Tempted by Blood

by Laurie London

  “Oh, Arianna’s alive, all right. I can feel her energy signature. In fact… Hold on.” Jackson jumped off the rocky outcropping and shadow-moved to the edge of the surf. The other Guardians followed him. He was positive she wasn’t far away. Not more than a few hundred yards offshore at most. He’d be willing to bet that if she was on an island, he’d be able to walk to it if there was minus tide.

  “Listen,” Mitch said, pointing. “I hear a boat coming from that direction. Do you see it?”

  They all turned and Jackson could just make out light bobbing up and down in the surf. It got closer and closer and then suddenly disappeared about two hundred yards offshore, though they could still hear the motor. “It went through the cloaking perimeter.”

  A moment later the motor cut.

  “We still don’t know if it’s a damn island or not,” said Santiago.

  “I’m guessing island,” said Dom.

  Jackson turned to Lily. “Can you tell if it’s Darkbloods on the boat?”

  Lily turned to face the direction of the sound. “Can’t tell. The wind is blowing in the wrong direction. Good thing Darkbloods have a shitty sense of smell, otherwise they might pick up our scent as it’s blowing straight at them.”

  “Hey, Kip,” Mitch said. “How good are you at detecting human scent?”

  Kip shrugged. “Decent, I guess. Why?”

  “Let’s you and me go see if we can find a boat nearby. Motorboat, rowboat, kayak. Doesn’t matter. If it’s motorized, we’ll row the damn thing in.” In a flash, they were gone, leaving Jackson, Lily, Dom and Santiago on the shoreline.

  Jackson yanked off his boots.

  “What are you doing?” Dom asked.

  “I’m swimming out there.” He unbuckled his guns and handed them to Lily, leaving his knives strapped to his body. “If they find a boat, bring them to me when you come ashore. I don’t want them submerged in the salt water.”

  “But you don’t know what you’re getting into,” Dom said.

  “It’s better than waiting around for Kip and Mitch to come back with a dinghy the size of a postage stamp. I can’t stand the thought that they have her and that she’s so close. I’ll swim out there and you join me when they come back with something. If I can, I’ll disable the cloaking device.”

  Dom started to say something else, but Jackson didn’t hear him as he dove into the surf, nor did his brain register that the water was frigid. With strong, even strokes, he cut through the water and in a few minutes he felt the electrical snap of the cloaking device, then was pulling himself up a steep cliff face.

  Lily was right, he thought as he peered up over the top of the rock. This appeared to be a small island just off the coast. He looked behind him and noticed two boats anchored in a small cove. From the pull of Arianna’s blood, he could tell she was somewhere inland, not out there.

  He hoisted himself up over the rock as he caught a whiff of Darkblood scent. Unsheathing his dragon blade, he crept toward the smell and saw a figure leaning against a tree, holding a pair of binoculars.

  Shit. If he’d come up twenty feet to the left of where he did, this asshole would’ve seen him for sure. As it was, the guy didn’t know what hit him.

  Jackson turned to look into the thick tree-covered interior of the island, not sure which way to go. “Arianna, I’m here,” he whispered into the salt air. “I’m coming for you.”

  Something stirred deep inside his chest, a sudden realization that hadn’t been there before, as if a part of himself had reached out and found what it was looking for.

  Jackson? Oh, please, let this be a sign that you’re near.

  Her voice was as clear in his head as if she were right here, whispering in his ear. “Arianna? Can you hear me?”

  Jackson?

  Yes, it’s me!

  Please, God, is my hopeful imagination conjuring his presence or could he really be here? I can feel him in my bones. Don’t let this be a hallucination.

  Arianna?

  Nothing.

  He repeated her name in his head and still didn’t get a response. Could he be hearing her thoughts but she couldn’t hear his? He stretched out his mental senses, imagining tiny sparks fanning out in all directions looking for her. A warm energy enveloped him.

  Jackson? Is that…is that you? I’m not delusional, am I? It’s like I’m feeling the heat from a fire I can’t see.

  Arianna, yes, it’s me. He pushed out to her again, more powerfully this time.

  Oh, my God, I…I feel it. It is you. Then, as if she was talking to herself, she said, I just knew he’d come, that he’d find me.

  Holy shit. It seemed as if he was hearing a mixture of messages meant for him as well as internal dialogue with herself. How was this even possible? Sure, he could feel her presence because of all her blood in his system, but her thoughts, too? Something nagged at the back of his head, like he’d heard of this happening before, but he didn’t have time to wonder.

  He knew she probably couldn’t hear him, since she’d never had any of his blood, but if “Tell me where you are” and “What do you know?” could be put into his stretched mental senses, he did his best to convey the messages.

  I knew in my heart of hearts you’d find me and that— Oh, a question? Okay, I’m guessing you want to know what the Darkbloods are planning and where I’m being held.

  She hesitated.

  As hard as he could, he pushed out, Yes!

  Holy shit, Jackson! That was intense. My arms are all goose bumpy. Okay, here’s what I know. He listened to her thoughts as she told him about the sweetbloods being held with her and described their location as being underground, maybe a mine shaft, with tracks down the center.

