I exhale and fill my lungs. I stare at the door, taking one slow step at a time. Being afraid of him is the last thing I want. I take hold of the lock and flip, opening the door just a few inch. His head is propped against the frame and his troubled gaze diffuses the fear in me.
“I just want you to be safe.” He swallows down. “Because of me you’re in danger, and I’m furious with myself. Not you. Not even the vigore. Me.” I bite my lip, opening the door a little more. “I deserve whatever is coming to me, but you don’t.”
“I’ll go with Sara,” I whisper. “But what will happen to you... to Nathan?”
“Elizabeth,” he says quietly. “I can’t give you an answer to that, until I know what I’m up against.”
“What if you’re outnumbered?” I utter as my heart booms fast and frantic thoughts fill my mind. “What if this is some kind of trap to get you? What if this is the last time I see you? I’ve already lost Nathan.” I can’t breathe with dread.
“I know it’s a trap.”
“Then you... you want to die?” I snap, furious with him.
He smiles, running his hand over my cheek. “It won’t happen, I swear. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with power hungry assholes who want to take over. I know what I’m doing,” he says positively, placing a slight kiss on my quivering lips. “Do you trust me?” he asks with his forehead on mine.
“I just want everything back to how it was.”
His hand cups my neck. “When all this is over, I’ll try my damnedest to give you normal.”
Something very irrational pops into my head. But to me it seems like the right thing to do. We can be together and he won’t have to worry about me because we’d be the same. I’ll be able to look after myself, and not one vampire can object to us, not if I’m one of them. Sara creeps into my mind. She seems relatively human. And Dom, well, he’s just like any other guy. It’s a madcap idea, but surely it’s worth a shot.
“Turn me,” I say. He angles back with a scowl. “I mean it. I won’t be made a target to get to you. I won’t be weak. And my friends will not be hurt.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You’re not thinking straight and clearly need to sleep.”
“I’m being very serious, Adrien.”
His smile vanishes and there is a disturbed glint in his eyes. “I won’t condemn you to an existence like mine. It’s not an option, Elizabeth.” He turns his back on me and moves through the bedroom, rubbing his chin.
“Say this ends tonight, don’t you think they’ll be others that will use me to get to you?”
“You’re being stupid.” He strides right up to me. “I want you to live. The life that runs through you, is one of the things that makes you the light to my dark. Please don’t ask this of me. Not yet.” He slides his hand up my neck affectionately.
“One day you may not have a choice in it.”
His nose briefly brushes over mine. “And that day will not be in the foreseeable future.”
Chapter 32
Adrien
I’m sitting in my closet after changing into more appropriate clothing. Still the feeling that the world is about to swallow me whole is with me. And it’s been with me since Elizabeth left. But I’m not going to sit here while the others go out there and do my bidding. I was a soldier before vampire, and that resilience still resides inside me.
We have a location for Nathan, but have had no contact from Laurie or Connor. Leanna and Gerrard are currently in battle with a group of new bloods, evidently turned to cause chaos in the vigore district. And Ben has only minutes ago, caught a vigore trying to break into the penthouse. Suddenly we are in the shit up to our eyes, and the body count I feared, is rising fast. As the executive, I have to make my authority known. I have to make a stand and end this.
I make my way into the lounge and take my blade from Ben. Just touching it brings back memories from my human youth. Swordsmanship ran in my family for centuries. This pure solid steel blade with gilded 22ct gold handle, embossed with rubies, was all that was left of my father’s estate by the time I returned home, decades after being turned. I only use it for special occasions, and this is about as special as they come.
“He’s ready for you,” Ben says.
I look at the vigore who is chained to a chair, grinning at me. He has information, which I’m hopefully going to extract before I have to use this blade.
“Who sent you?” I stand over him, watching his head lower with a chuckle. “The voax... one of my sang?”
“He told me your shield was weak. Broken by a human girl,” he goads me.
I hold the tip of the blade to his throat, forming a mind shield in which all he sees is his own death. “Again who sent you?”
