02 Blood Roses - Blackthorn

by Lindsay J. Pryor

  As she approached, Caleb stood upright and backed into the corridor.

  He could be leading her back to Alisha, or leading her to somewhere even less pleasant than the dungeon. Whatever his plans, she knew she had no choice but to follow.

  He led her along the stone corridor and through the first set of double doors. The now sealed fire exit to her right showed her exactly where they were, and, more than likely, where they were going. Only this time, instead of being accompanied by Hade and his sidekicks, she was being escorted by Caleb himself.

  Padding silently alongside him, the circulation returning painfully to her feet, she tried to not be unsettled by the easy nonchalance of his strides. Alone with a loose serryn by his side, he should have at least shown some anxiety, should have at least felt a little unnerved by her, but she knew his composure was no act. It was the exact same composure he’d had when he’d pumped a syringe full of her blood into one of his own. She wondered just how many serryns he’d killed and how he’d managed to survive. More so, how the hell she’d been so unlucky to collide with him in the first place. Blackthorn was crawling with vampires. Her sister had to choose one whose brother hunted her kind for money. And sport.

  Caleb pulled open the next door and let her through first again, doing the same with the second and then the third set of doors. She tried to focus on the way ahead and not the broadness of his shoulders or the perfection of that lean, clearly athletic body.

  Pushing through the last set of doors, he opened the single one at the end of the corridor and held it for Leila to enter the stairwell. The chasm suddenly felt colder, darker and even more threatening than it had a few hours before – a time when she was sure she must have been too numbed by worry for Alisha to register her own fear fully. She stared into the darkness above before looking across at Caleb.

  ‘After you,’ he said, indicating towards the steps.

  The act of chivalry unnerved her and she hovered awkwardly in the deathly silence. ‘My eyes haven’t adjusted. I’ll follow you.’

  ‘They’ll adjust soon enough,’ he said, cocking his head towards the steps as instruction for her to move.

  It could have been deemed a trivial concern, but every instinct screamed that having a vampire follow her up a dark stairwell wasn’t exactly the most self-defensive move. But with no option but to concede, she clutched the metal handrail and climbed the concrete stairs. Every step felt laborious, her legs heavy. She knew it had a lot to do with the sedative, but more so it was the knowledge Caleb’s eyes were scorching into her from behind. She wondered how much of it had been done to purposefully taunt her, or whether it had merely been a strategic move in case she lost her balance and fell.

  Arriving at the top, Caleb reached past her to pull open the door. As his cold hand touched hers for a split second, Leila withdrew hers immediately from the momentary intimacy.

  She stepped into the hallway and followed him into the open elevator to the left.

  She leaned back against the wall as the elevator doors slid shut. Clutching the handrail behind her, she lowered her head.

  The ascension made her realise just how ill she felt, the subtle movement curdling her stomach. She had stopped shivering but the light-headedness took over and her legs started to tremble.

  She glanced up at Caleb from beneath her eyelashes only to see him gazing blatantly back at her. The directness made her falter and lower her gaze to the floor again.

  The elevator doors opened and Caleb indicated for her to step out first before leading the way down the familiar hallway back towards the penthouse.

  Leila took his cue to step inside first and was relieved to find the lounge empty – empty of any other vampires at least. But her chest clenched with disappointment at not seeing Alisha.

  As Caleb sauntered down the three broad steps, the reality of her situation hit her hard and fast – maybe because the initial shock was wearing off, or maybe because the suppressive effect of the sedative was finally evaporating from her system. Whatever the reason, as she hovered on the top step and looked out at the terrace, she remembered exactly what had led to her waking up strapped to the dungeon floor.

  He could have done anything to her in the interim. Anything could have happened in the time she’d lost. Anything at all. And she wouldn’t have a clue. He could have already lined up potential buyers if it was his intent to make a profit rather than kill her. She could have been surrounded by them bartering over her unconscious body. For all she knew he had already taken her blood once and tested it, the incident with Tay in fact just for her benefit.

