by Lucinda Dark
When I reopened my eyes, I was no longer sitting in the passenger seat, but in a room I’d never been in before. I blinked and Satrina appeared before me. She’d brought a friend. I glanced over the mirrored image of myself for a moment. Within seconds, I’d already determined who she was. It was easy, really. I could tell by the glowing crimson irises that she was, in fact, my vampire self.
“It’s almost time,” I announced, standing up.
“Everything is in place,” Satrina said. “There’s just one last thing to do.” She turned and gestured for my vampire to step forward.
“Time to accept me,” my vampire said.
“I already have.”
She shook her head, the golden strands of her hair swaying over her shoulders with the movement. “Not yet. Not completely. You need to accept me fully before you let Satrina consume you.”
Okay. I could do that. I would do that. I’d do anything to ensure that Maverick would be saved. Even if it was detrimental to myself. I didn’t even have to ask if it was. I didn’t care. “How?” I asked.
She grinned, revealing two long, white fangs. I watched as the image of myself tossed her hair over her shoulder and exposed the long column of her—my—throat. “For her to consume you, you must consume me.”
I took another step forward. “What?” Satrina asked, brows rising in surprise. “Not going to ask if there’s another way?”
“Is there?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then no.” I turned back to my vampire self. “I’m done resisting. I’m done fighting against the two of you. This is it. We’re out of time. Just tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it.”
Satrina nodded and moved closer, pushing my vampire until she was against my chest. “You have to drink from your vampire until you two are one,” she said. “Once you do, there should be no more separate voices. This will ensure you have complete control of your vampire, but do be forewarned—even your Torin hasn’t yet done this. Once you do this, there is no going back. You will always have your vampire inside you.”
“Will I be able to save Maverick?” I asked. “And Torin? Will I be able to kill Arrius?”
“I cannot say,” she said. “But it will give you the best chance.”
“Then I’ll take it.” I grabbed my vampire and leaned forward. Although, in here, we were separate, when I called my fangs, they came—sliding down from my gums and plunging into her throat with little struggle.
And then … I drank.
I drank until my stomach churned. I drank until I felt overfull. Until my head grew dizzy and a red haze descended over my vision. Everything looked as if it had a cardinal tint to it. That was when I felt Satrina’s hand on my back, cool and certain. She slid her palm up my spine until her fingers delved into my hair. She yanked me back, holding me tightly when I would’ve gone after my vampire, but my vampire was no more. With a last, weak smile—the image of myself disintegrated into dust.
Satrina leaned forward and whispered in my ear—her voice changing, deepening.
Wake up, Barbie.
My eyes jerked open and I only recognized Torin’s face over mine a split second before my nails sank into his skin. I pulled them away, but it was too late—I’d already pierced through the fabric and knicked his skin. Torin looked at me—far more serious than I’d ever seen him. He didn’t even acknowledge the small wounds as they quickly closed up and fresh skin knitted over.
“We’re here,” he said. I nodded and got out of the vehicle.
“Where’s here?” I asked as I stopped and looked up at the mountain before us. Down below there was a hiker’s pathway. It was just a dirt trail, but there was nothing to shield the opening we saw. “Is that it?” I asked, pointing to the cave entrance.
“Probably,” Torin answered. “It’s called Ashwood Mountain. It used to be a hiding place for witches escaping persecution. In the late 1600s, though, a collection of witches from a sun worshipping coven was found in one of the caves here. Men blocked it off and without the light from the sun to power their magic, they suffocated and died … in complete darkness.”
Well, I thought, that was a fun bedtime story. I reached into the backseat and retrieved my swords. “Ready?” I asked.
He nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”
We started walking, our footsteps kicking up dust as the sun slowly began to peek over the horizon. If we wanted to be safe—we could’ve stayed outside. Arrius was a pure vampire. He couldn’t touch the sunlight. But us … we were still partially human—as human as we needed to be to touch the light. Both of us knew, though, if we stopped now—if we turned back—then Mav was as good as dead.
