by E. M. Moore
Lex whispered into her mic. “Moving down. Clear until now.”
I blinked, in awe of her. Nothing like this had ever been planned out in the history of the vampire world, at least not to this extent. The fact that she took charge and planned all this was extraordinary. When we got out of this, I’d have to make sure I told her so. In reality, it should’ve been her getting the Medal of Valor, not me.
They crept forward and I fell in line behind Zeke. The door to the basement creaked, and the five of us paused before moving forward again. If anybody had heard that, they’d probably be on their way to check it out. Swiftly now, T.J. raced down the steps, his feet hitting the cement sounding nothing but light scuffling that could’ve easily been an animal. Closer and closer we moved until we were at the bottom door. “In three,” Lex said. “Three, two…” T.J. stomp kicked the door. It busted open, swinging on the hinges until it slammed against the wall.
We all moved forward, stakes at the ready in our hands only to come up short. In the middle of the room was a vampire. One, lone vampire. He sat in a chair like a king in front of his congregation as we all fanned out on either side of Lex, gazing at the darkened corners of the room for any threat. It quickly became apparent that there was no one in the room but him. He smirked, clearly delighted by our surprise quickly followed up by our disappointment. “He said you would come. As you can see, he’s not here. Pity that you should come all this way for nothing.”
T.J. started to move forward, but Lex held her hand out. “Why has he left you here?”
He smiled, his teeth razor sharp. “To prove a point. He will have his way. He will always be one step ahead, and you will always be one step behind. Dumont is the oldest vampire living. He knows all, sees all. He won’t be kept in the shadows anymore. He will reign as the leader of all vampires. In his rightful place.”
Anger surged through me. I’d been so close to living the way I wanted, in getting everything I never knew I wanted. And here we were, thwarted again. It did always feel like we were a step behind. Out of reach of Lex, I strode forward this time, my stake poised for a kill shot. “Where is he?”
“I’ve lived a long life. I would love nothing more than to die saving my master. In fact…” The vampire pulled his jacket apart. My legs immediately felt like iron weights, cementing me to the floor. I’d seen enough movies to know what he had strapped to his chest. A bomb. A straight up bomb. “I’d already planned on it. You’ll get nothing from me, I’m afraid. As soon as this goes off, Dumont will know Soren gave him up. Loyalty is everything to Dumont.”
“Step back, Ariana,” T.J shouted.
“Retreat!” Lex said. “Bomb. Fall back, fall back.”
I heard the echoes of Team Two and Team Three responding, but none of it registered in my brain. Paralyzed with fear, the emotion did as it had always done, frozen me in time with no way out. I thought I’d cleansed myself of that. I thought I’d conquered fear by going through guardian training, of taking control of my life, but the thing was, maybe you weren’t supposed to conquer fear. Maybe it would always win over you. I was a fool to think otherwise.
“Move, Ariana!”
Images of my mother popped into my head one-by-one, passing through like a camera roll speeding by. Then, it was the princes’ turn. All four of them smiling, caring, and embracing me as if I was an outsider looking on. Before I could even think it, my hand flicked out and the stake spiraled through the air, catching the rogue vamp in the throat. His eyes bugged out of his head, his fingers clawing upward as if he could save himself, and well, he actually could if he had some blood. The bomb was in the way of a chest shot, but it had to be done. If there was any way I could stop that thing from going off, I had to try. It wasn’t just us that I was worried about. It was about the countless homeless people that used these factories to survive in. It was about the other two teams that had risked their lives to be here as well. Sure, there wasn’t anyone else in this building but us right now, but what about the one next door, and the one after that? They didn’t deserve to get caught up in this fight.
I grabbed the other stake from my waist band and brought it up over my head before lunging forward and plunging it down into his chest in an arc that I hoped missed the bomb entirely and passed right under it to his chest. I watched the vamp’s face as the stake hit home. The life fled from his widened eyes until his head fell back on his shoulders and a dark red spot leaked out like ink blots on his shirt. “The bomb,” I called out. “Is it on?”
