I hurried after Jez, thankful for the easy kill; those were very rare these days. She shouted at me to hurry. The sun’s golden glow lit up the horizon. It was close now, just a matter of minutes until the open desert land was awash in its light.
When I came upon the two vampires, bile rose in my throat. Jenner and Arys were staked to the ground. Their captors had driven a pair of lengthy chunks of wood through their middles and into the ground beneath them. Hands outstretched at either side, iron nails pierced each palm, ensuring they stayed put.
There was blood, a lot of it, as well as cuts and bruises from what looked like someone’s torture fun. I froze, staring at Arys’s battered face. Then I snapped into action, moving to help Jez tug the first big stake free. It took both of us, since the stake was embedded deeply within the earth. The shout that it tore from Arys almost doubled me over. I had never seen him in such pain. It hurt me both emotionally and physically, a phantom pain that almost drove me to my knees. It didn’t take long to free him. Getting him on his feet was another thing. I tried to get him to lean on me, but he shook his head and rolled onto his side.
“Jenner.” Arys’s word was barely audible.
I looked at Jenner with his one eye swollen shut and stake protruding from his middle. Part of me was perfectly willing to walk away and let the fucker burn. He was the one who had made himself a foe from the moment we’d landed in town. He’d pissed off the blood ring and withheld that information from us. I had no reason to save him. Except Arys. Jez awaited my decision. She shrugged, fine with it either way. Jenner rolled his one good eye toward me, knowing damn well his life was in my hands.
“Fuck.” I shot a glance toward the horizon, and my panic grew. “Fine. Let’s hurry.”
Together Jez and I tore the stake free, almost falling on our asses when it burst out of the ground. We each grabbed a nail and yanked it from a hand. Even with our superhuman strength, carrying the weight of an injured vampire was not easy. Every step we took caused them further agony. The limo looked so damn far away. Could we make it in time?
“Come on,” I urged Arys on. “We’re almost there.”
Every anguished sound that came from him was like a knife in my gut. Sure, I’d seen Arys take a few hits but nothing like this. Perhaps part of me hadn’t believed it was possible for him to be anything other than the dominant force. Seeing him so close to death had awakened a new kind of terror in me.
I could feel the rising sun chasing us to the car. I urged Arys along, caring more about his overall safety than his current level of injury. He could survive being impaled through the stomach. No vampire could survive the sun.
A horrible memory flashed through my mind. I’d watched one of the blood ring vamps die by sunlight, and I’d never witnessed a nastier vampire death. The thought spurred me on, giving me the extra strength I needed.
We reached the limo as the warm glow broke fully over the horizon. The UV rays hurt my eyes, so I wasn’t surprised when both vampires cried out. I flung the back door open and shoved Arys inside, stepping back to allow Jenner through. Jez slammed the door shut, and I sank to the ground, leaning against the back tire.
“Thank you, God,” I whispered. Panting and repeating my prayer of gratitude, I realized that tears rolled down my face.
“Should we go inside? Might be something worth swiping in there.” Jez extended a hand, which I gratefully accepted.
“If we make it home, I’m going to stay in bed for a week,” I declared.
“If? No, you mean when. When we get home. Which we will.”
The house was just as derelict inside as out. Nobody had lived there for a very long time. There was little evidence of the vampires who had claimed it, so they weren’t total idiots. We picked up a crossbow, half a dozen bolts and a gun with wooden bullets.
I had no use for guns. Jez inspected it, shrugged and said, “Why not? It’s not like customs let us bring our own weapons through.”
I got into the back of the limousine with the guys while Jez took us back to Caesars. They splayed out in the roomy backseat across from one another. I knelt on the floor in front of Arys, afraid to touch him for fear of hurting him.
“Why did you shut me out?” I hadn’t meant for those to be my first words to him after such an ordeal, but his isolation had hurt me. He tried to touch me, and even though the wounds in his hands had already begun to heal, he was simply too weak. I leaned in closer and carefully held his hand to my face.
