23
“I KNOW YOU DON’T
UNDERSTAND,” DECLAN HISSED at me as I continued to fight him. “You
don’t know what it’s like to be compelled to do something when you
know it’s wrong.”
He knew what he was
doing was wrong, and yet he did it anyway. There had to be a way he
could fight this. If not, then there was no way I could get away
from him. He was too strong. “You don’t realize just how much of a
hold Matthias has on me.”
His lips thinned.
“Wrong. I do know. I watched you give him back his heart. I saw the
way you looked at him. And I saw you kiss him.”
My stomach sank.
“That was mind manipulation.”
“You didn’t seem to
resist very much.”
“Neither do
you.”
“It’s not the
same.”
Kristoff was waiting
in his throne room, the same one in which he’d originally stabbed
Matthias in the chest shortly after our arrival. He sat in his
high-backed red and gold chair with his fingertips pressed to each
other as Declan pulled me closer.
“Good morning,
Jillian,” Kristoff said. “You’ve had an interesting night, haven’t
you?”
The nanny was right.
Except for the bloody shirt, he could be Matthias. “I think my
reply to that is ‘fuck you.’ As will be my reply to pretty much
anything you have to say.”
“You don’t know how
generous I can be with those who don’t constantly defy
me.”
I glared at him,
trying to fight the fear and despair growing inside me. “Where’s
Matthias?”
“He’s restrained in
the next room.” He nodded toward his left. “I’m thinking I might
set him outside so he can watch the sunrise. I know he approves of
that as another method of punishment to those who cross him. I
think you saw the proof of that last night.”
A shiver raced down
my spine at that pleasant-sounding threat to blind Matthias. “You
ripped his heart out of his chest.”
“Yes, I did. It was
an experiment to see what would happen. Turns out, nothing did, and
he will recover completely in a few days.” He leaned back in his
seat. “And I didn’t thank you very well earlier for your help with
Alex. Very impressive.”
I glanced over my
shoulder to see Declan standing there, his arms at his sides,
staring straight forward like a soldier awaiting orders. “I’m not
really sure why you even wanted him dead. He couldn’t have been
that much of a threat to you.”
“You think because of
his disabilities he was helpless?” He shook his head. “You
underestimated him. He was a vicious creature in his
time.”
“I guess it goes with
the territory.” I tried to clear my mind of any panic I was
feeling. I had to figure a way out of this, but it was looking
pretty bleak. Declan was compelled to help Kristoff. Matthias was
weakened and restrained. I was in deep shit.
“Alex had to die so a
new friend of mine could step up to the plate as leader of the
Amarantos. He has been waiting for years for such an opportunity
and he didn’t want to delay.”
The hardwood floor
felt cold against my bare feet, but the sensation helped me to
concentrate. “A new friend.”
“Alex would have
opposed me now that I’m back. I couldn’t have that. I knew there
was no time to waste. In fact, it was an excellent chance to kill
two birds with one stone because I wanted to show you off to
Stephen. He was impressed.”
Stephen—the new
leader of the Amarantos and Kristoff’s buddy. He was the one
Kristoff planned to give Sara to. My stomach lurched.
“It’s nice to have
friends in high places,” I said.
“He’s here. He
arrived just before sunrise.”
Shit. He was going to
sacrifice Sara this morning so his “friend” could live forever. I
tried to think of a way out of this, but came up blank. But there
had to be something I could do, something I could say to stop this
from happening.
There were too many
obstacles at the moment and, even though I allegedly had strength
equivalent to a dhampyr now, I was still technically only human.
Kristoff was an immortal vampire with a bloody agenda and a small
army to back him up—including Declan.
I tried to remain as
calm as possible—or at least appear that way. “Sounds like you have
everything under control. Why did you want to see me?”
“Why do you
think?”
“My first guess is
that you hate my guts and want to kill me.”
He studied me for a
long moment and I began to feel more hopeless than I did to begin
with. “All of these vampires who are irresistibly drawn to
you—compelled to taste your blood. That must be exciting for
you.”
I blanched. “Not
exciting. Scary and painful, yes. Exciting, no.”
“And you have the
affection of both my son and my brother.”
“Affection is a debatable choice of
words.”
