CHAPTER TWELVE
Not my favorite way to wake up. I didn’t bother opening my eyes, not ready to leave the cool darkness quite yet. You never know when someone might let something interesting slip, and with vampires, it paid to overhear as much as you could.
Liam remained stubbornly silent. I could almost imagine his cold gaze in my mind.
“Perhaps if you looked beyond your own concerns every once in a while, I wouldn’t have had to,” Liam said.
Thomas scoffed. “Bullshit. You were hoping to capitalize on her ability without my interference.”
“I have no need to go to such lengths when your yearling hates you.” Liam sounded coldly amused.
The smallest growl escaped Thomas. “She’s mine, Liam. Not yours. Her secrets, her life, are mine to protect or use as I see fit.”
And he couldn’t understand why I didn’t trust him or want anything to do with him. It was statements like that which reminded me why I’d remained stubbornly independent despite the cost.
“She is yours in name only,” Liam said. “Everything else belongs to me.”
And on that note.
I sat up, not wanting to listen to any more of this.
I glared at both vampires, neither of whom acted the least bit ashamed at being caught talking about me like I was a piece of meat.
If anything, Liam seemed amused.
“How long was I out?” I asked, ignoring all the things that were wrong in the conversation I’d just overheard.
“Not long, only a few minutes,” Liam responded.
I nodded but didn’t make any move to stand. Sitting up seemed to be the extent of my ability right now. Already my head pounded and dizziness threatened to put me on my back again.
“You should be dead,” Thomas said.
I lifted my head as I gave him an incredulous look. Was that a threat?
“He’s right,” Liam said, sounding grimmer than I’d ever heard him.
Not a threat then.
“I returned your weapon to you for a reason,” Liam said heavily.
“You also said only use it in an emergency,” I said, feeling a small twinge of shame.
I’d reacted rather than acted. There was a fine difference between the two. One led to stupid actions, the other to victory. Tonight, I saw the threat and instead of pulling my gun, I’d thrown myself in front of it. What a foolish mistake. I couldn’t believe I’d been that dumb.
“This situation qualified,” he said. “He would have survived several rounds as long as you didn’t hit his head or heart.”
“I’m interested to know how you survived something designed to kill a vampire master,” Thomas said in an idle voice.
At least this I had an answer for. I drew out the small pendant Dahlia had given me and winced. The pretty stone looked like it had been shattered and then glued back together, the number of fine cracks in it almost infinite.
Thomas reached out and studied the pendant. “That is an interesting bauble you have there. Where’d you get it?”
I shrugged. If he didn’t know, I had no plans to tell him. Liam knew. If he wanted, he could inform Thomas.
He set it down very gently, squatting so he could study me carefully. He reached for my hand and paused, his mouth tightening when I drew back the faintest bit.
“Your necklace absorbed a good portion of the attack but not all. I need to assess the extent of the damage,” he said with a forced patience.
“Have Liam do it,” I told him, more to see his reaction than anything else.
“It’s in your best interests that I do this,” Thomas said, giving me a sharp smile as he grabbed my hand and held it in an unbreakable grip. “This is better suited to my skill set than his.”
Liam stood behind him, unmoving. I took that to mean Thomas wasn’t lying.
I forced myself to remain still as Thomas’s power swept through me, brushing against my insides. It wasn’t a bad feeling, more uncomfortable than anything. Like someone shoving a needle into the nerves just under the skin, a thousand pinpricks that made me want to rub my hands down my body to dispel the sensation.
Instead, I sat uncomfortably as Thomas’s gaze turned inward.
Liam loomed over his shoulder, his face just the slightest bit pensive as he watched. The faint worry in the lines around his mouth told me how important this was. As if I didn’t already know.
I’d missed it upon first waking, too distracted by the awful way I felt to notice it, but now, with Thomas’s power calling my attention to it, it was impossible to miss—a piece of magic, wriggling as it burrowed into my shoulder. It felt alien and wrong there. Almost physical as it hunkered down.
I briefly considered finding a scalpel and trying to cut the offensive piece of detritus out, like it was a tumor I could get rid of.
I doubted it’d be that simple. Spook-related things rarely were.
“What happened to the woman?” I asked in an effort to distract myself.
“Dead.” The words were grim.
A soft sigh of regret escaped me. I hadn’t known the woman, hadn’t wanted to either, if I was being honest with myself. I wanted no further ties binding me to the vampires and would have resisted any overtures of friendship from her, would have hardened my heart and erected my barriers so high she never would have had a chance to scale them.
