“Shut up or I’ll throw my second knife, and maybe it’ll hit somewhere more”—I dropped my gaze to his crotch—“painful.”
Rumors were, male vampires had their genitalia severed as soon as they matured enough to serve their queen—those that weren’t breeding partners, anyway. But I’d seen him naked. Briefly. Maybe he’d gotten to keep his dick because of his service to his queen. I flicked my gaze up, found him half smiling, and sneered away, hating the heat warming my cheeks. Hating him.
“You trust too easily, Lynher. Gerome, Etienne… your brother.”
“I don’t have a brother.”
“Right. What was I thinking?”
At our destination, he’d tell his vampireguard all about Lynher and Kensey Aris working to undermine their order. As I would die anyway, I might as well die trying to take him with me. I needed to strike his heart, like Lilith had done with the imposter. Cut it out. But he wouldn’t hold still while I carved him up with a throwing knife. I needed a way to disable him. The problem was, Jack didn’t have weaknesses. Even with a limp, he would not go down easy.
“I see the ways you want to kill me in your eyes, Miss Aris. It’s… stimulating,” he purred, the words sounding suggestive and wrong.
“Lilith was supposed to kill you in the Grand Hall.”
“Which is exactly why I employed someone like Felipe to play at being me, but you saw through the deception. I still don’t know how you did that…”
“You never will.”
“My act was flawless. I can count on one hand those alive who know the truth.”
“I was on to you the first time I saw you.”
“On the platform? Surely not.”
“No, not then.” I’d forgotten about that meeting. “In my library. You were waiting for me. I knew there was something wrong with you then.”
“No, I saw the way you looked at me. You didn’t know me then. Sometime in between, you figured it out. For what it’s worth, I’m impressed.”
“I don’t care if you’re impressed.”
“But you do care, very much. It’s a weakness in all humans.”
“Caring is not a weakness, but I understand why a vampire would think so. You can’t help it. You’re just the queen’s puppet. You don’t feel anything outside of her control, do you?”
The glittering spark of humor that had been there since daybreak snuffed out of his eyes. He tried to hold his smile, but a fracture tilted his expression, turning it wooden instead of real. I’d found something to needle him with.
“Most vampires can’t even think for themselves. You’re like toys… She winds you up and lets you go, until you rush back to her, needing her like the good little puppets you are.”
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, his face falling blank. So, he didn’t want to talk anymore. Screw that. It was his turn to entertain me. I got to my feet, crossed the carriage, then knelt next to him, folding my legs beneath me. His eyes were still closed, but he’d have heard me settle. “I always wondered how that works. Is she in your head? Or is it something inside that pulls you? Something you can’t deny?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said grimly, eyes still closed.
I eyed his chest and watched the unnecessary rise and fall of each breath. Their hearts were in the same place as mine. Lilith had proven that. “No, because I’m human, and I have free will.”
He opened his eyes but didn’t start at finding me so close. His scrutiny of my face warmed my skin, but I stayed firm, eyeing him back. I couldn’t kill him, not with my tiny knife, so I had to play this smarter. He was likely my only chance at surviving what came after this rattling box.
The carriage clattered around us, its rocking shifting us in the same monotonous rhythm. I’d seen how dangerous he could be, yet he didn’t look it now. He looked… tired. My stupid, caring heart wanted to believe that look. Perhaps it was part of his charm, but so subtle I couldn’t feel it undermining me.
He lifted his hand to tuck a loose lock of hair behind my ear. Moments ago, I’d have whacked that hand away. I wanted to. He’d sought me out at the station, perhaps to tease me, but even so… he’d wanted my company, putting himself in my path time and time again. To get back to Kensey and survive, I had to use him, not fight him.
Mentioning his queen had sliced off some of his snark, perhaps leaving him exposed. “Is she in your head right now?”
“Always.”
“Always?”
“It’s…” He dropped his gaze and wet his lips. “Never mind.”
“When did you meet Gerome?”
