I was beginning to understand how Whitney and Hope could willingly allow themselves to be bitten.
Henry grinned. “Gavin, meet Noel’s friend, Aurora Sky. She’s new at West.”
“A pleasure,” Gavin said, eyes sparkling like the champagne in my glass. “We are very happy to have you at our school.”
“How about we give Aurora a tour of the palace?” Henry suggested.
“Good idea.” Gavin held his arm out for me.
I took it. Might as well get a lay of the land. Henry did the same for Noel. So they were ridiculously charming. Big deal. They’d had centuries to practice.
Henry led us across the stone steps that connected the door to the kitchen and living room. “These stones were imported from Jerusalem.”
I looked down. “You’re kidding.”
Henry grinned. “Come see the upstairs.”
The upstairs to Marcus’s palace was accessed via a spiral staircase with wood steps. Its iron railing curled and twisted like meticulously planned doodles from the posts to the steps. I pulled my arm out of Gavin’s to walk up single file.
There was a view of the living room from the balcony at the top of the stairs. Henry led us into a guest room with a bed high off the ground, the mattress level with a large window. “Marcus believes that if one has an ocean view, he should be able to see it from his bed.”
“Makes sense,” I muttered, staring around the room in awe.
The space was covered in art and curiosities on all sides. You’d think it would look cluttered, but the effect was fascinating. Statues sat on the floor beside upholstered armchairs and chaise lounges. There was a large turtle, his back made out of green tiles, and a three-foot statue of a faun like the one in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe standing beside a stained glass lamp. A hand-carved wooden lion sat at the head of the bed looking into the room.
I no longer felt like Dorothy. Now, I was Lucy stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia.
“Wait until you see the shower,” Noel said. “It has its own room.”
I just laughed.
Henry led us to a glass wall enclosing a walk-in shower with a rainforest mural inside done entirely in tile. The shower could easily fit ten people.
My eyes were bugging out of my head. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” Noel said.
“Want to see the rest of the rooms?” Henry asked.
I nodded.
The next door we came across was shut with a silver bat dangling from the doorknob.
“That means do not disturb,” Gavin said. “There’s one for each guest room should you ever need it.”
My cheeks heated instantly. I looked away.
Henry swooped in and took my arm. “Come on, there are plenty more rooms to see. This place is like an after-hours museum. Lucky for us, Marcus is fond of company. You’ll find the gates to the palace are almost always open.”
I glanced at the artwork on the walls as Henry escorted me into another guest room. This one was painted and decorated in various shades of orange. There was a hand-sewn bat pillow propped on a low seat, his flat felt wings spread over the chair. He looked straight ahead with orange glass eyes.
“This is the October room,” Henry said.
I craned my head around the room. I had to ask. “How did Marcus get to be so rich? Don’t tell me he’s been saving for several centuries?”
Henry laughed. “No, nothing as mundane as that. All this is paid for by his benefactor, Richard Nielsen, of Nielsen’s Fine Art Gallery.”
I should have been revolted. Instead I smiled and nearly laughed. “You mean Marcus is a kept vampire?”
Henry chuckled. “Marcus enjoys the good life.”
“And his lover is human, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“He doesn’t care that Marcus is a vampire?”
“He cares a lot. It’s an added bonus, in fact.”
I screwed up my face. “So he likes all the bloodsucking and biting?”
Henry looked me over carefully. “A lot more than you, apparently.” He took my arm and led me back to the door. “What Richard really likes is a man who won’t age and a man who can’t get sick.”
I looked away. “Oh.”
“We’ll be down in a moment,” Gavin said as Henry and I started out of the October room.
I glanced back. Noel was conveniently inspecting figurines on a Creamsicle-colored shelf.
“Don’t worry,” Henry said. “I’ll show Aurora the way back.” He turned to me and smiled. “It looks like you could use a refill.”
I glanced at my half-empty champagne glass. I hadn’t drunk that much. How could I with my mouth hanging open in awe of the place?
“Sure,” I said.
When I looked back over my shoulder, the silver bat hung from the doorknob of the October room.
“You are curious,” Henry said to me smoothly. “And yet cautious. I’ll be honest. It makes me want to bite you even more. You should not be here until you are ready.” He whispered inside my ear. “The others aren’t as considerate as I am.”
Shivers ran down my spine.
Henry released my arm at the foot of the spiral staircase. “Enjoy the party, Aurora Sky.”
Part of me wished Henry would escort me downstairs. Why did vampire boys have to be so much cooler than normal boys like stupid Scott Stevens?
Dante had said the first bite was better than sex. Maybe it was vampire sex that was better.
On that thought, my cheeks heated. I looked over my shoulder in time to catch Henry slipping inside the October room.
Why was it I wished I could trade places with Noel right then? Maybe it had something to do with the two hotties who would soon be sinking their teeth simultaneously into her neck.
I shook my head violently to clear the visual.
Fine, back down to the party I went. I was just the assassin here. I didn’t get to engage in love bites with devastatingly hot vampires. Nope, I got the meanie, nasty, psychotic sickos who ripped through my flesh like rabid wolves and bled all over my clothes.
