Saeed wished he’d taken Cerys up on her offer to feed him when he’d had the chance. Dry thirst burned his throat as he stepped into the elevator behind her. Resurging anger rolled through him at the thought that he would have to stand by and watch as she effectively took one step closer to killing herself. Rin knew the toll using her power took on her body. And yet he sent her out to do this terrible thing. She was his most valuable possession, and he treated her with such cool indifference that it made Saeed’s hackles rise. She was precious. Invaluable. Something to be cared for and treasured.
“Here. Drink.”
Saeed looked up to find Cerys thrust her wrist toward his face. The defiant set of her jaw and her narrowed gaze told him her wrist was all he would get. He wanted more. Wanted to bury his face in her fragrant throat and nuzzle the softness of her skin as he drank. He needed her naked in his arms, pliant and willing. He’d get none of that tonight, however. It was her wrist or nothing. It showed how desperate he was to have even the slightest contact with her that he would take whatever he could get.
Saeed cradled her delicate wrist in his hand and brought it to his lips. He sealed his mouth over the vein and sucked gently before breaking the skin with his fangs. Cerys wanted this to be a disconnected moment. Saeed had made concessions tonight but this would not be one of them. He gripped the back of her neck with his free hand and guided her head up, forcing her to look at him.
Her lids drooped as her beautiful mouth went slack. She let out a slow sigh that hardened Saeed’s cock in an instant. He pulled her closer, holding her as tight against him as he could while he drank. Her eyes never left his and the same electric spark he’d felt the first time he’d tasted her blood sparked between them. Tether or not, Cerys was his.
The elevator reached the ground floor, ending their moment much too quickly. With slow, sensual passes of his tongue, Saeed closed the punctures in Cerys’s wrist. The elevator doors slid silently open but he didn’t budge. Didn’t move a single muscle as he continued to hold her gaze, daring her to look away first and break the spell between them.
Only when the doors threatened to slide shut did Cerys thrust her arm out to stop them. A corner of Saeed’s mouth hitched in a satisfied smile. She could fight it all she wanted. All of the denial in the world wouldn’t change the connection that had been forged between them.
“Lead the way.” Saeed held out his arm in invitation. Cerys blew out a frustrated breath as she stepped out in front of him and into the lobby. He followed close behind, admiring the graceful sway of her hips as she walked. He vowed tonight would be the last night she would ever use her power. Rin’s hold on her was about to come to an end.
Cerys headed toward Rin’s sleek black Range Rover and pulled open the passenger door for Saeed before rounding the front of the car to take the keys from the valet. “Where are we going tonight?”
“Bellevue,” she said. “Can’t exactly walk, which is why we’re going in this. She climbed into the driver’s seat and fastened her seatbelt before sliding the key into the ignition. “I’m on a time crunch, so we need to get moving.”
Saeed climbed into the passenger seat and buckled his seatbelt—though he saw little use for it—before closing the door. He had so much to worry about. Rin, Gregor, Cerys’s well-being, and the state of their own souls. His stomach twisted into an unyielding knot. He tried to convince himself that if he could just get them through tonight everything would be okay.
Too bad he didn’t believe his own bullshit.
The drive passed in relative silence. Cerys kept her eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel. The scent of her anger burned Saeed’s nostrils, and her cold stoicism stabbed through his chest. “Do you plan to spend the entire night ignoring me?”
“I have to be back by midnight,” Cerys replied. “It’s already eight. I don’t have much time to get this done and I’m in a shitty mood. So yes, I plan to spend the next couple of hours ignoring you.”
He supposed he deserved the biting remark. He was no better than Rin, giving her orders he expected to be obeyed. He knew she had no choice in the matter, and it was his own anger with himself at being unable to help her that had goaded Saeed’s words. “I’m sorry.”
Cerys snorted. “For what?”
“For treating you no better than Rin.” Saeed turned toward her but she kept her gaze focused on the dark highway. “For behaving as though I have any right to tell you what to do.”
Cerys’s starched posture relaxed as did her death grip on the steering well. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and let out a slow sigh. “I haven’t made a decision for myself in thousands of years. Unless you count my food choices.” He appreciated her attempt at levity but there was nothing light or humorous about this moment. “Can you imagine what that’s like, Saeed? To have lived as long as I have and be at the mercy of someone else’s whims? Can you even comprehend that sort of powerlessness?”