Still, it was sad to think her open gaze and happy smile had been erased from this world. She would have left people behind, people who no doubt cared for her and would miss her now she was truly gone.
Wrapped in all of these thoughts was the belief her death lay at my feet in some way. If I’d been faster, handled things differently, maybe she wouldn’t now be dead.
“She wouldn’t have survived even if you hadn’t brought her to Liam’s attention,” Thomas said, his eyes closed, his power still questing.
I didn’t know if I believed that.
His power began to withdraw and he looked at me, his silver-gray eyes startlingly clear. “Think it through. She was killed as soon as it became apparent she wouldn’t complete her mission. If she had managed to do as ordered, she would have faced the same fate.”
I was quiet as I processed that statement. “Is that what happened to the other vampire?”
He inclined his head, his gaze steady. “His strings were cut as soon as it was clear he was no longer of use.”
I blew out a breath. The thought of being responsible for a person’s death lifted just slightly. I hadn’t realized how heavy that burden had been until it was gone.
Thomas stood. “The person controlling him took care of the task for us. Had he survived, my enforcers would have ended him shortly afterward.”
“It wasn’t his fault. They were being controlled.” My gaze went between the two of them.
It was the only explanation that made sense. I’d seen that blank, vague look before in other victims of compulsion.
“Right?” I asked Liam.
He hesitated before nodding. “I had Makoto look into both of them. Neither one displayed any indications of disloyalty.”
Thomas didn’t look affected by the words. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t afford to let people know vampires can be so easily compelled and the public nature of the attacks would have forced my hand.”
I didn’t like that answer, but I understood it in a way.
Thomas had taken over the city not too long ago. He couldn’t afford to appear weak, and having his own people try to assassinate him did not send the right kind of message to his enemies.
“Beyond that, it is difficult to lift a compulsion. Unless we found the person responsible and killed them, we would never be able to trust them again,” Thomas said, appearing unaffected at the thought of killing his own people.
“How did she die? I thought we were nearly indestructible,” I asked. Beyond severing our heads or burning us alive, it was very difficult to kill most vampires. The older one was, the more difficult.
“We don’t know,” Liam said, folding his arms over his chest. “I have Joseph going over the bodies to see what he can find.”
Joseph was a doctor and understood more about supernatural physiology than anyone else I knew. A benefit to being nearly immortal—it gave you a lot more time to study the topics that interested you.
Thomas stood and circled to my back. I edged forward in my seat, preparing to stand.
A hand on my shoulder pressed me back. A fact I was grateful for when the edges of my vision darkened, dizziness threatening to send me back to unconsciousness.
He pulled aside the strap of my gown and cursed. “Liam, look at this.”
Liam stood and moved around me. His fury hit my back in the next second, the tension from it making me edge forward again.
“She’s been marked by the hunt,” Thomas said.
My stomach dropped. “The hunt? You mean the Wild Hunt?”
The two shared a look over my head. The silence was filled with the heavy weight of unsaid things.
“Liam?” I couldn’t help the tremulous quality of my voice.
“Yes, the Wild Hunt.”
The hunt the vampires were so worried about? The one that had the Fae of the city in a tizzy?
“How can I be marked?” I asked, groping for calm and logic.
“That is a good question,” Thomas said.
Liam stepped around me, his face hard and his eyes glittering. “I have a way of finding out.”
“Stop,” Thomas’s voice rang out, filling the room with power. My breath stuttered in my chest, the compulsion in his words unmistakable.
That didn’t affect Liam as he continued to the door.
Thomas hissed, the sound edging toward a catlike growl. “You will not threaten our position.”
Liam turned on him, his fangs dropping down as he snarled. “They have gone too far this time.”
“We have no way to prove it’s them,” Thomas snapped.
“It’s them alright. We both know it. Someone in the hunt would have needed to mark her, and you know as well as I do that Niamh has most of the lords caught in her thrall,” Liam said, his voice hard.
“It’s not a full mark. Her role isn’t set yet. They can claim this is the effect of the hunt’s magic. They’ll say the hunt chooses its prey,” Thomas argued.
“The lords mark potential prey. They open their victims up to the magic, making them more susceptible for being chosen by the magic,” Liam argued.
“That’s supposition. You said yourself no one truly understands how the hunt works. You cannot go and accuse them based upon guesswork and feelings,” Thomas said.
Frustration and anger were written in every line of Liam’s body. I sat quietly, feeling like a bone two predators were fighting over. It didn’t help to know fear had invaded, sending my stomach rioting.
