Mile High with a Vampire by Lynsay Sands

Two

Quinn wasn’t sure how long they’d been running, but while that first long shriek had been joined by others that had seemed to follow them through the woods, the screams had fallen off since then. They’d either run far and fast enough to leave the three women behind, or the injured women had stopped at the plane and were searching for blood in the wreckage.

Quinn glanced around at the woods. Dark as it was, she had no trouble seeing. One of the perks of having been turned was night vision, and that came in handy now. They wouldn’t have been able to move away from the plane at all without their night vision, and certainly couldn’t have run through the woods. The forest was old, the ground uneven and strewn with branches and fallen trees here and there. Quinn had kept her gaze on the ground to avoid a tumble up to this point. Now she watched the trees blur as they flew by and felt a moment’s wonder at the speed they were achieving.

Unlike her twin sister, Petronella, Quinn had never been very athletic. As a mortal she’d been too busy studying to become a doctor and then a surgeon to bother with physical activities. And while she’d been an immortal for four years, she hadn’t got any more physical, so being able to move like this was new to her. It was also amazing, as was the fact that she wasn’t tiring yet, despite having been running full out for what she was sure must be at least forty-five minutes to an hour.

Her gaze slid to the pilot hanging over Kira’s shoulder, and Quinn frowned as she took in his pallor and noted that he seemed to be unconscious. It reminded her that he’d suffered a head injury and that hanging upside down might not be that good for him. Concern sliding through her, Quinn picked up speed and began to close the distance between herself and Kira Sarka, intending to get her attention and insist she stop. In the end, she didn’t have to, though. Quinn was still a good thirty feet behind when the Russian began to slow and then stopped on her own. By the time Quinn reached her, Kira was easing the pilot off of her shoulder to lay him on the ground.

“You check him,” Kira said as she straightened. “I must climb tree. See where we are.”

“I will climb,” Liliya said at once, a frown in her voice.

“Nyet. Stay here in case they are close and attack. Protect the mortal,” Kira said firmly, and was gone before the smaller woman could protest.

Clucking with irritation, Liliya moved to Quinn’s side and then frowned as she glanced down at the pilot. “He’s pale.”

“Yes,” Quinn murmured, and knelt to examine him.

“What is wrong with him?” Liliya asked, kneeling next to her to get a better look at the man.

“He was knocked out during the accident,” Quinn answered as she clasped his wrist and took his pulse. “He probably shouldn’t have been hanging with his head down like that.”

“Is better than torn apart by Nika, Marta, and Annika,” Liliya said solemnly.

Quinn frowned at the words. She hadn’t spoken to any of the Russian women prior to the plane’s crashing, but Liliya and Kira seemed perfectly normal-type women. Surely, the other three were too?

“They wouldn’t really harm him, would they?” she asked now. “I mean, we’re all civilized people, and civilized people don’t just go about attacking—”

“They were badly injured,” Liliya pointed out. “Very badly.”

“Yes, but we heal quickly. Their bodies will have been making repairs since they were injured and by now they are probably almost back to normal, or on their way to it.”

“Da,”Liliya agreed solemnly. “But it will take a lot of blood to make repairs. More blood than their bodies hold. They will be in agony and desperate for more.”

“Still—” Quinn began, but Liliya cut her off.

“They will be suffering the blood lust. There is nothing civilized about an immortal in the throes of blood lust. They are mindless with agony and thirst, and would drain their own mother dry in search of the life-giving elixir that can end their pain.” Her gaze shifted to the unconscious pilot. “Any one of them would have to drain him to get the blood they presently need. But there are three of them. Even though we all know and like him, they will fight like three starving dogs over one carcass,” she predicted, and then assured her, “If they catch up to us, they will tear him apart.”

Quinn was silent for a moment, Liliya’s words repeating in her head on a loop and bringing images to mind that could have been straight out of a slasher movie, and then a rustling from the woods to their left made her glance sharply around. There was nothing to see. It had probably been some kind of woodland creature, but Quinn wasn’t willing to take the chance and stood abruptly. “We should keep moving.”

“Da,”Liliya agreed, and bent to grasp the pilot by one upper arm. “Take his other arm. If we carry him like that between us, his head will be up.”

