by C. J. Pinard
“Please… Ayla… Please! I didn’t know.” Linden coughed again.
“You can beg all you want, nothing’s going to stop her,” Evan said.
I glanced over my shoulder and could see him filming the interaction with his phone. I briefly wondered why nobody had come down here looking for us, but I supposed none of his staff knew where he was. Karina was posted up at the mouth of the tunnel, standing guard.
Evan walked closer to us. “Linden. What’s your real name?”
Linden stared at him and began to struggle again.
“Malcolm Richardson, the Third. That’s your name, isn’t it?” Evan asked. “AKA, Malcolm Rich.”
Aden twisted the dagger again. “Answer him, asshole.”
Linden yelled and then sputtered out, “Yes, yes that’s my name.”
“When and where were you born?” Evan inquired.
Linden again stared at him, but then glanced at Aden, who was just itching to twist the dagger some more. Looking at Evan, he said, “London, England, seventeen-ninety-one.”
I recited today’s date, and with glee I said, “And today is your death day. Goodbye—”
“Stop!”
We all turned to see three men standing with Karina at the mouth of the tunnel. I couldn’t make out their faces, but that was rectified soon enough when they blitzed toward us.
Chapter 16
“You’re not killing him,” the one with longish dark-brown hair said. I’d only met him once, but I recognized him as Raf, one of Karina’s brothers.
I narrowed my eyes at the tall vampire. “Yes, I am.” Then I looked at Evan. “Really?”
He shrugged, still holding the phone up and filming us. “I had implicit instructions to call them.”
“Who… are you?” Linden choked out, looking at Raf, Zane, and Dylan.
Raf ignored me and crouched down to be at eye-level with the monster. “Don’t recognize me? Really? How about the name Amos Wilson? That ring a bell?”
Linden’s eyes began to slip closed. I didn’t know vampires could die slowly since they healed, but it made me happy nonetheless.
Raf slapped Linden. “Wake up. Answer me.”
The slap did nothing to rouse him, so Raf stood and looked at Aden, me, and Kellan. “Get him up.” Then he yanked the dagger out of Linden’s chest and handed it to me.
Without waiting for us to comply, of which I had no intent, he grabbed Linden’s ankle, causing me to almost fall on my ass before I jumped out of the way. He dragged Linden’s body along the tunnel and toward the house we’d just come from.
“It’s daytime, dumbass,” I called out as I followed Raf, kind of curious to see what he planned to do. These dudes were old, and from what I’d learned, old-school vampires didn’t fuck around.
Dylan fell into step next to me, and I looked at him briefly, his Def Leppard shirt a bit too tight on him. I glanced down at his black Converse and black skinny jeans. “What’s up, queen?”
His smirk turned to a scowl. “You stink, wolf.”
I heard Karina gasp at the same time Evan chuckled.
I bit back a smile. “Nice to see you again, too.”
Linden woke when Raf reached the bottom of the stairs and began to put up a struggle. We all rushed over to restrain him.
“That room has the curtains open. I’m just warning you,” I said in caution again, as I held Linden’s arm, wondering what Raf was thinking.
Kellan and Karina immediately stood up and began backing up behind me.
“That’s kind of the point,” Zane, the shorter of the three brothers, growled as he grabbed the struggling Linden, and with the help of Dylan, they got him up the ladder and into the house.
I scrambled up after them, and watched as they stopped short of the large square of sunlight that sat in the center of the room. Linden was really bucking now, and as the rest of the group joined us, I watched as the band of supernaturals wrestled him to the ground. I quickly blitzed to the window and shut the blackout curtains closed so they could fight fair. More than a few times, a vampire had briefly caught a body part in the sun, and the smell of their burning flesh was embedded inside my nostrils.
Gross.
One of Karina’s brothers seemed to produce a length of rope from out of nowhere, and with it, Zane wrapped it around Linden’s neck, as Karina and Dylan held him down, and fashioned a hangman’s knot at the end with lightning speed. It was both amusing and disturbing to watch.
“Wicked, huh?” Evan asked as I stood and watched in morbid curiosity.
I nodded. “They’re seriously gonna hang him?”
“I guess,” Evan replied.
“That’s not going to kill him. I’ve seen vampires recover from a broken neck.” I shook my head.
“Torture then?” Evan suggested.
I lifted a shoulder and let it fall as Aden and Sanja joined us.
“What the hell are they doing?” Aden asked over the sound of Linden yelling and snarling.
“No idea, but if he doesn’t die soon, I’m gonna stab him in the face.” I had my arms folded over my chest, my dagger in my hand. It was covered in tacky, drying blood.
Dylan had the end of the rope in his fist as he jumped up on the four-poster bed and wrapped it tightly around the wrought-iron frame at the top.
