Taken by the Others

by Jess Haines

  Please, do something, help me stop this. It’s not supposed to be this way!

  Distantly, very distantly, the belt whispered an answer. I’d never heard it sound so quiet and afraid before. ‘This isn’t something I can help you fight. The charm won’t protect you from this. You’re bound to him.’

  “No! Oh, God, no!” I cried, my voice gone thin and reedy with shock and fear. I hadn’t meant to say those words aloud but I couldn’t help it. Bound? I wasn’t supposed to be bound to anybody! That meant he could bend me to his will, use me like those people I’d seen at the police station so many months ago, straining against the handcuffs binding them to their chairs as they cried and screamed for their dead vampire master.

  Those soft hands caressed my face, thumbs lightly brushing along my cheeks to wipe away my tears.

  “Hush,” he said, that pleasant voice teasing at my senses. “Open your eyes, Shiarra. Look at me.”

  I tried to fight it. I didn’t want to open my eyes.

  But I had to.

  I practically melted at the sight of his soft smile, seeing he wasn’t angry. He cared for and loved me. Why was I supposed to be fighting this? He backed away a few steps, and I surged toward him, crying out as those cruel hands tightened on my arms, keeping us apart.

  Some tiny voice in the back of my mind was screaming, but it was easy to ignore.

  “You won’t hurt me again, will you, pet?”

  I shook my head, not trusting my voice. Was he angry with me for hurting him? It was accidental, like his hurting me before was accidental. I never should have touched him, not like that. He never meant to hurt me before. I was sure of it. That smile–I’d give anything just to see that smile of his one more time.

  “Your scent is different. Muted somehow. Underneath it, it’s like you’re healthy,” he murmured, regarding me with some wariness. “Humans don’t heal that quickly. Explain.”

  “I have this perfume. A mage gave it to me. He says it’s supposed to make me smell less like food to vampires.” I rushed the words out, wanting to please him. He needed to know I wouldn’t use it to hurt him. Not now. At his thoughtful nod, I continued. “The hunters who came to save me gave me a transfusion to help me get better faster from when … from before.”

  I faltered, not wanting to talk about being bitten. The thought still frightened me, even with the haze of adoration I had for him.

  “Come to me.”

  As soon as John and the other vampire released me, I flung myself into Max’s open arms. He’d keep me safe. He’d make the others stay away and leave me alone. Tears of joy sprang to my eyes when he wrapped his arms around me. He wasn’t so mad at me after all. One hand lightly brushed through my hair, the other cradling me to his chest as he whispered so soft and endearing into my ear.

  “You’re mine now.”

  Chapter 28

  I’m not sure where we were once we reached the end of the tunnel. Truthfully, at the time, I didn’t care. Leaving the building was something of a blur. I don’t have any recollection of the interior except for the basement. I didn’t take note of my surroundings until much later, when I sat in the back of a car with John at the wheel and Max’s arm around my shoulder. I’d never felt so safe, so loved, or so needed before.

  A part of me–a very small part of me–knew I had to do something about my friends. A bit more knew I’d have to visit some revenge on John for his betrayal. Soon, but not now. For the moment, I was safe and happy where I was. The idea of leaving Max’s side was about as appealing as stepping barefoot on a slug.

  I thought about what was happening and what I was feeling. My analytical capabilities were, to some extent, functioning again. It was only when I looked into Max’s eyes that I became so enamored I couldn’t think of anything but him. Concentrating on anything else was hard, but without his eyes on mine, I could focus on more than just how much I wanted to please him.

  We were going to Royce’s main home here in the city. I hadn’t known he had more than one until John mentioned it in passing. Max was planning on taking charge of each location, one by one, and assimilating or destroying all of Royce’s existing servants. With Royce tied up at the police station, now was the perfect time to destroy the heart of his network of vampires here in New York City. Royce might be able to throw enough money and lawyer-speak at the cops for them to let him go later tonight, but by then it would be too late. Even if he found out about Max’s plan, he’d never be able to pool the resources he’d need to fend off what would be waiting for him when he got home.

