“She’s going to die,” Callie pleaded with Cash. She thought she could reason with him. She was new at this. Cash marched toward her, pulling her away from the dying woman by her shoulders. He jerked her wrist away from the woman’s mouth and licked the wound to accelerate its healing.
Cash kissed Callie’s cheek, catching her totally off guard. Me, too—I had no idea he knew her. What else had I missed?
“The last thing we need is another female vampire in this town. And that’s what you almost created.” His voice was soothing, but condescending. He didn’t take her even a little bit seriously. “You don’t need anyone else to take care of. You have your hands full already.”
The dying woman moaned as Callie looked down at her. “But you almost killed this girl. For no reason.”
“The crowd loved it.” Cash tipped Callie’s chin up to him. “She was a prostitute. If I didn’t get to her, your ex would have finished her off soon enough.”
It took everything I had to stay hidden behind the curtain. Blade had made no secret that it was a high for him to kill people. But to hear Cash say it as if it was some sort of consolation made my head spin.
“Why do you guys need blood so much?” Callie asked, and it was an excellent question. The male vampires all had carnal needs that I didn’t understand.
“It’s the only way we’re superior to females,” Cash told her. Interesting. Cash talked down to Callie like she was a child, yet this newborn immortal was the only one who showed any dignity. “We can’t best our female vampires, but the female humans are all too willing. Especially the whores.”
His glance slid to Lennon, and my stomach flopped. I knew he was up to something with her. Sex might sell in Sin City, but Cash Logan wasn’t buying.
“It’s stupid,” Callie countered. Her eyes followed Cash’s over to Lennon.
“It’s survival.” Cash wasn’t swayed. “You need to stop thinking in human terms.”
The same words he said to me.
“It’s all I know.” Callie slammed her fists against Cash’s chest, and he stumbled back against the wall. That little vampire was stronger than him. I didn’t expect that. She dropped to her knees, slicing open her own wrist, separating the almost dead woman’s lips so blood could drip inside.
“You can’t do that!” Cash roared. I’d never seen anyone defy him before. His eyes glowed red as Callie continued to feed the girl, ignoring him. “You can’t even take care of yourself.”
Callie rolled her eyes at him. Oh, boy. I’d done it many times in jest, but this would not end well. “I don’t want to create another vampire. Just enough so she doesn’t die.”
“She doesn’t deserve to live,” Cash growled.
“I’m sorry that you seem to have something against prostitutes. I don’t know what Talis did to you, but that was over a hundred years ago. Get over it.”
My mouth dropped. If she could see what happened at Bethlem, she’d understand he’d never get over it.
The woman gained strength, and some of the gray had faded from her skin. Callie encouraged her as she drank. Once Callie took her hand away, the woman scrambled away from her, aware of what had happened, terrified.
She was still weak and an easy catch for the guard who snapped her neck.
Lennon should have never seen any of this. It didn’t matter what she thought she could handle, she was human. Breakable. She cried against Callie’s shoulder.
Cash pointed at Lennon’s back and clearly mouthed, “She’s next.”
Chapter Twenty
“What the hell was that about?” I was alone with Cash. Callie had convinced Lennon to leave with her in a hurry. I wouldn’t be surprised if she used some vampire trickery to get her out. Lennon protested at first, wanting comfort from her lover (gross) instead of her friend, having no idea she was under siege.
Cash’s eyes glowed red. He stormed around the apartment like a lion in a cage.
“I loved her, before I knew better.” He wasn’t even making sense. When he looked at Lennon, he saw Lana. My mother. I stood in front of him, trying to make him calm down. “I won’t let her humiliate me again. She’s foolish now, and vain. It’s time for her to pay.”
“Pay for what? She cares about you. She looks at you like you’re the only man in the world.” I thought back to Lennon, sitting on the couch we stood in front of, behind Cash, rubbing his shoulders. She’d bite her perfectly painted lips and ask Cash about his life. A lot of times I had to turn away before I gagged. He fed her such bullshit, but she oohed and aahed over all of it. “She’s not the person you think she is.”