In truth, he couldn’t. For most of his life Saeed had been a leader. Even as a paid assassin at the height of the Crusades, he’d retained a certain autonomy. He’d been a dhampir coven master, and for nearly two centuries had no vampire lord to answer to. He’d never known slavery. Had never been bound to another. Even after swearing fealty to Mikhail, Saeed had never been ordered by the vampire king so much as gently urged.
“No. I cannot even begin to comprehend what your existence has been like.”
“Well.” Cerys let her sarcasm shine through in her tone. “It’s awfully big of you to admit it.”
She was in the mood for a fight but Saeed refused to give her one. After seeing the effects of what using her power had on her, Saeed knew she would need him by her side tonight more than ever. She’d chided him earlier for not having a clear head. She needed him solid in order to protect her. And he needed her emotionally sound and focused. Prepared for the trauma that was no doubt to come.
“Are all souls the same?” He continued to draw her into conversation. He was hungry to learn more about her, including more about what she could do. “Are some souls harder to extract than others?”
Cerys gave a shrug of her slender shoulders. “It depends. No two souls are the same. I wouldn’t say any one is harder to take than the other, but some souls hold on tighter than others.”
“The ones that hold on, do they expend more of your energy?” Another shrug followed by a space of silence. “Cerys, you should know by now that you don’t have to hold anything back with me. There is nothing you could say, nothing you could do, that would diminish you in my eyes. You can speak to me without fear of judgment. I seek only to understand you.”
She didn’t address his heartfelt words but when she spoke again her voice cracked with emotion. “Each time is harder than the last. I don’t know how many more times I can do it. Some days I’m just … tired. For no reason. Rin goes easier on me on those days. Maybe it’s because my own soul is gone that it exacts the toll it does on me.” Her grip tightened once again on the steering wheel. “Who knows? Rin knows as well as I do that I don’t have many more of these extractions left in me. But I think he’s too afraid to put me out to pasture. He’s afraid of losing the power he’s worked so hard to gain. Like tonight. Sending me out to steal a soul even when he knows I shouldn’t.”
Saeed reached over and laid a comforting hand on her thigh. Her hand dropped from the steering wheel to cover his and she gripped his fingers. Her touch was heaven. Even the most innocent contact resonated with him. “Rin has amassed nothing,” Saeed declared. “The power is all yours.”
* * *
Cerys sure as hell didn’t feel powerful. She didn’t really feel much of anything except a healthy dose of fear. What had bothered her most about what Saeed had seen in the Collective wasn’t that he’d violated her privacy. In truth, it was his reaction to what he’d seen that left her shaken. Pretty hard to downplay your impending death when the guy next to you was freaking out in a way you couldn’t allow yourself to do.
She’d learned a long time ago that pleading with Rin for anything was a futile act. He showed no mercy because he had none. She could’ve thrown herself at his feet tonight. Begged him to spare her. Convinced him that tonight’s extraction might be the one that finally killed her. But in the end, it wouldn’t have mattered. Rin cared only for the power he’d amassed. And he would do anything to keep his hold on it.
“Rin has managed to build his reputation in Seattle. He uses me to dissuade anyone who might think about double-crossing him. But that’s all. I’m not powerful, Saeed. I possess the skills to evoke fear.”
Saeed turned toward her. His hand disengaged from hers and left her thigh. She missed his touch in an instant. The loss of that small comfort nearly gutted her. He reached up and brushed her hair away from her face as he quietly studied her in the dark interior of the car. “You are strong. Fierce. Formidable. Breathtakingly beautiful. Intelligent. You possess a magic that Rin could only hope to master. Those are the things that make you powerful, Cerys.”
She wanted to do something. Say something. Thank him for his kind words. But she couldn’t. A knot lodged near her sternum and refused to let the words come out. Saeed made her feel. Something that shouldn’t have been possible. The true power was his. She’d been dead for centuries and the broody, half mad vampire had resurrected her.
“Tell me about your coven.” They were still about twenty minutes from Bellevue and she didn’t think she could talk about herself for another second without losing it completely. She needed to keep her mind off what was coming and the possible consequences of her actions tonight. “I’ve heard the covens are small and some of them at odds with others.”
Saeed continued to idly thread his fingers through the locks of her hair. The sensation was so relaxing it made her want to pull over to the side of the road for a little nap. “My coven was one of the largest in Los Angeles. There were fifty dhampirs under my protection.”
“Were?” Cerys asked. “As in there aren’t fifty of them anymore or they’re not under your protection any longer?”