Quinn automatically bent to grab the man’s other arm. She’d been told that as an immortal she would be faster, stronger, and have better night vision, but had never cared enough to ask how much faster and stronger, or even to test it out for herself. She cared now, though, and was learning as well. Their brief run through the woods had proven the faster and better night vision part of that assurance. She assumed that meant she was stronger now too, but was still somewhat surprised when she could hold half the pilot’s weight with one hand as Liliya was doing, and without any difficulty at all. The man, who was a good six and a half feet tall, and looked healthy—probably weighing between two hundred and two hundred and thirty—felt lighter to her now than the five-pound weights she used to use in exercise class as a mortal.

His height forced them both to extend their arms over their heads to hold him high enough to keep his feet from dragging, though.

“We wait for Kira, then go.” Liliya had barely made the announcement when Kira suddenly slammed to the ground in front of them. While the woman had climbed up the tree, she’d jumped from the top rather than climb back down. The impact of her landing was like a boulder being dropped from the tops of the trees. Quinn actually felt the ground tremble under her feet, but Kira didn’t seem at all jarred by the landing.

“They come. We go,” Kira said abruptly, and turned to lead the way through the woods.

“Did you see the lights of a town or anything while you were up there?” Quinn asked as she and Liliya followed in the larger woman’s wake with the pilot dangling between them.

“Da. Lights from small town or settlement far to south,” Kira announced. “We head that way.”

Quinn wanted to ask how far to the south, and how far away the other women were, but Kira burst into a run before she could and Quinn left off asking any more questions for now. Instead, she joined Liliya in putting on speed to keep the woman in their sights. Despite their speed and strength, it was hard to do. Carrying the pilot between them slowed them down considerably. Not because of his weight, but because they couldn’t always travel three abreast. There was no path through the trees, and they grew close together in some spots, forcing one or the other of the women to drop back so that they traveled almost sideways through the narrower areas. Each time they were forced to do that, it slowed them down a little. They were doing just that at one point when Kira apparently glanced back to notice and barked, “We must move more swiftly. Liliya, put him over your shoulder.”

Quinn was at the back of the trio and didn’t see what Liliya saw, so was completely taken by surprise when, rather than listen to that order, the other woman suddenly cursed, shouted what sounded like a warning in Russian, and dropped her hold on the pilot altogether.

Coming to an abrupt halt as the pilot sagged in her hold, Quinn stared past him to Liliya, her expression probably as shocked as Kira’s was as the larger woman—still looking over her shoulder—began to slow.

“What—?” Kira began in confusion, but it was as far as she got before she ran into the huge dark shape Liliya had apparently spotted. At least Quinn suspected that was why the petite blonde had dropped the pilot’s other arm to rush forward. She must have spotted the large creature beyond Kira, recognized that the woman was rushing blindly into trouble, her attention turned backward as it was, and shouted a warning even as she rushed forward to try to help.

The large shape was a bear, Quinn realized with dismay as the beast reared up on his hind legs with a roar. The animal had been moving away, probably warned of their approach by Kira’s shout, but they were moving too fast for a collision to be avoided. Perhaps if Kira had stopped abruptly at Liliya’s warning, what followed could have been prevented. But she hadn’t, and the bear, a creature that had to be nearly four hundred pounds and a good seven feet tall now that it was on its hind legs, turned and swung one huge paw out at Kira. The beast’s claws caught the Russian in the face and neck, raking the tender flesh there as it dashed her into the tree next to them.

Whether it would have stopped to maul her as well, Quinn would never know. Liliya reached the pair then and attacked the bear. It was the most ridiculous thing Quinn had ever seen. Liliya was her own height of five-foot-nothing, and probably didn’t weigh more than her own hundred and five pounds, yet she raced right up to this four-hundred-pound, fur-covered giant, punched it in the stomach, and then when her first punch made the black bear drop to all fours on a huff of sound, she punched it several more times in quick succession, striking it in the face and nose.

Apparently, that was too much for the bear. Squealing in pain, the beast didn’t even try to strike back at Liliya, but wheeled around and raced off into the trees, leaving the petite blonde scowling after it.

“God in heaven.”

Quinn blinked at those murmured words and glanced to the man in front and to the side of her, noticing only then that he hadn’t sagged in her hold when Liliya had released her grip on him, but was simply standing. He’d apparently regained consciousness during the brief run while he was upright. Quinn was about to ask him how his head was doing when Liliya’s horrified gasp caught her attention.

