Mile High with a Vampire by Lynsay Sands

Eighteen

Quinn woke up abruptly to pain. Someone was slapping her face, she realized, and moaned as she opened her eyes.

“That’s it. Wake up!” Another slap swung her head to the side, and she raised a hand to press to her cheek as she turned back to face the man in front of her.

Yun Xiang, she realized, and then he turned and started talking to Ziying. It had been more than thirty years since Quinn had spoken Chinese, but she did catch most of what he said. At least she thought she did, and that he was telling the man to go out and start a bonfire.

Listening to them talk, she cast a quick glance down at herself, surprised to see that she wasn’t tied up or anything. She was sitting in a rickety old chair, set on a dirt floor with patches of old, rotting straw here and there, Quinn noted, and looked swiftly around the interior of the large building until she spotted Jet. He was slumped against a wall some six or so feet from her, and appeared to still be unconscious, which made her frown. He’d been shot before her, and should have come around first.

Unless his being newly turned affected his recovery somehow. He should wake up soon, though, she reassured herself, and then wiped all thoughts of him from her mind, lest one of the men read it. The last thing she needed was for these men to learn Jet had been turned and wasn’t dying, and she knew it, so shifted her attention to their surroundings. There wasn’t much to see. They were in what appeared to be an ancient abandoned barn, but it was empty of anything but a few rusty old tools on the wall, and scattered patches of nasty, rotten straw on the floor.

With nothing else to see, she turned back to their kidnappers. Just as she did, they finished talking and Ziying stomped out through the open barn doors. Yun watched him go with a grim expression, and then turned and strode toward her.

Quinn eyed him warily. If his shooting her with the dart gun hadn’t told her their analysis of the situation had been all wrong, the look of loathing on his face as he approached would have. She suspected life mates did not look on each other that way. They’d definitely got it all wrong, she decided. But if she wasn’t a possible life mate for him, then why had he let her live as a child?

“I didn’t.”

Quinn blinked, slow to realize he was responding to her thoughts. Narrowing her eyes, she said, “Yes, you did. You found us in the closet, but left us there and didn’t tell the others. That is the only reason Pet and I are still alive.”

“No. Not me,” he assured her.

Quinn shook her head with confusion. “I saw you.”

He gave a short laugh at the suggestion. “I would have drank you dry and thrown you on the pyre with the rest of your puling family. Not let you live like Xiang Qing did.”

“Xiang Qing?” she echoed slowly, her confusion finally clearing. “Were you twins?” Yun looked almost exactly the same as her memory of this Qing he claimed had saved her and Pet.

“He was my father,” Yun spat. “And he dishonored our family by disobeying Ma Yuan and letting you live.” He scowled at her as if it were her fault before adding, “A mistake he paid for with his life.”

Quinn didn’t miss the grief that flickered over the man’s face. He might be speaking with disgust and rage at what he saw as his father’s betrayal, but he still grieved his loss. Clearing her throat, she said quietly, “I’m sorry. But from what I understand it would have been impossible for him to kill me if we were life mates.”

“Life mates,” he growled with rage. “What good is a life mate if you are dead? He should have just killed you quickly and hoped to meet another. But no, he let you live and then paid for it with his life. But not before suffering the tortures of the damned,” he told her grimly. “Do you want to know what they did to your life mate?”

Quinn shook her head slowly. She really didn’t. Her feelings about this Qing were already confusing and conflicted. The man had killed her family. But he’d also let her and Pet live. However, that had only been because they were possible life mates . . . and what did that say about her? How could she possibly have been a life mate to someone like that? The very thought disgusted her and she decided she was definitely going to need more counseling to come to terms with it.

“Disgust?” Yun roared with fury and backhanded her, then grabbed her by the hair and forced her face up to look at him. “You didn’t deserve him. You should thank God every day for what he did for you. He died for you, and most horribly,” he spat, and then released her and paced away, his voice cold as he informed her, “Ma Yuan was very angry with my father and used him as an example. He called in all of our people for the execution so they could witness what happened to those who disobeyed him. And all of us were made to stand witness to his punishment.”

Turning back, he eyed her coldly. “First came disemboweling. It was followed by death by a thousand cuts, and countless more cruel and painful tortures. But he saved the best for last. The Iron Maiden.”

