They pulled up to the house and stopped just outside of the garage he pulled this very car from just two days ago.
“Do you think Gillian’s down at the swamp?”
Ash shook her head. “Pollux is inside. He needs to have full control, therefore she will be close at hand. Besides, I feel a glimmer of human inside.”
“Just a glimmer?” he asked, startled.
Ash frowned. “She is alive.”
He guessed that was as good as he’d get for now and sighed at her. “All right then, here goes.”
Ash nodded and they got out of the car. For once, she didn’t bring a single weapon with her, not even her trusty sword, Murasaki Kaeru. Tristan wasn’t sure if it was because he was loaded to the teeth or something more—to make some point?
“You secure Pollux as quickly as possible,” Ash said in a low tone, coming around the front of the car. “I will see to Gillian, get her out. She doesn’t need to see either of us kill.”
Tristan only nodded. By secure, Ash no doubt meant disable—kill. Was he ready to do that? Kill a boy vampire who wouldn’t be who he was if he hadn’t died so young? Hadn’t be warped by death and violence?
He couldn’t kill Castor when it came down to it. If it weren’t for Kiba, Tristan would have let the kid get away. Then again, Castor hadn’t raped the woman he loved. Castor hadn’t tried to rape him. Or that poor boy downtown.
He could sense that Pollux was in the basement so he decided to go in that way. He punched in the code to the garage and slid under as soon as there was enough room to fit. There was no point in stealth, the vampire knew they were coming since he’d invited them and Ash was the only one who could hide her presence. Tristan would make sure that was the first thing he learned from her.
He let out a steadying breath and Ash gave him a stern “you can do it” look. He appreciated her not actually saying it aloud.
“Ash?”
“I know,” she whispered, stepping into him.
Of course she knew how much he loved her but he wanted to show her. He grabbed her, tightening an arm around her waist and lifting her against him. He dug a hand into her hair, guiding her face to his as she grabbed him in return, clinging to him. They shared a rough kiss, fueled by love and passion, need and longing. And Tristan’s gratitude. They weren’t perfect, their faults deeper than most, but they loved each other. They could get through anything so long as they were together.
By the time he pulled away, his was on fire, down to his soul. And by the look in Ash’s eyes, so was she. She smiled darkly and motioned for him to proceed. She wasn’t the wanton killer so much of her kind was but, yes, she did enjoy it. Even if she hated herself for it, she was looking forward to this kill. To revenge.
Tristan entered the house from the basement garage entrance. The mud room was dark and light showed from under the door on the far side to the rec area—where Pollux was. When he reached for the doorknob, he heard a faint moan through the thin wood. It was a moan filled with pain and fear. A woman’s moan. It took everything in Tristan not to wrench the door from its hinges and rush in the room. He had to keep a clear head, methodical and planned.
Letting out a slow, meditative breath, he opened the door. His gaze immediately went to the naked redhead tied up in front of the wood stove. Gillian’s porcelain skin was reddened and covered in small cuts, like from a razor, and smeared in blood. Her hands were tied behind her back and to a length of rope that went around her neck. Her feet were pulled back at a harsh angle that would have left her numb. They were tied separately so that her knees could be opened, but she couldn’t walk. Tristan’s whole body quivered with a shudder of horror, realizing why Pollux tied her like that.
At hearing the door open, Gillian rolled over, flopping to her side with a grunt. Her hazel eyes grew wide as fresh tears welled. The cloth gag in her mouth was dark with blood that smeared all the way down to her breasts. From the front Tristan could see the bruises on her hips and the blood on her thighs.
“You fucking monster!” he growled and turned to look at the vampire standing in the bathroom door to the left. The man was wearing nothing but an undersized towel around his waist and a shit-eating grin. His hair was wet and free, sticking to him where it touched his skin.
“Yes, well,” the vampire said, motioning to himself. “Human blood doesn’t dissolve like vampire blood. And there’s some places on my own body I can’t reach with my mouth.” He grinned like it was some big fucking joke and Tristan growled an angry noise. “I thought about you while I touched myself in the shower.” For good measure, Pollux winked.
