by Sierra Dean
We were going in blind.
And given how dark it was, that was both figurative and literal.
I choked up on the hilt of my sword and swallowed hard. You asked for this, I reminded myself coldly. Now suck it up and get your ass in gear.
Bitchy Secret was right. It was time to find Peyton.
We moved in the direction Desmond had pointed to, all the light from the street vanishing, leaving us in a bleak, murky chaos. In a matter of feet, the dry stone gave way to puddles, and soon the water was deep enough to slosh around my calves. My boots kept most of the mess out, but zippers weren’t the best defense against liquid, and some of the sewer grime started seeping in.
The boots would be ruined, but I could celebrate Peyton’s death by buying a new pair.
“How is it that it stinks less in the sewer than it does in the metro stations?” Desmond mused, his voice barely over a whisper.
“One of life’s great mysteries.”
The water helped mute our footfalls, replacing the clomp of shoes with a soft splashing. Sneaking up on vampires wasn’t really a possibility anyway, no matter how quiet we were. Werewolves could hear well enough, but vampires had better senses all around. They’d know we were coming. I was just hoping they’d underestimate us. I’d spent much of my life learning how to use people’s lowered expectations to my advantage.
In spite of everything Peyton and I had been through, I still believed he thought I was beneath him. After all, how could a woman with a pulse best a three-hundred-year-old vampire? I was counting on his hubris to be his undoing.
We walked several minutes in silence, the scent of vampires, humans, sex and blood growing thick in the air. We were close, and both Desmond and I could sense it, but neither of us was ready to address what was coming.
My skin prickled with anticipation. I chose to think of it as a kind of excitement, rather than fear. Fear and I had been bedfellows too often over recent months, but excitement was almost unfamiliar at this point. Whatever came next would be the end of a chapter in my life.
I just hoped it wouldn’t be the end of the whole story.
“A vampire and a werewolf walk into a bar…” The voice’s sudden arrival made it seem much louder than it really was. What was likely only a speaking level boomed in my ears like a loudspeaker. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one.”
The words had a rasp to them, but beneath that was a cultured French accent. It was subtle, as if whittled away over time, but had the freshness of someone who might start using an accent after vacation.
I jolted, lifting my arm to stop Desmond, the way someone might reach out to protect the passenger in a car crash. My guard wasn’t necessary, though. Desmond had already come to a stop.
“No? Haven’t heard it? Good, I’ll go on.”
I scanned the darkness, trying to find him, but all I had to go on was his voice, and it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
“A vampire and a werewolf walk into a bar,” he repeated.
“You already said that,” I countered, clasping my sword like it was a lifeline. I feared someone might reach out and snatch it before I knew they were near. Silly what scared me at moments like this.
“Let me finish, missy. It isn’t polite to interrupt your elders.”
The last time I’d spoken with Peyton he’d been bound in chains and wasn’t able to secrete enough saliva to finish a sentence. He’d been a living corpse, and not in the classic vampire sense. Now, though there was a roughness to his voice, he was clearly doing much better. I wondered, briefly, how he looked.
I’d find out soon enough.
“Bartender says, ‘What can I get you?’ and the werewolf says, ‘I’ll have what’s on tap.’ Bartender looks at the vampire. Vampire says…” His voice drifted off into nothing, and I strained to find him. The hairs on the back of my neck went up a moment before his lips brushed my ear. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Chapter Nine
My elbow shot back faster than Peyton was expecting and cracked him hard in a bone. He snarled and dug his fingers into my bun, jerking my head backwards, exposing my throat.
“I could bleed you dry right here, you stupid little bitch.”
“You won’t,” I wheezed.
“What makes you so sure?” His curiosity was piqued, I could tell as much from his tone and the way his grip loosened just a fraction.
“You like to watch.”
Oh, how I wished the innuendo wasn’t so accurate. Peyton had a well-documented flair for sadism, and he would want to watch to see how his machinations impacted me. He’d want to draw it out.
I still remembered the greedy way he drank in the scene when my mother kept a bullet wedged between my ribs, stopping me from healing. He would relish being the one to inflict that pain on me.
No, Alexandre Peyton had bigger plans for me than something quick and dirty in a sewer tunnel. He’d want to make it last.
“Maybe I’ve changed.” His mouth was on my ear, my head locked in place by his hand. It must have been a while since he’d bothered to cut his nails because they scraped against my scalp, as long as a woman’s and sharper than they ought to be.
“You’ll never change.”
“Secret, what do you want me to do?” Knowing Desmond as well as I did, I could tell how hard he was struggling to keep the worry out of his voice. He sounded calm and even cold, but lingering below the surface was the slightest quiver of uneasiness, and one would have to be very familiar with the man to know it was there.
“Hold on,” I said quietly. “Alexandre isn’t going to do anything rash. He still wants to have some fun.”
“Don’t tease me, little one. You don’t know the kind of fun I want to have with you.”
“I sure do.”
“And you came anyway?”
“What can I say? When I found out you were in town, I couldn’t resist coming to ask for a play date.”