Matthews rushed up behind me, pushing me out of the way. His gaze roamed over the dynamite and wires as two hands pulled at me from behind. Finally, the grip tightened and yanked hard that I fell back into Zeke who pushed me toward the door ahead of him.
A toneless beep sounded. Followed by another shortly after. “Run!” Lex called out. She waved Zeke and I forward and we barreled out into the stairwell, taking steps two or three at a time. Others were behind us, but Lex’s words kept echoing forward. “Faster. Keep going.”
We were at the top of the stairs, just entering the hallway when the building shook like a major earthquake had split the Earth’s core at our feet. I fell to my knees and turtled, my hands coming up to protect my head. After the initial ground shudder, I cringed at the sound of stone and rock crumbling. It took moments before realizing I was fine, I was safe, and then I leapt to my feet. Zeke was right behind me, still hunched over. I pulled him up by the arm, and we went back through the stairwell door. A cloud of dust rushed upward as we ran inside. “Lex? T.J.? Matthews?”
Coughing sputtered out, spurring us both on. Zeke got to the stairs first where we found T.J. just dragging himself to a sitting position, his hair caked with dust and rock shards. I scanned him for injuries. Finding none, I asked about Lex and Matthews.
His voice was thick and dry, cracking, when he answered. “They were right behind me.”
At that moment, “Help!” sounded from below us. It was Lex.
Zeke was right there, running down the stairs, slipping on the rock fragments and waving the smoke of dust from his face. I helped T.J. to his feet and then followed Zeke as T.J. hobbled after us. Lex had an unmoving Matthews by the shoulders, trying her best to carry him up the stairs.
“He got the brunt of it. We need to get him out of here!”
I ran past her and grabbed his legs. One fell at an awkward angle, and I hissed before looking at his face. Blood streamed down into his eyes and lower, caking his entire face and chest. He made no motion or emotion as we carried him. My stomach clenched, but I couldn’t look away from Matthews face and the deadened look. With so much catastrophe around us, his face was slack, virtually void of anything and one thought ran through my head. Dead.
15
The plan blew up in our face. Literally.
With every step we took, we were thrown two steps backward. Not only did the plan fail epically, Matthews was in critical condition. A guard from Team Three who’d been trained in the medical field was able to stabilize him until we got back to The Fort, but Stephan and the nurse weren’t sure if he’d make it. He was hooked up to a myriad of blinking machines and pouches with clear liquid running through its tubes and then eventually into the IV in his hand.
He was there because of me. If I’d left when they told me to, he might not be like this. The vamp was going to off himself anyway. Why did I have to step forward?
We were silent on the car ride back, barely uttering anything to anyone as Lex sat in the back with Matthews and T.J. drove at furious speeds. Neither of them would even look at me, making the guilt sour in my stomach. What had I done?
A hand squeezed my shoulder where I was perched at Matthews’ feet. The princes had all come to see me when I arrived back, but only Nic had stayed with me. Stephan was of course busy. Christian and Connor were quickly called away by their father as I was sure Nic had been too, but he just didn’t go. Maybe it was his way of rebelling for not being able to go with us on the mission, but after what
happened, it only played into why Gregor didn’t want him going. I looked up to find Nic staring down. “Let’s get you back to your room.”
I nodded once. There was a fine sheet of grit all over my skin. My eyes were as dry as sandpaper, and my limbs ached from the force that knocked me to my knees. Zeke hadn’t stuck around when we got back, but Lex and T.J. were still there. I looked at them briefly before leaving. T.J. looked up, his eyes soft and nodded once. My gaze landed on Lex for a few seconds, but she didn’t make any motion that she even recognized anyone in the room. She hadn’t stopped staring for hours.