“I had to,” he said, wincing with each word. “Didn’t want you to feel it. I was afraid I’d take you with me.” What it felt like to feel him die, that’s what he meant. Like he had felt Harley die when I killed him.
Guilt slithered in among my many emotions. Our bond was deep enough that, as a mortal, his death could take me down too. Then I’d be here as a vampire without him. The thought was horrifying.
“Don’t ever do that again.” My voice broke, and I rested my forehead against his. I didn’t want to ask, but I needed to know. “Where’s Shaz?”
Arys shook his head, defeated and ashamed. “They have him. He’ll go to the highest bidder. Eventually.”
“What?” I sat back on the floor in shock. The blood ring had Shaz. If they knew he was one of Harley’s killers, then there’s no telling what kind of hell he would go through before they killed him. “Do they know who he is?”
“Oh yeah,” Jenner chimed in with a groan. “They know. And they’re looking for you.”
Chapter Twelve
“Do they know we’re here?” Jez asked through a mouthful of chicken. “Is it safe to sleep?”
“They don’t know you’re at this hotel. And I doubt they’d waste time and resources tracking you by day. As far as I know, they don’t have a lot of daywalkers in their employ.” Jenner watched Jez eat with blatant disgust. He lay sprawled on the couch, shirtless and ghostly white.
Returning to Caesars had been simple enough. Pulling the limo up to the entry just beneath the Augustus Tower elevator had given us enough shade to get the wounded vampires safely inside. Now we tackled the task of healing them by nightfall and somehow resting up. Fatigue teased me, making my eyelids heavy. My mind refused to give in. How could I sleep when Shaz was out there?
I nibbled on a chicken wing. I should have been ravenous after the night I’d just had, but the constant turning of my stomach made it hard to swallow.
Jenner watched us eat; his face twisted into a grimace. “That’s just about the ugliest thing I’ve seen in ages. When do I get to eat?”
Jez had wasted no time ordering room service and digging in to the meat dishes on the cart. She shot Jenner a dirty look and flung a chicken bone at him. “Stop fucking watching us then.”
“Should be any time now,” Arys said. His blue gaze strayed to the door. He too lay haphazardly along the opposite end of the couch. Dark circles lined his eyes though most of the bruises and gashes had faded. The gaping hole in his sternum had closed. It was covered with a thick, pink scar.
The healing time of a vampire far exceeded that of a wolf. An injury that would take a human weeks to heal would take me a few days, though for Arys, it could be just minutes or hours. However, without blood, healing would take longer, especially as far as his metaphysical abilities went. To help replace the energy that the vamps had expended, we were expecting four escorts to arrive at any moment.
I shifted in my chair, uncomfortable and sore. Feeling stiff and tired, I shoved my plate back onto the room service cart, opting for water instead.
“Do we have a plan?” I inquired when I noticed Arys watching me. He was going to get after me about eating if I didn’t change the subject. “Do we even know where to find them?”
“We don’t find them. We let them find us.” His knowing gaze strayed from me to the room service cart. “Between now and nightfall, we regain our strength and rest up.”
“Do we absolutely have to keep him?” Jez gestured to Jenner with her fork, and he scowled. “I d
on’t like the way he’s looking at me.”
“Yes, we do,” I said, shooting a warning look Jenner’s way. “He owes us for this entire night of hell.”
Jenner sat up straighter, brow raised. “Excuse me? I told you to leave town. You chose to stay. Not my problem.”
“You withheld information that endangered us all,” I snapped, my fists clenched. “Not to mention that bullshit you pulled with the poker game.”
Jenner’s mirthless laugh warmed the atmosphere. “I won that game fair and fucking square.”
“Yes, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.” I was far too exhausted to waste energy on anger, but Jenner was the one I blamed for whatever Shaz was going through right that moment.
Arys sighed and held up a hand. “There’s no point arguing. What’s done is done. We must focus on the next step.”
