It was the sound of the SUV crashing that finally drew her attention from the people in the yard. At the speed it had been going, the driver hadn't been able to stop before plowing into the front of the house. He hit exactly where Walter and his latest victim had been just moments ago, and for a heartbeat Beth was horrified by the thought that the pair had been hit and crushed into the front of the house. Not that she would have mourned Walter Simpson, but the woman had been an innocent, and guilt and regret began to soak into her at the thought that she'd failed her. But then a sob drew her attention to the driveway, and she saw Walter dragging his victim toward a car. It seemed he'd managed to get both himself and her out of the way in time to avoid the vehicle. Now he was making his escape . . . and intent on taking the woman with him.
Issuing a throaty growl, Beth burst after them. She had the advantage. She wasn't trying to drag a struggling victim with her. Beth raised her gun as she ran, then aimed and pulled the trigger, only to curse when nothing happened. She was out of darts. She'd known she was close to empty, but had thought she had one, or maybe even two, left.
Throwing the dart gun aside with disgust, she brought her sword around in front of her to grasp the hilt in both hands with the blade down. She then raised it over her head and launched herself into the air much as someone would do if they were jumping on someone's back. Only Beth leapt a little higher, and as she came down she punched the blade into Simpson's back just above his shoulder blade. With all her weight crashing on top of it, the sword was forced through flesh, muscle and bone at an almost vertical angle and came out just below his hip bone.
Walter Simpson staggered under the impact and released the blonde as he crashed face-first to the ground. Beth went down with him, but rolled into a somersault that took her right off him. She didn't let go of her sword as she went either, and felt the resistance before it sliced its way out and followed her.
"Gor, that's mingin'! Do ye always have to make such a mess, lass?"
Beth blinked at that voice as she sat up, and then turned to peer with disbelief at the man approaching her. Tall with the kind of shoulders and thick arms only a man raised wielding broadswords in the middle ages could usually obtain, Cullen MacDonald, or Scotty, as he had come to be known, had long hair that was a mixture of deep red and dark chestnut. He looked like a medieval warrior walking toward her, except, instead of a plaid, he was wearing black leather pants with his white linen shirt.
"Scotty?" she said now, sure her eyes were playing tricks on her. But it certainly looked like him, she acknowledged as her gaze slid over his face, taking in the familiar gray eyes with silver specks, aquiline nose, and thin upper lip over a fuller lower one. It was a face she'd seen in person perhaps a handful of times, but had seen repeatedly in her dreams. Usually wet ones.
"Aye." He stopped next to her and held out his hand, offering her aid in rising. "'Tis glad I am to see ye did no' get yerself beheaded ere I could get here and save ye."
"Humble as ever, I see," Beth said with dry amusement, ignoring his hand and getting up on her own.
"Uh, Mr. Scotty?" an anxious voice called. "This guy's waking up."
Beth turned her head to see a young ginger-haired immortal standing by one of the rogues they'd run over. The man was moaning and slowly shifting on the ground.
"Shoot him with the dart gun, then, Donny boy," Scotty ordered, not bothering to glance his way.
"What dart gun?" Donny asked uncertainly.
Biting her lip to keep from grinning, Beth watched Scotty briefly close his eyes and grind his teeth together with impatience. Opening his eyes, he peered at Beth's amused face as he said, "Pray, tell me, lad, that ye did no' come a'huntin' without a gun."
"Okay," Donny said after a hesitation.
Frowning, Scotty turned to eye him. "Okay what, boyo?"
"I won't tell you?" he said, his voice a squeak, and then, clearing his throat, he glanced nervously to the man at his feet who was pulling himself slowly to a sitting position and asked, "Do you have a gun I can use?"
Scotty heaved out an exasperated breath, and turned to walk to the younger immortal's side, withdrawing his short sword as he went. "Nay, lad. I never carry a gun. I use this," he said, and, holding the blade upward with his hand firmly around the bone grip, Scotty whacked the rogue over the head with the brass pommel.
Beth winced at the sound of crunching bone and shook her head as the rogue tumbled back to a prone position.
