Page 19 of Crave

Gone.

I checked her pockets. Nothing. No surprise there. Vamp teams typically came in clean.

Lacey’s phone was ringing somewhere off in the grass. Tearing off my sleeve, I knotted it around the stab wound in my shoulder and swiped to answer.

“Where the hell are you?” Brody barked. “Give me a status update—”

“Bluff Point. Two undeads. They took her.”

“West and I are nearly to you. Stay there—"

“Yeah. Not happening,” I gritted out, vision blurring.

“That’s an order.”

“They’re after Topher. You need to send someone back to the ranch.”

“Dallas—” my oldest brother started just as I ended the call.

Shifting a second time was out, given the blood loss. With my luck, I’d turn myself into a feral squirrel. Better yet, a pile of squirrel intestines. Lacey’s presence flickered in the pack bond, a candle fighting not to go out in gale-force winds. And she was fading fast. Either she’d been knocked unconscious and the leech was jumping her out a mile at a time, or—

No. I wasn’t going there. She was still alive, and she was going to stay that way. I made my way down to the bottom of the bluff, a sheltered cove where the lake lapped gently at the rocks and the smell of fish and algae was almost enough to overpower the stench of fresh blood.

In twenty-six years, I’d seen some nightmarish things. Fights gone bad. Humans we couldn’t save. Even one time my mom had taken me and Brody to see the aftermath of a vampire raid at a house a few counties over. There hadn’t been much left. But nothing could have prepared me for the raw, visceral rage that exploded through my chest as I emerged from the trees and came upon them, saw that monster fang-head crouched over an unconscious Lacey.

I understood immediately. He’d spent too much energy ghosting in and out, was about to refuel. With a roar, I descended. He started to rise, to back away, the lure of all that fresh blood he hadn’t been able to ingest making him punchy. Lacey’s mangled wrist fell limply across her chest, two deep slashes scoring her flesh. She didn’t stir. I clocked him in the head with my good arm, my momentum sending him flying into the water. I dragged myself to lie over Lacey’s still form. To my surprise, the vampire didn’t follow. Instead, Mr. Fanged-and-Freaky held up both hands, palms out.

“I have information.” He bared fangs that were still elongated from the smell of her blood. My hands started shaking so hard I could barely keep from losing my shit right then and there.

“Like I’d trust anything coming from a prickhead.”

“Your prisoner is not who you think he is.”

“While we’re so busy with introductions, who the hell are you?”

He made a clucking sound with his tongue. “Topher Greer must be returned to us. This doesn’t end until he’s back in our custody.”

“Why do you want him?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“You said you had information, leech. Enlighten me.”

Another cool smile. “He hasn’t told you?”

I frowned, unable to dismiss the sudden feeling I knew him from somewhere. Which wasn’t possible. Bloodsuckers fed from us. They held us as slaves. You saw one, you killed it, or you ran. And yet—

“Until next time, Dallas Caldwell.”

And with that, the vampire dematerialized.

I cursed.

Lacey was lying pale and far too still, blood streaming from her wrist. I wrapped her in my down vest, making it a few steps only to fall to my knees. The nagging sensation that had been troubling me ever since I’d been sure I’d felt her dying just after the vamp had ghosted out with her slammed into me with the force of a freight train.

“What the hell?” I whispered.

Her breathing and pulse were weak, but steady. She hadn’t regained consciousness, but by every external sign, she was here, solid and alive in my arms—