Published: February 9, 2020

5

KAYLA

Kayla burst from the airplane hangar. For a moment,
she was stuck for what to do. Looking around, they were in the middle of an
airfield. When they’d brought her here, there was nothing but empty abandoned warehouses.
The flickers of light caught her eye in the distance. The highway. If she could
get back to civilization, she could get help. After a brief nod to herself, she
ran across the gravel lot but jolted when a sudden sound rang behind her.

Yelps and howls echoed behind her.

From the sound of it, they’d sent scent sniffing dogs after
her. A lot of them. Kayla glanced over her shoulder toward where she’d just
been freed from. Nothing yet, but the barks and howls were getting closer.

By some divine grace she didn’t deserve, a vampire—a real-life actual vampire—saved her. Why? She had no clue, but she wasn’t going to start asking questions now that there was a dog pack on her tail.

“Wait,” someone called behind her.

Nope. She blazed into the adjacent airfield. Rocks and debris whipped at her ankles. Gravel cut the soles of her feet. They were probably going to be a bloody painful mess after the adrenaline wore off. That is if she got out of this alive. The footsteps behind her quickened.

She surged forward, pumping her knees into her chest, thankful
her dress had plenty of give even though it rode up her thighs the harder she
ran.

“Girl,” the gruff voice said behind her.

Too close. Much too close to not have seen its owner coming
from the hangar when she turned around.

She chanced another glance.

Dark pools that were once his eyes sent another spike of
adrenaline thrashing in her veins. The reason he freed her became abundantly
clear, he wanted her for himself. She gulped, quickly whipping back around, hoping
vampire speed was a myth.

It wasn’t.

In an instant, he stood in front of her and she collided
into him.

“Fuck,” she blurted out and staggered backward. He grabbed
at her arms roughly to steady her. She yanked from his grip. “Get off of me.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” His thick voice, deep
like velvet, asked. Her heart beat painfully hard inside of her ribcage.

“Get away from me.” She backed away. The wrong way. There
was another howl at her back.

This time the look over her shoulder betrayed several dogs—no—wolves
darting from the hanger behind her.

“We have to go,” he yanked her around and began to run.

“The highway is that way,” she pointed over her shoulder
and into the dark field. Beyond the floodlights from the hangar, she couldn’t
see much between her and the lights in the distance betraying passing cars. If she
could get to them, she could escape.

“That way’s not good.” He yanked her toward the front.
Or what she thought was the front. She wasn’t sure if that was the way they’d brought
her in.

“Why?”

Instead of answering, he tugged at her again, nearly pulling
her arm from her socket as he ran.

After a few strides, it became very apparent there was
no way she was going to keep pace with him. She tried to pull back, but a rush of
air under her toes and a weightlessness disoriented her. He picked her up by
her wrist and cradled her to his chest. A very hard, very muscular chest that she
should probably move her hands away from. But she couldn’t help their wandering
ways as her fingers ghosted the buttons on his shirt.

By the foremages, she needed to whip herself into shape.
They had a pack of wolves after them and she was thinking about how good the hard
ripples of his chest felt beneath his dress shirt. Had she completely lost her
mind? After the night she’d just had, probably.

No one would blame her if she’d gone completely looney toon.

The vampire holding her didn’t seem to notice her lapse in judgment, he slowed and set her at her feet.

Several black SUVs were lined up against the building, gleaming
like trophies under the moonlight. Cars were infinitely better than running on
foot.

Jackpot.

The howls behind them seemed to multiply.

“Come,” he pushed her in between a vehicle so she wouldn’t
be seen. His body flickered in and out of several of them opening and closing doors
before he was back at her side, pulling her to the one he deemed worthy.

“Here,” he handed her a set of keys.

“What do you want me to do with these?”

“Work the vehicle,” he motioned to the truck.

“I can’t drive.”

“But, you’re human.”

Like that solved everything. Technically she was a mage,
but this hardly felt like the time to bring it up. “Yeah, one who can’t drive.”

