Blood Lily (Lilith Adams Vampire Series Book 1)

by Jenny Allen

  “I have the prisoner, Sir.” Coffee’s deep, booming voice knocked the wind out of her small little victory. Ashcroft stood up and popped his knee back into place with a hiss. His cruel eyes bore into her with a demented sort of delight.

  “Oh I won’t kill you, my dear. However, if you don’t wish to witness your betrothed die a very slow, agonizing death, you will not struggle again.”

  Lilith looked past Ashcroft to see Richard Coffee towering above Chance, his mammoth hand grasping Chance’s entire shoulder. Her heart felt a million things at once. He was still alive, better than alive. He looked almost completely healed. Apparently, he’d decided to ditch his shirt. Bullet holes tend to be pretty permanent after all. There was a pinkish red blotch on his smooth chest, no gaping hole. Of course, he was also here, stuck in hell with her and Duncan. Fighting back suddenly had consequences. Ashcroft knew the power he had over her. He may be wrong about the engagement, but he wasn’t wrong about the deep feelings there.

  When Chance caught sight of her, strung up from the pipes overhead, he tried to move toward her. Richard’s massive hand tightened and Chance just fell to his knees. “I’m so sorry, Lily.” Tears were choking his voice, desperation so clear in those beautiful hazel eyes. At least she got to see him again.

  Lilith didn’t say a word or even twitch a muscle as Cohen wrapped her ankles with rope. She just stared at Chance, focusing everything on him. She memorized every line and wished that she could take away the pained look in his deep eyes.

  “What are you doing, Cohen? You’re helping him? I swear to god, I’ll choke the life out of you with my bare hands you fucking coward!”

  “We don’t need his tongue, Ashcroft, if you’re itching to cut something.” Cohen’s voice was plain and flat, completely emotionless. Lilith still had trouble believing it.

  “No!” Lilith screamed it with all she had. Ashcroft tilted his scarred face and considered her for a long moment.

  “Let him keep his tongue for now. He may still be of use.” The curling grin stretching his thin lips did little to relieve her. There would be a cost, a high cost, and both her and Chance would be paying the price.

  Ashcroft’s thin nose sniffed at the air and his grin stretched even wider, revealing his aging, craggy teeth. “Oh yes, there is the sweet bouquet.” He slithered closer to her and her heart started tripping again. He leaned in to her neck, his wiry hair brushing against her cheek. For one terrifying moment she thought he was going to bite her. So stereotypical. He didn’t even have fangs. Still, it was an automatic reaction that when an evil butcher leaned in against your neck, of course he was going to bite you, steal your soul. She wasn’t immune to pop culture.

  Still, he simply hovered there, his thin body inches from her. The acrid smell made her want to vomit. “Your fear for that man, it’s intoxicating.” His words were a bare hush against her ear that made every inch of her go cold. “Shall we see if he feels the same?” For a moment, her brain couldn’t comprehend what he was even asking.

  In a sudden motion, Ashcroft grasped the zipper of her track suit and tore it down. His nails made quick work of the sleeves and in an overdramatic gesture, tossed her top to the ground. The air in the basement might have been warm from the furnace, but her skin felt cold and clammy in an instant.

  Lilith could hear the commotion, Chance struggling against Richard Coffee’s massive hands. She just closed her eyes, every muscle in her body trembling with fear. Nothing Chance could do would save her now. Even if he miraculously got past the mountain of a man, he would never take out Ashcroft, especially not with Cohen’s help. He was going to be forced to sit there and watch whatever they planned to do with her and there was nothing she could do about it. There was no way for her to help him. Silent tears slipped over her cheeks as Ashcroft’s bony fingers slid over her bare shoulder and up her arm.

  It wasn’t a sensual caress. It was a touch of ownership. He was admiring what he intended to destroy to create whatever masterpiece he had in his head. The sharp stab of pain in her arm surprised her, but she bit back the yelp for Chance’s sake. Lilith glanced up to see Ashcroft checking the IV line that was filling with blood and now firmly implanted at the vein in her right arm.

