“I appreciate your loyalty to him, Jason. But Zack…”
“Zack is a man, Quinn, and a powerful one, as you saw today. Sometimes we have to risk all for the people we love. You know that better than most.”
She stared at him, wanting to argue, wanting to rail at him. But the truth was, she did understand, all too well. There was nothing she wouldn’t do, virtually nothing she hadn’t already done, for her brother. And she knew Jason felt the same about his wife. Neo would have helped him get home, but Jason refused to leave without her even knowing she was probably already dead. Humans didn’t live long in this place.
If he stayed here too long—more than two years—he’d turn Slava, essentially immortal, and never be able to leave. Still, he stayed and searched for the woman who meant everything to him.
Quinn had always known Lily was in love with Zack. She’d suspected Zack would eventually realize Lily was the love of his life in return. Finally, he had. Once he’d lost her.
“Don’t let him do anything foolish, Jason. Please?”
Jason’s eyes turned solemn. “If Zack goes after Lily, I’ll go with him. That’s all I can promise you.” He started past her. “Worry about yourself, Quinn. That’s the best gift you can give him.” He met her gaze. “He loves you as much as you love him.”
Quinn watched Jason’s retreating back knowing she’d gotten all the reassurance she was going to get. Dammit.
She continued down the hall and into a spacious community room dotted with leather sofas and chairs and dominated by a huge oval conference table. But she saw no sign of Arturo, she was about to head for the stairs when she heard the sound of low voices down another of the hallways and turned that way instead.
As she neared a living area where the Slavas often read by the light of oil lamps, or played chess or checkers, she heard Micah distinctly. And he sounded frustrated.
“Ax…” Micah chided, using the nickname only he, Kassius, and one other used for Arturo.
“You needn’t worry,” Arturo replied in a tone that held an uncharacteristic terseness toward one of his closest friends.
“I’m not sure you’ll be able to do it, Ax.”
“I shall do what I must.”
“If you can’t…”
“I said I will do what I must!” Arturo snapped. “I know better than you the price of Cristoff’s fury these days,” he added in a calmer voice.
Quinn slowed, blinking, because if she didn’t know better she might think they were discussing precisely what Zack had warned her about—Arturo’s betraying her to Cristoff…yet again. He wouldn’t, of course. She really did believe that. But damn if that wasn’t exactly what it sounded like.
She was frowning as she rounded the corner to find the pair standing together, in deep discussion. They saw her at the same time, both jerking guiltily.
Cool disbelief slid down her spine and she chided herself for letting Zack’s words affect her.
“What are we discussing?” she asked, telling herself they’d come up with a perfectly logical explanation, and quickly.
But as Arturo’s dark gaze slid away from her, and Micah looked down at his feet, her breath caught. Trust had come slowly, but it had come. She’d trusted them.
As she watched their gazes slide away, the traitorous doubt that lived within the memories of Arturo’s betrayals roared fully back to life.
He won’t betray me again, her heart argued. He’d changed, reclaimed his soul.
But the memory of his first betrayal—how he’d led her into Gonzaga under the pretense of looking for her brother only to hand her over to his sadistic master, still had the power to make her ill. Cristoff hadn’t looked much older than Zack, but with his shoulder-length fall of bleached-white hair and his contrasting jet-black eyebrows and small King Tut beard, he’d looked strange beyond measure. His thin, cruel mouth and blue eyes as pale and cold as a frozen lake would forever live in her nightmares.
“Master.” She could still hear the clipped, matter-of-fact tone of Arturo’s voice as he’d bowed to that monster. “I have found you a sorceress.”
Arturo pushed her forward.
Quinn’s jaw dropped, her head suddenly ringing with his words. With his lie. “I’m not!” She whirled on Arturo. “Why would you say such a thing?” What did he think he was doing?
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of movement, then shrieked as Cristoff grabbed her and bit her neck with a razor-sharp stab of pain. Tears burned her eyes as she struggled against his impossible strength.