The stench of blood reached her at the same time as the sound, and Quinn forgot all about the pilot and rushed forward to join Liliya where she knelt next to Kira. The Amazon lay crumpled against the base of the tree she’d hit, her neck at an odd angle.

“Her neck’s broken,” Quinn muttered with a concern that only grew when Liliya shifted the Russian to lie flat on the ground and Kira’s head fell to the side, revealing the bloody pulp the side of her face and neck were. The bear’s claws had sliced through her skin like knives through butter, starting at her nose and digging deeper as it reached her ear and neck.

Every single one of the five claws must have sliced through her jugular, Quinn thought grimly as she noted the amount of blood on Kira, the ground, and still pulsing from her neck.

The surgeon in her coming to the fore, Quinn placed a hand over the injured woman’s throat to staunch the flow of blood. “We should—”

“You must take Jet and go,” Liliya interrupted grimly, removing Quinn’s hand from the wound and using her hold to push her back. “Now.”

Quinn blinked in surprise at the harsh order. “Who is Jet?”

Liliya’s eyes widened with amazement even as she said, “The pilot.”

“You mean Lassiter?” she asked uncertainly.

“Lassiter is his last name. He goes by Jet,” Liliya explained.

“Oh,” she mumbled, but thought it was a stupid name. A nickname because he was a pilot, she supposed, and then shook the matter from her head and said, “But Kira—”

“Kira is wounded and has lost a lot of blood,” Liliya interrupted impatiently. “She is now almost as much of a threat to Jet as Nika, Marta, and Annika. You must get him away from here and to safety. Find the town or camp Kira saw from the tree and call for help for Kira and the others. They will need blood and lots of it.” Releasing the grip she had on her wrist, Liliya turned to peer down at Kira, muttering. “And tell them they must be quick if they wish to save Jet and whatever settlement it is you call from.”

“What?” Quinn asked with amazement. “Surely you don’t think they’d attack a town?”

“They are hungry and mindless,” Liliya said grimly. “Mad with blood lust. They will attack anyone they encounter that can satisfy that need. Now go before she wakes up. Get Jet as far from here as you can.”

“Alone?” Quinn gasped with dismay. “Can’t you at least come with us?”

Liliya shook her head at once. “I cannot leave Kira. I am her guard, always to be at her side. You will have to continue without me. Now go.”

Quinn hesitated, a frown curving her lips as she peered down at Kira. She didn’t want to go on alone. She felt safer with the Russian women. She didn’t know the first damned thing about the woods, or bears, or . . . even about immortals, really. Why the hell hadn’t she let Marguerite teach her as she’d tried to do?

“Go!”

Startled into movement by that bellow, Quinn scrambled to her feet, and then glanced around sharply when someone took her arm. It was the pilot. He’d followed her to Kira and Liliya and heard everything. Now he was urging her away from the women.

“We’d better get moving,” he said, steering her in the general direction they’d been traveling in before their encounter with the bear.

Still, Quinn dragged her feet. She’d never been in a situation like this and felt completely out of her depth. “I’m not sure—”

“I am,” Jet said grimly. “Can’t you hear them? They’re getting closer again and now Kira might be in as bad a shape when she wakes up. I’d rather not die in the woods torn apart by she-pires.”

“They aren’t she-pires,” Quinn snapped, and then fell silent for a minute and listened, her eyes widening as she heard the shrieks in the distance. They were closer than they had been when Kira had stopped to climb the tree. They were gaining ground. Hunting them, she thought, and swallowed anxiously, her gaze sliding to Liliya. She almost begged the woman to come with them, but Jet started dragging her away before she could.

“We have to move,” he insisted, urging her through the trees.

“You do, not we,” she said, yanking her arm away. She was more than a little irritated at being manhandled. Her husband used to do that, pushing her around, steering her here and there like she was a child who needed to be directed.

“You’re right,” Jet said grimly, taking a step back from her. His expression was suddenly grim and cold. “I don’t know why I thought a she-pire would bother to help a mere mortal like me get away from other she-pires. Stay with them, then. But I’m getting the hell out of here.”

He hurried away, bursting into a run, and Quinn stared after him, scowling, her conscience pricked.

“He doesn’t have a chance without you,” Liliya said quietly, drawing her gaze around to see that the petite blonde had straightened and joined her. “They’ll run him to ground and drain him dry.”

