Scions: Resurrection

by Patrice Michelle

  What have I done?

  Ariel slit her eyes open and started to sit up when she realized she had no clothes on underneath the soft comforter covering her. Worry made her tremble all over. She gingerly lifted and moved her legs under the covers until she confirmed she felt no pain between her thighs. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t violated her.

  He sat with his back to her, watching the projector screen. Her pulse racing, she put one foot on the floor and started to slowly inch her way out of the bed. The bedside lamplight reflected on something shiny on the foot of the bed. She paused.

  A pair of scissors.

  Her heart leapt in fear and then elation. She had a weapon. When she leaned forward and gripped the scissors, she was surprised her shoulder only throbbed a little.

  “Cut it.” The man’s low voice floated across the room.

  A soft gasp escaped her lips at the knowledge he hadn’t even turned yet knew she was awake. “Wh-what do you mean?”

  He stood and turned to face her. “Cut your hair or I’ll do it myself.”

  Ariel didn’t know what she’d expected her kidnapper to look like, but seeing his face in full light for the first time stunned her.

  With his tall height, broad shoulders surrounded by a black T-shirt and jeans hugging trim hips, the man looked imposing, but he didn’t appear the monster she expected. Instead his clean-shaven angular features and short wavy hair made him look just as human as she. Only the jagged scar on the side of his neck gave an appearance of roguishness.

  He might look handsome in a dangerous, bad-boy sort of way, but she knew different. The man had kidnapped her and he’d assassinated that drug dealer. He was a murderer, even if he didn’t look the part.

  She swallowed the knot in her throat, but she had to know what he really was. “Are you a vampire?”

  His gaze narrowed. “What do you think?”

  “The things you did were…inhuman.” She paused, then continued, her voice stronger than she felt, “Vampires are extinct.”

  “Are they?” A deadly smile spread across his face.

  The sight of his fangs sent a cold chill down her spine, spurring her into action. Heedless of her naked state, she leapt from the bed and bolted across the room, heading for the only door she’d seen.

  When she glanced back to see if he’d pursued her and couldn’t locate him, her heart rate doubled. Where had he gone? She quickly returned her gaze to her destination only to find the man now stood in her path.

  Ariel was moving so fast she didn’t have time to stop herself. She ran right into her captor.

  Her heart stuttered and her stomach roiled. Such close proximity to a vicious, bloodsucking vampire made her shudder in fear, but she refused to be murdered like her family.

  Ariel lifted the scissors, ready to jam them into the man’s jugular.

  He gripped her wrist at the same time his other arm went around her waist, holding her naked body prisoner against him.

  “Why am I here?” She’d never been more terrified in her life.

  His intense gaze searched her face. “Because you wrote a book.”

  Even though relief spread through her when his fangs receded, Ariel’s eyes still widened at his comment. “It’s a work of fiction, nothing more.”

  His dark gaze narrowed. “The characters may be fictional, but the rest is very real, from the truth that vampires aren’t extinct down to the prophecy at the end of your novel.”

  Horror spread through her, light-headedness its swift companion. She blinked to keep from passing out. “Are you saying the vampires will be returning?”

  “Tell me the prophecy, word for word.”

  She bit her lip, hesitating. The man was delusional.

  “Tell me,” he roared, his fangs extending once more in his anger.

  Ariel’s voice quivered as she recited the verses she’d written at the end of her book. Verses that had popped into her head as she had written the story.

  “‘A human will speak of our demise. Her purity and intelligence will help us survive. A mate she becomes to the leader of vampires, joining our races, fulfilling our ultimate desire.’”

  When her voice trailed off, his jaw tensed and his grip tightened around her. “I want to know the rest of it.”

  She licked her dry lips, then spoke the next line. “‘The hunted becomes the hunter, no longer the prey. An enemy—’”

  “‘In your midst is less dark, more gray,’” he interrupted, finishing the rest of the line for her.

