“Are you ready to head out?” He threw a questioning glance my way.
He encanted the hotel employees to forget us, and I wondered what they would think of the mess we left in the room.
When we arrived at the car—another little sports car, though he’d opted for black this time—and I approached the driver’s seat, he went around to take the passenger’s side without complaints.
He didn’t offer to hold my hand this time, nor did I seek it.
SOMETIME DURING THE attack, I’d received Alice’s message with a location followed by several frantic messages asking to confirm we were on the way. As soon as I could, I’d texted back with an update on what had happened so she would know when to expect us.
“Witches and their affinity with forests,” I muttered to myself as the GPS announced our arrival. Between Nana, Alice, and Scarlette, I was starting to see a common pattern. It wasn’t the first time I wished I had a connection to nature like these witches did.
As we pulled into the driveway of yet another quaint little wooden house, the back of my neck prickled.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Kol said beside me, getting out of the car to look around before I could snap at him.
We approached the stone porch together. Alarm bells started sounding in my head and I grabbed Kol’s arm.
The cottage shimmered and began changing. Before my eyes, the scene grew darker.
A cloud blocked the sun, and the grass before my feet withered. The shrubs and trees became charred, and the cottage transformed from a well-maintained home to one with broken windows and splinted wood.
“Eli—”
Kol reached out for me, only to be shot down by an arrow to the chest. He stumbled. Before he could recover, a second arrow soared through the air and burst to reveal a net. It landed on Kol, who roared with pain. Where the ropes of the net touched him, a horrible sizzling sound occurred as his skin turned red and rashy. A group of hooded men were on him in the blink of an eye, pinning him down and grabbing at his arms.
He dropped to his knees and looked up at me, red eyes meeting mine.
Run, he said soundlessly.
I knew I should have run the other way. I knew I was no help to anyone. I knew I should have left him behind—he was immortal, and I was his weakness.
But I ran toward him, anyway. I couldn’t leave him.
His eyes widened when he realized what I was doing, but the others had tied him down, and he burned wherever rope touched him.
Something hit me from the side, and I went down, stars in my eyes and a painful thundering in my head. Kol snarled and snapped like a wild beast.
A cloaked man—no, a vampire—held me down. I could see his glowing red eyes and unnaturally long teeth. I kicked and thrashed. My fist hit his face, and he grunted with pain.
He knocked my head back with one well-aimed punch. The last thing I heard before blacking out was a sickening crack as my head hit the concrete.
CHAPTER 10
EVERYTHING WAS DARK except for a dim bulb casting light over what appeared to be a metal wall.
I laid on my side with a dull throbbing in my head. I tried to touch my head but—someone had tied my hands. Why were they tied? Panic shot up my veins like an icy blast as I struggled against the ropes, which only caused them to tighten and chaff against my wrists. I shifted to sit up, but a rush of dizziness hit, and the metal floor connected with my cheek. Pain exploded in my face.
Whatever dust or powder had settled on the floor, I didn’t care about resting my face on it. I lay there for a moment, letting the cool metal of the floor ice the stinging.
I breathed a little too hard and coughed. It wasn’t dust on the floors—someone had sprinkled ash. Groaning, I rolled onto my back and blinked hard against the darkness. I evened my breathing and realized I could hear the sounds of traffic. The slight swaying that wasn’t just in my head. The cold floors. The metal walls.
I was in a van.
Swallowing hard, I shimmied until I was sitting upright again so I could survey my surroundings. I wiggled my fingers and toes and then ran my tongue over my teeth. Everything still seemed to work despite the pressure in my head.
Other than the little light bulb, there was no other source of light. A coil of ropes sat in one corner, and to the other—
My heart leaped to my throat.
Kol sat barefoot and cross-legged at the other end of the van, his hands tied behind his back. A gag wrapped around his face, forcing his mouth open, and thick rope circled his chest, pinning his arms down.
Worried ruby-red eyes glowed in the dark, watching my every move.
I groaned and gingerly twisted so I could crawl my way to him. Dragging myself inch by inch over the metal floor, I was glad that I had chosen jeans instead of shorts.
A loud bang brought me face down onto the floor of the van again. Kol shifted in concern, and when I looked up, the dim glow just reached his face. They must have dipped the gag in ash, because it burned him wherever it touched his skin, making large, red welts. His normally light hair was plastered to his forehead with blood.
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the tears away.
The van jerked again, throwing me off to the side. At least I was upright again. I laid on my back for a moment, letting the cold metal stop the spinning in my head.
When the stars finally stopped, I met Kol’s eyes.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, knowing his vampiric senses would hear me.
Even dire as our situation was, Kol had the audacity to look at me incredulously. I could already hear what he wanted to say.
“I’ll get you out,” I edged closer to him.
He rolled his eyes as if to say, “You need to take care of yourself and help yourself first, Elle.”
“We have better chances of getting out of this—whatever this is—if you’re freed,” I glared.
His brows furrowed, and he stared harder at me, but I didn’t understand. Instead, I sucked in my breath and loosened my shoulders. Pulling my wrists away from each other as much as I could, I winced at the stinging pain when the ropes dug into my skin, but I managed to squeeze my hips and legs through my bound wrists.
