“I know what death smells like,” Katja snapped irritably, interrupting him.
“Yes, you do,” Ryiel agreed. “Have you ever been to a blood orgy? Participated in a feeding frenzy?”
She shook her head slowly.
“It isn’t pretty,” Ryiel continued, “but such gatherings will usually involve no more than twenty-five or thirty humans at the most. This will be more like a battlefield, with close to a thousand dead. It will carry a stench you will never forget.”
“It isn’t only the blood,” Stavros continued, seeing her slightly bewildered expression, “or even the underlying smell of shit and piss and puke everywhere. It’s the smell of panic, fear, and desperation tainting the air. It will pull the breath from your lungs and choke you.” The sentinel paused, his bald head gleaming in the candlelight as he gave her a sad, knowing smile. “This is the stench of the battlefield. You may know death, Katja, but you know nothing of this kind of butchery . . . and I hope you never do.”
It was the nicest thing he had ever said to her. Apart from the time he asked if the manacles were chafing her wrists.
“The scent of blood will overwhelm you. You will be consumed by bloodlust, wanting nothing more than to tear flesh and gorge yourself,” Ryiel told her.
“But you said everyone was already dead.”
Seeing the silver-eyed vampire nod his head, Katja hesitated, wondering what she was missing.
“Vampires cannot drink from the dead. It leads to madness.”
Every vampire knew that. It was one of the first things they were ever taught. Never drink from a corpse, and stop at once if a human dies while you are feeding. Once the heart ceases to pump, the death process is initiated. Body temperature drops, organs shut down, changes in chemical composition occur. And to a being whose own existence is reliant on an infusion of healthy blood, such changes are catastrophic.
“This is why bloodlust is so dangerous,” Ryiel told her. “Held in its thrall, a vampire cannot tell the difference between what is living and what is dead.”
“What about you? Won’t you also be affected?”
Ryiel shook his head.
“So what will happen if I do fall prey to this . . . bloodlust. What will you do to me?”
Reaching out, Ryiel took a strand of her blue-black hair, letting it spill over his fingers. “Then I will be forced to break my promise to Gabriel. I will take your head.”
Chapter 7
“He doesn’t believe me.”
I stared at the apartment’s open front door, still reeling from the impact of Gabriel’s words. It was hard to say which hurt more—his anger or his disappointment at my assumed untruthfulness. But I wasn’t lying. I hadn’t made any agreement with the demon. Why didn’t he believe me?
“If you had refused . . . you could not hold the stones in your hand.”
I looked at the opals overflowing my palm and spilling onto my lap. What did Gabriel mean I couldn’t hold them? Why not? They hadn’t done anything to him when he held them, so what did he expect them to do to me?
Tomas came to stand before me, Aleksei by his side, and both wore looks of concern.
“Are you all right?” I asked the vampire, seeing the dark red blotches around his neck from Gabriel’s fingers. He nodded and croaked something in Russian.
“Aleksei, if we’re going to spend the next three days joined at the hip, then you’re going to have to speak in English,” I told him.
“He wants to know if he can sit next to you,” Tomas translated. “He needs to be close to you physically.”
“Oh, of course.”
I patted the cushion next to me and managed to appear only mildly surprised when Aleksei’s arm slid across the back of the couch, his hand wrapping around my shoulder while his thigh pressed against me. I was lucky he was in a weakened state or else he might have pushed me through the side of the couch and onto the floor. It crossed my mind that perhaps I’d be safer, and probably less bruised, sitting on his lap, but seeing the way his upper lip curled as he glanced at the black gemstones in my hand, I reconsidered the idea.
I stared up at Gabriel’s sentinel. “Why doesn’t he believe me, Tomas?”
“I don’t know, lass.”
“Yeah, you do.” I narrowed my eyes and gave him a hard look. “It’s why you don’t believe me either.”
“I never said that.”
“Not in so many words, but I can see the doubt in your eyes.” I paused before adding bitterly, “You think I’m a liar too.”