Linden passed out again, and then with a yank, Dylan dragged Linden by the neck and strung him up so he was hanging like an old school lynching. It was pretty gruesome.
“Gnarly,” Evan said next to me.
“Your woman looks hot all vamped out and angry, though,” I whispered, pointing at her eyes, which were black instead of blue, and her fangs were out.
Evan nodded with a grin. “She does.”
I looked on as Raf, Zane, Dylan, and Karina stood across the room and watched Linden hang there. They were stock-still and focused as if they were waiting for something.
“What the heck?” Sanja whispered next to me.
“I know, right?” I said, waiting with baited breath to see what they planned to do once Linden woke up.
Of course, it didn’t take long for him to rouse. The look on his face was priceless once he came to and realized he was hanging. With wide eyes, he struggled against the rope binding his hands behind his back.
He tried to speak, but gagged instead. I had always heard there were two ways to tie a noose: One, where you suffocated and choked, and another where your neck broke instantly. It depended on the location of the knot, and apparently, they had chosen the former. Linden gasped for air, but couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Before he passed out, Raf approached him and began speaking close to his quickly purpling face.
“In nineteen-eighty-two, my family and I moved to New York to start over. My father, Amos Wilson, had followed protocol to a tee and brought me and my siblings to you, as you were running the city at the time. And although rude, condescending, and looking down your nose at us, you seemed to acknowledge that we would be cohabitating in New York with you and your clan. What you didn’t seem to like was that we weren’t going to join your clan.”
I looked down to see the tips of Linden’s toes touching the bed. He’d raise himself ever so slightly so he could draw in small sips of breath. His face was a frightening shade of bluish purple, and I could see he wanted to say something to Raf. Of course, he wouldn’t be afforded that luxury right now.
Raf, who I remember Evan telling me kind of headed up their small vampire family, continued. “You didn’t care for Amos’s answer. You wanted us to join, but he still refused. Of course, it didn’t take long for you to retaliate. But did you need to kill him? Leaving his head on our doorstep?”
Raf took a second to compose himself. “What’s even sicker is that it wasn’t ash. It was his head. What did you do? Skin him alive and take his face, hair, and eyes so you could leave the gruesome discovery for us? And for what? We didn’t do anything to you. Neither did Amos. He was the kindest man with the biggest heart. He didn�
�t deserve what you did to him. To us. You’re a fucking monster, and the death I’m going to deliver to you today will be merciful compared to what you did to our father.”
Holy shit. I looked at Karina, who had tears streaming down her face. She was tucked into the comforting crook of Zane’s arm. From what Evan had told me, they’d moved to New York after acquiring Dylan, so he had been there for the horrific event as well. Even the normal scowl Dylan wore was replaced with pain and sympathy for his brothers and sister.
Quickly looking around the room, I located a small, decorative, wooden treasure chest-type box and slipped it under Linden’s feet so he could stand and loosen the noose. I wanted to hear him talk.
“What are you doing, Ayla?” Aden asked.
Ignoring my brother, I looked at the Walsh family and said, “You deserve answers. So do I.”
As soon as I put the box under his feet, Linden lifted up on his toes. I heard him gasp in a breath of air, and then let out an infuriated scream as he stared at the Walshes. “What is wrong with you? Are you mad? You clearly have the wrong person! I’ve no idea who this Amos person was. You have to believe me!”
“Liar.”
We all turned to look at Kellan, who, I shamefully admit, had forgotten was in the room. Kellan strolled slowly toward Linden with his hands in his pockets, and looked at his soon-to-be former master dangling from the rafter of the bed. “I remember them like it was yesterday. You were insanely jealous of Amos. You spoke at length about how he shouldn’t have ever come to New York. I remember that time. You were furious that he had a loving, devoted family to live in peace with, but all you had was me.”
The wounded look in Kellan’s eyes almost brought me to my knees. I tried to contemplate spending a century or more with someone as a boss, a compadre, maybe the only person to talk to for years on end… and then to have that person to turn out to be a monster, but I couldn’t. There was no way I could wrap my brain around that kind of betrayal.
“Kellan, my love…” Linden choked out before shooting me a glance.
Oh, my God.
“Wait… were you two… like… some kind of lovers?” I asked Kellan, my body mere inches from his as I stared up into his sky-blue eyes.
Immediately, Kellan shook his head in the negative. “Absolutely not.” Then he shifted his gaze to Linden. “Filthy bastard. How dare you. One last jab at me before you die. It’s not going to work, though. I will never love you like that. I have not and will never feel that way about you. You will die alone, just like I told you that you would all those years ago. I just regret not saying these things to you before.”
It was Linden’s turn to look wounded as he pierced Kellan with his most pitiful look. “You cared for me, I know you did.”