Quinn shifted unhappily at the suggestion, but said, “I’m not likely to be much help. I don’t know the woods, and I—” She shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not strong enough to carry him, or—”

“You are,” Liliya interrupted firmly. “You’re immortal. You’re as strong as I am. You can throw him over your shoulder just like Kira did. And you aren’t injured or lacking in blood so can outrun Kira and the others. His life depends on you, Quinn. So do the lives of the people in the camp or town Kira saw from the tree. Every mortal close enough for them to get to is in danger until Mortimer, the head of the Enforcers, sends rescuers with blood,” she said solemnly. “And that won’t happen until you get somewhere with a phone and call them in.”

“Oh God,” Quinn breathed, feeling sick to her stomach at the idea of so many lives depending on her strength and speed. Those had never been her long suit. She was a surgeon. Her mind had always been her best tool.

“Then use your mind,” Liliya said now, obviously having read her thoughts. “Use your mind and your new strength and save these people, Quinn. You are their only hope.”

“Right,” Quinn breathed.

“I’ll try to run interference and slow them down, but you have to go now,” Liliya said, giving her a gentle push. “Jet is as helpless as a toddler against immortals. He won’t survive without you.”

Liliya didn’t have to push her again; Quinn had started to move as soon as the last word left the small blonde’s mouth. It was the bit about his being as helpless as a toddler. It made her think of her son, Parker. He’d been eight when her husband had attacked them both. Quinn hadn’t been able to save him from his own father, something that had tortured her these last four years. Her confusion and dismay at finding her life altered so drastically after her husband had turned her into a vampire was bad, but it was nothing next to the guilt she suffered over not being able to protect her son.

Well, Jet—she still thought it was a stupid nickname—Lassiter was someone’s son, and Quinn didn’t need more guilt. She didn’t really believe she could save him against four crazed immortals. But if she didn’t try, she’d never forgive herself.

Jet was having some pretty unpleasant thoughts about immortals in general and one beautiful she-pire in particular when he heard someone coming up on him quickly. He’d been running flat out since leaving Quinn and the Russian women behind, but terror had him digging deep and finding an extra burst of speed. It didn’t make any difference, of course. He simply couldn’t outrun an immortal.

Not wanting to be run to ground like an impala taken down by a lion, he waited until he knew his pursuer was close enough that he was about to be overtaken, and then swung to confront his attacker. Jet recognized Quinn one heartbeat before she bent slightly and tackled him like a football player out to kill him.

At least that’s what it felt like when her shoulder slammed into his stomach and stole the breath from him. But when he was able to breathe again an agonized moment later, Jet found himself upended over her shoulder, his head hanging just below her ass and his hands dragging over the forest floor as it moved by below him at incredible speed.

Grimacing, he drew his arms up and clasped his hands to keep them from dragging as Quinn continued racing in the direction he’d been headed. The woman didn’t even slow to explain; she just charged on, her arms wrapped around his upper legs, holding him in place over her shoulder as she jumped over fallen logs, and swerved to avoid trees in their path as they sped through the forest.

Relief swept through Jet then. He at least had half a chance with her help. Of course, his pride was a little bent out of shape that he needed the help of the petite creature carrying him, but Jet was a realistic-type guy. She wasn’t human and while she might be small, so were bullets, but they could save a guy’s life in certain situations. The thought made him wish he had one of those special dart guns the Enforcers used. It might have given him a fighting chance against the she-pires howling for his blood. In fact, in future he decided he’d insist one be present on board any plane he piloted. If he survived to fly again . . . and if he continued to pilot for Argeneau Enterprises, Jet thought grimly, scowling half at the thought and half at the fact that his head was starting to pound again as it had when Kira Sarka had carried him around like this. He supposed it had something to do with his head wound and the blood rushing to it.

Trying to distract himself from the growing pain, he considered whether or not he really wanted to continue to fly for Argeneau Enterprises, ferrying immortals around.

Jet recalled his excitement at being offered the job for the company, and sighed to himself as he admitted that taking this job may have been a huge mistake. At least with other companies you only had to worry about terrorists blowing you up, or hijackers shooting you.

Or dying in a crash, he thought suddenly as Jeff Miller’s face slid through his mind. While he was glad the man hadn’t survived only to be torn apart by she-pires, Miller was dead, while Jet at least had a chance at survival, if only a slim one.

