Bad Blood

by Everly, Faith

  Woof. Maybe I shouldn’t have said so much, but I couldn’t unplug from my intuition in time to stop myself. Once my tongue had started wagging, that was the end of it. No way to shut up.

  And yes. My insides were just as jumbly as they were when I pulled the same thing on Lucian. Only this time I was in a building chock full of horny vampires which… was no help at all and maybe would make things worse.

  Felix’s eyes narrowed. “She’s not like the rest of her kind.”

  “No. She isn’t.” Gabriel’s lips grazed my cheek. “She’s a sharp one. That would be why I chose her.”

  “That isn’t why you chose her.” He rose slowly, staring at me with an intensity that made icy cold sweat run down the back of my neck. “You chose her because she has supernatural blood. She’s not pure human. I wondered what was different about her, and now I know.”

  He shoved the desk at us. Gabriel was too quick for him—we were across the room before the heavy antique smashed into the chair we’d just been sitting in.

  “Give her to me.” Felix charged us, pushing the desk out of his way and knocking his chair over.

  In a flash, Gabriel had me behind him, against the wall. He reached out to Felix and for a second I thought he was going to hug him or do something else to calm him down.

  Instead, he brought his arm down in a quick, slashing motion.

  And like magic, blood flowed from the gaping wound now in the big man’s throat.

  So much for blending in and not causing trouble.

  Eight

  SOPHIE

  “What the fuck?” It was a strangled little whisper. I only said it once, but it kept repeating in my head. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the actual fuck did I just witness?

  Felix stumbled around the room with one hand over his throat, but it was no use. He was bleeding out in front of us and flailing around like a wounded bear, knocking things over in the process.

  “You wanted to know what I intended to pay?” Gabriel’s voice was cold. “I had intended to allow you to keep your worthless life, you piece of shit. Who financed this establishment of yours? Hmm?”

  Felix gurgled. Blood poured over his bottom lip and made a waterfall, running down his chin to match what was pumping out of his throat.

  “Who kept Lucian and Augustine and the Council of Elders away from your door?” Gabriel took a step toward him, which meant stepping into the pool of blood spreading over the floor. My stomach lurched.

  No matter whether I was secretly a human-vampire or not, I was watching another living being bleed out in front of me.

  He was a living being who’d wanted to sell me for profit.

  So much for sympathy.

  Gabriel stood over Felix, who was now on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Still alive, struggling to breathe, but his struggles were weaker with each pump of blood through his fingers.

  “You’ve lived on borrowed time for years, you worm.” There was a hardness to Gabriel I had never seen before.

  No, not true. I’d seen it when we first met at Miller’s. A hard, cold, imperious manner. The way he was when he was around his own kind. Strong and merciless.

  I didn’t know if it was a horror or a turn-on. In the moment, with blood everywhere, horror edged out everything else.

  Felix went still. He stopped gurgling, which was a very good thing. I had never heard anybody dying before and it wasn’t pretty.

  “Did that shock you? Don’t worry about it.” Gabriel stepped over Felix’s body and went to the desk. “He’s had it coming for a long time.”

  Where was the Gabriel I thought I was getting to know? He wouldn’t look at me, too busy filling his pockets with one vial and bottle after another. I might as well have been in this room with a complete stranger.

  Then again, wasn’t that who he was? A stranger?

  That wasn’t the problem at hand, though. There was more than enough to worry about right in front of me. “We have to get out of here before anybody else comes back.”

  “No one comes back unless they’ve been invited.” He turned back to me. “We’ll have to go through the club and the auction area to leave. There isn’t another exit that hasn’t been walled-off. I could break through, but the sound might attract unwanted attention.”

  “So, I’m supposed to go through the club and pretend that didn’t just happen? That there isn’t a dead body back here?”

  “Damn right. I know you can handle it—and so do you, so stop telling yourself you can’t.”

  Felix’s body did what bodies did once they were dead. I gagged on the stench of his colon emptying into his pants. “Can we just get out of here before I pee myself or puke or both?”

  We stepped through the door. He was quick to close it behind us before anybody could see what went down. I wondered how long it would be before the vampires in the club smelled the blood. Or the shit.

  Within seconds, it was clear that wouldn’t happen.

  Because there was so much blood everywhere else.

  * * *

  GABRIEL

  Oh. This was interesting.

  I had seen parties go south in the past, but this was something else entirely.

  “Look at the floor,” I muttered from the corner of my mouth as I led Sophie along the outer perimeter of the room. “Don’t look up. Keep moving.”

  Someone had gotten ahead of themselves, evidently. A little too… into the festivities.

  Bloodlust threatened to overwhelm me in a way it hadn’t in Felix’s office. Perhaps because his blood had been old, impure.

  This was fresh. Young. Human.

  And there was oh, so much of it.

  It had only taken a single one of my kind to lose control for the rest of them to follow suit. At least two dozen dead humans, strewn about the club in all stages of undress. The vampires who’d killed them were stronger than ever, some of them laughing at the way the night had devolved.

  The humans who’d avoided being drained looked about themselves in a daze, still enthralled. They knew something was very wrong but couldn’t quite put the situation together.