Liam paced in front of me, his power crackling through the air. Whatever reins he kept on himself had snapped. This was the real Liam—raw, dangerous, savage.
“Then we get her out of here. We hide her,” he said.
I nodded. I was all for this plan. I’d already spent one night being hunted through the woods. Sometimes I still woke, gasping for air, feeling like I was back there being chased and terrified I wouldn’t see the dawn. I had no desire to add another version to that nightmare.
“You, of all people, know how impossible that is,” Thomas said.
Liam’s flinch was barely there, unnoticeable to those who didn’t know him well.
“The hunt will just follow. You’ve seen this.” Thomas’s face was sympathetic.
Liam ran a hand over his face. This was the most discombobulated I’d ever seen him. It brought home how much danger I was currently in.
“Can we get them to take their hunt elsewhere? Or tell them not to hold it?” I asked.
“It’s doubtful that will work,” Thomas said. “They’ve made clear their intentions to start a barrow here. The treaty we have in place with them does not allow for our interference.”
“How does a Wild Hunt lead to establishing a barrow?” I asked, thinking aloud.
Liam stirred. “Fae magic is old magic. Primal. Its roots are deep in the earth. Once upon a time, they were easily able to establish little boltholes close to this world, entire realms they could rule while still touching the magic of this plane. That is no longer the case.”
So, Dahlia had been right in the information she shared last night.
“Another reason I can’t stop the hunt,” Thomas said, almost seeming regretful. “The council is interested in knowing whether they can succeed. Better for it to done under our watchful eye than somewhere our presence isn’t as strong.”
Liam was quiet, his eyes coming to rest on me. I stared back. It was tempting to let him try to protect me from this, to hide me somewhere the hunt would never find me—if such a thing was even possible.
But I had friends here who needed me whether they knew it or not. Jerry, for one. There was also the question of how I got the mark. Leave now, and I might never know and whoever had done this to me could just wait until all this passed to try again. Only next time they might succeed.
Forewarned is forearmed. At least now I knew what I was up against.
Liam read all this on my face. His sigh held a note of frustration and he looked like he wanted to keep arguing.
“We’ll figure this out,” he told me.
I nodded. We would. There was no other choice.
“For now, I say we figure out what happened to your vampires,” I told him.
It would keep my mind busy and away from thoughts of what might happen a few nights from now. There was also the fact that the two matters were connected. It was clear Niamh had a hand in both. Figure out one thing and you were halfway to figuring out the next.
He nodded, reluctantly, still frowning darkly at me.
I prepared to stand. “We should see what we can find out about the bodies.”
“You need blood,” Thomas said, his voice implacable. “You’re weak and can barely stand.”
I grunted, not needing the reminder. Much as I hated to admit it, Thomas was right. I wasn’t going anywhere. Whatever strength I’d managed to gain from Liam’s blood, it was gone now. Wiped away as if it had never been.
I hadn’t felt this weak since waking up from my change. I was as unsteady and exhausted as a newborn.
The magic on my shoulder flexed, reminding me of another reason I needed to find strength. Right now, it seemed dormant, content to remain where it was. That probably wouldn’t last. When it acted, I needed to be at my best, not my worst.
I settled back and nodded.
Thomas seemed slightly surprised by my capitulation, even as he turned away to summon refreshments.
I sighed. Sometimes I hated being as weak as I was.
Before any of us said anything, a soft knock came at the door.
“Enter,” Thomas called.
Deborah slipped in, her gaze lowered submissively. A companion of one of Thomas’s vampires, Deborah was human and regularly donated blood to her chosen vampire.
I held myself stiff as I watched the three people in the room. Thomas knew my rules. I didn’t feed from humans.
“How may I be of help, master?” Deborah kept her voice diffident and her eyes lowered. It was a complete difference from the strong, assertive woman I’d met before.
I had to wonder if this was the appearance she gave to all vampires or just something reserved for Thomas.
“My yearling is in need of your services,” Thomas said. He watched me much as a cat watched a mouse, waiting for the inevitable explosion.
His request startled her, enough that she dropped the facade, her head jerking up as her gaze met mine. There was anger there, loathing too. She didn’t want to be my walking meal for the night. That much was clear.
She lowered her head and said, “Of course, master.”
I snorted. He would have respected her more if she was honest.
All companions wanted to join the ranks of the undead. It was why they let the vampires feed from them. It was why they accepted a status of being second class, little more than indentured servants, from what I could see. It was true some vampires treated their companions with love and affection, but a human would never be the dominant in any relationship. Not even an equal, if what I’d seen was anything to go by.
