by Sylvia Day
“Hello, Lindsay.”
An agonizing shard of pain in her shoulder dropped her to her knees with a sharp cry. Dizzy, her flesh sizzling, she looked at the small throwing knife embedded in her shoulder. Then she lifted her head to meet a face that haunted her nightmares. “Vashti.”
Lindsay’s memories of her mother’s killing were hazy at best—more like impressions and feelings than true pictures—but Vash was a hard woman to forget. The vivid red hair and penchant for painted-on black clothing made her almost a caricature of a comic book superhero. But when Lindsay had bitten into Vash’s throat and swallowed the vampress’s blood, she’d been exposed to the memories that blood carried and Rachel Gibson’s brutal slaying was absent from them. Vash was the spitting image of her mother’s killer, but that was all. Still, Lindsay couldn’t fight the terror and revulsion she felt every time she saw the vampress.
Residual fear gave her the strength to yank the blade from her arm, but she moved too slowly. A mere split second and she found herself on her feet with Vashti pressed to her back and another silver blade—a dagger—held to her throat.
“Let her go, Vashti.” Adrian’s voice was chillingly modulated, his face impassive as he suddenly filled the threshold between the kitchen and living room.
Lindsay wasn’t fooled by his calm demeanor. With her heightened senses, she felt his turmoil and fury roiling through the air—a tempest barely leashed.
“An unexpected surprise finding you here,” Vash said, speaking over Lindsay’s shoulder, their faces nearly cheek to cheek. “I was waiting on Helena, but you’ll more than compensate.”
“Let her go,” Adrian repeated, taking a step into the room. “I warned you, Vash. I won’t do so again.”
“She’s as weak as a babe.” Vash shifted, positioning her body so that both Lindsay and the kitchen island stood between her and Adrian. “Fledglings are like infants, you know. Floundering in their own bodies, overwhelmed by their senses, easily damaged. She really should be with the rest of us. We can teach her how to survive.”
“What part of ‘she’s mine’ don’t you understand?”
“As much as you hate it, she’s also mine and she’s presently a rogue minion. I have the right to take her life. We police ourselves, as you know.”
“And do a piss-poor job of it.”
“We have to leave you something to do.”
His chest lifted and fell with a deep inhalation. “What do you want, Vashti?”
“And so the fierce and mighty Adrian bends…for a vampire. I so wish I had time to enjoy this.” Vash snatched something off the counter and tossed it at Adrian, who caught it deftly. “But I’m in a hurry. Fill it up.”
Lindsay began to struggle when she saw what it was.
A blood bag.
“Don’t do it,” Lindsay said, realizing just how dangerous this confrontation had become. If Vash had sniffed out the effects of Sentinel blood on the infected vampires and wanted to test the cure, the resulting discovery endangered every life on earth. As few Sentinels as there were, they still managed to keep the vampire population in check, sparing countless mortal lives. If they were hunted to extinction for their blood, the whole world would suffer.
“How noble and self-sacrificing,” Vash murmured scornfully. “And monumentally stupid. The helpless fledgling sacrificing herself for the powerful Sentinel. You two are so sappy you’re making me nauseous.”
Adrian took another step toward them. “You used to know what it was like to love.”
“Not a step closer or I’ll have to kill her.” The flat of the blade sizzled against Lindsay’s neck, making her squirm. “Don’t think I won’t. My life means nothing to me—you know that.”
Lindsay stared hard at Adrian. “Don’t do it.”
Vash’s lips pressed to her ear like a lover’s. “Isn’t Elijah worth it to you? Or is your friendship so fickle?”
Stiffening, Lindsay’s breath quickened. The familiar scent that had sent her claws into retreat was Elijah’s. And it was all over Vash. “What have you done to him?”
“What’s been done can still be undone…with a little Sentinel blood.”
A tremor racked Lindsay’s frame. She hadn’t spoken to Elijah since he mutinied. She had no idea what had prompted him to revolt or whether his doing so made them enemies.
