Akim slides his hand down his face and licks his own blood from his palm.
“High quality stock, crisp and oaked, it’s too much for your first drink. No, you don’t deserve such excellence.”
He talks about his blood as if it’s a fine wine. Well, I can’t drink alcohol; I’m pregnant. And I have no intention of ever swallowing anything this man-thing tries to give me. However, Akim is set on his plans. He motions to one of the gargoyle creatures behind him, who slices through his own arm. Black sludge ekes out from the wound, not even remotely resembling blood.
Another howl in the background grants me a reprieve. It sounds closer.
“Take her to the back chamber. It seems we may have a vermin problem.”
Chapter Eight
The cave is not a cave. It’s so much more. I had no idea before, because I’ve been locked up in that one cavern, but now I see. The vampires are set up. They have technology beyond my comprehension. There is a complex facility beyond that initial cavern. The humanlike vamps monitor blips on screens, there are cameras posted at the corner of the ceilings, and the pale watchers guard the halls with guns, of all things.
I guess claws and fangs aren’t long distance artillery. The more I see, the more intense my dread. How will I ever get out of here? Who could hope to get through this security?
The vamps are bringing me further in, to ensure that there is no rescue. Hope dies a little more with each step we take deeper into the cave. Along the way we pass a dungeon.
It’s sickening.
There are men, women, even children—all in various states of starvation. Some lean against the bars, their bony little hands reaching through to beg for food. Others lie against the back of their cells, eyes huge and stark in their emaciated faces. Their hair is sparse and thin against their skulls. One man emits a constant moan as we pass by.
My own fate doesn’t feel quite as dire watching them. Those poor souls.
The sounds of a scuffle erupt behind us. I turn as best I can within my jailers’ hold to see a man with brown hair and golden green eyes being dragged down the hallway by five gargoyle vamps. He’s handsome in a unique, roguish way with his eyebrows just a tad too dark for his hair, his jaw just this side of too firm. Akim appears behind them and punches the man’s head.
“This will be the fate of your wolf soon enough, pet,” Akim says to me.
Akim’s claws tear a wide wound into the man’s cheek. I catch his eye in sympathy, and he does something insane. He winks, dimples appearing in both cheeks with his smile.
What the—?
“Weres are inferior; they always have been. Hawke here is proof of that. He thought he could save you; well take notice, pet, because you’ll be gorging on his blood by tomorrow.”
Hawke . . . why does that sound familiar?
The man swings a hefty right hook at one of the vamps, catching another two in the backend. Then he bends forward and presses one finger against his lips in a shushing motion. Akim growls at the chaos of it all and lunges in to rip at Hawke’s throat. Hawke sinks to his knees when Akim comes up with—oh, God. I turn away from the image of the gore hanging from Akim’s mouth.
I’m all too familiar with the pain. Why would this Hawke risk such a grievous injury and such pain to shush me?
“Throw him in,” Akim tells the vamps.
They converge upon his kneeling form and push him into a cell with the other prisoners. The show over, my own captors drag me further down the cavern. But Hawke’s wink and shushing motion stick with me. I can’t reason my way around it. It feels too important to ignore. What was he trying to tell me? And why didn’t he seem cowed by the vampire’s force?
Then again, I have my own problems to worry about. For some reason, it seems I’ll get to escape the dungeon, but it’s obvious they have no intention of freeing me. The dim lighting along the cavern is useless to me, but these monsters don’t need the light. Their night vision is better than their day vision, considering their need to avoid sunlight. I struggle to keep count of the lights anyway, just to try and determine how deep within the caves they’re taking me.
I’m so unequipped to handle this new universe. I always imagined that if vampires existed, they’d be human in appearance. I didn’t think they would sparkle, but they would need to be handsome to lure in prey, right? I believed that they would be unable to stand sunlight. Yet, the pale ones followed me around in the day. Unless, of course, those are just humans that are compelled to obey the vampires. They may be pale from being locked up in these caves for too long. I was abducted at night, and the vamps do sleep during the day.