If Deborah thought this little display would be more conducive to obtaining her lofty goal of the kiss, she should think again. Vampires respected strength and stubbornness. They had to. Too many of them succumbed to death during the transition. Only the strongest survived.
“No, thank you,” I said politely.
Deborah didn’t like that. She might not want to be my donor, but she also couldn’t fail to notice the insult being rejected would bring. Not that I meant it as a rejection.
I turned my attention to Thomas. He stared back at me expectantly.
“You know I don’t drink from humans. Bring bottled blood if you have it, and if not, I’ll wait until I get home,” I told him firmly.
It was the only way to be with this vampire. If I gave him even a little bit of space, he’d push for more. He did it time and again.
“You’re being stubborn,” he said. The slight smile on his face said he didn’t truly object.
Before I could respond, he leaned closer, his eyes hypnotic in their intensity. They were liquid silver as they became all I could see, so focused on them the rest of the world faded around us.
Power arced between us, warmth spilling through me.
“You’re so thirsty,” Thomas said, his voice a thrumming purr. “You want to drink and her blood would taste so good.”
He looked at the woman, my gaze turning with his until my vision spun down to Deborah’s slim neck. Her pulse pounded at the base, calling me, tempting me.
My gums ached as my fangs descended, my gaze never wavering from that pulse. It was a siren call, a demand, one that overrode the small voice at the back of my mind telling me I didn’t want to do this—that following this urge to its conclusion would cost me more than I could understand.
Just a small taste wouldn’t be so bad. I’d been so good for so long. Feeding from her wasn’t so different from feeding from Liam. It wouldn’t make me less human; It just made me what I was. Vampire. Top of the food chain. The only predator that mattered.
The world popped and I was standing before Deborah, the fear pouring off her potent as it called to me, whispering to my most base instincts.
I grabbed her shoulders, yanking her to me.
“Easy,” Thomas crooned in my ear. “You don’t want to hurt her.”
No, I didn’t. I needed the blood in her veins. Hurting her might cost me that.
I bent lower, my fangs piercing the delicate flesh. The first taste of blood brought me back to myself, the warm copper coating my tongue restoring my sanity.
A strong hand on the back of my head kept me from jerking back.
“Not yet. You need more,” Thomas said.
His grip was implacable, impossible to budge. My defenses teetered as blood filled my mouth.
“Swallow, my dear,” Thomas urged.
I couldn’t. Blood dribbled out the side of my mouth.
“Aileen, swallow.” His voice turned dark with power, impossible to resist.
The first mouthful overrode my willpower. After that, I drank without thought, pressing the woman against me as I fed from her throat, that which made me Aileen, washed away on a sea of decadent life. It was like biting into a lightning bolt, powerful and bold, but instead of being singed, it restored the pieces of me that I didn’t even know were missing.
“That’s enough. Let go now,” Thomas said. A pressure on my neck forced me to unlatch.
I made a wordless sound of protest. The urge to drink the source dry was almost undeniable. I struggled for a long second, trying to fight my way back to the nectar of life. He held me easily, with no more effort than he might use to subdue a week-old puppy.
“Shh, enough of that,” Thomas murmured, his hands strong as he turned me away.
I came back to myself with a start, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and the taste of blood in my mouth. The wound I’d made at her neck had already closed, the anticoagulant in my saliva and something about my bite working to make sure she didn’t bleed out. Within the next few minutes, the wound would be fully-healed and it would be as if this had never happened.
Abruptly my walking meal bag became a person again. Someone with thoughts and dreams of their own. Someone I had just turned into my dinner and if I hadn’t been stopped, would have gladly murdered so I could gorge myself on her blood.
Deborah wavered and staggered to a chair, lowering herself with shaky hands. Her skin was pale, and she appeared frail, as if a stiff wind might blow her away.
I stared at her, stricken, my entire being frozen, the warmth of her blood still in my mouth. Despite having just fed, I wanted more. I wanted to do it again and again. I couldn’t wait until the next time.
My line had been crossed. The last line I’d held onto with a fanatic’s zeal—gone. Erased so easily. As if it had never been.
“You may leave,” Thomas told Deborah kindly. Despite the soft words, it wasn’t a request, the steely undercurrent in them making it clear there was only one correct action.
Deborah understood and nodded, her gaze skating to my horrified, sick expression before she lifted herself out of her chair. She snuck one last glance at me as I stared at her feeling more lost and alone than I had felt since day one of this new life. Her path to the door was wobbly and unsure. I’d done that. I’d taken enough that walking was difficult.
