‘No backup plan? No telling anyone where you were going? Nothing?’
She glanced across at him. ‘I’m not the one who has problems sticking to their side of the deal.’
He smiled briefly, revealing a flash of his additional incisors – much narrower and sharper than his neighbouring canines – amidst his even, white teeth. If, if, he had been human, if they were a million miles away from there, where none of this was happening, the beat that her heart skipped there and then, the shiver of excitement she felt, would have flagged the instant undeniable truth that Caleb was more than just handsome – he had the potential to be irresistible.
She slotted the book back in place and backed up a little further.
‘Your mother was killed by a vampire, right?’ he asked.
Her stomach knotted. There was only one way he knew that. She felt a surge of anger at Alisha for allowing the intrusion.
‘A serryn with the perfect excuse for vengeance on top of an insuppressible instinct to slay my kind,’ he continued, ‘and instead of fulfilling your duties, you tuck yourself away in a library repairing books. Fascinating.’
‘Instead of speculating, you should be grateful.’
‘Grateful?’
‘That I choose not to act on it.’
He raked the length of her body with his gaze in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck involuntarily spike. ‘Don’t hold back on my account.’
Her breath caught in her throat. The playfulness in his eyes was intoxicating, stunning her for a moment. He was flirting with her. Or challenging her. More likely the latter. This was not how it was supposed to be – a vampire taunting a serryn, coaxing her to action.
A cool breeze swept through the open window, causing the curtains to breathe. Smatters of rain hit the pain, exacerbating the silence.
‘And is that what you’re hoping?’ she asked. ‘That I’ll prove myself to be what you believe I am, so you have the perfect excuse to go back on your word and slaughter me?’
‘If I want to slaughter you, I’ll slaughter you. I already have excuse enough.’
‘So the fact I’ve made a choice to abstain counts for nothing?’
‘That’s just it, isn’t it? A serryn with enough courage to come into vampire-infested Blackthorn, but is afraid of her own existence.’ He placed his glass on the table and strolled towards her. ‘You’re quite the enigma, aren’t you?’
She braced herself as he stepped in front of her, flattened herself against the bookcase when he placed a hand beside her shoulder.
‘And if you’re telling me the truth,’ he said, ‘I have myself an exceptionally talented serryn grappling with what she is. And I’m intrigued as to why.’
‘I’m not grappling with anything. I told you, I just came here as an interpreter.’
‘Interpreter. Witch. Poisonous temptress. Makes no difference.’
A cold panic consumed her at her body’s instinctive sparking to his close proximity. She pressed herself tighter against the bookcase to break the intimacy – to create some distance between her and the stunning but deadly vampire who was staring her down, all five foot eleven inches of perfection in one lethal package. ‘You need to back off, Caleb.’
‘You need me to back off, you mean. Is that latent serryn in you calling for me to bite?’
‘I think I’d be putting a little more effort in if I was trying to seduce you, don’t you?’
‘You don’t have to be offering it on a platter to be tempting, fledgling. Quite the opposite, if you know what makes a vampire tick. Thrill of the chase, the oldest thrill in the book. Because my kind are, after all, hunters by nature.’ He ran the back of his cool hand gently across her collarbone. ‘Just as your kind were put on this earth to debase and degrade yourself with us for the good of the human race.’
She struggled to swallow against her arid throat, her heart jolting at the feel of his skin against hers – the surprisingly delicate caress a stark contrast to the callousness of his raw words. She flinched, but refused to move. ‘And like I said: if that’s what you’re hoping for between now and dawn, you are going to be bitterly disappointed.’
‘I admire your self-proclaimed resolve, but you can only fight what you are for so long. Eventually the hand that nature has dealt you will make you become what you were meant to be. You have no control over it.’
A light perspiration encompassed her as panic consumed her not only at what he would do, but the thought of what she wanted him to do. She bit back shallow breaths. A hot flush ignited her cheeks, every muscle in her body tensing, heat rushing between her legs. And as he gazed deep into her eyes, she couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. And it took all her strength not to respond to the overwhelming draw of those enticingly masculine lips.
‘I know what I’m capable of,’ she said. ‘And you being in here alone with me is putting us all at risk. This is all about your ego taking a battering because a serryn saved your brother’s life, and now you’ve got to prove, by having me wander around the place, that you’re still the one in charge – that you’re in control.’
His gaze lingered on hers until she felt he wasn’t going to look away again. But she needed to show him she wasn’t afraid of him, for the sake of her dignity if nothing else. Serryns weren’t afraid of vampires. It was the other way around. That was the way it was supposed to be. He was revelling in her nervousness and she was only helping fuel his arrogance.
‘How long have you known what you are?’ he asked.
The question took her aback. ‘What does that matter?’
‘You were nine when your mother was killed, right? Alisha was telling me Sophie looked into it a few years ago. That she was the one who found out a vampire was responsible. You must have been in your mid-twenties then. I’m surprised you’d never looked into it yourself. Unless you already knew. Knew and still did nothing about it. So I’ll ask you again, how did you find out what you are?’
