Jadee looked at the gun in her hand. The Glock 19 suddenly didn’t make her feel safe. She kept hold of it and inched down the hallway, going directly under the loud thumps from above to reach the hallway closet. She yanked it open, shoving coats aside to get to the hidden back panel. The six-digit code had always been her birthday. She opened the safe and reached for the thigh holster. It took about a minute to secure it on and snuggly slip the handgun into the cradle, the weight of it comforting. She felt a little safer gripping the Bushmaster ACR rifle. It only took seconds to slide in a clip.

Her hands trembled as she shoved another clip down the front of her shirt. She kicked the closet door shut, hugging the weapon close.

“I’m loaded for bear,” she yelled. “Break in and I’ll open fire on you. I don’t give a shit what the hell you are. Having holes ripping through your body is going to ruin your fun! I’ve got enough rounds to turn your ass into Swiss cheese.”

A female scream coming from outside made Jadee jerk, shoving her back against the closet. She was afraid she might fire out of pure fear and pressed her finger down along the underside of the weapon. She used her left hand to chamber a round so it was ready to go if that door gave way.

A second set of footsteps stormed closer from above and suddenly what sounded like a heavy body dropped flat. She winced, swearing she heard something scratching the roof.

“Do you hear me?” she yelled louder. “I have live ammunition and I will shoot you!”

Something slammed against the door but the locks held. There wasn’t a window there, and the closed shutters next to it didn’t give her a view of outside. She braced her legs, worried her knees might collapse under her otherwise. The last thing she wanted to do was fall over from fright.

Another loud thump came from up top, near the back. That made three she could count, since the scratching sounds didn’t stop and the person on the other side of the door continued to batter it with what sounded like a heavy object.

“Assholes!” Jadee shouted. “Enough. I’m not screwing around. I have an arsenal at my back and I’m gripping an assault rifle. My dad is a paranoid gun fanatic who made me learn how to fire anything that took bullets or shells from the time I could walk. I won’t miss, and I’ll keep firing. I can reload faster than you can say ‘oh shit’. Take your freaky circus act somewhere else!”

Silence reigned. It was eerie and sudden.

Jadee sucked in a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. It was possible her threats had made them reconsider making her a target. She bit her bottom lip, relaxing her grip on the rifle. The weight of the handgun against her outer thigh seemed suddenly heavy.

“Goddamn,” she rasped. Her dad and his geek squad had actually found a nest of Vampires. What are they doing in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska? It didn’t make sense.

“Come out,” a man’s creepy voice crooned.

Jadee stopped breathing, trapping air inside her lungs. It sounded as if a nail slid across metal above, from where the voice had originated.

“We want to play,” a female voice called out from the other side of the door.

“And make you bleed.” Another man laughed above her.

“And scream!” the female added.

Jadee forced herself to breathe and tightened her grip on the rifle, sliding her finger over the trigger. A chill ran down her spine. They sounded deranged. She was tempted to tell them to break in and find out who did the bleeding, but she remained mute, waiting to see what they’d do next. The RV was a tank on wheels. Her father had designed it to withstand anything he hunted.

She moved fast toward the front cab area, reaching up to the control panel that was mounted on the ceiling right before the driver’s section. She read each button and hovered her finger over the one labeled Panic.

She hesitated. The siren blasting might scare them off. She debated pressing it. Another scenario popped into her head.

Someone might hear it and come. Like the cops.

* * * * *

“What are we doing out here?” Kar jerked his coat tighter around his body. “It’s a Friday night.”

“We have to go check on a human family and relay a message to them. Lorn wants us to do it and he’s our leader, so here we are. A human called the lodge because she can’t reach her family.” Lavos nonchalantly shrugged. “Besides, it’s not as if you had anything else to do.”

“Fuck you.”

Lavos grinned. “No thanks. You’re not my type.”

His friend flipped him off but grinned. “As if you could get that lucky.”

“Not even in jest, man. Although, you do have big tits.”

“I don’t have man boobies.”

“Yeah, you do. You get any bigger and we’re going to have to special order your shirts with built-in bras.”

“Shut up,” Garson demanded from the backseat of the open Jeep. “The Tab sisters are visiting and I could be pounding Ginna if I hadn’t been assigned this bullshit task. I don’t want to hear anything about sex or tits.”

Kar snorted. “The only pounding you’d have been doing is with your fist when you watched Ginna walk off with me. Everyone knows she only visits our clan because I’m there. And who knows? Maybe Kinna’s given up her preference for men over sixty and would have bedded me too. I bet they’re crying right now because I’m out on this stupid drive.”

“I want a mate. You just like fucking. I’m a better choice than you, and I would have told Ginna so. She would have come home with me.”

Kar snorted and shot Garson an amused grin. “Your place is a mess. You ever take a woman there and they’d be convinced you’re looking for a maid instead.”

“It’s not that bad. I’m just not a neat freak. Why did you pick us to go with you?” Garson asked. “What about Veso? Couldn’t you have called him, Lavos?”

“He’s bonding with his new mate.”

“A human one.” Kar chuckled. “I never saw that coming in a million years. I almost feel sorry for her. He’s a grumpy bastard.”

“I couldn’t believe Lorn was so great about accepting her into our clan. Does Veso have blackmail on your older brother the way Davis had on Decker?”

Sometimes Lavos’s friends annoyed him. “No. Of course not, Garson. We wanted change in the clan.”