  Queasiness engulfed her. ‘I need the bathroom,’ she declared with more urgency than she’d intended.

  ‘First door on the right,’ he said, indicating to the hallway which she now knew led to Jake’s room.

  She didn’t look back as she hurried down the steps. Shoving open the bathroom door, she burst inside and slammed it behind her. She scanned the expansive room. It was bigger than both their kitchen and lounge together at home, clinical with its black marble floors and tiled walls. She hurried across to the toilet directly opposite. She reached it just in time, the sudden pain in her stomach, the acid in her throat, the cold perspiration sweeping over her only just giving her enough warning she was going to be sick.

  Tears accompanied her vomit until she had nothing left to extract. Reaching for some tissue, she wiped her mouth, flushed the toilet and leaned back against the wall. She pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, the heated floor a small comfort in the passing minutes.

  She should have just told him in the dungeon that he was wrong. She should have looked him in the eye and assured him that she hadn’t done a holding spell, but his doubt over her word was the only thing keeping her alive. Her and Alisha. If she surrendered that information, she surrendered her leverage. Caleb would be free to do what he wanted and she couldn’t afford him that power.

  But there was that chance, a small chance that Alisha was right – that he would stand true to his word.

  And let go of the species that he clearly despised? The species he had no pity or remorse for?

  And how was she to explain and then prove she was a serryn in blood and in name but nothing else?

  And admit how dangerously unprepared she was? Something she had never had reason to regret before. Something she never thought she’d regret.

  It had been two days after her seventeenth birthday when her grandfather had introduced her to Beatrice. There were questions he couldn’t answer that she could – answers he felt more befitting from her.

  They’d traipsed into the centre of Midtown and up to the third floor of what would have once been the attic of the Victorian house. It was dim and dusty, the walls concealed behind stacks of books and papers.

  ‘You’re not what I expected,’ Beatrice had said, her dark wrinkled eyes furrowed on Leila. She’d poured a cup of tea and handed it to Leila in a fine china cup and saucer. ‘But you won’t be what they expect either – and therein lies your greatest advantage.’

  Leila had accepted the cup though she’d never drunk tea in her life. Beatrice was an acquaintance of her grandfather, an elderly woman, and for both of these reasons Leila would treat her hospitality with gracious gratitude despite her reluctance to be there.

  Beatrice was eighty-four. She was the only known surviving sibling of a serryn. Her sister had died over thirty years before at the age of forty-three – an extremely impressive age for a serryn, by all accounts. If Beatrice was anything to go by, her sister had been an attractive woman. Tall, curvaceous and elegant, her taut black skin was flawless other than the wrinkles that gathered around her eyes and mouth. Her large brown eyes were intelligent, quick, enquiring.

  ‘You have a lot of books,’ Leila had remarked for want of something, anything to say other than what she had been taken there to discuss.

  ‘Do you like reading, Leila?’

  ‘I love it. I’d like to own a bookstore one
day.’

  An awkward silence had filled the air, one she could still feel now just remembering it.

  ‘Carmen had dreams of becoming an architect,’ Beatrice had said. ‘Buildings were her passion. But free choice is not an option for those of the heritage, Leila.’

  Leila had looked up into her dark brown eyes. The urge to challenge her had been overwhelming, but she’d forced herself to remember her manners. She was there to listen, not to talk.

  ‘It sits uncomfortably with you, does it not?’ Beatrice had added. ‘What you are?’

  ‘How can it not?’

  ‘Your grandfather has spoken to me of your internal struggles. I empathise. It took my sister years to come to terms with what she was.’

  Leila had said nothing as she took another sip of tea.

  ‘None of you choose this, Leila. I know it’s hard. No prospect of marriage, children an impossibility, as is a normal job. It’s a difficult future to accept when you are so young. Some of you embrace it more readily than others. But with fight integral to your very nature, having your destiny chosen for you doesn’t sit easily with any of you, I know.’