“A lifetime ago.” He brightened, the subject more appealing.
“At the station?”
He nodded and rested his head back again, watching the dancing shafts of light. His face in profile was a marvel. It wasn’t right that the queen made her spawn so… perfect. And when she’d made this one, she hadn’t skimped on the details. Besides his body, which I’d seen more of than was proper, his face had a stunning symmetry that tricked my brain into thinking he was beautiful. Defined jaw, pronounced cheekbones, and tapered eyes, the dark kind with a touch of green that made them hazel and unerringly human. I could spot a vampire in a crowd in seconds, but he continued to fool my better judgment.
“He was recently killed?” he asked, and it took me a moment to realize we’d been speaking of Gerome.
“The VG got him.”
“Do you know why?”
I sighed and picked at my boots. It was too easy to remember when the VG had come to me, and when I’d seen them carry in his body, so limp and gray and lifeless. “Do you know why they killed him?”
Jack looked up from watching me play with my bootlaces. “Gerome had secrets.”
Secrets. Like the resistance? “Do you have secrets?”
“Many.” His smile returned, but small, like he’d hung it there because he was supposed to. He’d said I’d seen the truth in him, but that was likely a lie too. Did anyone know him? Would anyone want to?
“I guess I won’t be around much longer to find them out.” Leaning back, I rocked with the carriage. His presence, so close beside me, either flushed me with heat or drenched me in cold. I didn’t understand him, didn’t know him, and didn’t want to, but if it meant surviving, I’d act like his friend.
He shrugged off his coat, and held it out. “Take it.”
I was cold. I wasn’t dressed for the outdoors. “Thank you.” I folded the coat around my shoulders and pulled it closed under my chin. Spicy warmth enveloped me, tinged with an exotic scent, not dissimilar to the station’s spicy warmth. I hugged it closer, feeling safer now wrapped in the smell of home.
We fell quiet again. He watched me from the corner of his eye, pretending not to.
“I don’t want to die,” I whispered.
“Nobody does.”
“Have you ever…” I dry-laughed at my own foolishness. “Never mind.”
“Now I simply must know. Ask your question. You may not get another chance.”
“Have you ever saved people instead of kill them?”
He breathed in and sighed out slowly, thinking over his answer. It didn’t seem like a difficult question. Not to me. He’d lived longer than me, decades, centuries even. He must have saved someone in all that time. Just once?
“No,” he said flatly, reminding me why we were on opposite sides of a war and why my time was fast running out.
Chapter 13
Night
The carriage jolted and its brakes squealed, startling me awake. Jack had moved to the far side of our box while I’d dozed and shivered and dreamed of Kensey coming after me. The Dark Ones had hunted him because he was made of hope and light and everything day, and he hadn’t known how to hurt them. The dream had ended with him surrounded, his hand outstretched.
I pulled my blanket closer, breathed in the smell of home, and then remembered the blanket was Jack’s coat, destroying the comfort I’d found wrapped in it.
“Get up,” Jack ordered, his glare pinned to the door.
The carriage screamed to a jolting halt.
Stiff and aching, I got to my feet and discreetly tucked my remaining knife up my sleeve and against my wrist.
“Don’t say anything.” He came forward and stopped in front of the door, his chin up and shoulders square. Every inch an overseer, like he proudly stood atop a pile of bones.
I stood behind him, off to his right, his coat over my shoulders and buttoned at my neck. Maybe I could take a few down before they killed me?
Boots marched closer outside. Orders were barked. There were many of them out there… I was about to die. At least I’d do so standing and proud. I would not die kneeling to a vampire.
My pulse thudded hot and alive in my throat.
Jack turned his head. His gaze was hard, his mouth a thin line. This was where we parted ways. Someday, someone would kill him, someone good, and end all this madness.
The door rumbled open.
Floodlights poured in, blinding me of everything beyond Jack’s silhouette.
I dropped a dagger into my fingers, flung an arm around Jack’s narrow waist, then pressed the edge of my blade to his neck.
