8. Rose

ROSE

The early morning sun streamed through the tall, stained-glass windows of the castle, casting a warm and colorful glow over the room. I sighed contentedly, savoring the peaceful solitude before the chaos of the day truly began.

“Rose, wake up! They’re here!”Anna’s voice rang out like a warning bell, shattering the tranquility of my room.

“Wha- who?Anna? Who is here? Why are you here?” My sleepy mind struggled to make sense of her words as I groggily pushed myself up from the bed. But I had no time to ask questions or even throw on a robe before the door burst open, revealing a group of men in ski masks.

Oh shit. This was why Mary O. had a security detail. I’d thought she was just overly cautious or had money to burn on hot bodyguards.

“Ah, Miss Rose,” some creepy guy sneered, stepping into the room with an air of arrogance. “I’m afraid we have need of your... services.”

Wait, they were here for me? Shouldn’t they be trying to kidnap Mary or one of her cousins-friends-long-lost-relatives who all looked like and were distantly related to the British nobility? They were the ones who would have ransom money. Jorge might have access to my business bank account, but I doubt my revolving line of credit was going to cover whatever crazy demand kidnappers would make.

Not that I wanted Mary to get kidnapped either but, come on. I wasn’t royalty and I wasn’t rich.

And where was James? He was supposed to be my bodyguard.

“Get away from me, asshat! I’ve got a... pillow, and I know how to use it.” I jumped up and stood on the bed, shouting, trying to sound more confident than I felt. The fear coursing through my veins was nearly paralyzing, but I refused to let them see that.

“Such spunk,”he mocked, grabbing hold of my arm and yanking me from the bed. “It’ll make this all the more interesting.”

“Please, don’t hurt her!”Anna pleaded, her eyes wide with terror as she attempted to step between us.

“Stay out of this, girl,”another one of the ski-masked men barked, pushing her aside, knocking her to the floor. Their eyes remained locked onto me, cold and calculating.

“My bodyguard will come for me.”I spat right in my captor’s eye, desperately clinging to the hope that I was being loud enough that James would hear and come to kick these guy’s evil butts. “He won’t let you get away with this.”

“Ah, yes, James Vond, second-in-command of the Black Ops unit of the Vampire Intelligence Agency.” I couldn’t see his face, but I heard the leader’s smirk in his voice. “It works out very nicely indeed that you’re his whore.”

“You can fuck the fuck right off with your whore-shaming.” That’s all I needed to find just a little more of that spunk he’d mocked me for. I shoved him right in the solar plexus with the heel of my palm, twisted when he groaned in pain and stomped on his instep, popped him right in the nose with my knuckles, and for my finale, went right for the nuts with my knee.

I didn’t get to my coup de gras because it turns out, bad guys don’t attack one at a time like in the movies. In a blink, two other guys were on me while Anna sat crying in the corner. How the hell had nobody heard the kerfuffle yet? Stupid old big castles with their giant stone walls and six-inch thick wooden doors.

Rough cords bit into my wrists and I struggled against my restraints.?Asshat number one tried to drag me toward the door, but I dug my heels in hard and fought every which way I could, desperate to free myself.

“Come on, you stupid whore. Your vampire can’t save you now.”

Vampire? Oh shizznit. These guys were crazy pants. Great. Fine, I’d play into their psychosis.

“Yeah, he will, and he’ll eat your faces off when he gets here. That sounds like an awful way to die, so you’d better let me go and fucking run.”

The one whoI’d socked in the nose, ostensibly the leader of the gang, grabbed me by the hair and tried again to drag me out the door.?Anna trailed behind us on hands and knees, tears streaming down her eyes as she begged for them to let me go. She was quickly silenced by a foot to the face from one of the thugs. Ouch.

It hurt like hell, and I was going to need a good scalp massage, but I dropped to the floor like dead weight. “Pick this ass you, you assholes. Good luck trying to carry me down the stairs. I will fight you the whole damn way.”

For once in my life, my big butt was working for me. This is why skinny chicks were the ones who got kidnapped.

He laughed in response and dragged me toward the door like a sack of potatoes.

My mind raced as we stepped outside into the chilly morning air. Where were they taking me? We were in the middle of nowhere Scotland. What did they want with me? They obviously knew who I was, and so they had to know I wasn’t going to be good for any sort of ransom. I had so many questions, but no answers. All I could do was keep fighting until an opportunity presented itself to make my escape.

They drug me out a side door and across some gravel to some kind of catering van. So that was their cover. I skidded through the rocks the best I could to hopefully leave a trail for James to follow and figure out what happened.

But asshats number two and three went along behind and scraped over my tracks with rakes. Dammit, they were too fucking well prepared for this. Someone else from inside the van opened the doors and asshat leader shoved me inside. That’s when I caught the scent of something that smelled a whole lot like what I imagined chloroform reeked of.

Yep, they pressed it over my mouth and nose. Unfortunately for me, that stuff also didn’t work like in the movies. I didn’t instantly pass out. But whoever was doing the chloroforming held the bit of cloth over my nose and mouth so tightly that I couldn’t breathe.

I tried to gasp but couldn’t, and dammit, I didn’t want to die. But I did. I died. Dead. Doornail. Ding-dong.

Except I didn’t think you could still get headaches in the afterlife. Nor did I believe said afterlife smelled so heavily of garlic. I blinked one eye open and then the other. Okay. Maybe the afterlife was garlic filled, because I was in a dimly lit room surrounded by more garlic than my Polish-Italian grandmother had used in her entire life. And Granny loved her garlic. “Grandma? Are you here?”

