She sat on the floor, dragging in air, and tried to calm her thundering heart. The coolness of the concrete bled through the fabric of her sweatpants.
“Well,” Aodhán said. He wasn’t even out of breath. “That went well.”
Kimber, on the other hand, had trouble gulping in enough air. She pushed to her feet. “It didn’t go like I thought it would.”
“Really? You actually thought this out?”
She glared at him. “Well, you could have said something.” She was being unreasonable and she knew it, but crap! That zombie had almost had her for breakfast.
“I believe when I said ‘This is a really bad idea’ that was me saying something.”
“Sorry.” She stared at the zombie. “There’s something wrong with the Unseen.”
“What does that mean?” Aodhán came to her side. A quick glance at him showed her that his gaze, too, was on the zombie.
“At Whitcomb’s animation, when I first tried to return him to true death, the Unseen reached for me. It was dark. Evil.” She shivered anew at the memory. “Something other than Richard Whitcomb’s soul attached to him.”
“Like a stowaway?”
She nodded. “Or a parasite. But I don’t know what it was. What it is.”
“But you think that, whatever it is, it’s what started the apocalypse?”
“Yes.” She rubbed her palms down the front of her sweatpants. She gestured toward the wilted zombie. “We need to get this thing out of here.”
He stared at her. “Promise me you won’t try to do this again.”
She met his gaze. “I don’t think I can promise that, Aodhán. I need to figure something out, and I can only do that by trying.”
“And failing.”
“Hey, three-quarters of the world’s inventions came about through failures, you know. Edison tried like ten thousand times until he finally got the light bulb to function properly. At least I’ll know what doesn’t work.”
He shook his head. “You promise me, or I’ll tell Duncan what you did here today.”
She widened her eyes. “Are you serious? You’re gonna run and tell Dad?”
“I hardly think you look on him as a father figure, and I know he sure as hell doesn’t think of you as a daughter.” He folded his arms and broadened his stance. “But I’m very serious, Kimber. This is too dangerous, messing with the Unseen this way. You saw what happened with this one. You made it stronger. Worse. Imagine if that happened with a horde. Or all of them.”
He was right. They’d never survive if zombies got any stronger than they already were. But she couldn’t stand by and do nothing. She had to keep trying, and if that meant lying to Aodhán, then so be it.
“Fine.” She made sure her voice was less than gracious. “I promise.” She crossed her fingers behind her back. If he could be childish enough to threaten to tattle on her, she could be childish enough to believe her promise was negated by the simple act of putting one finger over the other.
The Outbreak was her fault, and she would find a way to fix it.
Chapter Eight
Two nights later Duncan answered the knock on Kimber’s door. Murray stood there, just as fragile looking as ever. “What now?” Duncan asked.
The other vampire lifted his chin, motioning toward the inside of the apartment. “Maddalene wants to see your little necromancer again.” His face was expressionless but Duncan caught the smirk in his voice.
He clenched his jaw. No way in hell was Kimber going back there until he and Maddalene came to an understanding. The fact that Maddalene had overridden him and allowed hungry vampires into his living quarters, to threaten Kimber and her friends, had driven home the point that the sense of loyalty he felt toward Maddalene was a one-way street.
“Tell Maddalene to forget it,” he told Murray.
“I’m not your messenger boy, MacDonnough.” The skinny excuse for a vampire gave a grunt and pointed to his head. “Still attached, the way I like it. You got something to say to Maddalene, you say it yourself.” He gave a sardonic salute with two fingers and sauntered off.
Damn it.
Duncan closed the door and turned to face the other inhabitants of the apartment. Natalie stood in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter, her hands braced on either side. Aodhán was kicked back in the recliner, his gaze steady and calm. Kimber, his lovely Kimber, stood beside the sofa, arms crossed and one foot tapping on the floor.
“I am not going back there,” she said.
“No, you’re not.”
“I mean it, Duncan. Maddalene wants the impossible, and I won’t do it.”
