Chin lifted, I sniffed the air in hopes of getting a whiff of traces of fear. No such luck. Nothing to find there except the lemongrass scent of his aftershave. “You want me, but not for my body. Why don’t you tell me what your plan is here, Dorian?”
His lips pursed in a mock pout. “Now, where is the fun in that? I have you here. It’s just us. Why don’t you try and guess my motivation?”
“I’m going to stick to my original character analysis and guess it’s because you’re a narcissistic asshole who creams his jeans over the sound of his own voice.”
Dorian opened his mouth to argue, then hesitated. One eyebrow lifted in consideration. “Not what I was going to say, but still a valid point.”
“Look around, girl,” the Dragon’s voice interjected as it slithered through my thoughts. “What do you see? No one else around. Him leaning against the car, engaging in witty banter. He hasn’t tried anything. No agenda is being pushed. The two of you are simply… talking. Ask yourself why he would do that?”
A noose of unease tightening around my throat, I dropped fang. “How about you get to the point right fucking now?”
Clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, Dorian’s shoulders hunched in insult. “Goodness, your generation is in such a hurry. Whatever happened to taking your time? Savoring every moment? You have all ruined foreplay. Slap a little lube on there and get straight to it.”
The fact that he had basically just described my approach to sex did not soften my resolve in the slightest. “What can I say? Unlike your generation, we need more than a lewd flash of ankle to get us going.”
“That you do.” Pushing off the car, Dorian strolled straight for me. “These days you have far more delectable fruit to pluck from that forbidden tree. And if there’s anything I’ve learned about this new age we live in, it’s that everyone is out for a good,” his mouth brushed my cheek as he breathed the word against my ear, “pluck.”
Jerking my head away from him, my hands curled into fists at my sides. “You going to tell me what the pluck I’m doing here? Or shall we continue to exchange witty banter until one of our extended life expectancies runs out?”
“Why choose?” Spinning away from me, he threw his arms out. “Isn’t that the fun little idea you ladies like to toy with these days? Not choosing? Having your cake and eating it too?”
I thought I had a handle on the moment… until he said that. Then I found myself scrambling to catch up once more. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know. That liberated woman notion of not choosing between men. In this case Vlad being the cake, and your friend Carter being the… eating it.” Dorian’s face crumbled in confusion at his own explanation. “That analogy kind of fell apart on me, but you get the gist.”
“I’m not sure I do. Vlad is my husband and Carter is one of my best friends. That’s it.”
“Friendship?” His eyes flashed with devilish challenge. “That’s all it is? Really? I find that intriguing.”
My top lip twitched with a snarl I fought to suppress. “Yes, he’s my friend. Why is that so hard to believe? You know, for people that haven’t mind molested me, I can be quite pleasant.”
“I have no doubt.” Dorian resumed circling me. “Although, this being such a tumultuous time, something does strike me as rather… odd.”
“The fact that you’re a few centuries old and never managed to get your head out of your own ass?”
Planting himself in front of me, he gifted me a devilish grin. “Probably true, yet that doesn’t diminish my point. This being such a time of threat and turmoil for the Nosferatu people, why would someone who’s nothing more than a friend risk life and limb to follow you here?”
Pulling my chin my chest, I struggled to keep up in this muddled conversation. “What? It’s just you and I here. What are you—”
“Ex parte folia,” he uttered with a roll of this fingers.
The bushes running alongside the driveway parted, revealing Carter hunkering behind them. How I hadn’t smelled him, I couldn’t say. But with a sheepish grin, he cleared his throat and rose to his feet… in the daylight. Sure, long shadows were stretched across the lawn as the sun sank lower in the sky. Even so, it was far too sunny for any vampire to tolerate.
Unless…
Ice water ran through my veins.
“You drank my blood, so you could walk in daylight. That’s why I couldn’t smell you. Your scent is hidden beneath my own.” Brows knit together in a deep V, I tilted my head as if seeing him for the first time. “Your so-called injury. It was all part of a plan to follow me here. Why?”