“My brother claims
you, a natural enemy to vampires everywhere, after four hundred
years of claiming no one. He is bound to you for the rest of your
now-extended life.”
I looked up into his
pale gray eyes, identical to Matthias’s. “I didn’t ask him to do
that.”
“I know you didn’t. I
just find it interesting. And then there’s my son, who seems
entirely smitten with you, so much so that he fights my influence
over him even as we speak.”
I didn’t risk a look
at the silent Declan to see if I could notice any fighting. After
all, he hadn’t hesitated to drag me here in the first place. And
smitten? I couldn’t really imagine Declan being smitten by
anything—including me.
“Are you going to
force him to kill me?” The words sounded horrible leaving my mouth,
but I had to ask.
He cocked his head.
“You presume that my solution to every problem is death. I don’t
fully understand why you feel that way toward me.”
“I guess we just
don’t see eye to eye on your plans for the future.”
“Such
as?”
“Such as giving Sara
to your new Amarantos friend as a gift so he won’t stop you from
creating more vampires to rise up against the human
world.”
He raised his
eyebrows. “Sounds like I’m going to be very busy. My true aim is to
make the world a better place. And I could debate this issue with
you for hours, Jillian, but I have a feeling that we will never see
eye to eye on this.”
I hissed out a long
sigh. My hands were clenched so tightly that my short fingernails
bit painfully into my skin. I was desperate to figure out a way out
of this. I couldn’t save the world, but I had to save the kids. One
goal at a time.
“Please, Kristoff,” I
didn’t like the pleading tone to my voice. “Do whatever you want
with me, but you can’t hurt my nieces. And you can’t give Sara away
to someone who’s going to hurt her. It’s not right. You have to see
that.”
He looked down at the
ring that used to belong to Alex. “How did you escape the room you
were in to go to my brother’s side earlier?”
I stared at him.
“Pardon me?”
“I told the guards to
keep you in your room, but you managed to get out. I don’t have
security cameras up there.”
“I cut myself.” I
held up my arm to show him, but the wound was almost healed by now.
“And lured the guard in. He bit me.”
His gaze moved over
the faint pink line. “And you say you’re not an
assassin.”
“I had no choice.” I
hated that I felt the least bit guilty about killing the guard, but
I did.
“The problem with
that story is that Declan was also guarding your room. And yet he’s
still standing.”
My breath caught in
my chest. He’d helped me against Kristoff’s wishes and that likely
wouldn’t be acceptable. “He wasn’t there. Maybe he’d gone on a
break.”
“My brother’s bond
with you makes it impossible to coax the truth from your lips.”
Kristoff appeared mildly frustrated with me, the first emotion I’d
seen on his face during this uncomfortable conversation. “Declan,
you helped Jillian escape and you also stole the heart from my
chambers so she could return it to my brother. Is that
right?”
“Yes,” Declan said,
and I cringed at his automatic and unavoidably truthful
answer.
“Why? I asked you to
guard her.”
Declan’s gaze didn’t
move to me; he stared straight forward. “To guard someone means
that I must protect them. Keeping Jill in that room helpless and
alone wasn’t protection.”
Kristoff was silent
for a moment. “Do you have a knife on you right now,
Declan?”
“Yes.”
“Hold it to Jillian’s
throat.”
Before I could make a
move to scramble away from him, Declan grabbed me from behind and I
gasped as I felt the cold, sharp press of silver at my throat. It
was so close to my skin that any move would force him to slice it
straight into me. I stopped breathing as I clutched at his
arm.
“Kristoff”—Declan
struggled to speak—“don’t make me kill her.”
“I know this is hard
for you. But sometimes we have to do things that are difficult
because there’s no other choice.”
Even though I was
trying desperately not to move, I felt the sting of the blade and
the warm trickle of blood sliding down my throat.
“Declan . . .” I
gasped. “Please . . . fight this . . .”
“I can’t,” came the
strangled reply. “Fuck. Kristoff—please . . .”
A long, tense moment
went by before Kristoff spoke again. “You may drop the knife,
Declan.”
A moment later I
heard the clang of metal as it hit the ground. Declan’s fingers dug
painfully into my shoulders, his breathing labored. I exhaled
shakily, but didn’t try to pull away from him. He fought it and
that must have been very difficult for him.
