by Ashlee Sinn
After a shower and a change of clothes at Brandt’s condo, we were back on the road and heading toward the new meeting place. I’d tried to seduce Viktor many times over, but he’d held out and convinced me that he would comply in every way I wanted him to once we completed our business tonight.
I shivered with anticipation the entire car ride. Viktor’s hand never left my thigh, even as he drove through an insane amount of traffic to get us out of the city. I marveled at how natural the two of us felt together, even when guilt over Silas tried to invade my happiness. It was interesting, being a vampire. For the most part, all of my human emotions had faded to a mild inclination. While I craved Viktor’s touch like never before, I didn’t have the same intensity when it came to sadness or guilt. As though a drug had muted my soul, I simply didn’t care as much anymore.
Not knowing how I felt about that, I watched the sun set through the side mirror as we traveled over a bridge and toward the beach. I’d only been out this way once before, and as the sky darkened, a deep rooted sense of excitement grew in my blood. Like a hunter waiting for night, my body knew the instant the sun disappeared behind the horizon.
“I thought we were going to a club?” I asked when we continued traveling east.
“We are.”
I looked at the gates protecting multi-million dollar homes and shrugged. “They allow night clubs to operate out here?”
Viktor squeezed my thigh when he turned to look at me with a smile. “We’re not going to a night club.”
“Good,” I mumbled, remembering all too well what happened the last time I went to one with Viktor.
“We’re going to a country club,” he said, nodding toward a sign marking the road we needed to take.
“Why?” I asked before thinking.
Viktor maneuvered the car down the winding drive filled with large trees and solar powered lights. “Because the city isn’t safe for us right now. Plus,” he added as he pulled around a large cul-de-sac toward the valet, “The Callaghans own it and Brandt offered.”
“They own a country club?” I looked up at the grand entryway flanked by four marble columns and circular windows similar to the White House.
Slipping out of his seat, Viktor handed the valet his keys and darted around the side to offer me his hand. “They own a lot of property. Their clan has been around for a long time.”
Interesting. Maybe once all of this is over, I’d do some research about bear clans. Did they hold more positions of power? Did anyone else know about them? How do grizzlies stay unnoticed in New York? I was so busy thinking about bear shifters when I slid out of the car that I almost forgot my purse. Viktor’s body slammed into the door when I reached back into the seat.
“What do you need that for?” he asked, rubbing his shoulder.
“I…” Why did I need it? “I don’t know,” I said. My stake was inside and I suppose I didn’t really need that anymore—after all, it could be turned back on me as a weapon. But it was like a safety net for me. I felt naked without it.
Viktor didn’t say anything else as we climbed the marble stairs, still holding hands. We’d almost reached the front door when someone walked out right in front of us, blocking our path. I knew who it was before I even looked up. His signature smell graced my enhanced senses and my vampire heart fluttered with anticipation.
“Silas,” I breathed. “You’re here.” My eyes watered as though tears may soon follow, but once again my human emotions never quite reached the surface.
“Can we talk?” he asked me, glancing quickly at Viktor and then at our clasped hands.
“Of course,” I responded before Viktor had a chance to say anything at all.
“I’ll go find Brandt,” Viktor said, walking around Silas and letting himself inside. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, most of my attention focusing on Silas. Something was different about him. His whole aura or…being felt foreign.
“You’ve changed,” Silas said, still standing in front of me like a wall.
I looked at his eyes, watching as one of them turned yellow for a few seconds and then snapped back to its natural brown. “So have you.”
He nodded and then gestured to the large seating area on the front porch. “Can we?”
I walked over to a set of bamboo chairs positioned around an outdoor fireplace. Silas sat across from me, leaving one empty chair on either side. I hated how he felt that we needed that much space between us, but I also hated how much my new instincts were warning me about the dangerous man I didn’t really know anymore.
“He turned you.” It wasn’t a question and Silas’ tone didn’t indicate how he felt about it.
“He did. I was almost dead.”