“I say me and Jez find them. Today. Take them out during daylight.” Even as I said it, I knew I wouldn’t have the strength. I just hated feeling so helpless.
“Like hell you will,” Arys objected. “You’re not going anywhere without me, not as long as we’re in this city.”
I expected to find that blue spark burning in his eyes, the one that preceded every fight we ever had. Instead, I found concern. He had thought it was over. I couldn’t blame him for feeling so protective. Running off without him to confront the blood ring vamps would be stupid.
“I just can’t stand the thought of Shaz being out there.” I hung my head so my hair fell to hide my face as I blinked back tears.
Arys reached out to touch my thigh. His hand was cold, a sure indicator he needed to feed. There was a knock on the door at the same moment my cell phone rang. Both Arys and Jenner rose. I didn’t want to watch them steal the life force from unsuspecting women so I slipped away to the bathroom to talk in private.
“You really know how to make a guy crazy, don’t you?” Kale’s low, smooth tone greeted me. “I must have called you a dozen times.”
“More than that actually.” I found myself smiling. He almost sounded like himself again rather than the manic fiend I’d left behind. It was an illusion though. Kale would never come back from the kind of crazy that claimed him.
“Obviously, you’re still alive. Is everything ok? I knew you wouldn’t want me to send Falon, but the only way to find you was through Shya’s demon mark.”
I repeated the events of the evening while stripping down for a shower. It was odd speaking to Kale as if nothing had changed between us when in fact everything had. It was tough.
Since the night he had violated me and tried to kill me, I’d struggled to accept that the friend he had been was dead to me now. The promise he had made echoed in my mind as we talked. Kale had declared his intent to force me to release him by driving a stake through his heart. He intended for me to put him out of his misery.
“You’re strong. You’ll play the heroine and save Shaz. No worries.”
I laughed bitterly, examining the bruises marring my naked flesh in the mirror. “Right, no worries.”
“It’s what you do though, isn’t it? You put yourself in danger to save those you love.” Something in his voice, a crack of emotion, told me he wasn’t just talking about Shaz.
The sound of girlish giggles echoed from beyond the door, followed by Jez’s sarcastic tone. Blood was about to be spilled in the living room, and I was hiding out in the washroom. Pitiful.
“Kale, I’m sorry about what happened with the FPA. I went in there for you, twice, and I failed. It’s because of me that they drove you so crazy.” Slowly I dragged a brush through my tangled hair. I waited nervously for his response.
“They didn’t drive me crazy, Alexa. Somebody else did that long ago. Your blood opened a door I’d thought was closed forever. The FPA just made me feel ok with it again.” He was flippant, speaking like it was no big deal. Shit happens.
I set the phone down and put it on speaker. Needing to feel normal, I washed the remnants of smeared makeup from my face. “You sound fine right now. Like the Kale I first met.”
“That’s because there’s fourteen hundred miles between us.”
Very unnerving. I stared at the phone, glad I couldn’t peer into his mismatched eyes. “Is that what it takes for you to talk to me without wanting to kill me?” I blurted the question, knowing I shouldn’t be asking it.
His silence frightened me. I was tempted to hang up, however, that would only postpone this conversation for a face-to-face encounter. “You don’t want to know what it takes.” The devious chuckle that followed sent a shiver down my spine. His voice dropped even lower when he said, “If only it was as simple as merely wanting to kill you.”
He would lose his grip on the precarious scrap of sanity that somehow kept him from being a ravenous, unstoppable killing machine. That day would come. I knew it in every part of me, and selfishly, I prayed I wouldn’t be around to see it.
“And here I thought you called because you cared,” I said, using snide derision to cover up my hurt.
“Oh, but I do care. In fact, I care so much for you, Alexa, that I dusted a vampire to defend your baby sister’s honor when she passed through looking for you.”
