The City Beneath

by Melody Johnson

  “And you’ll simply leave afterward?” I asked doubtfully.

  “I swear to you by the sun that I will leave afterward,” he answered dramatically.

  “And not turn, harm, or otherwise touch Walker, either.”

  Dominic narrowed his eyes.

  “Those are my conditions. You must simply leave this apartment directly following your ‘self-evaluation,’” I proposed.

  “He doesn’t deserve immunity from me.” He studied me a moment as if considering his words before he spoke. Finally, he sighed and said, “You do realize that slapping a makeshift bandage over a serious neck wound and shooting an IV in your arm wouldn’t have saved you,” Dominic said, slipping the knife of doubt between my ribs quickly and deeply, all the more devastating for its truth. “He simply patched you up to survive long enough to bait me, and he put your health and safety on the line to do it.”

  “So you’ve mentioned multiple times,” I bit out. “That’s between him and me.”

  “And what is between you and me?” he asked.

  Nothing I want, I thought, but I countered, “You’ll earn a sliver of my trust if you keep your word.”

  Dominic hesitated a moment before finally nodding. “Done.”

  “Swear like you did last time,” I insisted. “Swear by the sun.”

  “Smart girl,” Dominic said, grinning. “I swear by the sun that I will leave tonight without having turned, harmed, or otherwise touched you or Ian Walker.”

  “All right.” I took a deep breath, feeling as safe as I could under the circumstances.

  Dominic leaned closer. I could feel the movement of his breath over my face as he spoke. “I don’t want a paltry command, like ‘stay where you are’ this time. I want something real. Something powerful. Command me to do something I would never willingly do.”

  I thought for a long, quiet moment. I envisioned our few encounters: Dominic biting my neck, sucking my blood, licking my wounds, and burning himself on silver just to prove a point. It seemed to me like he’d willingly do just about anything except walk in sunlight. “Can you give me an example?”

  His eyes roamed over my face and body as he thought.

  “Anything involving my body isn’t an option. Think of something else.”

  Dominic shrugged. “I would willingly do all those things anyway.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Tell me to stake myself,” he said.

  I stared at him, not sure I’d heard him correctly. “What?”

  “Command me to take this stake”—he held out the stake in his hand—“and stab myself in the heart with it.”

  I opened my mouth, but it took me a moment to speak. “But you’ll die, won’t you?”

  “We shall see.” Dominic smirked. “Go on. Command me. You’ve already sworn that you would.”

  I blew out a long breath. “Right.”

  I locked eyes with Dominic and gazed deep inside his soul. “Dominic Lysander,” I said, and I felt the instant connection between our minds, as if the nerves and synapses that fired in mine were also suddenly firing in his. The last time I’d linked our minds, I could feel his shock and anger and bone fear. This time, I could only feel anticipation. “Stab yourself in the heart with the stake in your hand. Now.”

  My command travelled between us as fast as thought, but as usual with anything involving vampires, Dominic was faster. The moment I uttered my command, Dominic constructed a defense against it. I couldn’t discern what was between us, only that our bond was blocked like it hadn’t been last time.

  When my command hit his defense, I could finally envision what he’d constructed: a mirror. The command reflected off the mirror protecting his mind, and without his speed or mental defenses, I couldn’t defend myself against my own command any more than I could defend myself against his. The command hit me.

  Both my hands reached out of their own volition, grabbed the wooden stake from Dominic’s hands, and tried to plunge its tip into my own chest.

  Fighting the urge to stake myself was impossible; my muscles couldn’t move faster than neurological synapses, and my synapses had already staked my heart. The spear was unbelievably sharp and split my skin easier than I would have thought possible. I screamed; the pain was sudden and shocking. I couldn’t believe that after everything I’d witnessed and struggled through and survived, that I would die by my own hand.

  Dominic placed a hand over both of mine, stopping me from stabbing myself further. Only the tip of the stake had pierced a superficial layer of skin, so even as he held my actions at bay, my arms still strained to finish the command. Blood trickled down between my breasts and stained my already hopelessly stained silky dress shirt.

  “I want you to remember this moment,” Dominic said, looking utterly smug. “What you are thinking and feeling is the fate you would have given me.”

  “How?” Scalding tears flooded my eyes. I swallowed a sob as they burned and constricted my throat. “How did you do that? You reflected our connection.”

  Dominic leaned mere inches over me and licked the tears from my face. I cringed away from him.

  “It’s a power I’ve always had, but haven’t put to use lately. I certainly hadn’t thought to need it in defense of you,” Dominic whispered. “You could see the mirror when your command reflected?”

  I nodded.

  “Lovely.” Dominic rested his cheek against my temple and breathed in the scent of my hair. “You are simply lovely.”

  My arms were trembling and burning from the strain of trying to pull the stake into my heart.

  “I’m going to save you from yourself, but I want your promise that you’ll remember this moment and note my favorable actions when you remember it. I want you to promise me like I promised by the final certainty of sunlight,” Dominic commanded. “And in return, I will never again control your mind, if you never again attempt to control mine. We will trust one another.”

