by Tessa Dawn
No!
She would have screamed to the heavens and back if she could have.
Nooooooooooooo!
She was so close to death, so close to being free, so close to being released from this hell, if only to descend to another one. Oh, God, be merciful, please let me die! she pleaded inside.
Salvatore snickered out loud. In fact, he guffawed so uproariously that the opulent chandelier at the center of the lair shook, and a pair of stalactites fell to the floor, crashing in an ear-piercing explosion of calcite.
He was listening to her final thoughts.
“Not final,” he said. “And really, Tawni: God, be merciful? Please, who are you kidding?” He bent so close to her face that she could smell his breath, and then his expression turned dark and lethal, more sinister than it had ever been before. He wasn’t playing around anymore. He was infuriated. He was livid. “I am the only god in your life now.” He pressed his hand harder into her throat. “I hold the power of life and death over you, and I dictate the quality of both.” He lowered his head and pressed a harsh, bloody kiss on her mouth. “If you ever defy me like this again, all that you’ve gone through up until now will seem like a blissful stroll through the park. I will break you. I will annihilate you. I will hurt you in places you don’t even know you have.” He grit his teeth and snarled. “Do. You. Understand?”
Tawni took her first breath of air in what felt like forever, her heart sinking with the realization that her throat was healing, she wasn’t dying, and all she had done was anger her master—and he was a merciless son of a scorpion when he was happy. She sighed, getting a feel for her newly constructed throat, and then she tested her voice. “Yes.” It was a piteous whisper.
“Louder,” he demanded.
“Yes,” she barked, and then the strangest impulse overtook her. She scrambled to her knees, bent as low as her body could stoop, and pressed her nose against the cold marble floor, peeking through the corner of her eye. “My lord?”
Salvatore sat back, eyeing her curiously.
“My lord?”
He humored her. “Speak.”
“I am not worthy of you. I am not worthy of your patience or your perfection. I am not worthy of your time.” She gazed up at him with seeking eyes, and beseeched him with every cell in her body. “I am not strong enough to endure your exquisite torture, and I am not smart enough to learn from your tutelage.” She averted her eyes in acquiescence. “I know this. I do. And that is why I disobeyed you, out of weakness, not defiance. But”—she strongly emphasized the last word—“but make me as you are, and I promise: I will find a way to get to the woman you have chosen, even without the sun.” She sat up, just slightly, and pressed her open palms together, literally praying to the monster. “Salvatore… master… I have already convinced her that I’m a battered woman.” She laughed half-heartedly and shrugged. “And that’s really kind of true. But the thing is: I can use it.” She looked at him then, pleading with her eyes. “That woman is never going to befriend me. She is never going to give me the time of day, let alone a job. But she did pity me—she does pity me—because she has a generous, compassionate heart. And if I call her and ask for help, beg her to help me escape my batterer, I believe that she will help me. No, I know she will help me. I won’t stop trying until she does. And so what if it has to be after dark, after the sun goes down. That makes sense, right? I can’t get away during the day. I have to plan some elaborate escape after my boyfriend falls asleep… drunk.” She waved her left hand through the air, dismissing the details, and then she dared to reach up and stroke his chin, lovingly.
“Salvatore, master, please… I swear on my blackened soul, I will not fail you. And I will make her feel every ounce of pain you have gifted to me.” She thought about his hatred toward the king and his ultimate goal, and she quickly revised the pledge. “I will do to the prince what you have done to me, before I take his life, but I need vampiric powers to do it. Just stop this endless procrastination and give me a chance to murder him. Soon.” She rubbed the pad of her thumb over his bottom lip and groaned with desire. “Please, master… please.”
Salvatore took a long, slow, deep breath and stroked his groin. He reached out to place his palm on the top of her head and slowly caressed her matted hair. “Oh, my pet, my pitiful, little pet.” He twirled his fingers through the bloodstained locks and hissed. “Break your other hand.”