“Son of a bitch.” He slammed a fist into the wall before taking an angry step forward. “What have you done to her?” Ash grabbed his arm, keeping him from going forward anymore. Tristan didn’t want to be touched, he could feel her trying to cool his anger and that pissed him off more. He wanted to be angry, to use it to make himself do what he had to. He jerked his arm away from her. “Get Gillian out,” he grumbled.
“No. You were supposed to bring Nastasia with you.”
“We’re taking her.”
Glaring, Pollux watched Ash as she crossed the room but didn’t stop her. “You want to know what I did?” He pointed at Gillian. “Oh, a hell of a lot more than you did. She really, really liked that kiss. So pathetic to have fallen for such a cold man.” Pollux laughed, making a show of it, flashing a lot of fang and tossing his head back.
Tristan shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, kid—Oh, that hit a soft spot. Don’t like being called a kid, do ya?”
Pollux’s nostrils flared, his fists balled at his sides and shaking.
“Is that why the nursery rhymes? You’ve sung me two now. You miss your mommy and daddy? That why you want Nastasia back? Need someone to tuck you in at night, sing to you?”
The vampire let out a low growl that had Gillian sobbing even as Ash tried to sooth her without forcing her motonō onto the frightened woman.
“Just because you have mommy and daddy issues is no reason to run around like a fucking psychopath, killing and raping dead bodies, kid.”
Pollux let out a roar and threw himself at Tristan. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid the vampire and Pollux caught him by his shirt, spinning him around and shoving him against the wall. Tristan gasped as a mirror broke against his back, clutching at Pollux’s wrists where they still held onto his shirt.
“It’s not just the dead one’s I like,” Pollux sneered, his words sending spittle into Tristan’s face.
Tristan tried to keep his cool, he really did, but the guy poked the one thing he just couldn’t stay calm about and he lashed out. He delivered a nice kidney shot to the vampire before he took a knee to the gut.
“Fuck you, William,” he sputtered out around a cough.
“My name is Pollux!”
“Yeah and mine is Uruwashi.” Tristan sneered and rotated his arm to show his tattoo. Pollux’s gaze went to it before he looked back to Tristan.
A slow smile came over the vampire. “Okay,” he said as he opened his hands with a bit of flourish. Pollux took a step back, his body language screaming “come at me”. “Show me what it means to be Uruwashi.”
Tristan straightened, held back a wince when he realized the mirror had cut into his back. He glanced behind Pollux to Ash. She was holding Gillian against her, and they were both staring at Tristan. Gillian looked confused and horrified, her skin a sickly shade of white. Ash was the same old Ash, stoic and unreadable. But he didn’t need to read her face anymore to know what she might be thinking, he could feel her. She was telling him to have at it, end the boy’s suffering and avenge Gillian. He just wished he didn’t have to do it in front of Gillian.
“Fine,” Tristan grumbled, pulling a gun. “But they leave first.”
“Notah. No weapons.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Pollux crossed his arms over his chest, pouting his bottom lip out. “No weapons and they can’t
go.”
Tristan couldn’t help but snort a laugh at the petulant display as he disarmed himself, dropping his weapons to the floor. “You really are just a kid. Maybe if you hadn’t killed your Master you’d have a nice daddy figure to look up to. Maybe if you hadn’t aligned yourself with Ash’s daughter, you have lived longer…”
Across the room Gillian gasped and started whispering loudly to Ash, asking what was happening. Ash gently cooed to her, pushing a hint of motonō into her voice to calm the woman.
“You need to shut your face before something bad happens to you.”
“Wow,” Tristan said with a laugh. “That the best you got, William? Little Willie?”
“Wee Willie Winkie,” Ash whispered with a dark smile.
“Stop fucking calling me that!” Pollux screamed.
“We Willie Winkie,” Ash said a bit louder, her eyes fixed on the other vampire. “Runs through the town, up stairs and down stairs in his nightgown, tapping at the window, crying at the lock, Are the weans in their bed, for it's now ten o'clock?"”
Tristan smiled darkly, eyeing the vampire. Pollux was older, more experienced and he was afraid of Tristan. The pulse on the vampire’s neck was pulsing fast and hard and Tristan was nearly distracted by it.
