by Emma Dawn
“The vampire who gave me directions was taller than you, but soft, like he had no muscle. He stuttered when he spoke, but I assumed that was shock.” I blinked up at Spartan. “Does that help?”
Spartan was staring at me, his eyes somewhat unfocussed. I lifted a hand and touched the side of his face, as carefully as I could. “Spartan, does that description help?”
With a shake of his head, he broke whatever spell he was under and at the same time pulled his face away from my hand. “Yes, it does. I’m taking you back to the room. King should be there now.”
He started down the hall, his hand still firm on my arm, but no longer bruising. He glanced at me several times as we walked. Finally, I gave up.
“What? What is it you are looking for on me? I am not bruised or beaten up. Nothing is hurt more than my ego.” I brushed his hand that held me and he let go. “I’m not running away. I wanted to see my friend.” And then run away.
I think his lips twitched. “You can’t read minds like Preacher, can you?”
Spartan’s lips twisted a bit more. “No.”
That made me like him more. Not that Preacher reading my mind was a bad thing, but it was also nice to have my thoughts to myself without filtering them first.
At the doorway to the room, he kept on walking, leaving me to watch him go. “Hate to see you leave, love to watch you go,” I whispered to myself. Damn, he cut a nice figure. Bigger across the chest than the other men, he was truly built like a war machine. He paused at the intersection at the far end of the hall.
“I thought you wanted to see your friend. Are you coming with me or not?”
My jaw dropped, but I snapped my mouth closed in an instant and ran down the hall, scooping up the skirts so I could catch up to him.
“You’ll take me to see her?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” He frowned at me. “Are you so used to being lied to?”
I chuckled. “You have no idea.”
He looked away and started down the hall. “I won’t lie to you, Ally. I’ll be a bastard. I may try and kill you, but I won’t lie to you.”
“Fair enough. And I won’t try to draw you into my bed while I’m still alive.”
That slowed his feet. “Then you admit, you’re likely to die.”
My shoulders slumped. “Yes. Five days of training even with the mighty Spartan won’t change my fate, I think. And I doubt I’d be able to escape this place, even if I could hold my head above the raging hormones for more than a few minutes at a time.”
He shook his head. “Is that what you were doing? Escaping?”
I could lie to him, but we’d both know it. “Sort of escaping? I wanted to find Cassie, and I...Spartan, I understand why you hate me. I get it. I represent death for either you and three of your brothers, or if I were to choose you to stand next to me, your four brothers would die. No partnership is worth that. I thought if I slipped away, you five would be okay, at least. I’d have some wild memories, and when one day I’m old and gray I will look back and say this was the moment I felt beautiful for the first time in my life.”
He stopped, those eyes on me and I couldn’t meet his gaze. Something tightened in my chest, an emotion I didn’t want. A kind of grief knowing I only had days to live. That Spartan knew I only had days. I brushed a hand across my eyes. “As I’ve pointed out, I’m not a young girl. I know how the world works. It is not a fairy tale. There are rarely happily-ever-afters, no matter how bad we may want them.”
I tried to give him a smile. I really tried, but I struggled to lift my lips. He brushed a loose wave of my hair behind one ear. “We’ll get you in fighting shape. King can wait a little for his turn. I’ll take you to see your friend, then to the training field. At least, you’ll go down swinging.”
I blinked up at him, knowing his words for what they were. Hope, and kindness, far more than I expected. I nodded slowly, taking his hand in mine and lowering it from my face. “Thank you.” But the words neither of us spoke were far deadlier. He pulled his hand away from me, a little slower than before.
We both knew my life was forfeit. That he would try and help me survive at all told me the kind of man he was. The kind that I could always depend on, the kind that would never lie to me. Why the hell couldn’t I have found these five brothers before now?
Because, Ally, this is the world of vampires and you never knew it existed before.
Right, there was that. I sighed and followed Spartan deeper into the vampire hive, trusting him with my life. Only when it was too late did I learn the foolishness of that choice.
Chapter Nine
Spartan led me through the hive, and I did my best to pay attention to the twists and turns, but there were two things against me. One, there were so many twists and turns that after the eighth, I couldn’t recall what the third turn was, left or right or straight on through. The other was that Spartan was a few feet ahead of me, which gave me a lovely view of his legs and back. His ass was covered by the metal plating armor that seemed to have come right out of the movies and every Spartan character I’d ever seen. I liked it. Right down to the boots he had laced up to where they brushed his kneecaps.
The lines of his legs drew my eyes up, up over his ass and to the spread of his back. Easily, I caught glimpses of it here and there, the muscles moving effortlessly. There were also several tattoos from what I could see, though none of them clearly.
“What are your tattoos of?” My voice echoed strangely in the narrow hall.
He glanced over his shoulder. “I have four. Three on my back. They cover old wounds.”
“And the fourth?” I noted he didn’t answer my exact question.
“You’ll never see the fourth.” He said.
I bit my lower lip but then thought, screw it. “That sounds like a challenge if ever I heard one.”
“No challenge. You won’t ever see me in less than this. I need to be ready.”
I arched both eyebrows, even though he had his back to me. “Ready for what?”
