Hunting His Vampire Mate (Blood Bonded Mates #4)

CHAPTER FOUR || MICHAEL

I hated being the bait, even though playing that part was usually my doing most of the time. Because the only thing I hated more than being bait was when Danny was the bait.

Still, the ‘bar’ that Sheriff Dennison had pointed us to was an awful lot more like a metropolitan night club than I’d been expecting for a town the size of Ontario. It was complete with strobe lights, techno remixes of popular songs, multiple floors, and throngs of drunk people gyrating to the music out on the dance floor. After two drinks in me, I also found myself smack-dab in the center of the dance floor.

Danny, true to his word, watched me from the sidelines, his rum and coke untouched in front of him. He’d already gently rebuffed a cute brunette lady in a pretty dress who had tried to chat him up. He’d probably have to do it at least twice more before the night was through. He usually had to beat women—and a fair number of men, too—off with stick whenever we went out. I suspected he hardly even noticed it anymore, or thought about the reasons why total strangers might want to chat him up.

Danny was beautiful.

You’re not supposed to say that about guys, especially not guys who were supposed to be straight, but screw it. In his case, it happened to be true. He had all the usual—he was five-eleven, lean, and well-enough built, with decently broad shoulders, flawless brown skin, an angular jawline, and high cheek bones that belied his Native American descent. All of that would’ve made him at least passably attractive to almost anyone, probably. But it was the unusual about him that made it hard to look away. His dark eyes, made even more intense by thick slashes of eyebrows, had an uncanny depth to them, like you could peer right into his soul if you gazed long enough. And his black hair, always cropped short for practical reasons—you don’t want to let monsters have any convenient hand-holds if you can avoid it—had begun to grow out a little and was now veering into adorably shaggy territory. He’d swept it off to the side, mostly because he hated messing with it, but it looked good on him—just a smidge of boyishness to soften all those hard edges. And then there were his wide, full lips, which were almost too sensitive for a man. You could tell there was an unusual depth to him, just by looking. If you stared too long, you might get entranced.

Those kinds of thoughts were dumb and very, very bad. And they would lead nowhere good, would they? Right into temptation. And say I ever did take Danny up on it, what, exactly, did he want to happen between us? He’d never been with a man before. And he’d made it clear he wasn’t attracted to guys either. That couldn’t have suddenly changed, right?

Still, when I glanced over, the look on Danny’s face as he watched me was strangely dark and hungry. But I knew him well enough to know that his expression was a little angry, too. His eyes were locked onto the cute blond twink that was dancing with me and it looked vaguely like he was plotting murder.

Possibly a double homicide.

The twink didn’t notice the silent death threats Danny was sending his way. He was happily oblivious to everything but me. The kid was way, way too young—barely out of high school, from the looks of him—and he was clad head-to-toe in shiny black leather. Not even remotely my type. He did, however, manage to materialize seemingly out of nowhere in order to start gyrating on me. A bold move, considering this wasn’t even technically that type of bar, and we were in Ontario, right on the border between eastern Oregon and Idaho, which wasn’t exactly a gay mecca. His gaydar must have been the stuff of legends.

Good for him.

I danced with him, though.

Of course I danced with him. I would’ve danced with him if he’d been just about anyone. He was my cover. With him pressed up against me all suggestively and shit, I looked like I belonged there. Anyone watching might imagine that I was planning on taking the guy home later. Or that we’d come here together. Plus, even if no vamps zeroed in on me, they’d probably ping off him. After all, he was young, attractive, and filled with lots of yummy vitality.

But I wasn’t flirting with the guy, and I wasn’t trying to make Danny jealous, either. That would have been just plain dumb. Jealous of what, exactly? Despite the weirdly emotional hug he’d given me earlier—after my equally bizarre and out-of-character display of emotion—there was nothing sexual or romantic or whatever to be jealous of. Danny and I were friends, and nothing more.

Right.

Except for last night, when he’d gotten shit faced, yet again, and tried to make a pass at me. Again. Not exactly normal buddy behavior. Whatever Danny was feeling was dangerous for both of us. And no, we hadn’t really talked about last night. Because what was there to say?

Even if Danny swung my way, even if I could deal with the idea of ruining our friendship and losing the one thing that had kept me sane for years, our lives didn’t exactly lend themselves to romance, did they?

Giving your heart to someone meant having that same heart ripped out if and when something happened to them. Exceedingly likely in our line of work. And I already knew that, if push came to shove, I might not always be strong enough to save the ones I loved. Which meant I wouldn’t let myself love him.

Full stop. End of story.

And anyway, what right did Danny have to be jealous now?

And what right did I have to feel so goddamn weird about it? I sure as hell wasn’t doing anything wrong now, was I? After all, this was exactly what we’d come here to do, wasn’t it?

This was literally Danny’s whole plan.

I was supposed to dance, pretend to have a good and entirely carefree time, launch myself right into the thick of the drunken, sweaty action, and hopefully get myself noticed by someone with a pair of fangs and an appetite for blood and murder. Then, eventually, I’d head out into the alleyway behind the club, like I was planning to make a call or light up a cigarette, and then we’d see who—or what—followed after me.

Simple. Easy. And all very standard in situations like this.

It was very much part of the monster hunter playbook: act like one of the oblivious everyday folks all around me, who had no idea that the monsters under their bed were real, right up until the last second. Then whatever followed me would swiftly learn a very hard lesson that I was the predator rather than the prey.

