“But . . .” She gaped at him, then narrowed her eyes. “Why? You said yourself that if the magic isn’t renewed, you’ll die. Which means you’ve got something else up your sleeve.”
He shrugged. “Grant is more powerful than he lets on. He is more powerful than you, cara. You will never be what Cristoff wishes, and he will punish you severely for it.” He cupped her cheek, unhappiness darkening his eyes. “I never want to see you in pain like that again.”
She saw truth in those eyes, heard it in his voice. Was he really saving her simply because he wanted to?
Dear God, is he really letting us go?
But they’d be leaving without Lily. If the girl was even in V.C. If she was even still alive.
Count your wins. Getting Zack home, getting them both out of Vamp City alive, was huge.
Ten minutes later, Arturo, Kassius, Quinn, and Zack were riding through the swampy White House grounds, due west. Zack rode like he knew what he was doing, though with nothing approaching the grace or strength of the two vampires. Though she’d coaxed him out of the house and into a shirt, he’d said nothing since they left the house. He sat now, riding to her right, silent and morose.
Quinn glanced left, at Arturo. This time he’d trusted her to steer the horse herself though he was riding so close that it was amazing the horses didn’t run into one another. Hers and the vampire’s knees kept brushing, though she couldn’t say she really minded.
“Where is the Boundary Circle?” Quinn asked.
“Most of the southwest curvature falls within the Potomac and is useless unless you want to row out to it by boat. Only a small corner between Water Street and Georgetown crosses land. A point very close to the Kennedy Center.”
She frowned, seeing a map of D.C. in her head. “There’s a ton of land between Water Street and Georgetown.”
“Not the curve I’m talking about. Not in 1870. The Tidal Basin did not exist, nor did the Mall west of the Washington Monument. It was all water, the Potomac Shallows. The shallows were eventually filled to make the land you know as the Mall west of the Washington Monument. That work was never done here. In Vamp City, it is still all water.”
“So you’re going to drop us at the Kennedy Center?”
“Yes.” His expression grew very serious. “You should not travel far from D.C. until the magic is renewed, cara. Most importantly, do not let your brother. The magic is unpredictable in this state and may have laid claim to one or both of you. You could sicken if you go too far though not in a way that any doctor could cure.”
“How will I know the magic has been renewed?” But she would know, wouldn’t she? When she ceased to see the worlds colliding. “Never mind.”
She shook her head, a question bothering her. “You said you can’t leave Vamp City, now.”
“That is true.”
“And humans can’t leave on their own.”
“Also true.”
“Then how are you going to free us?”
He stiffened ever so slightly, as if he hadn’t given this escape plan enough thought. She probably wouldn’t have noticed if their knees hadn’t been a handsbreadth apart.
She looked at him sharply.
But when he met her gaze, his eyes were calm and sure. “I can push you through even if I cannot follow.”
“You’re sure?”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I am.”
She wondered how he could be so certain when everyone kept saying the vampires never let humans go once they were caught. But the last thing she wanted to do was talk him out of trying. Besides, what might be true of other humans often didn’t apply to her. She might succeed even where most would fail.
“Can you push other vampires through?” she asked. “Could you get Bram out of here?”
“No. The magic holds us. It has bound us to it.”
“Ax,” Kassius said, his voice low and urgent. “Four o’clock. Ivan and his troop.”
“Merda.” Arturo suddenly grabbed the reins of her horse. “Fight me, cara. Ivan has seen you up close. There will be no deceiving him.”
Quinn swung at him, understanding that they had to put on an act, to pretend he’d caught her and wasn’t helping her escape. But, oh my God. Did this mean the escape was a bust? Was he going to hand them back over to these men? To Cristoff?
Her gut twisted, her neck burning, her feet tingling.
Fear, cold as steel, sliced her heart in two.