"I think you cracked his skull," Donny said with awe, staring at the rogue.
"That I did," Scotty said with satisfaction. "Now go get a dart gun and chains out o' the weapons locker in the back of the SUV ere all o' them start waking up. And Donny," he added, bringing the younger man to a halt just as he started away. When the man reluctantly turned back to face him, Scotty said solemnly, "Lesson number two: never go on the hunt without a weapon."
Nodding quickly, Donny turned and rushed to the SUV with its nose presently buried in the front of the house.
Scotty immediately spun back to Beth.
"What are ye doing here in Canada, Scotty?" she asked as he returned to her. "Not enough rogues in the UK right now to keep you busy?"
"It has been a bit slow lately," he said with a shrug. When Beth merely raised an eyebrow at that, he added, "As it happens, I was just debating where to go on me vacation when I heard ye were spread thin over here just now, what with most o' yer hunters in Venezuela, so I thought . . ." He didn't bother finishing and merely shrugged.
"You just thought you'd spend your vacation from hunting rogues in the UK hunting rogues here instead?" she asked with disbelief, and then reached up on tiptoe to knock on his forehead as if it were a door. "Hello! Is there anyone home in there?"
"Oy!" Scotty leaned his head back away from her knocking fist and glowered at her. "I swear, ye're the only lass brave enough to do something like that."
"Because all the other girls think you're the bogeyman and are scared to death of you," Beth said dryly.
"But ye're not," he said with certainty.
Beth snorted. "I've met the bogeyman, and you're not him."
"Aye, I suppose ye have met him," Scotty said solemnly.
Beth's mouth tightened briefly, and then she relaxed and smiled as she shook her head. "Enough of this evasion. Why would you waste your vacation working over here in Canada?"
"A change o' pace," Scotty said with a shrug. "Change is always a good thing. Life can get boring otherwise."
"Humph," Beth said dubiously and narrowed her eyes on the man. He was easy to look at, a whole hunk of sexy manhood, but she didn't trust him as far as she could throw him. He'd popped up in her life repeatedly over the last hundred and twenty-five years since he'd saved her and Dree from a rogue and his mad minions in England. For the first hundred years when he'd popped up, he'd either looked down his nose at her, or treated her distantly, as if she might be infected with something contagious. He'd also been talking to her bosses behind her back, trying to sabotage her position as a hunter. Now he was suddenly acting all charming and friendly? She wasn't buying it. He was up to something.
Honestly, if he didn't smell so good, look so pretty, and feature so frequently in her sexual fantasies, she wouldn't even talk to the man. Unfortunately, he was a sexy beast, and he did feature highly in her sexual fantasies. In fact, he was the only one she had in her wet dreams. The man might not be trustworthy in real life, but in her dreams he was like the Energizer Bunny--he just kept going and going and going. Worse yet, every man she'd slept with over the hundred and twenty-five years since she was turned had worn his face behind her closed eyes. The man just "revved her engine," as Tybo had put it. At least physically.
"I hear ye've left the Spanish hunters and moved here permanently," Scotty said now.
Beth blinked her thoughts away and looked at him through narrowed eyes. While she was English-born, she'd spent the past more than two thirds of her life in Spain. During that time, Scotty, despite livi
ng in England himself, had interfered in her life repeatedly and often. She couldn't help but suspect this was another opportunity for him to be sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. However, all she said was, "Dree's found her life mate. She, naturally, wants to settle here with him."
Scotty arched one supercilious eyebrow. "And so ye're jest going to follow her like a puppy and move here too?"
Beth's chin lifted defensively. "She's my family. Of course I'll move here."
"Are ye sure she wants you to?" he asked. "Things change when an immortal meets their life mate. They tend to--"
"Save it," Beth interrupted, suddenly amused. Scotty could convince her of a lot of things, but not that Dree didn't want her around. They had been thick as thieves for more than a century, and friends even before that. "Dree hasn't changed. She asked me to move here. We're family, and if she wants me here, then here I'll be." Leaning toward him, she smiled sweetly and added, "And since Mortimer is so short-staffed right now, I think you're going to find it impossible to talk him into not letting me work here, if that was your intention."
