Born to Darkness Box Set

by Evangeline Anderson

  “Go on. Nobody’s keeping you,” I told him.

  “Right. Okay, see you.” Victor nodded at all of us and walked out the door, leaving the little room feeling strangely empty without his animal energy.

  “Well, that went better than expected.” Corbin clapped his hands together and turned to Taylor. “My apologies, Taylor, for Lucinda’s rude words. I thought it would be the best way to get Roderick to redirect his attentions.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, Master. Everything she said was true.” Taylor looked like she might cry—if she had enough blood left in her system to do so, that was. “May I go?” she asked in a low voice.

  “I’ll go with you.” I hurried to her and put an arm around her waist. “You look like you’re about a quart low,” I told her. I looked at Corbin. “I know you don’t want me feeding her but can’t you send in someone to give her a little blood? She can’t live on the bagged stuff forever.”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid that now Taylor is bound to Victor, he is the only one she can drink from.”

  “What?” I shook my head in disbelief. “But…what kind of a rule is that?”

  “It’s not just a rule—it’s a biological imperative,” Corbin said. “For the next three months until the Laws of Ownership are satisfied, she will be physically ill if she drinks from anyone but him.”

  “You bastard,” I snapped. “You did this on purpose to keep me from feeding her.”

  He frowned. “I admit the fact that Taylor would be unable to drink from you crossed my mind but that was not the main reason I bound her to Victor.” He nodded at the doorway. “Roderick was.”

  “But now she’ll die of thirst,” I protested.

  “Nonsense.” Corbin frowned. “The blood from the chalice will sustain her for a few days until Victor returns to claim her. And wouldn’t you rather see her go thirsty for a little while rather than being abused?”

  He had me there but I was still upset about the sneaky, underhanded way he’d kept me from helping my friend.

  “It’s all right, Addison,” Taylor murmured, giving me a pale smile. “I’ll be fine.”

  I didn’t see how she would be but there was nothing I could do about it now.

  “Come on,” I told her. “Let’s get you back to your little cubby. Maybe you can lie down and get some rest.”

  “Sounds good to me.” She nodded at Corbin. “Good night, Master. And thank you for protecting me.”

  Corbin looked troubled. “I have done the best I could for you given the short amount of time I had to work in, Taylor. I hope you will be happy.”

  “I’m sure I will be,” Taylor murmured unconvincingly.

  “Come on,” I said again, steering her toward the door.

  “Addison.” Corbin’s voice made me turn my head to see him standing there, frowning.

  “What, Master?” I said, not bothering to hide my sarcasm.

  “You may spend some time with your friend but I need you by my side when Roderick finishes his business with Lucinda.” He looked at me sternly. “See that you are there.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” I told him. “I’ll be there all right. I wouldn’t miss the end of our business relationship for anything.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Addison, you and I were doing so well for a while but we seem to have returned to our original animosity.”

  Corbin was leaning back behind his desk when I walked into his office after tucking Taylor into her tiny, narrow cot. Apparently, either Roderick was already finished having sex on his desk, or he and Lucinda had chosen another place to do the nasty.

  “Yeah, well, I tend to get a little hostile when someone kicks me out of their place and then arranges for my best friend to be married to a werewolf,” I snapped.

  “Victor is a little rough around the edges,” Corbin conceded. “But he is very powerful and extremely protective as well. He won’t let Taylor come to any harm.”

  “I guess…” I looked down at my hands. “I guess I can see your point about that. I just…I worry about Taylor so much. I feel responsible for her because it’s my fault she was turned in the first place.”

  “Oh? How so?” Corbin looked interested.

  I told him briefly about going to see Celeste’s show with Taylor, how I had been warned to keep an eye on her but had left her alone to go to my class.

  “If I hadn’t left her, if I had stayed there—”

  “You would be dead,” Corbin said flatly. “Darling, do you really think Celeste would have allowed you to get in the way of having the one she wanted? She would have killed you and taken Taylor anyway.” He came around the desk in one of those sudden, faster-than-light vampire movements that still took my breath away. “Addison,” he said, looking into my eyes. “It is time to let Taylor live her own life.”