But it doesn’t matter, she thought grimly. What she and Elijah were to each other now might be a mystery, but what they’d been to each other before was not. He’d been a friend and trusted companion when she needed one. She couldn’t bear to think of him suffering.
“He might die,” Vash prodded. “This could be the one thing capable of saving him.”
Swallowing hard, Lindsay continued to stare at Adrian, who would’ve heard every word with his powerful Sentinel hearing.
“Your blood is damn near as good as mine, Vash.” Adrian’s wings flexed, a sign Lindsay recognized as agitation. “If you want to save him, do it yourself.”
“I’ve given him what I can.”
“If that wasn’t enough, he’s dead already.”
Lindsay’s stomach knotted. “Take me. I’ll be your blood bag. I’m easier to transport and no spillage.”
“Lindsay, no.” To the casual observer, Adrian appeared unmoved by her statement. But the compulsory resonance in his words hit her like a Mack truck, sending a racking jolt through her body.
Vash’s grip loosened a fraction. “When’s the last time you fed from him?”
It took her a moment to squeeze an answer past Adrian’s compulsion. “Three hours ago.”
“Vashti.” Adrian’s voice rumbled through the room like thunder.
The world exploded in a shower of glass. Lindsay was thrown outside the house and into the street…or so it seemed. When the world shuddered back into place, she realized Vash had leaped with her through the glass door and over the wall…into a waiting convertible. They tore off like a bullet with Adrian directly behind them.
Lightning split the sky and hit the asphalt in front of the car.
Cursing, Vash jerked the wheel to the left and punched it around a corner, tires squealing as they nearly careened up the side of the curb and into a streetlamp.
“Better grab the wheel when the time comes,” the vampress hissed. “You’ll be the only one who dies if you don’t.”
Lindsay, feeling ill from the lingering effects of the silver, clung to the door handle and tried to kick her rattled brain into gear.
Adrian landed on the trunk with a violent thud, his feet sinking deep prints into the metal.
“Now!” Vash yelled, deflecting Adrian’s grasping arm and lunging at him between the two front seats.
Throwing herself across the center console, Lindsay snatched at the wheel. Her sudden grab jerked the car right, then left as she tried to steer a straight line while lying on her side. Adrian was thrown free.
Vash tumbled into the backseat with a curse. “Drive straight, damn it! Get to the Strip. He’ll have to back off.”
A massive shadow darkened the sky over the car as Adrian swooped in again.
It didn’t escape Lindsay’s mind that she was fleeing her very reason for living, the one individual she couldn’t live without. But that’s why she was doing it. Adrian’s blood was too precious—and the ramifications too great—to risk what Vash demanded.
“Red light!” Lindsay shouted.
“A little busy!” Vash shot back, straightening to fight off Adrian’s dive bomb. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself, Sentinel!”
Lightning struck the vampress square in the chest, knocking her unconscious. She slumped into the corner of the backseat like a broken doll.
“Move, Lindsay,” Adrian ordered, dropping wingless into the driver’s seat and taking over the wheel. He turned into a strip mall and parked with a squeal of rubber over pavement. Twisting in the seat, he faced her with burning irises. “What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s best this way.”
&
nbsp; “Fuck if it is.”
“You know it is,” she argued, looking at Vash to make sure the vampress was still out cold. “We can’t risk you.”
“You’re doing this for Elijah.”
“Partly,” she admitted. “But that benefits you, too. You and I both want to figure out what happened with him.”
“I don’t give a shit what happened with him. I give a shit about you. Maybe you haven’t been paying attention—I can’t live without you. Damned if I’ll risk you.”
“Elijah won’t let anything happen to me. You know that, or you would never have made him my guard.”
Adrian’s knuckles whitened with the force of his grip on the steering wheel. “Elijah’s half dead, apparently.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“We don’t know if you can. Your blood has a negative effect on some beings. Don’t forget I watched you slide a knife into a dragon’s impenetrable hide just by coating the blade with your blood.”