She stared at him but remained silent, her grip tightening on the shelf at the small of her back.
‘Was it on purpose? Or by accident?’ he persisted. ‘Because we’ve already established there was at least one before Tay. And taken from your fear responses down in that dungeon, it wasn’t a pleasant first time. It was certainly distressing enough that, if you’re telling me the truth, you couldn’t bear to face it again. An experience so bad as to repress those urges and instincts. We’re talking real deep-rooted trauma here.’
Unease wrenched at her stomach at his perceptive line of thought.
‘What was your mother doing down some dark alley anyway?’ he asked.
She rubbed her fingers over her clammy palms before clutching the shelf again.
‘Only I’m wondering if maybe it wasn’t entirely his fault,’ he added.
‘Not his fault that he chose to tear her throat out, you mean?’
‘I’m just saying if she was playing in dark places she shouldn’t have been—’
Resentment soared through her – a need to defend her mother. ‘She was on her way back from a school play.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
His gaze lingered on hers. ‘Whose?’
Discomfort stirred in the pit of her stomach. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Was she a teacher?’
‘No.’
‘Then a doting parent. Whose play was it? Yours? Alisha was only two at the time so it wouldn’t have been hers. Or Sophie’s? Because if she was on her way home, I’m guessing one of you had to be with her. And as Sophie had to look into what happened, I’m guessing it wasn’t her. Which means it had to be you.’ His gaze was intensely unrelenting. ‘Something tells me that your mother being killed and you finding out you were a serryn might have coincided. Maybe rather than you picking on some poor bastard as your first victim, some poor bastard picked on you. He took a chunk out of your mother then came for you and got far more than he bargained for.’
She glowered at him. �
�Victim? He ripped my mother’s throat out after leading her down a dark alley with the faked cry of a child.’
‘Which you would have had to have been there to know, right?’
The pause was painful. Her escalating heartbeat thrummed in her ears as she broke from his intrusive gaze to stare down at the floorboards.
‘Your sisters didn’t even know you were there when she died, otherwise Sophie wouldn’t have had to research it herself,’ he added. ‘You covered it up. Just as you covered up that you’re a serryn. Quite the closed book, aren’t you, fledgling?’
She snatched a glance back at him, the triumph in his eyes calling her to retaliate. Instead she tightened her grip on the shelf, her toes curling against the wood.
He leaned slightly closer, his lips only inches from hers, causing every nerve ending in her to spark. ‘Only not quite as closed as you’d like to be. You haven’t opted out of being a serryn by some moral choice; you’re just too scared to face up to it, which is probably the real truth why you don’t want your sisters to know. You’re ashamed. You don’t want them to know how you’ve abandoned all the potential to avenge your mother because you’re scared.’ He almost smiled again. ‘It must be tough knowing if you’d told your sisters the truth about killing that vampire the same night, Sophie would most likely still be safe at home. I see more and more why you don’t want Alisha to find out, especially as she’s all you’ve got left.’
She should have pushed him away, but she couldn’t – not only because she knew it would be futile, but because something else was stirring inside her. That same alien something that had stirred the first time she’d laid eyes on him. Something unsettling. Something she knew, for her and her sister’s sake, she had to suppress.
‘I think I’ve got about as up close and personal with you as I want to for one night,’ she said, hating the hint of a tremor in her voice.
‘I’m right, aren’t I? That was your first experience of a vampire. Nine years old, down a dark alley with him slaughtering your mother right in front of you.’
She inhaled sharply in an attempt to calm herself as her gaze remained locked on his.
‘You’re scared of me,’ he said, the goading clear in his eyes. ‘A serryn scared of a vampire. Have you any idea how pathetic that is?’
The distaste in his eyes made her stomach clench. He almost hated her more for not acting on what she was than acting upon it. It was cruel. Unfair. Damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. But as he stood there in judgement of her, her indignation simmered to barely tempered rates.
Refusing to be intimidated, she forced herself with every iota of willpower to look him squarely in the eyes. ‘Have you any idea how pathetic it is punishing someone for something they haven’t done, just because of their DNA?’
‘I’m not punishing you.’
‘No?’
‘No. You’d know if I was. Trust me.’
Her stomach flipped at something that seemed to be somewhere between a promise and a threat. ‘I don’t know what’s evoked this inherent hatred of my kind, but you need to learn to deal with it for the time I’m here because I will not be threatened. Do you understand me?’
He leaned closer again, his lips less than a couple of inches from hers. ‘Now try saying it without trembling,’ he coaxed, his smirk infuriating her further.
‘I’m trembling because I’m angry.’
‘And insuppressibly turned on, right? Your resolve isn’t quite so cut and dry when you’re up against the real thing, is it? Not quite so easy to maintain when you’re not safely tucked away in vampire-free Summerton.’
‘You see me as nothing more than something to be tortured, slain or sold off as a commodity. That’s hardly the most seductive of traits.’
‘Tell your eyes that.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
‘I’m not. I just know that serryn inside of you is just scratching to get out.’
‘And if you bite, I’m not getting out of here. So I’d rather you not be this close to me.’