She needed a cookie. Orange juice. Something with sugar, I noted distantly. An urge to laugh struck me followed immediately by an urge to cry. I was treating this like she’d just given blood to the Red Cross, not like I’d buried my fangs in her throat and sucked her down like she was an ice cream sundae.
No one spoke until we were alone in the room.
“I feel sick,” I said, bending over as my stomach rebelled and I made a small retching sound. Thomas grabbed my chin and held my mouth closed, his fingers bands of steel around my jaw.
“Oh no, you’re not going to dishonor your donor by throwing up her life’s blood,” he said.
I breathed through my nose, fast pants that did nothing to quell the nausea. A prickling sensation teased the bridge of my nose as tears threatened. I held them back through sheer force of will, unwilling to let this man know just how much this little experience had devastated me.
“Calm a stór. Calm. Things are not so bad. You are still you. There is no need for this carrying-on,” Thomas crooned, his hard hold turning soothing. His thumb caressed the skin just below my jaw.
I jerked out of his grip as soon as I was able, unable to help the half-sob that tried to well up. I would have crawled across broken glass if it would have meant escaping him.
My actions seemed to amuse him rather than deliver insult, and he watched me go with a small twist of his lips, his expression calm and unaffected.
He remained crouched for a long moment before standing, adjusting the lapels of his coat and tugging his cuffs down.
“You can thank me later, deartháir, for doing what you could not.” Thomas’s gaze was unsympathetic as he looked to where I huddled in on myself, trying to contain all the broken pieces of me, the ones that had been ripped open again with one simple act— parts I’d stitched together with impossible wishes and broken dreams and held together with sheer willpower and a staunch need to deny the truth.
It felt like I’d been stripped bare, sanded down until all the wounds that had only partially healed were visible again, the air stinging their half-formed scar tissue.
“Why did you do this?” I asked, my voice barely sounding like mine. It was raw and bewildered.
“You like to lie to yourself,” Thomas said. “Tell yourself pretty stories about how human you are, but you’re not; pretending otherwise will only hurt you in the long run. I made you face the truth. One day you will thank me for this.”
“No, I won’t.” Pure conviction sounded in my voice. There was no way I’d be thanking him for this. Never. Not in a million years.
I was beginning to regret stepping in the way of that spell. I should have let it have him.
“There were better ways,” Liam said, his voice quiet in the silence.
Thomas’s snort was elegant, as was everything else about the man. It made me want to rend and tear, leave him maimed and feeling like his world had just been yanked from him. “You know there wasn’t. Not when her blood had already gone toxic.”
The words were delivered like a blow.
Liam went stiller than I’d ever seen, his chest not moving with breath. He was like a painting, life size but just as remote. Slowly, his gaze swung to me a question in his eyes.
I looked away, hugging myself tighter. I might not have realized how bad things had gotten but I couldn’t deny something was drastically wrong, even to myself.
Realization and something like a soft regret filled his expression.
It made me want to withdraw even further into myself, as if I’d disappointed him in some way.
“She had already begun rejecting blood. Had I let it continue she might have entered devolution.” Thomas’s gaze was brooding as he looked down at me. “She needed human blood. Your blood would not have been enough.”
I remained still, afraid that if I moved, if I shifted even a little bit, the things that made me Aileen Travers would shatter and what would emerge would no longer be me. That thought was scarier than any monster I’d ever faced.
“You’re going to hate me for this,” Thomas told me. “Rail at me, despise me, tell yourself all the pretty lies, but in your heart, you know I did you a favor. Know this my a stór, I will always do what I feel is best for you. Your conscience is clear. I made you take this step. Just like I’ll make you take the next.”
He sauntered out of the room without waiting for another response.
I stayed where I was. This all felt like a dream, a horrible nightmare.
Liam’s sigh was heavy as he reached for my shoulder. I flinched away from his touch.
“Don’t touch me. Never touch me again,” I said, my tone steely, determined. It sounded like someone else talking, someone more put together than me, not this hot mess who was barely holding herself together.
“Aileen.”
Just that. Just my name.
I moved to the door, my back bowed, my steps as tentative as a century-old grandma. “We have a pair of bodies to look over.”
I didn’t wait for an answer, leaving the room where I’d lost the last remnants of my human self without a backward glance.
Liam would follow or he wouldn’t. If he didn’t, I’d head home and forget. Or maybe I’d head for Dahlia’s for a little help in forgetting. It didn’t really matter to me.