by L. D. Rose
Maybe he should stop struggling, let the monster devour him—
“Dax!”
But he couldn’t leave her, wouldn’t abandon her in this watery grave—
A strong hand gripped his and dragged him upright, hauling him out of the nadir of the dream as he burst onto the shore of reality.
Fluorescent lights stabbed his eyes and Dax squeezed them shut. Awareness flooded him and so did the pain, an array of sensations bombarding his awakening nerves. His heart hammered blood into his brain with a vicious tempo, his every muscle sore and aching, a focal and intense pressure lancing his right chest below his armpit. Every fiber of his being throbbed from a hell of a beating, but he breathed easier now, the boulder of death no longer crushing him.
Dax mentally surveyed the damage, his scraped-up hand protecting his puffy eyes. Lines and tubes ran into both crooks of his arms and he wore a flimsy hospital gown with his bare ass on the gurney. Even with his busted nose, the stench of antiseptic and blood registered in his gray matter, laced with the citrusy detergent from the blankets covering his lower body. The scenario was all too typical, since he’d been here a million times before, recovering in the trauma bay of the compound’s medical subunit.
“Morning, Frosty.” Kasen’s low, amused voice thumped on his eardrums. “Or afternoon, rather.”
Dax lowered his hand and peered at his brother, the Senary’s resident healer and the most divine hybrid on Earth. His hazy vision focused, a whiff of sage tickling his nostrils as Kasen adjusted the IV lines. The portable monitor behind him beeped rhythmically, displaying Dax’s vitals and drawing the waveforms of his heart and respiratory rates. His hunger was subdued, practically nonexistent, indicating that he’d been transfused with blood.
A lot of blood.
His brother flashed him a pristine white grin, wearing an untucked button-down and dark slacks that emphasized his heather gray eyes. He looked like he’d had a long night, with his short disheveled blond hair, pale whiskers dotting the lower half of his face, and dark circles swooping under those startling eyes.
All thanks to Dax, probably.
“You, sir,” Kasen pointed at him, “are a shit magnet of the highest order.”
Dax scowled and rubbed his bruised face, glancing at the pipe sticking out of his ribs below his armpit. “Aw, fuck,” he groaned, raising his arm in dismay as Kasen lifted the Pleur-evac unit connecting the tube.
“You had a tension pneumothorax and it incited your arrhythmia,” his brother said while Dax frowned at the rapidly bubbling wells. “The needle decompression kept failing so I had to pop in a chest tube and restart your heart. After the hectic past few days and then you, my chi ran out of gas. So I hate to say it, bro, but you’ll be donning this sucker for a while.”
“Shit,” Dax muttered, lying back on the stretcher as Kasen raised the head of the bed. And just for kicks, a spurt of blood ejected from the tube, racing into the drainage system with a sick, wet gurgle before Kasen set the unit back down on the floor.
The healer chuckled. “Looks like you were in a pretty nasty crash. You’re lucky you didn’t drop dead.”
“Nasty isn’t the word—”
Then realization struck Dax in a series of slaps.
Arriving at the compound in the Jeep. The regret on Blaze’s face as he dragged a terrified Cindy out of the car. The rage in Rome’s golden eyes as Dax fell on his hands and knees, pleading with the psychic for mercy before Cindy collapsed in Blaze’s arms, unconscious. Had Rome hurt her? Wiped her memory?
Killed her?
Dax bolted upright again and Kasen braced a hand on his chest with a surprised, “Whoa.”
“Where’s Cindy?” His eyes frantically searched the empty adjacent beds.
A frown pulled at the corners of Kasen’s mouth. “You mean Cindel.”
Dax set his jaw, anger stirring his blood. “Where is she?”
“In the cell block.” Kasen sat back down in the chair beside the gurney, eyeing Dax warily. “Until we figure out what to do with her.”
“Where’s Rome?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she hurt?”
Kasen shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”
Dax blew out a shaky breath, recalling the heart-wrenching expression on her face as Blaze towed her away from him.