With my hands in front of me, my clumsy fingers brushed ash from a spot so he could move without burning, and eventually managed to loosen his wrists enough that he could shrug the ropes off. I worked on his chest bindings while he undid his ankles.
As soon as he was free, I slumped back and panted. My shoulders hurt. My wrists were on fire. My head hadn’t stopped throbbing since I’d woken up.
In my periphery, Kol made quick work of the ropes gagging him. His hands went to my face, pulling me to him as his glowing eyes studied me.
“You idiot,” he whispered. “Are you okay? You look concussed.”
“Mhm,” I mumbled.
“Hey, stay awake. I’m going to need you to drink, okay?” He nipped at his wrist and brought it to my mouth.
Liquid metal filled my mouth, and the fog in my mind slowly cleared. No matter how many times I’d done this, drinking from him was never going to feel normal even though it always took away the physical pains of my body. When my eyes opened again, he drew me into a hug before I could speak.
“Let’s get these off of you.”
His hands worked quickly to untie my wrists. Right as the ropes fell free, the van shuddered to a stop.
Our eyes met. Mine, afraid. His, angry.
Someone threw the back doors wide open, and light poured in, blinding me. Kol snarled, and I felt a rush of air. I blinked hard. Kol leaped off the van and onto the closest man, whose eyes turned red, and fangs extended.
The vampire, hooded like the others, didn’t stand a chance as Kol tore through his neck like it was nothing. Kol reached out and grabbed another vampire by the throat. With one in each hand, he threw his thrashing victims. Sickening cracks proclaimed their deaths. Kol turned back for me, his eyes full of fear.
I was still fumbling with m
y ankle bindings when someone’s hands landed on my shoulders and I felt cold steel on my neck.
“Stop your resistance or we take her.” The man’s voice was rough, a stark contrast to the deadly, smooth blade against my skin.
Kol growled and glared at the man behind me before finally raising his hands up in the air. Blood still dripped from his upturned lips as his eyes trained on the knife against my throat.
I wanted to apologize as I watched him hiss with pain when cloaked figures wrapped more ash dipped ropes around him. This time, they looped a circlet around his neck, too.
Three vampires laid on the ground, unmoving. Five more were still standing to herd us up a long, gated driveway at the end of which was an elaborate renaissance-looking home; flat roofs and arches adorned the mansion. I craned my neck to see the top.
Trees stretching for miles surrounded the mansion before being shadowed by mountains.
The vampire at my side knocked on the elaborate, dark wooden door to announce our arrival and then opened it himself.
The interior matched the exterior in grandiose. The main door deposited us in a large, tiled foyer with high ceilings and bare walls except for several large oil paintings of people and places I’d never seen. They reminded me of the kind I’d see at a museum of ancient royalty.
Stairs in the middle of the foyer ascended to another floor that we couldn’t see.
We stopped before the stairs and waited. Every time Kol so much as shifted, his captors pulled on the rope around his neck, making him hiss with pain.
Finally, someone descended the staircase.
We saw his dark shoes first, then his black pants. Wearing them was a man in his early forties with graying hair.
His face was soft, but his eyes held a type of sharpness that I couldn’t place. Not quite the same timeless age that I’d seen in Scarlette’s eyes, but something... else. The laugh lines around his eyes were a stark contrast to the countenance that said he hadn’t laughed in a long time.
His straight back and militant posture never wavered as he stopped in front of us. There was a darkness about him that made my neck prickle with alarm—with familiarity. It wasn’t the same as the kind Kol exuded; Kol was dangerous, but this man was more malevolent.
When he spoke, it was soft, but with authority.
“Kol,” he turned away from me.
Kol relaxed, but his smile dripped with poison and hatred. “Harald,” he responded. “I should have figured it was you. The incompetence screams your name.”
“Incompetence has brought you here, has it not?” Harald asked, his hands behind his back and as casual as though this were a mid-Sunday visit rather than the two of us tied like prisoners.
“Your men seem to have mistaken us for someone else,” Kol shrugged, an air of complete indifference despite the sizzling of his bindings.
“Ah, I don’t think that’s quite the case,” Harald tutted, crossing the distance between us to stand in front of me. I shuttered the desire to step back, knowing I’d only step into one of our captors.
A deep rumble echoed in the foyer, and I recognized it immediately as Kol’s growl increasing as Harald got closer.
Harald had startling deep blue eyes, and they focused solely on me as he approached. There was a strange twinge of familiarity to his face that made me uneasy.
Like I had somehow seen this man before. I sifted through my memories to figure out where I knew him from. A magazine? The news? But nothing surfaced even as I studied his face.
He looked at me as though he were familiar with me as well, drinking in my existence like he had waited a long time for this moment. My entire body prickled under his gaze.
“Are you Elle? The Elizabeth Kore I’ve heard so much about?” He stopped a few steps away from me, close enough to make me uncomfortable. “The weakness to Kol’s immortality?”
What was I to say to that? Yes, I’m the only person who can kill the unkillable vampire by sacrificing my own life?