Carter took a brave step forward, only to immediately rethink it and freeze. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I overheard you talking to him through the mirror, and I didn’t want you to come here alone.”
That red haze of fury crept into the edges of my vision. From my flaring nostrils came puffs of visible steam. “You were worried about me and left our people alone? After promising me you would protect them at all cost? Does your word mean nothing? I don’t need a bodyguard, Carter! What I need is help keeping our people safe. Which is why you needed to stay at Lockwood and—”
Posture straightening, warning sirens blared in my mind. Slowly, my gaze shifted to Dorian. “You knew he was here, yet you kept me talking and distracted. Why?”
Chest puffed with pride, Dorian cast his stare in the direction of Lockwood. “Maybe I’m deeply invested in your relationship with this baby vamp and want to see you happy, instead of saddled with an ancient artifact like Vlad. Or, maybe… I sought to distract you.”
“He’s not bluffing. You have time, but moments only,” the Dragon rumbled in my ear.
“What. Did. You. Do?” I pressed in a deadly whisper.
Dorian dragged his tongue over his top teeth, reveling in every moment with malicious delight. “What did I do? Hmm, I simply gave an address… and unleashed the hounds.”
Leaping from the ground in a high arc, my knees slammed into Dorian’s chest and I rode him to the ground. Laughter bubbled from his lips as his shoulder blades slammed into the grass.
With my fangs inches from his throat, I fought against my growing urge to tear out his jugular. “Explain what that means in painfully slow detail. I may not be able to kill you, but I can take great pleasure in finding fun ways to inflict agonizing pain.”
Dorian’s gaze traveled over my features, soaking in every line and curve. “Another time, another agenda, and you and I could have made a lovely form of chaos together.”
Grabbing the collar of his coat, I lifted his head up and slammed it to the ground. “I’m going to try this one more time and then I’m going to see how much blood an immortal can lose before getting woozy. What did you unleash on Lockwood?”
Despite my efforts, laughter continued to bubble from his lips. “I could tell you, or you can see for yourself.” Another roll of his fingers made a compact-sized mirror appear in his palm. As Dorian swiveled the face of the mirror my way, I sucked in a shocked gasp.
From beneath the canopy of the tree line that surrounded Lockwood the shadows came alive. A horde of sulfur-laced zombie vamps eagerly awaited twilight when they could pour from the parted branches and descend on the manor. Tens gave way to hundreds, hundreds led to thousands. Soon a tidal wave of death would head straight for my unsuspecting people.
Releasing him, I pulled back as if the touch scalded me. “You drew me here as a distraction.”
Dorian sat up and brushed the dirt from his coat with his freehand. “Technically speaking, you drew you here. This was all your idea, remember? Facing off with me in some epic showdown. Consider this a painful lesson in the true order of things, Madame Draculesti. I don’t fight fair. I will always go for the hurt, over the kill. And you and your brazen bravado don’t stand a chance against me. You want to survive what comes
next? Hide, little girl. Because you have no idea what I’m capable of.”
A blinding flash of light, and he was gone.
Crossing the yard in wide strides, Carter offered me a hand up. “Vinx, I’m so sorry. I was only trying to help. But we can call our people, we can warn them.”
Seizing his forearm, my dagger-like talons sank into his flesh. Even when I got my feet under me, I maintained my vicious hold. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear one more word from you. Not after how you manipulated me. Right now, you need to pray we make it back to the estate in time. Because whatever happens to them, happens to you.”
My form exploded into a colony of bats that swirled around Carter and carried him with me as I moved across the sky like a rolling storm cloud. In a matter of seconds we were over the manor. Swooping down, I streaked over the rows of tents of my followers who were just beginning to stir as twilight fell.
“Get up, now! Get to the house!” Energy focused, I willed my directive straight into their thoughts.