I’m no longer his to rule. I’m not his mate anymore.
“She’s not the monster you think she is.”
“Or so she says,” Kasen countered. “She’s already lied to you.”
Dax ground his molars and looked away, down at the blankets bunched in his lap. She didn’t have much of an option, did she? She had to lie to him. He would’ve treated her far differently if he’d known about her relationship with one of their greatest enemies.
Alek fucking Konstantinov, of all leeches.
“How did you find her?” Kasen asked after a beat, cross-examining him now.
“Wait,” a female voice chimed a short distance away, coming closer. “I want to hear this.”
A pregnant brunette approached Dax’s bedside, wearing blue surgical scrubs stretched taut over her distended belly. Dr. Veronica Kerr, Kasen’s expecting fiancée, appeared pale as a ghost, but her smile was radiant, her warm brown eyes settling on Dax.
“Hey, Frosty.” She gave him a little wave.
Dax couldn’t help but smile back, her soothing presence alleviating some of his tension. Regardless of her perpetually anemic state, she looked absolutely stunning. “Hey, gorgeous.”
Kasen glared at her, his eyes chock-full of love and worry for this miracle of a woman. Between sustaining her vampire brother, Jon—since her blood was the only nourishment he could tolerate—and maintaining her pregnancy, nearly everything she cared about was sucking the life out of her—literally.
Not to mention she was the first known human female to be impregnated by a hybrid without scientific manipulation. And yet here she was, still working like a crazy woman despite all odds being stacked against her, saving human lives alongside her mate as often as her waning health allowed.
“Ron,” his brother warned with steel woven into her nickname.
She glowered at him. “I’ve rested enough, darling,” she added with an edge of sarcasm and an eye roll at the last, making Dax smile even wider. Leaning over, she took Dax’s warm hand in her cold one, leveling a concerned look at him. “I’m glad you’re all right. No matter how invincible you think you are, you always scare the shit out of me.”
Dax croaked a laugh, motioning to the notches tattooed in his shoulder. “I think I’ve officially lost count.”
She grinned, squeezing his hand briefly before releasing him. “Don’t push it.”
Kasen swooped in to latch on to her hand, brushing a thumb across the back of it, hardly aware of the possessiveness in the gesture. She and Dax exchanged amused glances before she said, “Tell us about Cindy.”
Like he had with Blaze, Dax relayed everything from when he seized Cindy on Enzo’s yacht up until now. And like Blaze, their expressions flickered with a variety of emotions—shock, anger, sympathy, and wonder. When Dax finished, he didn’t feel lighter or cleaner or even relieved this time. All he could think about was Rome’s plans for her and what she felt at this very moment.
I’m not worth such a price.
Fuck that. She was worth it to him.
Dax should’ve been angry at her for lying to him, for deceiving him, for letting him bring her back to the danger of his home. But she’d tried to stop him, didn’t she? She’d tried to tell him something before he wrapped his Mako around a tree thanks to that motherfucker, Jacques.
Alek’s right-hand leech, who now knew she was alive.
Goddamn it. Shit magnet was right.
“W
ait, hold up,” Kasen said, tugging Dax out of his reverie. “She took on your trait when she fed from you? Both the daywalking and the frost?”
Dax nodded, his chest tightening at the memory. She’d been so frightened of it, had almost died from the uncontrollable force it wrought. “Yeah, both.”
“Maybe we could study her,” Veronica suggested. “There hasn’t been another incident since Blaze, not that we know of anyway, so this might be our only opportunity.”
Dax narrowed his eyes at them both, hackles rising, dread tracing its fleshless fingers down his spine. “You want to experiment with her?”
“No.” Veronica recouped, raising her hands in defense. “Nothing like what any of you went through. We’ll only observe how the retrovirus functions in her blood, when and where it integrates, how long it lasts before it fades, why her and not others. Nothing that would harm her in any way. The worst she’d get is a few needle sticks and maybe a bone marrow aspirate, but that’s it.”