She gaped at him in shock… and dread.
How?
She certainly couldn’t use her shattered hand to do it, and she most definitely did not want to refuse him. She placed her left palm against the marble floor, splayed her fingers wide, and bit back her shriek as she slammed her right elbow down against her hand.
It wasn’t hard enough.
It didn’t break.
She grunted and shouted and did it again… and again, wielding her elbow like a hammer until her bones finally snapped.
Salvatore smiled.
He reached for the bloody dagger and held the hilt out to her while pointing the blade at his own belly button. “To the hilt,” he instructed. “Do it… to yourself.”
Tawni whimpered to no avail. She shut her eyes and tried to breathe as beads of sweat coalesced on her forehead from concentration. She fumbled with the hilt of the dagger until she finally grasped it between her wrists and brought it to her naval. It fell to floor, three separate times, and she had to start over again. When, at last, she had it in a secure grip between the heels of both broken hands, she ground her molars together and roared as she fell forward onto the blade, arching her back as she struck it to make sure it lodged to the hilt.
Her body jerked in agony, and she fell sideways onto his lap, keening once again in unbearable pain, a piteous animal sound that frayed at her ears. “I’m sorry I’m so weak,” she sobbed.
Salvatore was finally satisfied.
He hovered over her ruined body, grasped her face in his hands, and pulled her upright, drawing a tortured scream from somewhere deep in her exhausted throat.
And then he kissed her.
Slowly.
Tenderly.
Deeply.
Drawing both his affection and her suffering out as long as he could.
When he finally pulled away, he brushed her hair behind her shoulder and stared at her blood-streaked neck. “What a pity,” he droned. “And to think, I just healed that awful mess.” He smiled, releasing his canines to a lethal length. “Very well, I will convert you, Tawni. And you will find a way to get through to Miss Matthews—and to execute the little prince—or I will rip out your heart and behead you. Vampirism is not your salvation. You will never be my equal.”
“Never,” she repeated, nodding frantically. “Never.”
He kissed her once more, and then he snarled, sounding more like a rabid dog than a vampire. “Say goodbye to your soul, Miss Duvall,” he whispered.
And then he opened his mouth and tore out her throat with his teeth.
*
Salvatore stared at the utter disaster before him, wishing he could just go play pool, or perhaps watch a good movie, instead of having to clean up this mess. It wasn’t as if the dagger had been insufficient, so why had he insisted on even more carnage?
And…
If he was really being honest with himself, then he also had to admit that the moment Tawni had given her consent to be transformed, the instant she had relinquished her immortal soul, all he had to do to convert her was inject her with venom.
Yeah…
It was the venom that destroyed the human cells, one by one, and it was the same venom that replaced them with superior, vampiric cells. In truth, the whole dramatic suicide-murder scene had been unnecessary, extraneous. Just something to keep him entertained.
He sighed.
He was tired.
He was bored.
And he was thoroughly unimpressed with the pitiful specimen he had chosen for a “bride,” as well as the anticlimactic letdown of her tort
ure. Besides, HBO was airing a Clint Eastwood marathon all week. Now that was worthy of his time and attention.
Ah well, what else was there to do?
He released his incisors and bent over Tawni, trying to get comfortable. He needed to start the conversion before she bled out. After all, the tramp was still human—for the moment—which meant, if her heart and brain stopped long enough, she would die.
For real.
And then all this wearisome nonsense would have been for nothing.
Damn, this crack-pot had better be worth all his trouble.
nine
Later that night, around 7 PM, Ramsey knocked lightly on Tiffany’s office door. “Can I come in?” His guttural rasp, which was becoming more familiar and less disconcerting, reverberated through the thick wooden panel and settled in the room like a light mist after a forest rain.
Tiffany sat up straight in her chair and raised her gaze, taking it away from the monitor. “Sure, what’s up?” She was trying to at least be cordial.
