The City Beneath

by Melody Johnson

  I cradled my knee and continued screaming. I couldn’t stop. My screams escaped in wheezing, rhythmic exhales as I tried to bear the pain. I’d lied to myself. Gritting my teeth wasn’t going to help this time, and I’d never survived anything worse. Kaden was taking me out limb by limb, wearing me down like a hyena would its prey.

  I reached for my cell phone tucked into the back right pocket of my jeans. Moving was excruciating. I bit my lip and tasted the warm, metallic salt of blood as I struggled. My gloved fingertips brushed the smooth plastic phone cover, and finally, my phone slipped free of my pocket.

  I tore the silver-woven glove off, unlocked the screen with my thumb, and tried to calm my trembling enough to find Walker’s number. Thinking past the throbbing, electric pain was impossible. I was scrolling through my contacts, their names and numbers dancing and spinning across my vision, when a shadow darted out from the darkness. One moment my thumb was hovering over the screen, and the next, it bent back at an impossible angle with a twig-like crack.

  I shrieked.

  Kaden grabbed the phone from my numb hand. I leveled my other arm to aim the wrist crossbow, and he dropped the phone to grip my forearm. I pulled the trigger. Kaden crushed the bow in his hand before the arrow could launch and ripped the entire mechanism, arrow and all, from my arm. He tossed it behind him. I stared at it, next to where my phone had landed only two arm lengths away, but it might as well have been miles.

  Kaden didn’t evaporate back into the shadows this time. The stench of burning flesh steamed between us, and I realized the silver glove still covering my left hand was touching his chest. He should have leapt back from the burn of silver—my hand was scorched from its heat—but his gaze honed unwaveringly on my bleeding lower lip. His violet eyes widened and turned to lust. I eased back slightly, but Kaden leaned closer. He flicked his tongue over my bottom lip to lap the blood that had beaded there—his saliva burned—and just as quickly as he appeared, he disappeared once again back into the surrounding darkness.

  I lay on my back and bit my lip, trying not to scream. I screamed anyway. I couldn’t move my hand. I couldn’t move my leg. I couldn’t do anything except scream and choke on the blood from my lip, and in that moment, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Walker had been right about vampires. They had the ability to create a moment in which you’d agree to the transformation. Kaden was cutting me down, one bone at a time, while he waited for his real fight, the fight he was eager for with Dominic, but I would agree to just about anything to stop the pain.

  “Help me,” I whispered.

  Nothing but the distant bustle of car horns, engines, and curses answered my plea, and I knew with grave, dismal certainty that no one would come. Dominic wouldn’t come because he was waiting for Kaden to drink, and Walker wouldn’t come because he was waiting for Dominic to return with me to the coven. I was going to die here tonight, alone and broken and forsaken.

  A sob broke through my gasping screams, and blood from my lip spattered on the pavement in front of me. Movement shifted in the darkness, and I quieted, bracing myself for another strike from Kaden. Moments turned into minutes. I fought a sweep of unconsciousness as the darkness in my mind ebbed and flowed and begged for me to escape, but Kaden didn’t strike. I’d seen his movement in the shadows ahead, but he didn’t attack again.

  Shivering and waiting and dipping in and out of consciousness, I lost some of the urgency I’d felt in a haze of pain. Dominic was watching all of this unfold. He was letting me struggle and scream. He was letting Kaden torture me. Turning my head slightly, I tried to see if Kaden was still watching me, too, and I choked on the blood that had pooled in my mouth. Not all of it was from my lip.

  I gagged and spat out the blood, adding to the fan of blood already formed around me. That was when I noticed Kaden’s movement again, a nearly invisible, frustrated pace. Sudden realization hit: my blood was tempting him. Knowing that this was a trap and knowing that Dominic was using my blood as bait, Kaden was deliberately breaking my bones, so my injuries, although debilitating, wouldn’t bleed. Even just the spatter from my lip was distracting; he probably couldn’t trust himself to enjoy more than a lick. If I was going to gain any sort of leverage, I needed to bleed, and I needed to bleed a lot.