Quinn bit her lip, unable to keep from thinking that the Iron Maiden sounded almost anticlimactic after disemboweling. Although she supposed it could be bad if he was left in the upright iron coffin for any amount of time. The nanos would probably try to heal him around the metal spikes piercing his body, and would have to mine his organs for blood to do it, since he would have lost a lot of blood from his wounds.

“Oh, no, I am not talking about your puling English Iron Maiden,” Yun said bitterly, reading her thoughts. “In China, the Iron Maiden is worse. Sometimes they have spikes, and sometimes they do not. Ma Yuan’s does have spikes. But that is only the beginning of the torture. The Chinese Iron Maiden has a platform at the bottom of the upright iron coffin with a metal grate on top, rather than just wood. Once the prisoner is closed inside, and bleeding from the spikes piercing their body, hot coals are placed in the platform under the iron grate and then water is poured over those coals, so that boiling steam rushes up through the Iron Maiden, steaming the prisoner alive.”

Quinn swallowed the sudden bile in her throat, and lowered her head.

“Most prisoners scream until their throats rupture, but not my father. He bore every torture stoically, never making a sound . . . until they finally set him on a pyre and burned him alive. Then he screamed and screamed and screamed.” Yun swallowed. “I should have beheaded him when he asked.”

Quinn lifted her head abruptly and Yun scowled at her.

“I read it in his mind on the way back to our meeting with Ma Yuan to make our report. I had never been able to read him before that, but I read the memory as clear as glass. He had found you and your sister, and he had let you live. A betrayal of our leader. I confronted him, and realizing that if I could read him, Ma Yuan certainly would, he asked me to behead him.” His shoulders slumped. “But I could not do it. He was my father. How could I kill him?”

Quinn didn’t think he was talking to her anymore. She wasn’t even sure he was aware of her presence at that point. He almost seemed to be arguing with himself, or perhaps his conscience.

“So, I told him that doing so would dishonor our family further, and he should confess all to Ma Yuan,” Yun continued after a moment. “But had I known what he would do to him . . .” He closed his eyes and shook his head with regret.

Quinn felt pity stir in her for him. She couldn’t imagine putting Parker in that position. She just couldn’t have asked it of him, no matter if it would have saved her the tortures Qing had gone through.

“He should have killed you,” Yun snapped, suddenly furious again. “Sparing you killed him. I wanted vengeance but you and your sister had disappeared. And then, two weeks ago, Yin Jiangnu, one of the spies Ma Yuan has in the Argeneau offices, reported that she had found a name on a requisition for ID for a Quinn Peters. The name that was being changed to was Quinn Feiyan Meng and I knew it was you, returning to your original name.”

Quinn blinked at that, realizing only then that she had indeed taken back her original name. Or at least the name she’d borne after her stepfather had adopted her. Though she hadn’t had a middle name then and now had her mother’s first name for a middle name.

“I thought finally I would have my vengeance,” Yun went on. “I asked Ma Yuan for permission to lead the team that would kill you. But Ma Yuan said no,” he told her with disbelief. “He said you were under the protection of the North American and European Councils and he wanted no trouble with them. I was to do nothing that would bring their anger down on our organization. You were to be left alone.”

“And yet here we are,” Quinn said quietly.

“Because my father’s soul calls out for vengeance. I cannot ignore it. I will see your broken body on a pyre or die trying.”

“So, this is suicide by murder.”

That comment in a gruff voice drew Quinn’s shocked gaze around to see Jet standing where he’d been slumped moments ago. He looked relaxed, his stance loose, and his expression was mildly inquisitive as he waited for Yun’s answer.

“You should be dead,” Yun said with amazement. “Mortals cannot survive our drugged darts.”

“Yeah. But I’m not mortal,” Jet said with a shrug, and then pointed out, “You haven’t answered my question. Is this your way of committing suicide? Because this leader of yours, Ma Yuan, surely won’t be any more pleased that you went against his wishes than he was with your father. So, if you kill her, he’ll do the same to you, won’t he? Disemboweling, the Iron Maiden, and so on.”

When Yun merely glowered at him, Jet added, “Or perhaps you aren’t as honorable as your father and don’t plan to face the music. Maybe you plan to dishonor your family and run and hide from the Brass Circle for the rest of your life like the coward you proved yourself to be when you could not end your father’s life.”

