10
Shocked, Oliver sucked in a breath. Had he heard right, or was the fact that he was so close to this beautiful girl screwing with his senses?
“Imprisoned?”
He briefly glanced at his friends, but they looked as stunned as he, clearly having heard the same words from Ursula’s mouth.
Her big brown eyes were wide like saucers, and she appeared as surprised by the revelation as he was. Had she not wanted to reveal this or was she making up lies? Or was she simply a very good actress?
Maybe Cain had been right to cut off her questions, so he wouldn’t reveal too much about Scanguards. After all, she was a stranger, and even though she’d been bitten by a vampire, it could have all been a setup to get close to them, to infiltrate Scanguards. What if some group of vampires was using her as bait? Even now, she could be under their control. Despite his physical attraction to her, he had to be careful. If he got involved, it would only end badly when it turned out that she was working for the enemy. He would never go against Scanguards, not even for the hottest woman he’d met in a long time. His eyes involuntarily dropped to her chest where her small breasts moved up and down as she breathed. At the same time he noticed how clammy her hand was and how fast her heart beat.
When he raised his gaze to look into her eyes again, he realized that what he was seeing were signs of fear. Did she fear him and his friends, or did she fear the vampire who had bitten her?
“Please,” he urged her. “Tell me what happened.”
Slowly, she pulled her hand from his. Reluctantly he allowed it.
“They held me for three years.”
The words choked out from her throat as if she had trouble speaking.
Stunned by her words, he remained silent and waited for her to continue. She took several breaths, looking at his friends then turned her head to the side, avoiding eye contact with him.
“I was a student at NYU when they captured me one night after I left an evening lecture. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Vampires didn’t exist! They couldn’t exist. They were just myth, folklore. They only existed in movies. I never thought . . . ” Her voice broke.
Oliver wanted to say so much, but his throat felt parched all of a sudden.
“They took me to a building where they kept me locked up. I wasn’t the only one. There were other girls like me.” She looked up and met his gaze. Her eyes were moist, but she wasn’t crying.
Of its own volition, his hand came up, wanting to stroke her cheek to comfort her, but in the last minute, he pulled it back, not wanting to expose his feelings to her or his friends. He had to stay impartial. It was the hallmark of a good bodyguard. Cain had been trying to teach him that very fact, and Gabriel had reinforced it countless times.
However, it didn’t change the fact that he was affected by her words. He felt compassion.
“What did they do to you?”
Ursula thrust her chin up, her mouth setting into a hard line. “They pimped us out as blood whores.”
“Blood whores?” Maya gasped in disbelief.
His own reaction wasn’t any different. “I’ve never heard of blood whores.” He turned to Cain to ask for reassurance.
His colleague shook his head. “There’s no such thing. There’s no need for that.”
Ursula pulled her shoulders up and straightened, her lips trembling as she continued, “They used me and the other girls as blood whores. Two, sometimes three times a night they would bring vampires in to drink from us; leeches we called them.” She choked. “Some of the girls didn’t make it. But they always found new ones to replace the ones who died.”
Cain took a step closer. “That’s impossible. There’s no need to keep humans imprisoned for their blood. Even those vampires who don’t drink bottled blood wouldn’t have any need for this. They’ll simply go out and h—”
“Find somebody to drink from,” Oliver interrupted him quickly. Hunt, Cain had wanted to say, and somehow Oliver didn’t think it was the right word to use in Ursula’s presence. “No vampire would go through the trouble of keeping a human imprisoned just to have blood at hand at all times.”
If that were the case, why not drink it from a bottle? At least that’s how he felt: he loved the hunt. The thrill of it was what drove him out there night after night. And he could only imagine that it was the same for those vampires who hadn’t taken to bottled blood. They were in it for the chase. They wouldn’t want the bother of keeping a human in a prison to feed from him like from a caged animal.
“They ran a business,” Ursula insisted. “They charged a high price for our blood. And the leeches paid it without flinching.”
“Why pay for something they can get for free on the street?” Maya threw in, her voice just as skeptical as Cain’s comment had been.
Oliver searched Ursula’s face for any tells that she was lying. Thomas was trying to teach him this skill, but he hadn’t mastered it yet. However, from what he could tell, she wasn’t lying. Unless, she didn’t know she was lying: it was possible that a vampire had wiped her memories and planted fresh ones in her mind. She would never know that she was lying. The only question was, why would another vampire do this? Why concoct such a story? Was somebody trying to lead Scanguards into a trap by appealing to their sense of honor and duty, knowing they would help those in need?
Suspicious of her story, Oliver applied what he’d learned from Thomas: ask questions to see if the person could keep their story straight. Liars had a way of forgetting the small details of their carefully constructed stories and eventually made mistakes.
“You said you went to NYU. Did they bring you to San Francisco upon your kidnapping?”
She shook her head. “We stayed somewhere in New York for a long time. One night they suddenly packed everything up, and we were put in the back of a large truck and driven cross country. I arrived in San Francisco only about three months ago. I didn’t even know what city I was in until tonight.”
“Where did they keep you?”
