Weres were shouldering into the office, one after another. One staked one of the twins before being dismembered by the other. Another shot at Emma; the silver struck Lee in the chest as he tried to protect her. I watched as it took two to restrain David while another dragged me out the door.
Wait a minute. I was watching my own abduction. I woke with a start, jerking into an upright position, David's arms still wrapped around me. Emma had pulled her nose out of a book to see what the commotion was about, Lee standing behind her. The twins were looking nonplussed on either side of the door. Only the grey-haired woman on the floor next to the settee was startled by my reaction. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit."
"Another nightmare?" David was softly rubbing my back, trying to calm me. Just his presence was enough to calm me.
"No, there are Weres coming. Now. We need to leave, NOW." I shot to my feet, wobbling slightly as I came upright. Lee was already pulling things from a large cabinet in a corner, tossing two long silver swords to David and taking another two for himself. He handed Emma a small dagger and several throwing stars. Rum Runners was completely stocked with its own armory. The twins apparently came fully armed, producing honest to God war axes out of thin air.
"How long?" asked David as he gripped the swords firmly. Within seconds, the office was on full alert.
"Very soon," I answered as I scanned the floor for my shoes. "First one through the door has a stake and goes for you," I said as I pointed at Twin Number 1, who swung his ax in response. "The next one goes straight for Emma. Silver bullets. Then there are three…no, four more…" I continued. Apparently, they had heard enough; David pushed me behind him, protecting me with his body. Emma and Lee flanked him on either side, effectively encasing me in a protective cocoon but ignoring the grey-haired woman. The twins stood in front of the O'Haras, protecting all three as much as they could.
"Now!" I screamed as I obeyed my urge to duck and cover. I watched as the twins, now that they were armed and alert, had no problem with dispatching with the first three scrambling through the door. I grabbed the stake that flipped from the dead hands of the first Were, his unseeing eyes blankly fixed on me. With a death grip on my only weapon, I backed up to the wall to avoid the melee.
It wasn't long after I backed into the wall that I discovered it was, in fact, not the wall. A strong pair of freckled arms wrapped around my shoulders, confining my arms and my only weapon to my sides and lifted me from the floor. I screamed at the top of my lungs as I thrashed my entire body, which made it hard to carry me anywhere. A hand clamped down on my mouth mid-scream just as the brouhaha stilled.
"Put her down," David said, his voice as deadly as the sword he was holding to the man's neck. I froze where I was, not wanting to accidentally put myself in the weapon's way. The freckled arms dropped me at once and I backed away again, making sure that the wall I was backing into was really a wall this time. David slit the throat of the last Were, leaving the office (and me) covered in blood and body bits.
It was over. David was slowly moving towards me, hands up. "It's OK, Sloane," he cooed, focusing all his attention on my hand. "You can put it down now." What? I looked to see what had captured his attention so completely. In my hand was the stake, pointed directly at his chest. It took all my concentration to open my fingers from their death grip and drop the stake. I was in his arms as soon as the stake hit the floor.
"Take me home, please," I asked as I pressed my forehead into the crux of David's neck. I had had just about as much violence and gore as I could take in one day. It became apparent to the both of us that my legs were no longer responding; he slowly lifted me into his arms and carried me out to the car. The remission of my fever made it seem even chillier outside, and I shivered in David's arms as he loaded me into the passenger seat of his Mercedes.
He turned the car on and raced back to my house as fast as he could. I was exhausted from days without sleep, overwhelmed by the blood bath I had just witnessed, and on edge about being hunted. I had no more room for sensory input. I shut my mind down, just watching the lights zip by as David drove.
"Sloane? You're safe now." David murmured quietly. I glanced at him; he watched me with careful eyes that looked worried. My brows furrowed as I looked back down at my hands in my lap. I'm OK, I thought as I shook myself back to reality. But when reality filtered in around me, David wasn't in the driver's seat anymore. He was crouching just outside the passenger door, stroking my face.
"Hm?" I mumbled in response to something I'm sure he'd said and I'd not heard.
"Are you coming?" he asked. I looked past him, we were at my house already.
"Oh." Pull it back together, Sloane. "Um, I guess." I grabbed the hand he extended and hustled to my front porch. Luckily, both my keys and my cell phone were still in my pocket. As soon as I opened the door, I peeled off the old sweatshirt that was now covered in someone else's blood. At this rate, I wasn't going to have anything to wear by the end of the week.
I threw the soiled sweatshirt into the washer. Before I started the machine, I tossed my sweatpants in the washer just in case they had grue on them, too. I added the detergent with a spritz of extra stain remover and started the cycle when I turned back to take my chilled flesh to bed, David was right behind me at the foot at the stairs.
"You tempt me, woman," he said as he took my entire body in, his voice guttural and rough. Glancing out the back window. "I don't have long," he lamented; dawn must be close. He seized me, planting a hungry kiss on my lips as my feet dangled a foot from the floor. I wrapped my arms around his neck, urging him to keep going, to keep holding me tightly. In a dizzy arc he swung us over to the couch and threw me on my back. He was out of his clothes in a flash; one minute he was dressed, and the next he had stripped. I could feel the wet warmth between my thighs as he leaned over me. He tore off my bra with his teeth while he ripped off my panties with his hands. I gasped in delight, tangling my hands in his hair as he kissed a trail up my stomach, to my ear, and finally ending with his lips on mine. As soon as I was preoccupied with his kisses, he dipped one finger into me, which shot a frisson of pleasure throughout my body. I arched my back into him as he plunged another finger into me.
"More," I pleaded as I clung to him. I needed him, all of him, in me right now. It was the only thing that would make what happened at Rum Runners tonight OK. It was the only thing that would make the whole past two months OK.
He entered me fast and hard, and I moaned in unison with his thrusts. He picked me up, moving the two of us until he was sitting on the couch, my knees splayed, straddling him. He moved my hips in counterpoint with his thrusts, which edged me closer and closer to the final climax. He alternated nipping at my neck with his fangs with deep kisses. "Bite! Yes, bite me!" I moaned as I tilted my head, presenting him with my neck. He bit as we both finished together, a sweaty pile of bliss.
I nuzzled my face into David's chest as he held me, both of us still nude. "Sleep, Love." He tucked the quilt Sydney and I kept hanging on the back of the couch around us as goose pimples covered my body. This is exactly how I wanted to fall asleep every night. And for at least this night, I did.