“Mariella brought them up. They’re on my desk. No one touched anything.”
Standing up and keeping the towel wrapped around me, I walked over to the desk and pulled everything out of the bag.
The brown sack with the blade was there, safely concealing the dagger as it should be. Inside was the shoebox, and the few files Thatcher wanted hidden from the police. No note though.
Knowing I hadn’t been careless enough to toss it away, I made my way through to the bathroom and picked up my bloodied clothes from the floor. The white tiles were stained dark red and immediately my fingers were dirtied again just from handling the material again. Still, I rummaged in the pockets until I felt the moist paper and pulled it out. Xavier hovered behind me, waiting to see what it was I was so desperate to look at.
It was a note, written in a fine scripture, which seemed so familiar. My blood ran cold as I read the words marred with dried blood.
Poison wine always tastes the sweetest.
My scowl deepened, the words sounding far too much like déjà vu to be a coincidence. I spun around, the note still in my hand. I thrust the note to Xavier and watched as he read the words once, twice, perhaps a third time, before his attention returned to me.
“Where did this come from?” He questioned, stepping forward.
I folded my arms across myself. “I took it out of my dead father’s mouth. Sound familiar?”
Xavier remained silent, clearly holding his tongue.
“Just hours ago, before I got out of the car, you told me I was poison. What was it you said, exactly? Refresh my memory.” The power had switched. I was in control of the conversation for the first time since Xavier and I had met.
His eyes met with mine and for once, he seemed sorrowful. “I had nothing to do with this, Quinn.”
“It strikes me as strange, Xavier. Where did you go, after you dropped me off at my flat? Did you head straight here? Or did you stop off for a little midnight murder first?”
In a flash, Xavier’s body was pressed against mine and I was tossed against the tiles. His palm tightened against my throat just enough to warn me I’d gone too far.
“You see this? What I’m doing now?” He asked, canines elongated, glistening beneath the bathroom lights. “You are only breathing right because I am allowing you to breathe. You seem to think you are free to say and do as you wish, but you aren’t, Quintessa. Yet you forget one thing, this power, this strength that I have—I don’t use it to hurt you, I don’t use it to control you. I use it to protect you. I use it to heal you.”
“Does this look like you’re protecting me, Xavier?” I asked when his grip loosened, and he allowed my feet to touch back on the solid ground. His body didn’t shift from in front of me, though. He had me trapped against his naked chest, panting as he gazed down at me, a wolf toying with his prey.
“That note is from Lilith,” Xavier huffed, turning and leaning against the basin, the muscles in his arms so tense I thought the marble counter might crack against his strength. He dropped his head down, hanging it so low that I could see in the mirror over his shoulders. Compared to him, I was nothing—tiny, frail. The slight muscle and little weight I had on my thighs and stomach were swallowed by the sheer size of his monstrous frame. He could crush me if he wanted to, vampire or not.
“Why would she do this?” I asked quietly. “Why Thatcher?”
“To get to you!” Xavier screamed in reply, craning his neck to look back at me with ferocious eyes. “Don’t you get it, Quinn? You’re so busy trying to find one bloody missing girl you’re too blind to see it—it’s you she wants.”
Dumbfounded, I remained silent, hoping he’d continue to explain.
“She knows you’re working with me, knows that I bonded you. She’ll crush anything that comes near me, and she’ll do it with a fucking skip in her step.”
“So, we kill her,” I finalised, simply, causing Xavier to laugh morosely.
“You can’t just kill Lilith, Quinn. She’s as old as this earth. It’s not possible.”
I chewed my lip for a second, trying to calm my mind long enough to think. “Then we kill the ones doing her dirty work.” That seemed to get his attention. “Seamus said that he thinks she’s using the Silver’s to do her bidding because she’s been here too long. She’s weak. If she doesn’t have anyone to capture these girls, then whatever plan she’s cooking up won’t work.”
“She’ll just find someone else,” Xavier added, shaking his head in exasperation. “There are thousands of demons out there willing to do anything she asks of them.”
