Tall, Dark & Fangsome

by Michelle Rowen

  Gideon used a key to unlock a door and push it open. The small storage room held a woman whose dark eyes flashed with anger. Her left wrist was shackled to the wall. Otherwise, she looked as composed and beautiful and, well, perfect as she always did.

  Veronique’s gaze moved to me and widened.

  “Sarah!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  My eyebrows shot up with surprise. “I was about to ask you the same question.”

  “Gideon kidnapped me. I assumed he meant to hold me for ransom for a large sum of money.”

  Gideon braced himself against the doorway, still weakened by his blast of pain. “Not exactly.”

  My stomach really couldn’t sink any lower than it already was. “Why can’t you leave my friends alone?”

  “You consider this one a friend?” he asked with mild surprise.

  I glanced at Thierry’s wife, a woman who’d given me a huge pain in my neck—no vampire pun intended—from the moment I first met her. “Sure, she’s my friend.”

  Veronique smiled. “What a dear, sweet girl you are. We really should spend a great deal more time together, yes?”

  A wave of pain shadowed Gideon’s face for a moment. “I’ve suspected your blood isn’t strong enough to fully cure me. So, I want to make sure it is.”

  I really didn’t like the way that sounded. “Which means what?”

  “Your blood is filled with power because, as a developing fledgling, you’ve drunk from two master vampires. Today you’ll drink from a third.”

  Veronique and I exchanged a glance.

  “I’m not really all that thirsty right now,” I said weakly.

  His jaw tensed. “Despite her youthful appearance, she is one of the most ancient vampires in the entire world.”

  Veronique’s cheeks flushed and her eyes narrowed. She tapped her stiletto-clad foot angrily. I don’t think she was upset that he was suggesting that I drink her blood. No, I think he just made her feel old. Well, she was seven hundred. Whether she needed Botox to retain her late-twenties appearance was another issue. Maybe her wrinkles were only on the inside.

  “I’m not biting Veronique.” My stomach churned at the horrible thought.

  Gideon’s eyes narrowed with pain and frustration. “You should thank me. Other than the vast power her blood will give you, this is the woman who keeps you from a commitment with your lover for her own selfish reasons. This is your opportunity to drain her. After all, dead wives don’t stand in the way of true love.”

  Veronique frowned. “Sarah and my husband have ended their relationship.”

  “All lies.” Gideon raised an eyebrow at me. “They’ve been keeping their continued affair a secret, even from you.”

  Veronique made a small, annoyed sound at the back of her throat. “I thought we were friends, my dear. You could have told me.”

  I shrugged. There were more important issues on the table at the moment than keeping a secret from her. I wasn’t biting Veronique. It wasn’t in my nature to gnaw on necks 24/7. I wasn’t going to do it and he couldn’t make me.

  Unless…

  “If I refuse to drink from her, will you hurt Amy?” I asked quietly.

  He shook his head. “Of course not. What kind of a monster do you take me for?”

  Hope swelled inside me again. “You won’t?”

  “Of course not.” He brushed the dark hair off my forehead and pushed it behind my ear before stroking my cheek gently. Then he smiled at me. “I’m saving your little blond friend for tonight. If you give me any more problems, I will slice her open from bottom—” he moved his hand down to my stomach as I stood frozen in place, and then skimmed his fingers up between my breasts to spread around my throat “—to top. But that’s then, and this is now.”

  I swallowed hard. “Gideon—”

  “I know this whole situation is difficult and I’m sorry for that.” He brought my hand up to his lips and kissed it. “Let me make it easier for you.”

  In one smooth motion, he tore the gold chain that held my nightwalker curse at bay off my neck and then shoved me into the room with Veronique.

  The door slammed behind me.

  Chapter 15

  I clamped my hand over my throat and felt for the chain that wasn’t there anymore. Gideon had taken it from me. No, he hadn’t just taken it. He’d ripped it off. He’d broken it.