Quinn’s eyes widened in alarm when Yun immediately spun around and grabbed a dart gun lying on the table next to him. But by the time he turned back and raised it, Jet had crossed the distance between them and was kicking out at the arm holding the gun. Much to her relief, the blow knocked the gun from Yun’s hand, but in the next moment the two men were in a full-on battle.

At first, Quinn was so taken aback by this turn of events that all she could do was watch with her heart in her throat as the men began to kick, punch, and perform all sorts of fancy footwork as they threw each other around the barn. But then she realized that she was just sitting there watching Jet fight for their lives, and gave her head a shake.

Standing up, she turned to the wall where she had noted the farm tools earlier and quickly rushed to them. The one she wanted was an old hand sickle with a wicked-looking curved blade. It was dark with age, and probably dull as well, but should still be able to take off Yun’s head, she thought grimly as she reached up for it. A curse slid from her lips when she found it was a couple inches too high for her to grab. Who the hell had lived here? she thought with disgust. Giants?

Grinding her teeth, she jumped for it, managing to knock it off the spike it hung from. Only her immortal reflexes kept her from being impaled by the damned thing as it fell to the floor. Muttering under her breath with irritation, she bent to snatch it up and then turned, raising it over her head as she charged toward Jet and Yun.

Quinn hadn’t taken two steps when the scythe was snatched out of her hand. Whirling, expecting to find Ziying there, she blinked in surprise when she found herself staring at Lucian Argeneau. Shock was followed by relief and she turned to gesture toward Jet, her mouth opening, only to close as she saw that there were several Enforcers now spread around the interior of the barn. However, they weren’t interfering but simply watching Jet and Yun fight.

Spinning back to Lucian, she gasped, “What are they doing? Why aren’t they helping him?”

“He does not need help,” Lucian said, hanging the scythe back on the wall without taking his eyes off the fight.

“But . . .” She turned back and watched worriedly as the two men continued to battle.

“Jet can fight his own battles. On top of being trained in combat while in the navy, he took martial arts as a young man,” Lucian informed her, crossing his arms as he watched.

“He did?” Quinn asked weakly, but supposed she should have realized it. The man was performing all sorts of fancy moves that she recognized from Pet’s competitions when she was taking martial arts when they were young: roundhouse kicks, flying side kicks, jumping back kicks, and then blasting him with power punches in between. Jet was really quite good.

“Yes, he did,” Lucian responded finally, drawing her back to the conversation, and then he informed her, “Like you, our Jet is an overachiever. I suppose that is why the nanos made you life mates.”

“An overachiever?” she asked uncertainly, never taking her eyes off Jet.

“Aside from his fighting skills, Jet also had his pilot’s license by the age of seventeen, has a bachelor of science in engineering, was awarded the Flying Cross for valor in battle, and was the second youngest lieutenant commander the navy has ever given the title to.”

Sensing her shocked look, he turned to peer at her and nodded to assure her that everything he’d said was true. “As I said, an overachiever like you.”

Lucian’s words played through Quinn’s troubled mind, clear and strong, as she watched Jet. His body moved with incredible fluidity; his movements were economical and controlled. She was suddenly quite sure he could end this fight anytime he liked, and yet he wasn’t.

“Yun bears great guilt over his father,” Lucian informed her. “Not only for not beheading him, but for insisting he confess to Yuan Ma to restore the family honor, which his father did out of love for him. The memories of what his father went through haunt him. He wants to die. As Jet guessed, these attempts on your life were suicide by murder. Jet knows that. He also mistakenly thinks we need information from Yun, though, so is trying to wear him down so that he can apprehend him without having to tear his head off.”

“Mistakenly?” she asked sharply, never taking her eyes off Jet. “Don’t you need information from Yun?”

“I had completed reading Yun’s mind before you had managed to get the sickle off the wall,” Lucian said with a shrug. “There is nothing else he can tell me.”

“Well, then, why don’t you tell Jet that so he can stop trying to wear the guy out?” she asked with exasperation.

“Because I am enjoying watching him fight. He is quite good. He would be a good Enforcer.”