Ramsey cracked the door open and peered in, taking a cursory look around the room. He seemed to notice every little change she had made: the photograph of her parents she had placed on the bookshelves; the crystal paperweight she had set on her desktop; and the framed picture box, containing dried, pressed wildflowers, on the wall behind her. “Looks nice,” he commented offhand, and then he pursed those gorgeous lips. “So we’re about to get a game of pool going, me and the guys. I think you should join us.” He raised his brows as if to say, Now hear me out. “It’s a good way to let off a little steam, just relax and have a good time for a while.”
Tiffany leaned back in her chair and considered the invitation. So he was still going on with his daily life, still honoring plans or commitments he had made before he “claimed” her. She figured it made sense. After all, she wasn’t a newbie. She had been around the house of Jadon and its various inhabitants for a while now, and she already knew who they were, what they did, and how they inadvertently projected their power. It wasn’t like Ramsey had to bring her up to speed on the basics.
Her attention naturally switched to Napolean and Brooke, how the ancient king had gently and deliberately brought her best friend into the house of Jadon, following the emergence of their Blood Moon. According to Brooke, Napolean had sat her down in the living room, explained who and what he was, answered all of her questions, and given her a bunch of material to read and think over while she slowly took her time digesting the strange new world she was soon to be a part of. In other words, he had employed a direct but fairly gentle tactic in order to make the transition as smooth as possible on Brooke. It wasn’t his fault that the Dark Ones got involved with their evil possession plot and made the entire initiation a nightmare…
She sighed.
This was clearly not going to be the case with Ramsey.
Granted, he had shared some really personal information about his parents, and he had given her some valuable insights into the house of Jadon, but he was no Casanova. And it didn’t appear as if he planned any slow, methodical seduction. Nope. Ramsey’s idea of bringing her into the fold was far more simple: Let’s relax for a while, play some pool, and have a good time.
She tapped her nails on the desk, returning to the root of his question. “By me and the guys, who might you be referring to?”
Ramsey chuckled. “Mmm, I might be referring to my brothers, Saxson and Santos; Julien Lacusta, if memory serves; and possibly Saber Alexiares, if he shows up this time.”
Tiffany gulped.
Talk about Daniel—er, uh, that would be Tiffany—in the lion’s den.
Was Ramsey really asking her to come shoot pool with four of the fiercest, most intimidating males in the house of Jadon? She felt a bit overwhelmed. “You want me to play pool with Julien Lacusta and Saber Alexiares?”
His firm lips turned up in a crooked, devilish smile. “I want you to play pool with me, baby girl. They’ll just happen to be in the room.” He winked, using those striking hazel eyes like props, for effect.
Tiffany looked down at her desk and stared at a sticky note, pretending not to notice the flirtatious gesture or the overtly solicitous tone of voice. “I’m not very good at pool.”
He pushed the door further open and took a couple steps forward, into the room. His massive frame immediately filled up the space, almost as if he was utilizing all the oxygen. “That’s okay. It’s all in fun.”
She held her ground and cocked an eyebrow. “Right. So you’re saying that Napolean’s sentinels, his tracker, and Saber Alexiares are not going to get fiercely competitive during this relaxing game of pool?”
Ramsey chuckled openly then. “Yeah, all right. Maybe a little bit.” He held his thumb and forefinger about a half inch apart. “But you don’t have to participate in the rivalry. Just shoot some pool and go with it.”
She straightened the Post-its, pushed them off to the side, and just generally diddled with small objects as she thought it over. “Uh huh, so you guys can have fun with the inexperienced human, while taking full advantage of your supernatural powers.” She smirked. “Let’s see: You can use telepathy to whisper behind my back”—she placed the word whisper in air quotes—“you can use telekinesis to move the balls around the table, perfectly, and you can use superhuman strength and speed to propel the balls more quickly into the correct pockets. Sounds like a total setup for humiliation to me.” She smiled, jokingly. “Maybe I’ll just watch.”