Cristoff lifted his head, a triumphant look on his face as he stared at her, his mouth bloody and smiling. “You’ve done well, my snake.”
“I’m not a sorceress.” But the weirdness she’d lived with all her life lifted its ugly head and laughed at her denial.
She turned to Arturo for help, saw the apology swimming in his dark eyes, and understanding crashed. This was why he’d brought her here. This. Not, as he’d told her, to search for Zack.
“You lied to me.”
“I said what I must to keep you from trying to escape.” And this time she saw only truth in those hard eyes. This had been his intention all along. To bring her to his master.
Cristoff laughed softly, a sound that formed ice crystals in her veins. “I call Arturo my snake for a reason.”
On a burst of fury, she tried to get at the vampire who’d betrayed her, but Cristoff held her fast, binding her against him with an iron arm until she could barely breathe. She trembled with outrage and a deep, quaking terror.
“Go, now,” Cristoff ordered his snake.
And Arturo had, walking away without a backward glance.
I will do what I must, he’d just told Micah. And what exactly did he mean by that?
The shadow of fear passed coldly through her body, the terror that he might actually be considering turning her over to his vicious master once again.
Chapter 4
“I asked what the hell you were discussing!” With as much hurt as anger, Quinn lifted her hands and, with her magic, threw both vampires hard against the wall, pinning them several feet above the ground.
Micah, damn him, tried to smile. “You’re stronger every time I see you, Quinn.” Quinn turned on Arturo. “You told me you were through lying to me.”
“I do not betray you, cara.” But he met her gaze with a hint of pain that had her stomach twisting. “I will never…”
Without warning, the floor beneath Quinn’s feet lurched. She stumbled as the house began to shake with a violence far worse than any she’d felt before. As she righted herself with effort, plaster began to fall from the hallway ceiling.
Quinn released the two vampires, her hands flying up in mock-surrender. “This isn’t my doing.” At least, she hadn’t done it intentionally. Her magic was unpredictable, especially when she was angry. But earthquakes had become all too common as the city slowly crumbled.
“It’s getting worse,” Micah muttered.
Quinn turned for the stairs. So far no sunbeams had broken through close to Neo’s house, but the way they were multiplying, it was only a matter of time before one did. And the sunbeams that broke through from the real world during these episodes could, and would, kill any vampire in their direct path.
“Quinn,” Arturo called.
Ignoring him, she strode through the community room, and the huge oval table, to the stairs. The vampires took cover during these episodes if they could, or stayed below stairs. While the windows in the house above had all been covered with blackout drapes, with the earthquakes intensifying, there was no telling what kind of damage the house might ultimately sustain.
This was all her fault. Even if she hadn’t actually caused this particular earthquake with her anger, she was to blame for accidentally setting into motion the destruction of the Vamp City world.
It wasn’t the first time Vamp City had been threatened. Blackstone had sprung the trap himself back in 1877, seven years after creating V.C., as
had been his plan all along. He’d waited until the vampires had moved into their utopia in large enough numbers, then pulled the plug, trapping them, intending to slowly kill all those caught within. What Phineas Blackstone hadn’t realized was that Cristoff Gonzaga hadn’t fully trusted the sorcerer and had captured the wizard’s two young sons—Grant and Sheridan—for insurance. Cristoff had used them to force Phineas to renew the magic. Once he had, Cristoff killed him so that he could never pull the plug on Vamp City again.
Unfortunately, Cristoff had never anticipated her.
When she moved into D.C. two years ago to share an apartment with Zack while he attended George Washington University, she unknowingly triggered the city’s demise for a second time, apparently a result of the battling Blackstone and Levenach magics within her. But with Phineas Blackstone long dead, and neither of his sons, now immortal, possessing the power of their father, the vampires had no one to renew the magic.
For two years, they’d searched in vain for another sorcerer…until a month ago when she and Zack accidentally stumbled into the otherworld through a sunbeam. Arturo had saved her from certain death at the hands of another vampire and had recognized in her a great, if mostly latent, power. A power she’d been struggling ever since to fully free.
