It takes a few minutes longer to unpick the lock on the other cuff and become free. I rub my wrists and rise off the bed. With the lightest of footsteps, I pad across the room and peer out through the door’s glass window. Outside is a dim hallway illuminated by a single wall light.
I can’t imagine Galla being a vampire—her grief over Mr. Farrier’s death had been so real, but she really did look like she could be related to Alaric. Shaking off those thoughts, I turn the door handle, but it doesn’t yield.
“What next?” I mutter to myself.
If I break down the door, it will mean alerting Alaric that I’m awake. His ability to turn body parts into smoke means he’s a master vampire who has also found a way to walk in the sun and get through wards. I rub my temples, and the pounding in my head recedes to a dull ache. Whatever happens, we’re going to have a confrontation. I may as well have it on my terms.
“Alaric,” I bellow.
There are no rushing footsteps, which means he either isn’t around or wants me to simmer in paranoia until I’m soft-headed and pliable. I push down the lock with all my strength, hoping to break the door, but it remains intact. It’s probably enchanted to resist supernatural strength, although I don’t know why I managed to get free from those chains.
I lower myself to the ground and sit on the floor in what I hope will be a blind spot. Then, I wait.
Hours pass with no sign of the vampire. All the adrenaline wears off, and I slump against the wall. Being a captive is nerve-wracking. My mood oscillates from optimism to hopelessness, and not knowing keeps me off-balance. When my eyelids droop and the first stirrings of fatigue entice me to slumber, the door creaks open, and an intoxicating blend of wood and sea and musk fills my nostrils.
Power surges through my veins, and all thoughts of playing along vanish along with my fatigue. I spring to my feet, grab him by the arm and fling him across the room with all my strength. Alaric flies head-first toward the wall, rights himself, and lands on his feet with the grace of a two-legged cat.
He raises his palms, his face a serene mask of mild amusement. Not even a single strand of his raven-black bangs strays from those sharp cheekbones.
“Gabrielle,” he drawls.
Clenching my hands into fists, I cross the room and stand within striking distance. My slayer instincts push me to attack, but I hold back. If there’s anything I can learn about last night, about how he fooled me into believing he was a warlock, I’ve got to calm down and listen.
“You were a vampire all along.” It’s a struggle to say the words without accompanying them with a punch.
His lips quirk into a smile. “I didn’t say I wasn’t.”
“No,” I snarl. “But you walked in the sun, ate apple pie, and infiltrated the convent—all signs of someone who’s still alive.”
Pain flashes across his features. It’s so fast, I might have imagined having seen the expression. “Let me explain,” he says in a voice too calm to address an enemy hostage. His dark eyes linger on my bare thighs, making me realize I’ve just attacked a vampire in my panties. “The chains are for your own goo—”
My fist slams into his mouth, and his head jerks back. “Where are my clothes?”
He holds his nose. “You’re missing the point.”
“Which is?” I snap.
“The creature that attacked you is still at large.”
All the righteous indignation drains away, and I drop my hands to my side. “What is it?”
“That’s what I’m trying to discover, but I need your help.” He steps toward me, his brows knitted.
His dark blue eyes glint like jewels. Around the edges, they’re an opaque lapis lazuli as dark as the midnight sky. They brighten into a sapphire blue in the middle with a starburst of white around the pupil. I inhale a deep breath and drift toward him.
“You want us to work together?” I whisper.
I stand so close that my nerve endings tingle with the urge to slay. “Not quite.”
“Then what?”
He turns to the mattress and picks up a chain. “If you resume your bed rest, we’ll find out.”
My right fist flies at his face. He blocks. I counter with an uppercut. His arm shoots out and blocks that, too.
“I had hoped you would sleep for longer, but you awoke too soon. Please don’t make me knock you unconscious.” Alaric’s confident smirk says it all. This isn’t his first time with a slayer, and he’s confident he can win.
