The City Beneath

by Melody Johnson

  I opened my mouth and tried to respond civilly, but I couldn’t help it. I laughed again. “You think he won’t know we’re there?”

  Walker frowned. “The entire point of breaking into the coven is the element of surprise. No one will know, especially Dominic.”

  “We should plan on him knowing.” I thought of Dominic’s visit here last night, of him asking for my help against the rebel vampires, and I sighed heavily. The inevitability of this conversation felt like a crushing weight over my chest. “And I might be able to help with that.”

  A grin spread wide across Walker’s face. He clapped his hands together and leaned in. “All right, DiRocco. Let’s hear it.”

  I sighed. “Dominic wants help tracking and containing the rebel vampires. If I help him, I might gain access into the coven without having to sneak in, and you can infiltrate the coven under the guise of saving me again. He’ll be expecting you, but instead of saving me, you set up the rigging for the rebels while I’m with Dominic.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “He’s still playing that card?”

  I frowned, confused. “What card?”

  “He’s gaining your sympathy, making you think that he’s the ‘good’ vampire.” Walker scoffed. “The only good vampire is a staked one.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ve done my research, and from what I can tell, Dominic is telling the truth about his seven-year cyclical power. He genuinely wants to put a stop to the rebellion before he loses control of his coven,” I insisted.

  “Right,” Walker said, sounding anything but convinced.

  “Look, Walker,” I said, trying to keep a lid on my frustration. “I understand that you believe all vampires should be killed, but it doesn’t make sense to kill Dominic. He’s the one vampire keeping his coven a secret, and by doing so, he’s preventing a massacre. We’ve seen the rebel vampires hunt. The city can’t survive their massacres on a nightly basis, and Dominic is the only one keeping them in check.”

  Walker gazed at me with those warm, velvet brown eyes, eyes that seemed to know gentle comfort and love and undoubtedly how to seduce a woman’s socks off. He said, “So help him contain the rebel vampires like he wants, distract him while I infiltrate the coven, and we’ll kill them all.”

  Maybe women were different where he came from. “Right,” I said. “Like I said, I’ll think about it.” I glanced at the door, dismissing him.

  Walker grinned. He stood, but he strode around the desk toward me instead of toward the exit. “I don’t think so.”

  “Is there something else you came here for?” I asked, not certain about the look in his eyes.

  “There certainly is, darlin’,” he said, holding out a hand.

  I took it cautiously, and he helped me stand. He wrapped an arm around my waist and snapped my hips to his when I tried to sidestep him. Walker was so tall that at such close proximity, I had a very personal view of his chest.

  “Walker?”

  “Dominic has obviously staked his claim,” he said, smirking lightly at his own pun, “But I want you to remember something when you meet him tonight.”

  “Dominic hasn’t staked anything, claim or otherwise,” I denied.

  “I want you to promise me that you’ll keep perspective,” Walker said, ignoring me. “Whatever you feel for him—and believe me, I know how it feels between a Master and her night blood—it will eventually destroy you. He’ll take your humanity, your blood, and eventually your life and revel in your death.” Walker leaned closer with every word, bending down, so his lips brushed mine as he spoke. “But you don’t need a vampire to feel something real.”

  “Walker, I don’t—”

  He kissed me.

  Chapter 10

  Walker’s lips sealed over mine, luscious and urgent and insistent as they rocked and tasted me. My neck was craned up at an impossible angle from our height difference. I felt his arms wrap solidly around my waist, and I clutched at the smooth, strong muscles of his shoulders. His lips were hot, nearly burning compared to the cool sting of Dominic’s lips, but where Dominic’s kiss had scorched my soul with its intensity, Walker’s kiss scorched my body. His lips left my lips tingling raw. His teeth burned a path of goose bumps over my neck with nips and licks and kisses. His wandering hands over my hips seared the sensitive skin of my lower back. I quaked under his touch, wanting and burning and wilting.