Ramsey shrugged, seemingly undaunted. “I’ll take what I can get, sweetheart.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Don’t call me sweetheart.”
“Okay, baby girl.”
“Not that either.”
“All right.” He backed out of the room, way too slowly for her liking, and then gently shut the door behind him. Speaking through the panel, he said, “See you in five, Blondie.” She could hear his irritating laugher all the way down the hall, and despite her annoyance, she chuckled.
Tiffany was beginning to understand Ramsey Olaru just a little bit more.
If not who he was on a deep, intimate level, then at least his personality, the casual, take-it-as-you-go interior beneath the hardened, tough exterior. Ramsey was like a steady, flowing river, persistent and unyielding even in his fluctuations, while Tiffany was more like the solid, polished rock beneath the surface, the one that had been tossed haphazardly into the river by a passerby. Slowly, deliberately—almost imperceptibly—he would just keep washing over her with a steady current of appeals, until he slowly wore her down, got under her skin. Little did he know, she wasn’t that easy to move, despite her congenial nature.
Tiffany had always had horrific luck with men and relationships, and that was putting it mildly—that was with human males. Try as she might, she just could not see herself with a vampire, let alone the son of Dracula.
She shut down her PC and turned off the monitor, gathering her papers into a neat little pile, almost as an anxious afterthought. Rising from her desk, she stretched her back and tried to steady her nerves. And then she slowly made her way out of the office, took a deep, cleansing breath for courage, and headed toward the parlor.
It was just a game of pool, after all.
And she would only stay for five or ten minutes.
What harm could there be in this one minor concession?
*
Santos, Saxson, and Julien were standing toward the back of the room, each one leaning lazily against the wall, either chalking or holding a pool stick, when Tiffany entered the room. They immediately straightened in reaction to her arrival, rising to their full, imposing heights, and she took one hard look at each intimidating male, made fleeting eye contact with each vampire in turn, and almost ran out of the room.
The raw power emanating from that corner was a bit like a twister hovering lazily in the sky, rotating in a deceptively mild pattern as it prepared to wreak havoc on the land: The males were pure, unadulterated energy, swirling, buil
ding, existing in suspended animation, until they flew into action and laid waste to every living and non-living thing in their path.
Namely, her.
She inhaled sharply, trying to bring her imagination under control.
“Welcome, sister.” Saxson spoke first, and his deep, resonant voice sent chills down Tiffany’s spine.
Sister?
Oh… God.
She swallowed her growing trepidation and forced herself to meet his penetrating gaze. She could do this. She would do this. After all, she had seen each one of these males, more than once, at Napolean’s manse. The only difference was—she hadn’t been asked to interact with them, then.
“Saxson, right?” she said, trying to sound polite. Professional.
His soft hazel eyes instantly darkened, the nuclear specks of gold deepening to bronze, and for the first time, she realized that Saxson’s eyes were the exact same shade as Ramsey’s. The shape may have been a little different—Saxson’s were a bit more almond, whereas Ramsey’s were more oval—but other than that, they were the same.
“You got it,” he drawled, and then he winked at her beneath a slightly mussed head of hair, the light-ash locks deliberately trimmed to fall slightly longer in the front than the back, and his shoulder muscles bunched as he placed one palm on the corner of the pool table and stretched out his arm in a casual lean. It was almost as if he were allowing her time to study him.
She forced a tentative smile, and he winked at her… again.
So this was Ramsey’s twin.
Before she could ponder the similarities between Saxson and Ramsey any further, Santos took three graceful strides forward and held out his hand. “We’ve met, but not formally. I’m Santos.”
Tiffany stared at the large proffered hand suspended so congenially before her, and forced herself to take it. “Hi, I’m Tiffany.”
He smiled, and when he did, his pearly white teeth almost sparkled, like a string of perfect jewels laid out in a display case. He held her hand longer than propriety required, meeting her firm grip with a gentle pressure of his own, and then he simply let it go and glided, more than he walked, back into the corner.