  ‘Well, destiny can do whatever she wants. I have my own plans.’

  Beatrice smiled. ‘A fighter indeed.’ Her smile had waned. ‘And I have no doubt that the tragedy you have suffered has made you stronger.’

  Her grandfather had told her not to speak to anyone of that night. Clearly that hadn’t included Beatrice. But if Beatrice had wanted expulsion of Leila’s inner turmoil, she was going to be bitterly disappointed. ‘Things happen.’

  ‘Indeed,’ was all she had said before they’d fallen to silence again. ‘I know it may not feel like it now, but it will help you when the time comes.’

  ‘What will?’

  ‘The rage. Especially as it is so well suppressed.’

  Leila had narrowed her eyes. ‘If you’re about to tell me everything happens for a purpose, Miss Charn, then I fervently request you don’t.’

  She had almost smiled as she’d taken a steady intake of breath. ‘That’s what I’m talking about.’ She’d leaned forward to place her cup on the table, her eyes not moving from Leila’s the whole time. ‘And those eyes. I’ve never seen such depth. You may be even more powerful than your grandfather believes.’

  Leila had stood up and placed her cup on the table. She’d stepped away, folding her arms as she stopped in front of a glass cabinet of books.

  ‘Leila,’ Beatrice had said softly, as she’d stepped up alongside her.

  But as she’d reached out to touch her arm, Leila had pulled away. ‘I don’t want to be having this conversation, Miss Charn. I didn’t even want to come here, but I did because it is what my grandfather wanted. I will read my books and I will study hard. I will know everything that needs to be known for me to be a good and effective interpreter. I will learn those prophecies inside out. But I am never, ever, pursuing the serryn part of me. I am never going anywhere near one of those things, and I will never let one of those things anywhere near me. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it’s going to be. And nothing is going to persuade me otherwise.’

  Now as Leila sat enclosed in the vampires’ bathroom, the declaration seemed sheer idiocy.

  She should have known she wasn’t going to be able to hide from it. Not forever.

  She pulled herself to her feet, a little too quickly, and pressed her hand to the wall to steady herself. She stepped over to one of the two basins.

  She might be untrained, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t play it smart. And that meant no outbursts, no being argumentative and no proclaiming her beliefs. She had to stay unthreatening, calm and compliant. At least until she came up with a plan.

  For a while at least, he needed her alive. She had until dawn. It was a temporary reprieve. It would give her time – time to think, time to work out what the hell she was going to do. Her and Alisha were okay for now. That was the main thing.

  She washed her hands thoroughly. Scooping mouthfuls of water to rinse her arid mouth, she rid herself of the acidic aftertaste. She opened the cupboard beside the sink and searched for some toothpaste to freshen her mouth. She found it at the same time as finding the toiletry bag on the middle shelf. She reached for it and took it out.

  It was Alisha’s – vibrant pink and emblazoned with a picture of a diamante-encrusted kitten. It was a few years old. She and Sophie had bought it for her one Christmas as a joke against her appallingly girly taste. She’d never thought Alisha had kept it. And there, in the vampires’ apartment, she’d kept a little piece of them. She’d kept a little piece of home.

  Leila’s throat constricted and she fought to swallow. All the sleepless nights she’d had in the previous three months when Alisha hadn’t come home and this was where she had been – sleeping soundly in a vampire’s bed in the centre of Blackthorn.

  Where had their lives gone wrong? Grandfather long gone. Sophie missing. Alisha sleeping with a vampire. It was her responsibility to keep Alisha safe, to keep both her sisters safe, and she had failed. If she hadn’t, Alisha wouldn’t have turned to a vampire for what she was missing. She would never have been there now – neither of them would, the hours ticking towards their undecided fate.

  She would get Alisha out of there somehow. Back to Summerton. Back home. No one messed with her family. And certainly not a vampire.