  “Hurry,” I grunted, putting on speed. I could easily handle Felix, but a dozen or more of my kind, freshly fed and fearless?

  Velma appeared before us, blocking the way to the auction room. “Where do you think you’re taking her?” The blood smeared over her mouth and chin said everything, while the spatter across her generous tits was a punctuation mark.

  “Away from here, which I’d intended to do all along.” I held on tighter to my queen, glaring at the piece of nothing before me. “You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Velma, and you know it. Go find a brainless human to feed from. This one is mine.”

  I bared my fangs with a snarl, allowing the change to come over my eyes and features. “Move your ass before you’re dust, Velma.”

  The half-crazed vampire snarled at me, then feigned a lunge in Sophie’s direction. Pride swelled in me when she didn’t flinch or even gasp.

  I hurried her out of the club, through the auction room where the still-chained humans now cowered. They’d heard what had taken place on the other side of the wall and were rethinking their aspirations.

  Sophie planted her feet. “We have to help them.”

  “You’re insane if you think—”

  “Gabriel, please.” She pulled me to a man who looked no longer than twenty-five who crouched on his platform and yanked on the cuff around his ankle until the skin chafed and began to bleed. “We can’t leave without at least freeing them. Let them make their own decision whether they want to stay or not.”

  “We have no time!”

  “No one will come out here to free them,” she hissed. “You know what I mean.”

  I did. The man with the keys was dead. I’d left the keys in his office and wasn’t about to risk crossing through the blood-soaked club again.

  These humans were prey waiting to be massacred.

  Why was I even considering this?
>
  Because she wanted it, and I’d loved her for too long to disregard what she wanted.

  It was little effort on my part, pulling the chains from where they’d been bolted to the floor until the links snapped, broke apart. “Go,” I grunted to each of them in turn. “Or do not. It’s up to you.”

  “They’re naked,” Sophie whispered as we dashed up the stairs.

  “I can’t do anything about that, I’m afraid.” As far as I was concerned, we’d interfered enough. A few of them followed us up the stairs. They were far braver than I.

  But not stupid. They might be arrested for indecency, but it was a far better fate than what awaited them if they stayed. They’d heard dozens of humans being slaughtered without the benefit of a thick door between them and the club, as we’d experienced in Felix’s office.

  I now wondered whether he’d used any of his own potions to cloak the office, to keep him from smelling or hearing what truly took place outside that door while he counted his money behind a desk.

  Plausible deniability. If he wasn’t aware of what took place, how could he be blamed? The absolute worm.

  “What’s happening down there?” Beatrix looked downright frightened as we raced past her with a handful of nude humans on our heels.

  “You’ll need a lot of bleach,” I managed as we hurried past. Once we were on the sidewalk with the church behind us, I hailed an approaching cab and bundled Sophie inside. It was rare for me to use human modes of transportation to escape a sticky situation, but this was different. I wasn’t alone.

  “I can’t stop shaking.” Indeed, the hands she pressed between her clenched knees shook. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, erratically.

  The car’s driver eyed us in the mirror. “There is nothing of concern going on,” I informed him. His gaze slid back to the street without remark. He wouldn’t recall picking us up.

  I then pulled Sophie close. She didn’t flinch away, which was far more gratifying than I would have imagined. A relief, even. She didn’t hate me.

  Though she did fear me after what she’d witnessed. Her pulse picked up speed when I touched her.

  “What happened had to be done,” I murmured against her hair. “You saw what he was allowing to take place.”

  I should’ve known better than to believe she would let that go. Her head popped up from my shoulder. “Don’t even start with that shit.”

  “Pardon me?” Normally, her fiery attitude was a turn-on unlike any I’d ever experienced. This was not a normal situation.

  “You defended it! You acted like welp, that’s just the way things are. These people are doing themselves a favor by offering themselves up. Now, you kill that… whatever the fuck he was, and you’re the morally superior creature? That’s very convenient for you. I’m glad you’re having such a good night.”

  “You realize I did what I did for your sake, don’t you? He would’ve taken you for himself if I hadn’t put a stop to him. Listen to your inner wisdom. It will tell you I’m right.”

  She moved to the other side of the seat and all but plastered herself to the door. It seemed she didn’t care to listen to wisdom, either from me or herself.

  We passed a few moments in silence while I struggled against the impulse to punish her for defying me, though I couldn’t pinpoint exactly how that defiance manifested itself. She was allowed to be angry, hurt, confused.

  Even if I wanted her to thank me. To fall at my feet and offer herself to me, body and soul, in return for my sparing her life.

  Not only tonight, but so many times.

  Deep inside, I knew the bitter truth.

  I was more likely to be the one falling at her feet. I had always been.

  Nine

  KRISTOFF

  “Here?” Jessabelle hung her head when we appeared in the heart of Philadelphia, standing in shadows granted by trees roughly as old as we were. They were part of what was once a prayer garden beyond the walls of a church.

  “It wasn’t my choice, you know.” Dominic lifted his head. “Blood. A great deal of it.”