We reached the entrance to the cave and entered. I felt my grip tighten on my holy swords—expecting an attack at any moment. We didn’t even stand a chance. No holy swords or immortality could have saved us. No sooner had we stepped far enough so that even if the sun was fully risen, no sunlight would have touched us, a high pitched shriek tore through our eardrums. My knees hit the ground hard at the same time Torin’s did. I barely heard it when my swords clattered against the rock and dirt. I clamped my hands over my head to stave off the inevitable, but it was too much. Whatever frequency was being used pierced right through me.
I blinked, tears of agony filling my vision as a pair of pristine loafers appeared in my line of sight. I couldn’t turn my head up because of the pain, but I knew who it was. For a moment, I considered what I could do. I released my head and reached for one of the swords, but his foot came down—slowly, as if he was fucking toying with me. He stepped on the blade and bent over, tilting my chin up so that I could meet the gaze of the man I’d come to kill.
“Welcome, Barbie,” he said—the words were a mere whisper above the horrid noise. I felt wetness on the lobes of my ears … blood? Were my eardrums busted? They must’ve been because as I felt my eyes focus in on Arrius’ lips, I couldn’t hear what he said next, could only read it from his mouth. “Enjoy the show.”
Forty-Five
Barbie
As someone who was constantly torn between not giving a fuck and giving far too many fucks for my sanity, I was not exactly exuberant to wake up chained to the side of a rock wall colder than a witch’s tit. I shivered against the stone, turning my aching head to the right and left. On my right, there was nothing but a long dark tunnel, through which even my vampiric vision couldn’t see. On my left…
“Mav!” My chains rattled as I tried to scoot nearer to him. His face looked bloodied and his nose was crooked, but it was him. I nudged him with my shoulder as much as I could considering both of my arms were stretched high above my head and held in place by a thick metal chain that felt heavier than my fucking body. I tugged experimentally, but nada. Zip. Zilch. They held. So much for supernatural strength. “Mav!” I hissed his name again, shoving my arm into his at the same time.
Maverick groaned deeply, his eyes blinking open. They were unfocused, but he inhaled sharply and turned his head until he met my gaze. I sighed. “Thank fuck,” I whispered, feeling the relief choke me up.
“Barbie?” Mav grumbled. “What the fuck—” He stopped halfway through and lifted his head higher, turning it to survey the small nearly lightless cave we’d been left in. “No,” he said. “No. Fuck no. You shouldn’t be here. Barbie, tell me you didn’t. Tell me Torin stayed away.”
I shook my head. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Fuck!” he snapped, but it didn’t seem like he was angry so much at us as he was at the news.
“Why Torin?” I asked. “What does Arrius have planned for him?”
Mav turned his bloodied face my way. “I’m so sorry, Barbie,” he said. “I was on my way to finish questioning the warlock. I’d just gotten back to that deserted motel when they blindsided me—rammed right into the car I was driving. I couldn’t shift quick enough. They put these on me.” He rattled the manacles circling his wrists. “They’re charmed—Esperanza’s working with him, Barbie.”
<
br /> “No.” I shook my head. “She can’t be. She’s probably just being held captive.”
“I saw her,” he insisted, moving slightly closer when I shivered again. For fuck’s sake why was it so fucking cold in here? “It didn’t look like she was being restrained. These cuffs are supposed to mute supernatural powers.”
Well, that explained my inability to break them. It also explained why Mav didn’t appear to be healing as he should’ve. “What about Torin? Why’d you ask about him?”
“I heard Arrius on the phone,” he admitted. “Barbie—I know what he’s planning. It’s—”
“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice said, clapping as the man entered the room. “Look who’s awake. Good. So glad you’ll be able to see the show first hand. Shall we get started?”
I yanked at my chains as fires burst to life around the cave—no, not a cave, a room carved into the inside of the mountain. My eyes nearly bugged out of my head when I saw the bones scattered around the room. What had Torin said about Ashwood Mountain? Witches had suffocated and died in here? Suddenly, I felt quite breathless as if all of the oxygen in the room had been sucked out.