Chapter Twenty
“So this is it?” Quinn cried, struggling, as Arturo hauled her off her horse and onto his own, setting her in front of him, his arm clamping around her, pinning her own arms to her sides. “Are you going to give me to them?” Cristoff would torture her, fill her with dragon fire again. Maybe even carry out his threat and cut off her feet! “Kill me here, Vampire. Don’t send me back. Please.”
“Your fear is good, cara. Be afraid, as any escaped slave should. They will taste it.”
No problem. Ice was forming in her veins so quickly, she might soon be sparkling with frost.
She glanced at Zack, who sat silently on his horse, staring at nothing. As if he’d already given up. Had he been paying attention to anything? Was the brother she knew and loved even in there anymore? Then again, if he’d kicked his horse into gear and taken off, Kassius would have gone after him and quickly taken him down in one of those vampire faster-than-the-speed-of-light moves. This way, he could potentially be passed off as a slave accompanying Arturo rather than one involved with her. The last thing, the last thing, she wanted was for Cristoff to figure out he was her brother.
She hazarded a glance at the approaching vampire guards, recognizing the bald Ivan. He certainly appeared to be the leader of the bunch.
Oh, this is not good.
Arturo turned his horse around and started back the way they’d come, riding straight for Ivan and company, leading her empty horse behind him as Kassius and Zack followed.
Quinn’s pulse thrummed with fear, her head pounding with frustration. They’d been so close!
That weird, unnatural heat began to crawl beneath her skin again, and she wondered if her eyes were starting to glow. She swept her lashes down, hiding her eyes, at once hating her power and desperately wishing she could find a way to harness it.
“Arturo.” Ivan nodded as the two parties converged. Quinn felt his gaze on her, heard him grunt as if noticing the change in her hair. “I see you’ve . . . found . . . her.”
They hadn’t fooled him about her identity, as they’d known they wouldn’t. But his questioning tone made her doubt they’d fooled him about anything.
“I have found her. Just this moment,” Arturo said smoothly, that hypnotic quality in his voice she’d heard a couple of times before. “You saw me capture her.”
The suspicion slipped out of Ivan’s expression. “I saw you capture her,” he repeated almost mechanically. Holy cow. Did Arturo actually have the power to affect a vampire’s mind?
But a moment later, the suspicion rushed back into Ivan’s eyes as he cocked his head. “I wonder, though, why you were riding toward the Boundary Circle, a friendly little foursome.”
Quinn felt Arturo tense. “You are mistaken, amico mio. We had only just ridden upon the escaping slave.”
But Ivan was no diplomat. And whatever mind games Arturo had attempted had clearly failed. “I know what I saw. And I saw you and Kassius riding toward the Boundary Circle with the sorceress and another slave, thick as thieves. Cristoff will be very interested in my story, I’ve no doubt.”
Arturo’s voice sounded in her head. Hold on, cara. Then take the horses and go.
What in the hell did he have in mind?
Suddenly, he was no longer behind her, no longer holding on to her, and she grabbed for the horse’s neck, nearly slipping off his back before she managed to right herself. Ou
t of the corner of her eye, she saw something large and round go airborne in a spray of . . . blood. As the thing landed on the ground in front of her, she stared in horror at Ivan’s head. Her eyes went wide as vampire warfare erupted around her, flashes of movement, cries of fury and pain, splashes of blood.
Her horse spooked and began to run, with her barely half-on. Oh, hell.
Struggling against the awkward skirt, she somehow managed to fling her leg astride the saddle, shoving her feet in the stirrups even as she clung to the horse’s mane.
“Quinn! This way!” Zack was motioning her to follow.
A moment’s thrill that Zack seemed to have snapped out of his depression gave way to frustration. She was all for following him, dammit, but how? Her shaking fingers closed around the leather reins, and she gathered them up and pulled to one side, trying to turn the animal. But the horse took the bit in its teeth and fought her.
“Fine! Go where you want to, just go!”