Nic guided me through the doors. We said goodbye to Stephan and made the short trek back to the guardian building. A group of trainees in the common room stopped talking as we made our way through. I didn’t even look in their direction. Stopping to talk was the last thing I wanted to do right now, not when the guilt was so heavy like a never-ending weight on my shoulders. If Matthews didn’t recover, what would that mean?
Nicolai pulled a key to my room out of his pocket and let us in and then locked the door behind us. He took me right into the bathroom and positioned me in the center of the floor. Tilting my chin up, he said, “Let’s get you in the shower, Ri.”
I nodded numbly, but didn’t move. He blinked a few times, pulled the hair tie from my hair and started to strip me. He pulled my jacket off first and threw it into the other room. Next came my shirt and bra. He picked me up and sat me on the counter while he worked on my shoes and socks and then the buttons on my pants. Before I knew it, I was in the steamy shower, rivulets of dirty water running down my skin. Behind me, Nicolai came in. His hands moved up and down my arms as I started to shake. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said.
“You don’t know that. You weren’t there.”
“I heard and saw it all from the com system, Ri. You thought you could stop it.”
“She told me to retreat, but I didn’t.”
“He didn’t either. He had the same idea you had. He tried to stop it. He made his own decision.”
“But if I’d gone…”
“We’re going to do this ‘What if?’ thing again? No, we’re not. You know it’s just a waste of time.”
“Lex won’t even—”
“Lex is trying to hold herself together. I’ve seen it in her before. That is not because of you. Trust me.”
His arms came around me, pulling me back to him as he kissed my shoulder. I closed my eyes, reveling in the feeling of our skin touching. “I should’ve… I don’t know. I should’ve done something.”
He turned me around, and my face flushed for the first time. His eyes raked over me. “You should’ve what? You should’ve made sure he was okay? You should’ve left last so that what happened to Matthews happened to you? I don’t think so, Ri. Sometimes things like this happen, and it’s no one’s fault. Actually, I take that back. You want to blame someone? Let’s blame fucking Dumont. Dumont put that vamp up to the bomb. Dumont has no respect for others’ lives. Dumont started all this. So, if anything happens to Matthews, it’s Dumont’s fault. No one else’s.”
I swallowed, my eyes closing as I took his words in and buried them in my chest. My fingers clenched at my sides, and Nic pulled them apart one-by-one and massaged them. He then worked his way up my hands and arms, pushing me back so I was under the pelting water. He paused, took my body wash and squirted some in his hands before he began to wash me. His hands roamed freely over my skin, digging into the dirtiest parts of me and lingering in other places that I knew couldn’t have been that dirty. After a few moments, my body relaxed. I tilted my head back and let the water run through my hair. I combed my fingers through my long strands, letting them fall soaked and straight against my back before Nic took over. Fluidly, his hands moved through my thick locks before they drifted down my back, and he embraced me again, his head coming to rest against mine. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
I pulled my hands up to place them on his wide, muscular chest. “Me too.” My throat felt thick. “I thought the next time I saw you this would all be over. I thought we’d be well on our way to living out our happy existence, but I was wrong. I don’t know how we’re going to win, Nic. I really don’t.”
His hands clasped my face. “We will win.” He scanned my face, and then he brought our lips together, slowly at first as I drank him in. There had been a point earlier today when I didn’t know if I would have this again. If I’d ever see them again, or if I’d made the ultimate sacrifice for taking Dumont down. His hardness rested against my belly, and I moaned. “Shit, Ri. I’m sorry. I just meant to —”
“Shh,” I told him, moving my hips closer, and taking his thick size in my grip. “I want you.”
Right now I needed to be reminded of why we were doing this. What we were fighting for, and why it was so important that we risk our lives and the lives of those we cared about. Nic’s hand traveled up the back of my head to hold me in place before kissing me again. He turned us around and lifted me, forcing my legs around his hips while leaning my back against the cold tile. His hand moved up my thigh, rubbing up my slick skin before finding my center and teasing there. He stroked his fingers up and down, as I held on to him, deepening the kiss as I waited. Before long, he pushed a finger inside me. I cried out, but he silenced me with his words. “So hot, wet. Mmm, Ri.”