“If you are named queen, my brothers who are not chosen will bow their heads and allow themselves to be killed. It is a spell laid on them.”
I snorted. “If by some unreal miracle I became queen, I would not allow it.”
He snorted right back at me. “You cannot stop all the queen’s guards. They will still work on her orders, even if you are named the heir. The queen’s last wishes are always carried out after she dies.”
I wondered what would happen if she was dead before the fight, but I smartly did not ask that question out loud. I suspected it might be trouble for me if I wandered around talking about killing the current queen. Even if she was a cunt.
Spartan came to a wider passage and took the left-hand turn. “We are almost there. If your friend is alive, she will be there.”
I leapt forward and grabbed his arm. “Wait, what? What do you mean if she’s alive?”
Spartan paused and let out a breath. “Malcom brought you in with his pack of idiots?”
“Ball-smashed Malcom, yes.” I nodded. Spartan lifted his eyebrows.
“Ball-smashed?”
“I smashed his balls when he tried to tell me I had to suck them. It seemed an appropriate punishment.”
Spartan leaned back and roared with laughter, full-bellied and echoing in the hallways. I put my hands over my lips, trying to stifle my own laughter, finally breaking and slapping my hands over his mouth. The feeling of his lips under my fingers was a temptation for sure, but I was mostly trying to get him to stop. For some reason, I had the feeling we would get in trouble if he was caught with me. If he was caught laughing with me.
“Shut up, someone is going to hear you. And you laugh like a damn dragon.”
This only brought another peal out of him. I slapped him on the shoulder. “I mean it. Shut up.”
“Oh, God. You crushed his balls! He was complaining about that, but he told us...he told us he got in a fight with a werewolf.” He wiped a hand over hi
s face as he finally caught a breath. “I would pay to see that. Maybe get it on video and watch it over and over.”
Now it was my turn to snicker. “Stop. If I see him, and you’re with me, I’ll do my best to give you a repeat, okay?”
The smile on his lips faded as he put his hand on the door in front of us. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“What, had a laugh? Dude, you can laugh. I’m good with laughter.” I patted him on the arm, as if he were a friend. Maybe he didn’t hate me as I’d first thought, but I did understand why he didn’t want to like me. If it were the boys’ lives against Dominique, of course, I’d choose my sister. I’d hate myself for doing it, but I would still do it.
He swung the door open and we stepped into a place that finally looked like a hospital. All white, bright lights, sterile smells and the soft murmur of voices that was as familiar to me as if I’d stepped back into the room where the doctors pronounced my parents’ deaths.
Car accident. They’d died on impact.
But they weren’t here, Cassie was. I could hear her laughter deeper in the room and I followed the sound. Around a white curtain, I found her flirting shamelessly with what looked to be her doctor. There was a thick bandage on her neck and she batted her long fake eyelashes over her bright green eyes up at the doctor. She didn’t even see me at first, so wrapped up in his gaze as she was.
“You think maybe we can go for a drink after I get out of here?” She smoothed out the sheet over her legs with her hands, a nervous tic of hers.
The doctor patted her hand, and turned to see us. “We can talk about it,” he said.
I saw the glimmer of his fangs as he spoke. Vampire doctor, that seemed a bit of an oxymoron. Cassie turned, following his gaze.
“O. M. G. Ally! What are you wearing, and who...is...that?” Her eyes widened as she stared past me at Spartan, no doubt.
“That’s my bodyguard,” I said. “I’ve been chosen for a high-stakes game of cat and mouse and he’s got to keep me alive to the end. If I win, I become queen. If I lose, I lose my head.”
She laughed and waved a hand at me. “Oh, please, you’re so full of shit.” She patted the bed and I went and sat beside her. I took her hands in mine.
“How are you feeling?”
She shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Doctor McDreamy there says I have to stay in for at least a week. That seems like a long time to me, but then I get to work on him taking me out to dinner.” She sighed deeply. “Oh, how I’d like to work on him with some body lotion and a cock ring.”
Spartan coughed. “I’ll wait for you outside the hospital.”
I glanced back in time to see him disappear around the curtain. I scooted up to the head of the bed and put my mouth next to Cassie’s ear. “Do you understand that these are real vampires and that we are seriously deep in shit?”
“Yes.” Our eyes locked and she nodded.
“Okay, stay quiet, try to gather a weapon or something. I’m going to get us both out of here.” I glanced over my shoulder again.
“How?” Cassie whispered. “I’m so sorry. I don’t even remember texting you.”
“I’m not sure you did. I think they’ve been watching me for a while.” That was the only thing that made sense with the perfect clothes. But was it the five brothers who’d been watching me or someone else? I’d put my money on someone else, but maybe that was just because I didn’t want to believe the five men working their ways into my heart and body could be at fault.
“If...if I’m not back in six days, Cassie. You have to be ready to make a run for it, okay?” I wrapped my arms around her and a quiet cry slid from her lips.
“I don’t want to leave without you. You’re my best friend,” she whispered.