  The retractable stake was still tucked into my jacket pocket. I struggled to ease my body off the ground to access it, but scorching, bone-deep pain tore through my knee when I moved. After a few failed, gentle attempts, I screwed my eyes shut against any remaining sanity and plunged my hand into my pocket in a quick, tearing snatch.

  I held the retractable stake in my palm, trembling and sweating and breathless. I waited a moment for the pain to wane, but if anything, the pain intensified. It focused with time, like sledgehammers pounding over my body, so I focused my mind on something else. The pen was smooth under my trembling fingertips and warmed from the body heat inside my pocket. Before I could reconsider, and before Kaden could realize my intent, I pounded on the pen’s click top. The five-inch wooden stake sprang out, and I jammed its sharpened point into my forearm.

  Kaden suddenly, seemingly magically, materialized over me. He sandwiched his hands roughly over mine to hold the stake in place when I would have torn it out, its thick point still embedded in my arm. A little blood welled around the stake, but nothing substantial. The pen itself kept the blood from pouring out, like a plug holding back a geyser, but with Kaden bearing down over me, I couldn’t tear it from my arm.

  Kaden leaned closer, and his weight drove the stake even deeper.

  I groaned.

  “So intelligent,” he hissed. His breath was so close to my face that I could actually feel the movement of his breath as he inhaled my scent. “And so frightened, but you can survive tonight. You can survive with me.”

  “I’ll pass,” I gritted through my clenched teeth, stubborn to the end, even as my mind shrieked at me to take his offer.

  Kaden’s expression tightened. He leaned even closer, and the stake wedged another millimeter deeper. My body jerked involuntarily from the pain. The movement scraped my broken leg over the pavement, and I choked on a scream. Darkness pulsed at the edges of my vision.

  “You’ve chosen a maker who won’t survive the month. He won’t be present to protect you through the transformation or induct you into the coven. He won’t be alive to help you hunt.” A low growl vibrated from his chest, rattling into the warm caramel of his voice. “You’ve chosen a present course that doesn’t have a future in this city. Let me be your future, Cassidy. If you want to survive, you must choose me.”

  “I don’t have to choose anything,” I spat.

  His cool, smooth cheek rubbed against mine, like he was scent-marking me again. I tried to move my hand, to ward him off or turn my face away, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even feel my body or focus beyond the tiny pinpoint of clarity left in my vision. He breathed in my scent, and when our eyes met, I recognized the glint in his gaze. He was turned on, but not by my body or wit. He was turned on by my agony.

  I shuddered. “No one is turning me,” I insisted. “Ever.”

  Kaden laughed. “That’s where you’re wrong. Once Dominic is dead, whether he’s unable to complete your transformation or chooses not to, I certainly will.”

  I sneered. “You certainly will not.”

  “Who will stop me? You?” He laughed again. His lips caressed the shell of my ear as he spoke. “My dear, dear Cassidy DiRocco, you can’t stop me from taking anything I want from you. And I want everything.” He hissed that last sentence, and goose bumps broke out over my neck and down my spine from the cold rush of his breath.

  Without warning, his hand snatched mine and lifted it into the air. His fingers caressed over my fingers. I couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Beautiful fingers,” Kaden whispered smoothly. As if we were lovers on a picnic, he kissed each fingertip, starting with my pinkie. He took his time, nipping gently at the skin and enjoying long, smooth licks over each pad un
til he reached my broken, twisted thumb.

  I shook my head frantically.

  He looked up, so although he was talking to me, the words were obviously meant for someone else. “A shame if they all looked like this before you finally faced me. Now or nine more fingers from now, we’ll have the same battle.” Kaden paused as if waiting for a response. When nothing but the chilled night air and distant buzz of city life answered him, Kaden looked down at me again. He shook his head. “You’re right. You don’t have to choose. He’s left you to me.”

  Kaden gripped my index finger tightly between two of his fingers, poised to snap.

  “No,” I managed to spit out, panicked.

  The twisting pressure on my finger tightened.

  “Please, d—”

  A gust of incredible wind tore over us, and Kaden was suddenly gone. I stared at the night sky overhead for a baffled moment until I heard the classic sounds of scuffling and flesh pounding against flesh, sounds that I recognized as a bar brawl. I dragged myself by my elbows over the pavement and craned my neck to see what was happening, but even seeing it, I couldn’t quite process the reality of it.