And to a trained oncologist like Veronica, it would be a gold mine of knowledge. For all of them, really.
“Besides, it’s a good motive to keep her around,” Kasen pointed out, always the voice of reason and always goddamn right. “Even Rome can’t deny that.”
Dax looked between them both, the tiniest seed of hope blooming in the crypt of his heart. “You think it’ll work?”
“Of course it will,” Kasen assured, as if anyone should ever doubt him. “Even if we don’t get all the answers, she’s our best shot at discovering why this is happening. As long as she’s willing to cooperate.”
Although Dax hated the idea of anything remotely close to experimentation—thanks to his own traumatic history—it was an option.
Hell, it might be their only option.
He hoped Cindy would agree.
“I’ll talk to Rome.” Veronica’s lips curved slyly. “He’ll listen to me.”
Kasen lifted his brows and chuckled, eyeing Dax with amusement. “She’s right.” He shrugged. “I don’t think he’s ever refused her. I’m just the arm candy in this relationship.”
Veronica whacked his shoulder playfully and the healer winked at her, kissing the air. Dax loved them both, these two souls who were so right for each other, who would do anything for the people they cared about.
“I don’t know what to say,” he fumbled, a little overwhelmed and a lot grateful. He was convinced he’d end up alone in this. “You don’t have to—”
“Just say thanks, Dax.” Veronica laughed, the sound like a balm to his ears. “It isn’t hard.”
“But remember, we’re only giving her a chance,” Kasen stressed, expression turning grim. “It doesn’t mean we trust her. She needs to earn that. You both have a long way to go.”
Dax sobered at his brother’s words, nodding tightly. Kase didn’t have to tell him twice.
But at least it was a start.
And that was more than he could’ve asked for.
SIXTEEN
Jacques arrived at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York—home of the Temhota Barracks—weary, beaten, and pissed off.
After backtracking into the woods off I-95, he and his team had escaped to Route 3, where the rest of his men picked them up. He didn’t even bother reporting the failure to Ballard, simply drove right through Connecticut, intending to regain the hybrids’ trail once they hit the highway. They never located the bastards, however, because either the Knights off-roaded or they were just too damn fast. In any case, Jacques had to admit defeat and it enraged him to no end.
Cindel was alive.
He’d looked her straight in the eye and she recognized him immediately. She’d lost weight, her face too thin, her once dazzling crown of red hair colored an insipid black. Corrupted, contaminated, his perfect vampire queen had been tarnished. She didn’t belong with Victor, or his whores, and certainly not the fucking half-breeds.
She belonged with him.
But it was too late, wasn’t it? She’d fed from the ice-slinger, from Dax, the Oriental fucking clown. When that familiar cold power struck him—not nearly as potent in her hands, but impressive nonetheless—it only stoked the fury inside him, practically setting him on fire.
Not only had she fucked the hybrid, she acquired his goddamn trait.
Jacques stalked through the palazzo halls of limestone and sandstone, passing the scattered Temhota soldiers in the building’s recesses. Vampires lounged on sofas or played cards behind heavy curtains, drinking and smoking after a hunt. A few of the ornamental chandeliers were lit, casting dim pools of light on the stone floors and only intensifying the shadows. His men tilted their heads in homage as he strode by, some even saluting him, but he barely acknowledged them. Murmurs followed in his wake, likely secondary to his absence and surely due to the ire carved in his face and emanating from his pores.
His gums throbbed with the impulse to kill, to sink his teeth into something, anything, if only to relieve the inferno in his gut.
One of the slave girls in the underground vaults would soon regret she ever lived.
After scaling several flights of stairs to his suite, Jacques unlocked the double wrought-iron doors into the sprawling space of his living quarters. Brass accents and ironwork penetrated every room, but he kept his residence barren, spartan, revealing nothing and everything at once. Tearing off his armor and tossing it aside, he removed his weapons and began to undress, heading for the master bath. As soon as he crossed the threshold into his bedroom, a wall of atramentous power hit him, cloying in its intensity as it clawed at his skin.
