“What do you want me to promise?” I asked.
“You must do everything you can to help Matthias defeat Kristoff.”
I drew in a breath. “I think you have me confused with somebody with power.”
He looked up in my general direction with his nonexistent eyes. “You’re not a victim, Jillian. I feel it. There is strength inside of you and courage as well. Your blood is just as powerful as they say it is. That is your true gift.”
“Death is not a gift.”
“Depends on how you look at it. Your blood is what makes you different from any other human. It makes you special. And it makes you very dangerous.”
“I don’t feel all that dangerous.”
“You are. Trust me, you are.” He sat there for a moment, his arms resting on the sides of the wheelchair. “You haven’t promised.”
“To help defeat Kristoff? I promise. I’ll do whatever I can.”
“Good.” He nodded. “Now, lastly. Can you give Matthias a message for me?”
That depended on where he was right now, but I couldn’t worry about the former vampire king. Not now. One thing at a time. “I’ll try.”
“Tell him that I forgive him and that I still have faith in everything he does.”
I frowned. “You should tell him that your—”
Alex reached forward, his fingers biting into my shoulders, and pulled me down on top of him. He swept my hair back and I felt his mouth press against my throat.
“No—don’t do this—” I pushed at him, not knowing what this was or where it came from. He’d been so still a moment ago and he’d just lashed out. Panic gripped me as I felt his fangs sharp against my skin only a moment before they cut into me. I shrieked, but it was the last noise I could make as his bite paralyzed me and I slumped forward against him.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, but I could hear him drinking my blood, a low groan escaping his throat. It hurt badly; because of my bond with Matthias he couldn’t influence me first to dampen the pain. I’d liked him. He’d convinced me he was one of the good guys—as much as a vampire could be, anyway. I couldn’t believe he’d just lost control. He’d handled my scent fine up until now.
“So good . . .” he murmured, his breath cool against my raw throat. He finally released me and slid his tongue over his bloody bottom lip. I immediately regained the use of my body and scrambled back from him, my hand at my throat to press against the fresh wound.
I shook my head, my eyes burning with tears. “Why did you do this?”
He raised his face up in the direction of mine. “Because it’s the only way.”
Then he convulsed and gritted his teeth together before fire consumed him. In seconds the only thing that remained of Alex was a fall of gray ash, snowing down over his wheelchair. The ring he’d worn dropped to the floor next to the chair.
I couldn’t move. I just stared at where he’d been seated only moments before. I was in shock. He’d killed himself. Suicide by Nightshade. And I didn’t think there were any Houdini-inspired tricks up his sleeve like Matthias had used.
Alex was gone. Three hundred years of existence snuffed out by a woman in a black dress with poisoned blood.
I realized I was crying and I pushed at my tears, more angry than sad. I didn’t wait around for long. I grabbed the ring, then turned and walked quickly across the room, coming a bit too close to the monster dhamp as I passed. It reached out toward me with its long arms, a sharp talon slicing shallowly into my upper arm. I jumped back from it and it looked at me with black, hungry eyes.
“Bloooddd,” it screeched. “Deeaatthh.”
A sob caught in my throat but I swallowed it down. “That’s right. My blood is death. Don’t forget it.”
I expected someone to stop me. After all, I’d just killed their blind, legless leader. I’d been sent as a gift from someone who wanted Alex dead. And even though it hadn’t gone remotely as I’d ever imagined it would, I’d done it.
Someone on the bed finally roused, lifting her head up off another’s bare thigh.
“What’s going on?” she asked groggily. “Where’s Alex?”
I looked at her, my vision too blurry to see more than her outline. “He’s gone.”
I pounded on the door when I found it was locked. A moment later it opened and I pushed through, walking blindly through the crowd who hadn’t stopped their hedonistic activities for a moment since I’d gone in. The world still rotated. The drinks still flowed. Everything was normal at the vampire sex club ironically called The Silver Cross. Only its owner was dead because I’d killed him.
I’d wanted him to be bloodthirsty, cruel, and horrible. What I’d got was Matthias’s ex-lover, a vampire who seemed to know right from wrong and had been through horrible pain in his life. He’d seen me as his chance to escape that pain once and for all and he’d taken it.
Suddenly, Noah was at my side. I hadn’t seen him approach, but my mind was on other things. He still looked monstrous with the signs of hunger showing on his face, but otherwise he was the same Noah he’d ever been.
“Well?” he asked.
“It’s done.” My throat felt thick and it was hard to swallow.
With a concerned look, he grabbed my hand as if to remove it from my throat to inspect my wound.
I shook my head. “No. I’m bleeding. You shouldn’t look at it right now.”
He grimaced. “Good point.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Fine with me.”
In my other hand I had Alex’s ring clutched so tightly it would likely leave an imprint behind. I’d killed him. And I was taking Kristoff the proof of just how deadly I was.
My unpleasant mission was a success.
And I knew Kristoff was going to kill me anyway.
THE HOUR-LONG DRIVE BACK TO THE HOUSE ONLY served to fuel my anger. By the time we got back I’d said good-bye to fear and was ready to confront Kristoff face-to-face, come what may.