Thankfully, they moved without question, following me as I turned in a wide arc back toward the manor.
Dropping Carter on the patio by the backdoor, I used that same telepathy to bark my next directive. “Get them inside. Warn the others. Escape through the tunnels. Don’t you dare forget my dog.”
Clamping myself off to further communications, I flapped straight for the incoming threat to buy the others time. On the rolling hills in the front of the manor, I gathered myself back into solid form. Hordes of bodies closed in, ravenous for a frenzy. Only one thing would be powerful enough to distract them from carrying out Dorian’s ghoulish biddings: appealing to their most raw and primal urges.
The lights in Lockwood were clicking on. Fast moving forms darted past the windows. They were up and moving. I just needed to gift them enough time to get away.
Wetting my suddenly parched lips, I drew my grandmother’s nail file out from my waistband. My fist closed around its ornate handle. Pressing the dull point into my skin just below the bend of my elbow, I dragged it down to my wrist. The flesh split in an angry gash. Fat drops of crimson life rained down on the meticulously maintained lawn. But I wasn’t done. Shifting the file to my other hand, I repeated the assault on the other side. The night breeze carried the scent of my offering to the throng of drugged vampires. They paused. Glanced my way. Toyed with the notion of rerouting.
Unfortunately, my wounds closed far too fast and they ambled on their original course.
With a sad smile and steadfast determination, I accepted my fate. I reopened the wounds with fresh swipes and strode straight for the incoming masses. The file never stilled. Moving it from one hand to the other, I kept my blood flowing with slice after slice. My arms were shredded to ribbons yet healing just as fast. Thankfully, my efforts were not in vain. The infected vamps sniffed the air, growled their ravenous delight, and shifted course. Not wanting to lure them any closer to the house, I rooted myself at the top of a knoll and continued to beacon them to me with the life-giving nectar they couldn’t resist.
Crashing waves of death charged straight for me and I welcomed it.
In the distance I heard someone shout my name.
I didn’t look back.
I could only pray whoever it was would turn away before what came next.
The mob crested over the knoll. Faces pale and ashen, cheeks sunk with starvation. Their eyes were black pools of animalistic need. Vicious snarls exposed snapping fangs. One final time I reopened the slices in my arms, then tucked the file away. I didn’t know my own strength. Not anymore. Maybe I could have taken them all on, but I didn’t want to. Though drugged and out of control, they were still my people. I wanted nothing more than to free them from Dorian’s thrall.
In that moment, the Dragon spoke to me not in a grisly suggestion of glamourized violence, but a lifeline offered in the middle of a raging storm. “Retreat into me, my Queen. Allow me the honor of taking your pain.”
I couldn’t question what that meant. There wasn’t time. Throwing my arms out wide, I let my head fall back and closed my eyes.
The force of their strike knocked me to the ground. As my head bounced off the earth, fangs stabbed into me from all around. My body was jerked in one direction then the other. The clothing ripped from my frame. Again and again currents of pain surged into me. I gave all that remained of me to them in offering, and they lapped up my essence in greedy slurps. Black spots swam before my eyes. The cloud of violent hunger writhing above me blocked out the light. With the world blurring in and out of focus, I said a silent prayer that my sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain… and welcomed the darkness that consumed me.
Chapter Eleven
Carter
“Get inside. Warn them. Escape through the tunnels. Don’t you dare forget my dog.”
The second my shoes settled on the patio pavers I wrenched open the sliding glass door and sprinted into the ballroom. “Get up! Now! Get to the tunnels, run!”
Elodie and Thomas darted out from the kitchen, noses twitching as they caught wind of the threat.
One whiff and Thomas’s lip curled back in a vicious snarl.
Elodie glanced to me, her eyes black pools of death. “How many of them are there?”
Gaze searching the room to make sure all the freed prisoners were moving, I shook my head. “Too many to count. Vinx is going to try and buy us time to get them out of here.”
