by L. E. Wilson
Chapter 43
Emma’s heard resumed its normal rhythm as Lucian rose to his feet and everyone relaxed. Nik wasn’t kidding when he said they “run kind of hot”. Their emotions were so up and down, she was mentally exhausted from spending just a few hours with them.
Aiden clapped his hands together loudly. “Alright then! Let’s go see my girl!”
Cedric gave Nik a questioning look, but Nik just shook his head. “You really don’t want to know.”
With a sideways look at Aiden, Cedric motioned for everyone to huddle in, sticking Emma in the middle of the towering males.
Within minutes, they had their plan of attack.
“All right.” Nik squatted down on his haunches, and drew a rough map in the dirt by the creek with a stick he’d snagged out of the water. The rest of the group hovered around him in a circle with their hands on their knees so they were able to see. Craning her neck, Emma tried not to fall on him as she peered over his shoulder.
“So, the main access to the hideout is still about a mile downstream. The creek flows directly into it, but we’re not going to go in that way. Leeha’s sure to have more guards stationed there.” He pointed with the stick to an area around the right side. “There’s another entrance here. It should be less guarded. Aiden and I will go in first. We’ll take out whoever’s there and make our way inside.”
Standing up, he pulled Emma around in front of him and casually wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind as she studied his drawing. Her skin felt hot and sensitive where he touched her, even through her clothes.
She stared at his rough drawing, not quite believing she’d be with her sister again before the night was out.
Nik kept her within the circle of his arms. Her eagerness rippled through him, and he felt his own adrenaline rise in response. He tamped it down with effort. He needed to stay calm and focused.
“When da ye want us tae join ye?” Cedric’s face clearly showed what he thought about missing out on any of the fighting.
Duncan had a similar sour expression. “Or are we just here tae look bonnie?”
Nik understood how they felt. Still holding Emma with one arm, he gave Cedric a punch on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, old friend, there’ll be plenty of action for you three.”
Hugging Emma to him again, he kissed her on the head. He didn’t know what it was, but something was telling him to keep her close. “Once we get in, we’ll get ourselves ‘captured’—”
“That was a brilliant idea you had with Emma,” Aiden told Cedric.
Nik grudgingly agreed. “I hate to admit it, but it was. We’ll try the same tactic on the inside. We’ll get ourselves ‘captured’, check out the layout, get a count of who’s there. You four will wait out here, and when the opportunity presents itself—”
“Wait. Hold up a minute.” Emma held up her hand. “You said four. You expect me to wait outside with these do…wolves?” she corrected. “No. I want to be inside with you. I want to help. And I need to see Keira for myself.”
Nik crossed his arms and shook his head, not willing to give in on this one. “No. Absolutely not, Emma. Unlike some others standing here—”
Cedric eyebrows rose, his face the picture of innocence. “Whaa?”
“I’m not willing to risk your safety,” he finished.
“No-o?” she repeated.
“Yeah. NO. I won’t risk you. You’ll stay out here until it’s safe for you to come in. I’ll find Keira personally, and make sure she’s not harmed. Once I know it’s safe, I’ll bring her to you.” He should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy.
“Oh, really? And who’s going to protect me when the wolves run off, hmm? I’ll be out here all alone. What if there are more of those?” She pointed where the last remaining pieces of the victims of Nik’s temper were flaking away. “And they find me?”
She was playing dirty, and he knew it, but there was no way in hell he was bringing her.
Nik wasn’t going to let her sway him. “Once Cedric and the guys get in there, it’ll be over quickly. You will stay outside, hidden, where it’s safe. This is not up for discussion.”
She agreed. “You’re right. This is not up for discussion. Because I’m coming with you.”
“Let her come, Nikky-boy,” Aiden told him. “It’s all right. There won’t be any fighting. She’s expecting me.”
Nik was confused. “She’s expecting you? Who’s expecting you?”
Aiden grinned. “Leeha.”