He was waiting for me in his makeshift throne room. I marched right toward him, but faltered when I saw who he was with. My nieces, tired and rubbing at their eyes, sat cross-legged on the floor. Since it was well after midnight, I wasn’t surprised that they looked so weary.
“Welcome back,” Kristoff said.
That fear I’d misplaced on the drive here came back in spades. I wondered if Kristoff had predicted my mood and wanted to remind me of what was at stake. If so, he’d succeeded amazingly well.
“Aunt Jill?” Meg, my eight-year-old niece, looked up at me with a frown. “You look really different.”
“Yeah?” I twisted a finger into my hair and tried to ignore the hammering of my heart. “Different good or different bad?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at her sister. They were both blond and blue-eyed like their mom. Like the old me. “Just different. What are you doing here?”
“Your aunt is a friend of mine,” Kristoff said. “She’s visiting and she wanted to say hi.”
“Hi,” six-year-old Julie said. She clutched a pink teddy bear to her chest. “We watched movies all night. Past bedtime.”
I forced a smile onto my face. “Sounds like fun.”
“It was. We’re supposed to wait here for mommy to come get us.”
I looked at Kristoff who nodded. “She asked me to look after the girls, keep them safe. How could I say no?”
My face felt tight. “You’re so generous.”
Kristoff smiled. “Okay, kids. It’s well past time for bed now. Have a good sleep.”
Meg and Julie got up from where they were seated and came toward me to give me a hug. I held on to each of them tightly before reluctantly letting them go.
I looked into their faces, each in turn. “You’re going home soon. Promise.”
Meg shrugged. “Okay.”
If nothing else, their ignorance about where they were and who held them was a relief. I wasn’t going to disturb that for anything.
The girl I’d
seen earlier holding Sara was waiting at the entrance to the room and the children went toward her. She must be some sort of vampire nanny Kristoff had on staff. The thought wasn’t comforting. I tensed, but didn’t make a move to stop them from leaving.
“I just love children,” Kristoff said. “They fill my heart with joy.”
I turned to glare at him. “I swear, if you hurt them—”
“Why would I hurt them?” His gaze moved to my hand. “You have Alex’s ring. I’ll assume everything went according to plan.”
“He’s dead.”
“That was the plan. Maybe you’re more useful than I thought you’d be.” He held out his hand and I drew close enough to give him the ring. He studied it for a moment. “What did he have to say?”
“Not much.”
He slipped the ring on his index finger. “I find that hard to believe. If there was one thing I could depend on from Alex, it was that he loved to talk. Too much for his own good sometimes.”
“He won’t be talking anymore. So you can do as you said and let my nieces go. We had a deal.”
He studied my tense expression for a moment. “Tomorrow. Let them sleep now. It’s been a long day for all of us. Good night Jillian.”
Two of his men took me by my arms and began to direct me out of the room. “Wait. What happened with Declan? Is he okay? Where is he right now?”
Before he could say anything in reply we were out of the room, and the vampires took me down a hallway and up a flight of stairs. They stopped in front of a door and unlocked it, then pushed me into the expansive, dark bedroom. All I saw were shadows and outlines. For a moment I figured this was where I was supposed to sleep for the night, although I’d never felt less tired in my entire life.
I gasped when I felt the rough slide of rope over my wrists.
“What are you doing?” I demanded as they tied me to the bedpost with my arms behind me.
One of the vampires grasped my face tightly. His eyes were black and his jaw was lined with dark veins. “Kristoff wants you to be part of a new experiment. Good luck.”
And then they were gone, closing and locking the door behind them.
What the hell?
Any anger I’d felt earlier faded away until fear was the only thing left. I hated to be left alone with my thoughts. The more I had to deal with, the better off I was. But now there was nothing except dread filling my senses. I pulled at my bindings, but it didn’t do any good.
Kristoff wanted me put in here, tied up, as some sort of experiment. I didn’t know what kind of experiment, though I supposed the options were disturbingly endless.
I stilled, both body and thoughts, and strained to listen.
Someone else was in here with me, only I couldn’t see who it was. My eyes adjusted to the darkness.
“Who’s here?” I whispered.
I wasn’t sure why I asked. I already knew who it was. I craned my neck to see the outline of his body lying against the wall. After a moment, he moved, muscles flexing as he looked across the room toward me. His black eye narrowed and his lips curled back from his teeth enough that I could clearly see his fangs.
Declan’s fangs.
18
DECLAN STOOD UP. HIS CHEST WAS BARE AND ALL HE wore were black jeans. His scars were still there, of course, but they seemed to have lightened slightly against his pale skin.
He was a vampire now. Just like his father.
This was the experiment. Kristoff wanted me to be in the same room with Declan now that my blood could kill him. It was a test to see if he was strong enough to resist biting me. Maybe a rite of passage as he’d done with Noah—a job interview.
Bite me and die or resist and live. But Noah had a full day before he’d been given the opportunity to test his strength around me. Declan would have been sired only hours ago. And he already had fangs.
Cold fear slid through me.
“Declan—” I began.