But I felt it, too. How many times did I turn away from her, hearing my mother’s voice in my head?
“Yes, Holly. She is.”
“What are you going to do to her?” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
“Show her how wrong she was to reject me.”
I turned away. Nothing was sacred to him. He’d take whatever he needed to get what he wanted, with no regard for the damage he left in his wake. He was just like Noah and Blade. He’d rip me in two, just like he was about to do to Lennon.
My skin sparked. I should have listened to Rainey and Lucille. They kept me safe. Rainey even loved me, and I pushed her away. For this. And why? Because I wanted everyone to love me. Blade had called me out on it, and he was right, it was my weakness. Little did I realize I had what I wanted all along.
Now it was all gone. I’d been wrong, and I was left in a place where no one cared about me.
“It’s revenge.” He took a step closer to me. “You have no idea how it feels to lose absolutely everything. Your wife, your child. Your entire life, stripped from you. You’ve spent your whole life like a doll in a display case.”
“That’s not true.” I knew it all too well. That was exactly the way I felt right now. “I had my family taken away from me, too. I never knew my mother. I lived two hundred and thirty-three years before I met my father. And I had to walk away from the only family I ever knew to get to know him.”
“You can go back in time and change that if you wish.” Cash’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Or you can help me make things right in the present.”
Cash knew I couldn’t change anything in the past with vampires. Now it made sense; it was because their history was a part of me.
“What do you want me to do?” I trembled, sparks jumping from my skin. The last thing I wanted to do was help Cash hurt anyone. But if I backed away from this, I had no control over what happened. Cash and Blade would stop at nothing to get what they wanted, no matter who got in the way. I learned a lot of things lately, especially tonight, and one of them was that it was possible to stand up to Cash Logan. This was my way of taking a stand.
“You’re going to help me get Lennon back.” It wasn’t a request, it was a demand. Cash sounded like an animal, his words somewhere between a bark and a growl.
“She’s not going up on that stage, Cash.” I could barely breathe. “She deserves better than that.”
“It’s not up to you what she deserves.” If I didn’t think fire would kill Cash, I’d swear flames dripped from his eyes. “I only need you to get her back here.”
LENNON LIVED IN AN apartment complex that looked much like the one I lived in with Rainey and Lucille. It was the littlest things that made me miss the life I had before Cash infiltrated it, and this was one of them. Standing outside of Lennon’s bedroom window strangely felt like home.
Cash easily put his fist through the window, reaching in to open it from the inside.
“What are we doing?” I asked, feeling like every bit of the intruder I was about to be. One last chance to talk some sense into him. “I’m sure if you knock on the door, she’ll let you in. Her toothbrush is in your bathroom. She’ll listen to what you have to say.”
“We’re doing things my way.” The red glow from Cash’s eyes cast shadows against the building. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked the message, nodding to himself before
putting it away. “Do what I say, Holly.”
A light flicked on in the apartment, and Cash grabbed my shoulders before I had a chance to protest.
“Go.” He pushed me toward the broken window.
“What the hell do you want me to do?” I hissed, pushing back against him.
Cash yanked my hair, catching me off guard. He lifted me up to the window. “Go inside, and think about who Lennon is to you. Think about what you did to her, as a baby. And do it again.”
“No!” I straddled the open window like a cat. “I’m not going to hurt her.”
“You don’t have to. Just pretend you’re on stage.” He shoved me through the window as Lennon walked into the bedroom, and she screamed when she realized she wasn’t alone. “Burn.”
IN SECONDS, HER BEDROOM went from a cute coral and aqua sanctuary with fluffy throw pillows to a gray, crumbling patient room at Bethlem. Lennon’s makeup melted away, revealing those familiar lines on her face, and the pain. There was something in her eyes I hadn’t seen the last time, when she rejected both Cash and me. This was real betrayal and fear. Lennon may have been Lana in a former life, but she suffered in this life, too. It was too late for me to do anything about it.