Anyway, after about twenty minutes of having this guy grinding up against me in ways that were so suggestive they were probably technically illegal in most jurisdictions, I glanced over to Danny’s table on the edge of the dance floor for help in scraping the guy off me. Or at least to see if he’d maybe spotted a vampire or three, so I’d be able to excuse myself and get on with the actual agenda for the evening.

But then I froze.

The table was empty. Danny’s drink was abandoned, and he was gone.

Shit.

Shit shit shit .

Okay, this was bad. Really, really bad.

I leaned in close to the twink. “I need to go. Sorry bud. You’re a great dancer, though.”

The guy had confidence for days. He just grinned back at me, totally unfazed. “Believe me, it’s your loss.”

“It probably is,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

Then I turned and waded through the throng of people.

Where would he have gone?

Bathroom?

No. We’d entered the building five minutes apart and the first thing we always do is to take care of that sort of business if there’s even a remote chance that it’ll become a necessity later on. We don’t do bathroom breaks once the stakeout starts. Not unless we coordinate them, which looks mighty suspicious to anyone paying us any mind at all. But when you’re hunting the supernatural with someone else, you don’t ever lose line of sight on your partner unless you really have no other choice.

Maybe he hadn’t lost line of sight at all. Maybe he went to get another drink, and was watching me from the bar?

Unlike bathroom breaks, getting a drink about once an hour was extremely appropriate in a situation like this. Sitting alone at a table for hours, watching the crowd like a hawk, and not drinking anything tends to attract the wrong sort of attention in a busy club like this.

I turned and scanned the bar.

No Danny.

The twink, however, was now at the bar. He was talking with a bald-headed bartender who was covered in muscles, leather, and tattoos. He was probably trying to convince the guy that he was, in fact, old enough to drink.

I frowned.

Danny wouldn’t have left me. Maybe he moved tables? Maybe he was somewhere nearby, and I’d somehow missed him in the crowd? Not impossible—the place was surprisingly packed, given that Ontario, Oregon barely seemed like it should have been a large enough town to support a club even half this size.

I made my way around the perimeter of the dance floor, certain that I must have somehow missed him. But I scanned every table. They were all full. Most of them were occupied with groups of drunken patrons engaged in slurry soppy-eyed conversations.

But still no Danny.

I glanced up to the second level railing. But he was nowhere to be found. And he wouldn’t have gone up there. Not without a damn good reason. Such as spotting a vamp trying to lure a clueless victim out of here. Even then, there was only one way up, which meant only one way down. He wouldn’t have risked it by himself. He’s not the reckless one. That’s very squarely my job.

I hesitated.

Had Danny gotten so jealous that he’d needed to leave? Had he seen the twink grinding up on me and gotten legitimately upset or something?

No way he’d let his emotions get the best of him like that.

He wouldn’t have left.

Not of his own volition.

Ice water entered my veins as I realized that we were here, in the same bar where a dozen other people had vanished from, and Danny was now missing.

If it really was vamps, they would have gotten him outside somehow, then. They wouldn’t have wanted any witnesses.

How long had he been missing?

I had taken my eyes off him for two or three minutes, at most. And it had been longer than a minute but less than two since I’d realized he was gone. Which meant he’d been gone for about five minutes. That’s an eternity in a life-or-death situation.

Fuck. Scowling to myself, I turned and beelined for the exit.

There, facing the door, I saw the back of Danny’s head just as he slipped outside. He was followed by a man who was dressed head to toe in black and exceptionally pale.

I swore under my breath.

Our plan had worked. But I hadn’t been the bait. Danny was the bait. And he might not even know it.

Fuck.

I had a gun, loaded with wooden bullets, in my left ankle holster. I had a small silver-edged knife in my right boot. But I wasn’t supposed to be the brawn of this particular operation. Danny was. He was the one who had all the real firepower right now.

What was he thinking? Heading outside, where anything at all could happen to him, without any backup? Without even letting me know what he was doing? He knew better.

It took me a full two minutes to push my way through the throng of bar-goers in order to get outside. That was another fucking eternity in which anything could have been happening to Danny. Anything at all.

Danny can hold his own, I reminded myself, trying with all my might to believe that.

I stepped through the door and the cooler outside air swirled around me, causing me to shiver.

We’d already scoped out the surrounding area before we’d gone in, another standard practice. Apart from exploring the area in Google maps ahead of time, we also always drove around the block to get a lay of the land first, then parked several streets down and walked in, to make it harder to connect us with our vehicle. There were cameras and witnesses everywhere and it was dumb to take chances.

So, I knew that if I turned right, there was a whole row of other businesses on either side of the street, with no alcoves or anything between them for the whole block, and potentially plenty of late-night diners and bargoers to serve as witnesses.

There were, however, cars parked all along both sides of the street.

If the vamps had gotten Danny into one of the cars, I would probably never see him again. There was literally no way in hell that Danny would get into a car with a vampire that wasn’t Bryan, though. He’d fight like hell before he let that happen.

But if I turned left at the exit and around the corner, there was an alley that bisected the back alley behind the club, which was probably secluded enough for the vamps to feel safe feeding on a hapless victim.

Easy access and relatively private.

Or, at least, it probably would be for long enough to have a quick meal.

I walked further out onto the sidewalk and paused, listening. I tuned out the faint sound of music flowing out of the bar behind me. There, to my left, I heard the faint sounds of footsteps on payment, echoing off the windowless walls of the buildings on either side of the alley.

I scowled and bent down, pulling the gun from my ankle holster.

Then, hell-bent on protecting Danny—with my very life if that’s what it took—I followed.