“Aw, lass, don’t make the mistake of assuming you know my thoughts.” His voice remained calm, which only made me feel more pissed off.
“All right then, do you think I’m lying?” I became confrontational as feelings of hurt were now replaced by bitterness and anger.
Tomas narrowed his eyes and gave me a long, hard look of his own. Feeling the tension rise between us, Aleksei shifted uncomfortably next to me. I pressed my knee against his thigh as a way of letting him know my mood had nothing to do with him.
“I think you believe you are telling the truth,” Tomas said slowly, “but it doesn’t necessarily mean you are.”
“I’m lying, but not on purpose, is that what you mean?”
“Aye, lass.”
“Why doesn’t Gabriel think that?” I pointed an angry finger at the front door, forgetting I still had multiple strands of opals in my grasp. They made a soft plinking sound as they jostled for space along my arm.
“Because he can’t explain how you are able to touch the opals and suffer no ill effects.”
I was already tired of hearing this. Tomas, apparently reading the frustration in my expression, held out his hand and made a gimme motion with his fingers.
“Give me the necklace, Rowan.”
“Why? What are you going to do?” I asked suspiciously as I pulled my hand back.
“Hopefully prove a point.”
“Don’t you mean prove Gabriel right?” I muttered belligerently under my breath.
“I hope to prove you both right!” he snapped, executing the gimme with a little more authority.
A low snarl near my ear told me Aleksei wasn’t too happy with the sentinel’s attitude. For a moment I’d forgotten I was babysitting a vampire who was an emotional mess. I was confident the big guy would do nothing to hurt me, but I couldn’t say he would be as considerate to anyone else. Thankfully Tomas not only heard the snarl but took note of it.
“Please, lass”—he gentled his voice—“let me hold the necklace.”
I stared at Tomas’s open hand. His palm and fingers were decorated with a number of calluses and scars. Casting runes was not so easy as it seemed; it involved more than repeating ancient incantations and making mysterious signs in the air. Strong fingers cupped my hand as Tomas carefully tipped the string of glittering black stones from my possession to his. He managed to hold onto the necklace for almost a minute before I saw wisps of smoke escape from between his fingers and the smell of charred skin reached my nose.
“Tomas! No—let go!”
I grabbed hold of his hand and pried his fingers loose, letting the necklace fall to the floor. It looked as if he was holding a handful of Red Hots, only instead of the cinnamon-flavored candies, he’d been cradling something a lot more sinister. His hand was an eruption of angry, red blisters that bubbled and hissed.
I was about to send Aleksei for the first-aid kit I kept in the bathroom, but Tomas stopped me.
“I’ve got something a wee bit better than any ointment,” he hissed between clenched teeth.
He pulled a rune from his pocket. It looked like a small brass key, something used to safeguard secrets—a young girl’s diary, perhaps, or a dancing ballerina jewelry box. Guilt washed over me in horrible waves. I watched him grimace in pain as he placed the rune in his palm and covered it with his injured fingers. He closed his eyes and his lips moved. The rhythmic cadence of the spell he uttered filled the room. A few months ago, I would have laughed
derisively at the idea of curing a hurt with enchanted words, but a few months ago I had no idea I would be spending almost all my waking hours in the company of vampires. Now I knew better than to mock the unknown.
Tomas’s voice continued to call on the magic of the spell, but now it had dropped to a low murmur. A deep ridge furrowed his brow, and I forced myself to remain still, almost too afraid to breathe in case I disturbed his concentration. After a few moments, his lips stopped moving, his forehead smoothed out, and he looked at me and smiled. A shriveled, blackened piece of gunk that might have once been a key lay in his palm. Save for a few patches of pink, his hand was back to the callused, scarred appendage I’d seen before.
I put a hand to my throat. “Did you know that would happen?” I knew damn well I wouldn’t have been able to hold onto the necklace for more than ten seconds at best. “Is that what Gabriel was expecting to happen to me?”
“Well, I canna say if you would have had the same reaction,” he told me. “Each person is different, but there should have been something.”
