What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 9)

by Kristine Cayne

  He’d thought that once she was his, the hunger would recede. Instead, it was getting stronger. Her blood was intoxicating, but so was her taste and the smell of her body reacting to his. His body tightened at the memories of what had happened just hours before. Then his thoughts trailed off to his teeth sinking into her inner thigh, the silky blood flowing into his mouth.

  He groaned and walked back towards the window. The predator in him was awakening and he had to fight to push it down. Not now. The pleasures of the flesh would have to wait, because he had other things to tend to.

  Other pleasures.

  Like finding the one responsible for tonight’s attack.

  In fact, he was looking forward to peeling the skin off the traitor before he bled him to death. Human or vampire, it didn’t matter. He was hungry for blood and ready to kill.

  Chapter Twelve

  As she wrapped herself in a towel, Belle turned around and looked at the bathtub. Blood water, she thought. Then she immediately pulled the stopper to let the water stream out.

  It had been a long time since she’d played savior and failed. Sure, she had lost patients in the ER, but the loss there had felt much different. Not because those lives had been any less precious to her, but because here, in the aftermath of destruction, each human life lost was a different kind of tragedy. Every time a human died, they were all a step closer to extinction.

  Funny that after centuries of destroying the oceans and polluting the Earth, humans were going to disappear before many of the other creatures on the planet. In fact, she suspected many animals were now thriving, thanks to the low number of hunters walking around.

  She stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, looking for some clean clothes in her ridiculously well-stocked wardrobe.

  When the invasion had first begun, she—and everybody she knew—had fantasized about escaping to far-away lands. They had even concocted plans of setting off towards some deserted island somewhere, where the chances of running into a vampire would be lower. That was back then, when the monsters were focused on attacking the cities. It didn’t take long before the roads became just as dangerous and they had no choice but to hide.

  They had lost TV and internet signals before it was clear what was going on around the world. So she lied to herself, even though a little voice inside told her there was no safe place left anywhere, no utopian land where people still reigned.

  So yes, every human life lost was a tragedy, now more than ever.

  She slipped into a soft pink shirt and a pair of jeans, then lay back on the bed. She wanted to go out, to search for the two women she’d seen with Lori. But there was a guard right outside her door. She knew because she’d already tried to get out—and had been told, in just a few words, that she wouldn’t be going anywhere unless Marcus authorized it.

  Marcus. She hated that she now thought of him as an individual with a name. He was no longer “the king of the monsters” or “a vampire.” He was Marcus. Marcus who could make her feel the most exquisite of pleasures. Marcus who would go out into the compound to pick up a dying girl and then lead her into a secret room. Marcus who held her while she was breaking down and whispered sweet words in her ear.

  Where was the monster? Why wasn’t he there? He appeared too composed, too sane, too… human. And it was scaring her more than she ever thought possible.

  Don’t think of him as human, she reminded herself.

  But deep down, she knew it was too late. He was already Marcus.

  If she was going to kill him, it had to be soon, because she could feel her resolution wavering, breaking down by the minute. By the second.

  Part of her wished he would do something heartless, let the monster come out. Give her a reason to plunge a knife—one you don’t have, she reminded herself—into his heart.

  Her stomach tightened at the thought of hurting him. She cursed and stood up with a heavy sigh. If she could at least get out of the room, she could try to figure out the compound better. She had a feeling that the secret door they had gone through wasn’t the only one. Hadn’t Miles materialized into her room a couple of times? And on the first morning, she’d found a fire crackling and her clothes gone.

  She walked towards one of the walls, looking for anything that could trigger a locking hidden mechanism. If there was a concealed door there, she would find it. After all, she had all the time in the world.

  The darkness of the tunnels loomed in front of Marcus for what seemed like miles. To humans, the labyrinth of cavern-like tunnels would be impossible to maneuver, but not only could he see in the darkness of the underground, both Miles and he knew the tunnels extremely well. If he wanted, he could run to the other end with his eyes closed.

  Tonight, though, they were both stepping lightly. If there was somebody—or something—hiding in the shadows, Marcus wanted to make sure they’d surprise him.

  They turned around a corner and Miles pointed out something in the distance. A sliver of light. Impossible for human eyes to detect but very clear to them. Marcus nodded in response and then crouched in the darkness, waiting for the slight creak of something moving in the tunnels.

  Five seconds. Ten. The tunnels were dead quiet. He glanced at Miles and saw him nod. Then both of them got up and kept moving forward. They stopped along the way a few times to search for whispers in the dark, but there was nothing there. After the third or fourth time, he was convinced they were alone down there. And if that was the case, the light back at the end of the tunnel was nothing but the moonlight, streaming through a scrape in the door.

  The musty odor of the tunnel was slightly milder tonight. He narrowed his hearing to concentrate on the direction of the door. The world outside the compound was quiet—at least for now.

  He turned around to face Miles, who was right behind him. “What do you think?”

  “Everything looks normal.”

  “I smell vampire blood.”