“I didn’t think they could do that without the others.”
I sat back in my seat and tried to look like I was comfortable around him and with Viktor’s ability to turn a human on his own. “It doesn’t usually work.”
Silas studied me, his left eye flickering in and out of yellow again. “Are you normal?”
I should have been offended, but I knew what he meant. “As far as I can tell, everything worked.”
Silas let out a long breath, sounding relieved at that news. A small tingle of happiness flitted through my stomach, knowing that he still cared.
“And what about you?” I asked, remembering the night of the attack. “You were covered in holes.” I didn’t know how many times he’d been shot, but it had to have been at least four.
Hanging his head, Silas paused before answering. “Ashby saved me.”
I’d known that, but had no idea how. Remembering Viktor’s words earlier, I was afraid to ask my next question. “And at what cost?”
He looked up at me with one yellow eye and ground his jaw together. “I still don’t know,” he whispered. “This,” he emphasized by pointing to his eye, “is one cost. Our blood or souls or essence is now mixed. As far as I can tell, I’m either part demon or beholden to one for the rest of my life.” His voice trembled with fear or maybe anxiety.
“How does that work?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No idea. But I’m different. I feel different.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. Lifting his head up toward the sky, he stayed silent for a long moment. “I’m not tingling around you.”
“You mean that your hunter instincts aren’t in full force right now?” I’d never known how a demon felt around us and it worried me that Silas was feeling so different.
“Not in the same way,” he replied. “It’s almost like…like we’re the same. Like I couldn’t even kill you if I wanted to.”
Unable to process how I felt about that, I stayed still, wondering if Silas had wanted to kill me.
“Interesting,” I whispered, meeting his gaze.
And then Silas laughed. Not a full-belly laugh, but a sound that let me know he would be all right. “Amazing how much things can change in one night.”
His eyes met mine and I swear he stared into my soul. I didn’t like this new trait of his, but I also didn’t want Silas to die on the night he was shot. I still believed that there would be more that he and I would have to discuss at some point, but for now I had Viktor and he had Ashby.
“Have we heard anything about Ezra?” I asked, trying to break the uncomfortable tension between us.
He opened his mouth to answer at the same second Ashby appeared by his side. She studied me, tilting her head like a bird of prey. Her hand rested on Silas’ shoulder, claiming her man and letting me know the he belonged to her now. I wasn’t going to argue. Silas and I could never be more than friends again, and I even wondered if that would be possible. Especially considering the possessive demon girlfriend standing by his side.
“He changed you,” Ashby said with a sense of awe. Rushing over to me, she leaned forward and sniffed my neck, smelling me like a hunting dog. “And it worked.” I raised my gaze to meet hers and didn’t try to hide my annoyance. She responded by
letting out a wicked cackle of a laugh and returning to Silas’ side. “Viktor wants you inside now. Both of you.”
Silas immediately rose, like he’d been commanded to do so and had to respond. I watched as he tensed under Ashby’s touch and a small piece of my humanity rushed back into my heart. He wasn’t happy and ultimately this was all my fault. If I hadn’t gone to that club with Viktor, thinking I was strong enough to handle any situation, I wouldn’t have been marked and everyone who had suffered the consequences in this last month could still be living normal lives. But now I was a vampire and Silas was part demon, or something, and Ezra had been tortured. It all led back to me.
Viktor appeared in the doorway leading inside. As though he could feel my inner struggles, he raised a brow asking me if I was all right. With a slight nod, I tried to rein in the guilt and focus instead on getting Ezra back alive.
Silas and I followed Viktor and Ashby inside past the grand entryway and through the main common area to a sunroom that overlooked the golf course and the beach. The glass panels must have let in enough light to warm the room since it felt like a humid, yet refreshingly warm greenhouse.
Brandt and one of his brothers sat on the far side in separate wingback chairs. Arabella waited on one end of a brown leather couch where Silas and Ashby quickly joined her. Portia, the wolf, paced along the windows, only giving me a quick nod of recognition when I walked in. Graham and Broch were huddled over a laptop but stopped when they saw me.