“Stop,” he hissed, stilling.
Too late. This was happening.
I blinked into the light. Shapes appeared, white on white. “Stay back! I have him. I have your Ghost!”
As my eyes adjusted from the dark to the light, countless faces took shape. So many vampires, all waiting on a platform, all dressed the same, all bloodthirsty drones. The more I looked, the more of their number I counted. Thirty, forty, so many. They filled the platform and went on through huge open gates, the tops bristling with razor wire. Floodlights bleached the world of color. Beyond all that, horrible blocks of gray stone buildings waited, iron bars over the windows.
“Stop, Lynher…” Jack’s charm rolled over me, much stronger than before. It poured over my tongue and into my ears, filling me up with warm amber and honey, charming me into believing I could listen to him, that he’d keep me safe. I fought it, felt it stutter, but then it plunged harder inside, deeper, faster, hungrier. I couldn’t stop it. Jack wasn’t like the others. I’d seen it in his eyes, but now I felt the difference in him infecting my veins, turning my body against me.
I lowered the knife even as I silently screamed for him to get out of my head.
My human heart beat his will through my veins in waves.
The knife fell from my hand and clattered on the carriage boards, and I watched my one chance at survival shatter under the too-bright lights.
A few vampires moved in, but Jack lifted a hand, stopping them—puppets on his strings. He covered my hand on his hip, unfolding my embrace as easily as swinging open a gate. He turned, lowered my arm to my side, and met my eyes.
I made sure he saw how hate blazed through me and made him feel it too. It lit me up and burned inside. Hate for him, hate for them all. They could kill me, but I wasn’t alone in hating him. One day, their reign would end. I might not see it, but I knew it would happen.
“Foolish girl.” His cheek fluttered, and his eyes had turned cold. He stepped back, withdrawing some of his charm and leaving me gasping.
“Get her out of my sight.”
Vampires plowed in, swallowing him from my view. Cold, iron hands grabbed my arms. Someone tore Jack’s coat from around my shoulders, yanking it so hard a button cut into my neck and popped free. There was no use fighting. Better to conserve my strength for a later opportunity.
They dragged me through their numbers. Over a hundred soulless pairs of eyes watched me pass. These were true drones—the queen’s workers, her army. They didn’t think. They acted. They didn’t even look alive behind those cold, dead eyes.
I glimpsed Jack in the crowd, his brow pinched as he talked rapidly with another male vampire. He didn’t seem pleased. But the sight of him was soon lost among the drones.
Metal tainted the air; I tasted it on my tongue. Or was it blood?
Mud pulled at my boots. They marched me through the slop to the sound of the gates slamming closed behind me. I let my chin drop and thought of Kensey reaching out to me in the dream. I’d thought I’d dreamed it up to save him, but now I wondered if he’d been reaching out to save me.
* * *
They took my knife first.
They stole my clothes next.
After the time I’d wandered into Lilith’s room and emerged days later with no memory or sense of time, I’d felt empty and exposed, like I’d been turned inside out. I felt the same way now, wrapped in a threadbare cotton gown, my skin burning from the high-pressure hose they’d turned on me. I wasn’t myself. This wasn’t real. They’d stripped me of every single layer that made me me. The drones had watched me come undone. I was strong. I’d always been strong. But this… I wasn’t sure who or what I was in this hard, horrible place. Was I even human anymore? I didn’t feel it.
As they dragged me from one windowless room to another, I couldn’t fight, and so I went, one foot in front of the other. When they demanded that I show them my wrist, I lifted my arm and pulled back the sleeve.
“What is that?” The station’s mark on my arm had caught the guard’s eye. It had dulled to a washed-out gray. Out here, it wasn’t much more than an ugly tattoo. But seeing that symbol of home summoned a knot in my throat. Already it seemed that woman in her pretty dresses and daggers up her sleeves was someone else entirely.
A second vampire joined the first. He had darker, longer hair and wore it tucked behind his ears, his mean face narrow and angular. “It’s nothing,” he grunted. “Get it done.” He went back to checking the papers strewn across a table.