I stare into the space between his eyes. Poppy might have stopped me from falling in love, but I don’t know if he can still mesmerize me into doing his bidding.
“What do you want from me?” I snap.
“Get back into that bed.” His deep voice caresses my eardrums, and the tips of his fingers caress my bare arm. “I’ll give you everything you need.”
Without meaning to, my eyes lock into his and before I know it, we're standing chest to chest, and my heart is beating hard enough for us both. Alaric’s nostrils flare, and the hand on my arm slides onto the small of my back.
I slam my knee into his crotch. He doubles over with a moan. I pummel him with a left, then a right, and I’m about to knock him unconscious when another pair of hands grabs me from behind.
“Let go of me,” I scream.
Alaric staggers to his feet. “Thank you.”
“Hurry up and secure her,” says a female voice I recognize as Galla’s. “This time, use the quickstone.”
He hobbles out of the room and returns with a block of silver. “I’m sorry, Gabrielle.”
A tight fist of fear clenches my gut and my breath catches at the back of my throat. There’s no telling what that metal might do if I let it touch my skin. I scramble back, but Galla holds me tight.
I push back against Galla and kick at Alaric’s hand. “Did you heal my wounds just to keep me your prisoner?”
“There isn’t much time,” Galla hisses.
He kneels at my feet, seizes my calf, and places the stone on my ankle. The metal warms and molds around my leg, forming a solid ring.
My eyes bulge, and I struggle harder against Galla’s grip. “What are you—”
His hand wraps around the other ankle, bringing it next to the first. A moment later, the quickstone encases that one, too. Suddenly, the room is too small, too crowded, and the pressure around my lungs squeezes them to the size of my fists. My panic rises, and sweat beads across my brow.
I thrash, but Galla holds me steady with the strength of a master vampire. Alaric wraps another set of chains around my arms and carries my resisting body to the mattress. I buck and twist, even though it won’t result in my freedom—the quickstone saw to that.
With an uncharacteristic gentleness considering the situation, he places me on the mattress and presses the chains onto the quickstone. It heats and melts around the chains, securing me to the bed. I try jerking my arms, pulling my legs up, but I’m completely trapped, and completely at the mercy of these two vampires.
Alaric draws back, his dark gaze on mine, and covers me with the blanket. “Rest, now. Tonight will be difficult.”
My throat thickens, and tears fill my eyes. I don’t understand this creature full of lies, half-truths, and innuendo. He teased me, taunted me, flaunted his vampiric nature, only to prove that he was alive. Then all this? I swallow hard, still not quite understanding what type of game he is playing.
“Did you send that monster after me?” I whisper.
“No.” He draws back and folds his arms over his chest.
“Then you were following me tonight?”
He nods.
“Why?”
The corner of his mouth turns into a smile, that doesn’t match his sad eyes.
I blink, and tears stream down the sides of my face. With Alaric, an answer like that could mean anything. “Are you that monster?”
He shakes his head.
“Then what—”
“It’s as I said.” Alaric smooths down my hair. �
�We need to find out.”
My gaze bounces to Galla, who stands by the door, her expression grim. The creature that attacked me was larger than her, but what does that mean? Fortescue the vampire had transformed into a wolf with a larger body mass than his vampiric form. But there’s one thing I know for sure: in the three years I went to the Armory to purchase and maintain my weapons, I never once met a member of the old man’s family.
Dread tightens my gut, but I have to ask, even if she confirms my suspicions as true. “What really happened to Mr. Farrier?”
Galla shakes her head, steps out of the room, and lets the door click shut.
“I never thought the creature would target you,” he murmurs.
I bristle at the implication that he is somehow connected with that monster. Right now, I don’t want to hear any omissions or cryptic nonsense. “Why am I here?”
“You said you wanted to live. I healed you as best as I could and brought you back.” The mattress dips as Alaric sits at my side. One of his hands cups the side of my face. It’s warm, indicating that he has recently fed.