  Oh, shit.

  According to what Veronique had told me yesterday, even if I got it back, it wouldn’t work for me anymore. And I no longer had the promise of the witch’s grimoire to break my nightwalker curse.

  Veronique’s eyes were filled with worry. “Sarah, my dear. Are you all right?”

  For a moment I felt completely fine, figuratively speaking, of course. But after I took in my next deep breath, I realized I didn’t need it anymore. I pressed my hand against the wall as my heart came to a slow, commanding stop.

  “I’m not so good, actually,” I admitted.

  I quickly moved toward her to inspect her bindings. It was a set of silver handcuffs that locked her in place. Her left wrist was already red and raw from the contact with the metal, which was also attached to the shelving unit. Vampires and silver didn’t go together very well. While we might have the strength to break the metal, especially a master vampire like Veronique, silver was dangerous to us. If she pulled against the cuff, she ran the risk of severing her hand. Even the slightest contact with it hurt like hell.

  I felt that pain as I tugged on the cuffs and pulled my hand away to shake it out. “I don’t know how to get you loose.”

  She sighed. “I wish you could have felt comfortable enough to tell me the truth about you and my husband. I feel that it’s something I had the right to know about.”

  Frustration rose up inside me. “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Always have to call him your husband?”

  She looked confused. “Because that’s what he is. What difference does it make right now what I call him?”

  “It’s just…” I exhaled shakily, thinking about the fact that she’d never recognized that her “husband” was the Red Devil. “Whenever you say that you just remind me that he can never be mine and it hurts. A lot. I guess we’re having a camel-and-straw situation here, and I’m close to having a broken back.”

  “It’s only a word.”

  “No, it’s more than that. It’s… it’s a title. A brand. He’s ‘your husband.’ ” I even made air quotes. “You won’t sign the annulment because he’s yours and that’s all there is to it.”

  “I don’t think this is the time or place to discuss this.”

  “You’re absolutely right.”

  She studied me for a long moment. “Do you hate me for not signing the papers?”

  I raised my gaze to hers. “I wish I did sometimes, but I don’t. Having this nightwalker curse has taught me a lot. It’s taught me to value the times when I do have control over my life. And obviously now that my chain is gone those times are about to come to a stuttering end in the next few minutes.” I fought against the sting of tears. But I couldn’t lose it right now—I had to stay calm. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Her expression turned fiercer. “You will do what I have always done and what I continue to do. You will survive. You will do whatever it takes to see another sunrise.”

  “Nightwalkers don’t get to see sunrises.”

  Her expression fell. “Oh, my dear—”

  “And stop calling me dear.” A dark wave of violence swelled inside me.

  Uh oh. That was not a good sign. I had to remain calm. I didn’t want to go Dark Sarah on Veronique. Like I said, I didn’t hate her. I didn’t want to hurt her. And she was currently in a very precarious position—trapped in a room with a potential monster thirsty for the blood of a master vampire.

  Her blood would be so sweet and rich, my nightwalker commented excitedly. Filled with power… running down

  my throat… delicious and
nutritious… yum!

  Thoughts like that were sooo not going to be very helpful at all at the moment.

  “Did I ever tell you the story of how I met my true love, Marcellus?” Veronique asked.

  That was the vamp Thierry told me was the original Red Devil before he became the man behind the mask. “Do you really think this is the best moment for a random stroll down memory lane?”

  “I think this story is relevant to this particular situation, so if you will permit me to continue.”

  I glanced back at the locked door. I couldn’t hear anything beyond it even if I strained my vampire ears. I figured Gideon was waiting patiently outside while I chowed down. I was still in shock from losing my gold chain. How would I ever be normal again? I hadn’t realized just how much I counted on getting that grimoire until it was no longer an option.

  Geez, forget the grimoire, would you? my nightwalker said. You never wanted to break the curse in the first place. It’s too much fun being me.