“I don’t want that either, but we may have no choice. I will do all I can on my side of things. You need to be ready on yours to leave with me, or, if you know a way out, you take it—”
She grabbed at my arm and pointed above our heads. I stared at the hole in the ceiling that was like an open chimney, all the way up to a skylight above. A thin shaft of sunlight glimmered down at us.
A skylight into the outside world.
I nodded. “Now, that, we can work with.”
The ceiling was easily twelve feet, but once we were into the chimney, we could set our backs against one side and our feet on the other.
Hope flared. I could save the five men, and myself. I was sure of it. I just had to get out of their lives.
A pang around my heart had me rubbing at my chest, which I didn’t like. I didn’t love them, but damn if it wouldn’t hurt to walk—or in this case—run from them.
I hugged Cassie tightly. “That’s perfect.”
“Well, I’ve been staring at it for the last day,” she grumbled at me.
I blinked. “A whole day?”
“Far as I can tell.” She nodded, her eye squinting with concern. “Why?”
My timeline was off. “Five days then, and you leave,” I said softly. “Not six.” I leaned over her and kissed her forehead. “Rest and gain your strength. And try not to molest Dr. McDreamy. I think he might have more bite in him than you realize.”
We parted on laughter that hid the truth. We both knew we were in trouble, but then again, we’d been in trouble before and managed to get out.
That time in the canyon when the floodwaters came through.
Going to Vegas with nothing more than the clothes on our backs and a hundred dollars between us.
Breaking into her ex’s apartment to steal info that helped her court case against his cheating ass.
I had to believe being here in the hive was no different.
A snort escaped me; even I had trouble believing that.
I wove my way through the hospital, taking note there was only one attendant besides McDreamy, and two other patients. Both of them chained to their beds by arms, legs and necks. The attendant saw me looking and pulled the curtains around the chained men quickly.
I looked away and let myself out into the narrow hall that was the hive. I couldn’t help them for shit. I couldn’t even help myself.
From one step to the next, the light around me changed. My eyes struggled to compensate going from a bright white hospital to the dark gothic nature of what almost felt like a castle straight out of a vampire movie. Underground, of course. Which made sense with the whole sunlight business.
Spartan leaned against the far wall opposite the hospital entrance.
“Nice visit?”
I tucked my hands behind my back. “I told her to try and get away if I didn’t come back in five days.”
He startled, then nodded. “Yes, she’s being kept alive until after the Challenge is complete.”
“And if I win?”
“She lives.”
I shivered, cold with the realization of how many lives depended on me being able to face that scrawny twat of a queen. “You’ll work with me now?”
“Don’t you want to go to King?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes, but I think I would be able to enjoy my time knowing that I’ve done all I can to make myself ready.”
Spartan said nothing, just turned down a new hall leading away from the hospital.
“Can you fill in a few things for me?” I asked.
He didn’t look back, but he nodded. “If I can.”
“Vampires don’t like sunlight?”
“Correct. It won’t kill us right away, but think of it as slowing us down to a human speed, and making us weak, easier to kill.”
Made sense. “Garlic, crosses, fire?”
“We wound the same as if we were human,” he did glance back then, “we can be killed by beheading, disembowelment, fire, crushed in a car accident, poison. But we heal faster, so unless the wounds are truly mortal, we could come back with some fresh blood.”
“On that note,” I said, “why didn’t Preacher or Wick bite me?”
Spartan paused and I almost caught up to him before he started
off again. “They won’t bite you.”
I frowned. “Won’t, or aren’t allowed?”
“You will choose your mate. He will bite you sealing the bond between you.”
I followed him quietly after that, thinking through what he’d told me. A few minutes later the hallway opened into a large, cavernous room with a domed ceiling. “It makes me think of the Colosseum.” I did a slow turn, checking the place out.
“Patterned after it in a fashion. Easier to train with a great deal of room.”
There were no other trainees in the large area that spanned the size of a football field. Big indeed.
Spartan led me to the middle of the space. “It will all be hand to hand when you fight Terra, no weapons.”
“Well, that’s a start,” I said. “Wait, Terra is her name?”
Spartan tipped his head. “It is.”
“Terra the Twat.” I punched one hand into my open palm of the other. “Fitting.”
Spartan fought a smile. I could see it on his lips trying to ease across his face, but he managed to get rid of it.
He didn’t answer, which didn’t make me feel all that much better. “Hold your hands up, as if you were going to punch me.”
I fisted my hands and brought them up, angling my stance. A few karate classes would at least help me not look like a complete tool when it came to the starting point.
His burnished gold eyes swept over me while he slowly circled around to the back side of me. I held my place, waiting for instruction, trying not to think about my vulnerability to him.
“Is it okay? How I’m standing?”
“Hard to say. I can’t see your legs.” He dropped to one knee beside me and pulled a knife from his belt. Before I could so much a launch a formal protest, he grabbed a handful of my skirt and slashed off enough that the new and raggedy hem kissed me at mid-thigh.
The air on my bare legs was refreshing, but I was also intensely aware of Spartan’s hands on my skin as he adjusted my stance. He gripped my lower thigh, his hands big enough to wrap almost all the way around. “A bit wider there. And bend at the knee. Yes, like that.”