The scenario he paints with his words makes me look ungrateful. When that creature left me, I was bleeding and likely broadcasting my scent to any passing vampire. No help would have come from the young man who had fought the monster with me as Kofi would have erased his memory. He and Evangeline would have gone to great lengths to hide the fact that they had left me to die with that monster.
Alaric did save me. Because of him, I’m not half-drained and festering in the basement of a strange vampire, but I am still restrained and at the mercy a vampire—Alaric.
His eyes soften, and he runs the pad of his thumb along my cheekbone. It’s a light, back-and-forth movement that makes my spine tingle and my toes want to curl.
I inhale sharply through my nostrils. This is exactly the kind of scenario Sister Bradford described. A handsome, seductive master vampire using his centuries-honed wiles on a defenseless, half-naked slayer.
He leans toward me and inhales a deep, uneeded breath through flared nostrils. The thumb stroking my cheekbone drifts down to my bottom lip, and heat flares across my skin. My pulse quickens. This scenario is worse than I thought because he saved my life. In some people’s minds, it means I owe him and must serve his every whim. It’s a twisted form of finders-keepers.
“Why not return me to the convent?” I try to keep the tremble out of my voice. “You entered it easily enough to retrieve your case.”
The thumb stroking my cheek pauses, and his dark brows draw together. “They would kill you if you turned.”
Every ounce of blood trickles from my face. “Turned into what?”
“The thing that bit you left pockets of poison under your skin. I extracted what I could from your arteries—”
“And fed on my blood,” I whisper.
His face tightens, and he pulls his hand away, withdrawing the warmth of his touch. “I sucked out the poison and spat it onto the sand until your blood ran clear. Then I washed your wounds with salt water.”
My jaw clenches. He’s left out the most important part of the story, where he decided to take off most of my clothes, chain me to a bed, and keep me in a locked, windowless room. “If the poison is gone, let me go.”
“Not until I’m sure.” He rises and walks toward the door.
Panic lances through my heart, and adrenaline sears through my veins. I can’t stay in this room on my own. What if this is part of a nest, and one of the other vampires decides it wants to torture the captive slayer.
“Wait!” I cry.
Alaric pauses.
A million scenarios run through my mind, each as far-fetched as the other. What if Alaric set the whole thing up to make it look like he had saved me? A master vampire would have no trouble entering an alley and killing ten lesser vampires. With the help of a warlock, he might even render himself invisible. When we met, he already knew my name.
He probably planned this for years and waited until I was on the cusp of getting Saint Theodora’s Blessing. He can walk in daylight, enter environments hostile to vampires and walk through wards. Glamouring himself to look like a monster wouldn’t be a stretch, and most powerful vampires can fly.
Alaric tilts his head to the side, waiting for me to speak.
I don’t want him to leave me here alone, but I also don’t want to be a manipulated pawn to be twisted and turned against the Order.
Pain shoots through my insides, and a groan rumbles in my throat. I curl my legs into my stomach and clench my teeth, trying to process the sensations.
“It’s starting,” he says.
“What?” I ask between gasping breaths.
“The change.”
I want to demand how much he knows about this creature, but agony seizes my jaws, and it feels like nails are sprouting from my gums.
Alaric steps back, his face a rigid mask.
“What’s happening?” I say, but the hard eyes, the tense set of his jaw, and the sorrow in his eyes tell me everything I need to know.
I’m turning into the monster from last night.
Chapter 11
Agony vibrates through every nerve ending in my body. I want to curl into a ball, but the restraints on my arms and legs hold me in place on the bed. The edges of my vision turn red, and I don’t know if that’s because of the enchantment that allows me to see blood drinkers or because I’m turning into a bloodsucker.
I clench my teeth and breathe through the pain, staring at Alaric for answers.
He lowers himself on the edge of the bed. “This is the change I was telling you about. We’ll do what we can to reverse it, but you need to fight what’s happening.”