  The only one of Royce’s friends who knew about John’s betrayal was me. Royce wouldn’t be expecting to be met by a whole crapload of bad guys when he came home to hide or sleep for the day. Or whatever it was vamps did while daylight still shone. He’d be off his guard and outnumbered.

  I was only half listening while Max and John discussed some details about divvying up Royce’s empire between them. John’s reward for his treachery was to take Royce’s place as master over the New York territories and to assume ownership of his holdings. As payment for putting him in charge, he would funnel money and other resources to Max in his hometown of Chicago.

  Hatred for John was building up from a slow simmer to a boiling froth. That backstabbing little shit had to die.

  Max’s fingers tightened on my shoulder. Maybe he felt my tension building. I forced myself to relax and conceived soul-warming thoughts about using the stakes riding at my hip to destroy that cowardly flunky’s withered husk of a heart.

  After a while, those images worked their way into words, soft though they were. ‘Don’t look into his eyes again. I can’t help you if you’re under his influence.’

  My breath caught in my throat as I realized all those thoughts of violence weren’t my own. It was the belt unhooking some of Max’s claws so I could fight back. I hadn’t meant to draw attention to myself, but Max shifted at the subtle change in my breathing, looking down at me. I fought the urge to look up and meet his eyes, instead keeping my head bowed and leaning into his arm. By resting my cheek against his chest, I had a great excuse not to look up and destroy this tenuous thread to sanity the belt was helping me build upon.

  Max’s voice cut through the silence, making my breath catch. It took a great deal of effort to fight off the urge to tell him everything I’d been thinking and beg forgiveness.

  “What is it, pet?”

  I tried to think of something, anything, to tell him. I fumbled for a second before stuttering out something that might sound like a plausible lie.

  “You’re planning on killing Royce. I don’t want him to die.”

  There. That was laced with enough truth that he might believe me. If Royce died, Max wouldn’t have any use for me anymore and my butt would be toast.

  I felt the rumble of laughter in his chest more than heard it. I suppressed a shudder.

  “It’s unavoidable. Don’t worry about it.”

  Once more, I forced myself to let the tension drain out of my muscles as he brushed his fingers through my hair. As much as I didn’t want it to be, his touch was soothing, comforting. If not for the gravity of the situation, I might very well have fallen asleep like that, curled in the protection of a psychotic elder vampire’s arms. The only thing that kept me awake was my recollection of what he’d told me about his plans, not just for Royce but for me as well. He wanted Royce to suffer the same pain as he’d made Max endure so many years ago. My role was to play their surrogate Helen of Volos.

  That meant Max planned on killing me.

  Even knowing that, I was drawn to him, had the urge to be near and to touch him. Felt safe in his arms.

  ‘Stop believing that bull and remember what he’s done to you. What he’ll do again when we get to Royce’s hideaway. You want to die like that? ‘

  My thoughts briefly skittered to the time when Max had thrown me to Peter–how it felt to have the life sucked out of me a few drops at a time while I lay pinned and helpless, unable to do a
damned thing about it–and when Max had bitten me just so Royce could hear all the terror and panic lacing my screams.

  It had hurt when Peter first bit down, but it didn’t take long for it to start feeling like I might simply die from the pleasure of it. Never mind the blood loss. Never mind that he and Max both had taken it from me by force. The intensity of something racing through my body, following the path of every vein and artery to its end, leaving behind a vicious desire and blissful longing for more, had done plenty to reinforce my belief that vampires lived up to their reputation as the most dangerous of the Others.

  If Max had kept going, I might not have minded dying in his arms after all.

  Trembling, I closed my eyes tight and projected my thoughts as hard as I could at the belt.

  No, I don’t want to die like that. I don’t want to die at all.

  That familiar laughter grated in my skull, stronger this time. ‘Good. You won’t. You’re a survivor, that’s what I like about you.’

  Yeah, a survivor. That explained why I always got into these life-threatening messes.