She shrugged. “A large building, maybe an old apartment building or an old hotel. I’m not sure. It was dark when we arrived and I was never let outside. They kept us locked up, and even when we were led into the rooms where the vampires fed from us, there was always a guard to watch us.”
“Where is the building located?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know. Not far from where you found me. I’m not sure about the exact location. I was only concerned with getting away from them.”
Cain cleared his throat. “Yeah, about that. How did you get away, given that there was a guard?”
Ursula shut her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she looked away. “The guard wasn’t careful. He was called to another room when there was an altercation with one of the leeches. He forgot to lock the door. I was able to get out through a fire escape.”
“Was there only one guard?” Cain continued.
She shook her head. “There were many of them. But they were all busy watching the other girls,” she hastened to add.
Oliver gave her a wary glance. Her heartbeat had accelerated and he could sense her glands producing more sweat. Not an unpleasant odor by any stretch, but nevertheless, she was sweating, and this meant she was nervous. Nervous because she was lying? Or simply agitated because she was recalling her ordeal?
If only he knew.
When her face turned fully to him, their gazes collided. Oliver sucked in a breath of air and with it her scent. Hunger instantly surged through him, even though he’d fed only a few short hours earlier. He shouldn’t feel hungry; he shouldn’t lust for blood again so soon. He’d taken plenty from the juvenile he’d met in the Bayview district. More than enough. It should last him for twenty-four hours. Yet a strange craving came over him, and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to bite or kiss her. Either possibility seemed equally enticing. And equally wrong for the situation.
“Please, you have to believe me,” she begged.
He felt Maya approach from behind. “You must admit, it’s a fantastic story.”
“And it doesn’t make sense,” Cain added.
“But couldn’t it be possible?” Blake asked. “There are some bad guys out there as we all know.”
Oliver turned, looking at Maya and Cain. “Blake is right. We can’t just dismiss this. If she’s telling the truth, then we have a problem on our hands.”
Ursula jumped to her feet, drawing his attention back to her. “You think I’m lying?”
Oliver got up and instinctively reached for her, but she sidestepped him. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
Tears brimming at her eyes, she glared at him. “Then what are you saying?”
Nervously he shifted his weight, glancing at Cain who shrugged. “Want me to tell her?”
Clearly his colleague had the same suspicion as he did. And he seemed to have no qualms about voicing it. But Oliver was man enough to do his own dirty work. And accusing her of something she might be innocent of wasn’t pretty. But it was a possibility he couldn’t simply dismiss.
When Ursula nailed him with her questioning look, he sighed. “It’s possible that the vampire who bit you planted these memories in your mind so you’d tell us about it and lead us into a trap. You wouldn’t even know that you’re lying.”
She jolted, taking another step away from him. “What? You think this isn’t true? You think it’s made up? No! No! I lived through this. For three years, I endured their cruelty, the humiliation, the pain. I know what I saw and what I felt. It’s real.”
Her chest heaved from the effort it must have taken her to raise her voice to him and make her impassioned plea.
“For three years my parents have been looking for me.”
“How do you know that?” Cain asked.
She whipped her head in his direction. “Because they love me. They would never give up on me.” She withstood Cain’s scrutinizing look until Cain was the one who broke it. When he did, she turned and looked back at Oliver. “I need to tell them I’m alive.”
He recognized the pain that sat deep in her eyes and felt his heart clench in response. Maybe she was telling the truth, as outrageous as it sounded. But for the sake of Scanguards and their own safety, they had to take precautions before they could proceed.
“Later, but we’ll have to verify a few facts first.” His years of training with Scanguards kicked in. It was vital that he didn’t make a mistake now: Gabriel was already keeping an eye on everything he did because of his uncontrollable hunger for blood. If he now jeopardized Scanguards by not verifying Ursula’s story first, then his boss would have his hide.
“We need to know about your background so we can confirm who you are,” he said, feeling just a little bit guilty for not believing her.
The disappointed look she shot him cut through him like a knife. Yep, there was no way in hell she would ever sleep with him—not now, not after he’d disappointed her. It shouldn’t matter, but it did. Because the kiss she’d given him had held such promise and made him hungry for more. Was he doomed to fight yet another hunger he had no way of satisfying?
Her voice sounded resigned when she finally addressed him again. “What do you want to know?”
“Your name, name of your parents, where you lived. When you were abducted and where.” Then he nodded to Cain. “Cain, make notes. I want you to search for anything you can find. There would be police reports and possibly newspaper articles of Ursula’s kidnapping.”
He hoped so, because he didn’t like the idea that she was a liar and trying to trick them. However, he liked the idea even less that she had lived in captivity for three years, subjected to a group of vampires who fed from her whenever they pleased, and probably even worse.
He knew what went along with a feeding, the sexual arousal it produced in both the host and the vampire. If her story was true, they would have raped her countless times. Violently.
But he couldn’t bring himself to ask her. For his own sake: because knowing that somebody might have used her that way, violated her body not just by taking her blood, but by sexually assaulting her, made his blood boil. He would have to kill somebody then.