by Lauren Dawes
“I know that you look awfully like your mother, except I think you have your father’s nose. She was also very adept with a crossbow.”
A crossbow? “I don’t understand.”
Faline finally brought the town car into land and shut off the engine. “Your parents were members of Rogue Faction,” she threw casually over her shoulder, then got out. I blinked, then blinked once more before my eyes dried out. Had she just said Rogue Faction? Who in the actual fuck were they? She opened the passenger door and reached in, pulling me unceremoniously out of the car. I landed with a thud on the pea gravel.
“Watch it,” I growled, indicating the tiny pebbles under my ass. “This shit gets into every crevice, especially into the tread of shoes. How annoying is that sound on tiled floors?”
Faline’s glower told me she didn’t agree, but I maintained my opinion. Draco was already moving with a preternatural, almost gliding grace up the stairs and into the foyer of the house. Faline hauled me up and shoved me hard up the stairs. I stumbled, going down onto one knee. The resounding pop echoed around the marble foyer I landed in, and pain streaked through the joint. She picked me up, forcing me to march forward. Every step was agony as the joint threatened to give way.
“I don’t suppose I can get some ice?” I asked.
“You’ll be lucky to survive the night,” she replied.
I tried to ignore her words, but the way my stomach twisted into a hard knot said my brain didn’t believe it.
She pushed me down the basement steps, not bothering to catch me as I fell. I tumbled, falling hard on my right shoulder, the same one that was still healing from when my truck got totaled. Biting my lip, I kept the scream in until blood flooded my mouth. I spat it onto the floor of the landing, glowering defiantly at Faline as she stepped behind me.
“Oops,” she said.
I’d give her oops. I shuffled around until I was on my knees, well, just one knee. I held the other one off the ground, since the pain was too much to bear if there was any weight on it.
“What are you going to do to me?”
She looked over my shoulder, and I followed her gaze, sucking in a gasp when I saw what was there. On a raised platform that looked like a metal table you found at a vet clinic, was a coffin. Its polished red-brown mahogany surface reflected back the bare bulb hanging overhead. I swallowed.
“Is that where Lover Boy sleeps?” I asked, hoping she didn’t hear the shake in my voice.
“No. That’s where you’re going to sleep. Forever.”
She physically picked me up this time, threw open the casket’s lid, and dumped me facedown into the cold white satin. My panic was instant. It felt like barbed wire was winding around my chest, squeezing tighter and tighter with every beat of my heart. My shoulder throbbed in time with my pulse, my knee an accompanying base line. With my elbows locked and both shoulders screaming at the position, I knew I was going to have to get some serious chiropractic help after I got out here.
“Why are you doing this, Faline?” I asked when I was sure my breath was steady. “I thought we were friends.”
Her responding laugh was derisive. “Oh, that’s so sweet. You thought that, huh?”
“Yes,” I ground out. “Why?”
“Because of who you are.” Draco’s voice sounded far away, but as he spoke, it got closer. “Because you are the last of your lineage.”
“Last of what lineage?”
“Your parents’ marriage was the linking of the two strongest Rogue Faction blood lines in the world, and your birth was a physical manifestation of that that link. You have so much power flowing inside your veins, but you have no idea how to harness it.”
I choked down his words, finding them sharp and uncomfortable. “I’ve never heard of an organization called Rogue Faction before.”
“That’s because I’ve made it my job for the last five years to eradicate every single last one of them,” he screamed suddenly, losing the face of his civility.
I turned my face on the satin pillow to looked at him as he stood over the casket.
He leaned it and whispered conspiratorially, “This is where you say, ‘You’ll never get away with this.’”
“I’m not misquoting Scooby-Doo for you,” I replied, sucking in a hiss when my shoulder screamed at the shift in position. “You made all the baby vampires. Why?”