  “Okay.” I swallowed, sweating bullets from the strain in my arms. “I swear to remember this moment and your favorable actions.”

  Dominic raised his eyebrows. “And?”

  “And?” I blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  “I swore by the sun, my final and certain death, making my oath final and certain. You must do the same.”

  “Seriously,” I said, trying to think past the twitching and burning in my biceps. “Something final and certain?”

  He nodded.

  I gritted my teeth. “I swear by the final, certain passage of time that I will remember this moment and your favorable actions.”

  Dominic smiled broadly, and this time, despite the blood and slight extension of his mouth, he was almost handsome by the joy that radiated from it. “Very well.”

  He leaned down over me, the stake like a promise between us, and kissed me. His lips were soft and sensually urging, waiting for me to respond like before. I’d have preferred that the connection between us be a fluke. I didn’t want to feel the heat that sparked again, and I didn’t want to enjoy the rhythm and cant of his lips and tongue. I shouldn’t have angled my head to the side to deepen the kiss or felt so sizzling under his movement and weight, but I did. The heat pulsed and swirled around us in escalating momentum. Even after his lips parted from mine and he stared down at me—a deep wonder, almost fear, shining in his gaze—the heat continued to swirl and pulse.

  I wondered what he had to fear. I couldn’t imagine anything between us that could frighten this creature, but as I breathed heavily, both from his kiss and from keeping my own instincts to deepen and further the kiss at bay, terror washed over me. I wanted him. More deeply rooted than my instinct to live, when Dominic touched me, I unfathomably wanted more. I bit my lip to keep myself in check, and Dominic’s gaze darkened.

  He leaned close, his mouth against the shell of my ear. “Have a good night, my lovely Cassidy DiRocco.”

  Dominic flew from the bed and out the window in a blur of windswept speed, taking the spear with him. T
he window slammed shut behind him.

  My empty fists pounded into my chest, completing the motion of spearing my heart. I fell backward, limp onto my mattress and gasping in grateful exhaustion that I had survived.

  Walker blinked slowly. His gaze sharpened as his mind once again took control of his body, and he snapped back into himself.

  “Son of a bitch!” Walker spat. He ran to the window and pounded his fist on the frame. The wood splintered and pieces rained over the floor, but Dominic was long gone. It had only been a moment, but with Dominic’s speed, he’d likely already returned to the coven.

  For all of Dominic’s faults, and they were many and egregious, he obviously cared for the prosperous existence of his kind and himself. He was consistent. As much as Walker claimed that we couldn’t believe the vampires, any vampire, he was making it very difficult for me to believe in him. He claimed to hunt vampires to protect humans, but the fact was that Walker ran to the window to confront Dominic rather than to the bed to check on me. He cared more about killing vampires than he did about protecting humans.

  “That was much, much too close,” Walker said, turning his back on the window to face me. He clamped his hand over his injured shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I muttered. I was more angry at Walker than Dominic, which felt like a kind of betrayal and, like most everything lately, that made me angry.

  Walker scoffed. He strode to the bed, adjusted the IV, and scanned my body for further injuries, but having been tended by Dominic, my physical condition had only improved.

  “How were you able to connect with his mind?” Walker asked softly.

  “Something about being a night blood that I know and you don’t?” I raised my eyebrows. “I’m sure you’ve tried turning their mind tricks on them before.”

  “I have,” Walker said, sounding annoyed. “And it’s impossible.”

  I frowned. “You’ve never connected with a vampire’s mind? Even after they drank your blood?”

  “No. As far as I know, no one has.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Not that you’ve spoken to many night bloods to know.”

  Walker looked away. “How deep did he let the stake pierce you?”

  “Not deep.”

  Walker moved to unbutton the top button of my blouse.

  I crossed my arms in front of myself to block him. “I’m fine.”

  “Stop being stubborn, and let me see how badly you’re injured.”

  “No, Walker.” I took a deep, fortifying breath. “I think you should leave.”

  “Don’t push me away, Cassidy. I know you’re a capable woman, but even I can’t fight them and survive on my own. We need to stick together against them.” He reached for my hand. “Let me help you.”

  I folded my hands deep under my arms and out of his reach. “I know I’m a stubborn person, but it’s more than that. I did want your help, before you—” In my mind, Jolene’s lips trembled in fear and angst and terrible hope that we could help her. I shuddered. “I just need you to leave.”

  “You wanted my help before I what?” he asked, looking utterly confused.

  I couldn’t meet his gaze. “Before you killed Jolene.”

  “Who did I kill?” Walker asked, looking shocked.

  “The woman you killed in the alley, the one Kaden took hostage to trade for me. I knew her, Walker. Her name was Jolene McCall. She’s Greta’s cousin.” My voice broke. “She bakes cupcakes.”

  Walker blinked, a sudden, hard calm clouding his expression. “I had no choice. I did what was necessary.”

  “What you did was completely unnecessary. We could have found a way to save her and still save ourselves. I told you to trade me for her. You could have used me as a distraction until she was safe. You had choices, Walker, and you chose to kill her!” I hissed, working myself into a rage as I spoke. “Just like you chose to set a trap for Dominic instead of bringing me to safety.”