  Ariel’s eyes widened in shock, but sheer curiosity had her continuing the next line, her voice growing stronger. “‘Examine your failures and there you will find…’” She paused and waited to see if he knew the rest.

  “‘The answer to all your questions in time.’” He completed the line with a satisfied expression on his face.

  “You—you read my mind,” she insisted, her entire body trembling against him. It wasn’t possible for him to know what even her editor hadn’t seen.

  His grip loosened on her wrist and he ran his thumb along her rampant pulse. “No. It is as you stated…every word. Only the man who prophesied this died before he could finish the last part of prophecy. I need to know the rest.”

  Ariel shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  His hold on her wrist tightened and his dark gaze blazed. “Lies!”

  For a few brief seconds Ariel had tried to convince herself she was talking to a human man, but the truth was…a horrific monster—one that had likely participated in forging a murderous path among humans twenty-five years ago—simmered just below the surface. She had to remember that. Her entire body began to quake.

  Shaking her head in frantic jerks, she tried to keep the terror from her voice. She knew vampires got off on humans’ fear, could smell it like a cloying cologne. “I…truly don’t know. I wasn’t lying to that newscaster. The next story hasn’t come to me yet…and neither has the last part of the prophecy.”

  “You must—” the man began, then cut himself off and tilted his head as if listening. Snarling, he ripped the scissors from her hand and threw them across the room, where they embedded deep in a far wall.

  Ariel jumped at his mercurial show of rage, but she didn’t have time to react. The man grabbed her upper arm and snapped out orders at the same time an elevatorlike sound seemed to be heading toward them, resounding in the quiet room.

  “Gather your clothes. We have to move now.”

  She stood her ground, pulling against his hold. “You threw me through a window, for cripe’s sake. I’ll take the chance the police have finally found me. I’m not coming with you.”

  He jerked her close, his cold, dark eyes locking with hers, the odd blackness mesmerizing her.

  “Your book has stirred the sleeping beast. You’re being hunted, Ariel. I’m the least of your worries. Get your clothes and move!”

  His ferocity spurred her into action. Ariel gathered her dry, tattered clothes from the chair near the bed, then turned to the man for direction.

  He already had a backpack slung across his shoulder and was standing in front of the bookshelves. He pressed a button, and the entire bookcase slid out of the way to reveal an old, narrow, gated elevator.

  As he lifted the gate, Ariel decided to trust her instincts. He might’ve thrown her through a window, but she’d heard pulser fire and gunfire as she’d fallen toward the water. Had he tossed her through the window to protect her? The man could’ve killed her while she slept, but he hadn’t. No doubt he could murder with deadly accuracy, but right now this enemy she knew.

  She glanced toward the closed doorway in front of her, chest heaving. Without looking back again, she ran toward her captor, who stood in the gated elevator with a menacing look.

  As soon as she stepped into the elevator, he slammed the gate down. The bookcase door started to close at the same time their elevator began to descend.

  Ariel dropped her clothes, then stepped into her underwear and pants wit
h jerky movements. It wasn’t as though she had time to worry about modesty when her life was on the line, not to mention the man had already seen her completely naked.

  Pushing that unnerving thought away from her mind, she ignored her bra for brevity’s sake and tugged on her shirt, quickly buttoning it. Once she slipped her arms into her jacket, she jammed her feet into her loafers. When she finished dressing, she shoved her bra in her jacket pocket and glanced at the man beside her, realizing she had nothing to fear modesty-wise. He’d turned his back to her, his gaze focused on the closed door above their heads.

  An explosive boom jarred the elevator car so hard she fell to the floor. A wave of heat and fire rushed above their heads right before an ominous snapping sound punctuated the air.

  Two seconds later, the elevator jolted, then jerked as the cable above them broke. As the elevator plummeted toward the ground floor, a scream lodged in her throat.

  The man let out a deafening roar. “Stay down.” He moved with lightning speed that became a blur, hammering his fists against the cage’s sidewalls. Left, then right, then left, then right.

  While they built speed and momentum, his massive hits dented the metal frame, buckling the cage against the walls.