There’s also the matter of Akim’s constant threats of transforming Liam and me. I don’t know the rules for such a conversion. Is it three bites? These things always seem to happen in threes. Or maybe it’s three blood exchanges? There have been so many different theories; how am I supposed to know which ones are correct?
Reaching our destination, they drop me to the ground. We passed twenty-one lights spaced about four feet apart, give or take. A pale watcher handcuffs me to a table’s legs. The legs are cold metal, but in the darkness I can’t make out much of anything else. There are chairs and some sort of cabinet next to me as well, leaving me wedged in a tiny space, with my legs tucked in close to my body.
It doesn’t take long for the pins and needles to begin racing through my legs again. I’m pretty confident that the watcher and gargoyles left, so I attempt to shove the table farther back from the wall. When that doesn’t work, I attempt to shove the chair. I can’t make anything budge. The lack of nourishment over the past few days has completely incapacitated me. I know better than to waste energy on the cabinet.
Despite everything, I drift into a restless sleep.
I wake to something I haven’t seen in quite some time. Light. Brilliant, wonderful, bright light. It flashes with power, illuminating the room I wasn’t able to see before. However the light is so intense after the days of dark that my eyes can’t adjust. Then, as if the light never was, it blinks out. The hum of machines in the room stutters and dies. The sudden cease of the white noise is foreign.
What’s going on?
There’s a growl at the door, unlike the growls and screeches I’ve heard from the vampires. Have they found new tactics and soldiers to force me to down the blood?
A scratching sound against metal resounds like nails on a chalkboard through the tiny space. Glowing amber eyes are visible at what I assume is the doorway. I cower back further into the wall.
I’m so tired of cowering! I’m so tired of the fear, but at the same time, Akim did say I’d be drinking down Hawke’s blood by tomorrow. He said it as if I’d crave the blood. I’m so weak now that I believe him, and that’s terrifying.
Padding footsteps sound closer and closer, as the glowing eyes seem to grow larger and larger. I shriek at the flash of fangs. Then the sound of cracking bones and the shadowy form in front of me morphs.
“Shhh, Sweetheart.”
It’s a man.
A rustle of clothing and then he’s close, so close that I can smell him. He brings the scent of sun, rain, and forest with him; it’s a nice reprieve from the stench of dirt and blood that I’ve endured while captured.
It’s so dark that I can’t see, much less comprehend, anything that is happening. I don’t know if it is day or night outside, because the vampires keep every room pitch black. They’ve never had trouble finding me in the inky black to torture, taunt, or try to force feed me blood. This man seems to have the same ease in the dark. He crouches before me.
He’s like them. Different, not human.
The thought scares me beyond anything else. Will I escape one Hell to be brought to a new one? With a devil I don’t know and a new form of demon to torment me?
“Come.”
The whispered words are self-assured and calm, though they carry a hint of urgency.
My throat burns like fire as I try to respond. A diet consisting of blood thrus
t down your throat does nothing good for the esophagus. The constant blood, retching, lack of sunlight, and lack of protein have all done a number on my body. I feel near death and traumatized to a point where I don’t know if I even have the desire to speak. What’s the point anyway? A slight tingle in my belly signals me to the selfishness that I can’t afford to indulge, and forces my conscience to buck in protest. If I die, he dies. Liam.
My hands rattle in the handcuffs, and the same growl rumbles from the man’s chest. He reaches forward and breaks them with the same ease one might snap a mozzarella stick.
I rub my hands and stare as best I can in the dark at the man who may be my savior.
“Come,” he says again.
“I don’t think I can.”
Large hands grasp underneath my arm. His fingers curl in and tug, pulling me out from the table and to my feet, despite my body’s unwillingness. The muscles in my legs are tight and aching. My knees are reluctant to straighten. How long have I been lying here?
“I can no’ carry you.”
