Thrall (Supernaturals of Las Vegas Book 1)

by Carina Cook

  “Liss! Liss, can you hear me?”

  The voice was familiar. Tait. She opened her eyes again, more slowly this time, and turned her head toward him with deliberate slowness. They were both on the floor of what looked like a storeroom. Stacked boxes loomed overhead, and a single flickering bulb dimly illuminated the space. Her brother sat, slumped against the unpainted brick wall, only a few feet away. Blood and dirt streaked his face, but he seemed otherwise okay.

  “Yeah,” she said. “What happened?”

  He frowned. “No clue. Those guys jumped at us, and I woke up here. I’ve only been awake for a couple of minutes, and I haven’t seen anybody yet.”

  “Oh, man. We are so screwed.”

  “But we’re not!”

  His eyes lit up, and he held his hands up so she could see them. For a moment, her eyes struggled to focus—she must have hit her head pretty hard after they’d stunned her, because she had one heck of a headache. Maybe even a concussion. But she had bigger things to worry about right now. Like living.

  Something dangled from his wrist. A loose cuff. The other end was secured tightly, but somehow, he’d managed to work the other cuff off. Her confusion must have shown on her face, because he rushed to explain.

  “They must not have tightened this one all the way,” he said. “I’m going to put them both on one wrist so they can’t cuff me again if they come back.”

  He did so immediately. The cuff clicked into place on his wrist, and he took a moment to test it. It held, looking like some goth-wannabe idea of a bracelet. The kind of thing vampire fans wore, not realizing that they were doing it wrong. Liss would have found it funny under different circumstances, but at the moment, she was struggling not to vomit. She took a moment to bring her gorge under control and marshal her thoughts as best as she could.

  “Try the door,” she suggested.

  “I’m not leaving you,” he immediately declared.

  “If you can get out, do it. I’ll just be a liability, and someone needs to get help. I don’t imagine you have your cell on you, do you?”

  He looked dumbfounded for a moment, like he hadn’t even thought of that. Liss would have smacked him if she could have. That was the first thing she would have checked in a situation like this. Well, the second anyway—first, she would have made sure he was still alive.

  He patted his pockets, and the disappointed expression on his face told her what he’d found. Nothing. But he put on a brave face already as he got up.

  “You stay here,” he said, whispering now for some reason. “I’ll get us out of here.”

  He brushed imaginary dirt off his pant leg and disappeared around the stack of boxes. Liss wanted to close her eyes and rest, because her head was pounding so hard, but she couldn’t afford to relax. Not for a minute. Still, when he came back, he surprised her. Her eyes flew open, expecting another masked assailant, but it was just her brother.

  “The door’s locked,” he said.

  She wormed her way up to a sitting position. “Damn. And I’m almost positive that my phone is on the charger in my room. But check my pockets just in case.”

  But there was no luck there, either. The two of them exchanged grim looks. They were locked up who knows where, kidnapped by who knew who, for who knew what reasons. The situation didn’t look good. Liss assumed that her mother and Gregor were looking for them now or would be soon, and perhaps they’d get something useful off of the security footage that would lead them here. But she couldn’t count on that. She had to assume that she and Tait were on their own, and that meant thinking their way out. But she couldn’t get her brain to focus beyond the obvious.

  She took a few deep breaths, trying to quell the rising panic in her belly. Throwing a fit wouldn’t do any good. Tait seemed to pick up on her agitation, and he put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Hey, it’ll be okay. We’ll get out of this. I promise.” He paused, rubbing at her face with gentle fingers. “You’re bleeding.”

  She shrugged as best as she could with her hands cuffed behind her back. “I’ve been hurt worse before.”

  He was staring at his fingers in growing excitement.

  “Wait a minute, Liss. You’re bleeding. We could do a glyph. The opening one. I remember what it looks like! We could open the door and get the hell out of dodge before anyone realizes we’re gone.”

  “That’s great, but my hands are cuffed behind my back. I can’t draw a glyph.”