‘Now who’s flattering themselves?’ His gaze didn’t flinch. ‘Do you know this is what they used to do with you rare reluctants? Your own kind used to lock you in a room with one of mine to battle it out until only one survived. How long do you think you’re going to last, fledgling, with all that suppression simmering inside?’
Leila held her breath as she lingered too long in those penetrating green eyes. ‘You want to keep this civilised, so do I. All four of us can get out of this alive and unscathed but that is only going to happen by us co-operating with each other. Mistakes happen. For all our sakes you need to back off because if you bite me, it will kill you. You’ve seen it for yourself, what I’m capable of.’
‘I’m not going to bite you, fledgling. But I should warn you how intoxicating the mingled scents of fear and arousal are to us. And they are both coming hard and fast from you whether you want to admit it or not.’
‘Or maybe it’s all part of my lure,’ she said, her petulance hard to suppress. ‘So I’d be careful if I were you.’
His lips curved into a hint of a smile, disarming her and knocking her confidence even more. ‘Very clever,’ he said softly.
‘Just a civilised warning.’
The seconds that passed felt like agonising minutes as Caleb appeared to be cruelly making the most of her fear. His mouth lingered within touching distance of hers, their breathing intermingling in the passing moments – hers slightly erratic, his noticeably less frequent, calm and controlled.
Her heart pounded at the thought of kissing him and how easy it would be. That was the darkness that terrified her. The darkness she fought to suppress for fear of it taking over. She would prove that she was in control, if not of anything else, at least of her own actions. She was not a serryn in anything but name. She was not going to be a serryn. She could control it, just like she’d always controlled it – something that had always been so easy, so straightforward. Until she was face-to-face with him.
The closer she got to him, the more she felt it. But she wouldn’t let it be triggered. She wouldn’t let the slippery slope take her.
Someone had to care for Alisha. Someone had to find Sophie. Someone had to protect her grandfather’s books. Someone had to stop the facts falling into the vampires’ hands. They were her responsibility. It was all her responsibility.
‘You do know I can make you fledge, don’t you?’ he said. ‘I don’t even need your consent. In fact, you’re more likely to spread those wings without it.’
A cold panic consumed her, but something else was underlying it – something that curbed outright fear. ‘Force yourself on all your serryn victims, do you? How disappointing.’
‘Oh, they were all willing. And far from disappointed.’
The rain beat heavily against the windowpane, tapping like tiny frantic fingernails in warning. A gust of wind smashed another collection against the glass.
Her heart pounded uncomfortably. ‘And is that before or after you kill them?’
He almost smiled. ‘Now don’t go giving me those thoughts.’
‘Like you haven’t already planned what you’re going to do with me.’
‘I don’t think that far ahead.’
‘You strike me as someone who plans everything that far ahead.’
‘I’m flattered you’ve paid that much attention.’
‘What have I ever done except save the most precious thing to you?’
‘If you saved him. Remember the jury is still out on that one. But by dawn it will be irrelevant anyway. I’m going to initiate you by then,’ he said. ‘I want you to know that. Because I will not and cannot let you go.’
She glowered back at him. She could tell by the look in his eyes that he didn’t like it, but she refused to break first despite the ache in her gut. Her pride compelled her to double bluff him, despite her instincts telling her to the contrary.
‘Then do it,’ she said, more calmly than she could bel
ieve she was capable of in spite of the tension accumulating in the back of her throat. ‘Do whatever you’re going to do and unleash the serryn. And I’ll watch you choke on my blood. Because you will. I can guarantee it.’ She stunned herself with her boldness, a shot of pride sweeping through her despite the pounding behind her ribs that told her she’d just made a huge mistake.
Her heart leapt, her stomach flipped, as he brushed her hair back from her neck, glanced at the exposed flesh before looking back into her eyes – his surprisingly and terrifyingly composed.
‘The trick, fledgling, when you want to tempt a vampire to bite, is to mean it in your eyes, not just in angry words,’ he said. ‘Better luck next time.’
He pulled away, picked up his glass from the table and crossed the room.
She watched him open the door and disappear out into the hallway, Leila staring into the void he left behind, her nails leaving grooves in her palms.
❄ ❄ ❄
Caleb slammed his empty glass down on the bar and braced his arms across the surface.
The temptation to prove the sanctimonious witch wrong had been overwhelming, something deep inside urging him to overpower her. He should have made the most of the opportunity. He should have got it over with and proved his point – pinned her down and taken her to the brink of her survival instincts until the serryn in her had no option but to be unearthed.
And he might have if it hadn’t been for those telling dilated pupils staring back at him as he’d trapped her against the bookcase. A serryn’s pupils always constricted when they were cornered. And she could only hold his gaze in anger or fear; any other time it was just too intimate for her – another trait he’d never come across in a serryn. The seduction of their gaze was one of their most powerful tools. But this one had no idea how to use it and certainly took no pleasure in it. In fact, the closer he got to her, the more intimate the questioning, the more she shied away.
02 Blood Roses - Blackthorn Page 10