Shattered Restraint Read online

  Becoming a vampire was something he’d feared his entire life. Technically, he’d been terrified of becoming a turned vampire—a mindless killer who would destroy his own friends without a thought. Still, even becoming a born vampire scared him. His friend Muriel had been injected with the Moon virus during two pregnancies to try to change. The second time it worked, and Danny hadn’t visited her since. The excuse he used was that he didn’t want to get stuck feeding her vampire baby, but he often wondered if she knew that was a lie. What kind of friend bailed on someone just because they made a lifestyle choice he didn’t agree with?

  There was a loud cracking noise, and Danny barely managed to get the jeep to the side of the road when the tire blew out. His instincts were on high alert as he scanned the area around the jeep. Something was off. He slipped a crossbow to Faith and a knife to Jared.

  “If anything happens, defend yourselves and head into the woods,” he said, pointing to his left. “There’s a guard detail stationed about half a mile that way, and they’ll help you.”

  “What’s going on?” Faith asked nervously.

  “I’m convinced someone set this up to stop us,” he explained. “Probably not us specifically, but anyone heading to the business district.”

  There was no logical reason for his suspicions, but his instincts were telling him something was wrong. Pulling his phone from his pocket, Danny was just about to send Connor a message when he saw several fighters break through the trees.

  “Run!” Danny shouted, tossing his phone to Faith.

  “I’m a vampire,” Jared said. “I can help you.”

  “Protect Faith and your baby,” Danny insisted before leaping out of the jeep and rushing toward their attackers. He had no doubt they were attackers. All were heavily armed and ready for a fight. He didn’t have time to look behind him to make sure the teens were following his orders. All he could do was try to buy them as much time as possible.

  “Well, well, well,” said a human Danny recognized from the island settlement. “Imagine running across Danny, the vampire lover,” he sneered with a toothy grin that had Danny amending his belief that the guy was still human.

  “You’ll have to forgive me for not remembering your name, vampire,” Danny said in a flat tone. Hopefully, he could keep these bastards distracted long enough for Faith and Jared to get to safety. If he was really lucky, they’d have time to send guards back to help him. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get that lucky, but a guy could hope.

  “Stupid move, sending the others running like that,” some guy Danny didn’t know said before spitting on the ground.

  “They’re just kids,” Danny said with a casual shrug. Better if they assumed Faith and Jared were human. Both could run much faster than humans, but Danny was hoping these assholes wouldn’t notice.

  “Kids?” asked the guy he recognized. “They’re at least sixteen. I’d hardly call them kids. You were out killing vampires at that age.”

  “Humans don’t usually fight here,” Danny said to keep them talking and believing Faith and Jared were human. His shoulders were relaxed and his feet were spread, to give him the best balance when all hell broke loose, which would happen any minute.

  “The girl looked familiar,” the spitter said thoughtfully.

  “She was probably at the island,” the first guy snapped. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Danny boy has a point about the other two being useless. They’re not likely to make it far anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” Danny asked, instantly on alert.

  The spitter chuckled. “We sent some feral vampires out into the woods earlier. Bet they’re already munching on your little friends.”

  Danny attacked without hesitation because he had to get away to find Faith and Jared. Connor had already said Jared had limited fighting skills. Springing forward like he was going to attack, Danny watched as the others prepared to fight. That’s when he let the knives drop lower into his hands and threw them. This was a trick he’d learned from Ian. The others were bracing for him to lunge toward them and not at all prepared for the knives. One of his opponents ended up with a knife in the heart, while the other knife found its mark in one’s throat. The one with the knife to the heart dropped immediately, but the other managed to yank the knife out of his throat with a snarl. Had that one been human, he’d have been dead in minutes, but the vampire would survive if he got blood soon enough.

  “Sonofabitch!” snarled the leader as he pulled what looked almost like a gun from his pocket, aiming it at Danny.

  Danny jerked to the side, inadvertently bumping into one of his opponents. Not wasting any time, Danny slammed his fist into the guy’s throat as soon as he hit the ground before grabbing a nearby rock and smashing it into the guy’s temple. Thankfully, this one was human, and he stopped fighting as he collapsed to the ground.

  At this point, Danny was amazed that he’d taken three of his opponents down. The one with the throat wound seemed to be out of the fight. That left him with three more. A dart struck his chest, but it wasn’t enough to pierce his Kevlar vest. If Danny survived this, he’d have to remember to thank Connor for nagging him to wear it.

  As Danny reached for another knife, he was tackled from behind. He got the knife unsheathed, but couldn’t get into a position to use it.

  “I should kill you,” his attacker hissed into his ear. Danny recognized the voice as that of the spitter. Drops of saliva hit Danny’s cheek.

  “You planning to drown me?” Danny asked as he pushed up in an attempt to throw the guy off. Just his luck, the guy weighed a ton. Fangs pierced his neck, and a scream was torn from Danny’s lips. It wasn’t the pain so much as the fear Danny had tried to work through over the years. Images of his father’s throat being torn out by turned vampires flashed through Danny’s mind.

  “Get your fangs out of him,” the leader ordered from Danny’s left.

  Turning his head toward the leader, Danny glared at him.