“How dark Lady Irony is to make you the only person who can finally dismiss Nikolas forever,” he sighed.
“What do you mean me? Why me?” I choked out.
“How sick and twisted fate is,” he shook his head.
“Elle,” I turned to Kol when he said my name.
“Don’t look at him,” Harald growled. His eyes turned red and his fangs emerged. He was a vampire. Of course he was. It seemed like every stranger these days was a witch or a vampire. Did I even remember a life when the people I met were human? “Don’t look upon the face of the murderer of our family.”
“Our family?” I blinked.
“Yes, Elle. You are my child. My only child with your dear mother. Beautiful Selene,” he stroked my face as though he were looking at her, and not at me. I flinched. I’d never seen photos of my parents. One might think it was strange, but given how often we moved, I never questioned it. I’d always assumed Nana had packed all of our photos into a box and it got lost in one of our moves. Talking about my parents distressed her, so I rarely brought it up. I didn’t want to remind her of the pain of losing both her son and daughter-in-law and all photo memories of them, as well. Staring into Harald’s face seething with anger, I realized maybe I should have pressed Nana a little harder.
“Your mother, which he killed,” Harald hissed, turning and pointing a finger at Kol.
“What?” The air squeezed out of my lungs and it felt like the floors had been ripped out from under me.
“Kol?” I looked past Harald’s shoulders and met Kol’s eyes. He was completely stoic—his eyes had turned back to grey.
“Oh yes, ask him,” Harald stepped back and turned so I had a full view of the vampire who’d been my savior for days.
Kol didn’t meet my eyes. “I...”
“I think we need to talk about why we’re here,” I interrupted Kol and his shoulders loosened—ever so slightly—with relief. But my mind was whirling with emotions and I wanted to sit down—but not here. Not in front of this stranger. I mustered up my courage and put on my poker face.
“If you haven’t noticed, this isn’t exactly a voluntary tea party,” I held up my bound hands and glared at him. He had provided so much information and yet I had never felt more lost.
“Ah,” he smiled and turned to Kol. “You two have been an elusive pair.”
“Maybe your men just suck,” I glared at his back. “I didn’t realize we’d been evading anyone.”
He chuckled. “So full of life, just like your mother.”
Harald turned back to me and his face softened. “At first, I didn’t realize you were the cursed one when I heard that Nikolas Black had found himself bound to a mortal. We are in quite the pickle now, aren’t we?”
I blanched. He captured us—captured me—so he could use me against Kol.
“But when I heard the name of the girl—of you—I knew I had to bring you in. I had to before others found you. Did you even know that there’s been a bounty on you?”
“He—We figured.” I looked down. “But what did you do to Alice? Where is everyone? Are they okay?”
“Alice sold us out,” Kol answered without inflection in his voice. “She told us to meet her there so his guys could ambush us.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Harald shook his head. “The things witches would do for a little of protection. You’d think they have more power., being part of the earth and all that.”
“She betrayed us?” I paled. I’d wanted her to be genuine. Kol had been distrustful from the beginning, but I’d wanted the connection to be real. She was also the last physical connection I’d had to Nana—but I pushed that thought out of my mind.
“Witches only protect their own,” Kol shook his head quietly. Somewhere deep inside, his comment stung. Wasn’t I one of theirs? Wasn’t Nana?
“As you might have heard, there are Hunters—humans—whose sole purpose in life is to destroy the Shadows. I have dispatched my own group of vampires to counter them. You might have met t
hem,” Harald paused and looked around the room as if realizing, for the first time, how the situation looked with us standing, bound, in his foyer.
“You know, wouldn’t we all be more comfortable in the dining room without these nasty ropes?” He smiled widely—to me, it looked almost maniacal—and nodded to the cloaked vampires around us. They released our bindings. I rubbed my wrists and trained my focus forward, unable to look at Kol.
Harald was showing us he held the position of power. He was reminding us he brought us here, bound and vulnerable, and now, by his word, we were, in a sense, freed. He knew that with this earth-shattering information he shared about me and my—our—family, I was drawn enough to stay.
Before anyone took a step, Harald tutted at Kol. “And don’t you think about making a move. You’re surrounded here, and my dear daughter will have her own guard until we’ve all said our piece.”
I shivered; the way he said dear daughter made me uncomfortable. Was I discomfited because he seemed not to care about holding his own child as hostage, or that he had just earlier reminded me of my role in this apparent feud between him and Kol? Maybe both.
My mind was a maelstrom of thoughts as they escorted us through a dim hallway. Even though none of the guards walked closely enough that I could feel their presence, I knew from having seen how fast Kol moved that if I were to run, any of them would catch me in an instant.
Entering a tall arched doorway revealed a long dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows at each side. A large wooden table in the middle took up most of the room. Harald pulled out a high-backed chair for me and jerked his chin toward another across from us.
A boy with a flop of sandy hair about ten or twelve years old immediately appeared at our side and poured glasses of ice water, placing one before each of us. Without a word, he scurried away, leaving the pitcher of water on the table.
My throat dried at the sight of condensation forming on the glass, but I was afraid to reach for it.
Life Bound: The Shadow World Book 1 Page 12