Kristoff watched us
carefully. “Go get my brother and Stephen and bring them in here,
please.”
Declan let go of me
and strode across the room, opening the door between two
six-foot-tall oil paintings of oak trees and lush, sunny meadows,
and disappeared.
I held a hand to my
throat.
“I spared your life,”
Kristoff said evenly. “I wouldn’t do so for anyone else who’d
crossed me as much as you have.”
I struggled to
breathe and scanned the room. Two guards stood at the far wall next
to the tall archway leading toward the front hallway. “You
obviously need me.”
His lips curved to
the side. “You think so?”
“The only reason I’m
still breathing is because you like what I did to Alex. I proved
myself to you.”
“I expected you to
fail. You didn’t. But despite that and despite what you did to the
guard earlier, you don’t have the killer instinct, do you?” He
didn’t wait for my answer. “However, you could still be a valuable
weapon. The government researchers who held you originally saw
that, too, didn’t they?”
I was so popular at
the moment both vampires and humans wanted to use me for my blood.
I should start charging an hourly rate.
“The Nightshade was
developed to kill vampires, but I wasn’t the one it was supposed to
be given to—it should have been injected into a trained agent. It’s
a fluke that it’s in me.”
He nodded. “Fate
works in mysterious ways.”
Declan returned with
Matthias, pushing him in the room ahead of him. He seemed unharmed
and furious. Another man entered the room as well, tall,
dark-skinned, with a shaved head and the expected pale gray
eyes.
Kristoff stood.
“Welcome to my home, Stephen.”
The man scanned his
surroundings. “It’s been a long time.”
“Too long. But I’m
glad for the chance to renew our friendship. Thank you for coming
out on such short notice. I promise my gift for you will be well
worth it.”
My stomach twisted. I
couldn’t let him give Sara to this monster so he could drink her
blood. Anything I had to do to prevent that, I’d do it. But, damn
it. I didn’t know how to stop this.
Stephen’s gaze went
to Matthias. “Your brother looks terrible. It looks like you’ve
been taking out your vengeance on him rather
extensively.”
Kristoff laughed.
“You know our rivalry has gone on for some time. But right now I’m
the one with the power.”
Matthias kneeled on
the ground, his forehead coated in a sheen of perspiration. His
bloody shirt was gone and his chest was pale and bare. He looked
weak from earlier. He’d need a lot more time to recover from having
his heart torn out and shoved back in. Despite his pallor, his
expression was fierce. “Stephen, you son of a bitch—you’re the
reason Alex is dead.”
Stephen cocked his
head, his face showing nothing but bland interest. “Actually, I
believe we can thank your brother’s secret weapon for that. But I’m
happy to reap the rewards of it. I’ll make an excellent leader of
the Amarantos. Bring it back to its prior glory that Alex attempted
to smother with his misplaced morals all of these
years.”
Matthias looked at me
and I saw the worry in his gaze. It didn’t help ease my mind very
much that everything would work out for the best this morning. His
attention moved to his brother and his eyes narrowed.
“My poor brother,”
Kristoff said. “You do look a wreck. But I have the dhampyr here
now and will allow you to drink from her whenever you
like.”
“I’m guessing there
will be a price for that.”
“Like
what?”
“For me to stand back
and let you offer my daughter up as a sacrifice to help you gain
friends and influence people. But I won’t sign my own child’s death
warrant.”
Kristoff considered
this. “I have to say that I’m impressed. You never put anyone but
yourself first in the past.”
Matthias’s expression
shadowed. “I’ve changed.”
“You’ve become much
too fond of humans over the years. It’s made you
soft.”
“No, it’s made me
think about my actions before I set any master plan into
play.”
“Master plan. I don’t
think you’re capable of having one of those anymore. You’ve been
much too focused on pleasure and wasting your gift of immortality
for the last thirty years.”
“You call it a gift.
I’m not so convinced anymore.”
Kristoff smiled and
glanced at me as I warily watched their exchange. “He plays the
part of hero well, while making me out to be the
villain.”
“The soap operas
always have a good twin and a bad twin,” I said.
“Are you sure which
is which, Jillian?”
I glared at him. “I
think so.”