He smiled, flashing his fangs. “To draw you out, to see what you were made of. I wanted to know whether you were a worthy adversary like your father was… before I killed him. Did you know he begged me not to kill you after I was done with him? He begged me and begged me to let you go, to live. He also promised he’d leave the Faction if I let you both go. That he’d disappear with you and I’d never hear from him again.”
A tear squeezed from the corner of my eye. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to know that about him before I kill you like he killed my kiss.”
So, this is why he was doing this. “How many did he kill?”
“All of us,” he replied, a haunted look on his face. “My family, the one I’d built for two centuries, was just gone in a flash of fire.”
“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.”
His expression clouded over. “Neither was your father until I caught up with him in Turkey. He was clearing out another kiss with such zealous fervor that I recognized in him what I was feeling. Your mother died on that mission when she destroyed my kiss, and then your father was hell-bent on destroying every vampire he could find in order to avenge her.
“What he didn’t know was that I was on a similar mission. I hunted them all down, and he was last of his team. He was the one I wanted the most, because he was the one who gave the order to destroy everything.” He turned his sharp, dangerous eyes to me. “Do you want to know how he and his team killed my family? They wrapped their coffins in silver, then set them alight. They were roasted in there, unable to get out because of your father.”
It dawned on me then why I was in this fucking coffin. “I think you’re taking this a little too far,” I said, my mind scrambling to come up with a way out of this. “You could just kill me if you want kill me. Stop with the theatrics.”
He chuckled, but it sounded dead. “Where’s the fun in that? Vampires are nothing if not theatrical.” He turned to walk away, but paused and faced me once more. “Oh, and your partner, the one I took while you stood there like a dolt? His fear was the best I’d tasted… well, next to your father’s, of course.”
He had killed my partner?
And just like that, I was dragged back to one week ago…
It was a dark night, and we were investigating a call about someone trespassing in a junkyard. We were walking back after making sure the fence was secure, when my partner screamed. Harrold was his name. He screamed, and then the sound was cut off. I’d spun around, my flashlight jumping spasmodically around the old cars, damaged and broken appliances, and scrap metal that was piled up around me. I couldn’t see him… all I could do was hear him. Terror gripped me by the throat, strangling any sounds I would have made…
And then I froze.
I simply turned off the flashlight, shut my eyes, and prayed for Harrold to stop taking those rattling, gasping exhalations.
I blinked rapidly, trying to erase the sounds of my first partner’s final breaths from my memory. “He was a good man,” I growled. “He had a family.”
“He was a human. Disposable. Besides, he was a means to an end. His death got you transferred to PIG, where my darling Faline worked.”
My gaze jumped to her face as she stared down at me. “You knew who I was?”
“The moment you breezed through the door,” she replied. Reaching up, she shut the lid of the coffin, leaving me with nothing but darkness and the screaming in my head. My breathing was an erratic wheeze through my mouth, the humid air I was producing soon making the interior of the coffin even more claustrophobic than it already was.
F
orcing myself to calm down, I took shallower breaths, trying to focus on something other than my impending death. I strained my ears, listening for any movement, any tell-tale sound around me, but the satin and thick wood dampened the sound. My only chance to escape would be when they opened the casket again… if they opened the casket again. Knowing my shitty luck, they were already building a fire under this thing and getting the marshmallows ready.
I shifted a little, then paused when I felt something long and hard settle between my shoulder blades. I inhaled, taking in the slight tinge of old leather, then breathed a sigh of relief. Reaver was here… somehow. Honestly, after this, I was going to let the sword sleep in my bed if it wanted to. But how was I supposed to use it with my hands tied behind my back?
Then I remembered…
It would mean binding myself to magic—something I’d sworn I’d never do—but if I didn’t, the only thing I’d be doing in the future would be feeding the worms. I rubbed my thumb along the inside of my hand, feeling the cuts on my fingers. I just hoped the wounds I’d inflicted on the conduit mirror hadn’t coagulated too much. Wrapping my hand gently around the bare blade, I sucked in a hiss as I reopened those cuts. Immediately, Reaver grew warmer under my touch, the steel throbbing in time with my racing pulse. Beneath me, the opal also began to glow as Reaver’s magic poured through me, but the stone flickered a few times before finally extinguishing.