“I agree.”
“No matter what you…” A frown dipped between her brows. “Wait. What?”
He couldn’t stop the small grin that quirked his lips. She was adorable when she was confused. It wasn’t a look he got to see very often because she had such a sharp mind. “I said I agree. You’re not going to see Maddalene.”
“Oh.” Her hands dropped to her sides. “Um, why not?”
Ignoring the interested gazes of Aodhán and Natalie, he walked over to Kimber and took her face in his palms. “Because I don’t trust her right now, and I mean to keep you safe.”
Her lips parted and he couldn’t stop himself from dipping his head to press a soft kiss against her mouth. When he drew away, her lashes fluttered and swept up to show slightly dazed eyes. That was a good sign, anyway. He knew she wasn’t indifferent to him. If he could prove to her that he wouldn’t lose control and drain her, maybe one day she’d trust him enough to let him close again. To let him love her.
He took a step back. Where the hell had that come from? He didn’t love Kimber. He couldn’t love her. She was mortal. He was not. He didn’t deny he wanted her—his lust for her was nearly a living entity on its own. But love?
No.
He didn’t have the time for love. He didn’t have the luxury for love.
He didn’t have the right. He’d done things he wasn’t proud of. Kimber deserved better than him. She certainly didn’t deserve the danger he’d be putting her in if Maddalene found out he had a soft spot for Kimber. And he deserved…
He firmed his jaw. He deserved only what she gave him. But that didn’t negate the fact that she had something he wanted—well, actually, two things he wanted: the ability to contact the Unseen and a body he wanted to lose himself in. Both might be within his reach if he could just get Maddalene to back the hell off.
Yeah, Duncan. Just keep telling yourself all you’re interested in is her body. You might really believe it someday.
He turned away from Kimber. Grabbing up the tire iron from where he’d placed it underneath the coffee table, he headed toward the front door. “I’m going to talk to Maddalene.”
“Wait.” Kimber’s soft voice stopped him. When he looked over his shoulder at her, she said, “Be careful.”
He gave a nod and pulled open the door. As he closed it behind him, he heard Aodhán say, “He’s strong and he’s fast. On his own, he’ll be able to get around any zombies out there. He’ll be fine.”
Fine against zombies, yes. Against his own heart? He wasn’t so sure.
* * *
Half an hour later Duncan stood in front of Maddalene, watching her eyes flare with rage. Her two human attendants, clad only in black bikini briefs, knelt at either end of the chaise. Dried blood streaked their inner forearms and the strong muscles of their throats. Four well-fed vampire guards stood in front of the closed door, blocking the exit. Even as strong as he was, Duncan wasn’t a match for guards who’d recently fed.
“Repeat what you just said to me, Duncan,” Maddalene said, her voice dangerously soft. “I think I must have misheard you.”
“You didn’t mishear anything. I told you to leave Kimber alone. She’s fragile right now. She just lost a friend.” He maintained eye contact with her, refusing to look away and show weakness. “With the Outbreak, everything’s changed. Everyone’s fighting to survive. What yo
u want Kimber to do for you doesn’t matter anymore.”
“What I want doesn’t matter?” She rose from her chaise and glided down the steps. She wore form-fitting black leggings and a dark purple top that fell off one slim shoulder. Her long hair fell in loose curls over her shoulders. For all that she was a beautiful woman, he never forgot that she could be deadly. “You forget yourself. What I want is all that matters.”
He clenched his jaw so tight the muscles in his jaw flexed. Calling upon all his reserves of diplomacy, he said softly, “At what cost, my queen?”
Her full lips thinned. “And you’re the one to determine the cost?” She slashed a slim hand through the air, forestalling his reply. Her dark eyes glittered with emotion. If he hadn’t known her as well as he did, he might have thought she battled back tears. She flipped her hair over her shoulder with a quick flick of her elegant fingers. “You know how much Eduardo means to me. How can that not matter?”
