Van Helsing Damned (Immortal Hunters MC #2) - Helen Scott Page 0,1

path, are we going to find our enemies?” And there’s a note to his voice Dani might not recognize in my twin, but I do. He’s planning out exactly who he’s going to kill for taking and hurting Dani.

To our surprise, she shakes her head. “Most of them are dead. A few…escaped.”

Dead? How?

“Did someone help you?”

Her eyes close. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

It’s killing all of us to not know what happened. I see the same anger and helplessness in Crash and Phoenix’s faces that I feel deep in my soul, and it’s a gut-wrenching pain that takes my breath away. It makes me want to shout and destroy something like a demon of vengeance. But we’ll have to wait for our revenge.

Something we aren’t accustomed to...but Dani comes first now.

“How much of that blood is yours?” Crash asks, his tone gentle as his angry gaze shifts to worry.

I stiffen and wait. Dani might not be exactly human, but I have no idea what gifts her powers have given her beyond mimicking our own. Will she heal as fast as we do? Or can she die from whatever injuries she’s sustained?

“I don’t know,” she finally mumbles. “Not much of it. I’m okay.”

Releasing a slow breath, I take her to my bike, and we all start back home. I note where we are and give instructions over our com to a group of the guys to check out this road and find wherever they took her. A select group of trusted men will be sent out, and I grip the handles on my motorcycle harder, promising that whoever hurt Dani will pay.

2

Dani

I’m sitting in the bottom of a shower, the water having long gone cold. I stare at the drain, noting how the water isn’t red any longer. I’m trying to cling to anything to tell me I’m here, safe at the compound, and not still with the scientists. But no matter how hard I try, I keep seeing flashbacks of the lab. The blood that coated the floor. The fighting. The screams.

My entire body is shaking.

What did I do? It isn’t possible. None of it.

I try to remember if the scientists gave me anything before the fight. Sometimes their meds have strange effects. Had I hallucinated it all? Is anything I think I’m remembering actually real?

No. I can’t have imagined it all. I’m covered in blood. I’m wounded everywhere I remember being hurt. And I escaped. So if those things are real, everything has to be real. Right?

Hell, I don’t know.

I hear the door crack open. “Dani? You okay?”

It’s Crash, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

I want to answer him. I do. But the words won’t come out.

At last, he pulls the curtain to the side and I can feel his gaze on me. Suddenly, he’s kneeling down, and I manage to lift my head enough to look at him. His startling blue-grey eyes fill my vision, and his long hair frames his face, like some dark angel. His expression is hard to read, but I’m surprised that I feel neither judged nor analyzed.

“Can I take you out?” he asks, his words soft.

I manage to nod.

He turns the water off, grabs one of the big, fluffy white towels, and wraps me in it, before pulling me into his arms. He carries me like I’m made of glass and lays me down on the bed. I fall over onto my side, and he kneels so that his face is close to mine.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it yet, but we need to check your wounds and get you dressed. Is that alright?”

That’s one thing I’ve realized about these guys. They are tough-as-hell and don’t put up with any shit, but they have a strange way of asking my permission to do things. Not everything. I’m their prisoner after all, even if it’s in a different way than it had been with the scientists, but the times they are gentle with me seem like important moments.

I don’t understand why.

“Is that okay?”

I jerk, remembering his question, then nod again. Some time passes. My eyes close. The doctor comes in and checks me over carefully, not revealing too much of my body at a time. I hear the din of Crash and the doctor speaking, but it feels far away. Not quite like I’m asleep, but more like I’m hovering above myself, and I can’t seem to feel like anything in the room is actually