  “It’s just that her life has been so crappy lately.”

  I wanted to cry when I thought of everything my poor friend had been through. Between being turned against her will, Celeste’s abuse, the horrific sexual torture Roderick had put her through, and being forced into an arranged marriage, her life hadn’t exactly been all roses and rainbows for the past few years.

  “She will be all right.” Corbin took my hands in his and looked at me earnestly. “She is stronger than you think, darling.”

  Immediately my heart began to pound.

  “What…what are you doing?” I muttered, looking down at my small hands clasped gently but firmly in his much larger ones.

  “I am trying to apologize. To “make up” as you humans say.” He ducked his head slightly to look in my eyes. “I am sorry I asked you to leave last night, Addison. I was feeling…” He shook his head and gave a rueful laugh. “Well, what does it matter how I felt? The point is, I felt. Do you know how long it has been since I have had true, genuine emotions for another person?”

  “Vampires don’t feel?” I shook my head. “But Taylor—”

  “Is still much more human than vampire in many ways and so her emotions are much closer to the surface. But a vampire can, if he or she wishes, bury their emotions to the point of almost not having them at all.” He looked at me seriously. “Mine were buried for centuries…until I met you.”

  “But…why me?” I asked, shaking my head. “Is it just because I look like Janet?”

  “You don’t, except for your hair. No, it was your attitude. Your fierce temper and your refusal to be afraid of me.”

  “I’m an Auditor,” I pointed out. “That’s my job.”

  “And yet you are the first who wasn’t afraid to do that job. Do you remember the first moment we met? I do.” Corbin laughed softly. “The first time you ever inspected me. You were looking for problems at the Fang and couldn’t find any. So you demanded to see my liquor license and when you found it to be two days out of date, you gave me the highest fine possible and tried to shut me down.”

  “I remember,” I grumbled. “I still don’t know how you got out of that one.”

  “Not without considerable trouble and expense.” Corbin smiled. “Any other Auditor might have given up but not you—you were determined to make me pay.”

  “I want them all to pay,” I whispered, looking down. “To pay for what happened to Taylor.”

  “But I am one of them,” Corbin said softly. “And unless I am very much mistaken, you no longer hate me quite as much as you did.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, looking up at him. “But that doesn’t change what we are. Doesn’t change the fact that you’re a vamp and I’m human.”

  “I could bind you to me with blood,” Corbin murmured. “It would make you more durable. Love between us would be much less risky.”

  “But still completely illegal. And it would tie us together forever and make me practically immortal,” I pointed out with a frown.

  Predictably, Corbin shrugged off the illegal part.

  “What is wrong with being immortal?”

  “Nothing except you have to watch
your entire family get older and older and die all around you,” I said. “And what do I tell people at work when they ask why I’m not aging? My superiors will know right away what’s going on—fraternizing with the enemy will get you kicked off the force. I might as well hand in my badge right now if I let you bind me to you.”

  “What was it you did before you decided to harass my kind for a living?” Corbin asked. “I thought you said you were getting a degree in some kind of literature.”

  “I was.” I looked away. “I never did finish my dissertation, though.”

  “Finish it then,” he urged gently. “Give up your grudge against vampires and go back to doing what you truly love. You can’t tell me you really enjoy the endless inspections, the gory crime scenes, the executions…”

  To tell the truth, I didn’t enjoy any of it. In fact, lately I just about loathed it but I wasn’t about to admit that to Corbin.

  “So, what—I’m supposed to give up my job to become your good little wife?” I demanded, pulling my hands out of his. “You’ll put me up in a sweet penthouse somewhere in the city and visit me whenever you want to fuck?”

  Corbin frowned. “You know it would not be like that, Addison. You could live with me—or I with you. Provided you don’t mind me making some modifications to your house. I must have a light-tight place to stay during the daylight hours.”