“No,” Saeed replied. “As in they are no longer my coven.”
“How does that happen? You just walked away?” Cerys knew he’d left his life in L.A. behind, but had it been so easy for him to turn his back on those he’d once considered family?
“It wasn’t an easy decision but one that had to be made.” Regret darkened Saeed’s tone. “I turned the leadership over to two of my own and left willingly.”
“You left your coven on a wild goose chase.” Cerys tried to keep her tone light.
“I did. To find you. And though I miss my family, I do not regret my decision even a little bit.”
Cerys didn’t want to feel anything warm or fuzzy about Saeed’s decision to walk away from his coven to come to Seattle. But she had to admit it made her feel wanted. No one had ever made a sacrifice for her before, especially one as big as the one Saeed had made.
“Do you worry about them?”
“Yes.” Saeed fiddled with her hair and a chill raced from the top of Cerys’s head down her spine. “But I also left the coven in capable hands.”
“It must’ve been hard,” she said through the sudden thickness in her throat. “To leave your family.”
“The sacrifice was worth it.” The rich timbre of his voice resonated through every inch of her. “To find you.”
Wow. Cerys blew out a breath. If he kept talking to her like that, his fingers combing through her hair, she definitely wouldn’t make it through the night without giving in to her desires. A steady thrum settled low in her abdomen and her body flushed with pleasant heat. With the simplest touch Saeed could evoke an intense reaction in her. She couldn’t let herself fall victim to his dark charm again, however. There was only one way this could play out. Saeed might’ve been optimistic, but Cerys knew neither of them was going to get a happy ending.
“You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Why not?” Saeed’s attention on her didn’t waver. “It’s true.”
“Because.” How could she possibly make him understand? “I don’t want to be the reason you left your life behind.” Or the reason for any future regret. “I’m sure your coven needs you. I don’t want to be the cause of any disruption in your life or anyone else’s. I ruin enough lives as it is.”
She hadn’t planned to venture into pity-party territory but she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t feel guilt per se, but the knowledge was there that every time she extracted a soul, she caused someone’s ruination. There were days she was thankful to not have a soul of her own. Otherwise, her guilt would probably kill her.
“My coven has not one, but two vampires to look after them now.” Saeed’s fingers abandoned her hair and the loss of his touch, no matter how slight, caused a hollow ache in Cerys’s chest. “As for ruining lives, you’ve done nothing but enrich mine.”
How? By helping to perpetuate a dream that would never be fulfilled? Their destination came into view and Cerys said a silent prayer of thanks. She didn’t know if she could handle another second, let alone another minute cooped up in the car with Saeed before she lost it completely. She vacillated between wanting to tear his clothes off and wanting to force him to leave the city. Nervous energy gathered in the pit of Cerys’s stomach as she turned onto a narrow dirt lane and killed the headlights. It was stupid to get herself worked up over Saeed. Especially when she might not even make it through the night.
“We’re here.” Cerys killed the engine but didn’t bother to get out of the car. She kept her hands planted firmly on the steering wheel and took several cleansing breaths. “She knows we’re coming.” She wanted Saeed to be as prepared as possible for what might go down. “Rin gave her until tonight to step into line. This isn’t going to be like the rogue werewolf.” Saeed wouldn’t simply be able to step in and compel tonight’s unfortunate victim. She knew he’d try to spare her from what had to be done but he couldn’t. Rin had pronounced judgment and Cerys had no choice but to carry out the sentence.
“You expect a fight?”
And then some. “Rin has had his sights set on her for a while. She controls the largest faction of fae in the state. You won’t be able to compel her. And I’m pretty confident she can kick my ass in a fight.”
“I can think of no creature more powerful than you,” Saeed replied. “What is she?”
Warmth bloomed in Cerys’s chest that Saeed would think so highly of her despite the terrible nature of her power. “Breanne is a bean sidhe.”
Saeed’s brow furrowed. Apparently, the vampire didn’t have much experience with the fae. In the fae hierarchy, the bean sidhe sat at the top of the pyramid. “They’re masters of illusion, fierce in battle, and resilient to magic—including mine.” Which was why Cerys was pretty sure tonight’s extraction would kill her.
Saeed cursed under his breath and his eyes went bright silver. “This is a suicide mission, then. Rin sent the two of us when he should’ve sent an army.”
“Why do you think we’re here tonight?” Cerys asked. “To take charge of an army.”