Vermilion Lies

by L. D. Rose

  The room was now a refrigerator because he’d opened all the windows, feeling claustrophobic and needing air. The cold cleared his mind and made him think straight, chilling the burning aftershocks of that clusterfuck in the kitchen.

  And what a goddamned disaster, falling into a vampire’s lure like that. Not only was he better than that, stronger than that, immune to that, it was a spectacularly epic fail on his part.

  It would never happen again. No matter what it took.

  Dressing quickly, he pulled on a simple white T-shirt and jeans from his pack. His ears perked, listening for any noise, hearing only the rush of the ocean and the wind pressing against the shingles. The leech hadn’t made a sound since he’d left her. Either she’d escaped or she’d actually sat there the entire day in silence.

  She’s tricking you. She’ll do what you say for now, but she’ll spring on you eventually. Either that or you’ll have a whole mob of bloodsuckers at your door tonight.

  Dax scowled. What was he waiting for? He should end this now. Hell, he should’ve finished this a long time ago.

  His phone suddenly rang, The Dropkick Murphys blaring into the quiet. Dax grabbed it off the dresser and checked the ID to find an image of Kayne glowing back at him, chugging a Guinness with all the enthusiasm of a college frat boy. Dax had snapped it a few years ago on the leprechaun’s thirtieth birthday.

  What a night that was.

  He answered the call, grinning, not saying a word.

  The Dublin brogue rumbled over the line, filled with something insultingly close to disbelief. “You did it?”

  “Already had me set up to fail, didn’t you, Shamrock?”

  Kayne burst into laughter and let out a rip-roaring whoop, a palpable relief in his voice. “Tell me that son-of-a-bitch is dead.”

  “That son-of-a-bitch is dead. Along with every last bloodsucker on that yacht.”

  Except one.

  “Ha, ha, yes!” The way Kayne bellowed, Dax would bet he was doing his stupid Irish jig. “You know what, Frosty, you’re always falling into shit and smelling like roses. On second thought, I might actually be in love with you.”

  Dax laughed. “I knew you’d come around.”

  “Nothing like a dead strigoi to make you see the light. Are you all right? Any damage?”

  “I’m fine,” Dax replied. Just a little fib. “I came out practically spotless.”

  “You fucking liar. Oh, man, I’m going to kiss your arse the next time I see you, you bloody bastard!”

  “Let’s hunt tonight then. How about I hitch a ride with you up to Beantown for old time’s sake?”

  “Are you serious? Tonight?”

  “Yeah, tonight. I only have one week up here, baby, use me while you’ve got me.”

  “You’re a severe mentaller, boyo.”

  Dax grinned. “Yeah, well, no rest for the wicked.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. All right, tell you what, meet me up in Southie at midnight. That give you enough time to pick up your balls and get your shit together?”

  Southie. Damn. It’d been a long time since he preyed in that viper pit. “More than enough. Where at?”

  “Call me when you’re on your way. I’ll give you the rundown then.”

  Anticipation pulsed through him, his adrenals already pumping a little harder. “Sounds good.”

  “Looking forward to it. Been ages, my brother.”

  Dax smiled. “Yeah, well, put on your best lipstick for me, sweet cheeks. You’ve got some ass kissing to do.”

  Kayne laughed. “Cherry red, dahhhling. See you at the stroke.”

  Cherry. The word brought the memory of Cindy’s scent to the forefront as Dax hung up the phone, frowning.

  Fix this. Now.

  Slipping his SIG into the back of his waistband and his switchblade in his back pocket, Dax quietly descended the stairs on bare feet. The sun was about to set and he wanted to be downstairs when the great jailer in the sky made its exit.

  The leech remained tied to the chair at the corner of the kitchen, head propped against the wall. She sat still, lifeless, her heartbeat a slow, thready rhythm and her respirations just about absent. Her scent was faint, merely a trace in the air now that she was unconscious.

  She was fast asleep. Good.