“Then it would
probably surprise you to learn that it was Matthias who discovered
the immortality ritual. It was he who founded the Amarantos
Society. And it was his master plan for vampires to become a
stronger race and take hold of the world, making humans our blood
servants.” Kristoff spread his hands. “If he told you any
differently, he was lying to you.”
The news crashed over
me and took my breath away for a minute. I felt as if I’d been
struck. I looked at Matthias. “Is any of that true?”
His expression was
unreadable. “All of it is.”
Stephen stood close
by with his arms crossed. He wore a suit that looked designer,
modern, and very expensive that was tailor-fit for his tall, lean
frame. “Matthias read about the immortality ritual in one of his
ancient books of magic and wanted to learn more about it and any
other method to make himself more powerful. That’s why he founded
the society. The entire purpose of the Amarantos is to discover
ways to lengthen life and gain power. It was a spell using dark
magic that originally created vampirism in the first place; the
ritual is simply an extension of that.”
“I drew the line when
it came to the blood sacrifice of a child. But my brother drew his
line in a different location.” Matthias’s voice was flat.
“Kristoff, you’ve seen for yourself the ritual’s effects. It’s
unnatural for anyone to live forever. All things must have a
beginning and an end.”
Kristoff moved to
stand face-to-face with his brother. “I totally
agree.”
I eyed him, waiting
for the punch line. He was admitting that it was wrong? Declan
stood silently six feet to my left. He didn’t meet my gaze when I
glanced at him. However, his brow was furrowed.
“If you touch my
child I will destroy you,” Matthias said, breaking the silence in
the room. “You can’t give her to Stephen.”
Kristoff frowned. “I
never planned to give her to him. That’s not why he’s
here.”
My gaze shot to him.
“I don’t understand. You—you told Stephen to come here so he could
use Sara for her blood.”
“No. I never said
anything of the sort.”
“Then why is he
here?”
He moved toward me
and grasped my chin in his hand to raise my gaze to his. “He’s here
for you, Jillian.”
My eyes widened.
“Me?”
“After what you did
to Alex, he was impressed. I planned to use you as an assassin, but
I feel that giving you to Stephen is a sign of faith between
us.”
He was going to gift
me to Stephen as a slave—one he could use to kill his enemies. The
thought made me equally furious and scared to death that I wouldn’t
be able to find a way out of this mess.
The vampire’s face
showed no expression. “I didn’t see her kill him with my own eyes.
For all I know, she smuggled a stake into the nightclub. I need
evidence that it was her blood before I’ll be
satisfied.”
“Of course.” Kristoff
nodded toward Declan. “Fetch the others.”
Declan soundlessly
left the room and returned less than a minute later with Sara’s
nanny and Noah.
Oh, shit. Not Noah.
I’d wondered where he’d disappeared to when he left the tunnels.
Now I knew.
“Bring them closer,”
Kristoff instructed.
Noah looked worried,
as he should. Both Noah’s and the nanny’s eyes turned to black when
they got within six feet of me and hunger branched across their
faces.
“The problem with
Jillian,” Kristoff explained to Stephen, “is that she’s not a
dedicated killer. Luckily her blood is more than enough to lure the
vampires close enough that they find it impossible to resist the
need to feed from her.”
I shook my head,
feeling frantic and trapped. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Would you rather it
be Sara I was offering up to Stephen like you originally
thought?”
“Of course not.” I
looked over my shoulder. “Declan—”
“Say nothing,
Declan,” Kristoff commanded.
His jaw was tense and
I saw emotion in his gray eye, but Declan didn’t speak or move.
Anything Kristoff said, he had to obey. The thought sickened me
right down to my soul.
Stephen studied the
two hungry vampires from a dozen feet away. His distance to me was
the only reason he seemed unaffected by the Nightshade himself.
“The young man accompanied Jillian to Alex’s nightclub last
night.”
“He
did.”
“Are they
friends?”
“I believe
so.”
“He’ll still bite her
if he was able to resist her before?”
“I can help with
that. Noah,” Kristoff said. “Look at me.”
“No, don’t look at
him—” My voice was strangled.
But it was too late.
He looked, and Kristoff captured him in his hypnotic
gaze.
“You find Jillian’s
blood irresistible don’t you?” Kristoff asked.