  For one crazy moment, I actually let myself consider it. There was no denying that there was something between us. But was that electric spark I felt every time he touched me enough to give up my job, my family…basically my entire life? Also, I had spent the past six years upholding the laws that separated vamps and humans in the most basic and vital way. Was I really going to throw all that time in the toilet and jump the fence? Was I willing to live with Corbin and take the chance every single time we made love that he wouldn’t lose control and kill me? After all the horrible, gory crime scenes I had been witness to?

  Was I crazy?

  “No,” I said at last with a sigh. “No, I’m sorry, Corbin. I’ll admit there’s something between us. We have…really good chemistry. But I can’t give up my life and everything it stands for just to be with you.”

  “And this is your final decision?” He looked at me, his silver-blue eyes serious and infinitely sad. “Think, Addison…really consider before you refuse to give me your heart. A love like this doesn’t happen very often—for me it has happened only twice in four hundred years. I lost my first love—I don’t intend to lose you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, forcing the words out around the lump that had somehow formed in my throat. “But I can’t. Please…just let me go.”

  “I will, for now.” He stroked a strand of hair out of my eyes and tucked it behind my ear in a gesture of tenderness that made my eyes sting. “But I refuse to give up. I love you, Addison. If you’ll only give me a chance, I will prove it.”

  “Prove what? My, my—do excuse me. I hope I haven’t interrupted a tender scene.”

  We both turned to see Roderick standing in the doorway, smirking.

  Asshole, I thought, looking at him. I reached automatically to my side and then remembered I didn’t have my gun with me that night—Corbin had insisted that I leave it in his private bathroom after the incident the night before. Considering how badly I wanted to shoot the vampire Inquisitor, it was probably a good thing.

  “Ah, Roderick.” Corbin inclined his head to the other vamp. “How good of you to join us. I trust Lucinda was satisfactory?”

  “She was…until I accidentally broke her.” Roderick said it in such an offhand way it took a minute to sink in.

  Corbin’s face darkened. “What exactly do you mean?”

  Roderick shrugged. “She was paying the Crimson Debt and I got rather…carried away. You’ll find her in the dumpster out behind your establishment—what’s left of her, anyway.”

  I stared at him, uncomprehending. I had plenty of experience with vamps who S and F-ed their human lovers to death but I had never heard of one vampire doing it to another. Considering how strong they all were, even the fledglings, it must have taken unimaginable strength to kill the hapless Lucinda. The poor girl must have been ripped limb from limb and probably decapitated as well.

  “That’s horrible,” I whispered.

  “It is despicable.” Corbin took a step toward the other vampire, his face white with rage. “How dare you kill one of my people? Especially one who simply wanted to entertain and service you?”

  “Oh, she did both before she met the true death—never fear about that.” Roderick laughed, a very ugly sound. “She served her purpose and I disposed of her—just as I will dispose of you, Corbin, if you displease me.”

  “Lucinda had only one star to her credit—I have four. I think you will find me considerably more difficult to kill,” Corbin growled. “I challenge you, Roderick—you will pay for what you’ve done.”

  Roderick’s eyes gleamed greedily. “By all means, please do make a formal challenge. I will be happy to annex your little territory when you are gone. And I will take Taylor and your human consort with me to court. The Empress will love that—you can imagine how popular human Auditors who attempt to control our kind are with her.”

  Corbin’s eyes blazed. “How dare you threaten my consort?”

  “You mean the one not actually bound to you? The one who is technically still available to any male strong enough to take her?” Roderick turned his greedy gaze on me and showed his fangs. I felt my stomach turn over. Oh God, was he serious?

  “You will never have her.” Corbin put me behind him and seemed to grow larger. “Listen to me, Roderick, you may be strong enough to best me but if you attempt to take her, I will not hesitate to sacrifice for your death!”

  “You would do that—for a mere human?” Roderick shook his head. “That is most surprising, Corbin.”