He yanked my hair harder, and his mouth drifted from my ear to my exposed throat, his cold lips trailing over the thin skin. I didn’t want to react, didn’t want to give him the pleasure, but my body gave a shudder of revulsion. Having his hands and mouth on me made me want to vomit and claw off my own skin.
“Let’s see what we have here, shall we?” His voice lifted again, and a moment later several spotlights snapped on, flooding the space with light.
I blinked against the sudden brightness, and when I was able to see, noted Desmond was struggling to adjust as well. We were in an area similar to that we’d entered through, with aging stone arches holding the ceiling. The pillars were stained with high watermarks, and the water itself was nearly up to my knees. A few of Peyton’s men were situated on a raised platform, keeping them and the lights out of the water. Underfoot the rock was slippery, meaning I didn’t have good purchase to make any quick attacks against Peyton.
Once I could see properly, I counted five vampires in addition to the one holding me. One was hovering near Desmond, guarding him in the loosest sense. Desmond had the shotgun aimed at me and Peyton, but his finger wasn’t near the trigger. I kept my gaze locked on the werewolf, trying to convey a sense of calm I didn’t necessarily feel.
So far this wasn’t going exactly how I wanted, but very little in life did.
“Five? Is that all you’ve got? I’m disappointed.”
Peyton chuckled. “My dear, it’s almost like you don’t know me. You think after all this time I’d be so easy to kill?” He clucked his tongue.
“A girl could hope.”
“Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like you to toy with. It can be misleading, and sooner or later you end up with none.”
Tell me about it.
Peyton gave a low whistle, and I waited, breath held. A moment later rustling in the tunnels drew my focus past the spotlights. I narrowed my eyes, trying to get a glimpse at what was coming. Once I did, I wished I was still blind in the dark.
A dozen or so more people—vampires
and a few bedraggled humans—came out of the dark passages and filled the spaces around us. A few joined up with those attending the spotlights, but the others merely fenced us in like a living wall.
This wasn’t great. I’d taken for granted that a vampire like Peyton wouldn’t change, assuming he would do things the same way he always had. Apparently his near-death experience made him more careful than he’d previously been, and it was coming around to screw me now.
Under normal circumstances, being outnumbered didn’t bother me. I could handle things skewed out of my favor. A one-on-one or even two-on-one fight was such a rarity for me I’d begun to assume I would be outgunned in most scenarios. But this wasn’t the same. We were looking at about twelve-to-one odds, and more than half those present were vampires.
Though none of the undead felt particularly old—and Peyton wouldn’t want to recruit anyone more powerful than him—we were still screwed. Vampires were stronger than werewolves. And though I was also stronger than the average werewolf, I was weaker than a mid-level vampire. If these guys were all warden-level or lower, I could handle them one at a time, but certainly not a dozen at once. I wasn’t sure I could tilt those odds in my favor given a clean headshot at each.
I considered going for my guns and clearing out a handful of them while the element of surprise was still on my side, but the second I started firing, Peyton would kill me. Then Desmond would be left alone with the remaining vamps, and they would literally rip him to shreds.
Nope, not the best option.
“This isn’t how I wanted to play.” I let my voice go soft, a teasing edge to it. It was damned near convincing as flirty. Desmond’s eyebrows went up a tiny bit. He hadn’t heard my flirty voice much lately, and it must have been weird for it to be directed at my worst enemy, even if it was obviously just for show. “Maybe we can go somewhere and talk, you and me.”
“That’s what you want, Secret? For us to play catch-up? Reminisce over the good old days?” His mouth was at my ear again, and I’d take the reprieve. He might only have one fang, but he was more than capable of using the remaining one to open an artery. All the same, another shiver rippled over me, and this time I could feel how much my discomfort pleased him.
An unwelcome erection in the back was definitely not how I’d pictured this night going. I should have known it was a possibility Peyton might get inappropriately excited by something that would occur, but I wasn’t ready for it when it actually happened. He was already at half-mast and he hadn’t had a chance to really hurt me yet. That didn’t bode well.
“Yeah,” I replied, trying to arch my back away from him. “We’ll have some tea and flip through old photo albums. Just you and me.”
He ignored my offer and instead shifted his focus. “What a pretty blade you’re carrying.” The hand not currently tangled in my hair looped around my waist, up my arm, and his cold fingers slid over the sleeve of my jacket until his hand covered mine.
Like I’d expected from feeling his fingers, his nails were long and had a faintly yellow hue. They’d also been filed into sharp points, and a couple showed signs of dried blood beneath them. Charming.
My hand jerked when he wrapped his palm around my wrist.
“It’s my blade,” I said, trying to wrench myself away from his grip. Given my current situation, both the response and the gesture were relatively pointless.
“Have you ever had it inside you?”
I went still, and he took the opportunity to draw himself up against me again. He sniffed the back of my neck, and I closed my eyes, trying to fight the wave of nausea threatening to bring forth tears. I wouldn’t cry. That would only excite him more.
What a fucking mess.
“Have you let it…slide through you?”
“I prefer to slide it into other people.”
“Maybe we’ll change that tonight.”