  Ariel covered her ears against the metal-against-metal’s ear-piercing, jaw-locking sound. In her squatted position, she shuffled her feet, moving closer to the middle of the elevator as sparks began to fly through the air.

  When the elevator finally came to a screeching, jarring stop at a tilted angle, she was slammed to the hard floor.

  Swallowing the huge lump in her throat, Ariel resisted the overwhelming urge to throw up at her most recent near-death experience.

  She took a deep breath and stood on shaky legs, thankful her shoes had rubber soles to keep her from sliding into her kidnapper as he pulled the damaged gate open with his bare hands.

  “We’re stuck between floors. We’ll have to take the stairs from here,” he said as he stood on his toes to pry open the metal elevator doors a couple feet above them.

  Ariel’s feet wouldn’t move. She shook her head and whispered, “I can’t do it.”

  His mouth tightened and his jaw ticced before he gripped her shoulders and turned her toward the open elevator doors. Grabbing her waist from behind, he said, “You will,” in a tone that brooked no argument as he lifted her in the air toward the opening.

  Suspended in the air, Ariel had little choice but to comply. Taking a calming breath, she gripped the floor above her. Her shoulders felt weaker than they normally did and her biceps strained as she tried to pull herself up. He gripped her rear and pushed her from behind, giving her the lift she needed.

  Ariel landed on the floor above with a loud umph. Realizing she had a couple of seconds of freedom before he followed her up, she stood and turned to bolt down the long, dark hall to her right.

  He grabbed her jacket and shirt from behind and hauled her back against his hard chest none too gently. “Going somewhere?” he growled in her ear.

  “Just out for a stroll,” she mumbled, feeling defeated.

  “We don’t have time for this,” he hissed, and a familiar firm grip slid around her upper arm.

  Pivoting to the left, he pulled her along beside him. She grimaced. Lord save me from my poor sense of direction.

  When they entered the stairwell and began to descend the metal stairs, gunfire echoed in the stairwell. Ariel screamed as cement-block powder rained down on their heads. Adrenaline spiked her breathing to heavy gusts.

  “Stay low and move!” He shoved her away from the guardrail and pulled a pulser gun from the holster strapped across his shoulder and chest.

  While he returned fire, she did as she was told. Heart pounding, she took the stairs as fast as her legs would allow. When she hit the last stair, her thighs burned and she panted so hard she thought her lungs were going to explode. So much for all that exercising to keep myself in shape. Then again, she never expected to have to run down several flights of stairs at a superhuman pace. Placing her hands on her knees, she took deep breaths to keep from hyperventilating.

  “Weak human,” the vampire grumbled as he lifted her bent-over frame and tossed her across his shoulder. After pulling the door open, he entered a garage and shut the door behind them. Firing his pulser gun several times against the door handle, he melted the metal to the frame.

  Only outside lampposts lit their path as he ran toward his vehicle. When he reached the back of a car, it beeped to indicate he’d unlocked it. Ariel had regained her breath enough to struggle against his shoulder. “You’re not shoving me in that trunk again.”

  “Should’ve cut your hair. The color stands out.” He lifted the trunk lid and dumped her inside in an unceremonious heap.

  “Bastard!” Ariel quickly recovered. She struggled to climb out of the trunk, but he put his hand on her head and shoved her down right before he closed the lid on her once more.

  As he started the engine and she hammered against the trunk lid, she realized the last time she was in his trunk she had been in a world of hurt. Her hand automatically moved to her shoulder, and she gently massaged the area where she could have sworn she’d had a nasty gash in her flesh from a stray bullet. Her fingers met firm skin. Bewildered, she wondered just how long she’d been knocked out.

  The car’s wheels squealed and she jerked hard against the back of the trunk as he made a quick turn. “Ow!” she yelled and then put her hands on the trunk lid to brace herself.

  After a good fifteen minutes had passed, the car went over a bump and her head slammed into the metal trunk floor. Gritting her teeth, Ariel decided she’d had enough. Determination fueling her actions, she hammered her fists against the metal above her.