“Yes,” Noah said, his
brow furrowed and his jawline tense. “But if I bite her, I’ll die.
That’s a bit of a deterrent.”
“Noah—”
“Yes?”
“Bite Jillian and
drink her blood.”
When Noah turned to
me I saw a wash of blankness in his eyes from being influenced.
Without hesitation, he lunged for me, and it was just like what
happened the night he came back after being sired—a zombielike
hunger replaced rational thought and action.
I screamed as he
grabbed hold of me, his lips peeled back from his fangs, and lunged
for my throat.
Declan grabbed hold
of Noah’s shirt and wrenched him back from me, throwing him so hard
across the room that Noah stumbled and slammed his head against the
wall. It was exactly like the other night. Only this time Noah was
still conscious, scrambling to get back to his feet and come toward
me again. Declan stalked over to him, grabbing him by the front of
his shirt.
“This is for your own
good,” he said, before slamming Noah’s head against the
floor.
This time he was
definitely unconscious. I didn’t have much time to feel relieved
about that when the nanny grabbed me. I shrieked as she sank her
fangs deeply into my arm, paralyzing me immediately so I could only
stare down at her with horror as she drank my blood.
After a few seconds,
she looked up at me, her brows knitting together. “I was so
hungry.”
“Sorry to hear
that.”
And then she was
gone. The ashes that remained of her fluttered gently to the ground
at my feet.
I scanned the large
room to see that everyone present looked surprised by this turn of
events.
“Interesting,”
Stephen said after a moment. He sounded pleased with what he’d
seen. “She’s as deadly as you said she is.”
Kristoff looked
sternly over at Declan. “Why did you stop him from drinking from
her?”
Declan rose from the
floor from his crouched position over Noah. “Because he would have
died.”
“That was the
point.”
Declan’s expression
was tense. “I didn’t want him to die.”
Stephen studied
Declan for a moment. “This is the dhampyr who killed many vampires
in the past—the one everyone thought was
indestructible?”
“Yes.”
“It’s against our
laws to sire a dhampyr. You know very well why that
is.”
“My laws. And I broke them this one time. I was
curious to see what would happen. He’s adapted remarkably well to
his siring. He’s very impressive.”
Stephen pursed his
lips and scanned Declan from eye patch to shitkickers. “I agree.
But he’s unpredictable.”
“As a brand-new
fledgling, he’s strong enough to resist Jillian’s blood while many
older vampires have been too weak to resist—as you just
witnessed.”
I looked across the
room to Matthias. He’d watched everything that had happened
carefully and he met my gaze now. I couldn’t tell what he was
thinking. Telepathy wasn’t part of our bond. Or perhaps it required
a great deal more concentration than I had to spare at the moment.
His attention moved to Stephen, whom he watched very carefully as
if analyzing every word he spoke.
Did he have a plan to
get out of here? Or perhaps now that he knew his daughter wasn’t in
any immediate danger, he was simply going to bide his time until he
got his strength back. While I didn’t like that he’d kept the truth
from me about his role in some of the things he’d attributed to his
brother, I was hoping he had one of those master plans—or, hell,
another of his disappearing acts—up his sleeve.
Unfortunately, he
wasn’t wearing any sleeves at the moment.
“Your son is very
strong willed,” Stephen said.
Kristoff nodded. “But
he bends to my word. What I tell him to do, he does—but I must be
specific. I thought he’d make an excellent bodyguard for me, but
now I’m not so sure. He fights me, even now. It’s because of
Jillian. I believe Declan would choose her life over
mine.”
Stephen laughed.
“You’re surprised about that? He’s still a man. When I take her
with me they’ll be separated. That should help
matters.”
“That’s not good
enough.” Kristoff’s cool gaze scanned the former dhampyr. “Declan,
you’ll do exactly as I say, won’t you?”
“Yes,” he replied
tightly.
“Anything I
ask?”
“Your word is my
command.”
My stomach sank. I
didn’t like where this was heading.
Kristoff held his
son’s gaze for a moment longer. “Drink Jillian’s blood.
Now.”
There was no time to
run. He moved even faster than he had when he’d held the knife to
my throat.
“Declan, no!” I cried
out as he grabbed me from behind, pulled my black hair away from my
throat, and sank his sharp fangs into me.