Whoa . . . no wonder your boyfriend is pissed.
I was angry, but it was hard to say who with. Gabriel for not giving me the benefit of the doubt, the asshole demon who created all this drama to begin with, Tomas for taking such drastic action to prove a point, or my inner bitch for her unwelcome observation. I went with the sentinel. Right now he was the easiest one to deal with.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” I ordered. “You could have just told me what was going to happen.”
“Sometimes a visual demonstration has a greater impact.”
I glanced at the necklace on the floor. It seemed harmless, looking remarkably like a pile of rabbit droppings. “Did you know it would burn you?”
“No, but I’m not surprised,” Tomas answered. “It is a product of the Dark Realm, where fire is the predominant element.”
“Did it cross your mind that, should anything terrible happen to you, I’d have to tell Gabriel? What the fuck would I say?” I tried throwing my hands up in despair, but Tomas caught hold of them, putting my palms together and clasping them in his.
“Rowan, lass, calm yourself and listen to me.” Who was I to disobey my personal version of Mr. Rogers, even if his accent was a result of watching Braveheart too many times? “I’m sorry if I scared you, it was nae my intention.” He paused and had the decency to look a little shamefaced. “Well, it was and it wasn’t, but I needed you to see what it is you have in your possession.”
Without thinking about it, I bent and picked up the necklace. I knew it wouldn’t hurt me. Retrieving the light blue box, I set the necklace inside it and closed the lid. “Is it safe in here?” I asked Tomas, reassured to see him nod. “Good, then it’s going in a safe-deposit box.”
“I understand why it did not burn Gabriel,” Aleksei said, pulling me back down and tucking me against him. “He’s an Original Vampire. Perhaps because Rowan is his Promise . . . ?”
“No.” I gave him my hand to hold. “Being a Promise would not have made a difference, but I think I know what did.”
The look on Tomas’s face seemed even more worried than it had a few moments before. “What did you do, lass?”
“I asked Gabriel to give his protection to Laycee’s baby and agreed to pay the cost without knowing what it would be.” I didn’t admit it was actually Laycee who had asked, or that it was the demon who’d planted the suggestion in her head.
“You dinna ask beforehand?”
I shook my head, feeling more miserable than ever. “It never crossed my mind it would mean Gabriel would have to . . .”
Shit. I couldn’t even bring myself to tell him what I’d inadvertently sentenced Gabriel to do. It was a valuable lesson about the power of words spoken in haste when dealing with the realm of the supernatural. A lesson I had approximately twenty-five years to find a way to reverse. A task my demon was certain I would fail at.
Tomas came over to me and took hold of my hand. The one Aleksei wasn’t holding. “Dinna feel so bad, lass,” he said, giving me a kind smile. “Your impulsiveness may be the reason a demon is thinking he’s taking a bride, but he’s still got to get you before the altar. And that won’t happen until you actually say the words.”
“Perhaps I already have, and don’t realize it.”
“Which is why you’re going to tell me everything that was said between the two of you. Not just words spoken, mind you. I want to know about each sigh that was breathed, the most insignificant gesture made, where you stood and walked and sat. And you”—he looked at Aleksei—“you can let go of her hand and go fix her something to eat. The lass is positively wasting away before my eyes, it’s been so long since she last had a meal.”
In between bites of scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and bacon cooked to the perfect crispness, I told him everything in as much detail as I could remember. Both of them seemed particularly fascinated by the demon’s ability to change his appearance at will. “He wore the same ruby cufflinks and tie clasp from the first time you met him?” Tomas asked.
It was hard to tell if this was a detail of some significance, or if the sentinel was making an underhanded comment on a woman’s eye for jewelry. “I’m pretty sure he was wearing the same suit,” I added, not wanting him to think I was easily distracted by bright, shiny objects.
I have to admit it was easier not having Gabriel around when I described the cloven-hoofed, fork-tailed, corkscrew-horned appearance of the demon. Even so, judging from the burn on my cheeks, my face must have been beet-red as I recalled the enormity of its cock in this guise.