  “I can do it, though!” he exclaimed. Then he seemed to realize that he ought to be keeping his voice down and lowered it again. “Just tell me how to make it work. I’ll draw the glyph, and we’ll get out of here.”

  She closed her eyes, weary. “I told you, Tait. I don’t know how to make it work. I don’t know why it worked for me at court.”

  “But you and Gregor practiced for a few hours. You must have come up with something,” he begged.

  For a moment, she thought of telling him about how the magic had worked when Gregor’s blood was mixed in, but that wouldn’t do them any good. They didn’t have any vampire blood in the stockroom, unless the boxes contained some, and that was ridiculous. Besides, even with Gregor’s blood in the equation, she hadn’t been able to pull off anything approaching a door opening glyph. She needed more practice and time.

  “There has to be another way,” she said, pushing herself to her feet. “What about air vents? Could we get into one?”

  “Liss, come on. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do the glyph,” he wheedled.

  “Is there anything behind these boxes?” she asked, nudging a stack of them with her shoulder.

  Now he sounded angry. “Liss, you’re ignoring me. Maybe you’re on a power trip or something, but it’s got to end. Tell me how to make the glyphs work so we can get out of here.”

  She turned to face him, suspicion growing deep down inside her despite her efforts to suppress it.

  “How is it that you can remember the door opening glyph, Tait? That’s one out of—what?—a hundred glyphs? And you haven’t had the book in your possession for almost a year. Seems awfully coincidental that you know that one, if only I’ll tell you how to do it.”

  His face twisted with anger, and he shoved her back against the boxes. There was nothing she could do to defend herself, and she fell in a sprawl of cardboard. Napkins spilled from the broken boxes. At least they were relatively soft, although they did little to break her fall.

  “Oh, well. It was worth a try,” he muttered. Then, he spoke louder. “Chandra! You might as well let me out. She’s not going to spill the beans.”

  Liss could barely believe what she was hearing. “You have got to be kidding me. This was all some stupid plan to get me to teach you blood magic?”

  He shrugged. “Can’t blame me for trying.” The door opened, and Chandra’s petite form was silhouetted in bright light from whatever lie beyond. He gave her an adoring look, going instantly to her side. “See, Chandra understands my value. She’s not going to leave me in the dust like Gregor did.”

  “Leave you in the dust? Gregor has done nothing but support you!”

  “Are you kidding? The minute he saw you, it was Liss this and Liss that. It’s obvious to everyone that you’ve had him wrapped around your finger from moment one. I was out of favor as soon as you walked through the door. I don’t need to hear him say it to know it’s true.”

  “Wait!” she exclaimed over the pounding of her head. “Tait, you can’t do this!”

  “I don’t have to do anything you say. Queenie.”

  He laughed, low and mocking, and Chandra joined in. The laughter echoed in Liss’s ears as they closed the door on her once again.

  CHAPTER 14

  Gregor stood in his usual spot at the top of the winding staircase, looking out at the casino floor. The hour was prime time, and the floor bustled with activity. Attractive servers in tasteful but alluring attire served high priced drinks in fancy glasses. Patrons screamed in excitement as fortunes were made
and lost over at the blackjack tables. Table 31 had attracted quite a cluster of onlookers as a reedy young man on a roll kept pushing his luck. If he’d been playing the odds, he would have taken his money and gone a long time ago. Gregor almost pitied him as he went over on what should have been an easy flip, losing a large stack of chips, but then again, if people played the odds, his business wouldn’t be as lucrative as it was.

  When he checked his watch, he was surprised to see that it was nearly midnight already. Normally, his evenings dragged, but this one had flown by. Stranger still, he hadn’t lost himself in daydreams about his customers. Not even the reedy fellow who seemed now to be making a comeback. The scantily clad, desperate looking blonde on his arm looked about ready to drag him off to one of the all night chapels, so his luck must have turned again. Otherwise, he didn’t see how a girl like her would ever be interested in a guy like him.