The first, his hair sandy and his face rounder, picked up some kind of gun and slotted a cartridge inside. “I’ve seen a cross marking like that before.”
“When?” the mean one asked, not looking up.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But it’s familiar, isn’t it?”
The mean one frowned at me and came over. He grabbed my arm and lifted it to get a good look. “Then do the other wrist.” He roughly tossed my arm down like a piece of meat. “She’s due at processing before dawn.”
Sandy-hair grabbed my unmarked wrist, pressed the gun to my skin, and fired. Pain blasted hot and heavy up my arm. I tried to pull away, only for the vampire to tighten his grip. He yanked me off balance and admired the puckered burn mark. A quick swipe of his thumb while his partner wasn’t looking, and he swept up a dribble of blood and burned skin, bringing both to his pink tongue for a taste.
I stared back flatly. Like with any Dark One, if I reacted, they’d only poke at me some more.
His grin wilted. “Ah, damn…” He spat to the side. “She’s claimed.”
“By who?” the leader barked.
“Don’t know, but her blood’s spoiled.”
“Shit.” Mean Face grabbed my gown in his fist and pulled me onto my toes. “Who owns you, bitch?”
“Nobody.”
He threw me down. “Hours wasted! Take it to the dens. The overseer can decide what to do with it. Spoiled goods, for fuck’s sake… like we don’t have enough to do.”
The overseer? Was that Jack? Sandy hauled me to my feet and marched me from the room.
* * *
It was raining between buildings, and with no protection, I was drenched through and shivering by the time I reached what I assumed were the dens. Steps descended into a basement level. Doors lined a long hallway. No windows. And the doors, made of thick steel, only had small letterbox slits at eye level. The air was wrong here, sweet and thick and hot.
Sandy opened a door using a heavy double-levered handle and shoved me inside. He slammed the door closed so hard it rang like a bell. And then there was just a strange heavy quiet, broken by the sounds of breathing and shuffling.
I blinked into the gloom. Others were huddled in the dark, eyes wide, silent but for the rustle of their filthy rags. The sew
er-like stench pulled water from my eyes and burned my throat.
I was in hell.
Chapter 14
Night
I tried to speak with them but it quickly became clear they couldn’t reply, even if they’d wanted to. Some were older than me, but most were younger, all jutting bones and rounded faces, big eyes blinking from behind layers of filth.
Minutes felt like hours. Doors slammed. Boots clomped. There were no screams, no howls, no moans. Just silence, and that was worse, because the silence was full. With no light, no hope, these people were waiting for death to claim them.
When the door opened and a guard dragged me free, I sucked in lungfuls of cleaner air, quiet tears of relief falling. I was free of that room, if just for a moment. Free of the looks on their little faces that would haunt my dreams.
The guard marched me up a tower of never-ending stairs. My legs wobbled, my belly empty and aching. Then finally, he knocked at a door.
“Come.”
The décor inside was austere, like the unfamiliar overseer behind his desk. The desk looked familiar, more than familiar. It had the same clawed feet and ornate carvings as mine in my library. No, not like it; they were identical. No, no, it couldn’t be. My mind, having never been outside the Station, was grasping for familiarities.
I stumbled in, dragged along like a broken pet, waiting to be shot.
“Leave it,” the overseer said.
The guard deposited me on a rug. Its pile was deep and warm and soft enough to swallow my toes. I’d never felt anything finer. I reflexively wiggled my toes, wondering if, when I moved from this spot, I’d leave dirty footprints behind. I hoped so.
The overseer was not Jack. Disappointment sat in my empty gut. This male vampire was rounder, shorter, and with a long face full of hard snarls and small, flinty eyes. He heaved himself from his chair and rounded the desk, walking right up to me. We were the same height, but his bulk and presence filled the room, trying to crush me. His charm rolled over me, hot and wet and slippery, but like most others, it didn’t stick. Maybe he wasn’t trying.
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