Quinn was halfway up the stairs when she heard Zack behind her.
“What did you do, sis?” he asked with wonder.
“This isn’t my fault,” she muttered. “Probably.”
By the time the two of them reached the top of the stairs, the house had quit shaking. The earthquake was over. But as they entered the study through the hidden panel, Quinn’s heart sank at the unmistakable gleam of sunlight shining along the edges of the curtains.
“Damn,” Zack breathed behind her.
As the Vamp City otherworld died, more and more of the deadly sunbeams—the breaks between the worlds—appeared with each earthquake. They didn’t last. The light would disappear again in a matter of minutes or, at worst, an hour. But with the next quake, the sunbeams would reappear again, right where they’d been before, and more besides.
Quinn heard a sound of distress, realized it was coming from the kitchen, and rushed through the ground floor rooms of the house, Zack close behind her. As she entered the kitchen, she found Mukdalla gripping the countertop, one arm tight around her wide middle, her expression stricken.
“Where’s Rinaldo?” Quinn asked.
“Outside.” The word came out choked. Mukdalla was of the Trader race—immortals that were born rather than turned, a race Quinn had disliked intensely until she met Mukdalla. While many Traders dealt in the human slave trade, Mukdalla worked with Neo to help the humans escape back into the real world. With their bright orange eyes and their heads and ears slightly too big for their human-like bodies, Quinn had always thought Traders unattractive. But Mukdalla radiated warmth and goodness, and when she smiled, she was nothing short of beautiful. Quinn understood how she’d won the heart of Rinaldo, her vampire husband of centuries.
But Mukdalla wasn’t smiling. And Quinn was terrified she knew why.
Quinn reached for her, placing a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I’ll find him.”
“No.” Mukdalla jerked and grabbed Quinn’s hand. “If anyone’s watching the house, they’ll recognize you.”
“I’ll go,” Zack said behind her. Only those within Neo’s knew that Zack was her brother.
She gave him a nod, then turned to Mukdalla and wrapped her arm around the woman’s wide shoulders, giving into an instinct that, for once, she didn’t check.
Mukdalla turned into Quinn’s embrace, burying her head against her shoulder. “He’s not dead,” she whispered. “After all we’ve been through together, I would sense it. I would sense his absence.” But doubt rang with hollowness in her words.
Quinn wrapped her arms slowly around the Trader woman. She’d never been a hugger, had always kept others, except for Zack, at bay. But Mukdalla had made it clear she wished to be Quinn’s friend. And despite her natural reticence, Quinn was beginning to realize she wanted that, too.
Before Zack reached the back door, the light at the edges of the kitchen curtains winked out as if someone had flicked off the switch. As quickly as the sunbeams had appeared, they were gone.
Slowly, Mukdalla pulled away from Quinn and turned toward the door, waiting either for her husband, or for the news that would shatter her world.
Vampires began to swarm the kitchen—Arturo, Micah, and Kassius, and Neo, a male turned in the 1970’s who’d never ceased to identify with his human beginnings and had spent the years since helping other humans escape as he’d failed to do. Neo was a one-man melting pot—his skin as dark as an Indian’s, his eye-shape Asian, and those eyes as blue as a clear summer sky.
“Who’s outside?” Arturo demanded, heading for the back door.
“Rinaldo and Carlos were on duty,” Neo said, his tone thick with concern as he joined Arturo.
Zack, already at the door, pulled it open just as a blur streaked inside and crossed the kitchen, heading straight for Mukdalla. The woman gave a glad cry as Rinaldo swept her into his arms.
Quinn began to breathe again as she watched the two embrace.
Mukdalla finally pulled back, hitting Rinaldo on the shoulder even as she began to cry. “You scared me…”
Quinn felt her own eyes burn.