“Then we kill them too, when the time comes. Eventually, she’ll grow too weak, or we’ll find a way to get rid of her somehow. Xavier, this isn’t impossible. You’re the one that just gave me an entire speech about being almighty and powerful. Where the hell is that guy now?”
Xavier studied me for a few minutes before, finally, he spoke. “Where did you come from?”
I laughed, exhausted and overwhelmed by grief and any number of emotions I didn’t care enough to name. “I didn’t get a chance to ask.”
Chapter Twenty Six
When morning came around, I’d been chauffeured to Xavier’s house in an outfit graciously provided by Mariella. It was too tight around my stomach and the top was too low cut, and personally all I wanted to do was rip it off and find the first comfortable bed at Xavier’s place and crawl under the duvet, never to be seen again.
I’d spent most of my night crying, on and off, mostly in silence—although I was certain Xavier had heard. Thankfully, he’d been polite enough to ignore it. I’d lay on the uncomfortable Chesterfield with my head in his lap for what felt like days, waiting for the sun to rise so we could somehow come up with a plan of what we were going to do next. There’d been no use discussing anything else further last night. Both of us were emotionally drained. Me more so, but it can’t have been easy for Xavier either.
The driver stopped outside of Xavier’s place and we were greeted by Mariella, the doorman who I’d come to realise actually had a name—Orion. The strangest face to see, however, was Seamus, who in the bright morning light looked far paler and sickly than he had done in the darkened bookshop. He kept his eyes on the ground as he shuffled from one foot to the other as though itching for his next fix of the indoors.
Xavier reached forward and unlocked the door, urging them all inside. Unsurprisingly, it was Seamus who burst through first, not bothering to remove his coat or shoes before he all but jogged into the kitchen and huddled himself into one of the kitchen chairs and began rocking himself forwards and backwards.
“You good, Seamus?” I asked as I entered. Xavier’s hand placed gently on the small of my back.
Seamus lifted both thumbs up and nodded, as if he were in complete shock that he’d managed to go outside at all. I wondered if he’d taken a gate here. I couldn’t imagine him using public transport or owning his own vehicle or bike—or God forbid even walking here. The stress alone would surely kill him.
Mariella began making coffee while Orion leaned against the kitchen island, anxiously awaiting orders. He was more used to being a doer than a thinker and we were about to spend much of our afternoon trying to figure out how we were going to kill an entire group of vampires and find a bunch of missing girls without alerting the Guardian’s or the police. Xavier could explain away the odd conviction or misdemeanour, but half his staff being arrested would be a lot more difficult to talk his way out of.
Mariella passed me a mug, and I thanked her silently as she moved over to Seamus and set his cup down on the table with a wary glance. Balancing the mug in one hand, I placed the shoebox and files I was holding in the other on the counter, knowing at some point I’d have to have a good rummage through them, but not today. Especially not now. We had one job now, and it was to try to figure out how on earth we were supposed to stop Lilith from harming anyone else.
“What do we know?” Orion asked in his low, accented voice. He must have g
rown too impatient waiting for someone else to speak. Already he was cracking his knuckles as if desperate to punch something.
“The Silver’s have their base near Canary Wharf, in a couple of flats there. Top floor as far as we know,” Mariella began, pulling out a couple of sheets of paper and pointing to the images of the apartments that looked to be printouts from Google Maps. “We doubt Lilith is staying with them.”
“It’s not her style,” Xavier sighed, as if exhausted. “She doesn’t like anything too new.”
I eyed Xavier suspiciously, curious as to what his relationship with Lilith really was. He seemed to know an awful lot about the woman for someone who claimed to hate her. It was almost intimate. Especially if what he had told me was true, and she was looking to hurt me because of my closeness to him. I mean, that screamed crazy ex-girlfriend.
“We could go in all guns blazing, doubt the Silver’s would put up much of a fight,” Orion stated, his expression frighteningly blank.
