Untamed and Undone (Undone Series) Read online

  My mouth came open, and I’d eyed him fearfully. “Wha... what happened?”

  He’d let go of my shoulders and took a step back, but his worry didn’t disappear. “Do you know where you are?”

  I’d looked around the lot jampacked with cars, seeing the mall in the distance. “The mall?”

  “Do you know how you got here?”

  I tried to remember... but I couldn’t. My heart began to pound, the boom boom, boom boom, boom boom loud in my ears. My voice had come out shaky: “...No.”

  “Let’s get you out of here.”

  I’d trusted him. I knew he wasn’t human, but I still trusted him.

  Turns out, the bartender girl had been involved in my disappearance. I’d been mind controlled into wandering off, the scene set to lure Madison back to Vudu. Seems harmless enough considering she could’ve just bled me dry, but my death must not have fit into her agenda. She, and we suspect another vamp friend of hers, just wanted Madison dead. Why, you ask? Because the two female vamps wanted her mate, Dorian, for themselves... and they just didn’t like Madison.

  While Madison and Dorian had searched for me, getting into trouble along the way, Derick had found me. He’s since been glued to my side, keeping me safe and luring me in with his grin and those beautiful, penetrating eyes.

  Chapter 2. Running

  Not an hour ago, I packed up a small fraction of my belongings (clothes, shampoo, things like that) before hitting the road with Derick, Madison and Dorian. Claire had been at our apartment while I’d been frantically grabbing my things, lecturing me about how going on a trip with some guy I barely knew was outrageous. I didn’t exactly tell her my life was in danger and a vampire was helping to keep my fragile human self safe following my best friend and her boyfriend killing high-profile vampires. No, I let her believe that we were sleeping together and going off on some romantic getaway. Madison had pulled the same stunt the day she moved out of the apartment the three of us shared, telling me and Claire she was going to live with Dorian, leaving us to think she was having some kind of crisis or mental breakdown instead of the supernatural truth (she’d been turned into a vamp and didn’t want to risk bleeding us dry until she learned the ropes of being... undead). I guess I just took a page from her book... the easier route. Claire doesn’t know supernatural beings exist. Subjecting her to that reality seemed cruel. Sometimes even I wish I never knew about this insane world and the nightmares that come with it.

  Anyway, she’d called me crazy and told me I must’ve been skipping doses of the same antipsychotics Madison was on. She’s not exactly the nicest person... and I totally get why Madison couldn’t live with us at the start of her undead life. She would’ve killed Claire before the day was over.

  Now I’m here, in the backseat of Madison’s little red car with Derick, on the run from the High Society of vamps currently after us. Long story short, Madison and Dorian got their attention after killing several members and uncovering Vudu’s secrets: They were filming people in those backrooms at the club, capturing feedings and sex on cameras hidden behind two-way mirrors. Behind those floor-to-ceiling mirrors, a hall led to a tunnel that ran beneath the club. That tunnel led to a mansion the vamps of the High Society shared and lived in. Human victims they fed on at the mansion were tossed in a freezer once the vamps were done with them. They were killing people and covering it up.

  Dorian and Madison did what they had to do to survive, and now I’m faced with my own decisions to make. I can’t keep my life in the city, and since my best friend and her beau have decided to go on the run, that means Derick and I have to do the same. We’re guilty by association.

  Being on the run shouldn’t be thrilling in any way, and neither should fearing for my life, but as I look over at the ridiculously hot vamp sitting next to me, I can’t help but feel a twinge of excitement at the idea of being on the run with him.

  I’ve never been around someone like him before – someone who’s powerful, sexy, charming (even when he’s threatening to rip someone’s throat out), and has the kind of deep voice that sends shivers down my spine and makes my knees weak all at the same time. Did I mention the tattoos? I’m a sucker for those, too. Derick’s entire right arm is covered in crosses, a dark angel, an intricate sun pattern... and a teddy bear?