  Okay, so maybe he was still a bit invested in the people who patronized his establishment, but that was a force of habit. It didn’t change the fact that he’d spent most of the evening so far engaged in his own business. After he’d seen Liss and Chandra, he’d met with Tait only briefly as they dashed from one obligation to another, but he’d spent a long and pleasant meeting with Konstantine. He didn’t know how much the crown would interfere with his work at the casino, so they’d decided to come up with some long term plans that could be executed with a minimum of direct input from him. He left that meeting feeling like his business was in capable hands. Then, he’d visited the court library.

  The Librarian was an aged vampire gentleman who hadn’t stepped foot outside of the library walls in at least fifty years. No one remembered his name—not even him—and he smelled quite strongly of old books, but he was quite intelligent. He’d provided Gregor with some more books on blood magic, so long as he had first dibs on any new writings that Liss might produce on the topic once she progressed in her studies. He’d promised it before realizing that he probably should ask her about it, but then again, what else would she do with the work anyway? She would understand that it was best to record such things for posterity, and if she didn’t, he’d return the books to the library with an apology.

  The Librarian had seemed very pleased to hear that Viktor was no longer inhabiting this green earth. No one had thought to tell him. Once he’d heard the news, he offered to write up a short summary of the rights and obligations of vampire kings as documented in the histories of their kind. Gregor was rather surprised to hear that such information existed but not surprised at all to hear that Viktor had disregarded it entirely. He accepted the offer with thanks and had made arrangements to meet again the next evening. Certainly, with that kind of history behind him, the court would have to fall into line behind him. It was quite a relief.

  He checked his watch again. Perhaps he would stop at his office one last time for the evening to see if Antoine had any messages for him and then take the rest of the evening off. He hadn’t done such a thing even once in the nine years since he’d opened this casino, and he wondered with amusement if the news might make even unflappable Antoine take pause. But he’d earned it, hadn’t he? No one could accuse him of shirking his duty, and if he wanted to take the evening off and spend it in the company of an intelligent, talented, beautiful woman, who could blame him for that? He only hoped that Liss had already adjusted to the twilight hours of a vampire thrall and that she’d still be awake. But it was a risk worth taking.

  He pushed open the door to his office to find Dagmar standing in front of Antoine’s desk, looming over him as he dialed the phone. Both of them looked up as he entered. Antoine looked just as he always did, although Gregor could tell by the set of his lips that he was more than a bit put out. But it was Dagmar’s face that gave him pause. Her lips were pale and bloodless, her eyes wild.

  “Do you know where Liss is?” she demanded before the door could even close behind him.

  “No,” he said, concern growing in his belly even though he didn’t yet know what was going on. But her countenance suggested the worst. “We spent some time together in her room earlier, but I left her around 10 or so. Don’t you know where she is? You were supposed to keep an eye on her.”

  “I was,” snapped Dagmar. “She wasn’t supposed to leave the apartment without me. But I can’t find her, and her phone is in her room. I can’t find Tait either.”

  “Perhaps they went out for… ice cream or something.”

  It sounded awkward to Gregor’s ears. But he didn’t know what mortals did with their time. It wasn’t like he had any siblings or friends, and he didn’t ingest anything but blood, so he had no experience with such things. But Antoine didn’t seem to notice the stumble, and even if he did, he wouldn’t say anything about it anyway.

  The statement didn’t reassure Dagmar either. She shot a look at Antoine as if trying to decide how much to say in front of him. Of course they knew each other, considering how long they’d been fellow employees of his. But Dagmar didn’t often have a hand in his human businesses. She’d been in charge of vampire business and personal security from day one.

  She’d know not to bring up the undead in this conversation, so Gregor didn’t worry about that.

  “Antoine will be discreet,” he said. “Please, say what’s on your mind.”

  She stepped closer to him, her voice low and urgent. “There were signs of a struggle in our elevator. There’s not enough for me to get a clear picture of what happened, but…there’s blood.”