“I know.” Rinaldo pulled his wife tight against him and stroked her hair. The vampire wasn’t handsome, not by any stretch of the imagination—his face was too long, his mouth too small. But he loved his wife with a devotion Quinn marveled at, and secretly envied. “I was on the other side of the house from the sunbeam.” His gaze rose to meet the other vampires’. “Carlos was not. We lost him.”
Sounds of dismay peppered the kitchen. Quinn hadn’t known Carlos personally, but the others had, and she ached at her friends’ grief. Her friends…a Trader and vampires. An hour ago, she would have said they were absolutely her friends, that she could trust them with her life. No question. Damn Arturo for making her doubt him again.
“Where did the sunbeam break through?” Neo asked.
“The yard, halfway between the house and stables,” Rinaldo replied. “I’ll mark it.” He shook his head as if he was still in shock. “They’re multiplying, faster and faster.”
To Quinn, the sunbeams breaking through resembled a large sheet of black construction paper with a flashlight hanging over it in a dark room. At first, only a few holes had been punched in the paper. Each time the flashlight turned on, light would shine through those holes, tiny beams of light that would kill any vampire unlucky enough to be standing directly in their path. But as Vamp City’s magic slowly deteriorated, more and more holes were being punched in the paper. Where a beam of light broke through once, it would continue to, each time the light came on. And just as the construction paper would eventually fall apart from too many holes, so too would the fabric of Vamp City.
“The less we can venture outside during daytime hours, the better,” Neo said. “From now on, the humans and Traders will take guard duty during the day. Vampires only at night.”
Micah turned to Arturo with a lift of one brow. “Many more quakes like this one and there won’t be anything left to save. I understand your preferring to wait, Ax.” Micah glanced at Quinn before turning back to Arturo. “But I don’t think we can.”
Arturo met her gaze, frustration and acceptance in his eyes. He knew Micah was right. But he’d damaged her trust in him and she could see that he knew that, too.
He was finally ready to give into her demand to head for Gonzaga Castle.
The problem was, he’d reminded her that as recently as two weeks ago he’d been a vampire utterly loyal to his master, Cristoff Gonazaga.
She was no longer one hundred percent certain he’d changed.
Chapter 5
Arturo bit down on his frustration as he watched Quinn standing beside her brother in Neo’s kitchen, watching Mukdalla and R
inaldo. Quinn’s beauty made him ache, but the look she gave him was cool and wary, in align with her emotions. The first time he fed from her, he’d inadvertently created a rare connection between them, one that allowed him to feel the strongest of her emotions and speak to her telepathically, though he could not hear her thoughts in return.
After all they’d been through, she still doubted him. She’d had cause to, initially. He’d betrayed her unforgivably more than once in those first days. But had he not proven himself over and over since then? She should know by now that he was not the man he’d been before!
He strode toward her and gripped her elbow. “We need to talk,” he said tersely. She might throw him against the wall. He was half-prepared for it, and loosened his grip on her so as not to risk harming her if she did just that.
Instead, she just stared at him, her green eyes cool as frost. Finally, she jerked her arm free, turned, and walked away. Arturo followed her out of the kitchen and down the hall to the empty sitting room where she turned to him, arms crossed, expression hard and closed.
“I do not betray you, cara.” If only she could feel his emotions as he felt hers, she would know the truth. A truth that would probably scare her more than his deception. “I will never betray you again.” Unfortunately, he’d made a career out of lying and manipulating and she knew it well. Cristoff’s snake. “If you cannot find it within yourself to trust me, then at least trust Micah. As much as it frustrates me at times, he is a great admirer of yours. He would never allow you to come to harm.”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.” Her words were terse, but she uncrossed her arms, lifting and dropping them at her sides, helplessly. He watched the weariness flood her eyes and weigh down the lines of her sleek body. “I want to believe you’ve changed, Vampire. I did believe it. But you’ve lied to me so many times in the past. And I’ve paid a terrible price for it every time.”
Of Blood and Passion Page 3