  Dax opened the fridge and chose one of three Macintosh apples next to his blood supply. Then he rounded the table, taking a seat at the far end so he’d be the first thing she’d see on waking. He pulled the chair out and palmed his gun, but he stopped mid-motion when he took in her face.

  Crimson trails smeared her cheeks from eyelids to chin, dribbles of it down her neck, splotches on her chest. The blood had dried into rust, leaving marks behind, tainted with mascara.

  She’d been crying. All night, probably.

  His breath deserted him. He’d never seen a vampire cry, never witnessed the bloody evidence of their emotions. Now here it was, right in front of him, and he didn’t want to believe it.

  Keep your head straight. She’s manipulating you.

  Setting the chair down, he sat and laid the gun on the table, eyes absorbing every detail of her face. She looked incredibly tragic, painfully beautiful. Her raven hair hung in tangles around her blood-marred face, her ivory skin dusted with salt, her body uncomfortably angled in order to rest her head. Guilt stabbed him like a blade to the belly, but he yanked it out and held in his guts.

  He would not feel sympathy for her. He could not feel sympathy for her. The lure still festered in his brain, making him stupid.

  She’s the enemy. You remember that.

  Leaning back in his seat, he tried to make himself comfortable as he bit into the apple. He no longer had an appetite but he forced himself to chew and swallow anyway, silently berating himself for feeling anything for this leech. If he didn’t snap out of it, she would win, and God knew what that meant.

  The monster in him sensed the last of the sun’s rays descend into darkness. The visceral tug left as quickly as it came, barely giving him pause as he sank his teeth into the fruit again. As if on cue, her long, clumped lashes fluttered against her high cheekbones like butterflies with broken wings, hardly opening as she shifted her weight. She grimaced, somehow making the expression look lovely as she lifted her head with what seemed like immense effort.

  When she finally straightened, her eyes split open as he tore off another piece of the apple’s flesh.

  They stared at each other across the dining table for an eternity, the only sounds the crushing of fruit between his jaws and her vitals amplifying in his ears. The tension was electric, charged with lust and misgivings. Rogue strands of her hair fell over her face as she watched him with those black diamond eyes, framed with desperation and misery.

  Few men could resist the sight of a pretty girl crying.

  Even if she was crying blood.

  She broke the silence first, her voice silken, low, a seduction in the growing dark. “What does it taste like?”

  He’d ceased chewing. And he wasn’t breathing again.

  Snap out of it, Dax. Stop thinking with your dick.

  Forcing himself to inhale deeply, he filled his lungs then exhaled in a smooth, slow stream through his nostrils. He tried to ignore her scent, but it had intensified upon her waking, stroking his senses.

  “Sour,” he replied. “Sweet.”

  “Sweet,” she repeated, her eyes settling on his mouth. He wasn’t any better, staring blatantly at hers. The tips of her pearly white fangs flashed every time she spoke, and God, he was supposed to be disgusted, but he was far from it.

  Focus. “I would offer you one, but I already know the answer to that.”

  She looked away without dignifying him with a comeback. Briefly eyeing the SIG on the table, she scanned th
e kitchen. He hadn’t cleaned up his mess so the coppery odor of blood tinged the air, and he wondered if she was hungry. He took another bite of the apple, the sound like cracking bone in the quiet.

  “You never told me your name,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. The jet orbs gleamed with a feline sheen, the twilight catching them just right.

  His stomach flip-flopped and he ground his molars, anger flaring in response.

  She’s fucking with you again.

  “I never offered it.” He infused ire into every word. “Where are you from?”

  Her luscious lips curved. “You expect me to answer your questions when you won’t even give me your name.”

  The fire in him stoked a few degrees. Okay, several degrees. He narrowed his eyes at her, bracing his arms on the table, leaning forward menacingly. “This isn’t a game.”

  “As you wish.” Her smile remained, gorgeous and taunting.

