The sun had set, but people continued to stroll the sidewalks running along the fronts of the buildings. Those people meandered from one restaurant to another, in and out of bars, and loitered outside the movie theater.
Their laughter, floating on the air, didn’t fit with the events of this night. He envied them their ignorant bliss. If they knew about the monsters who came out to hunt, they’d lock themselves in their homes.
Elena whimpered before settling down once more. The single stoplight in town was, of course, red when he rolled up to it. He impatiently tapped the steering wheel before smiling and waving at the group of teen girls who waved at him while running across the intersection.
Seconds after they safely crossed the road, the light turned green, and Logan drove through the intersection. He checked his rearview, but though he’d kept track of the headlights pursuing him when he first entered the town, he’d lost them in the steady flow of traffic.
He still had time; they wouldn’t have caught up yet.
After another mile, he turned into the parking lot of the only motel in town, parked the car, and turned it off. He had to move fast; the hunters would be here soon, and he had to be gone before they arrived if he was going to avoid being tracked by them. The hunters knew what they were driving, but there were plenty of black GMCs out there, and they would blend in once they hit the road again.
He shoved the door open, climbed out from behind the wheel, and fished the key card out of his jean’s pocket. Both his injuries protested his movement as he sprinted to the room, swiped the card across the screen, and pushed the door open.
His keys for the SUV he and Asher rented upon arriving here were sitting on the bureau where he left them. Snatching them off the bureau, he ran back outside, unlocked the SUV, climbed behind the wheel, and drove over to park in front of the car.
He placed Elena back in the passenger seat of the SUV and strapped on her seat belt before returning for Asher. He didn’t like the look of his friend as he settled Asher into the back. No color remained in his friend’s face, and even his lips had gone white. He groaned when Logan moved him but didn’t wake, and his skin was clammy to the touch.
As soon as they were somewhere safe, he would give Asher some of his blood, but it would have to wait for now. He hoped Asher made it that long. The second the possibility crossed his mind, he shut it down. He wouldnotlose one of the best friends he’d ever had.
Climbing back behind the wheel, Logan continuously checked his mirrors while navigating back onto the road, but he didn’t notice anyone following them as they left town.
Chapter Five
Elena’s headfelt like somebody turned a woodpecker loose inside her skull. Every bit of it reverberated as the woodpecker hammered, hammered, hammered for insects. Its relentless onslaught caused her stomach to roll as nausea burned up her throat.
“Easy,” a voice soothed as a cool hand pressed against her forehead. “You’ve lost a lot of blood; lie still and relax.”
She settled back onto something soft and did as the voice suggested, only because doing anything more would most likely cause her to vomit all over herself. That would only piss the woodpecker off more.
Logan dipped a washcloth into the bowl of warm water he’d placed on the nightstand between Elena and Asher’s beds. He squeezed out the excess water before tenderly wiping her brow with the cloth.
On the other bed, Asher had finally settled into a deep sleep. The blood Logan gave him had helped him heal faster. It was going to make her mad when she discovered what he’d done, but Logan had given Elena some of his blood too.
It was either they drank his blood, or he would have to take them to a hospital. They were hunters and could handle a lot more than humans when it came to wounds, but they’d lost too much blood to heal without some kind of medical intervention.
Since he wasn’t a doctor, and they couldn’t go to a hospital without risking the hunters or Savages finding out, he’d opted for his blood. They weren’t so far gone it would change them, and he didn’t give them enough for that.
He’d take her wrath when she woke as long as she was alive and healthy. She was going to be pissed off once she realized the situation she was in any way.
Logan glanced around the motel room he’d pulled into shortly after they crossed into New Mexico. Once they were out of the town, and he was sure no one had followed them, he’d pulled over to the side of the road and given them blood.
After getting them into this room, he’d given them more blood. And he was feeling it. His body had pushed the bullets out, his wounds had healed, but he’d sustained a fair amount of blood loss before they did. The blood he’d given to Asher and Elena had weakened him further.
That weakness seeped through his muscles as hunger churned in his stomach. He needed to feed, he had to be at his strongest in case the hunters somehow tracked them to this place, but he couldn’t leave them here alone.
He didn’t dare leave Asher alone with her. Out of the two of them, she was recovering the fastest, and if she woke to discover Asher injured and in the next bed, she might kill him. So he would have to stay and deal with his hunger until Asher woke. And then they would both have to figure out what to do with her.
He tried to ignore the enticing scent of their blood drifting from their closing wounds and bloodstained clothes, but it was a potent aroma, especially Elena’s. Beneath the coppery tang of her blood was her inherent, crisp lemon scent. It intrigued and captivated him as he dabbed her forehead with the cloth.
As much as the idea of it enticed him, he couldn’t feed on them, and he might kill them if he tried.
When she was up and moving, there was no way she would get calmly back into their SUV to travel with them. He could leave her here to deal with the hunters, but he didn’t like that idea. Her father had been murdered, one of her own was the killer, and they may want her dead too.
He hadn’t known Alejandro had a daughter, but he did know there was no son. As second-in-command, Mateo could either marry her or kill her to ensure his position. Given that she was sporting a gunshot wound, Logan could guess which choice Mateo would prefer.
And he was sure Mateo had something to do with Alejandro’s death. Maybe Mateo hadn’t been the one to kill him as he’d been out on a hunt when Alejandro died—or at least that’s where he was supposed to be—but he had something to do with it.
Which left him wondering how many others were involved in Alejandro’s death.