  He catches me eyeing his arm, and I look away. I don’t want him to catch me memorizing the artwork on his skin. It’ll make it pretty damn obvious that I’m interested. And I can’t be. Even though I’m new to the supernatural world, I do know a few things about his kind, like the fact that he drinks blood to live and never ages. What kind of future can I have with a guy like that?

  You could always just have sex with him...

  I immediately push the thought away. No, I can’t. I can’t go down that road. Once I do... I won’t want to come back.

  “Something you’re curious about?” he asks, pulling me back from thoughts of him literally devouring me while he’s naked on top of me.

  Could he tell I was intrigued by the bear? Or that I was in the midst of having a steamy fantasy about him?

  “I was just wondering about the bear tattoo,” I say, making eye contact with him.

  Those piercing green irises brighten. I swear he’s searching for my soul as I watch him back, my hazel eyes focused on the intensity of his stare, refusing to be the first to look away. Could he be any hotter?

  Finally, he looks down at the bear tat. “I got it for my baby sister.”

  “You have a baby sister?”

  “...She’s gone now.”

  I didn’t mean to dredge up bad memories for him. He must’ve gotten the tattoo to remember her by. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “It was a very long time ago,” he says, his voice hinting at his detachment from the past. “In nineteen-forty-eight to be exact.”

  Geez... I’m not sure if I should ask. But I can’t help but be curious about him. “Is that before or after you were turned?”

  “Shortly before. We were taken by vampires, me and my sister. They drained her for sport and made me watch. She was only four-years-old. And then they drained me... but not before one of the females fed me her blood. She was psychotic and actually thought I’d want to be with her after I was turned, but all I wanted was her suffering... for all of them to suffer.” He points to another tattoo, the dark angel wearing a helmet and armor. “I got Ares, the Greek God of War, to remind me of how far from my humanity I’d gotten as a result of picking them off. I was ruthless and disastrous, but for what they did, if given the choice, I’d do it all over again.”

  My heart aches for him now, after hearing of how his baby sister had been murdered right in front of him. To add insult to injury, they’d turned him into the very creature responsible for her death... a vampire. He’d become a vengeful monster as a result, something I can’t blame him for. Would I have done things differently if someone had done the same to me? I can’t say I would have. The more I get to know Derick, the more I see how different he is from what I’ve imagined vamps to be like... what I’ve heard they’re like. While the High Society abducts humans, drains them and tosses their remains in a freezer, Derick looks out for friends and perfect strangers (me). I still can’t believe what some vamps get away with... killing people and disposing of them? When Madison was human, she was disposed of too, by a vamp who’d taken her into an alley and drained her. If not for her biting his hand while he’d attacked her and thereby ingesting his blood, she would’ve been dead.

  Madison was turned like Derick was, in a horrific way. They were both suddenly ripped away from their human reality and forced into a life of drinking blood to survive.

  While Madison never hurt an innocent, has Derick?

  Has he ever used someone for their blood? As I watch him, my heart weighed down by his loss, I want to say he hasn’t... but I don’t know him well enough.

  “I’m sorry,” I say once again, unsure what other words to say after such a confession. One thing I know: “It
’s not fair what happened to you or your sister.”

  A small smile forms on his chiseled face. “Life never is.”

  Even though he’s just told me such a tragic tale, the half-grin he gives me makes my loins seem to twist. Is he using some kind of vamp seduction technique on me? No one’s ever caused me to react in such a way, especially not from something as simple as a grin.

  Does he have this effect on all women? I’m sure he does, given how attractive he is. I don’t want to be added to the list of women who have fallen into bed with him after he’s grinned at them. Good heavens, how many have? I can only imagine.

  I have to look away from him before the blush heating up my cheeks is obvious. Unless of course my suddenly racing heart isn’t giving me away. Another vamp power: impeccable hearing.

  “What about you?” he asks.

  “Hmm?”

  “Any family?”