  Miles nodded. “There were guards patrolling down here less than an hour ago.”

  “Let’s go check the other tunnel, then.”

  The second tunnel was just as quiet as the first one. If rabids had gone through it, their smell was long gone, diluted by the steps of the vampires that came right after them. And one thing was certain: there was no warm human smell down in the darkness. If somebody had opened the door to let the rabids in, it had been one of his own.

  “Fuck,” Marcus said as they stepped back into the courtyard.

  Miles was back to his usual quiet self, his eyes prodding into the surrounding darkness for anything unusual. “I’ll send some guards to watch the doors.”

  Marcus moved away from the wall and into the inviting softness of the night. Belle’s light was off but the moonlight glided into her room, giving him a peek into the darkness. “Who do we really trust?” he finally asked.

  Miles hesitated for a second longer than he would have liked. Marcus knew what that meant: his friend was also having doubts about the loyalty of the vampires in the compound.

  “I have a few names in mind,” he said. “Do you want a list?”

  Marcus shook his head. “No, if there’s anybody I trust, it’s you. Just get somebody there tonight.”

  Then he looked up again and saw the curtains in Belle’s room flicker for a second. He wanted to go up and check on her. No, that wasn’t true. He wanted to feed on her, slip into her, savor her. But he knew that if he stepped into the room, he wouldn’t be able to leave for hours.

  He looked at Miles. “And keep the guard outside her door.”

  “She can’t be charmed, can she?”

  Marcus’ gaze narrowed. “Who else has noticed it?”

  “Nobody, as far as I can tell. Not yet anyway.” Then, after a brief moment of hesitation, “How did you get her into bed without charming her?”

  Marcus remembered her thundering heart as he got closer. “Oh, she came very willingly.”

  Miles watched him with obvious interest and Marcus could see
the traces of a smile forming on the usually stone face. “I guess I understand now.”

  “Understand what?”

  “Why you’ve suddenly decided you needed a pet after so many centuries,” Miles said.

  Marcus frowned and looked back up towards the window. “Let’s just make sure we keep this between us for now. I wouldn’t want my enemies knowing about it.”

  A second passed. Then another. Miles focused his eyes on the window, almost as if studying the wavering of the curtains in the wind. There was a heaviness in the air, the kind that came around when questions were left unanswered and secrets were hushed. “How much do you care about her?”

  Marcus groaned and turned his gaze towards his friend. He had been avoiding that question for the past few days, worried that he would uncover something about himself that he’d prefer to keep buried. Because the truth was that vampires couldn’t afford to feel anything for a human. They were too fragile, too volatile. They were the prey and he was the hunter.

  He ran a hand through his hair before letting out a breath. “More than I’m ready to admit right now,” he finally said. Miles straightened, his eyes still locked on the second floor window. “Then let’s make sure it remains a secret.”

  Marcus nodded and looked up. The heaviness in the air seemed to slip into his chest. He was worried. Not only for her safety, but for the safety of everybody in the compound, human or not. Because if there was anything his enemies would love, it would be to find out the king had a weak spot.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was tight. “Let’s go check the walls, Miles. I could use the distraction.”

  After an hour of searching every inch of the walls in her room, Belle was still nowhere closer to finding a secret door. If there was one in her room, the mechanism was a lot more clever—and much better hidden—than she had first expected. She sighed in exasperation and walked towards the door. As soon as she touched the door handle, the vampire on the other side pushed the door ajar and eyed her steadily.

  Did she know him? She didn’t think so. Miles wasn’t the friendliest of vampires, but at least he didn’t look as menacing as the one on the other side of her door right now. The steely spark in his eyes was the closest to warmth in his whole expression; everything else was just stone. The idea of trying to reason with him briefly crossed her mind, but she waved it away. There was no way she was getting past the guard and she knew it.

  She stepped back into the room and the door closed behind her. A storm was raging in her mind and trying to make sense of anything was proving harder and harder. Why was she being guarded? Suddenly her interests were splitting in an assortment of different directions. She wanted to go out and search for the two women she’d seen with Lori. She also wanted to find at least one of what she suspected were many secret doors in the compound—except that searching for them could leave her exposed. If there was a guard posted outside her door during the night, it made sense to think they were also keeping tabs on her during the day somehow. And by “they,” she really meant Marcus.

  Maybe all the little secrets he was letting out were finally weighing heavily in his mind and he had decided she needed to be watched. Except that she doubted that was the case. In fact, she was almost sure that the king wasn’t the kind of man… the kind of creature… who would regret his decisions. If he had told her about the daylight immunity, he had to have a reason for it. Just because she wasn’t aware of what that reason was didn’t mean it didn’t exist.

  She paced around for a few seconds before heading towards the window above her bed. Dark clouds were gathering in the distance, bringing with them a faint rumble of thunder.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She’d finally fallen asleep sometime in the middle of the night. Even then, her sleep was plagued with flashes of death, chaos and disaster. At one point in her dreams, she saw her brother, running away through the open fields near the house. He kept trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t make out the words. His lips moved as he screamed, but the sound got lost into the echoing darkness. Even worse, she hadn’t even tried to help him or move towards him. Instead, she’d just stood there, watching him run into the gloom of the night.