“It’s not worth the havoc you may wreak trying to revive him.” As she stopped in front of him, he lifted his hands and placed them lightly on her shoulders. Had he been anyone other than her second in command he would never have dared be so familiar. “Maddalene, listen to me, please. Kimber has said there’s something wrong with the Unseen, and I believe her. When her friend Bishop was bitten, she tried to draw the infection—that part of the Unseen that is powering these undead things—out of him, and it nearly killed her. What you ask is too much.”
Her nostrils flared. “Who are you to defy me?”
He gave her a little shake. “I’m your friend, damn it. Believe it or not, I am trying to help you.” He needed her to believe that. If she suspected his only motivation was to keep Kimber safe, Maddalene would never agree to leave her alone.
“Are you?” She knocked his hands away and took a few steps back. “I think you’re less concerned about me than you are about your little human. Has she let you fuck her yet?” His answer must have shown on his face, because she trilled a laugh. “Oh, I see she has. And it has strengthened your noble desire to protect her.”
“Even if Kimber and I hadn’t become intimate,” Duncan said, “I would still counsel you against this action. Maddalene, it can’t be done.”
With a flick of her wrist she summoned the guards. Duncan allowed two of them to take his arms in their hold. The only thing he’d accomplish by fighting them would be to use strength he might need later. “What is this?” he asked.
“I cannot allow disobedience and treachery in my own enclave.” She grabbed the neckline of his T-shirt and with preternatural strength ripped it down the front. She brushed the ruined material aside, baring his chest and stomach. “The disloyalty you have demonstrated must be answered.”
She walked behind him and ripped at his shirt until it was in tatters. She pulled it off him, leaving him naked from the waist up.
“Since when is it disloyal to counsel you against taking action I believe to be unwise?” Duncan kept his voice even, though anger simmered below the surface. If she thought to intimidate him, she could think again. “I’ve done it before. And I’ll do it again.”
“Yet you’ve always bowed to my wishes in the end. Except now. Why?” She studied him, her eyes steady on his. “Why now? Why her?” Those dark eyes widened. “You have feelings for her.”
To admit he cared for Kimber would put her in more danger than she already was. He wouldn’t give Maddalene anything more to hold over his head to force his compliance. Enough was enough. “No,” he denied, keeping his voice as even as the gaze he leveled on his queen. “She is a means to an end.”
“What end?” Her suspicious eyes remained fixed on him.
He debated telling her, and decided he wouldn’t get anywhere by remaining silent. As much as he didn’t want to bare his soul, if he even still had one, in front of her guards, he didn’t have much of a choice at the moment. “We’ve often wondered if the Unseen is what makes us what we are,” he began.
She nodded. “Yes. If necromancers can use it to reanimate corpses into zombies, perhaps that same essence is what allows vampires to exist.”
Nerves dried his mouth. If she didn’t believe him, or didn’t care, he knew she would take out her anger at his defiance on his body. Like he’d told Kimber before, she was a cruel and harsh mistress. “I want…” He drew in a reflexive breath, a holdover from those long ago days as a human when extra oxygen could somehow lend extra resolve. “I need to feel again, Maddalene. I need…to feel a connection to the living.”
“So get a dog.”
Irritation roiled through him at her flippant response. “Maddalene…”
She jerked one shoulder up, an unspoken acknowledgment and apology over her trivialization of his heartfelt desire. “This is important to you.”
“Yes.”
Her hard gaze drifted over his face and lower, to his chest. “As is my dream of being reunited with Eduardo.”
He could tell by the unforgiving expression on her face that she had set aside any sense of being in the wrong and was putting her desires above his. It was her right as queen, though a truly worthy leader would look to the betterment of her people over the fulfillment of her own hopes. But Maddalene had always been a selfish ruler.
She threw one arm behind her and clicked her fingers. “Bring chains and the cat o’ nine tails.”