  I glance at the back of Madison’s seat. “Madison...”

  “What about your parents, siblings...?”

  When you tell people your parents divorced and your mom was the absentee type, they often express their sympathies. Over the years, I’ve grown tired of the look people give me when I tell them I’m a child of divorce and basically neglected. But... Derick shared his truth with me, painful as it was. So, I share mine: “Parents got divorced when I was two. Dad moved away, started a new family. Mom was absent. Babysitters raised me. No siblings... not the blood kind, anyway. I have Madison.”

  “Love you,” she says from the front, a smile in her voice.

  “Love you, too.”

  Derick’s watching me. What’s he thinking?

  “We can make our own families,” he says. “You don’t have to be related by blood to be family.”

  “Wolves know the first thing about that,” Dorian chimes in from where he drives up front, his eyes still on the road. “It’s like that with packs... they’re your family.”

  “Hailey can be in our little pack,” Madison says. “Who says you gotta be wolves?”

  I laugh, “I’d like that.”

  “Then it’s settled!” Madison declares.

  Do wolf packs have names, like a team? “Do we get a name?”

  “Hmm,” she thinks.

  “We could be the Fearless Four,” Dorian offers.

  Derick chuckles, “Four? Am I included?”

  Dorian looks in the rearview mirror. “Why not?”

  Derick grins as he looks up front. “So, there isn’t a no vamps allowed rule?”

  “Nah,” Dorian shrugs. “This is a new age.”

  “A new age indeed,” Derick says, his focus on his jeans now, a small smile still on his lips.

  I look out my window, watching the trees along the road we’re taking pass us by in a blur. Now that I’m in a wolf pack... a werewolf/vampire/human pack... do we get to run through the woods? It’s so dark and mysterious out there... the perfect hiding place.

  It’s past midnight now, and we’re just driving. We have no clue where we’re going. At least, no one’s said so. Really, we’d just panicked and took off.

  I keep thinking about that night, when I’d watched Madison go off with that vamp at Vudu, meeting her frightening demise. Guilt has been eating away at me since she went missing, right up until now. I could just blame myself, or alcohol, or Claire, but mostly... I blame the serial killer.

  I hate myself for leaving her that night... but I hate him more.

  Chapter 3. Forbidden Desire

  I’ve let go of my guilt for the moment to focus on where we’re going. We’re now driving through a town just outside of the city – Whispering Creek. I’ve always found the name to be calming in its own way, like a place a person could easily call home... where nothing bad can ever happen to you.

  Maybe Madison and I should’ve lived here all along, instead of the city. Maybe things would’ve turned out differently, and I wouldn’t be running from vengeful vamps. But then I wouldn’t have met Derick. It’s unsettling when I think about never knowing him. And I can’t imagine Madison without Dorian, their mutual love for one another clear to anyone in their presence. They look at one another with so much affection, it warms my heart. I’ve only ever wanted Madison to be happy. Dorian makes her happy.

  “We have to return eventually,” Derick says, severing the silence.

  It’d been so quiet in the car for such a long time, his sudden statement caused me to jump.

  “What?” Dorian asks, his blue-green eyes on Derick in the rearview mirror.

  Derick watches him in return, meeting his stern gaze. “We can’t run forever.”

  “Yes we can,” Dorian argues.

  Derick glances at me. “Some of us don’t have forever. Do you really want Hailey to spend the rest of her days running?”

  Thanks for reminding me that I’m not immortal like the rest of you... and that you have no intention of being with me the way I desire you. He’s anticipating I’ll live a human life till death do I part from this world. So, there will be no romantic relationship, then?

  They’re silent now, until Madison finally says something: “What other choice do we have? At least we know she’ll be safe with us.”

  Derick studies his Ares tattoo. “We can tear them all apart.”

  He’s talking about the High Society.

  He’s willing to revert back to his Ares days? Is that a good thing... or a bad thing? He’d been reckless and merciless back then. Will he shut off everything that makes him who I know him to be at this point in his life, to turn into the beast he was before?