  “Nevertheless it is true,” Corbin growled. “Try me if you don’t believe I’m sincere.”

  “No, no, that won’t be necessary.” Abruptly, Roderick retracted his fangs and went from menacing to mild. “I refuse your challenge, Corbin. I think we have had enough bloodshed for one night.”

  “Is that what you think?” Corbin asked angrily. “Now that you have had your fill of bloodletting you wish to go back to your inspection?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Roderick shook his head. “I grow tired of this stupid little town. Simply show me the tribute you have prepared and we will call it a night, as the humans say.”

  I held my breath, waiting to see if Corbin would take the offer. He was still clearly very angry over Lucinda’s brutal murder but I knew that under vampire law, there was nothing he could do about it. Vamps are like lions on a savanna—the strong take from the weak. He could, of course, renew his challenge but if Roderick took him up on it this time and killed him, everything Corbin had and all the people who depended on him would belong to the Inquisitor.

  I tried to look at Corbin objectively. Could he take Roderick in a fight? He was incredibly strong and fast but the other vamp had two centuries on him, which made him stronger and faster. I had the sense that Corbin would have fought him anyway—even if it meant certain death—if no one else had been involved. But the idea of everyone he cared for being handed over to Roderick to torment and torture like a cruel cat playing with mice deterred him.

  “Corbin?” I murmured after a long silence.

  He sighed and looked back at me. I saw that his eyes had gone from silvery-blue to blood red. “I wish you were not here, my darling,” he murmured in a low, hoarse voice. “I wish you were somewhere far away and safe. But since you are not…”

  “Corbin? The tribute, please.” Roderick sounded bored. “I do not have all night.”

  Corbin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Gradually his eyes went from deep red back to their usual silver-blue.

  “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll get it.”

  Removing a key from the upper right
drawer, he used it to unlock a small closet to one side of his bookcase.

  “Behold,” he said, bringing out a delicate porcelain vase with a wide bottom and a long, narrow opening. It was creamy white with a deep blue Chinese dragon curling around it and flowers of the same color dotting its sides.

  I gazed at it in wonder. “Is that…?”

  “A vase from the late Ming Dynasty,” Corbin said. He placed it carefully on his desk and looked at Roderick. “It was both expensive and difficult to acquire—I trust it meets your expectations as a tribute,” he said flatly.

  “Nice. Very nice.” Roderick came forward and examined the vase carefully. “You know my passion for beautiful things, Corbin.”

  “And for breaking them, apparently,” I murmured but Corbin gave me a warning glance and I shut up. Somehow I sensed we were still in dangerous territory here. No matter how meek and mild Roderick was acting, he still had something up his sleeve.

  “Well,” he said, smiling at both of us. “I guess I’ll be going now. Oh, except for one last thing.”

  “And what might that thing be, Roderick?” Corbin growled.

  “A small detail only—a tiny request I’m certain you won’t mind granting your royal Inquisitor.” Roderick’s eyes gleamed. “I simply wish to see a demonstration of your skill.”

  “What skill?” Corbin folded his arms over his broad chest and frowned.

  “The one you boast of so often, of course. Your ability to fuck your human consort without breaking her—as I so regrettably broke the lovely Lucinda.”

  “What?” I exclaimed before I could stop myself. “You’re demanding to watch us—”

  “Fuck. That’s right, my dear.” Roderick smiled coldly. “And before you refuse, Corbin, please know that I am ready to take you up on your offer of a formal challenge if you prefer.”

  “Neither my consort nor myself are whores,” Corbin said coldly. “We do not perform for an audience.”

  “You will tonight.” Roderick showed his fangs. “If you do not prove to me that you have been telling the truth, that this human woman truly is attached to you as your consort, then I will be forced to think everything you have said to me is a lie. At that point I will either kill you in challenge and take her back to court to serve as the Empress’s plaything…or I will go and return with a full retinue of her majesty’s private guards.”