“Ash, darling… as much as I’m enjoying the nursery rhyme—and clearly, Pollux is too—” He smiled at the sneer he got from the boy vampire. “Maybe you wanna get Gillian out of here? She doesn’t need to see what comes next. Pollux here won’t stop you again, right Willie?”
“N—no!” Gillian shouted. “He’ll hurt you. We have to run!”
“No,” he answered in a low, even tone, staring Pollux right in the eyes as the vampire shook with anger and fear. “There’s no running away from this monster. There’s no one else to stop them… It has to be me.”
“B-but, what’s them? What is he?”
“You know,” Ash said softly.
“Yes, she does.” Pollux lifted his chin, looking proud as shit. “But she needs to hear it, from you, her most trusted friend. Tell her, Uruwashi. Tell her what we all are.”
Tristan swallowed hard and looked to Ash as he dropped his last knife to the floor. Jaw set hard, she gave him a single nod.
“Vampires,” Tristan said, his voice barely above a whisper. He cleared his throat and repeated it louder. “They’re vampires.”
“And?” Pollux prompted loudly, looking smug as shit.
Tristan swallowed hard, his bluster washed away. “An—and, I sort of am too.”
A big smile spread across the vampire’s face as Gillian began to sob, saying she didn’t understand. Tristan felt her fear, her confusion. And Pollux’s fucking glee. He wanted to wrap his hands around the kid’s throat and squeeze until the vampire couldn’t laugh ever again.
“Hey, Willie, you wanna keep it in your pants there? Haven’t you scared the innocent enough?”
The vampire barked out an incredulous laugh. “Innocent? How could anyone who loves a monster like you be innocent?”
“Fuck this,” Tristan hissed and advanced.
Pollux saw the move coming and easily sidestepped Tristan’s first punch. He countered but this time it was Tristan who saw the move coming. Tristan caught Pollux’s wrist, jerked him around and flipped him to the floor. The vampire landed hard but it wasn’t enough to wind him, or even slow him down a moment. Tristan was moving away, going for one of his weapons but he was too slow.
A hard hand grabbed ahold of his ankle and jerked him back. Unable to stop the fall, Tristan landed hard on his stomach, winded. He hadn’t even a moment to try and catch his breath before he was racked with pain.
After he stopped convulsing, when his vision cleared and he could breathe again, he realized that the vampire had just zapped him with his wind seikonō, channeling the electricity out of the air. Didn’t seem fucking fair that the House of Wind had access to lightning too.
Perched over him, Pollux grinned. “Your girlfriends ran off. Guess they didn’t feel like watching you after all. Or giving you a hand. Too bad for you.”
“I can kill you with my own hands.” Tristan was still having a hard time focusing after having his brain fried but he managed to sound confident at least. He smiled all teeth. “Willie.”
Pollux roared with anger, bringing his clasped fists down towards Tristan’s face. He managed to flip the vampire off with ease, putting himself over him. Pollux looked shocked to find himself pinned but then quickly gathered his senses and lashed out with a razor of wind.
Tristan gasped, jerking his head back. At the same time, Pollux managed to jerk an arm free and whap! Tristan took a closed palm hit to his ear. Everything went shrill but he fought the pain. He caught the wrist of the hand Pollux used to slap him and the vampire’s eyes widened. Yeah, fucker didn’t know he was this strong.
“Y—you… Oh god. Sh—she bit you?”
Tristan smiled darkly at the kid’s naked fear.
“Oh god! No, no no no no. I—I… I didn’t mean it, any of it!”
Brow furrowed, Tristan gave Pollux’s wrist a squeeze. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to die!”
What the fuck sort of game was this vampire playing? But no. He felt it didn’t he? He felt the truth of the vampire’s emotions. Pollux was terrified of Tristan now.
And fuck all if Tristan knew what to do about it. Just when he’d convinced himself that killing the kid was the only way… “I—”
Pollux screamed, an absolutely maniacal, desperate cry and exploded with fury and chaos. Tristan was thrown off and to his back as wind roared, sparks of electricity arched off all the metal in the room. An outlet was hit and the house went dark. With the closest streetlight nearly a quarter mile of away, it was pitch black. Or, should have been.