  “We don’t even know how many there are,” Dorian points out.

  “I can find out. I’ll sniff them out.” He clenches his jaw, his voice dropping lower, threateningly: “We vamps are good at preying...”

  The dusting of light brunette hairs on my arms raise when his voice drops an octave talking about preying on the High Society. It’s not fear that causes these goosebumps to pop up and a shiver to run along my nerves; it’s how sexy he’d sounded. My thighs twitch thinking about him being between them again. ...What the hell is wrong with me? Shouldn’t I be more concerned about being offed by the High Society? Maybe it’s the idea that my life could end at any moment that makes me want to jump him...

  “We should keep a low profile for a while,” Madison suggests. “Then maybe later, when their guard might be down, we can go back.”

  Derick relaxes his jaw, shaking his head in disagreement. “The time is now. Waiting gives them time to prepare for our attack.”

  But how would we even know where to look? “How would you find them?”

  Derick’s penetrating eyes are on me again. “I’ll start with the cell full of code names.”

  “I threw that out,” Madison says. “I didn’t want them tracking us, in case it was bugged.”

  Derick reaches into his front jeans pocket, pulling out a silver cell phone. “I took it out of the trash.”

  The car jerks, tires squealing, my toosh sliding on the leather seat and seatbelt tightening across my chest as Dorian pulls over on the side of the dark road. Derick reaches out, putting his arm across my chest, holding me in place during the unexpected event. Heart still racing once we’ve stopped, I look at Derick’s protective arm across my chest before I meet his gaze, one that turns angry as his black brows pull in. He directs his glare at the back of Dorian’s head.

  “You can’t drive for shit!” he snarls at Dorian.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?!” Dorian yells, reaching into the backseat with a thick arm and beefy hand, searching for the phone. “Give it to me!”

  Derick moves his arm away from me, much to my dismay.

  “No,” Derick says, his voice eerily calm as he dodges Dorian’s hand.

  “You just put us all in danger,” Dorian growls, turning around to face Derick, a vein bulging on the side of his neck. “What were you thinking?”

  “What you couldn’t. You were all panicking. One of us had to think
rationally.”

  The calmness surrounding him, even when he has two raging-out wolves glaring at him, makes him that much more appealing to me. While we’d been running around gathering our personal belongings so we could go on the run, never even allowing ourselves a moment to consider other options, he’d already been planning them for us. But why wait till now to say something?

  “Why didn’t you say anything before?” I ask him.

  He keeps his eyes on the phone in front of him. “Everyone needed to calm down, and we needed to get out of the city for a few hours.”

  “Why a few hours? Are we going back?”

  “We’re not going back,” Madison interjects, a fearful look about her.

  Derick regards her briefly before returning his attention to the cell. “We needed time to plan things out. We’ll get a hotel out here so we can all rest, and when morning comes, we’ll go back.” He holds the cell up. “And I’ll draw them out with this.”

  Dorian watches Derick with absolute hatred. “You’ve just signed our death sentence! We can’t keep that damn thing. You can’t be sure they’re not tracking us with it. They could be on us right now!”

  “We’d know it if they were. We’d be dead.” He sighs when he regards Madison, her terror obvious in her widened blues. “I’ll keep the numbers, but I’ll toss the cell.”

  Dorian’s jaw clenches as he speaks through clenched teeth: “Hurry up and do it, then... dick!”

  Derick pulls his own cell out and transfers the numbers before getting out of the car. I turn to watch him through the back window. He crushes the possibly bugged phone in his hand and throws the plastic bits into the woods.

  Whoa... he just keeps getting hotter and hotter.

  To my surprise, Dorian doesn’t drive off and leave him behind. I turn back around in my seat before Derick notices me watching him. Soon, he’s settling back into the seat next to me, his door not quite closed when Dorian speeds off again, engine roaring, my back colliding with the seat as he does.