“Good job.” He sniggers, amused by my anger.
I lower the blade and use my left fist to strike his face. “I don’t have fuckin time for games. Answer the question.”
He spits blood on my sneakers, still grinning, then lifts his unstable head up to look at me. He’s determined, like this has all been planned, and he knew exactly what to expect. A kamikaze vigore. That’s all I fucking need.
“Do you like a riddle, executive?”
“No.” Without warning, I strike him again.
His head droops forward in laughter and I lose it. My fangs and eyes are adapting as my strength heightens. I’ll beat the damn answer out of him. I drop my sword, and knock him and the chair over.
I step over his torso, grip his collar, and lift him up so I can punch him again and again, feeling his facial bones break with each blow.
“Adrien!” Ben grabs me and yanks me away. “He’s not going to do much talking now is he?”
I growl out a breath and look down to see his face is no more. Fuck, this isn’t what I’m supposed to do anymore. It felt good, but I’m never going to get my answers unless he heals.
I stride over to him and pull him and the chair upright. “Get a bag, now,” I order Ben.
Ben returns from the kitchen with a blood bag. I push down on the vigore’s head as I snatch the bag. I unscrew the cap, squeeze the bag, and pour the blood into his mouth. He begins to heal, but not fast enough.
“Hey!” I shake him hard, so hard that a piece of paper emerges from his breast pocket.
I pluck out the paper. On it is an address: 25 Berkley Street. I turn to Ben and hand it to him.
“That’s the street next to where Nathan’s phone last pinged. Near Saint James Park,” Ben says.
I’m struggling to think straight. The reason is Laurie. That note is written by his hand. I have been with him through thick and thin. He has saved my ass as human and vampire countless times, and I have done the same for him. I always listen to him and give him the benefit of the doubt. He is my second. My fuckin friend. I saved his ass from the goddamn order because he lost his mind over Sara. This is confirmation that he’s betrayed me. I didn’t want to believe it, but now it’s plain to see. I should have listened to Elizabeth.
“Boss?” Ben says, his hand touching my shoulder.
“Call Leanna and Gerrard. Tell them I want every devotee, demi, vigore, and human we have, looking for Laurence Carmichael.”
“Laurie?”
“Yes. He’s the one who has done this, and I should have fuckin known!”
“I think we all knew something wasn’t right with him. But this,” he expresses his disbelief.
“Call Dom, get him to bring the car around the front.”
“What about him?” Ben gestures his head at the blood soaked vigore.
I look at the vigore, still healing, but unconscious. Without hesitation, I pick up the blade and thrust it hard through his larynx, until the tip of the blade hits the marble, and the handle vibrates in my hand. I gaze at Ben, who’s unruffled by my actions.
“Have the devotee’s outside get rid of this.” I lower my head, pulling out the blade, to wipe the cold blood on my thigh. “FUCK.” I turn to the window, listening to Ben calling for a clea
n-up crew.
Leniency is no longer an option. If Laurie is responsible, then timing is key. I know how he works. Once his mind is on a task, he’ll do anything it takes to achieve it. That is why I am the head executive. Laurie doesn’t have negotiating skills. In his hard-hearted righteous opinion, he’s always fucking right, even when he’s wrong. Now, I have to be just like him, to stop him.
WE ARRIVE AT OUR LOCATION. It is less of a street and more a back alley. I jump out quickly, listening to every detail in the air: the leaves and branches of the trees, the blades of grass in the midnight breeze, and the heartbeat and laughter of a distant drunken man.
Dom jumps out of the driver’s seat with a spring in his step, as this will be his first vampire altercation. But his energy and sprite are short-lived as a new blood sang bounds toward us, then another, and another. Dom is on his ass within a second.
I flit over the hood of the Land Rover, ready and able to kill like I once did. I tear the new blood off Dom as Ben battles next to me. Ben understands what must be done. We never stood a chance in the Carpathian Mountains, but here, it is a different story.
