Victorian disappeared.
No sooner had he vanished into the melee than Eli, Luc, Phin, Josie, Seth, Zetty, Noah and his guys, stormed through the door.
A second full-scale melee ensued.
Eli made his way toward me, his face livid, etched with terror and fury. He grabbed me by the arm and shook me. Anger and confusion mapped lines into his face. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine!” I shouted.
He didn’t glare at me long. He took off. He trusted me.
He shouldn’t have.
I took as many out as I could. Every once in a while I saw Seth. He was alive and kicking ass. Relief washed over me as he stayed, back-to-back, with Noah.
Just as I flung another blade, hitting my mark and turning another vamp newling to dust, my arm was grabbed again. This time when I turned, it was Nyx. She threw her arms around me. “Oh, Riley!” she yelled, and squeezed me hard. “I was so scared!”
Relief flooded me at the sight of Nyx unharmed. I didn’t have time to revel in it. “Go to Luc!” I said, dragged her by the arm, and gave her a push in his direction. “Luc!” I yelled in my mind. He turned, faced me, saw Nyx, and ran directly toward her. Once his hands were on her, I knew she’d be safe.
I had one undead left to kill. I pushed my way to the back of the melee. I was shoved, pushed, grabbed.
I was abruptly stopped by Victorian, his hands vices on my shoulders.
His gaze bore into mine. “You promised.”
I yanked against him. “I’m not leaving with you! There’s one more that needs to die first,” I yelled. “My life is here! I love Eli, my brother, my family. You know me, Victorian! I can’t let your brother live! He’s a monster!”
“I know, but you must!” he yelled back, and dragged me effortlessly through the horrified mortals. He turned when we were in a thinner crowd. I fought him, pulled, yanked, beat him in the back with my fists. “No,” he pleaded, ducking further swings from my fists. “You cannot, Riley. Please.” He grabbed my hands in his, stilling me. His drugging dark gaze pinned mine. “You will come with me. Now. Away from this.”
My actions were once more no longer under my control. My adrenaline pumped, and my inhuman-like heart slammed slowly, methodically. I didn’t want to go. Victorian left me no choice.
“Come now, Riley,” Victorian said slowly; it became the only sound inside my head. “It’s the only way any of this can be resolved.”
I couldn’t leave. Valerian had to die.
“He can’t die, love,” he said, close to my face. “He cannot.”
I didn’t exactly understand it, but somehow I knew Victorian spoke the truth.
“I’ll tell you on the way,” he said. “I promise—this is the only way to stop him. To stop all of this.”
“This way,” he said, and pulled me effortlessly through the crowd. My mind and body were powerless to stop him; to resist him. We’d muddled through a lot of people, and at the last second, perhaps because Victorian had eased up on his mind power over me, I yanked free and ran.
“Riley!” he yelled after me.
I ignored him and sought Eli. I had to tell him; I had to explain. I ran up behind him, just as he shoved a mortal to safety, yanked him by the arm, and spun him around.
Eli glared at me with opaque eyes and pinpoint red pupils. “Get out of here, Riley,” he threatened. “Go now!”
With that, he shoved me, and with so much force I flew back—far.
I landed at Victorian’s feet. Without another word, he lifted me. “You’ll come now.” Once again I was powerless. He helped me to the back and out the door into Savannah’s sultry, dark night. I knew Eli hadn’t shoved me for any other reason other than he wanted me safe. I knew that in my heart. He was angry because I was in danger, plain and simple. Yet the thought of leaving him, like this, burned a hole in me, made my chest hurt, and made it ache. I didn’t want to go!
Near the back entrance was a stone silver convertible Jag. Victorian opened the driver’s side door. “Get in, Riley.”
Almost as if stuck in the weird, crawlin’-bird-acrossthe-branch dream, I did as the powerful strigoi vampire commanded, and I crawled my ass straight over to the passenger’s side.
He followed me in and jammed the keys into the ignition; the engine roared, and the dual exhaust rumbled. Gravel crunched beneath the tires as he threw the car into gear and slammed on the gas.
As we peeled out of the parking lot, I felt a heavy presence behind me. It was so thick, it nearly choked me. I turned my head, pushed the fuchsia bangs from my eyes, and peered through the wind and darkness.
