Ground Zero Read online

  Credits & Copyright

  Alpha Reader/Editor:

  Danielle Romo

  Cover by:

  Melony Paradise

  Ground Zero

  Vamp Tales Book Five

  Copyright © 2018 Melony Paradise

  www.melonyparadise.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.

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  Chapter 1

  I slowly became aware of the low hum of a car’s engine and the tires rolling over asphalt. My mind fought consciousness and my eyes refused to open, but my preternatural senses awoke little by little, like a bear coming out of hibernation.

  The first thing I knew for sure was that night had fallen. I couldn’t be waking up if the sun still shined, not as a vampire. The next thing I noticed was the quiet breathing of several others inside the enclosed space of the car that rode smoothly along a road or street. I couldn’t be sure, without opening my eyes, if we were still outside the city or if we had returned to Seattle.

  As my senses opened to provide me feedback of my surroundings, I also became painfully aware of the ache in my bones and muscles, and with that pain came the memory of what had happened. With that memory came a burning agony in my chest and soul for the destruction and deaths I had caused to save my clan and friends.

  “Mercy Reyes, wake up!”

  My eyelids shot open at the force of the command blaring through my brain, which felt raw like an open wound.

  Katherine Price’s face hovered inches from my own, angry and strained with tiny lines etched around her mouth and eyes. I could feel her through our blood bond as if it were the first day she’d turned me. She wasn’t angry with me, but the effort she exerted to speak through our connection took a toll on her.

  “Kat?” I blinked at her several times, trying to raise my head, and wincing at my painful failure to do so.

  “Don’t try to sit up yet, darlin’.” I rolled my eyes up slowly to look into Nick Owens’ worried gaze. “You expended an enormous amount of energy and you’ll need to feed before you regain enough to function.”

  “Sit her up,” Edgar Martin, my grandsire and leader of our small clan, ordered gently.

  Kat helped Nick prop me up in his soft lap that previously held my throbbing head. Black spots threatened to blind me, but the soft thrumming of a heartbeat and the sweet scent of blood cleared my mind, pulling me toward the welling scratch on the neck of a donor. With Kat’s help, the donor wedged himself between my knees and pressed his bleeding skin against my cracked lips.

  With a strength that I didn’t think I had, I surged forward and sank my elongated teeth into his neck. He sighed as his life essence poured over my lips and down my throat. I instinctively used my power of coercion to take away the sting of my bite and flood both our minds with a euphoric caress that had us floating in a cloud of ecstasy.

  Silky fluid flowed over my tongue, and I felt my strength return in fits. My fingers rubbed together as my body twitched involuntarily and my sandpaper skin began to tingle with renewed blood flow, plumping up the pads of my fingertips. Heat flushed my face and life, or whatever you call the magic that keeps me from dying a permanent death, returned to my sunken cheeks, filling them once more.

  The throbbing in my head subsided and the red haze of hunger flared behind my closed eyelids briefly before retreating to the far corners of my mind, temporarily appeased.

  “Mercy,” Nick murmured. “That’s enough now, darlin’.”

  Someone tried to pull the donor away, but my arms flew up to wrap him in a bear hug. My teeth dug deeper, my mouth sucked harder, and my mind pressed into his, forcing him to let me eat away his life force.

  “No, Mercy,” Kat growled. “Let him go!”

  A savage rumble escaped my throat and slipped between my lips and the donors skin. Kat pulled on him again, but I snarled and clung to him with my whole body.

  “Release him now, Mercy!” Kat’s will slammed into me, strengthened by Edgar. I could feel his impatience edging behind her building anger, but underneath I also felt concern from them both. That glimpse, the sudden knowing that they actually cared about me, made me pause.

  Nick tugged on my arms while Kat carefully extracted the donor from my grasp. My tongue cried out for the loss but shot out to claim the remaining drops from my swollen lips. Warm arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me back to cradle me against a muscular chest.

  I didn’t realize I was shivering until I noticed that Nick had me wrapped inside the leather jacket he wore. My gaze followed the donor to the opposite end of the limousine where Isabel tucked him under a blanket with a can of soda. Everything in me begged for more, needed more, and I couldn’t look away.

  “Snap out of it.” Kat blocked my view of the donor, her violet eyes flashing. I blinked at her again, my focus sluggish at first. As the warmth of my meal circulated through my system, I became more alert. My aches and pains fading away and my mind clearing.

  “Wh-where are we?” I twisted around to peer at Nick’s strong face. It took a moment for me to see his pale blue eyes clearly, but as soon as I did, my body heated with the intensity of his stare. Our shared connection zinged between us, reminding me that even though I didn’t feel it as strongly as him, it was still there, and his wolf was not happy that his mate was so weak.

  Nick’s arms snugged me tighter against him as the connection faded into the background of my mind while the blood bond with my sire, Kat, flared brightly, reminding us who was more dominant in my life.

  I snapped my head around to glare at Kat, slamming the walls in my head into place, exerting as much control over myself as I could muster as a newly-made vampire fledgling.