A vibration started coming from the sword, transferring into my body as the frequency increased. It became uncomfortably strong, and I tried to release my fingers from the blade, but I couldn’t let go. Reaver was stuck to my skin, and I grit my teeth against the onslaught. Blood and magic was a dangerous combination, a combination I wouldn’t have ever found out about if I wasn’t about to be murdered by a psycho vampire.
The marrow in the bones of my hands, arms, and shoulders quaked as the shivering steel intensified to the point of pain. Gritting my teeth, I screamed into the pillow, writhing in place. After the longest minute of my life, something cold fell against my side, and I realized the cuffs had fallen away. My arms fell to my sides, the ache in my shoulders acute.
I curled my fingers around Reaver’s hilt, the sword now down at waist level. This fucking blade would creep me out if it wasn’t saving my life.
With my hands unbound and a weapon at my disposal, my fear and anxiety started to ebb away, leaving cold hate and a determination to survive in its place. I steadied my breathing, taking longer and longer breaths to focus my mind. Someone came down the stairs again, and judging by the clack of heels, it was Faline. Quickly, so she wouldn’t think anything was amiss, I placed my hands behind my back and rolled onto my side as she opened the casket lid.
Her dark hair was disheveled, but her green eyes were bright. The smell of sex perfumed the air, and I screwed my face up.
“You just fucked the cadaver?” I asked. “He’s as cold as the grave.”
She flashed the inside of her wrist. “Not after he’s fed, he’s not. With my blood pumping through his veins, he’s warm and hard and ripe for the plucking.”
“Don’t say the word hard to me.” I shuddered. “I get a mental image.”
She folded her arms and stared at me. Like I was a puzzle. Which I guessed I was, given I was so fucking ignorant of what my parents did for a living and I had a magical sword following me around like a dog.
“You’ll be dying in an hour. Any last words?”
An hour? This was probably my last chance to get out of here. “Yeah. Why the fuck would you delay this shit?”
Her nostrils flared. “He wants to wage psychological warfare on you. He wants to make you sweat. After all, revenge is a dish best served cold.”
“Well, you can let him know he’s doing an exceptional job of that.” I wrapped my fingers around Reaver’s hilt—the fingers of my left hand because my right shoulder was fucked—and let out a breath. “Do me a favor though?” I said. “Can you just scratch my nose for me?”
“What?”
Rolling my eyes theatrically, because why should Draco have all the thespian fun, I said, “I have an itch. On my nose. You cuffed me. I can’t reach it.”
With a long-suffering growl, she leaned down to scratch my fictional itch, and that was when I made my move. Bringing my arm up in a cumbersome arc, I brought Reaver down onto her neck, slicing through it with very little effort. Her head bounced off my chest, landing face-down between me and the side of the casket. Blood gushed from her neck, filling the inside of the coffin. The white satin turned red, eagerly absorbing the hot liquid. Bile hit the back of my throat.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed Faline by the hair and threw her head out of the casket, blood spiraling like macabre confetti around her. The appendage landed with a dull thud, and I vomited, emptying my stomach both onto me and into the coffin. After the gagging stopped, I sat up, sucking in another hiss as my right shoulder reminded me with agony-filled fingers that shit was not okay in the scapular region of my body.
Wiping a hand over the back of my mouth, I peered over the edge of the casket to make sure Faline was good and dead. If I’d learned anything from horror movies and The Walking Dead, it was that things rarely came back from decapitation. When there was movement above my head, I jerked to look at the ceiling and cursed—softly, because vampire. Hauling myself onto my good knee, I eased myself out of the coffin and off the edge of the table, making sure to keep my grip on Reaver tight. I skirted around the growing puddle of blood from Faline and began looking for somewhere to hide. The only problem was there was nowhere to hide. This guy had the cleanest fucking basement I’d ever seen. Who the hell did he think he was, Marie Condo?