  Was there an old mine somewhere around here? A rail line? It certainly made sense that there was. In the 1800s, many of the islands were mined for limestone and coal, and timber harvested.

  Surely, a rail line would be easy to spot. He shadow-moved toward the cliff face again. Whatever it was they mined here, it would’ve been taken out on railcars and transported down to waiting ships. He guessed that the cove where the two boats were anchored was the only viable harbor on this tiny island. Sure enough, he spotted a gaping hole in the cliff supported by old timbers with a set of rails coming out of it.

  Would the cloaking-device panel be nearby? It made sense that it would be. He jogged along an overgrown path and when he rounded a corner, he came face-to-face with a Darkblood.

  How could he be so careless? And the guy was even talking on his phone. Jackson sidearmed the blade. It hurled through the air and landed with a thunk in the guy’s neck. In a flash, Jackson was on him. He grabbed the guy’s phone right before he buried the blade of another knife hilt deep in his chest.

  Had the lookout got off a warning to whomever he was talking to?

  “Ray, are you there? Ray? I didn’t catch what you said about—”

  He ended the call and quickly dialed Dom’s number. Mitch and Kip had returned with a small rowboat a few minutes after Jackson had left and the Guardians were already on their way out to the island. He told him what little he knew about the island’s layout, warning them about the two boats anchored in the cove.

  After working out a plan, he struck off again in search of Arianna, despite the fact that Dom had wanted him to wait.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ARIANNA WAS FLOORED that she’d been able to communicate with Jackson telepathically. Or at least she was fairly certain she was. This must be another strange vampire trick that he hadn’t told her about.

  She was about to tell the others not to give up hope, that maybe they would get out of this place, when she heard the scuffle of footsteps somewhere in the darkness. It came from a different direction than the two earlier Darkbloods h
ad.

  Jackson?

  She waited, hoping she’d sense him drawing closer. Nothing. A stab of panic shot through her. Could she have been hallucinating? Imagining Jackson’s warm presence and that he was coming to get them out of here? Why wasn’t he answering her? If this wasn’t Jackson, then it had to be another Darkblood. What did they want now? More sweetbloods? Were they returning the ones they took or were they coming for her?

  “Arianna? Where are you?”

  “Carter?” She craned her head around to see him ducking under the support timbers at the edge of the chamber.

  She wasn’t sure whether to be happy or leery. He seemed a little more agile than before, but, as she watched the slow, deliberate way he walked, she guessed he hadn’t been through the transformation process yet. But maybe this was a first step. Did the change not happen instantly? Maybe it happened over time.

  “Congrats on being able to ditch the cane,” she said drily when he stopped in front of her holding cell. “Looks like things paid off for you, didn’t they? I hope to hell it was worth it.”

  “Listen, Arianna, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for all this to happen.” He wrung his hands together and kept glancing behind him like he wasn’t supposed to be here.

  “Suddenly have a come-to-Jesus moment and feel guilty? What do you mean you didn’t mean for this to happen? It was an accident that you turned your friend over to bloodthirsty vampires, huh? That post to my blog was just a terrible mistake. You didn’t mean to flush me out, knowing I’d come to you for help.”

  Give me a stinking break.

  “Arianna, I—”

  “Or does this mean you only planned for some of it to happen? That you thought they’d just have one little sip of my blood, send me on my way and I’d be none the wiser? Did you think they just wanted a taste of Krystal’s sweetblood and then they’d let us go?”

  “This isn’t a game, Arianna. None of it was. I was desperate and didn’t think about anyone but myself, and for that, I’m sorry.”

  What a fool she’d been to listen to him over what George had been telling her. Carter was the real enemy. Not George. She clearly was a poor judge of character to have been fooled by him for so long.

  “What happened, Carter? Why’d you do it? I thought we were friends. And the last time I checked, friends don’t turn other friends over to vampires for them to be killed.”

  “You saw what was happening to me,” he said, grabbing a large skeleton key from his pocket and unlocking the cuff around her ankle. “My body was betraying me. I was a prisoner inside my own flesh.”

  Even in this low light, she could see that the dark circles under his eyes didn’t seem so pronounced and he was definitely more dexterous than when she’d last seen him. Before this, it would’ve taken him twice as long to put a key into a lock. “You’re looking better now.”

  “I’ve had a little of their blood, not enough to be anything but temporary. I won’t be completely healed until I go through the actual transformation process.”

  He spoke about it with the same kind of attitude as someone having cosmetic surgery. A little nip here, a little tuck there and you’ll be as good as new. Don’t mind your friends who died in the process. It was worth it because you’re better.

  “So did you come here to beg for my forgiveness before they kill me?”

  He couldn’t look her in the eye. “I’d been working at Xtark for several years, developing HG and designing the forums. They wanted me to code some weird crap into the game and that’s when I found out what they were. In exchange for my expertise, they promised to make me a changeling. The process heals the human body of many of its imperfections, so it was my only hope of a normal life again. But they kept coming up with excuses why they couldn’t do it. The day you saw me come off the elevators, I’d just been told that I didn’t have much more time as an able-bodied person. Soon, I’d have been confined to a bed, with tubes coming out of every orifice. I wouldn’t be able to piss or shit on my own.”

