Bloodlust

by Michelle Rowen

  Matthias squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “There are very few things I regret in my long life, Jillian. What happened between me and Alex is one of those things. A dying man’s forgiveness doesn’t ease my guilt very much about the choices I’ve had to make then or now. Sometimes there’s only one path that can be traveled, even if it’s a rocky one.”

  He started walking again. I wasn’t going to make him keep talking about Alex. I wasn’t that cruel.

  No one stopped us. It felt as if the entire house was abandoned. It was eerie, but I pushed aside my uneasiness enough to get this done.

  “It’s nearly sunrise,” Matthias said. “You’ll have to leave without me. Take Sara and I’ll meet up with you when I can.”

  There was no room for argument in his voice. You couldn’t argue with sunlight.

  I nodded. “All right.”

  “We need to remove her from this house before Kristoff has the opportunity to hand her over to the new leader of the Amarantos.”

  I looked at him with surprise. “That has to be Kristoff’s goal in killing Alex. Getting a new leader in place who doesn’t hate his guts.”

  “I’m sure he has someone positioned to take over. And what better way to buy his allegiance than with a bribe of immortality?”

  I really didn’t like the sound of that.

  I scanned the hallways looking for Jade and Noah, but didn’t see them. We kept moving. Finding the room Sara was being kept in took a few tries, but the crib in a small room near the front of the expansive house was a good tip-off. The vampire nanny snoozed in a chair by the door. As we opened it, she woke, leaping to her feet to stand in our way and baring her fangs.

  “The baby’s sleeping,” she hissed. “And you’re not Kristoff.”

  Matthias frowned. “How can you tell?”

  “Kristoff isn’t wearing a blood-drenched shirt tonight.”

  Matthias looked down at himself. “Good point.”

  She launched herself at him, but he easily knocked her to the side. She hit her head on the wall and fell to a heap on the floor.

  I eyed him. “You do look exactly like him. It’s freaky.”

  His lips curved. “One thing I can never fault Kristoff for is his good looks.”

  “Right. Or his brother’s extreme vanity.” I moved toward the crib and was immediately relieved to see Sara sleeping there safe and sound, wrapped in a thin yellow blanket. I carefully picked her up and held her against my chest.

  “Here she is,” I whispered. “You can finally take a look at your daughter.”

  Matthias sent another fervent glance out the open door as I drew closer to him. Finally he gazed down at the face of his daughter, and he drew in a breath. It was the most honest reaction I think I’d ever witnessed from him.

  “She’s as beautiful as I’d imagined she’d be.”

  “She’ll be a heartbreaker one day.”

  He smiled and touched my arm. “Please keep her safe for me. I’ll be able to find both of you through our bond.”

  I nodded. “I’ll have to stock up on baby formula and diapers again. Walmart here I come.”

  She opened her pale gray eyes and yawned. So adorable. And to think, I’d never really given much thought to having children before, but she was pretty darn—

  Just then, Sara screwed up her face and started to cry, a sharp sound that cut through the silence of the dark house like a knife.

  I winced at the earsplitting noise. Babies weren’t cut out to be stealthy escape artists.

  “Go now,” Matthias commanded.

  I didn’t argue. With a last look at him and the painful knowledge that we were running out of time to escape undetected, I hurried down the hall and then another. I had to find the room my nieces were in. I couldn’t just walk out the door with Sara and leave them behind.

  They were nowhere to be found. My chest tightened and I tried to hold back the panic and frustration overflowing in me.

  “Where are they?” I whispered, trying to will the baby in my arms to stop crying.

  All I had to do was find Meg and Julie and I was marching out that front door into the early morning light. I passed a grandfather clock that confirmed it was a quarter to six. The morning after what was, quite possibly, the longest night of my life.

  So close to being free again I could taste it.

  I turned a corner to find Declan standing there.

  I gulped a mouthful of air, and tried to stop my heart from beating so wildly in my chest. “Oh, thank God. Declan, you have to help me find the girls.”

  He looked frustrated. “You should have tried to be quieter, Jill.”

  I looked down at Sara. “Babies don’t take direction very well.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jade approach from the far end of the hallway, her arms stretched in front of her. “There’s my baby. Darling baby.”

  I turned my attention from the crazy baby-loving dhampyr to Declan. “I have to get out of here before Kristoff knows—”

  “He already knows everything. He commanded me to bring you to see him for a private meeting.” His face was expressionless.

  “He commanded you,” I repeated, feeling sick.

  “I told you what that means.”

  All too well, I was afraid. “You said you can’t disobey him.”

  “That’s right.”

  I looked over my shoulder.

  “Looking for your soul mate?” Declan asked dryly. “I easily knocked him out a minute ago and the guards took him away. There is a hidden camera in the tunnels downstairs. Kristoff saw everything.”

  This wasn’t happening. I’d been so close to getting out of here. Declan couldn’t be the one to stop me—he was supposed to help me. “Did you know there was a camera there?”

  “I do now.”

  I looked into his face, desperately searching for some sort of signal that he was just faking this like he’d done earlier. “No, Declan. Please. You have to fight this.”

