She stared at him. "What do you mean, they forced you?"
"Tried to...to push me into overdose. Addiction."
"Blood addiction?"
He gave a vague nod and coughed, pain racking his chest. "Too much blood...it brings on Bloodlust. They asked me questions...wanted me to betray the Order. I refused, so they...punished me."
"Lex said they would kill you," she murmured. "Nikolai, I'm sorry."
She lifted her hand as though she might touch him.
"Don't," he growled, snatching her by the wrist.
She gasped, tried to pull free. He didn't let her go. Her warm skin seared his fingertips and palm, everywhere he touched her. He could feel the movement of her bones and lean muscles, the racing of her blood as it coursed through the veins of her arm. It would be so easy to bring that tender wrist up to his mouth.
So tempting to pin her beneath him and drink himself straight into damnation.
He knew the precise moment that she went from surprise to apprehension. Her pulse kicked. Her skin tightened in his grasp.
"Let go of me, Nikolai."
He held on, the beast in him wondering whether to start on her wrist or her neck. His mouth watered, fangs aching to pierce her tender flesh. And he hungered for her in another way too. There was no hiding his rigid need. He knew it was the Bloodlust driving him, but that didn't make him any less dangerous.
"Let go," she said again, and when he finally released her, she scooted back, putting some distance between them. There wasn't far for her to go. Stacked boxes hemmed her in from behind, beyond that the wall of the truck's interior. The way she moved, halting and careful, made the predator in him sense weakness.
Was she in some kind of pain? If so, her eyes didn't reflect it. Their pale color seemed steely as she stared at him, defiant. He glanced down and his feral eyes lit on the gleaming barrel of a pistol.
"Do it," he murmured.
She shook her head. "I don't want to hurt you. I need your help, Nikolai."
Too late for that, he thought. She had pulled him out of purgatory at the hands of his captors, but he'd already gotten a taste of hell. The only way out was to starve the addiction, deny it from taking full hold. He didn't know if he was strong enough to fight his thirst.
He wouldn't be, so long as Renata was near him.
"Do it...please. Don't know how much longer I can hold out..."
"Niko - "
The beast in him exploded. With a roar, he bared his fangs and lunged for her.
The shot rang out that next instant, a stunning clap of thunder that finally, gratefully, silenced his misery.
Renata sat back on her heels, the tranq gun still gripped in her hands. Her heart was racing, part of her stomach still lodged in her throat after Nikolai had sprung on her with his huge fangs bared. Now he lay in a sprawl on the floor, motionless except for his shallow, labored breathing. Aside from his churning skin markings, with his eyes shut and his fangs hidden behind his closed mouth, there was little way to tell that he was the same violent creature who might have torn out her jugular.
Shit.
What the hell was she doing here? What the hell was she thinking, allying herself with a vampire, imagining she might actually be able to trust one of their kind? She knew firsthand how treacherous they were - how lethal they could turn in just an instant. She might have been killed just now. There was a moment when she really thought she would be.
But Nikolai had tried to warn her. He didn't want to harm her; she'd seen that torment in his eyes, heard it in his broken voice in that instant before he would have leapt on her. He was different from the others like him. He had honor, something she'd assumed was lacking in the Breed as a whole, given that her examples were limited to Sergei Yakut, Lex, and those who served them.
Nikolai couldn't have known her weapon didn't hold bullets, and yet he'd forced her to take him down. Begged her for it.
She had been through some pretty rough things in her life, but Renata didn't know that kind of torment and suffering. She was quite sure she hoped she never would.
The wound in her shoulder burned like hell. It was bleeding again, worse, after this tense physical confrontation. At least the bullet had passed through cleanly. The nasty hole it left behind was going to need medical attention, although she didn 't see a hospital in her near future. She also didn't think it wise to stay near Nikolai now, especially while she was bleeding and the only thing keeping him away from her carotid was that single dose of sedatives.
The tranq gun was empty.
Night was falling, she was nursing a bleeding gunshot wound and the added bonus of her lingering reverb. And staying in the stolen truck was like hiding out with a large bull's-eye target on their backs.
She needed to ditch the vehicle. Then she needed to find someplace safe where she could patch herself up well enough for her to push on. Nikolai was an added problem. She wasn't ready to give up on him, but he was no use to her in his current condition. If he could manage to shake the terrible aftereffects of his torture, then maybe. And if not...
If not, then she had just wasted more precious time than she cared to consider.
Moving gingerly, Renata climbed out the back of the trailer and latched the doors behind her. The sun had set, and dusk was coming fast. In the distance, the lights of Montreal glowed.
Mira was somewhere in that city.
Helpless, alone...afraid.
Renata climbed into the truck and started the engine. She drove back toward the city, uncertain where she was heading until she eventually found herself on familiar ground. She never thought she'd be back. Certainly never like this.
The old city neighborhood hadn't changed much in the two years she'd been gone. Cramped tenements and modest post - World War II bungalows lined the twilit street. A few of the youths coming out of the convenience store on the corner glanced at the medical supply truck as Renata drove past.