  And then the rabids had come up crawling through the land, up from the belly of the underground. Their eyes were bloodshot and insane. One, two, ten. Suddenly there were dozens of them running after Shawn. But she still didn’t move. She stood frozen in place, next to the king, watching as the rabids tore into her brother’s body. The smell of death lingered in the air, thick and perfume-like. It was such a familiar odor, such a well-known thickness in the air, that it almost felt comforting. Death is all you know, something from inside her whispered.

  And then she heard the screams, half beast and half human. Sounds of agony that tore through her skin and reverberated in her chest.

  She woke up panting, her heart hammering so loud against her ribs that her entire chest hurt. Sitting on the bed, she buried her face in her hands and took a few deep breaths. Calm down, damn it. It was just a dream.

  But she wasn’t so sure it had been. After all, there was at least a small chance the house was in danger. A chance her brother had gone looking for her and run into the rabids. An immense sense of dread filled her chest and sent her heart into a frantic race. It’s OK, they’re OK, she told herself, even though she had trouble believing the words.

  She looked towards the window and the rain tapping quietly against the glass. She had stopped using a watch a long time ago because time no longer mattered. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to be. Right now, though, she would’ve liked to know what time it was. Despite the storm outside, the sky was bright, probably closer to noon than to early morning. Still, her body felt tattered, like she had barely rested.

  When she finally gathered enough strength to get up, she walked to the bathroom and placed her whole head under the tap. The cold water sent a shiver down her spine but also helped her wake up. It would be a while before she stopped loving the luxury of running water.

  She rubbed her hair with a towel and then walked towards the door. Then she leaned against it, trying to detect any small sounds coming from the other side.

  Nothing.

  The logical deduction would’ve been that the guard was gone, since it was daylight, but she now knew better. He could easily be standing on the other side, holding his post. She eyed the windows, which were too small—and probably too high up—to use safely and then groaned in frustration.

  She needed to get out of the room at some point during the day. Not only to search the compound and see if she could find any of the secret doors, but also because she wanted to find Lori’s friends. She wasn’t sure if they’d been told anything about her death. If they hadn’t, they deserved to hear it from her, not from one of the vampires. Back at the hospital, she had always insisted on being the one delivering the news when she lost a patient, and today didn’t have to be any different. Or at least she didn’t want it to be different.

  She was still leaning close to the door when somebody knocked. She jumped back in surprise, her heart pounding.

  The second knock was just as soft, but this time it came with a whispering voice attached to it. “Isabelle?”

  Vicki. She took a deep breath, then reached forward and opened the door. The guard was gone.

  The woman’s face was alit with surprise, as if she couldn’t believe Isabelle was actually there. She remained motionless for a few seconds, looking over Belle’s shoulder and into the room, then back to her face.

  “It’s true, then,” she finally said, and there was a hint of accusation in her voice.

  Isabelle frowned slightly. “I was heading to the kitchen, do you want to come along?”

  “Can I see the room first?”

  Isabelle looked over the woman’s shoulder. “Have you seen any guards around?”

  Vicki seemed to consider her words for a second, then scoffed. “What do you mean, guards? It’s daytime.”

>   So it was a secret after all, the immunity to daylight. Isabelle wondered if it was a wise thing keeping it a secret, considering the events of the night before.

  She hesitated for a second, then stepped aside. “Come in.”

  She had no idea where the rest of the humans in the compound slept, but she could bet it wasn’t in a room like hers. Suddenly, she felt guilty. Not because she had the best room and others didn’t, but because she couldn’t explain right now why it was a good thing that she had it. Now that she knew there were secret doors and passageways below the compound, she couldn’t be sure who was watching and when. For all she knew, there was a vampire behind a peephole just a few feet away. There was no way she could risk speaking about her plans or opening up to anybody. Especially not in her room.

  Vicki’s eyes kept moving around the room, trying to take it all in. When she finally turned around to face Isabelle, her face was laced with tension and something else. Jealousy?

  “So the rumors are true,” she said. “You are the king’s pet.”

  Belle groaned. “I hate that word, but I guess the answer is yes.”

  Vicki sat down on her bed and Isabelle had an immediate urge to actually push her out the door.

  “What is he like?”

  How was she supposed to answer a question like that? Not with the truth, definitely. Because telling Vicki the truth meant she had to admit it to herself first.

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head, trying to find the right words to lie properly.

  “I’ve been in the compound for four years and I’ve never seen him take a pet,” Vicki said, and that spark of recrimination was back in her voice. “He’s always so distant, so away from everything and everybody. We really don’t know anything about him.”

  Isabelle shifted on her feet. “Please don’t talk about us as if we’re animals. Pet is their word, not ours.”