“He’s a pilot,” Quinn snapped. “He is not going to become one of your Enforcers.”

Lucian scowled down at her. “My God, you are truculent. What happened to the well-behaved good girl who did what she was told and did not cause waves that they claim you used to be?”

“She got turned into an immortal and didn’t feel she had to behave anymore,” Quinn growled, glaring back at him, and then frowned and asked, “Did you at least take care of Ziying before coming in here?”

“He is taken care of,” Lucian muttered, and then a scream of pain had them both turning to see that Jet had apparently wearied of the battle and ended it. Yun was on the ground, his neck broken. He wouldn’t die, but he was definitely incapacitated. For now.

“There,” Lucian said with exasperation. “You made me miss the ending.”

Ignoring him, Quinn rushed to Jet, gasping in surprise when he caught her up in his arms and hugged her tightly.

“Are you all right?” he asked, pulling back to look at her face.

“Me?” she asked with disbelief. “You were the one fighting.”

“But he hit you,” he said with a frown, setting her down to run his fingers gently over the cheek Yun had struck.

Quinn flinched in surprise. The spot was tender. Yun must have hit her harder than she’d realized in the moment.

“She is fine,” Lucian answered for her, irritation in his voice as he added, “Annoying as usual, but fine.”

When Jet looked to him with surprise, he waved away the question in his eyes, and said, “Take her back to the Enforcer house. The SUV you drove to the restaurant is outside. I had Tybo drive it here when we followed the van.”

Nodding, Jet slid an arm around her and ushered her quickly out of the barn.

Jet steered the car down the dark country roads, following the GPS directions, and glancing worriedly at Quinn every couple of minutes. She was being awfully quiet. She hadn’t said a word since they’d left the barn. Something was obviously wrong, but he wasn’t sure what. As far as he could tell, this evening had actually gone pretty much to plan. He didn’t like that Yun had hit her, but otherwise they’d done what they’d intended. More even. Instead of capturing one of the men, they’d got both of them, and now they didn’t have to stay at the Enforcer house for eternity.

That thought gave him an idea, and he punched up the GPS on the SUV and gave it new directions. Once finished, he glanced at Quinn again. She was sitting in her seat, her arms folded over her chest and a worried expression on her face.

“You’re quiet,” he said finally.

Quinn glanced around with a look of surprise, as if she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone, and then murmured, “Oh, I was just thinking.”

She then turned to look out the window, her facial expression hidden from him.

“What about?” he asked.

Quinn was silent for a moment, and then sighed and faced him. “You took martial arts when you were young and combat training in the navy. You had your pilot’s license by the time you were seventeen, have a bachelor’s in engineering, earned a Flying Cross, and you’re a freaking lieutenant commander,” she listed off, and then added dryly, “The second youngest lieutenant commander given the title.”

Jet shifted his attention back to the road, muttering, “Wow, someone’s been gossiping big-time.”

“Lucian told me that,” she informed him, and his head swiveled sharply her way.

“Really?” he asked with surprise.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Jet frowned slightly, then shifted his attention back to the road again. He hadn’t even realized Lucian knew all of that about him. But he supposed Argeneau Enterprises would have checked him out before hiring him. Or he guessed Lucian had probably read his mind before offering him the job.

“You’re an overachiever,” Quinn said suddenly.

That surprised a laugh out of him. “This from the cardiothoracic surgeon.”

“Yeah, but I’m a mess!” she cried unhappily. “I’m even in therapy, for heaven’s sake. While you’re . . . perfect,” she ended miserably.

Cursing, Jet pulled over onto the side of the road, turned off the engine, and shifted in his seat to face her. “First of all, honey, you are not a mess. You’re a beautiful, successful woman who was struggling with a past you didn’t even remember. That’s like boxing the Invisible Man. Impossible. And when you realized it was getting the better of you, you sought out help. That, in my book, is the opposite of messed up. Messed up would have been continuing on the way you were, or going rogue, or something. You are not messed up,” he said firmly.

“As for me,” he added after taking a breath, “I hate to disillusion you, but I am far from perfect. What you call overachieving in me was actually me desperately trying to earn my mother’s love.”

Her head came up, her eyes wide.

Jet nodded. “I was a straight-A student in school, purely in the hopes that it would please my mother, and get her attention.”