  “Nap time, Danny boy,” the leader said with a chuckle just before he fired the dart gun again. This time, the dart struck Danny’s neck.

  The weight of the vampire on his back disappeared, and Danny struggled to get to his knees. He heard the laughter around him and took a swing, which put him off balance and sent him face first into the dirt. He tried to get his hands flat on the ground to support his own weight, but he couldn’t get his body to follow directions. The laughter took on a surreal quality, and the world began to spin. His last sane thought was that at least he wouldn’t have to talk to Connor about what was bothering him later.

  Chapter Five

  Cam was having a great time watching his younger brother annoy Ian, the most irritable vampire he’d ever met. At the moment, Zane was walking alongside the vampire and rubbing his face against Ian’s arm like he was trying to mark Ian with his scent. With their height difference, Zane’s cheek was almost level with Ian’s bicep, so he was mostly rubbing Ian’s shirt. Some might think Zane was trying to be a pain in the ass, mostly because he specialized in being a pain in the ass, but this was just Zane being Zane. Shifters didn’t have personal space rules like humans or vampires. They touched a lot, but most understood that other species weren’t like them. Zane didn’t have much in the way of self-control. If he liked someone, he touched them, and Zane liked Ian—grumpy moods and all.

  “Christ, Zane,” Ian nearly shouted, his green eyes narrowing. “Get the fuck off of me.”

  Much to Cam’s surprise, Zane backed off, so Cam decided he’d have a little fun with the vampire.

  “Come on, vampire,” Cam said, enjoying the way Ian scowled at him when he wrapped his arms around Ian’s waist and snuggled into his side. Ian was about four inches taller than Cam, probably a little over six feet tall. “We touch you because we like you so much.”

  “Lucky me,” Ian said under his breath.

  Cam’s older brother, Jase chuckled. “You gotta understand that we touch all the time,” he explained.

&nbs
p; “I might not mind it so much if you weren’t all naked,” Ian grumbled, and Cam grinned as he backed away.

  “I keep forgetting how funny you are about nudity,” Cam said, which was a complete lie. While it was true that shifters headed out without clothes when they planned to hunt in their lynx form, they all wore pants or shorts when they planned to stay in human form. Some of the women covered their breasts, but that wasn’t as common.

  While shifters were all most comfortable without clothing, they’d learned to adapt and to hide their presence. They were originally from Canada, where people found it suspicious to have a group of people wandering around naked in the freezing cold temperatures. Even though shifters had a better tolerance for the cold, they still didn’t like having certain parts of their bodies touch snow.

  “How much further to the spot where you smelled the turned vamps?” Ian asked, looking directly at Jase, probably because Jase never gave him a hard time or tried to cuddle with him.

  “Not far,” Jase said.

  Cam had traveled to the vampire settlement today with Jase to get their brother Zane back. Zane was spending a lot of time there because he enjoyed sex with vampires. It was different, and no one asked him about finding a mate at the vampire settlement. Zane’s newfound lust for vampires was something they hadn’t shared with their father. Lucky for Zane, their father had been distracted and hadn’t noticed his long absences. Now, however, he’d decided he needed Zane to help find their cousin, who’d been missing since yesterday. Cam figured she just needed a break from everything, and she’d turn up today. Granted, he was still pissed at her for disappearing.

  On their way back from retrieving Zane, Cam and his brothers had caught the scent of turned vampires and decided that if they ran across any of the born vampires, they’d warn them. Ian had been out on patrol and agreed to separate from his group to check it out with them. Cam wondered if the vampire realized they were only tagging along because they loved a good fight.

  Cam froze and scented the air. His brothers were doing the same thing.

  “There are turned vampires that way,” Jase announced, pointing to his left. “Some of them are closer. I can also smell two vampires like you close by.”

  They moved in that direction at a brisk pace.

  “Can you tell if the turned vampires are alive or undead from this distance?” Ian asked and chuckled when he saw the offended look on Jase’s face.

  “Of course we can,” Jase said with a snort. “They’re undead.”

  The sound of a woman’s scream cut through the air.

  “Let’s go!” Ian shouted and took off running toward the scream. Cam still wasn’t used to vampires, and it surprised him how quickly they moved. Jase shifted to lynx form, but Cam and Zane opted to stay in human form until they had a better idea what they were dealing with.

  Bursting through the trees, they found two born vampires surrounded by turned vampires. One of the born vampires was breeding and terrified, so Cam attacked.

  Jase took one of the turned vampires to the ground, tearing out his throat.

  Throwing knives were Ian’s preference, but Cam was guessing he was afraid he’d hit one of the born vampires, because Ian jumped in and plunged a knife into the heart of one vamp, just as another grabbed him from behind. Zane caught the vampire on Ian’s back and tossed him against a tree, stunning the vampire long enough for Zane to grab a nearby branch and plunge it into the vampire’s heart.

  To Cam’s disappointment, it wasn’t much of a fight, and all the turned vampires were dead within a few minutes. After they finished off the turned vampires, they looked up to see Connor watching them.

  “What are you doing here?” Ian asked, looking annoyed and confused.