More and more of them come, and I feel so alive with their blood on my hands. Elizabeth softened me, but for us, for what I have built, I will revert back to the brutal assassin I once was. My ego is small, but my reputation is immense. It is no secret in the vampire world, that I was once used by the order for duties no other could accomplish. But times change, and these new bloods, these new sang and vigore, are fearless and will always be tempted by money, blood, and greed. They are stupidly brave. And even though they are just pawns being played, they chose the wrong path. A path which has led them to me, on a very bad night.
“Adrien... Adrien!” Dom calls out, dragging the collar of my hoodie up so my fangs retract from my latest victim. “It’s finished.”
I dismount the young male new blood I’ve just killed and drop down by his side, looking over the carnage. Body after body lay on the ground. Blood, so much vampire blood. I must have changed, because I have never needed any console or words of reassurance after a fight. But right now, I need her arms around me. I need her words of comfort and the touch of her skin. To see those cheeks blush as her lips are bitten by her teeth. I need her love, not this bloodshed and guilt.
“God, what have I done.”
“Come on.” Dom hauls me up to my feet with one arm, as Ben takes the other. “Boss, not being funny, but you are fucking crazy,” Dom says, patting my back.
I smirk to myself. I’ve told him tales of my past, of course with the intention of putting him off, but he never listened. And it takes this for him to realise that what we have worked hard for, is the right way.
Ben vigilantly pushes open the door of 25 Berkley Street, an old flat above an abandoned pub. Moving up the stairwell in flitting speed, I can hear music, talking, and several people fucking. If I’m not mistaken, I’m in a whore house, and there is nothing more sordid than a backstreet British house of ill repute.
I cease all flitting motions as we arrive at the top of the stairs. Ben barges by me and grips a naked overweight middle aged man, as the girl he was about to screw, scurries back into the sofa covering herself with a throw.
“Ben, leave him,” I order and Ben complies, thrusting the man back. “Laurie Carmichael, has he been here tonight?”
“Yeah... yeah,” he answers enthusiastically. “He paid for a room. Told me that a chap by the name of Adrien can only go in.”
“I’m Adrien.”
“Okay...okay.” He tosses me a key and I catch it. “Down the hall; the last room on the right. If there’s a mess in there, you’ll have to pay for any damage. There was an awful racket earlier.”
I discharge a breath and offer a look that tells him not to push me, turning to see Dom fighting off some middle aged woman, stroking his chest. We are all showing evidence of some violent attack, torn bloody clothing, with the trace of murder still on our lips. But the woman is too drunk to care.
My boots thud down on the dusty bare floorboards. I quickly open the dilapidated door. Then I smell it, death. Not only death, but the scent of someone close to me.
“Oh god,” Ben cries out, dropping to his knees.
I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe, and for someone who is already dead, that’s impossible. But when I said I was waiting for the world to swallow me whole, this feels like the first tremoring earthquake.
Dom is spluttering in hurt as he joins Ben on the floor. I pluck up the courage to look. Connor lies there, all torn up, with old wounds all over his body that won’t heal. It’s too late for him. He’s gone.
“Heal him!” Dom yells.
Ben peers up at me shaking his head. Like I, he knows bringing Conner back is impossible. His head is virtually severed from his body, his fangs have crumbled like they never existed, and his eyes are coated with grey. His body has become that of a man, already decaying. The man who truly died the night Selene found us.
“It’s too late.” I curl my fingers into my hand.
“Your blood is stronger,” Dom shouts.
“It’s not strong enough.” I watch Dom lower his head, grunting over Conner’s body.
I can see it now, Laurie torturing Connor in here for hours on end. When he called me to update me on the situation, he probably did it from this very room as he committed the slow murder of our brother.
“FUCK!” My hand covers my face as I hold in a grieving roar. Connor is family and every memory I have of him, flashes through my head. Our time serving together. Training him not only as a soldier, but a vampire also. His sense of humour and his devotion.
“Why would Laurie do this?” Dom howls. “I’ll fuckin kill him!”