  Dominic had attacked. For reasons I preferred not to consider, he had attacked Kaden before he drank from me, and the two of them were literally tearing each other apart. Both of their muzzles were extended. Their eyes glowed with that inhuman iridescence, and their fangs were bared as they spit and snarled and snapped like rabid animals clawing at each other’s throats.

  Kaden tore out Dominic’s esophagus with his own fangs. A bloody, pearl-white clump of flesh soared through the air as Kaden spat it from his jaws, but before the meat and muscle even hit the ground, Dominic’s throat had healed to smooth, untarnished perfection. Dominic pounded his gargoyle talons into Kaden’s stomach, and jerked his hand up, obviously searching for his heart, but Kaden took another chunk out of Dominic’s neck. Dominic only managed to snap a few arteries before stumbling back. He tripped over my crossbow. Kaden faltered, too, but with his heart still intact, he managed to take advantage of Dominic’s imbalance. Kaden was suddenly over Dominic, ravaging his newly healed esophagus.

  Dominic rolled back and bucked him off using his feet. His movement knocked my crossbow to the side, and my cell phone slid across the grass, within arm’s reach. I eased toward it slowly, terrified that my movement would bring their attention, but they were too focused on their fight to notice me. They both staggered to their feet, struggling upright in spite of their devastating injuries.

  A second later, they were both fully regenerated and tearing at each other again.

  Dominic and Kaden were so evenly matched that it wouldn’t be the stronger vampire who won. Unless one of them pulled out their clever card—which didn’t seem likely as they were both more concerned with biting out chunks of the other—the vampire with the most stamina would win.

  I wasn’t willing to wait with my fingers crossed, hoping that Dominic would outlast Kaden. I needed to make sure of it. Taking a deep breath, I snatched my cell phone and stuffed it into my bra for safekeeping, clenched my teeth against what I was about to do, and jerked the wooden stake from my arm.

  Blood gushed over my arm, my hand, and pooled around me on the pavement. The scuffling and snarling and sounds of flesh beating on flesh stopped instantly; Kaden and Dominic halted midstrike and slowly turned away from one another to face me. I swallowed, nervous now that my blood was the focus of both their unwavering predator’s gazes.

  I hadn’t considered that Dominic would be just as tempted as Kaden. I hoped that despite the temptation, Dominic would remember our plan and let Kaden drink. A deep, rattling growl emanated from both of them, further amplified by the contrasting reverberations of their throats. I stared back at Dominic, willing him to meet my eyes, to confirm that we were still a team. Dominic’s gaze remained just as riveted on my blood as Kaden’s, and I stiffened my nerve in anticipation that they might both attack.

  Chapter 11

  Kaden and Dominic panted from their battle, exhausted and excited. Blood dripped from their chins in thick, rope-like paths down their throats. Talon scrapes and bite wounds visibly mended themselves and healed as they stared at me. Kaden’s violet eyes and Dominic’s arctic thirsty gaze glowed like laser scopes, their beads focused on my arm as it pumped blood liberally across the pavement.

  Kaden stepped forward and Dominic matched him, step for synchronized step, as they closed in on either side of me. I instinctively scooted away from them, but my arm buckled. My leg jarred from the movement, and I collapsed in a writhing ball on the pavement.

  Dominic and Kaden became sudden blurs of speed. One moment they were midstep and walking closer, and the next, their fangs scraped over the delicate skin of my carotid and brachial arteries, their breaths hot and ravenous. I shrieked, and my heart lurched into fifth gear.

  Dominic groaned with his fangs against my neck. Kaden stroked my inner arm from wrist to elbow with his fingertip. He pressed forward with his fangs, testing the elasticity of my skin before it might break under their razor pressure. I trembled from the pain and fear and cold and unspeakable sensations their fangs and claws made me feel. Goose bumps rose over my skin from Kaden’s claw as it scraped over the inner elbow. My nipples tightened in anticipation.

  My face flushed with shame at my body’s response. I knew what was coming. I knew how I would feel when they bit me, and I couldn’t help but look forward to it, anything to escape this hell.