I didn’t ask you to! But now that he’s mentioned it, I can’t get the suggestion out of my head. I wouldn’t have to walk. The pins and needles jabbing into my tortured soles and calf muscles could stop, if he’d man up and play fireman for a bit.
There is a sensation of falling when he lets go of my arms. Everything is dark, there’s nothing to rush forward to meet me, besides I feel like I’ve been falling since the day I was taken.
“Natalie!”
This time his words are a harsh breath of sound, half-whisper and half-hoarse shout. How does he know my name? Who is this guy?
He stopped me from falling, and his arm is now around my waist. Unfortunately, the change in hold does nothing to lessen the pain arcing through every tendon in my legs. He starts walking, without waiting for my permission or even to inform me that the time for transitioning is over. It’s either shuffle forward to catch up, or be dragged across the cold, moist dirt.
I choose to shuffle and try to control the gasps of agony. There’s nothing for it. In this state, I can’t defend myself. Heck, I couldn’t defend myself in pristine physical condition when the vamps took me! Now, I’m much less equipped.
“I’m sorry, but you have tae walk through it, Sweetheart.”
Again with the sweetheart. His voice is kind, with a decided Scottish lilt and cadence. It’s then I realize. It’s Gavin. I blame the lack of sleep and food for the time it took for me to recognize it. Oh, as well as the fact that none of this should be real.
At this point, he could have been Will Farrell, and I wouldn’t have batted an eye. I’m escaping; that’s all that matters.
He feels strong and warm beside me, and once again I wonder why he can’t just tote me out. I’ve resigned myself to a new Hell with a new devil already, just for the promise of a change in scenery.
“Wh-why can’t . . . you carry me,” gasp, “out?” Gasp. Gasp. I sound like I’ve been running a marathon for the Olympics, rather than walking at a moderate pace.
There’s a curse beside me and a pause where I think he won’t answer. Maybe he shouldn’t answer. What if he doesn’t want to carry me because he thinks I’m pregnant and fat? I mean, I guess it’s a little beneath me to even ask, but he’s moving so fast! And I’m just not holding up so well to the pace.
“That bad, huh?” he asks.
The darkness seems to be receding as we move steadily, shakily forward.
Gasp. Gasp. A rock in the dirt produces a squeaking huff. Gasp. Gasp. “Yes.” Obviously.
“Breathe through it, and I’ll explain later.”
My panted breaths aren’t making enough noise if he thinks I haven’t been trying to breathe through it for the past twenty-eight steps.
“Wait! The people in the dungeons. We can’t leave them.”
Well, he shouldn’t leave them. I’ll keep on trudging through the caverns to escape—hallelujah. But Gavin is fit, moving fine, and intent on rescue. There’s no reason he can’t save the poor, starved souls in the cells and ensure they get a hamburger.
“Hawke will handle that.”
Hawke. That’s how I recognized the name! The weird texts about packs and pups.
“Hawke may be a little indisposed,” I tell him, remembering how Akim made a snack of the poor man’s throat. “Why aren’t they attacking us?” I breathe out.
The pain is starting to lessen to a manageable level and my mobility is increasing a little. It still hurts like a son-of-a-gun, but I may just make it out of the caves with Gavin’s help.
“Shush. I’ll explain all later.”
Natural light ahead beckons with so much hope that I’m tempted to break into a full-out run to reach it. I couldn’t ask for a greater treat than to feel it on my skin. I find myself counting the steps to salvation.
Twenty more steps . . . ten . . . five . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .
Magnificent sun! The light is blinding, but the warmth is incredible. I throw my arms out, my fingers grazing the edges of the cave’s small entrance—and now exit.
“As adorable as you are, there’s no time for that right now.”
Gavin. I’d forgotten he was here.
In the light I can now distinguish the strong lines of his face, the tight corners of his mouth, his slanted dark brows, that strong body, and those amazing whiskey amber eyes. His hair is shorter than the last time I saw him, but his appearance, as a whole, is still stunning.
“Wow,” I whisper.