“Shut up.” There was pain in his voice.
I pressed my lips together.
“This is your fault,” he growled at me.
“That you’re still alive?” My voice shook, not sure if I should be encouraged or terrified that he could form complete sentences. “Yeah, I guess that’s all on me.”
“I was supposed to die tonight. I agreed to it.”
“Well, that’s just too fucking bad, isn’t it? Suck it up. Noah did. And—and don’t come any closer to me.”
He ignored my request and drew nearer to where I was tied up like a sacrificial offering. As predicted, six feet away he froze, his nostrils flaring. “Fuck.”
“Different now, isn’t it?” I cringed as I watched the alltoo-familiar spiderweb of veins appear around his eye and eye patch and down to his jawline. His hands were fisted at his sides, his muscles tense.
His face was shadowed, but his single black eye glittered in the near darkness. “Your scent . . . is complete . . . and utter torture.”
I pulled at the ropes but they didn’t give in the slightest and only cut painfully into my wrists. “It’ll be worse if you bite me.”
“He’s . . . testing me.”
“Brilliant deduction.” I eyed him warily as he drew closer still. There was dark anger on his face as he glared at me.
“He’s sure only one of us will leave this room.”
I gasped as he clutched my throat. “You can’t bite me.”
“No. But there are other ways of dealing with you so you’re not a problem for me any longer.”
My breath caught. I was right. He was going to kill me. “Let go of me.”
He tilted his head as he stared at me. He seemed suddenly as emotionless as he’d ever been, the rage disappearing from his expression completely. He looked like a stone-cold killer. “This relationship can only end in a couple of ways, Jill. My death or yours. I might slip up and bite you now and that’s a risk for me. I’m strong—stronger than he thought I’d be when he did this to me. Stronger than Noah was. But I’m not that strong. It’s hell being this close to you knowing I can’t taste you.”
I couldn’t see the scars on his face for the pattern of dark lines that showed his hunger. “Noah says my blood is like crack to him now.”
His grip on my throat tightened. “You’re like crack to me.”
I struggled to keep the fear out of my eyes. “Such a sweet talker when you’re talking about killing me.”
He shook his head and grimaced, his lips curling back so I could see those sharp white fangs again. I shuddered. The sight of them made me mourn for the Declan who was now gone forever. He pushed my head to the side so he could see Alex’s fangs marks on my neck and hissed out a breath.
“It was only a matter of time. You’re too soft, Jill. Too human. You don’t have the killer instinct like I do. If Kristoff decides to keep using you as an assassin, you wouldn’t last more than a couple days before some vamp snapped your neck.”
He believed it, every word. I could see it in his gaze. I was soft, weak, and I needed someone to protect me. Now that he couldn’t do it I was on my own—a baby bird that had fallen out of the nest.
I wasn’t as weak as he thought I was.
He brought his other hand up to my throat so he would be able to squeeze the life out of me the moment he made the decision to end this conversation. “I don’t understand why you’d do it, Jill. Why would you get Kristoff to sire me when you damn well knew I’d never want something like that?”
His grip was nearly too tight for me to speak. I felt a wash of emotion—fear, anger, frustration, despair—as I stared at the vampire in front of me.
“You were dying.”
“Why didn’t you let me die?”
“Because I needed you to live.”
He shook his head. “Why would you have me made into something I hate?”
“I knew you’d want to kill me for this.”
“And yet you asked Kristoff to sire me anyway. Why?” His brows drew together.
“Be
cause I wanted you to live, no matter what. I was too selfish and too stubborn to let you die like that.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because—” My voice caught. “Because I love you.”
He didn’t move, didn’t react, but his hands loosened on me. My heart pounded so fast and hard that I could hear it loudly in my ears. Tears slid down my cheeks.
And then he released me completely and took a step back. The air in the room felt cool on my throat.
He was frowning deeply. “You love me.”
I inhaled shakily. “Is—is that really such a big surprise to you?”
“No one has ever—” His jaw tightened.
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. No one had ever told Declan that they loved him before—probably not even Emily, the woman who’d looked after him as a little boy. Not Carson in all the years he’d raised him. Declan had had no previous girlfriends since he couldn’t experience true emotion or desire while on the serum. And his birth mother had never told him the truth, had never loved him a day of his life.
No one had ever loved Declan enough to make a stupid, selfish decision like this on his behalf.
I’d known I loved Declan for a while now, but I’d been afraid to admit it even to myself. Lust was easy. But love was an emotion far more dangerous and unpredictable than the thirstiest vampire.
I licked my dry lips as the silence spread between us. “Matthias said vampires don’t love the way humans do. They have detached emotions, I guess. They can see things more objectively. So they can’t become emotionally attached to anyone.”
His gaze hardened again. “And yet he claimed you.”
I cringed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is.”
“It’s the only thing keeping the Nightshade from killing me. I feel better than I have for weeks.”
His eye widened slightly at the news that my death watch could be called off. “So do I.”
“Your serum—”
“Gone. The vampire blood . . . it burned away any remaining serum. And since I’m not a dhampyr anymore, I don’t have the mindless rage to deal with, either.”