  Walker’s hands cupped under my thighs, and I was suddenly lifted onto my desk. His hands were everywhere—urging my chin higher, stroking my back, clamped on to the nape of my neck—and it felt so incredible that for a brief moment, I thought that Walker was right. I could feel again. I hadn’t felt something real in so long, and maybe I didn’t need Dominic to feel this way. Maybe I could feel again with Walker instead and keep my humanity.

  Walker’s hands unbuttoned my shirt to cup my breasts through my bra, and every part of me that had been screaming a resounding Yes!, slammed shut in a cold wash. I tore my lips away from his mouth and shook my head.

  “No,” I said, pulling his hands away from me when he didn’t listen. “Stop. Walker, I’m serious.”

  He sighed heavily. “I’m moving too fast.”

  I nodded. That was the easiest explanation and true anyway, so I let it ride.

  “I just”—he ran his hands through his hair, mussing up those golden-brown curlicues—“I hadn’t expected to feel quite so much.”

  “Maybe there’s something to being night bloods.”

  “Maybe,” Walker said, looking doubtful.

  I buttoned my shirt and sighed. “Listen, Walker, I don’t want to feel anything. I—”

  “That’s not what your lips said a second ago.”

  I pursed my lips, and then relaxed them, suddenly hyper-aware of their movement. I sighed. “I said, listen. I resent my feelings for Dominic, and this isn’t the time to begin something romantic. What I need is someone in my corner, helping me make it through the punches.”

  “I can be that, too. I can be whatever you need, DiRocco.”

  Relief doused a little of the pent-up panic that had built when he’d unbuttoned my shirt. “Thank you.”

  Walker’s lips quirked. “Although it feels like the ideal time to start something romantic to me.”

  I shimmied off the desk and stood next to Walker, feeling suddenly, painfully short and more than a little embarrassed by my lack of inhibition. “How about we just handle one crisis at a time? I’ll let you know how tonight goes with Dominic.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Since when is starting something romantic a crisis?”

  “Since kisses became weapons,” I muttered over my shoulder, leaving Walker to follow as I walked toward the door.

  “Since when weren’t they?” he commented, close behind.

  I opened the door for him and stepped aside to let him pass. “I’ll see you tomorrow at dawn.”

  Walker stopped in the doorway, blocking my exit. “We still have over an hour until sunset. You’re coming with me to my hotel room.”

  I crossed my arms. “Excuse me?”

  “No need to get saucy, darlin’. I’m only givin’ you what you need.” He winked. “I’ve got a few weapons that you can borrow while you deal with Dominic.”

  I raised my eyebrows, his sawed-off shotgun coming to mind. “I don’t have a gun permit.”

  Walker smiled. “You won’t need a permit for the toys I have in mind.”

  Forty minutes later, I returned to my apartment laden with homemade weapons that Walker had customized. Thanks to his preparedness, I was now the proud owner of a pepper spray can filled with silver nitrate, a miniature crossbow bracelet that shot spears from a trigger at my wrist, a pen that clicked out a retractable stake, and silver-woven palmed gloves.

  He’d had to modify the gloves for my smaller hands. The gloves seemed unnecessary considering that silver wasn’t much of a deterrent against Dominic, but Walker wasn’t overly concerned about needing the gloves for him. “Silver’s the best defe
nse against less powerful vampires,” he said. “You don’t have to aim. You don’t have to shoot. You don’t even have to reload. They’re like condoms; you simply wear them, and you’re protected.”

  “No one likes a comedian,” I commented dryly, smacking Walker lightly with the gloves. They fit perfectly when he’d finished the alterations. “Like a glove,” I said, wiggling my gloved fingers at him.

  He snorted. “Don’t quit your day job, either.”

  He showed me how to shoot the miniature crossbow and let me practice before loosing me on the world. More than my poor aim, I worried that Dominic would take the crossbow before I could shoot him and use the stakes against me.

  “Stop obsessing over Dominic,” Walker chided. “He’s dangerous and certainly lethal to me, but he wants to turn you. As much as it pains me to admit, he’s probably your best protection against other vampires tonight, and it’s them you need to worry about.”