Remind me what the perks of my job are again?
By the time I’d made it down to the first floor, I’d emptied my champagne glass. I took it inside the kitchen and held it under one of the spouts spurting bubbly.
“Hi there,” a woman with platinum blond hair said. “I haven’t seen you before. I’m Rachel.”
“Hey. My name’s Aurora.”
The woman smiled. “Well, Aurora, it’s nice of you to join us.”
People certainly knew how to mingle here.
“Let me know if anyone bothers you.”
“Um, thanks.” Was this woman a vampire? I didn’t see any bite marks on her neck. Vampires really ought to stick out more.
“Don’t mention it.” Rachel smiled and walked out of the kitchen.
I followed her out and leaned against a wall overlooking the living room. Now me, I wasn’t a mingler. I was more of the type to stand nervously in the corner thinking about how I didn’t know anyone.
“Hi there.” A man in his late twenties joined my side. Like all the other males partying at the palace, he wasn’t bad to look at. “Are you friends with Marcus?”
“We just met.”
“Same here. I’m William, by the way.”
“Aurora.”
“That’s a pretty name.” He smiled and tilted his head toward the living room. “My girlfriend goes way back with Marcus…centuries back.”
I turned and looked at him closer. “Your girlfriend’s a vampire?” Was it Rachel? How many inter-species couples were there at this thing? Maybe dating Fane wasn’t such a big whoop after all—apparently, everyone was doing it. I scanned the women in the crowd. “I haven’t met any lady vamps.”
William chuckled. “No, you don’t come across too many fanged females. Quite the pity.”
“How long have you been together?”
“About a year.”
“And you’r
e not worried about what will happen when you get older and she doesn’t?”
William smirked. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Shouldn’t someone your age be living in the now rather than worrying about the future?”
“It’s never too soon to think about the future.”
“Life’s short. It could end at any moment.”
I glanced into the living room. My eyes rested on Marcus. “Or it could go on and on.”
William followed the direction of my eyes. “For the chosen. As for the rest, what does it matter when they die?”
I shrugged. Sounded sort of dark.
“Would you like to meet your first lady vampire?”
“Sure.”
“She’s outside having a smoke. Do you smoke, Aurora?”
“No.”
“Ah, of course not, you’ve got your future to think about.”
I guessed it wasn’t Rachel, then, because she was standing beside a telescope at the window with another blond woman.
“Do you have a coat?” William asked.
I shook my head. “I left it in the car.”
“Then we won’t stay outside long.”
William hurried me along the front path. “She’s smoking by the street,” he said. “House rules.”
I rubbed my arms. At least I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. “You know, maybe I should meet her when she comes back inside. That’s the trouble with being human,” I attempted to joke. “We’re susceptible to the cold.”
“She’s right up here,” William said. “Hey, Wendy,” he called. “Where are you?”
The name set an alarm off in my head. Before I had a chance to panic, William turned and looked directly at me. “There you are.”
25
Catch And Release
Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could I be so stupid? Sure, let’s follow the stranger outside to the secluded street. And seriously? Who really wanted to meet a female vampire when there were so many hotties posturing like statues inside the palace—that place where there were actual people to shout out to for help?
A rusted Buick idled on the road. Two doors opened up front and a couple of scuzzbuckets stepped out.
“This her?” one asked.
William nodded. “We’ve found ourselves an assassin, boys.”
I turned to run, but William grabbed me by the hair and yanked back. My entire head felt like it’d been whacked against a wall. Tears leaked out the sides of my eyes. I kneed him in the groin. Did that work on vampires? Thankfully yes. He grunted and let go of my hair.
One of William’s henchmen wrapped his arms around me from behind. I stomped on his foot. He shouted. The third one smacked me across the face so hard I fell back and landed on the ground.
Two of them grabbed me and dragged me to the car while a third opened the back door. I was shoved inside. A scuzz got on either side of me. William jumped into the driver’s seat.
I looked from side to side. “So which one of you is Renard?”
William laughed from up front. “I’m Renard.”
“Of course you are,” I said bitterly.
“You’re not the only one who can come up with a phony name, Wendy.”
“How did you know who I was?”
“Your friend Janine was very forthcoming…once I broke both her arms.”
I tightened my hands into fists. “You’re disgusting!”
“I’m disgusting?” Renard asked. “What do you call what you did to Ivo and Patrick?”
“Justice.”
“Hmm. Justice. And that is what’s coming to you, Aurora Sky.”
If I weren’t so focused on my impending death, I would have told him to bring it. Death was one thing. It could come swiftly; I knew from experience. A drawn-out torturous death was another matter altogether.
If I weren’t squeezed in so tight between the two thugs, I might be able to reach under my jeans for my knife.
“You know, I think I left my purse at the party, so if I could just pop back in and retrieve it then meet you fellows back here.”
“Funny,” Renard said. “Thomas told me the boy was the funny one. When is Dante showing up?”
“He’s not.”
The vampire to my left grabbed me by the throat. I choked as his hands squeezed.