“Did it?”

“Hell, no, but it got the attention of the jocks who thought that was a good reason to bully me,” he said dryly. “So I got into martial arts to be able to defend myself, half hoping maybe that would impress her.”

“No?” she asked softly.

“No, but that impressed the jocks, and the next thing I knew I was playing sports as well. My mom didn’t even notice. So, I got my pilot’s license, thinking she’d loved my dad, and he was a pilot . . .” He shook his head. “The degree in engineering followed, and then the navy, and I worked my butt off to make my way up to lieutenant commander. She didn’t even come to the ‘pinning on’ ceremony.”

“Oh, Jet,” Quinn whispered, reaching for his hands.

He squeezed hers briefly, and then just held her hands gently as he continued. “Mom-Marge and Abs were there, though,” he told her quietly. “Mom-Marge did the pinning, and then she hugged me and said she loved me and was proud of me. And that felt good,” he assured her. “Part of me was happy as hell, but another part was thinking I wished my mother was there.”

He shook his head with self-disgust at the memory, and then said, “Quinn, you may have spent your life trying to prove you were good, and not a monster like Qing, but most of my life has been one long attempt to be good enough to gain the love of the woman who was supposed to love me no matter what. And that’s pretty screwed up.”

“She still hasn’t . . . ?”

Jet smiled crookedly and shook his head. “And I no longer expect her to. I visit once a month to be sure she hasn’t drank herself to death yet, but I stopped trying to gain her love when Mom-Marge died and I realized I’d had that love my whole life from her.

“So,” he said, reaching out to brush her hair away from her face, “I’m not perfect. No one is. We’re all just doing the best we can. However,” he added solemnly, “I think you’re brilliant, beautiful, a wonderful mother, and perfect for me.”

“Oh, Jet,” she whispered.

He smiled, and pressed a kiss to her nose and then added, “I don’t know how the nanos know this stuff, but I’m pretty sure they got it right with us. I love you, Quinn.”

Jet had hoped for a declaration in return, but what he got was Quinn crying out and launching herself at him over the center console. Smiling, he caught her against his chest and kissed her back when her mouth covered his.

As usual, that’s all it took to set them both aflame. Thrusting his tongue into her mouth, he ran his hands down her back, pressing her upper body tight to him. Then he reached down to work the electronic lever to ease his seat back as far as he could and caught her by the waist to lift her over the console and into his lap so she straddled him on the driver’s seat.

Breaking their kiss then, he nuzzled his way across her cheek to her ear and nipped it lightly before muttering, “God, I’ve wanted to do this all night,” as he slid his hands up the outside of her legs, under the skirt. “You look so damned sexy in that dress.”

He kissed her again, only to break it on a startled sound a moment later when his hands reached her ass. Pulling back, he pointed out, “You aren’t wearing panties.”

Thanks to his new immortal eyes, Jet could see the blush that rose to her cheeks in the dark car interior as she explained, “We didn’t end up buying any after I fainted. They just left everything I’d selected and rushed out of the store. And the one pair I did have got ripped the last time we—Oh,” she gasped as he began cupping and squeezing her sweet cheeks, his fingers dipping between and brushing against her core as he did.

A little hum of pleasure slipped from his lips as a shaft of pleasure slid through him as he caressed her, and Jet did it again.

“Ohhh,” she moaned, and then kissed him hungrily.

Jet was so caught up in the pleasure he was giving both of them as he continued to caress her that he didn’t notice she’d reached down to undo his pants until he felt her hand close over his cock. Groaning into her mouth as that sharp pleasure was added to what he was doing, he broke their kiss and released her behind to grab her shoulders as he shook his head.

“No, babe, we—ahhh,” he gasped as she suddenly lowered herself onto his aching shaft. Damn, she was so tight and hot and wet, he just wanted to—No. The Four Seasons, he reminded himself, and tried to regain control of the situation. “Quinn, love,” he growled. “I want—” The rest of what he’d been going to say was lost on a groan as she raised and lowered herself again.

“I want you too,” Quinn gasped, and then covered his mouth with hers before he could explain he’d been going to say he wanted to take her to the Four Seasons and do this right.

Next time, he told himself, and gave it up to kiss her as she rode him off a cliff into darkness.