  Max’s voice disrupted my internal dialogue, though he wasn’t speaking to me this time. “How much longer?”

  “Another fifteen minutes or so,” John replied. “I arranged it so that the security team and most of the elders are out of the house. There’s only a couple of them I couldn’t get to leave without raising suspicion. Mouse is the only one who might give you trouble. She won’t be happy to see you.”

  I felt that low rumble of laughter in Max’s chest again. My fingers tightened on his suit lapel, wrinkling the expensive material.

  “That won’t be a problem. I can handle her.”

  “Okay. The others should be much easier to deal with.”

  I tried concentrating on the belt, ignoring the two vampires’ conversation as best I could. I questioned the most obviously burning issue first. Is there any way to get out of this alive? Any bright ideas?

  ‘We’ll have to roll with the punches,’ it responded. ‘Max will use his hold on you to keep you in line. The only way of avoiding that is if you do not look into his eyes and keep any physical contact with him to a minimum. If you can keep away from him, between me and the charm, you may be able to escape.’

  That was comforting. I contented myself with letting the belt feed me images of what I would do to John as soon as I managed a minute alone with him.

  A few minutes later, John interrupted my violent train of thoughts.

  “We’re here.”

  When I looked up, straightening from resting against Max, we were in a part of Midtown I wasn’t familiar with. I could see an entrance to Central Park down the street from where we’d parked, but I didn’t recognize the area.

  Royce’s property was a tidy, good-sized apartment building that looked more like a home for families with 2.5 kids and a dog than a vampire den. There were shade trees lining the street, and the building had an intricate black iron fence lined with roses and creepers. The brick façade was offset by white shutters and a large lobby extending from the front of the building. Oh, and the huge gathering of Max’s minions loitering in front of it.

  I never would’ve figured Royce as the type to live in such a domestic place. The location was spectacular; it was the building itself which didn’t fit my mental image of him. Maybe it was meant to be camouflage. I would’ve pegged him for a mansion on City Island, or maybe one of those Uptown high-rise penthouses with a view. Then again, considering his nature, too many windows could be dangerous.

  We were the last to arrive. One of Max’s underlings got the door for us. As we stepped out of the car, Max took my hand and led me to the front door. His other vampires and human flunkies were milling around on the sidewalk and in front of the house, some of them smoking, others leaning against nearby cars or trees. If there had only been a handful of them, they might have gone unnoticed, but with sixty or seventy people lounging around, it was impossible to call them inconspicuous.

  As one, they straightened up, falling into step behind us as Max and John led the way. My muscles seized up at the proximity of so many bad guys. Max had to tug on my hand a bit to keep me moving. He looked back at me, but I quickly turned my head to the side, sweeping my gaze over the crowd so I wouldn’t focus on him. The amusement in his voice grated on the few nerves I had left.

  “Don’t worry about them. You’ll be fine. Stay behind me when we get inside.”

  I nodded, doing my best not to show my uncertainty and keeping an eye on the people surrounding me. Despite my better sense, I found his words reassuring. Peter was in that mess somewhere. Nicolas was right behind me, looking grumpy and hurt. The bandage forced him to squint one eye, making his face seem lopsided. I didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for him.

  John unlocked the front door. We stepped into an enormous foyer with hardwood floors and no windows. A small end table by the door held wire baskets, each one labeled with a name, some with envelopes or papers in them. I spotted John’s name, then Royce’s. The sheer number of what I now recognized as mail baskets made my skin crawl. That was an awful lot of vampires for one building.

  Beyond the foyer was a hallway leading deeper into the building. There were a number of doors–apartments, I assumed–and a stairwell at the far end. It was all illuminated by lamplight, with no windows to let in the sun or fresh air. The musty odor of vampire was strong, but not as overwhelming as I’d expected. Someone had been baking cookies; the sweet scent nearly succeeded in drowning out the smell of vampire.

  Max held up a staying hand as we filed inside, waiting just inside the hall. Before long, a short woman with curves like an hourglass and intense dark brown eyes stepped out of the apartment across from the stairwell.