  Chapter 2

  “Stop, please,” I whispered, throbbing headache returning. “Just let me be alone in my head right now.”

  “Sorry,” Nick mumbled in my ear, his breath tickling the skin under my ear.

  Kat just sat back against her seat, back stiff as a board, arms folded tight under her breasts, dark hair hanging back in a severe ponytail.

  “Where are we?” I asked again a bit louder.

  “We are driving through Redmond at the moment,” Edgar’s deep voice rumbled through the dark space.

  “Where are we going?” I glanced out the window and saw a Whole Foods Market and a strip mall whisk by. I wiggled around to sit sideways in Nick’s lap, but the limousine hit a pothole and I ended up with my nose and cheek mashed into his chin. He took advantage and kissed the bridge of my nose. I peeked up and gave him a little smile.

  “We’re just driving,” Kat grumped. “We can’t reach any of our allies, so we’re just wandering until we can figure out where to go.”

  “Edgar and David sent us in different directions,” Nick said, “so we wouldn’t look conspicuous as we all drove together around the city. Don’t want the hunters spotting a pack of vehicles on the traffic cams.”

  “With the Nightkin adrift, and hiding, without a queen,” Edgar added, “and Cassandra controlling the werewolves, we seem to be on our own with nowhere to seek refuge.”

  My gut clenched with worry. “How are the witches shielding us i
f we’re separated?”

  Edgar gestured at a woman sitting between the donor and Chima with her eyes closed and her face pinched in concentration. “Anaria has graciously loaned each vehicle a witch with enough strength to shield us, but they’ve already switched out once while we slept, and you can see that our current guardian is reaching her limits.”

  “Shall I try David again?” Kat asked him in a tight voice.

  “Don’t you all have homes?” I asked. “Or David’s clan. They don’t have someplace we could hide?”

  “Bull has supplied donors and guards to nearly all of the vampires living in and around the Pacific Northwest,” Chima grumbled deeply, like the unhappy werelion that he was. “He knows too much. I should not have trusted Kin outside my team. It will not happen again.”

  “We have all been complacent these last few decades, my friend,” Edgar said soothingly. “With modern times and tentative peace between Nightkin and Otherkin, we have all allowed ourselves to believe we were safe as long as we banded together to protect our existence from human eyes. This betrayal will serve as a reminder that Nightkin and Otherkin will never be truly united as one people. Until we elect another queen, we must tighten our circle of trust. I must lean on you more than ever to protect our clans.”

  “I won’t fail you again.” Chima bowed his head, anger making the movement jerky and his body rigid.

  “Not your failure alone,” Edgar muttered, closing his eyes, and leaning his head back against the seat to think.

  “They don’t know anything about me,” I murmured.

  “What?” Kat leaned toward me, her gaze intent.

  “They don’t know me or my life before you changed me,” I said. “They barely paid any attention to me, and only Bull really even noticed I was around. I never told them about where I lived or…”

  “You’re right,” Kat said, thinking hard. “There hasn’t been time since I turned you for them to find out anything about you. We can’t go to your house though. It’s too small and the hunters probably found it after we left.”

  “True, but… I know where we can go!” I sat up straight, pulling myself out of Nick’s jacket, but not his arms.

  “Where?” Edgar stared at me, along with everyone else in the car other than the donor and the witch.

  “Head north.”

  Chapter 3

  As we drove north, Edgar and Kat called David Lyons, head of the Lyons clan, and the other cars to tell them our plans. I settled into Nick’s lap and stared out the tinted window, watching the occasional streetlight zip by. I tried not to think about the shock I was about to give my best friend.

  After inheriting a small horse ranch in the mountains, just east of Mt. Vernon, my best friend, Mandy Williams, moved out of her mother’s house and into her grandparent’s house. She’d spent many summers at that ranch and considered it home, even though her grandparents were both gone.

  I’d been happy for her at first, but when Mandy’s health started to go downhill, I tried many times to convince her to move back to her mother’s or sell the ranch and buy a house nearer to the hospitals that were equipped to treat her disease. She steadfastly refused and had so far been lucky enough to make it to the hospital each time she needed to go. I worried one day she would die during the long drive into the city.

  Turning to watch Kat as she spoke softly into her burner phone, I contemplated how much I would have to beg to get her to save my friend from a long, agonizing death that was sure to come within the next few years. Mandy was only thirty years old.

  Nick’s arms lay loose around me. He dozed, snoring lightly, while Chima and Isabel watched over us. I wondered how much longer those two would be able to go before dropping from exhaustion. I’d heard Edgar trying to insist they take turns napping for our nearly two-hour drive, but they’d both refused.

  The last twenty minutes of travel were along winding mountain roads. I knew we’d be a surprise for her, but Mandy was a people-person, even if she spent most of her time isolated.

  Kat closed her cheap flip-phone and turned to me. “You’re sure she won’t mind us just showing up?” she asked yet again. “And she has enough room for all of us?”