Keep calm. My muscles tensed—freezing—at the soft, quiet whisper of Satrina’s voice. This is good, she said. Don’t concern yourself with what he’s planning. You just need to get yourself free. You just need to get close to him. Let him try to kill you and I’ll take over from there.
Right, I replied. Got it. I took a breath, physically forcing my mind away from the fact that we were essentially trapped beneath a mountain with a fucking supernatural psychopath.
“Master, what do you want to do with them?” A man in a robe appeared in the mouth of the tunnel.
“Leave them,” Arrius commanded. He looked the same as I’d seen him before, wearing a tailored suit with a form fitted vest. He removed his suit jacket, but strangely instead of setting it somewhere clean or handing it to the man in the robe, he tossed it to the ground. As if the obviously expensive garment were nothing of importance, just something in his way as he rolled up his shirt sleeves, revealing his forearms. His hands, though, were not bare. Instead, they were covered in what looked like black leather sports gloves. “Esperanza, dear, do come out.”
My head jerked to the side as a small figure appeared around the man in the robe. “Esperanza…” I whispered. She didn’t look at me, but Maverick had been right—she didn’t look like she was being contained. There were no manacles around her wrist and no man or woman at her back. Several other men and women in robes appeared from the same direction moving to fill the room—circling where Arrius stood in the center.
The smoothness of their features and the reds of their eyes told me what they were. Vampires. “Maverick,” I said his name quietly. “What the fuck did you find out? What is he planning to do?” It just didn’t make sense. The vampires. Esperanza. The robes. What the fuck was going on?
“He’s going to open a portal to hell,” Mav said.
My head pivoted as if it were turning on a pike. I stared at Mav, but he was focused on Arrius—real worry and concern etched into his features. This wasn’t a joke. This was real. Holy fuck. Of all of the insane things—I never could’ve pictured this. “How the fuck does he think he’s going to do that?”
He cannot, Satrina said suddenly. It’s impossible. But even as she spoke in my head, I could sense a tingle of doubt in her own words. It has never been done, she assured—though who she was trying to assure, me or herself, I wasn’t sure.
Mav looked back at me. He gritted his teeth, grinding them as he darted a glance from me to Arrius. His lips parted, but he never got the chance to speak.
“Not to worry, Mr. McKnight,” Arrius spoke up, drawing both of our attention as he lifted his arms and gestured to a form in the circle near us. “I’m sure Katalin will be more than happy to explain what’s going on and what your role in all of this is.”
And there she was, stepping forward, dressed in the same robe as everyone else. Her face was empty of emotion—but then again, she always appeared emotionless. “Vampires were born of the hellish creatures of the underworld,” Katalin stated. “But unlike the demons from the depths of hell, we of their loins cannot touch the sunlight. It has taken centuries of research, through which Torin was conceived and birthed—”
“What does he have to do with opening a portal to hell?” I demanded.
“Bring the sacrifice,” Arrius ordered.
“Sacrifice?” My voice squeaked as the sound of chains rattling echoed from the tunnel to my right. I turned my head at the same time as everyone else. Two tall, broad shouldered vampires came out of the darkness, dragging behind them a prone, unconscious body. The chains they pulled the body with shook and jangled together.
“Jesus fuck,” Mav murmured.
“No.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. No. This couldn’t happen again. I couldn’t be tied down and forced to watch this. I wouldn’t. I jerked against my chains, watching as the two behemoths dragged Torin’s body to the center of the circle and dumped him there.
“Only the blood of a creature of hybrid origins will suffice to open the portal,” Katalin explained, her voice quieter somehow than the rushing of blood in my eardrums.
“You can’t do this.” I shook my head back and forth. “No. You can’t. I won’t let you.”
“If it’s just blood,” Mav tried to barter, “then you don’t have to kill him.”