Tristan’s eye, the one he was born with was a little gloomy but the eye he wore from Nastasia showed everything in perfect clarity. There was nowhere to hide.
“Oh shit!” Pollux yipped, realizing that Tristan could still see him and instead of turning tail and running he came at Tristan. The look of desperation on his face, that was all too clear to Tristan but he couldn’t think about that right now. It was kill or be killed. He had to believe it or finally be completely lost to the darkness.
He dropped down to a knee and pushed off, throwing himself in the direction of the side entrance. The closest weapon was his knife and he’d just landed on his belly, his fingertips slipping off the handle when Pollux toppled onto his back. He gave a soft harrumph and braced for whatever hit or shock the vampire was about to deliver. Maybe the kid forgot he had seikonō because all he was doing was desperately pawing at Tristan, pulling himself up, trying to grab Tristan’s arms.
Despite the struggle, Tristan managed to grab ahold of the knife and swung out blindly, hoping he didn’t cut himself in the process. Pollux screamed in his ear and Tristan cringed, rolling over to dump the vampire off him. When he righted himself he saw that he’d stuck the knife into the vampire’s chest. Pollux growled through his teeth as he jerked the knife free.
The vampire looked up, met Tristan’s eyes and after staring for five tense seconds let out a roar, and knife wielded over his shoulder, he came at Tristan. He saw the vampire coming but that wasn’t enough to stop the blow. He moved just enough to avoid taking the knife to his face. His left shoulder burst into pain. White, hot, blinding fucking pain.
The knife went in and was twisted. And electrified. Tristan was blind and couldn’t breathe. His back arched off the ground. There was nothing but the roar of pain, the burn of electricity coursing through his body.
He didn’t remember reaching for the knife, or even finding it. He didn’t remember moving, or finding breath to scream. He didn’t remember pinning the vampire down and driving the knife into him. Again and again.
The anger overtook Tristan, made him lose focus, lose calm. Lose himself.
Under him Pollux screamed in pain, begged Tristan to have merc
y. But the words meant nothing to him, they were alien to him, to the monster ruling Tristan’s body. Blood, heated by the life of his dearest friend, splattered everywhere, nearly blinded him. And when his arm started to shake and the knife stuck, he let out a gluttonous wail and threw himself at the vampire under him, locking his mouth to an open wound.
Oh god, was that him moaning? Of course it was, because fuck, So. Goddamn. Amazing.
The warmth coated his mouth, his throat and hit his belly like a ball of fire. He hadn’t even finished moaning out his pleasure when the images hit him. He nearly lost his hold on the flesh under his teeth at the force of the images, the film reel of the vampire’s life played out for him.
He saw William. And Benjamin—their little sister and parents. They were in colonial Pennsylvania. Their life was inconvenient but they were happy. They had balance and each other, what else was there to hope for?
Then calamity. A thief. Worse more, there was nothing to take. The family had nothing. Everyone was attacked. Mom, dad and sister, they died right away but Benjamin and William, they lay dying when another stranger came into their home for the second time that night. But he didn’t wish them to die and so they didn’t. The next eight days were a blur of pain but when they dug from their earthen grave on that last day, fed for the first time, killed, they knew true bliss.
Their nights from thereafter were a study in ecstasy. Higher levels, an addiction of epic proportions. One that the twins would do anything to fulfill, surpass for the next two hundred years. They were always up for anything, so long as their high was satisfied.
Killing their Master turned out to be the pinnacle of their highs. One they struggled to surpass for years. Signing up with Nastasia, a hatful, confused, lost vanilla with a singular focus: Kill Master, that was a no brainer. And then to add a shiny, tempting bow on top, not only was the Master in question her maker by way of the blood rite, but her biological mother. Oh, such delight.
They meant to do the deed themselves, take the pleasure of the kill from Nastasia. But William, dear brother Pollux, he had to fuck around with the Master mother first, hit her with a spell he shouldn’t have taken, and fucked her just because he could. William knew his brother was right, always the more thoughtful of the pair, but he couldn’t help himself.
Primal Burdens: (The Uruwashi Series #5) Page 28