"I had no intention o'--" he began.
"Save it," Beth repeated with a laugh, and said, "Scotty, I know you tried to talk the Spanish Council out of letting me train to be a hunter way back when, and I know you've interfered since then, trying to keep me off certain jobs." She shook her head. "I don't know why you trouble yourself like that, but while you seem to think I'm useless and little more than a worm that crawled out from under a rock, Dree doesn't. She's a sister to me and--"
"Oh, lass, that's no' why I interfered," Scotty interrupted. "I do no' think ye're a worm, and it fair wounds me to think ye believe that when the truth is I--"
When his words ended on a grunt and his eyes widened, Beth frowned slightly, wondering what was up, and then she stepped quickly out of the way as he fell forward. It was like a huge old oak falling. Beth swore the ground shuddered as he hit it, but then she noticed the dart in his behind and her mouth dropped open.
"Ah, hell," Donny groaned. "He's gonna be so mad when he wakes up."
Beth glanced to the younger immortal to see a dart gun dangling from his hand and a grimace on his face.
"It just went off," he said unhappily. "I swear I didn't pull the trigger . . . I don't think," he added with a frown and then glanced to Beth worriedly. "Just how mad do you think he's going to be when he finds out I shot him?"
Beth glanced down at Scotty, and then shook her head and walked over to the younger immortal. Taking the gun from him with one hand, she patted him on the back with the other and then began to shoot all the slowly healing immortals on the lawn as she said, "He'll not be mad at all. We'll say one of the rogues woke up and grabbed for the dart gun as you were about to shoot, and it went off and hit him."
"But he'll read our minds and know it's not true," Donny pointed out.
"Oh, we won't be telling him that," she assured him.
"We won't?" Donny asked with confusion.
"No. I'll call Mortimer and tell him that over the phone so he can't read my mind. And then he'll send more backup to collect all the rogues as well as Scotty, Tybo, and Valerian, and they'll take him back to the house, and Mortimer will tell him our tale, and no one will be the wiser."
Turning to Scotty now, she shot him again in the butt and enjoyed it so much after all the aggravation he'd caused her over the years that she shot him again for good measure. Swinging back to Donny, she smiled and said, "That's just to be sure he doesn't wake up before the backup arrives and we can leave."
Donny didn't look completely convinced of the veracity of the claim, but then he relaxed and said solemnly, "Thank you. I appreciate your doing all of this for me."
"Oh, it's not for you," she said with amusement and then pointed out, "I barely know you."
"Then why are you doing it?" he asked uncertainly.
"For me."
"But you had nothing to do with it," he pointed out.
"True. But that's the first thing to put a smile on my face in decades and I'll not see you punished for it," she said with a grin as she walked back to Simpson and shot him, as well. She glanced around the lawn, her gaze landing last on the blonde mortal who had fallen into a faint when Beth had put her sword through Simpson. She would have liked to go check on the woman and see her comfortable, but she and Donny were the only ones there to tend to matters now. They had the rogues to see to as well as Tybo and Valerian and--which reminded her that there was another rogue in the woods who would be waking soon.
Beth headed for the trees. "Grab another dart gun and start getting these guys into the SUV. If any of them start to stir, shoot them again. I have to go check on Tybo, Valerian, and the rogue who attacked them."
She didn't wait to see if Donny did as instructed, but headed quickly into the woods.
Two
"What is a bampot?"
Beth glanced at Donny with surprise. They'd been driving in silence since leaving Walter Simpson's lair. She looked into the back seat before answering, noting that Scotty was sprawled half on and half off the SUV's bench seat behind them, still sound asleep.
While Mortimer had sent a cleanup crew to take care of the rogues and bring in the injured hunters, Donny had felt so guilty for shooting Scotty, he'd wanted to take him back with them in her SUV. Beth hadn't argued with the young man. It was no skin off her nose if he got himself caught after she'd got him off the hook with her phone call. So, she'd merely climbed in the passenger seat and left him to load Scotty in back and take the steering wheel. She was just a passenger for this ride.