Arrius laughed at that, which prompted everyone else in the room, all of the men and women in robes—save for Katalin who didn’t even crack a grin—to laugh with him. “This is what Torin’s purpose is, young man,” Arrius said when he’d calmed. “What use is he without a purpose?” Though he’d asked the question, it was clear he neither expected nor desired an answer. He snapped his fingers at Katalin. “Back in line, dear. We must complete the circle for Esperanza to begin.”
“Wait!” I screamed, leaning forward as Katalin moved a step back. “He’s your brother—practically your son! You raised him. You can’t do this to him.” As I pleaded, I could have sworn I saw true empathy in her eyes. Or at least something. Even as bloody crimson as her irises were, there was a flash of hazel—there and then gone in the next instant, so quickly I could’ve imagined it. But I didn’t want to think that it was just a figment of my imagination. I needed it to be real. “Please.” I felt tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. “You have to feel something.”
“I have not felt since I was killed and brought back into this life as a creature of darkness,” Katalin deadpanned.
“I was turned,” I argued. “I still feel.”
“I am truly sorry,” she said. “If things could be different, I swear to you, I would make them so, but I cannot. I hope you take comfort in knowing that you will not live long in this life without the presence of your mate. I had hoped he would kill you before, but now I am grateful. Grateful that he found love before it was too late.”
“No!” But Katalin wasn’t listening anymore. She turned and stepped into the circle even as I fought against my bindings. I turned my focus on Esperanza as she stood before Arrius. “Esperanza! You’re strong. You’ve taught all of us everything we know. You can’t let this happen.”
Esperanza lifted her cloudy gaze to meet mine. “I am already doomed, child. Trust me, it is far too late to fight this. It has been set in motion since Torin’s birth.”
“I refuse to fucking believe that,” I snapped. “We are not born into this life just to die. There is more to it all than that. There has to be.”
“There is.” The surprising assurance came from the least likely person in the room. Arrius, himself. I lifted my head as the tears began to escape and slide down my cheeks. I felt my skin split around my wrist where I tried to free myself. I yanked and jerked, the lines of blood running down my inner forearms. Arrius quirked a grin my way, a gentle sort of expression on his face. Objectively, the most terrifying thing ab
out him was his looks—handsome, youthful, gentle even as he was planning to slaughter his son. “Life and death are both the same—they’re both about power,” he said. “And I will have it all.”
I shook my head, but with that statement, he was obviously done with explaining things to us. “Barbie…” I turned my gaze downward to Torin’s pale face. It was clear that they’d already done something to him. He was paler than he’d ever been, one side of his face growing a mottled purple. Black lines tracked up his forearms as if his veins were filled with some horrible tar-like substance. His dry lips parted, the skin splitting. No blood emerged, though.
His eyes met mine. I opened my mouth—to do what, I didn’t know. To say what, I still didn’t fucking know. There was something on his face, a message I didn’t want to read because it felt too much like a goodbye and I wasn’t fucking ready for that. I’d never be ready to say goodbye to him.
Esperanza began speaking with a low voice. The words were not in any language I knew. The men and women in robes surrounding us mimicked the things she said, their voices rising in volume. I kept my gaze locked on Torin’s.
It was as if he was trying to say something that was guaranteed to break my heart. As if he were trying to say, I should’ve kissed you far more and far longer. The words were whispered in my mind, a connection from him to me a split second before that opening was severed.
I screamed as Torin’s body convulsed and fire licked up his limbs, blackening his skin. Chains rattled as both Maverick and I tried to tear ourselves from the rocky wall. I could feel the heat blazing off of Mav’s body as he snarled. His skin turned a dark golden yellow, scales forming along his arms as his muscles bulged. A moment later and the sound of his clothing tearing filled the air. Yet, still, the manacles holding us back did not crack.
The thing about broken hearts, I realized, was that in the process of breaking—they turned their possessor into someone of incredible strength. Someone able to do anything. Even if it meant dying.