Once again, Nik was struck speechless by the words coming out of his friend’s mouth. “Leeha. Leeha—the bitch from hell—is expecting you.”
“Yes. That’s what I’m telling you.”
Nik glanced around at the others, but everyone else looked as confused as he did. “And why, exactly, would she be expecting you, Aid?”
Hands on his narrow hips, Aiden rolled his grey eyes heavenward. He spoke slowly, enunciating each word carefully. “Because. She rang me. And invited me over.”
Nik stared at Aiden blankly for a long moment. Opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Opened it again, and then shook his head.
He had nothing.
Duncan exchanged knowing grins with Aiden. “Aye. So ye've been keeping in touch wi' th' lassie.” He gave a shrug of one brawny shoulder. “Canna say that I blame ye. Bonnie as she is.”
“Wait a minute. Hold everything.” Something had just occurred to Nik. And it didn’t bode well for his buddy. “You mean to tell me you’ve been keeping in touch with the bitch who’s been doing God knows what to my brother all this time? And you never told me?” He barely managed to get the words out between his gritted teeth.
Please, tell me Aiden is not so stupid as to let Luukas suffer all this time for nothing.
The smile slipped slowly from his face as Aiden held his hands up, palms out, in front of him. “Nikulas…mate…she didn’t ring me all that often. And she never, ever, gave me any idea where she was. I tried to get it out of her, I did! I’m not a complete arse. But she never slipped. Not once.” With an admiring tone, he admitted, “She’s quite a crafty little twit, that one is.”
Sometimes, Nik had to wonder if he really knew Aiden at all. “She’s had your number, your secret cell number you’re not supposed to give to anyone, all this time.”
“Yes, and no,” Aiden hedged. “She has a cell number, but only to my prepaid phone, not my super secret one. That’s how I knew she was back here.” He looked Nik directly in the eye, and his grey eyes pleaded with Nik to believe him. “I’ve really been trying, mate. She has a thing for me, you know, and I was hoping to get some info out of her about Luukas, but no dice. I would’ve told you, but I didn’t want to get your hopes up unless I’d actually gotten something useful out of her. I didn’t. I’m sorry.” Pushing his hood off of his head in frustration, he scratched the top of his dark head until his short hair stood straight up.
Nik didn’t know what to say.
Emma looked back and forth between the guys. “Good. Then it’s settled. I’m coming with you.” And with that, she turned on her heal and started following the creek downstream. Aiden smiled broadly and fell in behind her, leaving Nik little choice but to follow them.
Walking fast to catch up with them, Nik looked back over his shoulder at the three wolves. “Stay hidden. I’ll give a whistle when it’s time.”
He broke into an easy jog to catch up with Emma before she tripped over something in the dark—she was really pretty quick for a human when she wanted to be. He didn’t look back again as the wolves dispersed into the trees, completely trusting them to not fuck up the plan.
He hoped that trust wasn’t misplaced.
Traveling at human speed to accommodate Emma, the vampires were silent as they approached the area Nik had drawn out in the dirt.
At Aiden’s insistence that “truly, she’s expecting me”, they didn’t sneak inside, but followed the creek, striding boldly up to the opening at the base of the snow-capped mou
ntain. It loomed over them ominously.
Nik glanced around surreptitiously as the tunnel closed in around them. The creek narrowed once inside, the sound of the water picking up speed as it rushed over the smooth bed it had cut out of the rock over time. Something didn’t feel right, but he didn’t see or hear anything unusual.
Still, the hair rose on the back of his neck. They were being watched.
Indicating for Aiden to lead the way, he kept Emma close to his side and slightly in front of him, peering back over his shoulder every few feet or so.
Torches—similar to the ones in their own mountain hideout a few miles away—lit the tunnel as they descended deeper and deeper into the underground. But they did nothing to warm the air, and he felt Emma shiver in the damp cold.
Two hundred feet in, the tunnel split into two separate passages. Aiden left the creek and chose the smaller one to the left, Nik and Emma following close behind.