One of her human attendants jumped to his feet and hurried toward the back wall where a number of whips and chains complete with manacles were stored. After he grabbed the requested implements, he rushed to her side and placed the handle of the whip in her outstretched hand. The bits of glass attached at the ends of the lashes glinted in the artificial light of the room.
Duncan stared at them and then looked at his queen. She had never looked as regal and ruthless as she did now. He was fucked, and everyone in the room knew it. If he fought, he might win and get out of the room, but there were dozens of vamps he’d have to battle to get out of the building. He was strong.
But he wasn’t that strong.
Besides, if he allowed Maddalene to work out her frustrations on him, she might be more inclined to leave Kimber alone. For a while, anyway. And, also, he wasn’t ready to play his hand just yet. He’d known for a while that her time to rule needed to end, but he’d been resistant to doing anything about it because of his loyalty. Their friendship. And yet, if she was willing to stripe his back, to mangle it with a cat o’ nine tails, then it was clear to him their friendship was one-sided.
The human handed over the chains to one of the guards standing behind Duncan.
Maddalene pointed toward the central supporting column in the room. “Chain him securely,” she instructed the guards.
They dragged him to the column. Duncan again thought about fighting, and the muscles of his arms and legs tightened as he prepared to jerk the two holding him toward each other to throw them off balance. He forced himself to relax and looked over his shoulder at Maddalene. “I want your word you’ll leave Kimber alone.”
She raised one arched eyebrow. “And why would I do that?”
He held her gaze. “What you’re about to do is because of anger, not because it’s just. And you know it.” But he’d let her do it, because it would be an outlet for her frustration. He’d rather be used as her whipping boy than have Kimber be the recipient of Maddalene’s vitriolic attitude.
Her nostrils flared. Fists clenched at her sides, the knuckles of her right hand showing white around the handle of the whip, she stalked forward. The closer she got, the more he could smell the scorched rubber scent of her anger. She placed the tip of the handle under his chin, forcing his head back so that he had to look down his nose to meet her eyes. Silver glinted in the brown of her irises. “I will give you twenty lashes for your disloyalty,” she said. “Keep trying my patience and it will be forty.”
He turned his head and rested his cheek against the column. “After all this time, I would have thought you’d have more faith in me,” he murmure
d.
“Forty it is.” Her voice struck like flint in his ear, her breath stirring his hair. “Ask Aodhán some time about how I feel about betraying males.” Before he could question her about that, she stepped away from him.
The guards snapped the manacles around his wrists and attached the other ends to rings high up on the column, forcing Duncan to his toes. They moved away from him and waited in silence.
The first slice of the lashes across his back startled him with the amount of pain. He ground his jaw, determined to take his unfair punishment in silence. By the tenth lash he couldn’t hold back the moans. By the thirtieth, feeling like his back was so much shredded meat, each strike of the individual lashes brought screams to his throat. By the final stroke he sagged against the chains holding him to the column.
“Release him.” Maddalene’s voice came to him through a fog of pain. If the guards on either side of him hadn’t grasped his arms, he would have collapsed to the floor in a heap of misery. Still seeming far away, his queen ordered, “He does not feed for forty-eight hours. Understand? He will bear scars for his disloyalty.”
“Yes, my queen.”
She grasped his hair and pulled his head up. He stared up at her, pain and biting betrayal swirling through him. “I. Want. The. Necromancer. She will be more willing if you convince her.” She gave his head a shake. “Submit to me, Duncan, and we can be as we were. Hold to your stubbornness, and you’ll be in chains feeling the bite of that whip again.” She let go of his hair, and his head slumped to his chest. “Take him.”
The guards dragged Duncan out of the room and down the hallway to his own suite. Instead of dumping him on the floor in the living room, as he expected, they took him into his bedroom and placed him face down on the bed.
He was aware when they left but then floated in a haze of muddled pain and anger. Even hatred of Maddalene, which was new. But then she’d never before taken the cat to his back, though he’d seen it done often enough to others.
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