  He shook his head, his expression bleak. “I can’t. I have to do what he says. He asked me to bring you to him and I’m compelled to obey. Give the baby to Jade.”

  “Your father wants to give this baby to the new leader of the Amarantos Society. And you’re just going to let him do that?” My words twisted into anger.

  He grasped my upper arm so tightly I flinched. “Hand Jade the baby or you might drop her. I know you don’t want that to happen.”

  Of course I didn’t. Reluctantly, I handed her the baby. Jade cooed at her and rocked her gently in her arms. The next moment, Sara finally stopped crying.

  Maternal instinct. Sara seemed to like the crazy dhampyr. Go figure.

  Declan wasn’t quite as gentle as he dragged me down the hall to see the vampire king.

  23

  “I KNOW YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND,” DECLAN HISSED at me as I continued to fight him. “You don’t know what it’s like to be compelled to do something when you know it’s wrong.”

  He knew what he was doing was wrong, and yet he did it anyway. There had to be a way he could fight this. If not, then there was no way I could get away from him. He was too strong. “You don’t realize just how much of a hold Matthias has on me.”

  His lips thinned. “Wrong. I do know. I watched you give him back his heart. I saw the way you looked at him. And I saw you kiss him.”

  My stomach sank. “That was mind manipulation.”

  “You didn’t seem to resist very much.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  Kristoff was waiting in his throne room, the same one in which he’d originally stabbed Matthias in the chest shortly after our arrival. He sat in his high-backed red and gold chair with his fingertips pressed to each other as Declan pulled me closer.

  “Good morning, Jillian,” Kristoff said. “You’ve had an interesting night, haven’t you?”

  The nanny was right. Except for the bloody shirt, he could be Matthias. “I think my reply to th
at is ‘fuck you.’ As will be my reply to pretty much anything you have to say.”

  “You don’t know how generous I can be with those who don’t constantly defy me.”

  I glared at him, trying to fight the fear and despair growing inside me. “Where’s Matthias?”

  “He’s restrained in the next room.” He nodded toward his left. “I’m thinking I might set him outside so he can watch the sunrise. I know he approves of that as another method of punishment to those who cross him. I think you saw the proof of that last night.”

  A shiver raced down my spine at that pleasant-sounding threat to blind Matthias. “You ripped his heart out of his chest.”

  “Yes, I did. It was an experiment to see what would happen. Turns out, nothing did, and he will recover completely in a few days.” He leaned back in his seat. “And I didn’t thank you very well earlier for your help with Alex. Very impressive.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see Declan standing there, his arms at his sides, staring straight forward like a soldier awaiting orders. “I’m not really sure why you even wanted him dead. He couldn’t have been that much of a threat to you.”

  “You think because of his disabilities he was helpless?” He shook his head. “You underestimated him. He was a vicious creature in his time.”

  “I guess it goes with the territory.” I tried to clear my mind of any panic I was feeling. I had to figure a way out of this, but it was looking pretty bleak. Declan was compelled to help Kristoff. Matthias was weakened and restrained. I was in deep shit.

  “Alex had to die so a new friend of mine could step up to the plate as leader of the Amarantos. He has been waiting for years for such an opportunity and he didn’t want to delay.”

  The hardwood floor felt cold against my bare feet, but the sensation helped me to concentrate. “A new friend.”

  “Alex would have opposed me now that I’m back. I couldn’t have that. I knew there was no time to waste. In fact, it was an excellent chance to kill two birds with one stone because I wanted to show you off to Stephen. He was impressed.”

  Stephen—the new leader of the Amarantos and Kristoff’s buddy. He was the one Kristoff planned to give Sara to. My stomach lurched.

  “It’s nice to have friends in high places,” I said.

  “He’s here. He arrived just before sunrise.”

  Shit. He was going to sacrifice Sara this morning so his “friend” could live forever. I tried to think of a way out of this, but came up blank. But there had to be something I could do, something I could say to stop this from happening.

  There were too many obstacles at the moment and, even though I allegedly had strength equivalent to a dhampyr now, I was still technically only human. Kristoff was an immortal vampire with a bloody agenda and a small army to back him up—including Declan.

  I tried to remain as calm as possible—or at least appear that way. “Sounds like you have everything under control. Why did you want to see me?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “My first guess is that you hate my guts and want to kill me.”

  He studied me for a long moment and I began to feel more hopeless than I did to begin with. “All of these vampires who are irresistibly drawn to you—compelled to taste your blood. That must be exciting for you.”

  I blanched. “Not exciting. Scary and painful, yes. Exciting, no.”

  “And you have the affection of both my son and my brother.”

  “Affection is a debatable choice of words.”

  “My brother claims you, a natural enemy to vampires everywhere, after four hundred years of claiming no one. He is bound to you for the rest of your now-extended life.”

  I looked up into his pale gray eyes, identical to Matthias’s. “I didn’t ask him to do that.”

  “I know you didn’t. I just find it interesting. And then there’s my son, who seems entirely smitten with you, so much so that he fights my influence over him even as we speak.”

  I didn’t risk a look at the silent Declan to see if I could notice any fighting. After all, he hadn’t hesitated to drag me here in the first place. And smitten? I couldn’t really imagine Declan being smitten by anything—including me.