Elodie’s head dipped in a resolute nod. “Then let’s make sure her efforts aren’t wasted. We’ll get them down into the tunnels. You wake the others on the second floor.”
“You all heard the man,” Thomas boomed, “back to the tunnels. Now!”
Bounding up the stairs two at a time, I raced down the hall, pounding on each door before moving to the next. “Get up! Move! We’ve got to go!”
By the time I got to Natalie’s door, the reporter was already stepping out. Face drained of color, she wore a mask of horror. “Carter, it’s Vinx. You have to…” Chin trembling, she trailed off and pointed to the window.
“Vincenza?” Drawn by my commotion, Vlad heard her name and flew to the window with Batdog cradled in his arms.
Emerging from their rooms, Rau, Micah, and Finn trailed him.
Having failed Vinx once that day, I had no intention of doing it again. “There isn’t time! We have to get to the caves!”
But it was too late. One glance and their attention was stolen by the wave of terror closing in.
Blinking hard, Finn fought to make sense of what he was seeing. “There’s so many of them.”
“What the hell is she doing?” Micah leaned in, trying to get a better look.
“No!” Handing the pup off to Micah, Vlad slammed his fist to the wall. “She can’t! Vincenza!”
I should have insisted they ran.
Honored her wishes by getting them as far away as we could.
But I had to look. Had to know.
With the sound of my own footfalls pounding into my temples like railroad spikes, I walked to the window.
One glance and the world whirled around me in a dizzying blur.
They barreled straight for her, an unstoppable locomotive of pain and carnage.
And she strode to meet them with blood streaming down her arms. Drops of her spilled essence had shifted the tide away from the manor.
Shoving me aside, Vlad lunged for the window. “I have to go! I must help her!”
Catching hold of his arm, Rau used what little strength he had to hold his father back. “Papa, no! It’s already too late! There’s nothing any of us can do for her now!”
Vlad didn’t want to believe it.
None of us did.
Yet still as stone we could do nothing but watch while the vampire queen stretched out her arms and welcomed her lost subjects back to the fold.
The first
wave hit, and she vanished.
The hive swarmed her, driven into a frenzy by the scent of her offering. It was unthinkable to even attempt to comprehend what was happening beneath that cluster of ravenous, hungry vampires. We could only pray she died quickly, for no other reason than to escape the torture her body was being subjected to.
“Get to the tunnels, all of you.” Palms resting on the windowsill, Vlad’s head hung to his chest. “When they’ve finished with her, they’ll move on to the manor. I will provide the second wave to hold them off as long as possible.”
“Father, I’m not leaving you!” Rau sounded more an indignant teen than a grown-ass man with salt and pepper hair.
“You will go, or I will toss you down those tunnels myself.” Vlad’s tone left no room for argument. “Get as much distance from here as you possibly can, and live to fight for our people another day.”
Unable to tear my stare from the writhing bodies on the lawn below, I spoke the call of my heart. “I’ll stay with him. As a magi that’s where I belong. The rest of you, go.”
Phone held up in front of her, Natalie adamantly shook her head. “Oh, hell no. I am live streaming this whole thing and I am not about to stop. No one would believe this if they didn’t see it for themselves. Plus, I’m standing next to a guy nicknamed ‘The Impaler.’ Anything goes down, my happy ass will be directly behind him.”
Moving toward the door, Micah’s steps faltered. “Vlad, do you want us to get your armor or your sword?”
Vlad huffed a humorless laugh. “If the Dragon still coiled within me, I would gladly take up my sword. Now, I fear it would be as useful as a thimble full of water against a raging inferno. After all those years of wishing to be rid of that dreaded curse, I find myself longing for it once more. But today, I shall match fang with fang. It falls to all of you to keep those in the tunnels safe, and not to allow anyone to eat the queen’s dog.”
The Veiled Series Collection Page 46