The slant of his eyebrows deepens, but the tightness eases around his lips. He grabs my hand and leans forward to plant a kiss on my own lips. Before I can protest, or worse, beg for a deeper contact, he’s tugging me down.
“I shall go first, that way if you lose your grip, I can catch you.”
I hadn’t even considered that part of the exit strategy. We’re up. High. The vamps flew me here, but Gavin’s admittedly awesome body does not feature wings. That’s going to be inconvenient to say the least.
“Uhhh, Gavin . . . I don’t know about this.”
He’s already swung his body over the ledge, with just his head and hands peeking over the top.
“At least you’re no’ pretending no’ tae know me anymore.”
Double negative. My meticulous brain latches on to that rather than the fact that he’s smiling as he motions me to follow him down a mountain . . . leaving him hanging by one hand.
“Gavin! I can’t.”
A shriek from within the cave we’ve just escaped causes Gavin’s smile to disappear and my mind to change quickly. I scramble down so quickly that I push myself into his arms, feet first. He grunts and moves at a faster pace himself.
We keep a pretty reasonable pace, and I struggle to produce enough energy to find one handhold after another. Every time I slip or even if a flurry of pebbles rains down from where I hook my hands, Gavin looks up and raises one hand to catch me if I fall. Every time. He’s so attuned to me that I find my own focus suffering.
There’s some scrabbling above us, which has me freaking out more than before. We’re not far enough down yet! We’re nowhere near the safety of the ground!
Sweat drips from my face, as my fingers dig into the mountain faster and faster. One foot slips. Desperate, I kick forward, as if with the strength of my foot and leg muscles I’ll carve a new foothold into the mountain face.
It doesn't work.
I flail my arms hoping that I’ll grab onto something that will prevent a fall to the death.
“Relax, tis just—ummph!”
With Gavin’s words I drop, kick, and slide down the two feet separating us, and unbelievably, he keeps his promise. His left arm leaves the mountain and wraps around my waist, stopping my fall on a dime and tucking me into his body.
His sweaty forehead knocks against mine. “Let’s no’ do that again, shall we?” he lowers his head so that his words whisper against the side of my neck. I shudder in his embrace.
“Now’s not
the time for romance, Bràthair!”
Hawke. He’s sliding down the edge of the ledge now as well.
“What about the others?” I ask, angling my head to the side to catch a glimpse of Hawke’s descent.
Hawke’s flying down the mountain, moving as if the handholds were carved for him. They may as well be lit with neon signs, because he has no trouble finding each one. He also has a whole lot of what appears to be dried blood marring his face and neck.
“I let them out the back. They’ll be fine, since most of the vampires are, let’s just say, indisposed.”
Gavin’s face is still tucked against my neck. I can feel each of his breaths against my skin. His lips—and teeth?—graze against the spot of my faded mark.
“Gavin . . . ”
Gavin groans against my skin.
“Time tae go, lass.”
With his left arm he swings me to his back. I clutch at his shoulders, wrapping my legs around his waist in reaction. It’s made a bit awkward by my stomach and the backpack he wears. His pace is much faster than mine was, and he moves with surety.
A pebble zings off to the right with a loud retort. Tiny little pieces ricochet to hit my arm. It hurts more than it should.
What the—?
“They’re shooting!” Hawke yells from above us.
I look up to see a line of pale watchers along the ledge. They’re holding pistols, machine guns—you name it. Some jump from the ledge, angling to grab on to the mountain face close to our position. Most miss and fall to their deaths. Eerily, they never make a sound, no scream, no moan, nothing, until they land and their bodies against the ground make a noise they can’t control.
Gavin curses beneath me. He swings me back in front of him so that his body will shield mine.
“Move with me as best you can.”
I can’t concentrate. There’s too much going on, and I was already feeling faint. One watcher manages to land against the rock next to Hawke. With the same grace and speed that he’s been using to scale the wall, he fights off the minion. His balance is incredible, but if another watcher manages the same feat as the first and joins the fight, there’s no way Hawke can prevent a fall.
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