“Oh, I’d really rather not, thanks. But if you want to play with role reversal, I’d be more than happy to stick my pointy end in you, Alexandre.” I smiled, though he wouldn’t be able to see me from his vantage point. Desmond, who had a great view of my face, gave me a funny look.
“Perhaps we can discuss our evening plans in greater detail once we get out of this water, shall we?” Before I could answer, he grabbed me by the fistful of my hair he was holding and dragged me towards one of the platforms.
Unless I fought back or sacrificed a chunk of my scalp—which he easily had the strength to rip off—I had to follow him. One of the henchmen closest to Desmond divested him of his shotgun, and Des didn’t fight it but did offer a scary growl.
Another guard got close to me and seemed to be considering making an attempt on my sword, but there was no way in hell I was relinquishing the blade without kicking someone in the face. The shaggy-haired guy approaching me seemed to get a sense of what I intended to do because he took a step backwards.
“Boss, what do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Let me worry about the girl. You take care of the wolf. He’s stronger than he appears.”
Desmond snarled in response when one of the guards went to grab his arm. The look in his eyes clearly read, I hope you know what you’re doing.
That made two of us.
Chapter Ten
If I’d had any say in the matter, I wouldn’t have let them take Desmond out of my sight. But as my eternally shitty luck would have it, I didn’t get any say in the matter.
When we arrived back at Peyton’s makeshift lair—a set piece right out of a Phantom of the Opera film—Desmond was hauled away by the vampire’s goons, and Peyton led me to his chamber. It was all so spectacularly stereotypical I didn’t know whether to applaud his efforts or roll my eyes.
It was as if he had done a Google image search for vampire lair and followed all the decorating tips he saw there. There were tapestries hanging from the walls, surely losing value with each second they steeped in the nasty sewer air, and candelabras were the primary source of light in the space. All the fabrics were in rich, blood-red tones, and every single person in Peyton’s staff—undead or otherwise—was dressed in head-to-toe black.
He must have noticed me taking in my surroundings because he asked, “You like?” His voice was rich with self-satisfaction.
“It’s pretty gaudy.”
“I see you have not learned the old adage, if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.”
“I was being nice.” My skin itched with a burning need to stab him in the chest. Though I’d been allowed to keep my sword, Peyton had two guards nearby watching me with contemptuous glares. They were vampires, and knowing they were fast was all that kept me from running Peyton through. I’d be killed instantly, and though part of me was willing to accept that if it meant he was dead, I had no intention of leaving Desmond at their mercy.
I’d need to find another way.
Peyton’s chamber was built into the columns of the sewer system, but walls had been constructed to give the illusion of privacy. Inside, a large bed with wrought-iron posts sat in the middle of the room, and chained to one of the posts was a naked woman. He hadn’t even allowed her to lie on the bed. She was kneeling on the hard stone floor, her forehead pressed against the metal. When she heard the door open, she began to tremble visibly but did not look up at us. Her back was a red mess of welts and blood, like she had taken repeated lashings.
Knowing what I did about Peyton, that was exactly what had caused the injuries.
“Do you like my pet?” he asked.
The motherfucker was pushing me. He wanted to see how far he could egg me on before I’d lose it.
The sword burned in my hand. Sometimes it had been known to take on a bit of a mind of its own, and I hoped it wouldn’t literally burn me tonight.
Play nice, I thought to the blade. You’ll get your blood soon enough.
It had a taste for vampire blood, and I wanted to give it precisely what it craved. But for now…I slid it back into the scabbard. I’d have
a better chance of staying alive if I didn’t have to constantly resist the urge to sever Peyton’s head.
“She looks used up,” I replied, hating the words as they came out of my mouth. But I couldn’t let him know his plan was working. If I was going to get myself and Desmond—and maybe this girl—out of here alive, I needed to be cold. I needed to deaden myself to feeling.
I could do that.
He frowned.
There’d been a time when Peyton had manipulated my do-gooder nature by proving to me I couldn’t truly save anyone. He found a girl who I’d rescued and turned her into a vampire, showing me my limitations. That girl had gone on to become one of my best friends, and now she was dead.
And soon he would be too.
“She’s human,” he goaded.
“I can smell that for myself, thanks.”
“There’s something different about you.” He stopped in the middle of the room and turned to address me directly. “Where is the bad bitch I know, hmm?”
“Gimme a smile, Alexandre. Show me those pretty teeth of yours.” I narrowed my eyes at him and let a sick grin fix itself on my lips when his bravado faltered. “Oh, sorry, I mean tooth.”
“The bitch is still in there, then. Good. I’d hate to cut you open and go looking for her for nothing.”
And there they were. The magic words that destroyed any hope in hell I had of getting through this without flinching. My grin vanished, and my hand lifted for the sword before I remembered my plan and stopped myself. Cut you open.
I’d known Peyton had been partially responsible for what The Doctor had done. I’d known he had a hand in the whole thing, but I’d never been totally sure if he’d orchestrated it or just given the mad scientist a nudge in the right direction. But as far as carefully chosen words went, he’d loaded a verbal gun with silver bullets and emptied every round into my chest.
“What’s the matter?” He’d found the smile I’d lost and was beaming with triumph now. “Cat got your tongue?”