Free The Dead War Series (Book 2): Desperate Times by D.N. Simmons Page A

flying and using mental compulsion, she was going to take his word for it.
    Cassian scoffed. “You don't want to believe it's true, but you can't deny it, either.”
    Felicia flexed her fingers, opening her now sweaty palms. She was terrified, but at the same time, intrigued.
    “Where are my men?” Maj. Garrett demanded. “Did you kill them?”
    “And if I did, what would you do?” Cassian retorted. The audacity of humans never ceased to amaze him... as if they were worthy of their own sense of entitlement.
    “Did you?” Maj. Garrett asked again with the same amount of assertiveness in his tone.
    “No. Humans will no doubt be in short supply in the coming days. They are safe,” Cassian said.
    “In some freaked out way, it's all starting to make sense,” Vincent said, cutting through the tension in the little office.
    “What's starting to make sense?” Felicia asked.
    “The base compound,” Vincent began.
    “Explain,” Maj. Garrett said. He made sure to keep his eyes on Cassian as he listened to Vincent.
    “You say you're a vampire, right?” Vincent directed his question to Cassian, who nodded. “What if the base compound we received came from a vampire?”
    “Do you have a sample of this compound? I would be able to tell,” Cassian said.
    Vincent shrugged one shoulder. “If you gathered all of the samples I asked you to gather from the lab, and if it wasn't destroyed, then yes.”
    “There were some vials and bottles that had been destroyed. I gathered everything that was left,” Cassian said, with a quick nod.
    Vincent frowned. “Then let us hope the base compound survived. Where is all of the research?”
    “It will be in the location where you'll be working. Best to keep that separate from the rest of the humans, wouldn't you agree?” Cassian arched an eyebrow.
    “It'd be safer in a high security lab,” Vincent countered.
    Cassian laughed. “You think so?”
    “You don't?” Vincent studied the vampire before him. A part of him wanted to rebel, tell him that it couldn't be true. That such creatures didn't exist and that the current state of affairs has a scientific and logical explanation that would have nothing to do with creatures from some CW or HBO TV series. However, facts were impossible to dismiss. Cassian had flown, ripped the heavy steel door off a helicopter, hypnotized them and they had already witnessed his speed and strength when he was at SciTech Labs. What stood before him defied everything he thought to be true and it left him teetering on the very edge of sanity and mind-numbing fear. Well, to be completely honest, the mind-numbing fear, he was feeling quite acutely. It was a challenge for him not to piss his pants, although he had wanted to when Cassian entered the helicopter from out of nowhere. Had the vampire not captured him under his control so quickly, he might have embarrassed himself.
    Cassian studied the human, reading his thoughts as they pinged around inside his brain. He gave them all credit for not arguing with him about the legitimacy of his vampiric claim. Besides, they would soon learn when night came, just how real he was.
    “You ask me if you'd be safer inside a location such as the CDC?” Cassian posed the question.
    Vincent nodded. “It has state of the art technology and access to an array of specimens and biological antibodies and antigens that would be at my disposal. Bringing us here has limited my resources drastically. You say you want to save us all, how can you by kidnapping us and forcing me to come up with a cure under these unstable and insufficient conditions?”
    “You're a fool if you think the CDC facility would protect you from what's coming,” Cassian said, stubbornly ending any further conversation on the matter.
    “Maybe you're just realizing you made a mistake,” Vincent shot back.
    Cassian's laugh started low in his chest, until his lips parted; smiling and then it became more boisterous as if Vincent has just said the most