13
TERROR RIPPED THROUGH
ME. I STAGGERED BACK from him until my foot hit something. I looked
down to see it was Matthias—the real one—unconscious on the
floor.
“Your other friend is
downstairs.” He cocked his head to the left. “But, don’t worry.
He’s not dead.”
Kristoff was
identical to Matthias right down to the last detail. Now that I was
paying attention I saw he was wearing different clothes, but it was
dark in here and I hadn’t been concentrating when I’d ran
in.
“Cat got your
tongue?” he asked after a moment.
“What have you done
with my sister’s children?” My voice was hoarse. “Where’s
Sara?”
He pulled a small
stuffed lamb out of the crib and looked down at it. “The children
are fine.”
Kristoff had been a
looming threat, something that stayed in the distance to be dealt
with by someone else. I hadn’t expected to meet him face-to-face.
My mind felt numb with panic.
He closed his eyes
and inhaled, his nostrils flaring. The hunger pattern branched
around his mouth and eyes. Even that was identical to Matthias. I’d
thought it was like a fingerprint, something that each vampire
showed differently, but it seemed as if twins shared that as well
as their appearance.
Through my fear, it
reminded me that this vampire wasn’t without an Achilles’ heel. He
would be affected by my blood. If he bit me he would lose his
immortality much as Matthias had and there would be the chance to
kill him. I’d volunteered for this. Funny how it had seemed like a
reasonable idea before he was right here in front of me. Now it
seemed to be a dangerous and deadly idea. But there was no going
back now.
If I could get him to
drink my blood, he was one wooden or silver stake away from
complete destruction.
I forced myself not
to cringe away from him as he drew closer.
“Your scent is just
as tempting as they say it is.” He swept my hair off my throat and
leaned closer. I tensed as I felt the cool brush of his lips
against my neck before the sharpness of his fangs scraped against
my skin. My heart thundered in my chest. He was going to do
it.
But I couldn’t let
him. The thought crashed over me. I couldn’t let him bite me, not
yet. I didn’t know where the children were.
I didn’t have to
worry. He pulled away with a small smile on his lips. It looked
exactly like Matthias’s smile.
“You don’t have to be
afraid, Jillian. I know, despite your enhancements, you’re only
human. You’re not an assassin. You’re an innocent in all of this.
I’ve seen you in his mind—someone who might seem so dangerous to
us, but in reality needs to be protected. One who is as fragile as
she is deadly. I see why he’s so intrigued by you.”
Matthias saw me as
fragile and deadly. A delicate flower with an unfortunate
aftertaste. I wasn’t sure I entirely agreed with him. I wasn’t that
fragile, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. Maybe the
vampire knew me better than I thought he did.
I grappled for
something to say. “It’s torture for him to be near me. You must
have seen that through your bond with him. Standing this close to
me is risky for you.”
“I saw everything,
Jillian. All I needed were a few moments with his mind open to me
and I saw everything I needed to know. Your scent is torture. And I know you’re a risk to me.” He
walked a slow circle around me, his gaze taking in every inch as I
stood there with my arms crossed tightly over my chest, afraid to
move. Afraid to breathe.
I watched him warily.
“You’re not going to kill me.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not?”
I shook my head. “You
never would have gone to the trouble of kidnapping my nieces if you
were just going to kill me. You want to use me for something. And
you think I’ll behave if you threaten the people I
love.”
“Jillian.” His smile
didn’t waver. “You’re spoiling my surprise.”
“What do you want
from me?”
“All in good
time.”
His cool demeanor
wasn’t helping me to relax even a fraction. In fact, it was scaring
me much more than if he’d been a raving lunatic.
There were footsteps
in the hallway outside the nursery and I looked over my shoulder to
see three men standing there. One I recognized as Meyers,
Matthias’s former blood servant who’d brutally cut the key from his
body.
“Your majesty?” he
said, his eyes widening slightly at the sight of me.
“Take her and the
others.” One of the men came toward me and grabbed my arm so
tightly I gasped with pain. “But please be gentle with her. I don’t
want her bruised.”
They stuck a piece of
duct tape over my mouth and forcibly dragged me out of the room,
down the stairs, and shoved me into the back of a van in the
driveway leaving me undamaged but shaken. A few moments later, the
unconscious bodies of Matthias and Noah joined me.