  “Are you going to force him to kill me?” The words sounded horrible leaving my mouth, but I had to ask.

  He cocked his head. “You presume that my solution to every problem is death. I don’t fully understand why you feel that way toward me.”

  “I guess we just don’t see eye to eye on your plans for the future.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as giving Sara to your new Amarantos friend as a gift so he won’t stop you from creating more vampires to rise up against the human world.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like I’m going to be very busy. My true aim is to make the world a better place. And I could debate this issue with you for hours, Jillian, but I have a feeling that we will never see eye to eye on this.”

  I hissed out a long sigh. My hands were clenched so tightly that my short fingernails bit painfully into my skin. I was desperate to figure out a way out of this. I couldn’t save the world, but I had to save the kids. One goal at a time.

  “Please, Kristoff,” I didn’t like the pleading tone to my voice. “Do whatever you want with me, but you can’t hurt my nieces. And you can’t give Sara away to someone who’s going to hurt her. It’s not right. You have to see that.”

  He looked down at the ring that used to belong to Alex. “How did you escape the room you were in to go to my brother’s side earlier?”

  I stared at him. “Pardon me?”

  “I told the guards to keep you in your room, but you managed to get out. I don’t have security cameras up there.”

  “I cut myself.” I held up my arm to show him, but the wound was almost healed by now. “And lured the guard in. He bit me.”

  His gaze moved over the faint pink line. “And you say you’re not an assassin.”

  “I had no choice.” I hated that I felt the least bit guilty about killing the guard, but I did.

  “The problem with that story is that Declan was also guarding your room. And yet he’s still standing.”

  My breath caught in my chest. He’d helped me against Kristoff’s wishes and that likely wouldn’t be acceptable. “He wasn’t there. Maybe he’d gone on a break.”

  “My brother’s bond with you makes it impossible to coax the truth from your lips.” Kristoff appeared mildly frustrated with me, the first emotion I’d seen on his face during this uncomfortable conversation. “Declan, you helped Jillian escape and you also stole the heart from my chambers so she could return it to my brother. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Declan said, and I cringed at his automatic and unavoidably truthful answer.

  “Why? I asked you to guard her.”

  Declan’s gaze didn’t move to me; he stared straight forward. “To guard someone means that I must protect them. Keeping Jill in that room helpless and alone wasn’t protection.”

  Kristoff was silent for a moment. “Do you have a knife on you right now, Declan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hold it to Jillian’s throat.”

  Before I could make a move to scramble away from him, Declan grabbed me from behind and I gasped as I felt the cold, sharp press of silver at my throat. It was so close to my skin that any move would force him to slice it straight into me. I stopped breathing as I clutched at his arm.

  “Kristoff”—Declan struggled to speak—“don’t make me kill her.”

  “I know this is hard for you. But sometimes we have to do things that are difficult because there’s no other choice.”

  Even though I was trying desperately not to move, I felt the sting of the blade and the warm trickle of blood sliding down my throat.

  “Declan . . .” I gasped. “Please . . . fight this . . .”

  “I can’t,” came the strangled reply. “Fuck. Kristoff—please . . .”

  A long, tense moment went
by before Kristoff spoke again. “You may drop the knife, Declan.”

  A moment later I heard the clang of metal as it hit the ground. Declan’s fingers dug painfully into my shoulders, his breathing labored. I exhaled shakily, but didn’t try to pull away from him. He fought it and that must have been very difficult for him.

  Kristoff watched us carefully. “Go get my brother and Stephen and bring them in here, please.”

  Declan let go of me and strode across the room, opening the door between two six-foot-tall oil paintings of oak trees and lush, sunny meadows, and disappeared.

  I held a hand to my throat.

  “I spared your life,” Kristoff said evenly. “I wouldn’t do so for anyone else who’d crossed me as much as you have.”

  I struggled to breathe and scanned the room. Two guards stood at the far wall next to the tall archway leading toward the front hallway. “You obviously need me.”

  His lips curved to the side. “You think so?”

  “The only reason I’m still breathing is because you like what I did to Alex. I proved myself to you.”

  “I expected you to fail. You didn’t. But despite that and despite what you did to the guard earlier, you don’t have the killer instinct, do you?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “However, you could still be a valuable weapon. The government researchers who held you originally saw that, too, didn’t they?”

  I was so popular at the moment both vampires and humans wanted to use me for my blood. I should start charging an hourly rate.

  “The Nightshade was developed to kill vampires, but I wasn’t the one it was supposed to be given to—it should have been injected into a trained agent. It’s a fluke that it’s in me.”

  He nodded. “Fate works in mysterious ways.”

  Declan returned with Matthias, pushing him in the room ahead of him. He seemed unharmed and furious. Another man entered the room as well, tall, dark-skinned, with a shaved head and the expected pale gray eyes.

  Kristoff stood. “Welcome to my home, Stephen.”

  The man scanned his surroundings. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Too long. But I’m glad for the chance to renew our friendship. Thank you for coming out on such short notice. I promise my gift for you will be well worth it.”