“Siobhán thinks that’s because I was carrying two souls inside me,” she reminded, “and the creatures that were affected by it were demons.”
“That’s a guess. We don’t know, and Elijah has demon blood in him.”
She nodded, knowing that demon blood—werewolf blood—is what had turned some of the Fallen into lycans rather than vampires. “I’ll tell him the risks and let him decide.”
“Think of the reasons he’d be incapacitated in Vashti’s keeping. One, she fucked him up because of the Nikki incident or because she’s looking for Charron’s killers. Two, they’re working together and he got jacked in the process. You’re either reviving him to put up with more torture or reviving him to collude with the vampires against us. Nothing good is going to come out of doing this. In the meantime, you’ll be among the very people who need me weakened to achieve their aims. You’re cutting out my heart and handing it to them.”
“Adrian.” She cupped his cheek in her hand. His jaw was tight beneath her palm, the teeth grinding together. “I would do that and more to save your life.”
He set his hand over hers and squeezed. “My life is nothing without you.”
“Then let me do this for your Sentinels. You’ll be putting their welfare ahead of mine and I think they need to feel like you would, at least under certain circumstances. And what will it say to the lycans that you’ve done this for Elijah? More may come back to you because they won’t be afraid that you’ll kill them on sight. And the vampires…if they ever considered the thought that having me in their possession would weaken your mission, they’ll see that’s not the case. Everyone knows what I mean to you. You’ll make a powerful statement by using me this way.”
He exhaled harshly. “Damn you.”
“You sweet talker, you.” Lindsay reached into the medical supply store shopping bag on the floorboard between her feet and pulled out a blood bag from an open multipack. “Here’s your opportunity to get the Fallen blood Siobhán needs.”
“Can you please stop being so fucking rational about this?”
“Love you,” she retorted. “More than my life. More than anything.”
“You have your cell phone on you?”
She shook her head.
He pulled his out of his pocket and began tweaking the settings on it. “You’ll check in every hour on the hour. I want to hear your voice. Something goes south and you can’t say it aloud, call me Sentinel instead of my name and I’ll know. You miss a call by more than ten minutes and I’ll raze the desert looking for you. I’ve set the alarm to remind you.”
“I won’t forget.”
Climbing over the seats, he grabbed Vashti’s biceps with enough force to act as a tourniquet and slid the needle attached to the blood bag into her vein.
The vampress jolted awake to find the crimson tip of one of Adrian’s wings curled inward and pressed to her throat—the slightest resistance and she’d lose her head.
“Asshole,” she growled, glaring.
“You have twelve hours,” he said with icy impassivity, watching the bag fill. “You’ll bring her back to me without a scratch or I’ll stake you to a wall and make you watch as I disarticulate every one of the Fallen and shove their severed limbs down their throats. Without Lindsay I’ve got nothing to lose. Do you understand? Nothing will stop me.”
“Fine.”
He withdrew the needle, then his wing. “She’s going to call me every hour and you’re going to let her.”
“Jeez, Adrian,” Vash muttered, sitting up. “One would almost think you didn’t trust me.”
CHAPTER 10
“How’s the shoulder?” Vash asked Lindsay as the helicopter lifted gracefully into the scorching desert sky with Raze at the cyclic. The car she’d stolen was whipped with sand scattered by the revolving copter blades, but that probably wouldn’t matter as much to the owner as the dents Adrian had left behind.
“Good as new.” Lindsay’s voice betrayed her irritation. “Are the blindfold and restraints really necessary?”
“I could knock you out,” Vash offered, smiling because the other woman couldn’t see it.
“Gee, you’re so helpful,” Lindsay muttered.
“I try.”
“Doesn’t sound like that worked out too well for Elijah, considering he’s on his deathbed.”
Vash took the hit with clenched fists. She felt guilty and worried, her mind racing ahead of her common sense. She’d risked more than her own hide by going after Sentinel blood. That she’d done so for a lycan who intended to kill her made no damn sense at all.