Alek.
The Sire of New York City stared out the towering windows beneath the vaulted ceilings, as captivating as that statue of Ugolino. The window’s steel shutters had been released, displaying the decrepit nearby buildings on Liberty Street, the midnight sky a backdrop amidst metal and concrete.
Alek stood tall, hands clasped behind his back, wearing yet another elegant suit with his jacket flung on Jacques’ unmade bed. Immaculate white sleeves had been rolled up to the sire’s sinewy forearms, his collar open and his obsidian eyes fixated on something out there in the dark. Even with the looming skyscrapers surrounding them, a sliver of moonlight sliced into the room, highlighting the sharp lines of his face and his ethereal complexion. Although he appeared relaxed and serene, the underlying current of menace radiating from his posture brought Jacques to a standstill.
Shit.
“You stink of failure, Montague.” Alek continued to gaze outside, his voice low and composed, but Jacques didn’t miss the malevolent note in its tone. “Failure and incompetence.”
“My Lord.” Jacques bowed his head as fear struck a chord within him, loud and clear. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Where have you been?”
“Hunting the Senary.” Jacques kept his eyes lowered with discretion. “I’ve located Dax, the cryokinetic. We crossed paths at the Connecticut state line.”
“And?”
Jacques cleared his throat, grasping at his rapid-fire thoughts, wiping all ambiguity from his words. “He fled with his brother, Blaze, the firestarter. We attempted to trap them en route to New York.”
Alek pivoted, his keen eyes piercing holes into him. “Is that all?”
Jacques cursed inwardly, knowing he couldn’t lie to his master—not unless he wanted a lobotomy. Perjury was a death sentence and Alek had certainly dismantled men’s minds for less. “No. They held a woman hostage. A vampiress.”
The sire prowled toward him, his suffocating power pushing against Jacques’ mental shields. “And who do you suppose this vampiress is?”
Jacques leveled his eyes with his master, lifting his chin and inhaling deeply. “Cindel. I believe she’s Cindel, my Lord.”
A shadow eclipsed Alek’s deadpan face for only a m
oment, but it revealed a glimpse of his true nature, his features contorting into a feral mask of savagery. Jacques nearly recoiled at the sight, but he dug in his heels, facing the demon even as his courage withered.
“Are you sure, Montague?” Alek’s eyes flared red and the scent of ketoret was overwhelming, the rich and spicy aroma assaulting his senses. Compulsion pressed down on him like hot plastic, melting his psychic defenses. “You wouldn’t deceive me, would you, moy syn?”
“Never, my Lord,” Jacques ground out, leashing the instinct to fight back, to protect his most intimate place. His temples pounded dully, sweat breaking out over his feverish hide, a tremor reverberating through his bones. “If you wish to see her for yourself, I’ll freely show you.”
Alek grabbed his jaw firmly, and Jacques could’ve sworn he smelled sulfur as the tips of black claws scraped his skin. “Show me, then.” Three words, formed as a distorted rattlesnake hiss, no longer Alek’s refined Russian timbre.
Staring into the bottomless abyss of Alek’s eye sockets, Jacques opened a door in his mind, red-lacquered and trimmed with gold. He let the memory slip, the moment when he beheld Cindel, her wide, dark gaze landing on him with both shock and horror. Flawless pale skin with thinly arched brows dyed to match the dull black tresses that swept from her ponytail. The tips of her white fangs flashed behind her glossy lips, her graceful throat collared by an ugly turtleneck, royalty disguised as a mortal peasant.
The fleeting glimpse was all it took before Alek released him with a gasp, as if the vision had burned him. The demon quickly submerged beneath the handsome veneer of a king, restoring his chiseled Slavic features and trim human nails. The strigoi’s eyes were near normal again as he gawked at Jacques in disbelief, retreating a few steps as if Jacques had slapped him.
Thank God Alek didn’t hang on a moment longer, otherwise he would’ve witnessed Jacques’ reckless manhandling of his presumably dead wife.