Every muscle in my body clenches and expands with the ache of having lifted too many weights. My skin tightens, and I can’t help but think of the wrinkled, puckered monster that bit me. My stomach muscles cramp and spasm, sending its acidic contents to burn the back of my throat.
This can’t be happening. “But I didn’t die.”
“Your heart is still beating.” Alaric’s eyes shine with compassion, and he reaches for the hand that’s secured to the edge of the bed, but my fingers cramp awkwardly and lengthen into points.
“Kill me,” I rasp, but my voice is doubled.
His face tightens. “I cannot.”
The pain quickens, and power surges down my bicep in a hot rush. Without meaning to, one arm breaks free, sending shards of stone flying across the room. He jumps to his feet but not before a pulse of energy pushes from my palm, and hits his midsection. Alaric flies backward across the room and lands against the wall, which forms deep cracks.
A scream tears from my lips. What have I become?
Shocked gasps at the door catch my attention. Galla holds a hand over her mouth and steps back. Her dark eyes are wide with horror.
“Sorry,” I say through ragged breaths, but it sounds more like growls. “I didn’t mean to—”
“She’s breaking free from the quickstone,” Galla shouts.
A male with mahogany-brown hair rushes into the room with vampire speed holding a block of quickstone in each palm. Another follows after him with a pair of stones.
My panic spikes, and I thrash on the bed, which creaks and groans with the force of my movements. Every instinct, slayer, human, and this new power coursing through my body—screams at me that these are vampires. I must destroy each of them or I’ll never get a moment of peace.
“Wait,” I shriek.
The one in the front falters, but Galla screams at him to secure me.
Alaric holds down my shoulders as I writhe and jerk on the bed. “Try to stay calm,” he says, his voice reaching through the pain of fog. “We want to help.”
“Release me!” I don’t know who is saying this, but it’s not me. If I’m going to spend the rest of my life like that foul creature, I would rather perish.
I rear up, knocking Alaric back, but the blond-haired male steps in and places two hands on my rig
ht shoulder and pushes me into the firm mattress. My skin bristles at the stranger’s touch, even though it’s gentle and firm. The other vampire does the same on my left, securing me to the bed with their weight.
A roar of outrage bursts through my lungs. I buck, twist, squirm, but the males stay firm and stare down at me with grim determination. Alaric places a block of quickstone on my right bicep and then on the left. This time, it melts as hot as molten lava, molds around my body like a pair of arms, and secures me to the bed.
The pair of males release my shoulders and step back. Galla hands Alaric another stone, which he places on my legs. It heats to a boiling point, forcing a scream from my lips as he secures my knees.
“Stop!” I yell, but the word is a growl. My heart beats four times faster than usual and feels like it’s going to burst.
The mahogany-haired male turns to Alaric. “I thought you removed the poison.”
Alaric steps forward with a grimace. “It was impossible given how many times that thing bit her. Galla, can you fetch the leeches?”
My eyes bulge, and a bellow tears from deep within my belly that rattles my eardrums and shakes my bones to the marrow. I arch and pull on my arms, trying to free myself from these new bonds, but they’re immovable.
Galla disappears through the door. A moment later, she returns with a pewter box I saw in the apothecary window display. Something black and glistening oozes out of one of its breathing-holes, and all the blood drains from my face.
Revulsion ripples through my gut, and I shake my head from side to side. “Not leeches.”
“They’re not going to drink your blood,” she shouts over my growls. With trembling fingers, she flips its metal lid and pulls out a leech as thin as an earthworm. “The monster’s poison has risen from the surface, and they’re going to extract it.”
Clenching my teeth, I suck in a deep breath and nod.
The first leech attaches itself to my throat like a plunger, and I can barely feel when it pierces my skin. Galla attaches several more to my chest, stomach, legs. I lose count at eleven, but after several moments what were originally lightweight worms now feel as heavy as grapes.
Vampire Bonds (Darkbloods Book 1) Page 11