Renard looked in the rearview mirror. “Wait until we get her to the shack. Then we’ll see to it she starts talking.”
Shack? No! I’d rather die at the palace than inside a shack. Hell, I’d rather die behind the wheel of a car.
Renard drove down Minnesota Boulevard. There weren’t many vehicles out, but a few. I looked over at a group of high school boys cruising beside us. Couldn’t they see a kidnapping was in progress? They looked over briefly then sped ahead of us.
Unlike Thomas, I wasn’t hooded. There was no need to hood me. Why had Dante covered Thomas’s eyes to begin with? He probably hadn’t made the decision to off him at that point. Unlike my situation. No mystery there. I’d be tortured, interrogated, and killed. At least the blood suckers wouldn’t get a drop out of me.
The shack turned out to be a foreclosed house in a dark neighborhood. A realty sign was posted in the front lawn. The garage door had been left open. Renard pulled in. James got out and pulled me with him. The other vampire quickly joined us and grabbed my other arm.
Renard led us into the house through a connecting door inside the garage. It was cold and empty inside. Renard turned an overhead light on inside the hardwood living room and stepped in the center.
Switch plates were missing from the outlets. Beyond Renard’s shoulder, I could see into a kitchen. It was missing all its appliances, as though the previous owners took everything they could with them besides the actual house.
“So this is a vampire hunter,” Renard said, looking me over as he paced.
“She just looks like a girl,” the vamp on my right said.
“She is just a girl.”
I glared at him.
“A girl with very bad blood.”
Renard stopped in front of me. “You think my kind shouldn’t walk the earth, but the way I see it, you’re the atrocity. We’ve been around for centuries. How long have you genetically altered freaks been around? Couple decades? You were created in a lab. We,” he said, stretching out his arms, “are the chosen ones selected by nature to live for all eternity.”
Renard smacked a fist into his hand. “Now, when is your freak friend going to show up at Marcus’s party?”
“I told you, he’s not.”
Renard glanced at his cohorts. “Aurora, you’ve probably been wondering exactly what happened to Janine. We’ll show you…starting with your arms.”
Renard’s goons closed in on me before I could reach for the dagger. They each took an arm in a bone crushing twist.
“Wait!” I shouted.
I needed to stall. I needed my arms back so I could grab my knife.
“Yes?” Renard said.
“I—I don’t know exactly when he’s coming. He likes to make a late appearance.”
Luckily, Dante was safe in Kotzebue with his run-of-the-mill rabid vampire. Kind of missed those kind right now.
“What’s the plan, Renard?” James asked.
“Greg and I will head back to the party to get the boy. You’ll stay here and guard her until we return.”
“And what should I do with her while I wait? Break every bone in her body?” James’s grip tightened on my arm.
“No, I have a better idea. Bring her here, boys.”
They each gripped an arm and dragged me over to Renard.
“If her blood is toxic to us perhaps our blood is poisonous to her.”
We have the same blood, you fool! I felt like spitting the words at him, but that was classified. Renard looked more intent on brutality than information. At least that much was going for me. He didn’t want to interrogate me —just rough me up. Lucky me.
Renard pulled out a k
nife.
Damn, that was my move.
Renard stepped toward me. “Then again, we could just slit her throat.”
The eyes of his cronies lit up like ghoulish orbs in their sockets.
“Do it, Renard!” James yelled. “Gut her like a harpy.”
I thrashed under their grip until I saw the flash of the knife’s blade just under my eyes. My body seized up in terror.
“You’ll have to excuse my associates. They have no imagination.” Renard sliced open his wrist in one swift movement, grabbed me by the back of the head, and thrust his bleeding arm inside my mouth.
My instinct was to bite him in self-defense. I did so without thinking. When I bit down, I heard him laugh and, too late, felt the first gush of blood spurt inside my mouth. I gagged in an effort not to swallow, but the blood was already trickling down my throat.
Renard retracted his wrist and opened his mouth over mine. He covered my lips in a wet, grotesque kiss before pushing me backward. The room turned over as I fell. I couldn’t move to brace myself. I was locked up, as unbending as a pine tree crashing to the ground.
My tailbone connected with the hardwood. Pain shot through my pelvis. My heart burst into a rapid succession of pattering, as though trying to punch its way out of my chest. I opened my mouth to gasp, but nothing came out. Fear. Adrenaline. They powered my performance. It needed to be convincing.
Every part of me shook: my arms, my legs, my hands, my feet.
No one said anything for several minutes.
When the shaking showed no sign of subsiding, James turned to Renard and asked, “Can we kill her now?”
“No.” Renard never took his eyes off me. “We leave her like this.”
“Squirming on the floor?”
Renard’s eyes widened like a sinister grin over his face. “Suffering. We’ll give the boy a preview of what’s in store for him—a little taste of their own medicine.”
I made sure to keep my body in a fit of motion. My tailbone throbbed from when I’d landed against the floor. Moving around didn’t help any.
Renard watched, rapt, for several minutes before bending down by my side. I couldn’t see what he was up to with my head back, eyes on the ceiling.
Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter Page 19