Good God. It just hit me. The yahoos who’d kidnapped me believed in vampires. I wasn’t in the garlicky afterlife, I was in some kind of vampire-repellant safe room. It looked suspiciously like the inside of a restaurant’s walk-in cooler. But a restaurant that only served garlic, because that’s all that was in here.

Panic threatened to take over, but I couldn’t give in—I had to stay strong. I knew James would come for me. It wasn’t just because he was some kind of fancy bodyguard either. We had a connection, and I had to believe it would not only make me a priority to him but help him find me.

The door to the cooler popped open, and this time, my enemy wasn’t hiding behind a mask. He looked me over and smiled all creepy and Snidely Whiplash like. “Ah, our lovely bait.”

Bait? That was my first clue to why to took me. Bait for James? Crap that was bad. He would definitely come for me, and it was some kind of trap. If I could get this guy talking and learn a little bit more, maybe I could do something, anything, to warn James when he got here.

El Creepo entering the cramped space and knelt down beside me, fingering a bulb of garlic near my head. “Don’t worry, whore. It won’t be long before your precious vampire comes barreling in here to rescue you.”

Sweet Jesus and Justice League. They were all delusional, which made them that much more dangerous. If they thought James was a vampire and I was bait to catch him, this was going to be way more of a clusterfuck than anything I could even imagine. “You’re delusional. There is no such thing as vampires, dummy.”

Probably not smart to call him names, but I was doing my best to hide my fear. If I could just buy some time, maybe I’d have a chance to escape.

Shoot. I should have pretended to be all surprised and on their side to win them over, and then I could have escaped. Dammit. Next time.

“Ah, how sweet. You don’t know. I assure you, vampires are very real, and you were about to be the bride of one we’ve been trying to stake for such a very long time.”

“It’s maybe time to up your meds.” Oops. There went another opportunity to feign fear of James and side with the leader of the looney bin. Probably not gonna happen now. I wasn’t that sad about it. It was too damn creepy to pretend to be on this guy’s side. “Once again. Vampires. Aren’t. Real. You’ve been watching too much late-night TV. Oh, sorry, late-night telly.”

“My family has been hunting the Immortal Royals and their vampiric legions since the French Revolution. I’ve lost many a friend and good soldier of The Order to the bloodsuckers. I’ll be all too happy to show you just how real vampires are and exactly how to kill one, if and when your paramour arrives.”

“De. Loo. Shun. Al.” I spelled his mental illness out for him because he clearly didn’t know. “Also, you’re breath stinks of garlic. Maybe invest in some toothbrushes and toothpaste before your next stay in the hospital with the plastic spoons and the nubby socks. Just saying.”

He just smiled like crazy evil people tend to do. “Do let the guard know if you get hungry. The garlic bread here is to die for.”

He turned on me and walked out, and in the brief moment the cooler door was open, I saw a glimpse of a restaurant kitchen. Aha. I was right. Now if only I had a way to let James know.

“Think, Rose, think,” I muttered under my breath, wriggling my wrists in an attempt to loosen the ropes that bound me. Pain flared through my raw skin, but I pushed it aside, focusing on the possibility of escape.

“Almost… there,”I whispered, feeling the knot finally give way. My hands were free. I quickly untied my ankles, then stood up and shook out my hands and feet to get the blood circulating again.

Very slowly, I depressed the button that opened the cooler door from the inside and opened it the tiniest of slivers. The kitchen was dark, and I surveyed the dimly lit room for an escape route, or a telephone. A small window beckoned, offering a glimpse at freedom. But oof. My shoulders and boobs wouldn’t even fit through that thing, much less my hips and thighs.

Where was a good old-fashioned back door when you needed one? I crept toward the cafe doors that likely led toward the dining room.

“Rose,” I heard the voice call out from behind the door seconds before it opened. Crazy McCrazypants Creepo stepped inside, his eyes widening as he saw me standing there, free from my restraints.

“Where doyou think you’re going?” he sneered, stalking towards me.

“Far away from here,”I retorted, darting around him and running for the door. A strong hand gripped my arm and yanked me back, slamming me against the wall.

“Nice try,”he snarled, his stinky breath hot on my face. “But you’re not going anywhere.”

“Let go of me.”My voice trembled with fear and anger. The asshole only laughed in response, tightening his grip on my arm. “You’re despicable.”

“Perhaps,”he conceded, his eyes gleaming with dark intent. “But I do so enjoy the game.”

He shovedme back into the cooler and didn’t bother to tie me up this time. I heard the locking mechanism click into place. Wasn’t it illegal to have walk-in coolers that didn’t open from the inside? What kind of vampire hunter, mafia bullshit restaurant skirted health and safety codes like that?

I pressed my ear to the door just to see if I could tell if El Creepo was still out there. I heard him discussing some twisted plan to stake James, but not kill him, and drain his blood like he’d drained so many others. Damn. I really was the bait to lure James into an insane trap—a delusional and deadly one. Fear gnawed at my insides, but I refused to let it consume me. James didn’t deserve this, and neither did I.

I had no idea how to help James when he got here either. Maybe if I started howling and pretending I was shifting into a werewolf, they’d freak out long enough for James to take them out.

Right. That was a good plan.

Werewolf.

That’s me.