He made a sound of annoyance but led her to the
passenger door to get in. She stepped up into the truck. A second later, he was
in the driver seat staring at the steering wheel.

“What’s wrong?” She stared at him looking at the key,
then looking at the steering wheel in confusion.

“Where do I put these?” he dangled the keys.

“In
the ignition.”

“Where’s
that?”

“You
don’t know how to drive?!”

“Please
stop making your voice do that. It’s grating.”

Excuse her, he was the one who carried her to a car he didn’t even know how to drive. She had to have the shittiest luck in all of the world. Stuck in a car with a vampire? Check. No one knows how to drive the said car even though they had a pack of angry wolves out to eat them? Double-check. Chances of escape? Nil.

A few barks yelped behind them confirmed her thoughts of
doom. She looked in the rearview mirror. More bad luck stared back at her. The
head of a very large, very scary wolf sniffed around the ground searching for
them.

She flattened herself against the seat and ducked as
best she could.

“Get down.” Her voice came out like a high-pitched squeak.
She pointed behind her when the vampire looked toward her. He checked the mirror
for himself. The dark pools of his eyes seemed to deepen. She just had to hope
she wasn’t jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. One thing was
certain: death waited for her in that crate in the warehouse. With him, she
could take her chances. Neither thought kept a small whimper from tearing from
her throat.

“Calm down,” he said fiercely, his voice low. “They will
hear you.”

That didn’t help.

“I can drive. Where do I put the key?”

At least in that she wasn’t a complete dunderhead. She
pulled it from his rough hands and pushed it into the ignition and turned it
on. It roared to life.

“Cha!” A smile broadened his lips.

No, not cha. The head of the wolf popped up and
turned to them. He stood his ground and growled.

Several other wolves skidded across the gravel behind
the car driving up a plume of dust in their wake. A vicious growl ripped from who
she guessed was the alpha of the pack. Much larger than the others, with thicker
lusher russet fur, the others seemed to fall behind him waiting for him to move.
His nose dipped, lips curling back as he snarled. The others followed.

With a yip, one of the wolves flanking him launched at the back of the car. His nose hit the window with a hard thud. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Had it just nose-dived headfirst into the back of the car? Another met the same mark.

What the fuck?

What kind of animal dove headfirst in the back of a truck?

Another one struck.

She was in the worst nightmare of her life where the
villain had been shot, stabbed and maimed and still found time to go Halloween
on everyone’s ass and still keep coming.

The vampire put the car in gear.

Another wolf launched, hitting the back windshield. It
cracked.

“Do something!” she screamed when another poised to launch.
They were going to break through.

The vampire pushed his foot on the gas pedal.

The car engine revved but did nothing. She looked down at the gear shift. Stuck in neutral. At least they had an automatic transmission or they’d be up shit’s creek.

“R-reverse!”
She shouted at the vampire, who looked down at the box, with a questioning look
on his face. By the foremages, how had she gotten into this mess? “The R, put
the gear in R.”

His bewilderment didn’t end. She pointed at the lit letters on the gearbox, to the red R. Finally, he understood and moved the gearshift to the right place. Then, his foot hit the pedal. The car jerked.

“That’s the break. Oh my god, I’m going to die.”

“Girl, be helpful or shut your mouth,” he rushed out in
annoyance.

He had a lot of nerve. He had no freaking plan to get
them out outside of driving a truck that he didn’t know how to drive. She should
have taken her chances in the airfield. At least out there, there wasn’t a pack
of wolves blocking them in.

This time, he managed to get his foot on the right
pedal. The car zoomed backward and into a launching wolf with a large boom and
an agonizing howl.

Fuck, they hit one of them. She craned her neck to see. The
other wolves scattered away from the car, leaving one in the middle of the gravel
lot. They killed a wolf. That had to be some kind of animal cruelty lawsuit
waiting to happen.

“Is he okay? That poor animal—”

“That is no mere animal.”