“How big was it?” Like any male, Aleksei’s curiosity got the better of him.
I held my hands apart, well past the width of my shoulders. The look on both faces reflected my apparent inaccuracy estimating length. I might not have a problem with jewelry, but family jewels were another matter. Yeah right, whatever. Why do all guys have this curiosity about the size of each other’s cocks? If there was a way they could openly admire one another’s equipment without the fear of being thought gay, I swear it would be women who would complain about the amount of time they spent in the bathroom.
“And he was completely flaccid,” I added with the tiniest hint of malicious glee.
Neither of them was impressed by my description of the demon’s final manifestation, although I did notice Aleksei’s hold on my hand tighten a little. “You liked the way he looked, yes?”
“It was the wings. I think I have a thing for feathers.” I certainly wasn’t going to admit I was also consumed by lust as I’d stared at the flip side of what Gabriel must have looked like as an angel. Since they had been created from the same sphere of light, was it any surprise the demon was able to elicit such a visceral response from me? I did, however, confess to falling to my knees before him and taking his hand as he helped me up. Did that constitute an acceptance?
“Nae, lass. Words must be spoken,” Tomas assured me.
I felt better. At least I could see Tomas now believed me. “Will you tell him?”
We both knew who I meant, and he nodded.
“Do you think he’ll listen?”
“Of course he will”—Tomas shrugged—“eventually.”
I looked at the other vampire in the room, but Aleksei had no insight to share. Tomas gave me a brief hug as we said our good-byes. He gave me his assurance he would continue to search for an answer to my dilemma. I couldn’t ask him to do anything else.
“When will you be back?” I opened the door for him.
“Three days”—he leaned forward and whispered in a low voice—“and I’ll bring Anasztaizia with me.”
Aleksei would no doubt need to feed by then, but not from me. Now all I had to do was deal with the equivalent of a two-hundred-and-seventy-five-pound lovesick puppy.
“C’mon, big guy,” I said, taking him by the hand. “We need to set some ground rules about sleeping arrangements, and you not trying to break down the bathroom door wh
en I have to go pee.” The sudden flush on his face told me he’d actually considered it.
I had no idea what I was supposed to do with Aleksei for the next three days. I racked my brains trying to find something to make the time pass and came up with the only idea I could think of. “Wanna play beer pong?”
Chapter 8
The first thing that struck Ryiel was the silence. It hit him halfway through his descent to the valley floor. It wasn’t the lack of human noise that bothered him, mainly because he already knew the reason for that. It was the stillness, indicating the absence of all life, that he found more disquieting. It was as if every creature within a twenty-five-mile radius had simply vanished.
“You hear it as well?” Ryiel asked Stavros, who stood with a puzzled look on his face.
“Hear what?”
“Exactly.” The vampire put a hand on his shoulder. “I smell only minimal animal blood. Normal predatory spill, but nothing recent. I think the lesser beasts must have sensed what was coming and run before the vampires arrived.”
“Smarter than their two-legged counterparts,” Stavros said with a grunt.
“No. Just more attuned to any disturbance in their surroundings.”
Stavros took in a deep breath, filling his lungs with cool air. “Is there no one left alive in the village?”
Ryiel shook his head, his long dark hair briefly revealing the tattoos on his chest with the movement. “None we care about or can help.”
“What of those responsible?”
Ryiel didn’t need to answer as the night was suddenly filled with the howl of a vampire caught in the throes of bloodlust. The pull too strong to ignore, the vampire could not resist it. Seeing another form of bloodlust shine in Stavros’s eyes, Ryiel cautioned. “See if we can keep one alive. It would be helpful to know whose hand is responsible for such madness.”
“You don’t think it’s one of them?” he asked, pointing in the general direction of the howling.
“The instigator will not stay if he knows I am coming, and I suspect he already does.”
The sentinel put his hand on the vampire’s forearm. “You think this might be a plot to bring you once more onto a battlefield?”
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