Leaning forward, she tapped Raze on the shoulder. “How’s the Alpha doing?”
“How do you think? He’s like a wolf in a bear trap—he’s snarling and snapping at everyone. Not that the lycans seem to mind. They’re tripping over themselves trying to take care of him. I thought they were going to riot when he was unloaded from the chopper, but they calmed down when he told them he was jumped and you saved his ass.” The Fallen captain looked over his shoulder at her. “He won’t stop asking for you. I tried to distract him with a hot little honey named Sarah, but that’s not doing the trick.”
Her lip curled as she remembered the demure lycan who’d been so eager to tend Elijah’s injuries and remain by his side.
Vash fell back into her seat with a heavy exhale, struggling to find her balance. She was an emotional disaster.
The helicopter was landing fifteen minutes later. The moment Raze cut the engine, Vash shoved the door open and hopped out. “Get her. Keep her eyes covered until we’ve got her in a room.”
Her heels clicked across the parking lot and she entered the warehouse to find an industriously working crew. Van Halen blared on the radio as various groups went about unpacking and moving in. Salem stood before the map of contagion, explaining its significance to a mixed group of minions and lycans. Syre stood in the center of the vast space, clearly the orchestrator of activity.
Dressed in sleek black trousers and a gray silk shirt, the Fallen leader was drawing the eye of everyone in the room. Elegant, powerful, compelling. A crazed minion had once called him the antichrist, the dark prince who would mesmerize the world and bring about its destruction. A ridiculous assertion if one knew Syre’s heart at all, but she conceded that his charisma was fierce and seductive enough to bend the wills of even the most contained of individuals. Even Vash, as used to him as she was, was drawn to him inexorably.
“Commander,” she greeted him as she approached. “Your visit to Vegas is an unexpected surprise.”
“An appreciated one?” he queried smoothly, his whiskey-warm gaze searching her features.
“Depends on whether or not you’re here for the fun of it or because you think I need a hand.”
“Would the latter be so terrible?”
She sighed. “I’m not fragile.”
“You don’t like to think so.” He held up a hand when her mouth opened in protest. “Fragility isn’t always a weakness, Vashti. It happens to be one of your
greatest strengths.”
“What a crock.” Her mouth twisted ruefully. “Sir.”
He shook his head at her, then froze, his gaze locked on something over her shoulder.
“Lindsay,” she said, knowing without looking. Damn it, she’d been so scrambled over Elijah, she had forgotten Syre would be present to see the mortal shell that once housed his daughter’s reincarnated soul.
“What have you done?”
“No more than Adrian allowed me to do. Lindsay offered to come when she learned Elijah was injured.”
“Why?” he said tightly. “What purpose does her presence serve?”
“She’s a Sentinel blood source, in lieu of Adrian—” She gasped when Syre cut off her breath with a crushing hand wrapped around her throat. Her boots dangled two feet off the floor.
His eyes burned into hers, his fury stunning and frightening. “You went after Adrian?”
“H-Helena…actually,” she managed, fighting the urge to claw at the constriction that impeded her ability to speak.
He threw her thirty feet across the room at Salem, who caught her deftly. The warehouse fell into silence as someone hastily shut off the stereo; then the growls of agitated lycans rumbled through the air like war drums.
Vash struggled free of Salem’s hold, embarrassed at being so publicly chastised and worried about Syre’s cracked control. He didn’t use physical force as a rule; he didn’t need to. He could mesmerize like a snake charmer to get his way.
She was his fist. At least she had been until now.
Brow arched, Raze had stopped his progress across the warehouse floor halfway between the main door and Syre, his hand gripping Lindsay’s elbow. She was still bound at the wrists and blindfolded…by her choice. Her vampire strength could easily break the rope. She could lift her hand and push the blindfold up at any time. Her continuing cooperation was starting to make Vash suspicious.
“Where’s Elijah?” the blonde asked sharply. “I want to see him. That was the deal.”