  The bottom dropped out of his stomach. If he’d been a lesser man, he might have wavered, but he did not. Instead, a cold fury washed over him. He’d spent many years cultivating his humanity, trying to make sure that his immortality didn’t make him forget how precious human life was. He’d taken many lives, long ago when Viktor was climbing his way up a mountain of corpses to the crown. Anyone who had stood in his way ended up dead—or dead again. Gregor had done some of the killing, and although he’d never liked it, he’d excelled at the cold, calculated planning of it. If Viktor wanted to slaughter someone, he did it himself. But whenever he ran across an unreachable target, he sent Gregor. It might take months, but Gregor always found their weakness and used it to end them. Once the blood mage had entered the equation, they’d been unstoppable.

  He’d never felt any pleasure in it. But now, if the people responsible for Liss’s disappearance stood right in front of them, he would have taken great pleasure in killing them. But not until they told him where she was.

  He met Dagmar’s eyes and saw a similar determination in them. They would find Liss. They would find her assailants, and they would obliterate them. He bared his teeth in what seemed like a smile but felt more like a declaration of war. It was a fierce baring of teeth, and he only managed to keep his fangs sheathed through sheer will.

  “Take me to the evidence, and quickly,” he said.

  He could only hope that it wasn’t entirely dry. He might be able to scent the blood and track it to Liss’s current location. But with every minute that passed, the possibility of success shrank further and further. Scents faded, even though he could swear that he would recognize the smell of her blood anywhere.

  Dagmar didn’t wait for him to ask twice. She rushed to the door and threw it open, looking back to see if Gregor was following. He wasn’t. He gave Antoine a long look, trying to figure out what to tell him.

  “Can you stay here?” he asked. “Just in case she calls? Or someone else calls with a ransom request or something of that sort. I’ll understand if you refuse. I’m sure this all seems strange. Rather outside of your job description.”

  But Antoine shook his head, his neat dreadlocks swaying to and fro with the movement. “Not at all. Most crimes are about money and power. Sometimes love, but usually the first two. You have both money and power in spades, and I suspect love might be involved here somehow too?” Gregor didn’t answer, but Antoine nodded knowingly anyway. “Frankly, it surprises me more that it’s taken this long bef
ore we hit crisis mode. I take it you don’t want me to call the police?”

  Gregor thought this over. He didn’t like to invite the police into his business unless absolutely necessary. They tended to ask uncomfortable questions like, “Why do you sleep in a bank vault?” and “Why don’t you ever come out during the daytime?” But there was a private investigator that he knew could be trusted, probably because he had secrets of his own.

  “I’d rather not. But if we’re not back in touch within the hour, I want you to phone Derek Rainier. You should be able to find him in the yellow pages; he’s a PI. I’ve used him a few times before, and he’s very discreet. I’d rather keep the casino out of the papers and resolve this quietly if we can.”

  Antoine nodded. “Can do. Let me know as soon as you find…what’s her name? The girl who’s missing?”

  “Anneliese Lorensson. She goes by ‘Liss.’”

  “Pretty name. I’ll light a candle for her. Say a prayer.”

  The statement gave Gregor pause. Not because he was so surprised that Antoine was religious, but the fact that he said anything at all about his life outside of the office was highly unusual.

  “That’s a good idea,” he said, finally heading out the door behind Dagmar. “I might try that myself.”

  “It can’t hurt,” said Antoine.

  CHAPTER 15

  After Tait and Chandra left her in the storeroom, it took a while for Liss to get a hold of herself. For a while, she shouted things at the door like, “How dare you do this to your own sister?!” and “What’s wrong with you?!” She may have also vented her fury by kicking at the innocent packages of napkins strewn across the floor. Then she whaled at the empty cardboard that had once housed them, sending it flying across the storeroom in what would have been a comical slow motion arc if not for the situation. As it flew, the broken flaps of the box fluttered, making it look like a drunken bird coming in for a landing. She let out a startled laugh and promptly burst into tears.