

Janine laughed ruefully. “Almost not worth it, huh?”

Page shrugged. “I didn’t mind.” She struggled with words for an awkward minute, trying to find a way to ask the questions boiling in the back of her mind. How much had Janine seen? Did she believe what the doctors said – that she’d started hallucinating due to severe shock? Or did she
know
what she’d seen?

“
I’ll pick up some boxes from the grocery store after I return Nicholas’s car,” Page blurted out finally. “You helped me move. It’s only fair I do the same for you.”

Janine thanked her, leaving Page to return to the car alone.

By the time Page returned Nicholas’s car to the lot behind the house where he lived, her mind was in turmoil. He met her at the back door to the house, arms out for a hug, but his smile faded when he saw her troubled face.

“
What’s wrong?” he asked, arms encircling her. His glasses had been lost at the warehouse and his new pair weren’t ready yet. To Page, it seemed almost as if part of his face was missing, leaving him looking wide-eyed and vulnerable.

“
Janine’s moving,” Page said, swallowing a sob. Ridiculous to cry over this, but she’d been crying pretty frequently the last couple of days.
Just stress
, she reminded herself.
It’s normal to feel overwhelmed.
But losing her friend felt nearly unbearable.

Nicholas held her close, pressing his mouth to the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, Page,” he murmured into her hair. “I should have warned you I saw this coming.”

Page pulled away. “What do you mean?” she sniffed.

Nicholas gave her a sad, faraway smile. “For you, believing in vampires and werewolves isn’t that far-fetched – you’ve known about us for years. Since you were just a kid, really, right?”

Page nodded, comprehension slowly dawning. “For Janine, this is all new.”

“
And it’s nigh-impossible for most people to take in as adults,” Nicholas went on. “We’re told all our lives that the monsters in the dark aren’t real. Then to become an adult and find out that the monsters aren’t only real, but hungry?” He cast his face downward. “The usual reaction is to run away, move somewhere new and try to forget anything out of the ordinary ever happened.”