Xavier shook his head. “No, the Silver’s like to make themselves look disorganised and clumsy, but they’re not. It’s exactly why Lilith chose them. They thrive on chaos, live for it. They’d like nothing more than a fight to the death with us. We have to do this quietly.”
“What are their weaknesses?” I asked, feeling the need to chip in despite being utterly useless. The three of them looked up from the island to look at me with raised eyebrows as if I’d just grown a second head and I shrugged.
“What? They have to have something, right?” I added.
Seamus cleared his throat, “Blood.”
This time, everyone spun around to look at the small man still huddled in the corner of the room. If it hadn’t been for his distinctive smell, we’d have all forgotten he was here. Seamus didn’t bother to look at us, just hugged his cup of steaming coffee a little closer to his face and blew as if in deep thought.
“The Silver’s are turned vampire’s, half-breeds. Their bloodlust is stronger, they have far less control. You could attack during feeding time.”
I grimaced, trying not to get too caught up in the visual of a vampire feeding frenzy.
“Could work,” Mariella agreed. “We’d need to know their schedule. No use guessing.”
Something in my mind clicked, “We could ask Beth.”
Xavier turned to face me with a frown embedded in his brow. “What?”
“After she came to the office that day, I had a feeling that something was off. Like she knew something, or she wasn’t telling me something. What if she’s somehow involved with the Silver’s?” I explained. “If we could track her down and ask her, she could be willing to help. We could make her a deal, get her out.”
“Quinn, that’s not how it works,” Xavier lowered his voice and Mariella and Orion attempted to avert their eyes, as if that would give us any privacy. “If she’s one of them, one of the Silver’s, we can’t just get her out. She’s blood bonded to them. She has an oath to keep.”
“But it wasn’t her choice,” I replied sharply, and Xavier grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the kitchen and out into the hallway. Gently, he tugged me into the sitting room and shut the door behind us.
“You don’t even know if she’s one of them,” Xavier added.
“No, but she’s a vampire, isn’t she?” I asked. “You would’ve been able to tell that day at the office, right?”
Xavier hesitated, shifting uncomfortably and refusing to look at me. It told me everything I needed to know without him even needing to open his mouth.
“Oath or not, she was a good person. There’s a chance she could help. It’s worth a try.”
“Turned vampires are different, Quinn. They’re not always the same people they once were.”
“I get it, OK. I get that you’re trying to protect me or give me the worst-case scenario, but do you have a better idea?”
His silence spoke volumes, and I shrugged. “So it’s settled. We find Beth, we make a deal. End of conversation.”
I turned to open the door and walk out, but Xavier stopped me, his hand pushed firmly against the door.
“Remind me, who is the King here? I’m wondering,” he teased, and I couldn’t help but grin.
“Sorry, I’m a little busy to stroke your ego. Maybe I can stroke something else a little later, would that help?” I mocked, trying to leave once again, only this time he didn’t just keep the door shut, but leaned forward to press himself against my back. His mouth set against my ear as he ground his hard on into my backside.
“Am I going to have to fuck you right here? With the three of them listening in the next room?”
My throat tightened as I tried to restrain the moan that threatened to spill from between my lips. “Xavier, we have work to do.”
His hand left the door, but I couldn’t bring myself to move, especially when the same hand trailed down my chest and kneaded at my breast. “Then go. I’m not stopping you.”
With a deep breath and a wave of sudden determination, I twisted the door handle and marched forward until I was back in the kitchen, flushed and breathing a little too heavily.
“Are you two finished?” Mariella snapped impatiently, but amusement tickled the edge of her words.
“Rank, Mariella,” Xavier replied, sitting down in one of the stools and sipping his coffee like nothing had happened. I watched as Mariella backed down and turned her eyes back to Orion, who despite my previous presumption was no longer looking at the photos of the Canary Wharf apartments, but instead buried deep in the contents of the shoebox.