I have to keep myself together for their sake, even though I need to fall apart. “I’ll be the one doing the killing. Ben, Dom, he will pay dearly for this, I swear to you.”
“You have to fuckin find him first!” Dom runs his hand over Connor’s hair, his emotions overflowing and frantic.
I turn my back on them for a few seconds to gain some strength, when I hear the noise of metal clanging. I flit meters across the room and open a door, to find Nathan chained to a radiator. He’s a damn mess, and I can tell he’s not blood fed yet. He’s in a frenzy, blue in the face, gaunt, and desperate.
“You’re too fucking late. Where... where is she!” He squirms and shakes on the cracked bathroom floor tiles. “You... you did this!”
I crouch down to him, feeling an overwhelming sense of responsibility. “Nathan... Nathan.” I grab his face in my hands. “You have a choice here. Calm down and tell me everything, or stay here and die.”
“He’s brought you here for me, and for him,” he gestures his head at Connor’s body. “He’s been gone for hours. You have killed her! So you better kill me now, because you let me out of these chains and I will... I will...” His head drops forward, exhausted. “Laurie has gone after Liz. He told me... told me he has plans for her.” He weeps, hitting his head on the rusty pipes hard.
Without a second thought, I’m charging toward the door. “Get him out of there.” I take my phone out of my pocket and dial Sara’s number. “Get him in the car, now,” I yell at Ben.
I listen to Sara’s ring tone as the world comes crashing down on me. The only small consolation I have, is that Laurie has no idea that I own the farmhouse in St Alban’s. It’s not even in my name. Only Ben, Sara, and Dom know about it. It was a small restoration project for charity. Something I’ve not got around to renovating yet. But fuck, I know how resourceful Laurie is. He was my second in command for a reason.
Chapter 33
Elizabeth
It was the most heart-wrenching goodbye I’ve ever been a part of. Adrien dressed in his inconspicuous black hoodie and dark jeans, ready to go out into the night to do battle with his demons. He took away my phone and gave me a brand new iPhone, in-case whoever is behind this is tracing my number. He’s even gone as far as to buy this old blue Merc
edes I’m now sitting in, with tinted windows. I didn’t want to let him go and he had to prize my hands away.
Sara shuffles forward and back in the driver’s seat as I fiddle with the iPhone, wondering if it works. I want to tell her to turn back, but I know she’ll only refuse. I turn to the window so she can’t see me blinking out a tear, lifting the phone up to my face to turn on the backlight. Perhaps it’s on mute or the sim card needs to be registered. There must be some reason why I haven’t heard anything yet.
“He will call you,” Sara finally speaks. “You’re making me nervous. Stop with the snivelling.”
I should have sat in the back. Cold-hearted bitch wouldn’t know love if it hit her like a freight train. I watch her, wondering why she’s not one bit concerned about Adrien. She’s always done everything he’s asked of a PA. And from what I can see, she gets paid very well for it. She’s a part of his coven, so I don’t understand where she gets this indifferent attitude from.
“What?” she snaps.
I turn back to the window. I’ve got all kinds of awful scenarios going on in my head, and the last thing I need is a bitch fight with selfish Sara.
The screen above the stereo suddenly illuminates, and a ringtone sounds through the speakers. I know that number. It’s Adrien. Why is he calling her and not me?
Instead of answering through the Bluetooth, she picks up her phone to take the call. I rotate in my seat and gape at her with impatient eyes. She hums as Adrien’s low muffled voice comes from the receiver. I angle closer, but it’s useless, I can’t hear a damn word he’s saying.
“Sara, give me the phone.” She ignores me, letting out an uneasy sigh.
“You’re sure it’s him,” she asks, visibly gulping down.
Whatever he’s saying, it’s created a manifestation across her face I’ve never seen in her before. Pure fear.
Suddenly Nathan is at the forefront of my mind. Has he been found; has he hurt someone; is he still alive? My hands begin to shake, which sets off a wave of distress throughout my body.
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