“Sophia!” Broch ran forward, smothering me in a hug and pushing Graham away when he tried to cut in. “You’re alive!”
I laughed and reached out to Graham at the same time. “I am.”
Broch tensed under my arm and Graham reacted almost as quickly. “What the hell,” Broch said, glaring at Viktor. “What did you do to her?”
Viktor straightened and lifted his chin. “I had no choice.”
“Bullshit!” Graham shouted.
I rested my hand on my friend’s shoulder. “I would have died.”
Graham and Broch both looked at me, eyes filled with sadness and confusion. “But how?” Broch asked.
“He’s powerful,” I whispered, not really wanting everyone else to hear but knowing they were capable of hearing many things.
Broch glanced at Viktor and then back at me. “But are you okay?” With his lifted brows, I knew what he meant.
“I’m not one of those zombie-like vampires, no. As far as I can tell, I’m normal.”
“No, you’re not,” Graham said lifting his arm to show me the goosebumps that had formed on his skin due to my closeness. His hunter instincts were still in full effect, unlike Silas’.
Broch looked down at his arm too. “Yeah, this will get some getting used to,” he whispered to me.
I grabbed his hand and tried to smile. “Thanks for saying that.”
“Saying what?”
“That you’ll get used to it and not just cut me out of your life forever,” I said. He returned my smile and then I focused on Graham. “Have you heard from Nadya?”
Shaking his head he sucked in a long, deep breath. “No. But Brandt has talked to Bo and he said she’s recovering nicely and should be back within a week or two.”
I could tell by the way he bit his lip that Graham was not happy at all about Nadya spending time with Bo. I secretly hoped she would keep her heart open to Graham, but knowing Nadya, that might not be possible. “So what’s happening with Ezra and Sebastian?” I asked anyone who would answer. I’d been out of it for two weeks and it was time to get back in the game.
Viktor stepped forward while Broch and Graham returned to the computer. “Sebastian’s been quiet since that night at the warehouse,” Viktor said.
“His trail disappeared about a mile away from the site,” Portia added. “And it’s been driving me crazy how I haven’t been able to pick it up again.” She kicked at something on the floor behind the chairs. “I don’t understand how that’s possible.”
“We haven’t found anything either,” Brennan added. “It’s like he simply disappeared.”
“Well, we know wouldn’t happen, right?” I asked Viktor.
Shaking his head he confirmed my suspicion. “No. I don’t think he’d give up that easily.”
“We thought we had a sighting of his vampire hoard here.” Broch pointed to a place in the city nowhere near the warehouse. “But each time we’ve checked it out, we haven’t see a single one.”
“Well, what is he waiting for?” I asked. “He still has leverage since he has Ezra.” I turned to look up at Viktor. “Do you think he knows that the mark is broken?”
“Oh, he knows. He would have felt it the second I drained you.”
Broch and Graham looked like they were about to faint with their shocked faces blanching in disgust at Viktor’s words. I tried to reassure them with a simple look. “So then why hasn’t he come after us? Or even you?”
“I don’t know,” Viktor said as though in deep thought. “None of us know why.”
The front doors to the club slammed open at that exact moment, shattering glass and echoing through the empty common space like an alarm. A gust of wind rushed inside, blowing my hair back even though I stood fifty feet away.
“What the hell,” Broch mumbled, jumping up and standing next to me.
“I don’t know—”
A limp body flew through the open doorway, landed on the marble ground and slid across the floor toward us. Viktor leapt forward, stopping the body before it slammed into the wall and moving faster than the rest of us could.
Brandt, Brennan, and Portia rushed to the front of the sunroom watching Viktor and keeping their eyes on the front entrance at the same time.
“Who is it?” Silas asked. I felt his body heat next to me and it helped keep me calm.
Viktor bent over, flipping the half-naked body onto its back. And when he did, we all sucked in a breath.