I already ignited.
This building wasn’t prepared for me. The room wavered in the flames as Cash captured Lennon, easily maneuvering her flailing body through the open window. I moved to grab her foot, but then realized not only would I maim her, I’d be too close to the wall, and I’d set the whole building on fire.
I wasn’t alone for long. Someone approached me in the blur and smothered me with a blanket. My hearing returned to normal as the flames died down, and the voice became definitely female. Callie murmured comforting things meant for Lennon as she ran her hand down my back. Her words made my heart ache for Rainey even more, and I pretended she was talking to me instead.
Callie peeled the blanket away from my body and I tensed. Every vampire I knew had an anger management problem, and I didn’t think she was going to be pleased to find she rescued me, and not her bestie. She jumped when she realized I wasn’t Lennon.
“Holly?” she asked. I hadn’t expected her to know my name. But she saw the show, and my face was on billboards too, just like her boyfriend, Tristan. I nodded, looking away from her when I saw the disgust and betrayal on her face. I knew how she felt, for much different reasons. “What just happened?”
I shivered when I looked back at her, pulling the blanket back up around my body. I couldn’t let her seduce me. I couldn’t fall for the same trap that Cash and Blade had laid for me. Anger radiated from Callie’s body, and she would do anything to save Lennon. Including hurt me. I couldn’t trust her.
“Who brought you here?” She kept asking me questions, her words slow like she thought I was stupid.
“Stay away from me, bloodsucker.” My words came more loudly than I expected, startling us both. She might know who I was, but she had no idea what I was. It was the only advantage I had. I lost all other control. Cash and Lennon were gone. The whole reason I agreed to this madness was to save Lennon, and so far, I was failing. “I’m fine. I do this all the time.”
“You break into people’s houses and burst into flames? You make the people who live there disappear? I don’t think I’m following you.” She spit the words out. I could have choked on her rage. Sitting up, I scrambled toward the window, desperate to catch up to Cash. Vampires moved faster than half-vampires, and Callie caught me before I even had a chance to stand. “What the hell are you doing here and where is Lennon?”
Same questions I had. I pulled my arm away from her, but she tightened her grip. I wasn’t in the mood for broken bones. “You’ll have to ask Cash.”
“He’s not exactly taking my phone calls right now, so you’re going to have to play secretary for me.” Callie stood, pulling me up. “You’re coming back with me.”
No way. She was going to bring me back to her lair and torture me for information about Lennon that I didn’t have. “What? No. I can’t.”
She laughed at me. Any admiration I had for her at the beginning of the night was quickly turning to irritation. She was barely more than a child, and she’d been a vampire for how many weeks now? Heat rose in my body, and it took everything I had to push it down. But I did it. Again.
The realization hit me fast. If I took out the clan leader, I’d get an unwanted promotion in the vampire world. Only two people even knew I was part vampire.
“The only way Blade is going to talk to me is if I have something he wants,” she said as I struggled to get away from her. “And since he’s got a newfound thing for redheads, I think he’s going to want you back.”
She knew just what to say to get me to help her. Blade needed to face his demons head on. If he did it himself, without me, he’d default to violence, no questions asked. The city would fall to anarchy if he and Cash continued blazing this path. We needed a new way, and to understand his rage, I needed to understand this woman who left him so angry. I wanted to know what it was about her that made him burn.
Of course I was curious about Callie. Blade said she was immature and selfish, but she had a big set of brass balls. She ran away from home, and in a matter of months managed to conquer Las Vegas. Even if all she did was sleep her way to the top as Blade had claimed, that was power all on its own. I had a feeling there was more to it than that.