The vampire wasn’t wrong. The alpha nudged at the wolf until he rose from the ground. Its front leg jutted out at an awkward angle, clearly broken. Then, it cricked and popped back into place. After a test step, the wolf stood upright and barked at the back of their truck. Yep, Michael Meyers in action. All it needed was a creepy mask. Even maimed, he joined the reassembling wolves.

“Go, go, go!”

He pressed the pedal again. Except they were going in the
wrong direction.

“Put
it in drive,” she screeched as the pack reassembled then pointed at the gearshift
again when the bewilderment crept up on the vampire’s face. “It’s the D.”

“Turn the wheel!” She screamed before he plowed into the set of parked cars. He did, avoiding them by a hair.

“See,” he shrugged. “Easy.”

Yeah after almost getting them killed. Well, her killed,
vampires were rumored to be virtually indestructible.

“Turn on the lights.”

He fiddled with the side controls as the car shot
forward. A flash of
the headlights revealed a person in front of them.

“Brake!”

The
tires screeched. Jerking against the seatbelt, she couldn’t take her eyes off the
hooded figure in front of them. The man’s face was covered in shadow, but the
tell-tale electric currents flashed across his eyes.

This can’t be happening.

“Shit,”
she screamed as she jerked backward, pressing her back into the seat.

“Who
is that?” The vampire looked between her and the figure a few yards in front of
them.

“He’s
Syste,” her voice wouldn’t come above a whisper.

“Not
helpful.”

“Magic…
He’s magic.”

As
if he could hear her, the Syste’s eyes glowed, then magic pooled from his arms
and down through his hands as it slithered on the ground like snakes.

“What
is that?”

“R-reverse,”
she screamed forcing herself backward.

“Can’t
do that,” he glanced behind them to a pack of wolves gearing up to charge.

“He’s
going to kill us.”

“So
are they.”

She
asked, looking at him, the mage, then back to the wolves.

“What
do we do?”

The
vampire’s gaze glazed over the mirror before he nodded to the mage.

“Does
he have enough magic to stop a car?”

“I-I
don’t know,” her shoulders lifted into a shrug.

Another
snarl ripped through the yard. If she thought the alpha was angry before,
that growl had nothing on this one. Snarling, the entire pack charged.

“Looks
like we’ll have to find out.”

The vampire pressed the gas and raced toward the mage at full speed.

Click here to vote on what happens next

Author’s Note: We finally did it. We got to the week of two-way ties. Not on just one but on both of the questions. Both were 50/50 splits. haha! I’m glad we ended it up in a tie though because I had so much fun writing this chapter! I couldn’t stop laughing. Need to make a quick getaway in the getaway car? Make sure everyone knows how to drive!

The winning responses?
Q1: I kinda want both. Bring on the car shenanigans, wolf shenanigans. All the everything! & Girl, the freaking wolves are after them. Bring on the action!
Q2: Wasn’t she setting doors on fire? Clearly she has Fire Power!!!!! & Electricity could be kind of cool. Goddess of thunder anyone?

(Don’t worry, Kayla’s goddess of lightning fiery magic will definitely be making an appearance next chapter.)

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Post Note: Did ya’ll see that Amazon is giving away 2 free months of Kindle Unlimited?! Yo, if I didn’t already have KU, I would be snatching that all the way up. (BTW I tried, they wouldn’t let me)

If you’ve never heard of Kindle Unlimited, here’s the deal. You give the Zon $10 bucks a month in exchange for all the reading you can do in that month. It’s hours of endless reading entertainment. What’s cool is that if you try it out and you don’t like it, you can just cancel it without any fuss. I did a 1-month free trial back in 2016 and I haven’t looked back since. It’s so worth it.

I’m not sure how long they’re going to have this promotion. So, if you’re interested, you can get *2-Months of Kindle Unlimited Free Here.

A new chapter goes out next week! See you soon!

Sabrina

*Affiliate Link- Full disclosure, if you sign up for KU through my link, I make a small commission from Amazon. (It’s the Zon, they’re cheapskates, it’s not that much $) But it does help pay for the production costs for Rogue including the cover design and editing.