  “Why are we here?” I demanded. Yes, I smelled the blood, but some things mattered more. I hated the mere notion of her being in this place, where she might’ve been exposed to any number of atrocities. Hence the blood. “Is she here? Why would she—”

  “Aside from the fact that this is her home?” Jessabelle very slowly, deliberately rolled her eyes.

  “Gabriel has a penthouse here. He thinks only he knows about it.” Dominic sniffed the air again. “He also only thinks I’m unaware of his funding this establishment when it was first launched. He believes his secrets are his own.”

  “What does Gabriel have to do with this?” I asked. If he’d so much as touched her…

  It took mere moments for Dominic to explain.

  Graziella. The cabin. Gabriel was there, waiting.

  I struggled against the disgust this stirred in me. The absolute blinding rage.

  She was mine. Ours, even, since I knew Dominic loved her as I did.

  What right did that traitor have to even breathe the same air as our brave, headstrong, reckless queen?

  “You have to admit, he has patience when it suits him.” Jessa looked around, observing the tall buildings in the near distance. “Waiting for her there the way he did. What if she had never arrived?”

  “He would’ve met up with whoever was looking for her,” Dominic muttered, lifting a shoulder. “And he might’ve gotten himself into a great deal of trouble. No more than what he deserves.”

  She sniffed the air, nostrils flaring. “Well. Something went south here, so perhaps he found his trouble.”

  My sister always had a talent for stating the obvious.

  “I’ll go in and look around.” When Jessabelle made a move to follow Dominic, he shook his head. “No. I’ll go alone. No telling what we’ll find in there. I would rather you two remain out here, safe. I’ll make a point of being quick.”

  “He’s so bossy,” my sister whispered when we were alone.

  “No wonder he likes her so much.”

  “Sophie?” She snorted, folding her arms over a thin, fitted blouse. “They were practically cast from the same mold, those two. Little wonder he wasn’t able to convince her to stay with us. He failed to reassure her. He doesn’t understand. He can’t relate on the level she needs to be related to now.”

  “And how would you relate? You understand so much better?” When she scoffed at me, I pressed her. “Honestly. All I ever saw from you was disdain. Yawns. Boredom. You might have stepped up back when there was something to be done. When we had her with us.”

  “Yes, yes, sure. Silly Jessa, self-absorbed and useless.”

  It was better not to engage. The smell of blood was strong enough to throw both of us into a state of near bloodlust—arguing would only make things worse, and increase the chances of one of us hurting the other. Younger, less disciplined vampires wouldn’t be able to control themselves.

  I hardly could, and I’d had the foresight to feed from our supply donated by blood banks and hospitals before leaving. Granted, the word donated was used loosely. The administrators in question had no choice in the matter when faced with a vampire skilled at working their will.

  I felt her gaze on me. Probing, studying. “How did you come to develop these emotions toward Sophie? It can’t be solely because of Magda’s prophecy. Unless it is.”

  “You have a way of phrasing a question so it sounds like an accusation.”

  “Is that it? Did you fall in love with the idea of one day being her consort?”

  “No.”

  “So? What is it?”

  If only I could explain it to myself. “I saw her. Spoke to her in the cabin. That was all it took. I felt it…” A finger to my temple. A fist against my sternum. “I knew it as I knew my name. There must be something to be said for Fate.”

  “I suppose. I can’t say I experienced the same immediate infatuation.”

  I overlooked her r
ather interesting choice of words in favor of reminding her of the facts. “You aren’t supposed to be infatuated with her. Frankly, she reminds me of you.”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  “You’re exhausting—and so is she. You refuse to listen to anyone until your pride has boxed you in and you no longer have a choice. You use barbs and sarcasm to conceal intelligence and vulnerability.”

  Her jaw jutted out. I could all but hear her teeth cracking, she gritted them so hard. Yet she remained silent for once. A blessing.

  Dominic joined us, and his scowl spoke volumes. “She’s been here. I can scent her over the other humans, easily.”

  “She isn’t…” Jessa glanced toward the red door, closed against whatever had taken place inside.

  “You don’t think I would come out and speak plainly if one of the dead bodies inside was hers?” Dominic surveyed the area. I knew better than to distract him when he was in a funk, which was the only way to plainly describe his current mood.

  “I have to see.” When my cousin placed a hand against my chest, I met his gaze and growled. “Don’t forget yourself. You are in no place to tell me where to do or what to do. I’m sure all will be well.”

  I then dipped into the messenger bag slung across my chest. One of us had to be prepared. “Here. Feed. You need it.” In my hand was a sealed plastic bag full of blood. He would be in a better mood after draining the bag. I hoped.

  Jessabelle followed. I hadn’t expected her to stay behind. We might not have been biologically linked, but the two of us had always known a deeper connection than we shared with others of our kind. Perhaps it was the bit of Augustine, our sire, flowing through our veins.

  Though our father had sired many vampires in his time. Hundreds, perhaps thousands. I’d never met a single one whose thoughts I could all but see written on their face, the way I could read Jessa’s.

  She had never possessed a strong poker face, though, so that might as easily have been the reason.