“Do you actually know where you’re going, or are you just choosing at random and hoping for the best?” Nik asked him quietly. Although they normally kept an eye on Leeha’s comings and goings when she was here, he’d never actually been inside her lair.
Pulling one of the torches off the wall at the division, Aiden gave him a wry look. “Have some faith, mate. This isn’t my first rodeo here, as they say.”
“That’s what concerns me,” Nik muttered under his breath.
Chapter 44
Emma was equal parts nervous and excited as the tunnel narrowed, squeezing them in together until they had to walk single file. Excited that she might be seeing her sister again very soon, and nervous at the unknown prospect of what they’d have to face to get her and Luukas out of here.
Even the vampires were unusually subdued. And that couldn’t be a good sign.
Falling in between the two taller males, she couldn’t see very much, even with the torch Aiden had thought to grab. Because any nightmarish creatures that lived down here didn’t need light to sniff out their prey?
Get a grip on yourself, Em. Yeah. Did she mention she was not a huge fan of the dark?
Nik stayed right behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder, his thumb occasionally rubbing small circles through her shirt. Her skin prickled where he touched her, and her breath came in shallow pants. From her claustrophobia or from his touch, she honestly couldn’t say. But either way, she couldn’t complain. She was the one who’d insisted on coming along, after all.
As they traversed deeper into the dark underground, Emma kept her eyes on Aiden’s back. She continued to place one foot in front of the other, silently fighting the ongoing battle not to freak out in the enclosed space, when she suddenly felt a rush of air and got the feeling of more space around them.
Stepping from the passage, she heard a loud whoosh as a hundred torches lit simultaneously and without warning, temporarily blinding her. Shielding her eyes with her hands until she grew used to the sudden light, she squinted as she looked around.
Another immense cavern loomed before her like the vampire’s hideout. But this one was not only larger, the stone was chiseled away to give the interior the appearance of a vast cathedral of old.
A vast, gothic, spooky as all hell, cathedral.
Illuminated by the fire that danced eerily along the dark stone walls, her eyes widened at the giant archways lining the wide, central aisle. Slender columns led up to a soaring ceiling of pointed arches a hundred feet or more above their heads.
When she could tear her eyes away from the majesty of the ceiling, she followed the columns back down to the floor, where mosaic tiles were laid out in a seemingly abstract order, but which created an overall pattern that directed the eyes forward to the other end of the room, and the main attraction.
Dropping her hands away from her eyes, Emma blinked hard as she stared down the endless aisle to the opposite end of the cathedral. Stone steps led up to a raised stone platform that took up the entire far end of the room. And alone in the center of the platform was a throne. An actual, honest-to-God throne, reminiscent of medieval days.
Made of the same kind of smooth, dark stone that lined the walls, it was interspersed with threads of shiny gold that glittered in the flickering firelight. Other than that, the starkness was only broken up by a blood red seat cushion along the seat and back. It contained no other ornamentation, the overall effect as sinister in appearance as the woman sitting upon it.
She was one of the most stunning creatures Emma had ever seen. So much so, she half wondered if she was a figment of her imagination.
Lowering his arm from his eyes, Nik immediately spotted the woman on the throne, and impaled her with his angry gaze. He reached for Emma’s hand, and she let him take it as he pulled her along behind him.
“Enough with the party tricks, Leeha. Where is my brother?” he demanded.
But they weren’t party tricks. There was magic in the room. Emma could feel it. It pulsed in the air like a living entity. Did he not feel it?
However, the magic did not come from the woman in the room. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but Emma would bet her life on it.
Ignoring his question, their host sat forward, all of her attention on Emma.
Belatedly, Nik noticed Leeha zero in on Emma and stopped abruptly midway up the aisle, tucking her behind him.
“And who is this, Nikulas?” Leeha asked. Her richly accented voice pronounced each syllable in his name distinctly. “Have you finally found a new little human whore to warm your bed?” Undaunted by the warning growl aimed at her, she stood up and came toward them.