  I would not think about blood. And I would not notice the slow but steady pulse at Veronique’s throat.

  Admitting you had a problem was part of the solution, right? It was. I had a problem and I didn’t think hearing Veronique yap wistfully about her dead lover was going to help very much.

  “Before I met Marcellus,” she began when I didn’t say anything to stop her, “I lived a privileged, but boring life with my mother and father and many servants in France. I was thought to be a great beauty and my hand was sought after by many.”

  Here we go. “Sounds pretty good to me.”

  “My parents had arranged for me to marry a wealthy man but he was very old and ugly. I told them I wanted to marry for love, but people didn’t marry for love until relatively recently. They married for much more practical reasons such as fortune or title. But then I met Marcellus.”

  “Wasn’t he rich, too?” I asked. I wouldn’t look at her throat and the promise of master vampire blood beneath her skin. I wouldn’t.

  “Oh, yes. He was very wealthy and handsome. I fell deeply in love with him at first sight and ran away with him. This wasn’t something proper young women did back then. I knew there would be no returning to my family, but that was all right. As long as I was with Marcellus I feared nothing.”

  The flawless white length of her neck was becoming more distracting the longer she spoke, and she must have noticed my shifting attention because she cleared her throat.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I… I’m having a hard time concentrating. Any way you can get to the point so we can deal with the problem at hand?”

  “You truly have no control over your nightwalker?”

  I guess we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we? my nightwalker snarled inside me.

  “I’m trying.” I felt my fangs lengthen and sharpen in my mouth and I ran the tip of my tongue over them. My stomach growled with hunger.

  “Marcellus revealed himself to me as a vampire the first night we made love,” she continued, undeterred. “He was ashamed and afraid of what I might think—that I’d leave him immediately in fear and loathing. But I didn’t. I asked him to sire me and he did. Since he was already a master vampire I was very strong from the beginning and he taught me how to survive.” She sighed at the memory. “How I loved him.”

  “And then Marcellus left you and took up with a younger fledgling. I know this already, Veronique. And then the loneliness and solitude you felt during the Black Death caused you to sire Thierry and the rest is history. Uh… ancient history, actually. Gideon wants me to drain you so I can become stronger. Doesn’t this bother you even a little?”

  “Of course it bothers me,” she said sharply. “But I have dealt with many more dire situations than this. I have survived to this day by doing whatever I must. And yes, Marcellus left me.” Her voice caught. “That betrayal still stings. But after everything that happened between us I know that he loved me as much as I loved him. He sacrificed himself to save me in the end. That was true love.”

  My vision had slowly closed in and her voice became a tinny buzz that I had an easy time ignoring. “That was a lovely story. What was the purpose of it again?”

  “If Thierry loves you so much, where is he now?” she asked.

  “Why? Do you think he’d sacrifice himself to save you like Marcellus did?”

  There was still no fear in her eyes, only pity. For me. “I’ve lived a long time without anyone coming to my rescue.”

  A slow smile stretched my lips. “Honestly, Veronique, you really should have signed those annulment papers and headed back to your fabulous life in Europe. Washed your hands of this whole mess. But no, you had to hold on to Thierry—a man you don’t love—with both hands so somebody else didn’t get him.”

  “Then perhaps Gideon is right. Maybe you should take this opportunity to kill me. There are many ways to kill a vampire, even a master, if one is willing.” She studied me. “Your eyes are black now, my dear.”

  “Maybe I need to accept the fact that I’m a nightwalker.”

  “It’s only an unfortunate curse. It’s not what you truly are.”

  “You’re not the first one to say that, but I feel like a nightwalker, I act like a nightwalker. The odds of my ever getting rid of this side of me are now slim to none. It’s real.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “This is only magic and magic is not the same as reality.”

  “All I know is that Gideon isn’t letting either of us out of here until I do what he wants me to do. And oddly, it’s becoming easier and easier the more you talk.”