My mind was a blur
but I forced myself to remain calm and not to lose hope. I was
alive. That meant there was still a chance to find a way out of
this. I seemed to lose hope when there were lulls, when I had too
much time to think about the poison in my veins and what it meant
for the future. When I was in danger, that was when my hope rose up
inside of me ready to fight for the chance to live another
day.
I didn’t have to be
strong just for myself. I had to be strong for my nieces, for Sara,
and for Matthias and Noah.
Kristoff wanted me to
live. For now. And he thought, through what he’d seen in Matthias’s
mind, that I was no danger to him, apart from my blood. I could
work with that.
The van didn’t have
windows so I couldn’t see where I was going. We drove for nearly an
hour before the van came to an abrupt stop and the back door
opened. The first thing I saw was the ocean, black and expansive
with the moon reflected overhead. To my left was a huge luxury home
with no close neighbors. It was the type of home a movie star might
own. One of the A-listers who had tens of millions of dollars to
burn on a nice piece of oceanside real estate.
The thugs pushed me
forward toward the door, which opened before we even reached it. A
thin girl with mousy blond hair stood there with a baby in her
arms—Sara. My chest tightened and I tried to go to her, but the
thug kept me firmly in his grip so I couldn’t move where he didn’t
want me to. The girl smiled at us and I saw her fangs.
“My brother’s child
is fine, as you can see,” Kristoff said from a bit behind me as I
was pushed through the doorway and into the foyer of the house.
“And the other children are in there.”
I looked to my right
to see an open door leading into a huge room. Meg and Julie were
inside the room, seated in front of a large flat-screen television
that was showing Finding Nemo. They
looked unharmed, and were watching the movie with undivided
attention. I wasn’t sure if I should have felt sick or relieved
when I heard them laugh. They were having fun. They had no idea
where they were or what this meant.
Kristoff was in front
of me when I turned around. “Let me take care of this for you.” He
reached forward and ripped the tape off my mouth. It hurt like
hell.
“You need to let them
go. Please. I’ll do what you want without any duress.”
“Come.” He turned and
continued walking through the home to the other side, away from the
kids, until we reached a large room that looked like a banquet hall
with a massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Large and
expensivelooking oil paintings of landscapes adorned the walls that
were painted a burgundy color. The crown molding was
gold.
The room was empty
apart from a large red chair with gold arms and legs near the back.
It was a throne room in Malibu.
“Welcome to my home,”
Kristoff said, following my gaze as I took in my surroundings.
“It’s so good to be back close to the ocean again. My brother chose
to live underground. I am not my brother. I like the fresh air and
the smell of the ocean.”
My mouth was dry.
“Please, we need to—”
He held up a hand.
“Just a moment, Jillian. There’s something else I have to deal with
first.”
Matthias was shoved
across the room. The vampire behind him pushed him so hard that he
fell to his knees on the hardwood floor. Dread slithered through me
at how powerless he looked at the moment. He’d drank Jade’s blood
in order to regain his strength so he could face off against his
brother. It looked as if that was in vain.
They looked so much
alike. Except one was sprawled on the ground and the other now sat
on a throne looking down at him.
Kristoff’s face held
concern, which I hadn’t expected. “You’re unwell.”
Matthias glared up at
him. “I’m fine.”
“I’d sensed you were
weakened. This is more than I expected.”
“Do you feel sorry
for me?” Matthias pushed himself up to his feet. “It’s so nice of
you to care.”
“Your tongue’s grown
sharper in thirty years. Unfortunately for you, it’s not much of a
weapon.”
“I assume you want to
kill me.” Matthias said it bluntly, and it worried me that he’d
already given up hope at the thought he was
outmatched.
“How can I kill
somebody who’s immortal?” Kristoff asked, watching Matthias
carefully for his response.
Matthias exchanged a
glance with me. “The ritual.”
“I know it worked,
just as I said it would. You doubted me. You shouldn’t have.” He
glanced at my disgusted expression at the mention of the
immortality ritual. “You told her about it, didn’t
you?”
“It’s disgusting,” I
said, unable to hold my tongue.
“What
is?”
He wanted me to say
it out loud. “You murdered your own child so you could have the
chance to live forever.”
I felt a shove at my
back that made me fall forward onto my knees, hard enough to
bruise.