I was going. Not because I wanted to help her, because I wanted her to help me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Callie was the complete opposite of Cash in every way possible. Small and delicate-looking, she didn’t pull any punches. Yet she knew her limitations. She didn’t let go of me until she brought me up to a penthouse at the Alta Vista, her bodyguard in tow. I’d seen this guy hanging around Cash a lot lately, and I did my best to hide my surprise discovering he actually worked for her. The tension between the two of them was suffocating.
I recognized the apartment from the vampire reality show Immortal Forever. This was where she lived with Tristan, and they filmed here often. A sex tape of the two of them had been floating around the internet recently. I’d seen it many times backstage. Some of the other performers had watched it, wondering why Tristan would choose her over them. Callie slept her way to the top and now everyone was critiquing her methods. I didn’t envy her.
“You can take the rest of the night off, Tony.” She didn’t look back at him as she pulled me through the dark apartment. She poked her head into a room, frowning. Whatever she was looking for wasn’t there.
“You can’t do that.” He followed closely behind us. Her grip tightened on my arm.
Callie whipped around, and I almost hit the wall. “Who in the history of work has ever refused to be done early? What’s your deal?”
“I’m security, Mistress.” Sarcasm dripped from the title. “You went into that apartment with one girl and came out with another. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out something ain’t right.”
He had her there. Turning around and continuing her search, it became obvious we were the only three in the apartment.
“Where is he?” she asked. He could be anyone, and I braced myself for more drama.
Tony leaned back against the wall. “The boss doesn’t check in with me. I was assigned to you tonight.”
Callie didn’t like Tony’s answer. She opened the door to a bedroom, pushing me in before her like a shield. At least she didn’t think whoever he was would hurt me.
As soon as the light was on, I saw who he was, and that he would definitely try to hurt her.
Lennon lay on the bed, underneath Tristan Trevosier, Callie’s boyfriend. The one she dropped her whole life and came to Las Vegas for. The one she ripped Blade’s heart in two over. It took me a minute to register what I saw. He caged her in with his tattooed arms, kissing her neck, sliding his lips down to her breast. Lennon let out the same canned moan that vibrated against my bedroom wall almost every morning. Maybe she hadn’t been so in
love with my father after all.
Callie sunk to the floor, screaming. I yelped, trying to stay on my feet, but no one noticed. Neither Lennon nor Tristan acknowledged us as his fangs ripped the flesh of her neck open, but no blood stained the sheets. Looking closer at the vision of the two of them, Tristan rocking his hips against Lennon as she writhed in rhythm, it wavered like it was made of vapor.
Tristan wasn’t actually here, but Cash certainly was. He cast a spell and left it like a calling card.
“Calm down!” I knelt down beside Callie, who was half-screaming, half-sobbing. She didn’t see anything but what was happening on that bed. I brought my lips to her ear, to make sure she heard me. “It’s an illusion.”
She looked at me like I gave her a reason to keep living. “It’s not real?” Her voice seemed so small. She’d been so confident and in control before. Blade couldn’t do it, but my father had figured out how to destroy her.
“No. I know Cash’s work when I see it.” He cast illusions over the audience to make them think his show was just entertainment, and a similar one over Lennon to convince her he cared about her. This wasn’t a stretch. I stood up. “If you let go of me, I’ll show you.”
She dropped her hand, totally defeated, as I approached the bed. I never tried to stop one of Cash’s spells before, and I wasn’t sure I could do it. Lennon was close to climax, her body curled off the mattress to take in all of Tristan. I sat down on the bed hard, hoping to mess up the wavelength. They didn’t stop, but they didn’t acknowledge me, either. Callie watched me like her entire world depended on this moment.
Truthfully, mine did too. It meant that I had power over all of them. Cash, Callie, and Blade. I could break their spells.
I brought my hand down, slicing through Tristan’s head and Lennon’s face, hitting the clean pillow with no difficulty. Callie gasped as I repeated the motion. “See? Not real.”
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