Two figures stood, side by side.
Eli’s gaze bore straight into me, staring hard after me as I drove away with an enemy vampire. Seemingly, to them, I went willingly. They didn’t know Victorian had me under some sort of mind control.
Noah Miles stood next to him, his mercury gaze glowing. He said nothing. He didn’t have to. Neither of them did.
Eli, though, didn’t hold back.
“Ri-ley!” he yelled, his voice hurt, in deep pain, reverberating inside my chest, inside my bones.
I looked until I saw him no more. We turned onto Martin Luther King Boulevard, then Interstate 16. We were headed north. Where to, I had no idea. I couldn’t think; my mind was a myriad of emotions.
“All will be well soon,” Victorian said, and put his hand on my knee. He wiped a smudge of . . . something off me, then grasped my chin and forced my stare to meet his. “I promise, Riley Poe. I vow it. I will make this right. You’ll suffer no more, love.”
As we headed out into the night, the ever-familiar brine of Savannah’s salt encased me. I wasn’t in my own body; I was in another’s—or so it felt similar. I laid my head back on the headrest, the hum of Victorian’s Jag and the ever-pressing sadness of leaving my loved ones, making my lids grow heavy. I closed my eyes, only for a second. In that fraction of time, Eli’s voice filled my mind, so much that I reached out, just to see if he was there beside me. It was desperate; it was tormented, filled with so much agony, it hurt for me to hear it. Yet I craved it, as I craved air to breathe, to fill my lungs, to live.
As vampires irrevocably craved human blood.
Neither vampires nor humans could help their cravings. I know that now. Both needed a vital something to remain alive. For vampire’s, that something was more gruesome, and at the cost of human life, but still—it was their sustenance, and they could help it no more than I could help drawing in a lungful of air. I know that now. I understand it a little more.
Eli’s voice sounded in my head. He spoke to me, and only to me.
I’ll cherish the sound, pained as it was, forever.
I will come for you, Riley. I love you, and I know you love me. I’ll find you. Until I do, be strong. Do what you have to to survive. You’re mine. You always have been and you always will be. I will come for you. . . .
Read ahead for a sneak peek of the next book in Elle Jasper’s Dark Ink Chronicles,
EVENTIDE
Available in 2012 from Signet Eclipse.
I’m on my back, a weight not my own pressing me down. I now smell pine, fresh-cut grass. Slowly, I open my eyes. A weight presses into me. I can’t move.
Only then do the sounds around me waft through and bring me back to the present. Cars and semitrucks whizzing by, unevenly, at various speeds. A can dispenses through a soft-drink machine. Laughter in the distance. A stereo system blasts Twisted Sister, one speaker blown in the back. Victorian is straddling me. He has my arms pinned above my head, holding me still. My eyes scan past him. We’re at a rest stop.
I find my voice, and I struggle against him. “What are you doing?”
Victorian studies me. His grip on me tightens. “You don’t remember?”
For a second, my brain races. I don’t remember, and I don’t stick around to try to make myself remember, either. I buck hard and Victorian’s grip breaks; I leap up and take off. A slice of light from several
tall lamps illuminates the side of the concrete building of the rest area; I avoid it and run straight for the shadows and the trees beyond. With arms and legs pumping, I fly through the darkness. I don’t care who sees me. It’s not like there are a lot of people out at the rest stop at two a.m. In seconds I’m sifting through dense pines, and because I’m still wearing the same gauzy skirt, tank, and Vans I had on at Tunnel 9, brambles grab my bare legs and scratch the holy hell out of them. I don’t care. I have to get away. Ease the craving now gnawing at my insides—
I jerk to a sudden stop. Confusion webs through my mind, and my memory races wildly. Craving? I only crave Krystal burgers and Krispy Kremes. What—
A body rushes mine, and I am once again flung to the ground. Without looking, I know it’s Victorian. Sharp pine needles and cones littering the wood dig into my skin as his weight presses against me. My face is smashed into the damp leaves and moss.
Quickly, my hands are tethered together.