The basement door opened then, and I bolted under the stairs.
Draco’s steps were light, almost non-existent, but he couldn’t control the air he displaced as he moved. From my vantage, I saw him reach the landing and freeze. I could only see him in profile, but his expression was twisted into genuine grief. I should’ve known he’d felt the moment I ended Faline’s life. He walked over to the casket and flipped off the lid, then hissed when he realized I was gone.
Easing out from under the stairs, I readjusted my grip on Reaver and hesitated. I hesitated because I could just as easily run up those stairs, out of the basement and away…but vampires were fast. I’d seen that, so standing and fighting also seemed like a good idea. Cut the head off the snake and all that.
“I don’t think you can return that coffin now,” I said, hoping I sounded as brave out loud as I did in my head. Draco spun around in a whoosh of tailored suit and snarled.
“You killed her.”
I dipped my chin. “At least you aren’t blind.”
“How?”
I looked down to find Reaver gone. Again. I glanced back up at him and shrugged. “Call me resourceful.”
“I’ll call you dead,” he said on a snarl as he launched himself at me. I braced for impact, widening my stance. He hit me with what felt like five hundred pounds of muscle and anger, but I rolled with it, absorbing the hit and toppling over. Taking this to the ground was a mistake, but I had to trust that Reaver knew what it was doing.
And now I was talking like Reaver had a brain and made tactical decisions.
My head slammed back into the bare concrete floor when Draco’s fist collided with my face. I blinked the black fuzzies out of my eyes, trying to focus on where the next strike was coming from. He caught me in the mouth, popping open my split lip that had barely healed. By the time I was done here, I was afraid of what the doctors at the hospital would think of me.
Draco’s fist hovered above me, and I dodged the strike, making the bastard punch the concrete instead. He hissed, blood leaking from his shattered hand. I was horrified to learn that vampires didn’t sustain damage like regular people. The mangled mess of bones in his hand knitted back together right before my eyes.
“Son of a bitch,” I breathed.
I scrambled to get out fr
om under him, finally breaking free and jumping up. He grabbed me by the back of my jacket, and I let my arms slide through so all he was left with was red leather. I bolted for the stairs, rethinking my earlier dumbass logic. Nope, this time, I was going to fucking bolt and hide until the sun came up.
Then I might come back here for a lunchtime cookout. Was is still considered murder if they were already dead?
I only made it up half a dozen stairs before he snagged my foot. I jammed the heel backwards, cringing at the squelch as the stiletto heel went straight through his eye. He released me long enough for me to scramble up another two steps before he tackled me back to the ground. I grunted as I fell, attempting to suck back in the breath that was knocked from me.
I propelled myself up another few steps, kicking wildly as I went. A cut opened up on his cheek when I swiped at his face, but it healed almost instantly. Up and up we went, playing this strange game of cat and mouse, only the victor of this game got murder added to their tally.
When I reached the top of the stairs, I went through the door, just not in the way I expected. Draco launched himself at me, landing on my back and riding me to the kitchen floor the basement opened on to. Wood splintered as the doorway shattered around us.
“I’m not a fucking unicorn!” I yelled, jerking and jostling, trying to dislodge him. He was strong, but I didn’t think he was at full strength. Perhaps Faline’s death had weakened him somehow? Whatever the reason, I was fucking grateful. Now all I needed was Reaver to start playing nice.
As Draco flipped me over onto my back, he wrenched my head to the side and tipped my chin up, giving him unfettered access to my throat and the carotid artery that pounded against my skin. Oh, hell no. I was not a juice box. As he leaned in, his mouth open, his fangs growing from tiny points to two-inch monstrosities, I sucked in a breath and braced for my throat to be torn out. I was not, however, braced for the scream that sounded as if it was being forcefully ripped from his vocal cords…with a pair of hot pliers.