  I nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.” I flexed my hands inside the silver gloves, admiring the fit. Finally, I worked up the nerve to meet Walker’s gaze. We were in this mission together because we were both night bloods and the only bet this city had against vampires, but we disagreed on too many issues for them to be left unsaid.

  “Thank you for the weapons,” I began.

  “You’re welcome, darlin’. Remember to call me when the sun rises, so I know you’re all right. I’ll meet you inside the coven, and we—”

  “Can the ‘darlin’s’ for one second and listen, will you?”

  Walker shut his mouth and stared at me with the undivided attention of that velvet brown gaze.

  I swallowed. “I know I’m a hard-ass, but I still stand beside my principles about Jolene. You didn’t have to kill her. It’s more important to save people than to kill vampires.”

  Walker hesitated before nodding. “That’s your opinion, and I can respect that.”

  “But I know that’s not your opinion, and I can’t respect that. You’re too ruthless in your quest to kill vampires, and I don’t agree that the risks you’ve taken with people’s lives, with my life, were worth the reward. It’s been a while since I trusted anyone and an even longer time since I allowed myself to depend on anyone.”

  “I gathered as much,” Walker murmured thoughtfully.

  “If we’re in this mission together, I need to trust you. I need you to promise me that we’ll stay within the parameters of our mission, only target the rebel vampires, and not kill any humans. Are we agreed?”

  “The chances of finding a human at the coven is pretty slim.”

  “But if one happens to be there,” I emphasized, “you won’t kill them. While you are on a mission with me, you will agree to weigh your options because the ends never justify the means if someone ends up dead. Those are my conditions. If you agree to them, I agree to this mission.”

  Walker only hesitated a fraction of a second before a smirk lit the dimple on his right cheek. “Agreed.”

  I held out my hand to shake on it.

  Walker gripped my palm and pumped firmly before yanking me into a hug. He wrapped his arms around my back and ducked his head into the dip in my neck. “It’s been a while since I could trust anyone, either,” Walker admitted softly. “Thank you.”

  Walker’s embrace was solid and secure and everything I’d imagined being held by him would feel like. I closed my eyes and let the warmth of his body soak my bruises, both the recent ones and the ones from years past that I hadn’t let heal, and hoped against all odds that he could keep his word.

  Sunset was minutes away. I was wearing the silver gloves and my pockets were loaded with the silver nitrate spray and retractable stake pen. I sat with my back against the far wall and waited like Walker had suggested. Dominic would undoubtedly come to me. The sky washed over red and orange and eventually darkened completely as the sun dipped below the horizon.

  The oven timer clicked over to 7:56 p.m., and I propped the miniature crossbow strapped to my wrist over my bent knees, aimed at the window, and waited. I’d considered opening Mom’s jewelry box for her silver crucifix like Nathan had mentioned, but after twenty minutes of staring at the box and caressing its wooden edges, I had to finally decide: open it after all these years or prepare the rest of my weapons for Dominic. I’d prepared for Dominic.

  I didn’t see, hear, or smell his arrival. One moment I was tense and ready and aiming at the empty air outside my window, and the next moment, Dominic was standing on its ledge. His eyes flicked to the crossbow aimed at his chest, and a slow grin spread across his face. By the looks of him, from the glow of his perfect complexion to the muscled strength beneath his leather jacket, he’d recently fed.

  “May I enter?” he asked, but even muffled from the glass between us, his voice sounded just as smug as his expression.

  “You know you can enter even without my permission now,” I snapped.

  He opened the glass and stepped gracefully through my bay window. The room flooded with the soft, sweet, lovely scent of pine. “That doesn’t mean one can’t be polite,” he chided.

  I cocked the bow. “Like last night’s pleasantries?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “As I recall, you attacked me first.”

  I opened my mouth and closed it again, hating that he was right. “Yes, we did. After everything we’ve been through, we naturally felt threatened.”

  “I’m assuming your newest weapons are a testament to that feeling,” Dominic commented, pointing casually to my crossbow.