“Sorry, love,” Victorian apologizes. He binds my ankles together, too. “You can’t imagine how I hate this, but somehow”—he helps me stand, then looks at me—“you broke free of my suggestion.” His head cocks to the side as he studies me, and the moonlight shooting a slender beam through the trees glances off his face. “Intriguing. I’ve never met another who can break free of my suggestion.”
Rage fills behind my eyes, pounds in my chest. “Well, now you have. So now what? What are you gonna do now, Vic? Throw me over your shoulder like a sack of dog food and haul me to the car?”
The slightest of smiles tips his sensual lips upward. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” In one move, Victorian ducks and over his shoulder I go. He keeps his hands secured around my calves. My skirt is probably up around my waist. We move out of the wood and start across the lawn of the rest stop, past the concrete picnic tables and restrooms. No one was about. Only a few semitrucks parked, their drivers more than likely sleeping. It wouldn’t do any good for me to scream; Victorian would simply suggest to anyone who heard that I was really okay, and they’d believe. So I keep quiet.
Until I hear the lock click, and the Jag’s trunk open.
“No freaking way,” I say evenly. “Victorian, do not put me in there.”
Victorian puts me in there. Lays me gently on a soft down comforter. Warm brown eyes look down at me with obvious regret. “I apologize. I truly hate this. But for you to break free from my suggestion?” He shook his head. “You’re stronger than I thought—than you even think you are. You’re a danger to yourself, Riley. I can’t let anything happen to you.” The trunk starts to close.
“Wait!” I say frantically. He waits. “Where are you taking me?”
Lowering his hand, Vic grazes my jaw with his knuckles. “Somewhere safe. Somewhere I can help you.”
Without another word, he closes me in. The moment he does, another voice rises.
“What the fuck are you doing, man?” a deep voice grumbles. “Open the goddamn trunk.”
“Perhaps you’d be better off minding your own business,” Victorian warns evenly, gentlemanly.
A heavy thump hits the back of the car. “Perhaps you’d be better off shutting the fuck up and opening the motherfucking trunk,” the stranger says. “Now.”
Silence.
“What the fuck—”
The only noise I hear is a choked gurgle.
A car door slams, and in seconds, the purr of the Jag’s engine rumbles around me. I know without having seen what just happened. Victorian fed. In his defense, he tried to warn the guy. In the guy’s defense, he was trying to save me. It’s all so messed up. Victorian shifts gears and roars up the interstate. We’re on the move. To where, I have no clue.
The one question I have right now is, where the hell did a centuries-old vampire get friggin’ tie-wraps? I jerk my ankles and wrists—no go. That thick, hard plastic won’t budge even a fraction. In fact, they tighten. So I relax and try to forget I’m in the back of a trunk, bound. And that back at the rest stop, a man lay dead in the parking lot, his blood drained. I close my eyes, the sound of the road and the Jag’s engine a respite.
A vision of Eli crowds my mind: his face, his jaw, his eyes. The way he touches me; his lips against my skin. More than that, the last words he spoke to me as we drove away from Tunnel 9 resonates inside my memory.
I will come for you.
How would he know where we are headed? The look on his face as I’d driven off with Victorian had been that of anguish, betrayal, then of determination. All in about five seconds. It was not in Eli’s nature to give up. I think he probably was that way, even as a human. Before vampirism. It’s definitely a quality I like.
Time flies by. I drift in and out of slumber. The back of my legs and back are sweaty atop the down comforter, and I wish I could get a small breath of fresh air. I don’t know how long we drive for; but I’ve reached my limit. With the flat of my Vans, I start kicking the side of the Jag’s trunk interior. I kick for maybe five minutes before the car comes to a stop. Victorian’s door opens and closes; the trunk pops. The scents of car tire, motor oil, fill the cool air. We’re in a large area—one that echoes.
“Are you okay?” he asks, pushing my long, choppy bangs from my face. He traces my sooty angel-wing ink on my cheek. Concern is etched in his face.
“You mean besides not having any air to breathe and being hot as hell? Not to mention I’ve had to pee for the last hour. Sure. I’m great, Vic.” I glower at him. “Get me out of here.”
Victorian freezes, glances around. “We’ve got to hurry.” He easily lifts me from the trunk and sets me on my feet. “Are you going to make me carry you in the same way I put you in the trunk?” he asks.