Without a word, I lunged forward and wretched the flimsy cardboard from his grasp. His eyes flashed with rage as if I were challenging him, but Xavier was on his feet straight away, putting himself between the two of us. Even standing at his side, I could see Xavier’s eyes were just as engrossed in the contents of the box as Orion’s had been moments ago.
“Is that?” Mariella began quietly, her voice trailing off.
Seamus’s shuffling footsteps appeared behind me as my heartbeat quickened in my ears. Desperately, I hugged the box to my chest, but it was too late. They’d all seen what was inside and it was as I had feared—although I had no idea what any of the things in there meant. They all seemed to recognise them.
“That is nothing to do with you,” I stated.
Xavier cleared his throat, but all eyes remained zeroed in on me. “Mariella, find out where Beth is. If she’s with the Silver’s, find a way to separate her. I need to speak with her, sooner rather than later.”
Seamus was still hovering at my back, his eyes peering over my shoulder as if he were trying to get a better look inside the shoe box. I shot him a glare, but he seemed reluctant to back off. Either that or he was just useless at picking up on any social cues. That sounded more likely.
“Orion, go with Mariella. I’ll make sure Omen is covered for the time being.” Xavier brushed a hand through his hair, tangling his fingers in the strands as though the stress was getting to him. “Quinn’s plan could work if Beth is willing to cooperate. If not, then we’ll have to persuade her. I’ll need to make a few calls. Can I trust you not to run off through a gate while I’m in my office?” Xavier turned to me this time, looking down at me with sympathetic eyes.
“I can’t guarantee it,” I shrugged, but offered him a small smile to calm his nerves.
Mariella and Orion were the first to leave, the front door slamming loudly behind them as though they were both well and truly pissed off; they'd been forced from the warmth of Xavier’s townhouse and back onto the streets of London. Xavier was next, and he exited a little more gracefully, with a polite nod to Seamus. I listened as he quietly passed up the stairs before his office door quietly locked behind him, leaving the two rejects to sit in tense silence in the kitchen for the foreseeable future.
“Psst,” Seamus hissed, nudging me with his bony elbow from across the table.
“Ow,” I grunted in reply, moving to rub at my arm. “What?”
Sea
mus’s eyes were alight with mischief and trepidation, and I had visions of him as a school boy, planning to make a run for it through the school gates or something equally juvenile. “I don’t think you should wait for them.”
I frowned, my focus moving back to the staircase Xavier had just walked up, as though any minute now he’d get a sense that something was afoot and come running back down them to give us both a telling off. “What are you talking about?”
“There are things that Xavier isn’t telling you, things he’s hiding from you. You could end this, like that,” Seamus said, clicking his long thin fingers for dramatic effect while his beady eyes searched for my reaction.
“The issue is, people keep telling me this, but no one will share with me what it is he’s not telling me,” I replied, keeping my voice low. “Enlighten me.”
“I know Mariella took you to see Samael.” The statement was halfway between a splutter and actual words, and it took me a few seconds to work out if he was going somewhere with that information. “Go back to him, he’s the only one who’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
I had met Samael once, and it had been more than enough. Mariella had warned me the moment we’d walked into that place that he was bad news and, strangely enough, I had no reason not to trust her. She’d done plenty for me these last few weeks. As far as I was concerned, she was in my good books.
“Why him?” It seemed like a fair question, but Seamus backed away, not wanting to answer.
“If you want the truth, he’s the one that gives it to you. Xavier won’t. He can’t.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
Xavier made sure Seamus got home safely, which was a blessing. After our conversation, I couldn’t bring myself to look at his beady little lizard eyes for one second longer. This had been the worst twenty four hours of my life so far.
I say so far because I could almost guarantee it was only going to get worse. I knew that because at this current point in time, I was busy slipping into one of Xavier’s t-shirts in the middle of the night in preparation. He was still in his office. I could hear him on the phone down the hall. His was low, but I could tell he was furious.
Silver Vein: Beneath the City Sleeps Book 1 Page 21