  Another jab of pain completely caught her by surprise and this time she couldn’t stop the yelp of pain. Cohen concentrated on his needle insertion on her left side, running his fingers along the tubing all the way to the bucket. “I don’t think you will get much from this angle. If her arm was down at her side…”

  Ashcroft‘s rumbling growl tickled eerily along her skin, reminding her that he was still hovering near her ear. Apparently, Ashcroft didn’t appreciate being interrupted with mundane details while he was enjoying his meal of fear with heaping sides of pain and despair. If she hadn’t been completely terrified beyond all comprehension, she might have even laughed at that thought.

  Reluctantly, he pulled his thin body away from her and waved a dismissive hand at Cohen. “It doesn’t matter. You may begin.” There was resentment in his voice, but Cohen chose to ignore it. He simply pulled the instrument tray closer and began studying over each instrument, trying to decide what to start with.

  Lilith’s eyes flashed back to Ashcroft as he crossed the room, heading straight for Richard Coffee and Chance. No. Her heart beat against her chest like a wild animal fighting in a cage. She knew he wasn’t intending to just sit there and drink in Chance’s anger, not when he could have so much more. It wasn’t just her that was slated for torture tonight.

  Cohen appeared in her peripheral vision, the light glinting off his scalpel, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Ashcroft. He was almost to Chance. He could have been there in the blink of an eye but enjoyed drawing it out, making them both suffer.

  A shot rang through the basement like a sharp crack of thunder and she saw the monster stumble. Another shot and the muzzle flare gave away the shooter. Gregor’s determined face emerged from the shadows beside her as he moved closer to the furnace, hugging the far wall with a shotgun in his hands. Some part of her wanted to scream in joy, but she knew better than any of them just how ineffective bullets were. Her father was signing his own death warrant.

  “You miserable waste of skin!” Gregor’s lips curled into a snarl of pure hatred that she’d never seen before as his finger kept squeezing the trigger.

  There was a blur of motion that made her heart sink and suddenly Gregor was suspended in the air, Ashcroft’s bony fingers clutching his throat. “You think you’re little gun will hurt me? I am divine vengeance! I was put upon this path to cleanse the world of your existence and everything you’ve ever touched, for the crimes you visited upon me!” Gregor kicked and gasped for breath as he struggled against Ashcroft’s iron grip, but it was useless. “You will watch as the flesh is stripped from your daughter. I will take everything I can from her and her betrothed until there is nothing left but empty husks. You will join your brother at my feet, as unthinking and insane as a rabid dog. Death…is too easy for you!”

  Lilith’s eyes couldn’t even make sense of what happened next. One minute Ashcroft stood snarling into Gregor’s paling face as he held him suspended by the throat. The next minute, shrill screams rang in her ears making her head throb. Her glazed eyes looked around the room. Why did she feel so weird? She glanced at the bucket on the left side. Blood was definitely flowing at a fast pace, regardless of her arm being suspended above her. It had to be her extremely high heart rate. Fear would do that, especially utter terror. Wait. Someone was still screaming, a high, blood-curdling scream. It took a moment for her to be sure, but it definitely wasn’t her doing the screaming.

  With a sudden thought, she looked over at the IV bag. She shouldn’t feel this weird. Ashcroft was giving her blood after all to keep her alive and conscious. There was a pattern of small bullet holes in the bottom of the nearly empty bag. Well great. If they all survived she knew who she was taking to the shooting range.

  “Stay with us.” Someone
was whispering in her ear. It wasn’t Chance, wasn’t Gregor. She whipped her head around and came face to face with Cohen’s almost handsome face.

  “Fuck you. I’m not your science experiment! What has he done to my father? Gregor?!” Lilith fought against the manacles with everything she had, straining and pushing. She could feel the blood trickling down her arms, the fire of her wrists rubbed raw and cut. She wanted to see past Cohen, find out what the hell was going on, but he wouldn’t move!

  “It was the only way. Please! I need to get this!” Cohen was reaching for her arms and all she could think of was getting him out of the damn way. Lilith gripped the chains of her manacles to help support her and in one swift motion, lifted her bound legs off the ground and kicked out as hard as she could. Cohen fell back hard on his ass, but her moment of triumph was short lived. Her muscles gave out, leaving her struggling to regain her balance to support herself. The metal cuffs tore into her flesh and she screamed in agony as blood started to slide down her arms in thicker lines. She flailed in a blind panic, trying to get her toes on the floor beneath her, with that same shrill screaming echoing in the background.