  Dax anchored his teeth in the apple, lodging it in his mouth as he picked up the SIG and racked the slide, chambering the first round. With the gun held in hand, he sat back in his seat and leveled the muzzle at her perfect, elegant nose. When he tugged the fruit out of his mouth, he took a big juicy chunk from it.

  Her smile faded and she set her jaw. No other response, her gaze guarded. She was getting brave.

  Or suicidal.

  Apple scraped down his esophagus. “You made it this far, leech, don’t fuck it up now. Guess what this gun is loaded with?”

  She stared right down the barrel of the SIG, eyes like clean slates. “Silver.”

  “Bingo.” Silver was as fatal to vampires as lead was to humans. Or anything was to humans, for that matter. “Where are you from?”

  “Newport.”

  “Who are you to Enzo?”

  Her lips twitched again, but the smile didn’t carry an ounce of humor. “His whore.”

  “Who’s your pimp?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Then who protects you?”

  She peered at him. “What makes you think someone is protecting me?”

  “Because even your own kind would ruin a pretty little belladonna like you.”

  Her poker face cracked, but she held the pieces together. He didn’t miss it, though, and the reaction spoke volumes.

  She’d already been hurt by her brethren . . . more than once. Maybe by one leech, maybe many.

  Likely many.

  Damn it.

  “Do you have anywhere to go?”

  Her answers came out clipped now, a thrum of anger vibrating through them. “No.”

  “Anyone coming for you?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone know you’re here?”

  She shook her head.

  “Who’s your sire, Cindy?” His voice softened, just a touch, but it was enough.

  Her jaw tensed, her eyes emptying again. “I don’t know.”

  Liar. Dax recognized the sound of fear and apprehension all too well. The gears in his head turned as time ticked away, him maintaining a steady grip on the SIG, her staring into it as if willing him to pull the trigger. A picture developed in the frame of his mind, but he couldn’t see it clearly, the lines blurred and the ink runny.

  She obviously didn’t know how to fight, couldn’t use a gun, wouldn’t defend herself in any shape or form. She was either a prostitute hiding the identity of her pimp—she would’ve never lived this long if she hadn’t—or she was a slave.

  Maybe Enzo’s. Maybe someone else’s.

  And now she sat here, so eager to escape whatever life she led that she offered to help a hybrid, willing to aid and abet the enemy. For what? Freedom? What made her think he wouldn’t gun her down or imprison and torture her for information? Did it matter whether the flavor of freedom was in the form of death, regardless of the endgame?

  Was she so hopeless to run into the arms of her potential killer?

  Something was missing here, some big gaping hole his logic couldn’t plug. No normal leech could sire a fledgling with a reflection, a vampire with near-human eyes and an angel’s face. Unless his brothers, Rome and Shaul, had turned her like JJ at some point in the past—which Dax couldn’t bring himself to accept—then some other monster out there had the power to keep a ‘soul’ locked in a vampire during their conversion.

  No one should have that ability, not even his brothers. They both swore it would never happen again and Dax trusted them. He had to. But had they done this before?

  Shit. He hoped not.

  For now, he needed her alive, had to keep dangling the bait and lure in the big fish behind this.

  Putting the SIG up, he popped the magazine and reset the slide, ejecting the chambered bullet. The hollow-point hit the table with a metallic clatter and rolled away, silver winking in the darkness before it dropped off the wooden surface onto the tile.

  Dax set the gun back down and took another loud bite of his apple. She hadn’t moved an inch, her body taut with trepidation and wariness, as if she didn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

  “Do you shower?” he asked.

  The tension visibly left her, her jaw relaxing. “Yes. We’re not all barbarians.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.” He stood, tossing the core in the sink. “I’m going to untie you.” He picked up the SIG and tucked it in the back of his waistband. “You try anything, I’ll break your neck. Understand?”

  She nodded, once up, once down.

  “Good.” He prayed to God he wasn’t making a colossal mistake. “And it’s Dax.”