“Nope,” I say. “But as soon as we get to where we’re going, you’re telling me everything.”
He nods, and produces a pair of wire cutters from his pocket. In a few quick snaps, my ankles, wrists are free.
“Let’s go,” he says, slams the trunk and grasps my elbow; he leads me through a parking garage that is slightly lit and mostly empty. We make it to the elevator, and Victorian pulls me inside. I know he’s using all of his suggestion to keep me restrained because I try to break free; this time, I can’t. He pushes the L. Just as the doors begin to slide together, I catch a scent. A familiar scent.
With my next breath I am literally snatched out of the elevator by my arm and flung. I land with a grunt on the concrete floor of the parking garage, ten, twelve feet away, on my side. Phin is there when I stand.
“Are you okay?” he asks. His hands are everywhere, checking me for injury. As I knock him away, my eyes search for Eli. The moment I see him, I leap for the elevator.
“Riley, stop!” Phin yells, makes a grab for me, but misses.
I don’t listen. I can’t listen. Because I know Eli.
He’ll kill Victorian.
Just as I hurl myself at the elevator, Eli and Victorian fall out of it. In a mass of growls, grunts, French expletives and Romanian curses, we all hit the ground. Eli is completely changed—fangs dropped, face contorted, eyes white with a pinpoint scarlet pupil. Victorian’s appearance has totally morphed; it’s unlike anything I’ve yet seen. His skin is ashen, almost dead looking. His eyes are bloodred, his fangs long and jagged. Eli shoves me away, and I once more hit the ground. With a violent curse, I jump up, but Eli and Victorian are already thirty feet away. They’re tangled, snarling, throwing each other. I run up, despite Phin trying to grab me. Just as I reach them, I stop. With one hand around Victorian’s throat, Eli takes his other hand and makes to fling me again. I slap his hand away.
“Eli! Stop it!” I yell, and throw myself between them. It’s like being in the middle of a pair of fighting pit bulls. “Now!”
“Move, Riley,” Eli growls, his voice inhuman, nearly inaudible. He once more tries to hurl me.
I cling to Victorian, but my eyes are fastened onto Eli’s. “No, dammit! Stop and listen to me!”
“Phin!” Eli
shouts. “Get her the fuck out of here!”
With as much emotion as I can summon, I hold Eli’s gaze. “Please, Eli, don’t kill him.” I’m not used to begging, and it doesn’t sit well with me. But in this, I have no choice. “Please.”
Phin’s hand is on my shoulder, and he pulls. I resist.
Eli’s inhuman white glare freezes onto mine. “Why?” he asks, his voice deadly smooth, even, quiet. I can tell he is confused, hurt. Angry is a given. I don’t blame him.
Behind me, Victorian’s body shudders, but I keep my eyes trained on Eli’s. “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “It . . . just doesn’t feel right.”
Eli’s sharp gaze flicks to Victorian. It’s filled with hate. “Doesn’t feel right, Riley? He abducted you.” His grip tightens on Victorian’s throat. “He almost killed you.”
Yeah, I already know all that. It doesn’t matter. “He isn’t the monster his brother is,” I say. “Please. Trust me.”
Eli literally shakes with rage. The scarlet pupils widen, like a cat’s adjusting to darkness.
“Eligius,” I say calmly, and he looks at me. “Move.”
Pure white eyes stare at me in silent debate for what seems forever. Without looking at Victorian, he manages, “Not until he tells me what the fuck is going on.”
Moving from between them, I turn to Victorian. Bloodred eyes seek mine. I keep my hand on Eli’s arm for support, and give Victorian a nod. My stomach churns with anticipation.
Victorian simply breathes for several seconds, head bowed, collecting himself. His shoulders, broad but slim, rise and fall with air I’m certain does not circulate within his lungs. When he lifts his head, the only remnants of his vampiric morphing are his eyes. They remain crimson and fixed on me. “Riley has too much of my brother’s strigoi DNA. It’s . . . changing her.” He glances at Eli. “Changing her in ways even her dark brethren cannot cure.” His Romanian accent is heavier at times, like now. “She is beginning to crave. I’ve seen it.” His voice lowers. “She will kill.”