  Someone lifted her up, taking the weight off her wrists. Lilith pulled in a deep breath as the sharp pain started to ebb away. She blinked past the tears in her eyes to see Chance cradling her in his arms. “Lilith! We have to get out of here!” Every line of his handsome face was drawn in panic, but she still didn’t understand. She kept looking around, searching for the source of the screaming. It had to be Gregor!

  Cohen suddenly appeared behind Chance and Lilith screamed. “No!” She fought against Chance’s warm arms, trying to get him to turn around, but he just held her tighter.

  “Dammit, Lily! Stop! You need to stay still!”

  “No, Cohen! Don’t you fucking touch him! I swear to god, I’ll slit your damn throat myself if you even…”

  Chance finally turned, still trying to keep her pinned in his arms, but when he saw Cohen, it wasn’t the reaction she expected. He looked…relieved. “Hurry the fuck up.”

  Cohen ran up and reached for her wrists, but her mind was completely overturned. Why was Chance helping him? Her foggy brain didn’t want to work. Even with her hands above her head, she’d still managed to lose a lot of blood. All she could do was try to move away from him, but Chance’s arms were like iron bars around her. What the hell was happening? All she could do was cry and flail her arms around. Nothing was making sense anymore. Cohen betraying the family was one thing, but even the thought of Chance…She couldn’t even begin to comprehend that.

  A warm hand smoothed over her cheek wiping her tears away and she felt a warm glow where it touched her skin. The feeling sunk into her blood, relaxing every muscle all at once. Her eyes met the hazel eyes flecked with green in front of her and all the panic melted away. There were tears in his eyes and so much more. “Lily, please. Listen to me.” Chance’s voice was calm and soothing, but it still held real fear and real pain. “You have to stop struggling so Cohen can unlock the manacles. Okay? He won’t hurt you. I would never let him.”

  The basement, the screams, everything just melted away in a sea of hazel as she stared at his eyes. The world may not have made sense to her right then, but this did, and she felt stronger and stronger with each passing minute. She was dimly aware that Cohen was gripping her arm, trying to fit a key into the lock, but she was distracted. Chance’s lips nudged against hers in a kiss that felt overwhelmingly intimate and then rested his forehead against hers.

  Pain shot down her arm, making her whimper and completely breaking the spell Chance had over her. Cohen threw the needle and tubing from her arm down on the floor in frustration and reached for the needle in her other arm. This time she was able to brace herself and the flaring pain wasn’t quite as bad. In a panic he reached for the manacles again. Seconds later she heard the metallic clink and her wrists fell free, falling limply to her sides. Chance caught her weight and scooped an arm under her knees, hauling her up in his strong arms.

  “Come on. We don’t have much time. We need to get the hell out of here.”

  “My father!” The screaming, she could still hear it. Dammit, where the hell was he?

  Chance swung around and she finally got a good look at what was going on. Ashcroft was pinned to the furnace by Richard Coffee’s massive body. His skin was burning against the hot metal and he wasn’t the only one. Coffee’s massive face didn’t have its usual business-like expression of calm authority, it was contorted in pain. Her father had managed to snap Ashcroft’s arm and he was holding on to it for dear life. As long as he held it at that angle, Ashcroft wouldn’t be able to heal, especially not with half of his skin seared to the hot metal.

  Cohen shot past them and grabbed a hold of Ashcroft’s arm, pressing forward with all his momentum. The bone snapped farther, piercing the skin as blood spurted to the floor. The shrill shrieks got even louder as Ashcroft’s face scrunched in pure agony. A dark satisfaction settled over her at that sight. He deserved it, all of it and so much more.

  “Gregor. We have to move! There isn’t time!” Lilith followed Chance’s line of sight as her head started to clear. Several of the lanterns were shattered on the ground, their pools of flaming oil burning closer and closer to the flammable barrels. “This place is gonna go up in flames any second.”

  Her father hesitated and she knew precisely why. If they let go now, Ashcroft would be out the door before any of them. Hell he might just decide they were too much trouble and just lock the doors.