Beth turned forward in the passenger seat and said, "Bampot means idiot or crazy person." Glancing at Donny curiously, she asked, "Why? Did Scotty call you that?"
"Yes. Well, he said I was cannie, and then asked a question and said, 'Don't be a bampot. Answer me.'"
"Ah." Beth shook her head. "Using his charm on you, then."
"He was all right," Donny said with a shrug. After a minute he added, "He was super worried about you, though. I thought he was going to get us both killed, speeding the way he was to get to the house. I've never seen telephone poles blur together like that before."
That was rather surprising news to Beth. As far as she knew, Scotty didn't think much of her so shouldn't have rushed to her aid. Mind you, he had claimed she was wrong on how he felt about her. Unfortunately, he'd been interrupted before he could explain further, but that might be for the best. If the man said he felt sorry for her or something, she would have had to punch him for ruining any future sexual fantasies that might have included him. She could hardly have sex with a man who felt sorry for her, even if it was only in a dream.
"How come you don't like him?" Donny asked suddenly, and Beth glanced at the ginger-haired man with surprise.
"Who said I don't like him?"
"Well," he said slowly, "if you liked him you wouldn't have enjoyed my accidentally shooting him so much. And you really seemed to enjoy shooting him yourself."
"Oh, that." Beth waved the issue away. "It's not that I don't like him. I just . . ." She hesitated briefly and then blurted, "The man hates me."
"What?" Donny asked, sounding shocked, and then shook his head firmly. "He doesn't."
"He does," she assured him.
"But he--" Donny cut himself off, and instead asked, "What makes you think that?"
"He--" Beth began and then snapped her mouth closed. She'd decided ten years ago not to dwell on bad things anymore. She'd spent more than a hundred years wallowing in the misery of her mortal life and her turning. By doing so, she'd been unable to move forward. It was hard to experience life and be happy when you were sunk in the anger and depression of yesteryear. In a way, by doing that, she herself had continued the torture and humiliation her past abusers had visited on her, and long after they'd stopped and even died. Beth had come to realize she'd wasted all those years, and had decided it was time to let the past go and live only in the moment. The odd thing was, it w
as a dog that taught her that.
"It doesn't matter," she said now, and then changed the subject. "So, are you originally from Toronto?"
"No. I'm not Canadian. I was born and raised in Kansas," Donny said.
"Kansas?" she asked with surprise.
Donny nodded. "It's where I was turned. Where Leigh was turned too," he added.
"Lucian Argeneau's life mate, Leigh?" Beth asked with interest.
Donny nodded. "We were both turned by the same rogue." He pressed his lips tightly closed briefly, and then blurted, "It's my fault she was turned. I had a crush on her, and my sire read it from my mind and said he'd let me turn her, but the truth was he'd decided to turn her himself. It ended up lucky for me because otherwise . . ." He shook his head. "Well, if not for her, I'd probably be dead. Lucian saved her, and I'm pretty sure she talked him into saving and sparing me too."
"So, like me, you were turned and not born immortal," Beth murmured, watching the telephone poles glide by.
"Yeah. It was pretty awful," Donny muttered.
Beth grunted in response, but her mind was on memories of her own turn. Grinding her teeth, she crossed her arms over her chest to try to dispel the shuddering those memories brought on.
Donny must have noticed the action, because he added almost apologetically, "I guess it probably always is."
"Yes," she agreed solemnly and then took a deep breath, pushed the old memories away and said, "But it's over now. And look at all that we've gained--immortality, good health, good teeth, good everything. Physically we're the best we can be and always will be so long as we don't get ourselves beheaded or burned alive."
"And beheading only works so long as you keep the head separate from the body."
"True," she said with a nod.
"And we're not even dead and soulless," Donny added wryly. "It was a relief to find that out."
Beth looked at him with surprise. "You thought that to be the case when you were first turned?"
"Yeah, of course. That's what all the movies say. Vampires are dead and soulless." He glanced at her with curiosity. "Didn't you think that too?"