The vampire behind me
hissed. “Watch your mouth, you worthless human bitch. The only
reason you’re not dead yet is because the king allows you to
live.”
Kristoff inhaled
slowly and released it. “I thought I asked that Jillian not be
harmed?”
The vampire’s fierce
expression wavered. “But your majesty—”
“Please take him away
and deal with him. Now.”
A glance over my
shoulder showed the vampire who’d shoved me was being dragged out
of the room by one of the five vampires with us. The king spoke and
his subjects obeyed. The thought didn’t ease my mind.
Kristoff’s gray eyes
got a faraway look in them. “What I had to sacrifice for the ritual
was not something I took lightly. Being king means one must make
difficult choices that not everyone understands. You also made a
difficult choice recently. You chose to have your friend Noah sired
rather than let him die.”
“How do you know
that?” Matthias demanded. “You were only in my mind the once and it
was before that happened.”
“Thirty years of
slumber didn’t weaken me as you might have thought. It strengthened
me. You’re weak. Therefore, I can read you without you even
realizing it.”
“Forget about mind
reading.” I swallowed bitterly. “If you’re comparing what happened
with Noah to what you did to your daughter, it’s not even in the
same universe. Don’t you feel the least bit guilty? She was your
daughter.”
“Of course I feel
guilty, Jillian.” A serious expression now creased his brow. “It
weighs on my conscience to this very day.”
I was surprised to
see his pain, but it didn’t change anything. “Do you regret
it?”
“Would that make a
difference to you?”
“Probably
not.”
“Blood sacrifices are
necessary for all dark magic like what was used in the immortality
ritual. All this time I never knew for sure if it worked as it was
supposed to or if my daughter gave her life for
nothing.”
There was no
friendliness in the look in Matthias’s eyes. “It worked. If you
know everything, then you also know that I drank Jillian’s blood.
What kills all other vampires didn’t kill me.”
“I do know
that.”
Matthias hissed out a
breath. “You forced me to participate in that ritual. You made me a
monster just like you, never satisfied with what you already
had.”
Kristoff sighed.
“You’re such a noble man, aren’t you? Or so you’d like everyone to
believe.”
There were two
vampires guarding the archway leading into this room and I knew
another two were still standing by the front doors. This place was
like a vault. I had no idea how I was supposed to escape with the
children, but I had to figure it out as soon as possible. “If you
forced him to drink the blood in that ritual, I can’t really blame
him.”
Kristoff paced to the
other side of the room before returning. There was stress and old
disappointment in his expression. “All of Matthias’s protests were
in vain. Once he got a taste of the blood he eventually had to be
pulled away from her still body. Matthias is the one who killed my
daughter and yet he still blames her death on me.”
I looked at Matthias
with horror that deepened with every word Kristoff
spoke.
His brow was deeply
furrowed and he stared at the ground. “You set me up to end her
life against my will—to use my guilt against me. It was another
form of manipulation to keep me in line and away from thoughts of
becoming king.”
This was an ancient
power struggle between brothers. A rivalry that spanned centuries.
I felt it—whatever love they’d had for each other in the past had
soured and turned black with hate. It made me think of Cain and
Abel—one bad, one good—whose deep-seated rivalry led to the very
first murder.
Kristoff stood from
his seat and walked over to face his brother. “We were so close for
so long. We thought alike, we acted alike. This is the unfortunate
event that finally drove us apart. I thought it would be just the
opposite—that I was willing to share my discovery with you. I
wanted you to live forever just like me and not have to fear death.
Instead it prompted you to steal my throne, thinking that you knew
best. And what has it gotten you?”
“A chance to do
things my way for once.”
His gray gaze flicked
to me. “You believe you’re no longer immortal because of Jillian’s
blood.”
There was an edge of
despair in Matthias’s eyes then. Kristoff did know everything in
his mind. If there were no secrets then there was no way Kristoff
would ever drink my blood knowing what the consequences
were.
Kristoff studied his
face. “It’s true, isn’t it? You believe a stake through your heart
will end your life.”
“Why do you ask if
you already know how I feel?”
“Good point. So a
little poison is all it takes to wash away everything we did,
everything that was sacrificed.” Kristoff drew close enough to
whisper in his ear. “Let’s see if you’re right.”
There was a silver
dagger in his right hand. I saw it only a moment before Kristoff
sliced it into his brother’s heart.