Emma stared, unable to look away as envy tore through her gut.
Leeha didn’t so much walk, as leisurely seduce her way across the floor. Head high and arms confidently at her sides, she prowled over the stones with an erotic roll to her hips, designed to entice every male in the room into imagining it was his cock she wanted, and no one else’s.
Her dark red hair was thick and soft and long, tumbling around her shoulders in artful disarray. Her deathly pale skin was unnaturally flawless and only made one startlingly aware of her full, red lips and hollowed cheekbones. A thin, sheer, white gown showed off her full, rounded breasts and each rose-darkened areola, the large nipples constantly tight from rubbing against the fabric.
As she walked, the gown slithered in and out around her legs, allowing only brief glimpses of her long, slender limbs and the shadowed area between them.
Emma’s eyes widened, then narrowed as she realized the woman was completely bare underneath that gown. She was easily the most provocative creature Emma had ever seen.
And she hated her on sight. Not because she was beautiful, but because of how she used that beauty. Like males were creatures to be played with.
As she advanced on them, Emma’s gaze was unwillingly compelled to her blood red eyes. She found she couldn’t tear them away, hard as she tried. Locked into that hellish gaze, she saw nightmares beyond anything she’d ever experienced. The depths of despair—blood…horror…pain—they all swirled around in those depths. They drew Emma in, sucking her into the horridness she saw there, until she felt like her very soul would be forever lost if she couldn’t look away.
Panic began to set in as she tried harder and harder to break the connection, but to no avail. She began to shake uncontrollably with the effort, sweat forming on her brow and trickling between her breasts.
Nikulas stepped between them, cutting off Emma’s view and breaking the connection. “Back the fuck off, Leeha. Emma is mine,” he snarled, his husky voice low and threatening.
Leeha didn’t pause in her approach, or seem surprised by Nik’s announcement, but only gave him a small, patronizing smile. She circled around the pair of them, getting a good look at her guest.
Emma’s skin crawled everywhere her eyes touched her. She stood very still, and kept her eyes down so as not to look directly at her again. She was afraid to so much as breathe, even with Nik standing so protectively in front of her, warily w
atching Leeha’s every move.
Leeha stopped just behind her, and Emma heard her inhale just behind her ear. The back of Emma’s neck tingled like tiny spiders were crawling on her, and she had to resist the urge to smack at the nonexistent things. At least she hoped they were nonexistent.
“I smell you on her Nikulas. I smell you in her.” She moved in front of him again. Her head tilted with a jerky motion, like a bird. “She’s had your blood. And even more intriguing, you’ve had hers. And yet, she’s still alive.”
An unpleasant smile spread across her face, and her attention returned to Emma with renewed interest, in spite of Nik’s attempts to block her. “Emma. What a pretty name. Would your last name be Moss, by chance?”
“Yes.” The word was forced from her mouth, try as she might not to answer.
Leehe gave her a small, indecipherable smile. “Tell me, Nikulas, does she fawn over you as Eliana did?” Her smile widened as Emma stiffened. “I don’t think she does. Does that disappoint you?”
Her eyes roamed over Emma’s face and form with appreciation. “She’s quite pretty. A bit thin, but fuckable, I suppose. If you like that sort of thing.”
Emma’s breath caught at the insult, but she refused to give the bitch the reaction she was obviously hoping for.
Pouting a bit when neither Emma nor Nik rose to the bait, Leeha continued, “So, do tell, Nikulas. Does she fuck as well as Eliana? More importantly,” she purred, “does she taste as good as Eliana?” She caught a strand of Emma’s bright hair, rubbing it between her slender fingers as she wet her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. “I’d love to find out.”
Nik shoved Emma back behind him so fast, she had to grab his arm to keep from stumbling, and strands of her hair were left behind in Leeha’s fingers. A menacing growl rumbled deep within his chest. Leaning forward, he bared his fangs and hissed in warning at the beautiful, evil creature in front of him, his eyes glowing with possession.