  She opened the bag and rummaged inside. It was all standard Alisha stuff, brimming with make-up and creams. But she did find a toothbrush.

  Leila thoroughly brushed her teeth. Filling the sink with warm water, she washed her face and neck and wiped any traces of the dungeon off her arms, legs and feet. The heat of the water made her skin tingle painfully at first until the blood flow started to catch up, at which point the act became soothing.

  She put the bag away and glanced at her watch. Less than eight hours until dawn. Less than eight hours to think of a way out. Eight hours up close and personal with Caleb. Her survival would be a miracle.

  But she could handle this. She could do this. Somehow she would beat this.

  Leila stepped back over to the door. After a couple more seconds of hesitation, she took a deep breath and pulled it open.

  The living room suddenly seemed darker, the voile over the terrace doors wafting languidly with the passing of the storm.

  There was no sign of Caleb, but the aroma of fresh coffee in the air told her he either wasn’t far away or was intending to come back.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, the gentle breeze ruffling her dress, she hovered awkwardly before heading over to the terrace.

  There was no sign of him out there either.

  She headed back inside and perched on the sofa, only to stand again as he appeared down the hallway that mirrored Jake’s.

  With only a swift glance in her direction, he stepped behind the bar. He emerged moments later with a glass tumbler of amber liquid in one hand and a mug in the other. Stepping up to her, he handed her the coffee. ‘You look like you need this.’

  She looked distrustfully at the contents then back into his sullen green eyes.

  ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t drugged it,’ he said. ‘As you’ve seen, I’m not that subtle.’

  She accepted it, the heat making her hands tingle.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, and turned back the way he had come.

  Chapter Nine

  Leila remained warily rooted to the spot for a moment. But reminding herself to be acquiescent, she followed him down the hall.

  Reaching the end and opening the only door on the right-hand side, Caleb indicated for her to enter first.

  Leila snapped back a breath as she stepped inside. The room had to be at least thirty-by-fifty foot. Three out of the four walls were masked floor to ceiling with bookcases, housing the largest collection of books she had ever seen outside of the library.

  Void of any artificial light, the expanse was ignited by an amber blush from the roaring fire set in the bookless wall to
her right; a warm glow that mingled with moonlight from the two tall segregated sash windows ahead. Facing the window directly in front of her was a winged-back armchair, its forest green and gold fabric complementing the heavily embossed drapes that pooled in excess on the polished dark-wood floor.

  Another winged-back chair sat beside the fire, facing a double sofa with its back to Leila. Central to that wall and beside the fireplace was an ajar door, darkness looming from within, another bookcase on the far side of it. A lengthy mahogany table, accompanied by two chairs, sat in the distance to her left.

  She looked up at the ceiling, spellbound for a moment by the intricacy of what was clearly the original plaster coving of the building, two ceiling roses encircling the black chandeliers. The musty scent of books and leather mingled with the aroma of burning wood filled the room.

  Leila glanced nervously over her shoulder as Caleb closed the door behind them, stepped over to the fire and placed his drink on the ornate mahogany mantelpiece.

  ‘Take a seat,’ he said, the fire clearly for her benefit and doubtlessly the primary reason he’d led her to the room.

  As he disappeared through the dark doorway, she hesitated for a moment before perching central on the sofa. She leaned forward and craned her neck so as to peer into the room now ignited by a faint, distant glow. A heavy drawn-back curtain hung over the solitary sash window to the left, partially covering the window seat. Beside the window was a large, broad chest of drawers. A black metal bed seemed to sit against the wall directly ahead of the door, an ornate brass orb marking the corner. Aside from that, all she could see were the bedcovers, the same rich navy as the curtains.

  She pressed her knees together, grateful for the tingling heat already encompassing her feet and shins as she tucked her slightly in-turned feet into the warm tufts of the deep-pile rug. She took a sip of her hot drink, grateful for the added warmth sliding down her throat. The coffee was sweet, the kind of sweetness that was given to assist someone after shock.