  I was very thirsty. Parched. Dying from the need for blood. Something I’d fought against since becoming a vampire—something I thought was really gross and monstrous and unhygienic. It was one thing to drink blood from a keg at a vampire club, but it was another thing to get it straight from the source itself. Shifting morals—one was good, one was bad. One made me normal, one made me a monster. It was still blood.

  All my attention narrowed down to the pulse on Veronique’s throat—a pulse that had been pulsing away for seven hundred years. The beat had gone on. And it suddenly became the only thing in the world that existed for me.

  I reached out to touch that pulse, feeling the blood coursing just below the surface of her skin. I felt the power emanating off her in waves. Gideon was right about so many things. If I drank from her I would become more powerful.

  If I drain her, my nightwalker said as I brought my mouth closer to Veronique’s throat, it will solve so many problems.

  Yes, I thought. Maybe you’re right.

  Suddenly, Veronique slapped me very hard across my face with her uncuffed hand.

  “Step away from me,” she hissed.

  I grabbed the front of her shirt and narrowed my eyes at her, baring my sharper-than-normal fangs.

  She slapped me again. Even harder this time.

  “Ow!” I yelped and moved back from her.

  Her dark eyes flashed. “Honestly, Sarah, you’re stronger than this.”

  I shook my head. It was foggy and cloudy and completely confused, but there was a small bit of myself still there. “I don’t think I can stop this.”

  “Of course you can.”

  “I can’t!” I moved toward her again and got another stinging smack for my efforts. That was enough to clear my head enough to think half straight.

  “Think of Thierry,” she said harshly. “He wouldn’t want you to be like this. He’d find it most unseemly.”

  She was right. I tried to hold on to the image of Thierry in my head.

  “I’m trying.”

  Her jaw set. “It doesn’t get any easier, my dear. It never will. There are no simple answers in the life of a vampire. There will always be hunters, there will always be danger, there will always be those who wish to hurt us, but you must not let them defeat you. Survival should be your number-one concern. Just as it is mine.”

  I was getting the gist: Be strong. Don’t wimp out. “I need to get us the hell out of
here.”

  “Again, you are not understanding me.” She brought her right forearm to her mouth and bit her wrist. “You may drink from me on my terms. I don’t think Gideon realizes that my blood is strong enough to give you back some of the control you are currently lacking. It won’t change the fact that your chain is gone, but it will help for a while.”

  My eyes locked onto her wrist. “Veronique… I don’t know.”

  “Do it,” she said, so sharply that I, well, did it.

  I was so hungry, thanks to my curse, that her blood was like a Big Mac combo after two weeks of stale bread and water. I drank greedily—half of me thrilled, the other half scared to death.

  It wasn’t a good mix of emotions.

  My face still stung from where she’d hit me, but instead of trying to ignore that I hung on to it. The pain kept me grounded. I drank from her until she pushed at my forehead with her chained hand.

  “That’s enough,” she said.

  “I feel… better.” I pulled away and looked at her. “Are my eyes still black?”

  She nodded. “They are.”

  I turned toward the locked door and kicked it, feeling a bit surprised but satisfied when it splintered open on contact thanks to my extra nightwalker strength. I stalked down the hallway and back into the main club where Gideon waited by the bar. I made a beeline toward him and grabbed his throat before he had a moment to defend himself.

  “Sarah—” he choked out. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “Don’t pop your head off like a dandelion for being a total, manipulative dick?”

  I brought my other hand to his throat and squeezed harder. His eyes bugged out and I saw sudden fear behind his gaze. His face began turning an unpleasant shade of purple.

  Don’t hurt him, you bitch! my nightwalker yelled.

  I frowned and tried to ignore my evil inner voice.

  Then I felt a hand close around my upper arm and I couldn’t hold on to Gideon any longer. My eyes widened when I saw it was Veronique. She pushed me—just a small shove, but her strength was great enough to make me stagger backward and fall on my ass on the empty dance floor.