That raised a red flag. A lump formed in my throat, and I swallowed hard. “Don’t touch my sister, Kale. I know you want to get to me and make me take you out, but that is not the way to do it.” As much as I tried to stay calm, I was sure he could hear the panic in my voice. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. Vampires were going to be my undoing. Sometimes all I wanted was to go back to the days of just being wolf. The days when I hunted vampires, before I knew I would be one of them.
“I’m hurt that you would immediately jump to such a conclusion,” he said with feigned emotion. Like flipping a switch, his tone changed, becoming serious and sobered. “I said I’d make you crazy. I never said I would break your heart.” His words were like a dagger, sharp and slicing deep. I never knew what to expect from him anymore. Such a declaration wasn’t it.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, to maybe apologize or plead my case. I didn’t know. He never gave me the chance.
“I’m glad you made it through the night in one piece,” he continued. “You sound tired. Go get some rest.”
He hung up, saving me from having to form words. It was starting to grow harder to recall when we last had a normal conversation. One of these days, I would let myself mourn the loss of what had never been and never could be. Maybe.
A shriek rang out, quickly silenced by a hungry vampire. A tremor rocked me. The tantric pull of incubus energy caused me to break out in goose bumps. I turned on the shower, ignoring the urge to go out there and throw myself into the sex-charged bloodletting.
The hot spray felt heavenly. Shoving all thought aside, I washed my hair and scrubbed my skin clean. More than once, emotion threatened to overwhelm me. I crammed it back down to the depths it had risen from. I stood in the steamy water long after I’d finished washing up. I wasn’t ready to get out and face reality yet.
The bathroom door opened, and Arys slipped inside. He wasted no time shedding his clothing. The large black dragon on his back drew my gaze. I scowled. I detested the constant reminders we both bore of Shya’s influence in our lives.
Nonetheless, I drank in the sight of his hard body. The large stake scar was no longer visible. His skin was flawless, without any sign of the abuse he’d endured. He hummed with renewed energy.
Arys’s skin was warm when he joined me in the shower. Pulling me into his arms, he murmured, “I need to feel you.”
Throwing my arms around his neck, I kissed him with a sudden yearning intensity. He tasted like blood. “You scared the hell out of me. Don’t ever do that again. You can’t shut me out. I still found you.”
He buried his face in my neck and inhaled my scent. His arms tightened around my waist. “I didn’t want to hurt you. We still don’t know every aspect of our link. I was terrified if I’d died, then it would
take you with me.”
That hadn’t crossed my mind when Jez and I had been rushing out of the city in search of him. It was a chilling possibility. As rare as twin flames were, we had no way of knowing for sure how the death of one twin would affect the other. Especially considering Arys had died a human death long before I’d ever been born. Based on the yin yang theory that bound our power, we could only exist together by maintaining a balance. However, we were two separate beings born at very different times.
“Promise me you won’t do that again,” I insisted, sliding a hand up into his wet hair. A shudder racked me as Arys gently pushed healing energy through me. I wasn’t in bad shape physically though it did wonders to help my metaphysical weakness.
“I promise.” The hot caress of his lips on my skin freed me from the chains of fear and worry. His erection pressed against me, thick and ready. “Oh God, how I need you.”
His hands found my breasts. I made a small noise of contentment when he rubbed my nipples into taut points. Comfort was temporary but necessary. I needed him too.
It felt so good to put my hands on Arys. When I left his side back at The Wicked Kiss, I hadn’t ever really believed I wouldn’t see him again. Now that I was standing there with him, it started to sink in. We had come so close to being parted.
I kissed him again. Slow and sensual, our tongues entangled in an erotic dance. Things were bad, damn bad, but I was starting to get used to that feeling. Only moments like this would keep me sane, so I threw myself into loving my dark vampire.
Arys slid a hand between my legs. He stroked me with a finger, knowing exactly how I liked to be touched. A shock of pleasure slammed through me.
Every place our slippery, wet skin made contact created another spark. We were soon alight with the fire that united us.
Freak Show (Alexa O'Brien Huntress Book 7) Page 15