We’d finally found Ezra.
CHAPTER 4
“Oh my god,” I whispered to myself, the human feelings stabbing me in the stomach. I stepped away from everyone, wanting to check on Ezra myself, but another sound from the front entrance stopped me cold.
“If she moves again, kill him.” Sebastian pointed at Silas, directing his command to a sorcerer close to his side. The lanky man raised his chin and focused his glare on Silas. His eyes were all white, not even a hint of black pupil peeking through, and his outstretched hands sparked with rays of purples and golds dancing between them.
“Jesus,” Broch mumbled. “I’ve never seen that before.”
“Neither have I,” I replied, keeping my eyes on the sorcerer and Viktor at the same time.
Viktor stood and shuffled back toward me. Ezra groaned on the ground in front of us and the sense of relief that he was still alive made my knees buckle. Ezra certainly wouldn’t be the same, with his bloodied arm missing a hand and the amount of bruises that surely equated to some broken bones, but he was alive and we had him back.
“Don’t take another step, Viktor,” Sebastian growled from the entryway.
Viktor stopped and lifted his hands out in front of him. “What do you want?”
Sebastian walked forward, the glass under his feet breaking with each slow, agonizing step. He released a laugh, a cackle of sorts that let me know just how much he’d lost his mind. “What do I want?”
Viktor nodded slowly. “She is yours no more.”
Sebastian rushed ahead, landing in front of Viktor in less than a second. Another gust of wind blew past us, the chill in the air an indicator of Sebastian’s anger. “I can see that,” he spat. “And just as you took her from me, I will now take her from you.”
Sebastian jerked his chin to the side and the sorcerer lifted his arms. My feet left the ground just as quickly until I was suspended in the air, dangling from an invisible force that squeezed my rib cage and pushed the breath out of my lungs.
Viktor’s terrified eyes met mine for a brief second until I fl
ew through the air toward a small bar area on the side of the room. I crashed into the marble and wood, landing hard on my side and wondering just how much my newly improved body could take. The bone in my thigh cracked when I hit the furniture, the pain lagging several seconds behind. As I fell to the floor, now hidden by the bar, I heard someone scream out in horrific pain.
“Let him go!” Graham shouted. And then there was another crunch that sounded like the one I’d just created.
My thigh snapped back into place, the vampire blood healing me faster than what Viktor had ever been able to do for me before. I dragged myself around the edge of the bar, sliding along the floor until I thought my leg could hold my body weight again. Broch lay in a heap next to Ezra and Graham and Silas had been pinned to the wall by invisible magic. I looked to the sorcerer, amazed that he could be doing all of this by himself, only to see three more standing behind him and conjuring that same ball of energy between their hands.
Viktor appeared to be frozen. His body trembled underneath the magic but he was unable to break the pose where he’d been stopped mid-stride from attacking Sebastian. Portia began stripping out of her clothes along with Brennan. Brandt remained stoic, eyes assessing the situation and taking in every option available.
“I wouldn’t do that” Sebastian warned the shifters. “This is not your fight.”
“I believe you have made it our fight,” Brandt said in a calm, cold voice devoid of any emotion.
Sebastian smiled, showing his fangs and ignoring the frozen vampire in front of him. He peered around Viktor’s shoulder to make eye contact with the leader of our shifter friends. “This does not concern your clan, Callaghan,” he looked at Portia, “or your pack. Ms. Dunanski. It’s best if you stay out of the politics.”
“Is that a threat?” Brennan asked, his shirt hanging in his hands and his boots already untied.
“It is a warning,” Sebastian said in a deep voice.
My legs tingled with the healing and I tried to stay silent as I dug through my purse. I was amazed that it had stayed on my arm while I flew through the room, but now I just smiled as I grabbed my stake and shoved it into the back of my jeans. But in the process, I accidentally kicked a broken bottle, giving away my position and letting Sebastian know that I’d already recovered. His black eyes met mine when I stood.