  “While I was heading out, I noticed a couple of turned vampires and decided to track them,” Connor explained. “That is until I heard fighting and decided to head your way.”

  “Thanks for the help,” Ian snapped.

  Connor shrugged. “I was guarding Faith and Jared,” he said, gesturing to the younger vampires they’d just saved.

  “Danny,” Faith said, still looking shocked and terrified.

  “Where is he?” Connor asked with a calm Cam was sure he didn’t feel. Connor took the safety of his people very seriously, and he had a soft spot for the human. Cam understood; Danny reminded him of a toned-down version of Zane.

  “The tire blew out on the jeep,” Jared explained, pulling Faith into his arms. “Danny told us to run for it and find the patrol detail in this direction when he saw people coming out of the woods. They were obviously trouble.” His eyes dropped, and his cheeks flushed. “I didn’t want to leave him there,” he added, sounding almost helpless. “There were at least five others. I don’t know if they were vampire or human. Either way, it was too much for Danny to handle on his own.”

  “Danny was right to send you for help,” Connor assured the teen. “Someone needed to protect Faith.”

  “For now, we need to find Danny,” Ian said urgently.

  “We’ll track him,” Zane said before shifting to lynx form. Cam’s brother was more than a little fond of the human. Cam quickly shifted too. He had a really bad feeling about all of this.

  Chapter Six

  Six hours later, a freak rainstorm forced them back to the vampire settlement. Cam opted to stay behind in case he could do more to locate Danny. As much as his brothers had wanted to stay, their father’s patience wouldn’t last much longer. If their half-human cousin hadn’t been missing, Cam was pretty sure his father wouldn’t have cared how long they were gone. Their father had a soft spot for their cousin and worried about her more, most likely due to her human side. Quinn’s mother had been killed when Quinn was very young, and she’d been his father’s favorite sister.

  Normally, his father wasn’t big on intermingling with other species and had always kept his distance from other half-breeds. Quinn was the exception to that rule because his father loved her like his own daughter.

  Cam was relieved when Connor tossed him a towel and a pair of pants as soon as they got back to his house. While he didn’t mind being naked—cold, wet, and naked was never a fun combination.

  “Thanks for sticking around,” Ian said after Cam slipped on the pants.

  “No problem,” Cam answered. “Sorry we lost his scent out there. I’m sure he was moved in a jeep, which makes it harder to track, especially in the rain.”

  “I guess the good news is that he’s still alive,” Ian said, but Cam heard the doubt in his voice. Alive wasn’t always a good thing. While Ian hadn’t been tortured in his youth, there were plenty of vampires living in this settlement who had, and most of them had suffered greatly at the hands of the vampire who likely had Danny.

  Layla rushed in with her mate. Cam had met Layla right before her first change, and he’d been more than a little disappointed to find out she was in love with the pretty vampire. She was a tiny thing with blonde hair and brown eyes. Oddly enough, her eyes turned blue when she was in her lynx form. Cam had never met anyone with eyes like that. Her mate, Simon, was so pretty he could tempt most people, male and female. Cam didn’t usually go for men, but he might have made an exception for Simon. With golden hair, blue eyes, and a face like an angel, he was beyond attractive.

  “Tell me what happened,” Layla demanded.

  “We’re still waiting on the others,” Connor said patiently.

  Cam could see the shifting under her skin. Danny had been Layla’s best friend since childhood, and she was on the verge of losing control and changing into her lynx form. If that happened in her current frame of mind, she might do some serious damage to the people around her, not to mention Connor’s home.

  “I’ll take the little kit outside and update her on what we know,” Cam said, looping an arm around Layla’s shoulders. Thankfully, the rain had stopped so he wouldn’t get soaked saving Connor’s house from being destroyed by an angry shifter. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t enjoying Sim
on’s glare, but the vampire was smart enough to see that his mate needed help he couldn’t provide. Cam shuddered to think how the little kit would have handled her first change had he and his brothers not run into her.

  “Try taking some deep breaths,” he suggested as they stepped into Connor’s backyard. “You don’t want to change with your emotions this out of control. If you don’t think you can manage it, we’ll leave the settlement.”

  “I want to kill something,” she said in a guttural tone.

  “Which is exactly why I need you to calm down,” he told her in a soothing voice. “You’re close to shifting, and you know how hard it is to control your impulses when you’re in lynx form.”

  “I know,” she agreed before taking several deep breaths. “Tell me what happened with Danny today.”

  Cam would have preferred waiting until she had herself a little more under control, but he’d have to settle for being satisfied that she was away from the others. If she shifted and lost it, he was strong enough to control her until the rage passed, but that would be much harder in a crowded room. The vampires were pretty capable in a fight, but he wasn’t sure they’d be able to handle the little kit in a killing rage.

  “Stop stalling, Cam.”

  “I guess Connor had Danny running some vampires into the city, younger ones,” he began, unable to remember their names. “According to the younger vampires, the tire on the jeep blew out, but Danny was suspicious. When he saw it was a trap, he sent the kids off and stayed behind to distract the enemy. The younger ones couldn’t tell if they were vampires or humans. I’ve seen your friend fight, and he’s good,” he said, trying to give her hope.