  He paused for her reaction. If he was looking for sympathy, he sure as hell wasn’t going to get it from her.

  “I couldn’t bear to think about that happening to me,” he continued. “I used to be so active, so in shape.” He patted his rounded midsection, which didn’t look all that different from that of many men his age. “Now look at me. I can barely walk the length of this room without stopping to catch my breath, wondering if my legs will collapse before I get to the other side. And that’s on a good day.”

  “While I sympathize with you, it doesn’t justify what you’ve done.”

  “I didn’t ask for this, Arianna.”

  “Neither did I.”

  He held out a hand, offering to help her out of her compartment.

  Ignoring it, she jumped down on her own. When she hit the stone floor, her knees almost buckled with the sudden weight and she caught herself on the wall just in time.

  “Give me the keys, Carter.”

  “But—”

  “If you think I’m leaving without the rest of these people, then you’re crazier than I thought.”

  “But you have to hurry. They have Krystal, and I’m not sure how long they’ll be here.”

  She suddenly couldn’t breathe and stumbled backward. That ruthless woman had Krystal?

  “That’s impossible. She—she wasn’t around here. Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I heard the Mistress say it was her. Dark hair, ringlets?”

  “How—how did they find her?”

  Arianna had been so careful with her cousin after finding out she was a sweetblood, and when her mother called, saying she was ready to have Krystal come back, Arianna didn’t hesitate. She was eager to get the girl out of the city.

  “When you didn’t tell Ventra where your cousin was, she sent Darkbloods to stake out your house.”

  “My house?” When Arianna was at the field office, Aunt Sue and Krystal decided to go to the house to pick up her things before heading over the mountains to the eastern part of the state.

  “Yes, and Ventra was very pleased. Let Elan give me a little of his blood. But, God, Arianna. Your cousin is so young. I had no idea.”

  “Ha. You think her age would’ve really made a difference had you known? I seriously doubt it, Carter, but you go ahead and tell yourself it would’ve if it makes you sleep easier at night.”

  He shrugged. “Come on. There isn’t much time.”

  “Why? What’s…going on?” She couldn’t verbalize what she knew they’d be doing to Krystal, let alone imagine the terror the girl had to be experiencing.

  “Guardians found us and Darkbloods are occupied with trying to keep them at bay on the other side of the compound. That’s why I was able to come here in the first place. Follow me. I’ll show you where there’s a rowboat you can take back to shore.”

  She hesitated, aghast. “I can’t leave without Krystal…or these people.”

  “You have to leave her. You can’t fight them on your own. Let the Guardians handle things. Besides, if they know I aided you, they may never change me. Unless…”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. “Unless what?”

  “Do you think your Guardian friends would transform me in exchange for helping you escape?”

  “So again, it’s all about you, isn’t it?” she asked, unlocking the last captive. “Which way is out?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  “No, you’ll show them. I’m going to get my cousin.” She blocked out how tired every bone in her body was and focused, instead, on Krystal.

  “She’s not down here. They brought her by boat and they’re anchored just offshore.”

  Arianna wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not. The mine shaft was freaky, but being anchored out
on a boat with no way out had to be almost as stifling.

  Carter led the way out into the dimly lit mine shaft. Good thing he was leading them. With all the passageways, this place was confusing, and she had no doubt she’d have gotten lost.

  He leaned up against the stone wall, exhausted, and pointed up ahead. “Around the next bend, you’ll see the exit.” The rest of them ran past, leaving her with Carter.

  “Okay, tell me where the boat is. Have you been on it? Is there a dinghy on the shore somewhere that I can use to get out there?”

  “Once you get outside, it’s anchored in a cove just north of here, down a steep incline. The stairs are pretty treacherous, so be careful. There’s a dinghy…if you don’t mind killing a couple of Darkbloods to get to it.”

  Was Jackson close enough to help her out?

  Shouts came from a passageway that branched off just behind them.

  Carter’s eyes were wide with panic. If he was discovered now, Darkbloods would know he was the one to set their prisoners free. He wouldn’t be able to bullshit his way out of it and claim Guardians had rescued them.

  “Stay here. Wait. Go back.”

  She started to protest. There was no way she was going back, only forward. A streak of movement came from the left and Carter fell flat on his ass. A Darkblood with a knife blade stuck in his back—oh, God, it was Jackson’s curved dragon blade—bit into Carter’s throat. Arianna plastered herself to the wall of stone behind her, praying the guy wouldn’t notice her. Jackson had to be close.

  Jackson, I’m here.

  With the deafening sound of her own heart ringing in her ears, she held her breath and tried to concentrate. Maybe she was too stressed out to feel the nuances of his presence, because she felt nothing. However, this dragon blade was proof that he was here in the tunnels somewhere. If only she could stay alive long enough to get to him.

  Hunched over Carter and blocking the way out, the Darkblood made disgusting slurping noises as he fed. She glanced around for something to use as a weapon and spotted a stack of lumber piled near one of the support posts behind her. It would take her two, maybe three steps backward to reach them.