Zack made some kind of clicking noise with his tongue. She watched with surprise as her horse’s ears perked up, then she gasped and grabbed the reins and mane as he lunged forward to follow her brother and his mount. Where in the hell had Zack learned that trick? Where’d he learn to ride, for that matter? Probably at one of those expensive summer camps Angela was always sending him to.
She caught up with Zack quickly, and, together, they raced in the direction they’d been traveling earlier, toward the fog and the Boundary Circle. Could she get herself and Zack through that barrier just as she had the sunbeams? There was only one way to find out.
Behind her, she heard the grunts and yells and occasional clang of steel that told her the battle continued to rage. Don’t die, Vampire. He had his faults, a ton of them, but there was decency in him, and a gentleness that she never would have expected from such a dangerous creature.
As her horse flew over the soft earth, Quinn hung on for dear life, her heart pounding to the beat of the horse’s hooves. Though the unpaved streets remained in this part of the city, whatever buildings had once existed were gone, replaced by thickets of dead trees. As they rode, the fog grew thicker, ghostly fingers probing around them, breaking through here and there to reveal the Potomac gleaming on the left, far closer than it should have been. At the corner where the river turned north would lie the Kennedy Center in her world. And the Boundary Circle in this. They had to reach that point of land before the vampires turned their attention to the escaped slaves. To the escaped sorceress.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, hands gripped her waist as if the fingers of mist had turned real. She cried out with surprise. The reins were ripped from her hands and her body hurled off the horse to land on something hard and narrow. A shoulder. Her forehead cracked against his backbone. “Ow.”
She smelled vampire. Not Arturo, which meant she’d been caught by one of Ivan’s guards! He must have flown at her on foot, no horse able to carry him as fast as he could move on his own.
Dizzily, she craned her head up to see that Zack, still mounted, was swinging around and heading back to her. What was he planning to do, try to save her? She shook her head at him. He needed to keep going, to run! But he continued toward her as if he meant to rescue her from a freaking vampire.
That tingling, useless heat began to flow up into her arms, and she pointed her palms toward her captor’s butt, willing him to fall or go flying . . . preferably dropping her first. But, as before, nothing happened. Her power was useless!
If only she could reach her weapons, but they were in her pockets, beneath her dress, and her dress was firmly pinned to her thighs by her captor’s arm. Maybe she could make him shift his hold enough for her to get to the stake in her pants pocket.
“Let me go!” she screamed, and began pounding his back and kicking her feet, accidentally . . . brilliantly . . . landing a direct hit to his crotch with the toe of her boot.
“Fuck!” the vamp cried out, jerking her legs around one of his hips so she couldn’t kick him again, his movement grinding to a halt as he bent over in pain. Apparently, even vampires could be brought low by a swift kick to the family jewels.
Unfortunately, he didn’t loosen his grip on her enough for her to lift her dress, but she spied the hilt of a knife at his hip. Vamps were too damn fast. Then again, this one was a bit preoccupied.
She went for it, amazed when she was able to snatch the blade from its sheath. With no time to hesitate, she whipped the knife out and down into the bastard’s thigh. He yelled a vicious curse in some language she didn’t understand and tossed her onto the ground with a bone-jarring thud.
Beneath her, she felt the vibration of pounding hooves. Through the swirling mist, she saw Zack racing toward her on horseback. She scrambled to her feet, but the vamp had already recovered and was stalking her, his fangs long, his eyes white with hunger and blazing with a fury that told her his hunger was for revenge.
Taunting heat crawled beneath her flesh.
She glanced toward Zack, who was bearing down on them, inadvertently drawing the vamp’s attention to her brother. With the swish of metal, the vamp drew his sword. He’d kill Zack with one quick, careless swing!
“No!” The heat flamed inside of her, pulsing, pounding, as if trying to get out. A memory flashed, a dream of a door buckling beneath the weight of the light trying to escape, a light . . . power . . . she’d desperately sought to keep contained. Hidden. From Zack.