It would have been worse if Miller had survived but had been pinned in his seat, he acknowledged now, and Jet’s mind strolled down that pathway for a moment, playing out like a horror movie. He could imagine himself refusing to leave the other pilot behind, and either standing his ground and dying with the man, or being tossed over Kira’s shoulder and taken against his will. And then having to listen to Miller’s screams of horror and pain as he was fed on by three crazed she-pires while the Amazon carried him off into the woods.

Grimacing at his own wayward thoughts, Jet tried to clear his mind and turn it to more constructive things. Like how to escape the injured she-pires so desperate for blood, and find civilization and a phone. As far as he could tell, Quinn was just running blindly through the woods, trying to put space between them and their pursuers. But she’d have to stop eventually. He suspected she was using up energy at an accelerated rate with her efforts, and she couldn’t do that indefinitely without fuel. Food would be the preferred fuel, of course. But he wasn’t sure she might not need blood. Was he willing to let her feed on him, if necessary, to ensure they both survived?

His immortal friend, Abs, said her kind could make the person they bit feel pleasure when they fed from them. She’d told him that when Tomasso had bit her the first time he’d distracted her with kisses and caresses and all she’d felt was an incredible ecstasy before she’d fainted.

He imagined that now. In his mind Jet was seated in a beautiful bower with Quinn kneeling before him. She took his head gently in her hands and kissed him, her body leaning into his, her small breasts brushing against his chest, her hands in his hair. He had no trouble imagining his excitement as he kissed her back, his hands clasping her hips and then moving around and down to cup her behind, squeezing, and urging her tighter against him, before sliding away and up to find her breasts. In his mind he kneaded and caressed those breasts, finding her nipples through the cloth of the white silk blouse she was wearing and pinching and tweaking them as she broke their kiss to moan softly in pleasure before her lips slid across his cheek.

Her smell filled his nostrils, exotic and exciting, as her warm breath moved over his throat, and then her lips brushed across the sensitive skin of his neck . . .

It wasn’t the first time Jet had imagined a scenario like this. Immortals were incredibly attractive creatures. He suspected it was some sort of trick, that the nanos that made them what they were also sent out pheromones or something that made them seem extra attractive to mortals, because he had yet to meet one he didn’t think was hot as hell. But Quinn had affected him differently than the others. He’d thought her hot, but he’d also felt an odd protective instinct with her every time their paths had crossed, and she’d stuck in his mind long after each flight. He’d thought of her often over the last four years, wondering how she was, what she was doing and had often sought those answers from other passengers on his flights who might know her . . . But she’d also wandered into his thoughts at the most inopportune times. While having sex with the various women he’d dated over the last four years, he’d found himself closing his eyes and imagining it was her.

Her large silver-tinged dark eyes looking up at him, her sweet pouty mouth gasping his name as he drove into her . . . And then he’d open his eyes to the woman he was really with and give his head a shake, trying to remove Quinn from his thoughts.

Seeing her standing there in the cockpit after the crash had been something of a shock. For a moment he’d thought he was imagining her, but then she’d spoken, her tone so cool and impersonal, as professional as the doctor she used to be, and he’d felt nothing but disappointment. While he’d been fantasizing about her for years, she didn’t even seem to recognize him as someone she’d met before.

Jet knew he shouldn’t be disappointed. She hadn’t been in a good place on the first flight, or even the second, and they hadn’t even been introduced. He doubted she’d really seen him either time. Still, it was hard to acknowledge that a woman who’d taken up so much room in his mind these last four years hadn’t spared one thought for him during that time.

Pushing these thoughts away, Jet returned to the possibility of her needing to feed off of him and what that might entail. Thinking about that had helped him ignore the pounding in his head. It had also made him forget, if only briefly, that he was fleeing for his life at the moment. Although, really, Quinn was the one doing the fleeing. He was just being carried along, but he pushed that firmly from his mind and returned to his earlier fantasy of the bower. Only this time rather than kneeling in front of him, Quinn was straddling his lap, her silk blouse gone and her perfect little breasts encased in only a lacy white bra. In his mind, he now removed it with more dexterity and skill than he’d ever shown in reality, and her breasts were suddenly free between them. As Jet began to kiss and caress her excited nipples, Quinn began to shift on his lap, her body riding over his erection through their clothes and increasing their excitement so that he began to suck almost violently on the nipple in his mouth in response . . .