It was something tickling his nose that woke him up sometime later. Blinking his eyes open with confusion, Jet jerked his gaze around until it landed on Tybo. The Enforcer was sitting in the passenger seat next to him with a mini car duster in hand. That was what had been tickling his nose, he surmised, and scowled at the man.

“What the hell, Tybo?” he growled.

“Shh. You’ll wake Quinn,” the man admonished.

Jet glanced down when the man gestured to his chest, and blinked at the woman slumped in his lap.

“We spotted your SUV off the road on the way back to the house,” Tybo explained. “Thought you’d had an accident or something, but realized that wasn’t the case when we found you unconscious inside like this.” He grinned. “I’d have just left you two to your own devices, but Lucian insisted we should tow you back to the house. He didn’t want some mortal cop finding the two of you and calling an ambulance when he couldn’t wake you up. Too much work to clean up if that happened. Minds to wipe, reports to change . . . A real pain in the ass,” he assured him. “So, we got the chains out, hooked this SUV to ours, and dragged you back here.”

Jet glanced around at that news to see that the SUV was now parked in front of the garage behind the Enforcer house.

“I had to sit hunched over on the center console to steer and work the brakes,” Tybo added. “Most uncomfortable hour of my life.”

“Sorry,” Jet murmured, knowing that really had to have been uncomfortable for a man Tybo’s height.

“All in a day’s work,” Tybo assured him, and then announced, “Which I thought was done when we got here, but when I got out, Lucian sent me back to wake you up and tell you to try to restrict your sexual congress to private arenas in future. His words, not mine,” he added with amusement when Jet grimaced.

“He also said to tell you to forget your plan to take Quinn to the Four Seasons. He wants to keep her here until he deals with Jiangnu Yin and Yuan Ma. He thinks everything should be fine now, but wants to be sure before he ‘releases her to the wild.’ Also his words.”

Jet sighed unhappily at this news, but supposed it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Well, my work here is done,” he announced, opening the passenger side door. “I’ll leave you two to it. Night, Quinn,” he added with amusement as he slid out and closed the door.

Jet peered down swiftly to see Quinn open her eyes with chagrin.

“How long have you been awake?” he asked as she sat up and glanced out the window to watch Tybo walking away toward the house.

“Since you barked, ‘What the hell, Tybo,’” she admitted, turning back to him and pushing the hair from her face. Tilting her head, she asked, “Were you really going to take me to the Four Seasons?”

“Yeah.” He smiled crookedly. “I thought with Yun and Ziying being caught it would be fine. But I suppose it’s better to wait and see how their boss reacts to losing them and the spy he had at Argeneau Enterprises.”

Quinn wrinkled her nose, but nodded and then said, “Thank you.”

“What for? I couldn’t control myself long enough to get you to the Four Seasons,” he pointed out with a wry smile. “If I had we might have at least enjoyed one night away from the house before Lucian located us and dragged us back.”

“Nah,” Quinn said dryly. “The man’s a control freak. He probably has locators on the SUVs or something and would have been pounding on the hotel room door an hour after we got there.”

“Maybe,” he agreed with a faint smile.

“But I wasn’t just thanking you for that,” Quinn said now, her expression going solemn. “Thank you for thinking of it. Thank you for saving me back in the barn, and thank you for loving me with all my flaws, Jet.” Reaching out, she caressed his cheek, and whispered, “I’m pretty sure I love you too.”

Jet stilled. “Say that again,” he rasped.

Instead, she said, “I love you, Jethro Lassiter. You’re smart, funny, strong, and caring and so damned supportive I think you should get a medal for it. You’re an amazing man, and I think God made you just for me.”

Jet closed his eyes briefly, her words branding themselves on his heart. She loved him. Opening his eyes again, he said solemnly, “I love you too, Quinn.” Leaning forward, he kissed her nose. “Let’s go inside so I can show you how much,” he suggested.

Quinn glanced toward the house, bit her lip, and then turned back and said, “I have a better idea. Show me here.”

“Here?” he asked with surprise.

“No one in the house will hear us from here,” she pointed out, sliding her hands up his chest and shifting in his lap.

“Damn,” Jet breathed as her movement woke up Mr. Happy and he realized he was still inside of her. “Here,” he agreed, kissing her.