  I nodded. “Why are you here, Dominic? Fighting for my life is becoming a nightly routine I’d like to break.”

  “I’m sorry to say that you may have to break your routine another night. I’m here to collect on your promise.”

  He was moving slowly closer. Although he wasn’t physically walking, from one moment to the next, I could just barely discern that he was scant centimeters closer.

  “Stop moving,” I warned.

  He raised his hands. “I haven’t moved a muscle.”

  “You haven’t moved, but you’re somehow closer. Stop it, or I’ll shoot.”

  Dominic smirked again, so smug and so infuriatingly male that I wanted to pull the trigger anyway even though he’d indeed stopped moving closer. “Very well. Now, about your promise—”

  “I promised to remember your actions last night.”

  “My favorable actions, yes. I’m asking for you to remember them now as I ask you again, to please help me subdue Kaden.”

  “Don’t you think that highlighting that your actions were favorable diminishes their charitable quality?” I asked, my voice thick with sarcasm.

  He stared back at me, the inhuman qualities in him more apparent in his stillness.

  “I guess not,” I murmured. “All right, yes, I’ll keep your favorable actions from last night in mind when you ask me.”

  “I’m asking you now.”

  I pursed my lips and felt the eerie creep of déjà vu from my conversation with Walker as I asked, “What exactly do you have planned?”

  “You aren’t going to make this easy for me, are you? Can’t you simply trust me after my actions last night? I could have killed you, but once again, I’ve proven that you’re far safer in my care than in anyone else’s.”

  I opened my mouth to snap at him, but the slight twinkle in his eyes made me pause. He was teasing me. “None of this is easy for me,” I said. “So I don’t see why I should make it any easier for you.”

  Dominic’s smile widened, and I realized that he didn’t expect me to say yes without at least some coercion. In fact, saying yes outright probably would’ve been suspicious.

  “Perhaps if you simply lower your weapon, I’ll explain myself.” He took a deliberate step closer.

  I tightened my grip on the handle of the crossbow. “You can stay where you are. My weapon will stay pointed where it is, and you can simply explain yourself where you stand,” I said, trying to remain calm while my voice cracked and quivered. H
is nearness made my heart beat frantically, as if my body knew on an instinctual level that he wanted the blood coursing through it.

  Dominic quirked an eyebrow. “That is hardly hospitable.”

  “If I put my weapon down and decide later that I need it, you’re too fast for me to re-aim. The weapon stays.”

  “You would never point such a weapon at Ian Walker,” Dominic purred.

  I shrugged. “I trust Walker not to harm me.”

  “If we’re partners in this endeavor, you must trust me enough when the time comes to cease aiming at me and aim at Kaden,” he pointed out.

  “And if I agree to being partners, that’s what I’ll do, but in the meantime, the weapon stays,” I insisted.

  Dominic released a long-suffering sigh. To my surprise, he let me keep my weapon and my sense of security. He backed away slowly and sat on the windowsill, his hands still raised.

  I nodded my appreciation and attempted to calm my heart.

  He nodded back. “My plan is fairly simple. As I doubt we’ll need much planning or trickery to entice Kaden to hunt you after last night, it’s simply the location where he finds you that we must consider.”

  “Kaden is still hunting me?”

  “Of course.”

  “What do you mean ‘of course’? Maybe after last night, he’ll reconsider pursuing me.”

  Dominic smirked. “After what happened last night, you’ve only fueled his hunt. Not only did you escape and injure him, he tasted you again. You’ve created quite the challenge for him, one that I’m sure he’s anticipating very much.”

  I shook my head. “But more than half a dozen vampires tasted my blood. Why aren’t they all hunting me?” I blanched. “Are they all hunting me?”

  “No. The vampires know that you’re mine, and those acting under Kaden’s rebellion know that Kaden has claimed you as his. That alone should keep the rest of my coven at bay.”

  “Oh,” I murmured, not comforted by that explanation in the least. “So what location did you have in mind?”

  Dominic considered me a moment before answering. “Somewhere remote to minimize bystanders. Returning to Paerdegat Park may be a good option.”