And suddenly she understood. God help her, she was the one who’d been fighting her power. Because she’d never wanted Zack to see it. She’d never wanted him to know.
Well, fuck it. He was going to die!
With a cry of surrender, she closed her eyes. Trembling, she released her hold on that door, on the heat that swirled inside her, lifted her hands, and poured her will into stopping the vampire who would kill her brother.
Power blasted from her fingers, sending the vampire flying a dozen feet to land hard on his back. She stared at him, stunned. Euphoric. I did it. But a second later, the vamp leaped to his feet.
Like hell. She knocked him down a second time. And a third. Every time he moved, she blasted him until he was pinned to the ground, struggling, shouting with fury.
She hazarded a glance at her brother and found him sitting still on his horse, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. As if she terrified him.
Ice formed in her veins, crawling through the heat as she instinctively fought to shut that door again. To hide again. But the power was loose and wild. Out of her control. It turned on her, stinging as it had in the Focus with Grant and Sheridan when they’d tried to pull the magic. The pain ran up her arms, burning, devouring.
But her vampire victim remained as trapped by her power as she did herself.
Behind her, a man cried out in pain, then another, and the sounds of battle went silent.
A moment later, Arturo was at her side. “Quinn.”
“I don’t know how to stop it!”
“Easy, cara, easy. Can you lower your hands?”
“No. It’s fighting me. It’s attacking me!”
She felt Arturo’s strong arm go around her, his body tensing as if he shared her pain. His cheek brushed her temple. “I’ll try to help you. Do not fight me.”
“I won’t,” she gasped. “Not if I can help it.” But she had no control over any of it. None. Her vision was beginning to spin, turning bright with light that wasn’t there.
She felt Arturo’s cool fingers close around her forearm, felt that arm drop, the connection breaking in both. But the power, once directed at the vampire, recoiled, attacking her fully instead. Quinn cried out, pain lancing her, her vision blazing white.
“Quinn, listen to me.” Cool fingers gripped her face as Arturo’s voice came at her from the front now. “Listen to me! You must turn it off inside, or it will kill you.”
“Don’t . . . know how
.”
“Look at me.”
“I can’t!” All she could see was white.
“Yes, you can,” he insisted, his voice turning low, soothing, with that hypnotic tone she’d heard him use on others. “Come, cara, focus on me, on my voice, on my face.” He released her, gripping her hands, pressing them against his cheeks as if she were a blind woman trying to see. And she was exactly that.
She pressed her hands to his face, tracing the contours of his cheekbones, his brow, his nose. As her fingers dropped to his mouth, her hands began to shake violently. Her whole body began to quake, as if preparing to implode.
But Arturo only gripped her hands with his, taking them to his mouth. “What do you see, Quinn?”
“White, just white.”
“Push pass it, piccola. Through it. I am here, on the other side.”
Trembling, Quinn fought the blindness, fought to see Arturo. At last, a shadow moved within the white. Slowly, the whiteness turned to mist, dissipating, leaving her half-blind but staring into Arturo’s face.
“I did it,” she gasped.
He smiled with approval. “You did. Now look deeply into my eyes, cara, and I will help you douse the fire.”
She followed his words, staring deep into those dark eyes, feeling as if he were climbing into her through her own. Instinct had her tensing, desperation battled that instinct as she forced herself to relax, to welcome his help.
“That’s a good girl. Find the source of the fire, cara. Can you tell me what it looks like?”
“It’s . . . a door. A door I opened and can’t shut.”
“Then we will shut it together. Focus on the door, Quinn, on the handle. Grip that handle tight in your hand. I am behind you, with you. Together we will close it. Are you ready?”
Shaking with pain, with fear, Quinn nodded. “Yes.”
“On the count of three then. One, two . . . three!”
Quinn poured her will into closing that door, just as she’d poured her will into opening it. But it wouldn’t . . . there! It was starting to move. She could feel strength pumping into her own, Arturo’s strength. She could do this!
A Blood Seduction Page 27