  The pressure of Kaden’s fangs finally slipped smoothly into the artery like two needle-pointed knives. His bite was a slashing, sharp, unbearable pressure, and when he suckled at the wound, it didn’t tug at my groin or spiral through my blood like lava, like Dominic’s bite. It felt exactly like it was, a creature biting into my flesh and sucking out my blood through the wound. I could feel the warm flow of it suction from my body as he sucked. I noticed vaguely that the stab wound on my forearm had stopped gushing. It barely trickled now, and my fingertips were starting to tingle.

  I grimaced and struggled away from his mouth, but Kaden only clamped his jaws tighter around my arm. He jerked my body closer to him. I felt my cell phone slip from my bra and land somewhere in the grass. I tried to find it, but Kaden gnawed at my humerus with a wild shake of his head. My vision splintered in black starbursts.

  “Easy,” Dominic whispered. He was kneeling on my other side, his face still buried in my neck. He lifted me from the pavement. My head lolled back, baring my neck as he gathered me to his chest. The movement was intimate and exposed, even as Kaden continued to feed from my outstretched arm. I could barely decipher Dominic’s words, they were so hushed.

  “I’ll take it all away in a moment,” Dominic said, “but I want you to remember this, like I’ve asked you to remember other moments. You may not want to be transformed, but transformation aside, Kaden still can’t provide you with the life that I can. His bite is a painful, savage attack.”

  Senseless from his bloodlust, Kaden gnawed back and forth in a frenzy—tearing my skin, veins, and muscle in his jaws—before sucking deeply again. My scream cracked, and I choked on its pieces. The dark starbursts melded together into a black blanket over my vision.

  “Never doubt the exclusivity of the life I’m offering you. Promise me,” Dominic demanded.

  I opened my mouth, but Kaden ripped at my arm, jostling my shattered knee, and my mind floated further away. My lips might have moved and I might have blinked, but I couldn’t see or feel parts of my body anymore. I was dying in agony, like I’d dreaded, but at the very end there wasn’t much strength for anything, not even promises.

  “Promise me, Cassidy DiRocco.”

  My lips moved and my throat vibrated independent from my will. “By the final, certain passage of time,” I whispered, but even I could hear the sarcasm in my tone.

  Dominic didn’t care about sarcasm. I’d said the words, and he struck my neck fiercely. The sharp bite of his fangs clamped into my carotid. I tried to reach
out my hand to find an anchor against my own overwhelming helplessness, but even as I strained with the very last inch of myself, I felt my wrist lift only briefly before dropping weakly back onto the pavement.

  Kaden must have sensed my struggle. His chest rattled deeply, and he tore out a piece of muscle in his excitement.

  My body spasmed, the best defense I could manage.

  Dominic reached down and squeezed my hand gently.

  “Easy,” he repeated in a strained, almost desperate growl against my throat.

  His fingers were long and cool and strong, so very strong and unyielding, as he wrapped them around mine. I felt the solid pressure of his grip and the tide eased slightly. I could breathe again. My lungs expanded deeply in a desperate gasp, and my heart pounded hard against my sternum to catch up.

  Dominic’s chest vibrated in that deep, aching rattle, identical to Kaden. He held me firmly against his chest, suspended with my neck exposed to him and his breath hot in my hairline.

  “No,” I gasped. If he drank, he would weaken as much as Kaden, and my suffering and risk and possibly my death would have been for nothing. “You can’t. I didn’t do this for noth—”

  “I will not abandon you,” he whispered. “But neither will I pretend to be a less dangerous, volatile creature than I am for your peace of mind.”

  I trembled, and he held me tighter.

  “No.” I insisted. “Please, I—”

  Dominic sealed his lips around the puncture wounds on my neck and sucked a sharp, swift rush of blood into his mouth.

  I arched against him, gasping. The argument that poised on my lips incinerated on my tongue as fire and spiraling need sang through my veins. My eyes rolled back and fluttered closed. My toes curled. My hips bucked, and all the pain, panic, and anger were overwhelmed by twitching waves of ebbing and flowing pleasure. It didn’t matter that my shattered knee might never walk again or that my arm was a mess of exposed raw meat. My mind flooded with sizzling, throbbing, colliding urgency, and I trembled.