  When she bared her teeth in silent warning, I pegged her as a vampire. She didn’t match my idea of what one should look like. With her long brown hair threaded with a few streaks of white and her diminutive stature, she looked more like a gracefully aging soccer mom than a bloodsucking creature of the night. She should’ve been leading a Girl Scout troop or something, not baring dainty little fangs and twisting those beatific features into something bestial. Hell, maybe the smell of cookies was her doing–the scent wafting from her apartment made me wonder.

  Anyway, she didn’t look surprised to see us. Just really, really pissed off.

  “Ah, Mouse. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of your company,” Max said, releasing my hand as he approached her. “You didn’t think Alec would be able to protect you from me forever, did you?”

  The woman glared at him with eyes shifting to the eerie red of agitation, but said nothing. The one-fingered salute she gave him made me like her more. She ducked back into the room in a swirl of skirts, and Max gave chase. I hesitated before trailing after John, Nicolas, and the handful of vampires following in his wake.

  The living room of the apartment was large and open, with minimal furniture and massive bookshelves covering the far wall from floor to ceiling. My jaw dropped when I saw the wall decorations nearer the door weren’t more bookshelves or framed pictures or anything of the sort. There were swords and daggers of all kinds bracketed to the walls, hanging from every last inch of available wall space.

  By the time I arrived, Max had lost the suit jacket and snagged a longsword off the wall. He was facing off against the petite female vamp. She’d picked up a slender blade that looked something like a bigger, meaner version of Zorro’s rapier, with a smaller, thicker blade in her other hand. There were so many weapons on the wall that I couldn’t even see where the missing ones had come from.

  There was some shouting and a couple of gunshots coming from the hall, but I couldn’t go back to check it out with so many people blocking the way. I resigned myself to being a bystander in Max’s fight, drawn into it despite myself.

  The difference in their styles was immediately apparent. Both vampires were excellent sword fighters, but they were using weapons from different periods
and geographic locations. Max was confident with his greater reach, sure in his blows, driving the woman back and working to disarm her. His tactics made it obvious that he didn’t want her dead.

  I watched in slack-jawed amazement as she countered him, strike for strike, getting past his guard a couple times to nick his arms. Her methods made it abundantly clear she wasn’t content with disarming him. She would kill him if she could.

  “You remember what it was like, don’t you? We had such fun, you and I.” Max’s voice was smooth, taunting, and sounded way too much like Royce for my peace of mind. He was deliberately goading her. “We can play again. Just stop fighting, and it will all go so much easier for you.”

  She bared fangs at him, reddened eyes narrowing to dangerous slivers. It looked terribly wrong to see a monster peering out of that sweet face. Her blows rained faster as his mocking laughter urged her into a fit of rage. Even with the assistance of the belt, I could tell I would never, ever survive a swordfight with either one of these vampires. They were moving so fast, I couldn’t follow it; all I saw was a blur of flashing steel. Somehow they were countering each other, blow for blow, sparks flaring up as their swords connected.

  All of a sudden, Max dove forward. Furniture was shoved unceremoniously out of the way as they collided and tumbled across the room, still moving at hyperspeed. They ended up by the kitchen with Max’s sword buried deep in the woman’s stomach, ruining her khaki-colored riding blouse as he pinned her to the ground.

  The sword she’d been using skittered harmlessly across the floor when he kicked it out of her hand. At the same time, she drove the dagger upward until it was buried in his thigh. Max howled in rage and pain, staggering back.

  Only then did I notice that, though her mouth opened and closed, no sound escaped except the wheezing of air in and out of her lungs. Mouse was a mute vampire? Interesting. Her name suddenly made sense. Quiet as a mouse.

  I felt like I should do something, not just stand around watching on the sidelines. John must have figured out I was considering doing something stupid. He put a restraining hand on my shoulder, tugging me closer to the door. He flinched at my hateful glare, but didn’t let go. A low sound quickly drew my attention back to Max and Mouse.