  I sighed and bit back a grumpy response. Kat had been kinder to me since my encounter with those horny lumberjacks before we were ousted from the campgrounds and the safety of a powerful coven. Thankfully, Danielle Rose and Julius Hartfell, two of our clanmates, had called in a different coven that they knew we could trust.

  “Yes, I’m sure. She lives alone. She’ll be happy for the company. Besides, her ranch sits on several acres with barns, stables, and a couple small houses that the ranch-hands used to live in when her grandparents were still alive. There’s plenty of room for us and it’s safe. There’s no nearby neighbors, just mountains and trees bordering the ranch.”

  Edgar watched us talking, one ear listening to his phone, the other listening to us. I glanced at Chima and found him listening too.

  “We’re almost there,” I said, sitting up. “I’ll have to get out and punch in the gate code.”

  “Tell me the code,” Chima insisted. “I’ll do it.”

  “Sorry, it’s got to be me. An alarm goes off when you get close to the gate, and if she doesn’t see me in the camera, Mandy will set the emergency lockout. That automatically alerts the police. Not that they will arrive anytime soon, but she’s ill, and I don’t want to upset her.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Nick stretched as I slipped off his lap and onto the seat next to him.

  “She has a rare disease that affects her lungs. Don’t freak out if she starts coughing really bad and sounds like she might choke. Just get her a glass of water if she doesn’t have her water bottle nearby already.”

  “And she lives alone?” Kat frowned. “Shouldn’t she live closer to doctors and a hospital?”

  “Yep, but she’s stubborn, which is why I asked you—”

  “Don’t.” She held up her hand to stop me from finishing my sentence.

  “But—”

  “I’m not discussing this here.”

  “What are you not discussing?” Edgar narrowed his eyes at us.

  I opened my mouth to explain and was cut off again.

  “Nothing, Edgar.”

  The look they shared told me he expected an explanation eventually. Maybe I could talk to him, convince him. Or maybe Benjamin would do it. He liked me. I know he’d like Mandy too, but would that be enough. The clan had strict rules I hoped to bypass to save my best friend.

  I was grumbling under my breath when the limousine slowed to a halt. I jumped out into the chill night air, feeling Kat’s angry gaze on my back.

  The ranch gate stood twelve feet high and fourteen feet wide with a metal cutout of a horse head sitting in the center of an overhead arch. Stone walls extended out either side of the gate and into the thick tree line that encompassed the property. The walls appeared to surround the ranch, but actually ended less than a hundred feet into the woods on both sides. The gate and walls were beginning to show their age, and I knew Mandy couldn’t afford the expensive upkeep of the ranch with her disability checks.

  After driving her myself so many times, I knew exactly where to look and wave so Mandy would see me. I punched in the six-digit code and waited for the familiar buzz that indicated the gate would swing open after thirty seconds. In all the time I’d known Mandy and her grandparents, there’d never been a need for the extra security, but I felt better knowing there was something to deter miscreants from trespassing or stumbling upon a fragile woman living alone.

  I suppose the various shotguns and rifles she inherited with the ranch would protect her, but they may be just as dangerous to her as to any invader. Every time I passed the gun cabinet, I could just imagine Mandy’s frail body breaking under the force of a gun’s recoil.

  The gate buzzed loudly, and I opened the car door.

  “Pull off the road, just inside. I have to stay out here, in case the gate closes
before all the cars get in.”

  Kat nodded, and Nick climbed out to stand with me. Four cars waited behind the limousine, while an SUV pulled up in line and I saw more vehicles rounding the bend a half mile back. I tapped on the driver’s window of the first black sedan, and it lowered with very little sound.

  “Go all the way to the end of the driveway, hang a left, and park in the lot beside the big, red barn. Don’t get out. We’ll signal you when it’s clear.”

  David’s driver nodded and drove off. Nick hovered behind me as I gave directions to all the other drivers, until finally it appeared no one else was coming. I figured I’d be able to manage the gate from the house once I talked to Mandy. As it was, she was probably biting her nails as she watched a procession of strange vehicles descend upon her quiet life.

  Chapter 4

  Nick stood by the limousine while I went to the front door of Mandy’s house. Edgar and Kat scowled when I ordered them to stay in the car, but neither argued. I thought I’d have a problem with Nick for a moment, but after a moment of searching my eyes, he nodded and agreed to stay by the car and not frighten my friend.

  I knocked on the thick, sturdy double doors, although I knew Mandy would already be there waiting.

  “Mandy,” I said with a raised but calm voice, “it’s Mercy. I know there’s a lot of cars out here, but I promise you these are people you can trust.”

  The tumblers in the lock clicked and the door opened until the chain latch inside stretched taut. One brown eye peeked out at me and I looked down, since Mandy was about six inches shorter than me.

  “Mercy, what’s going on?” Her voice sounded hoarse and tired. She’d probably been on her computer, browsing her favorite dating websites, and the hoarseness was likely the result of several coughing fits.