  “Burn! Burn!” The sudden screams caught both their attention and Chance turned just enough for them to see Duncan, pulling and straining against his chains. His red-rimmed eyes were lit with a manic glee. His wrists were completely mangled. He’d managed to wear away the skin and muscle all the way to the bone. He kept sliding in his own dark blood as he flailed around in some sort of macabre dance. His mind was completely gone and it made her heart ache to see her brilliant uncle reduced to some golem-like creature.

  “He’s too far gone, Lily.” Chance glanced at her with a look so full of regret that she felt it slither along her spine like ice.

  “I know. We have to get out of here before this place becomes an inferno. I’m okay. You can put me down. We’ll both move faster if I can run on my own.” Reluctantly, Chance put her on her feet, but he kept his arms around her, still supporting her weight. It was a good thing too. Her muscles groaned and seized up, and would have sent her right to her knees if he hadn’t been holding on to her.

  “I can’t let him go! He has to die, even if it takes me with him!” Gregor’s voice was strained as he kept fighting against Ashcroft’s broken arm. Even with the bone snapped in several places his hand still tried to claw away at Gregor’s. “Just get her out of her, Chance! Now!”

  Lilith was just about to fight her way free and haul her dad away, when Coffee’s booming voice filled the room. “Get out of here. I can hold him as long as I can. Long enough for the fires to reach. I’d never make it out anyway.”

  She hadn’t noticed before, but the basement floor at his feet was covered in blood. A flicker of a lantern lit closer, less than a foot from the barrels and caught the moist glint of something dangling from Coffee’s stomach. It took a few moments for her eyes to register exactly what she was seeing. Ashcroft was trying to claw his way through Coffee’s massive body. A wave of nausea smacked her as she realized that it was part of his intestines dangling in the fire light.

  “Go! Now!” That deep, thunderous voice of his sounded desperately resolved. Anything she could do to save him, would wind up killing them all. They had no choice. It was either a few try to survive or they all die needlessly.

  Chance and Lilith both raced for the furnace. She grabbed Gregor’s arm, while Chance caught hold of Cohen and they all raced down the corridor as fast as their legs could carry them. Her muscles burned like molten lava but she pushed through it. She had to.

  Bloody shrieks and deep, boomi
ng screams chased them down the hall. The light behind them was getting brighter. Any second now those flames would ignite the barrels and the whole place would go up. Lilith pushed her aching muscles harder and hit the stairway door first. She ripped it open and threw herself up the stairs, with Chance, Gregor and Cohen hot on her heels.

  She hit the first landing and raced around the corner, but when she hit the next set of stairs, she fell hard, smashing her shin against the concrete step. The pain brought tears immediately to her eyes, completely overcoming her for a second. Without even skipping a beat, Chance swung her up into his arms like she was a paper doll and kept racing up the stairs. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight. She definitely wasn’t going to choose now as a time to fight for women’s rights. She just wanted out of the hellish building before it became their tomb.

  Cohen reached the door first this time. He swung it open and waited for everyone to pass through before following them. A huge part of her still didn’t trust him, but now wasn’t the time to figure out his loyalties. They all just needed to get the hell out first.

  The floor rumbled violently, throwing Gregor and Cohen off balance. Her father glanced against the wall but kept going. Cohen took a little longer to recover, but he stayed on his feet. Lilith’s heart was racing a million miles an hour as they hit the familiar hallway. They were close. She could see the weak morning sunlight around the edges of the double doors at the end of the hallway. Fuck. Sunlight.

  “Cohen! Get your keys ready. As soon as you get out there, head straight for your car and pop the trunk.” She held his gaze until she saw that flash of recognition and then looked back at her father. If it wasn’t too bright he might survive long enough to get to the trunk. Staying in the building was not an option. The barrels were already starting to go. He might be able to duck into one of the other buildings, but there were no guarantees that they would be any safer. She hadn’t been able to tell just what kind of chemicals were down there. It might just be enough to blow the building, but if Ashcroft had planted them for his grand finale, counting on his super speed to get the hell out, he might just have intended for the whole damn area to go up in flames.