  “We were wasting time. Kaden made his move, and I made mine. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Wasting time? Who cares how long it took? She would have been alive!”

  “We needed to get back to your apartment to prepare for Dominic before he caught us vulnerable on the street. We had an advantage here, and maybe, just maybe, we could have taken him out. Had we waited, we would have lost our advantage,” Walker explained slowly, as if to the dim-witted. “I was protecting us.”

  “You didn’t shoot Jolene to protect us from Kaden. You shot her because saving her would’ve taken time, time that you wanted to better use to kill Dominic,” I said, beyond furious. “And it didn’t even pay off. Jolene is still dead, and Dominic is still alive.”

  Walker crossed his arms. “Arguably, he’s already dead.”

  “Seriously? You’re going to argue semantics? Dead or not, he’s more alive than Jolene,” I snapped.

  “Like I said, I did what was necessary,” Walker said coldly. “The vampires are rampaging, unremorseful murderers, feeding from and killing humans indiscriminately, and we’ve got to do anything and everything to stop them. We’re the only people who know they exist, Cassidy, so it’s our duty to see them killed.”

  “But at what cost, Walker? Is killing a human justified in the name of killing a vampire?” I asked. “I don’t see any difference between you killing Jolene or Kaden killing her, and I doubt she does, either. It doesn’t matter who does the killing because either way she’s dead.”

  “Killing one vampire protects all of the humans he might have killed, even if it takes one human death to accomplish it. Casualties are a part of war. It’s something I’ve learned to live with.”

  “Well, I haven’t.” I inhaled a deep, trembling breath and turned my face to meet Walker’s gaze squarely. “Did you let the vampires attack me last night so you could track us back to Dominic’s coven? Did you use me as bait to finally locate where the vampires sleep beneath the city?”

  “If you remember correctly, I warned you not to walk home.”

  “Yes, you did. You seemed to know exactly what might happen,” I said softly, regretfully.

  Walker stared deep into my eyes, and the sharpness of his pain made my heart bleed for him. I knew that pain intimately. He’d obviously lost someone, but I’d lost people, too. I refused to retreat from this argument because the one thing I learned from their loss was that life was fleeting, and the only people worth getting to know were people I could trust.

  “I’m sorry you were attacked, Cassidy. I’ll admit that I’m ecstatic we found the coven, but discovering its location was just a bonus. My priority was finding you.”

  “Of course it was, because if you found me, you found the coven. You used me as bait,” I insisted.

  He leaned closer, and I could see the muscles in his jaw flex as he clenched his teeth. “I never would have left you there.”

  I shook my head. “Dominic was right. The two of you are just alike.”

  “Excuse me?” Walker asked, suddenly, dangerously calm.

  I swallowed. “You watched and waited as the vampires attacked me, so you could track me back to their coven. You let me nearly bleed to death instead of taking me to the hospital, so you could set up your vampire-trap—which failed, by the way. And your first concern after regaining power over your body was that Dominic had fled. My safety comes in second against the priority of killing Dominic. Admit it, Walker, killing vampires is more important to you than saving lives.”

  Walker rolled his eyes. “I kill vampires for the express purpose of saving lives.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I whispered. “Given the choice between the two, you’d choose killing the vampire.”

  He placed a hand gently on my forearm since he couldn’t gain access to my hands, and he rubbed his thumb slowly over my skin. “You’re letting that vampire drive a wedge between us. He’s manipulating us into fighting to gain the advantage.”

  I laughed. “He doesn’t need to manipulate anything. Dominic is the
advantage. You and I worked together tonight, and he wiped the floor with us. I doubt he’s concerned that our alliance poses a threat.”

  “We can stand against them, Cassidy, but we only stand a chance if we stand together,” Walker insisted. The radical in him seeped into his voice, so his tone sounded crazed with determination.

  I sighed, feeling exhausted by the argument. “Listen, Walker, I’m tired and weary, and I have a lot of cleaning to do before I can go to bed. I really would like you to just leave. Please.”

  Walker looked around the apartment, his gaze traveling over the busted window frame, the splintered wood strewn over the floor, the pocked holes in the walls, and the buckshot and blood everywhere.

  “If you think you’re leavin’ that bed for one minute, you’re severely mistaken, darlin’.” Walker said dryly. “It’s my mess. I’ll clean it up.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Walker, please, I just want—”

  “Where do you keep the bleach?”

  “I’m perfectly capable of cleaning my own apartment,” I stated firmly. “And you’re injured, too. You need to take care of that shoulder.”

  He stared back at me, just as resolute. “Where do you keep the bleach?”

  “God, we’re ridiculous,” I groaned. I covered my eyes with my hands, resigned to accepting his help. “Under the kitchen sink, like everyone else in the free world.”

  “Was that so difficult?” he asked, already walking toward the kitchen.

  “Well, it certainly wasn’t easy,” I grumbled, working up the nerve to detach the IV and get out of bed.

  “Hey! Leave that alone,” Walker chastised a moment later, walking back from the kitchen, bleach in hand. “Lie in bed, leave your IV as it is, and just rest, for Christ’s sake. Is that so impossible?”