  A few minutes later the car stopped and she thought she heard the car door open. Fear made her throat work, but no sounds came out. Ariel gritted her teeth at the paralyzing terror that gripped her. She had to get out of this trunk. Maybe her kidnapper had stopped somewhere public and there were people who might hear her.

  She began to bang on the roof of the trunk as hard as she could. “Help me! Someone please help me get out!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

  A few seconds later a loud sound pounded on the top of the trunk.

  She gasped at the noise and paused.

  “Stop!” the man barked, then continued in an even tone, “You need to take a nap.”

  Sudden exhaustion washed over her, making her limbs heavy. Ariel fought the darkness beckoning her, but her fists fell to her sides and her voice gave out, turning to a tired whisper.

  Shaking her head, she tried to recover, but she finally succumbed to the blackness enveloping her in a blanket of secure, sleepy warmth.

  Once Ariel finally settled, Jachin glanced up and down the dark, quiet street on the Upper East Side of town to make sure no one was about.

  Knowing he didn’t have a lot of time before the other vampires caught up with them, he dashed to the back of Roach’s house. The trip to the mountains shouldn’t take them long by car, but if something went wrong, he wanted to make sure he was covered for food while he traveled with the human. The more blood he lost in battle, the quicker his need for sustenance would return.

  He started to hammer his fist on the heavy wooden door, but it creaked open under his first blow.

  The hackles on Jachin’s neck rose. Roach always locked up.

  Broken glass crunched under his boots as he stepped into the entryway of the kitchen. A couple of the chairs were splintered into small pieces, and the heavy wooden table was turned on its side. Every single cabinet in the kitchen stood open, a couple only hanging by one hinge.

  He drew his weapon and stepped farther into the kitchen.

  A bloody handprint streaked the doorjamb leading into the rest of the house. Removing the safety on his gun, he pushed open the door that led to the supply of blood Roach kept.

  Blood caked the handle of the small stainless steel refrigerator underneath the cabi
net.

  Jachin jerked open the fridge to see no more blood remained. Only broken racks were left behind.

  Shit! No food. He stepped forward and glanced into the living room.

  Nothing.

  No one and no sign of trouble.

  The furniture in the living room appeared to be undisturbed. Jachin listened, and when he couldn’t detect a human heartbeat or hear anyone breathing, he knew.

  Roach was gone.

  Jachin slammed the refrigerator shut in frustration and kicked a dent in it.

  What had happened to Roach?

  Angry for wasting precious time, he gritted his teeth and rammed his fist through the door separating the kitchen from the living room.

  Shoving the broken door out of his way, Jachin left Roach’s house, his body tightly wound. He refused to acknowledge his concern for what might’ve happened to Roach…just as he refused to listen to the hunger in his gut whenever he looked at Ariel.

  Jachin opened the car door and slid into the front seat. Starting the engine, he put the car in gear and hit the gas pedal, ready to put as much distance between himself and the other Sanguinas as the sports car would allow.

  Ariel opened her eyes to pitch black, along with the rocking motion and the sound of a moving car underneath her. She had no idea how long she’d been out, but she refused to stay locked in the trunk’s confined space.

  Sliding her hands over the roof toward the back of the car, she felt blindly for a handle or a lever. When her fingers came into contact with a thin cloth strap, she pulled and smiled in satisfaction as the back of the trunk fell away, exposing the car’s backseat. Sheesh, why didn’t I think of this sooner?

  Once she’d climbed into the car’s tiny backseat, she was surprised to see it was still nighttime as she quietly shut the seat back. Placing her chin on the back of the driver seat, she asked in a casual tone as the vampire took the sports car to its full speed up a winding road, “Are you ever going to tell me your name? And where are you taking me?”

  At the sound of her voice his shoulders tensed. That was the only indication she’d taken him by surprise. In the dim interior, she met his narrowed gaze in the rearview mirror with a raised eyebrow, challenging him to deny her freedom.