He quickened his speed, and I broke the kiss to breathe. “Yes, Nic.” He growled, his hips starting to rock back and forth. He pulled his finger away guided himself toward me. I pushed back on his shoulder. “Aren’t you going to wear a condom?”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Didn’t they put you on birth control when you got here?”
I nodded.
“Then, fuck no. I want to feel all of you.” His tip teased my entrance, but he pulled away. “Unless you want me to. I’ll get one. Just tell me.” His chest heaved in front of him. I reached down between us and grabbed his hand, moving him forward in answer. His teeth clenched as he slid inside me inch by inch. “Yes. Oh fuck. Son of a bitch, Ri. You feel like heaven.”
My head dropped back against the tile as he filled me, bare skin to bare skin. “That feels so good.” I felt every hard ridge as my body opened for him and then melded around him.
With one hand on the tile, he held me in the other, his hips already retreating to sink into me again. “So tight.” His head lowered, and he took my nipple into his mouth as his hips lurched forward again, knocking my ass back into the tile.
I moaned, and he kept doing it, unrelenting. He slid in and out of me, the hard planes of him teasing my insides, driving me higher and higher with every stroke. I gripped his shoulders and stared into the steam while he worked on me, pounding into me, not giving my body any chance to recover from the spikes of pleasure until each one ran into the next and I was on a high. “Oh God, Nic.”
“You like that? I know I do. Fuck, I want you to come. I can’t wait until you squeeze me. Shit, Ri.”
His strokes continued, then dove upward. My fingers dug into his shoulders. “Yes, yes…”
My body started to take over after recognizing the bliss in sight. I met him stroke for stroke, heightening the sensations until we were just two people locked together for the very sake of pleasure. He groaned into me, his fangs finding my neck and protruding until they sank into me, just breaking the skin. I screamed as my orgasm hit, falling apart in his arms, losing myself until his continued anchoring strokes put me right back together again.
He reached behind him and turned the water off. With my legs still around his waist, he stepped out of the shower and put me on my feet, his hard dick still seated inside me as water ran from us. Still panting, I reached up to kiss him, sliding my hands through his damp hair and teasing his neck. He pulled out of me and led me through the open bathroom door to the bed. “Bend over.” I sucked in a breath, then did as he said. He massaged my behind and bent me lower until my forearms were on the bed, and his hardness teased between my legs. He widened my stance and then
guided himself forward. “Arch your back, baby.” I did so, and he slid right in, massaging even different parts of me than before. He groaned. “Fuck me,” he said, half relief, half torture.
My fingers curled into my bedsheets. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?”
He curled his body around mine, his hands coming up to take my breasts in his hands. “Say it.”
I moaned, feeling completely at Nic’s will. He could do whatever he wanted, and I had a feeling I would enjoy every last bit of it. “Fuck me,” I said, my voice tight.
“Say it like you mean it.”
I gritted down on my teeth, squirming back against Nic to get him to move. “Fuck me, Nicolai Ravana. Now.”
He acquiesced. His fingers pinched my nipples, and then he was pumping inside of me hard and fast. I reared back at the force, crying out, but he held me in place. “You asked for this. Don’t you want it?”
“God yes.”
Nicolai’s love-making took me to a different place. Almost primal as we used our bodies to fulfill our needs. It was still based in the same love as the others, or I’d never let him control me like this, but it settled into a part of me that didn’t like to be in control all the time. To the part of me that wanted just to feel good and loved at the same time. A basic instinct.
His hand reached around to play with my clit, and I cried out again. “Harder. Please, harder, Nic. Make me come again.”
He stood, his thighs resting against mine with one hand on my back, and he did just what I asked. His strokes shortened, but plunged into me, taking my breath away. “Do you like that?”