  Confusion flickered over her features. “What?”

  “My name.”

  Comprehension dawned in her eyes, tiny white lights in the endless black. Some other emotion he couldn’t read swept across her face and he intended to learn that language as soon as possible.

  “Dax,” she echoed in that sultry voice that tugged on his groin and made his knees weak. “It suits you.”

  FIVE

  He moved behind her, causing the fine hairs at the back of her neck to stand on end. Dax. Cindel recognized that name, remembered all six of their names because Alek had spoken them—or rather, cursed them—frequently. This hybrid was a sworn enemy of her sire, a direct adversary to the Temhota.

  And he was here in Rhode Island.

  It all made sense now—the power he possessed, the element of water and ice, the ease at which he disposed of Enzo and his subordinates. Not to mention the hold he had over her, even without realizing it, making him all the more dangerous.

  Dax was a Knight of the Order of the Senary, one of the most formidable hybrids in the country, if not the world.

  The bindings loosened around her wrists and ankles. He avoided any contact with her, careful not to touch her, as if she were diseased. What did she recall about him? Not much, since Alek hadn’t discussed war with her often. Her sire’s hatred for the Knights ran marrow-deep, a tangible beast constantly swimming beneath the surface. No matter how hard Cindel had tried, she could never tame his fury, never warm the cold rage icing her sire’s veins.

  And now here his nemesis was, far from home, oblivious to her identity. Had Dax left his Order in New York? Or was he here on business, to aid his kindred in New England?

  She assumed the latter. Most hybrids didn’t abdicate their Orders; they died with them, much like vampires perished with their nests.

  “Get up,” he demanded, his timbre yanking her from her reverie.

  Cindel extended her arms out in front of her and stretched her legs, her muscles achy and sore. Angry red marks encircled her wrists and ankles, raw and irritated. She slowly stood, a bit unsteady on her feet, but she maintained her balance. Reaching toward the ceiling, she hung her head back and closed her eyes. Every fiber of her
being sighed with relief, glad to be up and moving instead of confined to a chair.

  The muzzle of the gun hit her spine, right between her shoulder blades. Her heart somersaulted, but quickly settled as she lowered her arms and straightened.

  She was getting used to having a gun perpetually leveled at her.

  “Haven’t I proven I’m harmless?” she asked, knitting the words with innocence but failing miserably.

  “Sure. And I’m Santa Claus. Move, upstairs. Now.”

  Cindel never heard of this Santa Claus, but the sarcasm steeped in Dax’s tone implied he was anything but. She shifted and he withdrew the gun, but she sensed the barrel still boring into her.

  Ambling through the apartment, she memorized every detail of her surroundings while he followed her step by step, his motions cautious, vigilant. The home looked like any other human residence with the exception of a pile of picture frames flung in a corner beside a dead plant. Numerous photographs rested facedown on countertops and shelves. Curiosity had her speculating about what the images contained, but they were all concealed from view, and before she knew it she hovered at the top of the stairwell in a white hall of white doors.

  Two stood open, the bathroom and the master bedroom, while two remained closed. One brandished a sign that read ‘Maddy’s Room’ in a child’s scrawled handwriting, purple crayon on pink construction paper with red hearts and flowers scattered about. Did Dax know Maddy, or any of the humans who lived in this place? Did they still reside here, and if so, where were they? Surely a hybrid wouldn’t bring a vampire into a human’s home, no matter the reason.

  Dax led her to the bathroom, the wide-open space surprisingly large. Glass doors revealed the Jacuzzi tub-and-shower combo, the panels crystal clear with residual drops of water clinging to their edges. The smell of soap and his distinct scent lingered in the air, his shredded wetsuit collapsed on the closed toilet seat, a used facecloth draped on the sink. A narrow pantry in the corner stretched floor to ceiling, exposing toiletries belonging to both men and women. Most were layered in dust, having sat there for some time. Towels were piled up on the top shelf, a variety of colors and sizes.