Kellan shook his head and walked off. “I’m done.” He looked at Raf. “Do what you need to do.”
Without another word, Kellan went toward the hole in the floor and climbed down without a glance my way.
We would definitely be revisiting that little encounter later. Raf and Linden seemed to be having some kind of stare-off. I pulled my dagger from its thigh holster and handed it, hilt-first, to Raf. “You can do the honors, but with my dagger.” I turned around and looked at Aden and smiled, then back at Raf. “He had this specifically made for this moment, to honor our brother. To avenge him. Use it for Amos, too.”
Raf pierced me with a serious stare, and gave me a slight nod. “Thank you.”
I gave him a small bow and went back to my brother. He put his arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head.
“Can’t we talk about this?” Linden said, now panicking. “Look, I’m sorry I lied. I did know Amos, he was a great guy. I shouldn’t have been jealous of him. What can I do to make it up to—”
His words were cut off with a scream when Raf plunged my dagger into his chest with a rebel yell. Dylan kicked the box out from under him, and it was a strange sight to see his body drop like a stone at the same time it began to turn slowly to ash. With his mouth still open in a silent scream, his skin turned gray, then black, and then it was nothing but a pile of ashy powder floating over the rope of the noose and onto the ground.
I instantly burst into tears. Deep, heaving sobs racked my chest as tears ran in rivulets down my cheeks. I shook uncontrollably as I buried myself in Aden’s chest. I felt Evan and Sanja wrap their arms around me, too.
I felt another set of arms envelop me, and heard Karina crying while whispering comforting words in my ear.
Suddenly feeling stupid for crying, I gently pushed everyone back and wiped away my tears with my sleeve.
Raf handed me my dagger. “Thank you, Ayla. My family can heal, along with yours.”
Chapter 17
It was eerily quiet down in the tunnels below the house. After Dylan and Zane had used the small, decorative treasure chest to collect Linden’s ashes, they’d taken it with them through the tunnels and back into the main house—the mansion—to wait out the day until they could leave. Evan and Karina had gone there, too, after promising to get Aden and Sanja home safe.
“It’s over,” I said softly, slowly making my way toward Kellan, who was sitting on the hard ground with his back against the stone wall, his face impassive and staring off into oblivion.
I sat down next to him, but didn’t touch him.
“I know. I felt the curse break.” He looked at me with an expression I’d never seen on his beautiful face before, and it was filled with hope.
I pushed my hair over my left shoulder and briefly wondered what I looked like. I had to look and smell like a hot mess after what’d gone through over the past twenty-four hours.
“You’re fucking beautiful, Ayla, regardless,” he whispered to me, putting his hand to my face and brushing his thumb along my jaw.
I sucked in a breath and fought back tears again. What was my problem? Maybe I was getting ready to start… I just prayed it wouldn’t start tonight, because by the way Kellan was looking at me, I didn’t need Aunt Flow ruining my plans.
“I wasn’t expecting to feel like this,” I admitted, my stomach swirling with pain and stress. “I thought I’d be relieved.”
“I did, too,” he admitted.
I tilted my head into the loving embrace of his hand, and looked into his eyes. “Are you okay? I was worried about you back there.”
Kellan nodded. “I am. I hated the man, but a part of me couldn’t watch him die. I wished I could, but in the end, I didn’t have the strength.”
“I think it was the curse,” I said after a brief period of thoughtful contemplation. “He spelled you to not be able to kill him. It would make sense that you couldn’t be there for it. He’d lived long enough, Kellan. I hope you know that.”
“Yes, but so have I.”
Panic flooded through me. “What does that mean? I hope you aren’t insinuating that you want to die, too. Because I couldn’t bear that.”
He reached over and scooted my body flush with his, then hoisted me into his lap. We were still sitting on the cold, stone ground inside the tunnel, the only sound was wind and a slight trickle of water. Thankfully, there were no strange or bad smells.
He pushed a stray hair out of my face and pierced me with this crystal-blue eyes. “No, I don’t want to, but I’m tired, Ayla. The bond is broken and I suddenly feel purposeless. I don’t like feeling this way, and what’s more, is that I wonder if I’ll always feel this way. I should be purpose-driven, have some goals. But for the past one hundred and eighty-three years, it’s only been him. He afforded me small pleasures, like my own home, but in the big picture, my only purpose had been to serve him.”
This made me angry, but I drew in a deep breath and raised my hand to his face. His chin and jaw were covered in a newly growing dark beard, and I kinda liked the rough look. He was hot clean-cut too, but this was sorta rugged and wild. I forced a smile and said, “Think of it this way: you have a new purpose now.”
He closed his eyes at my touch, and
then opened them again. “And what is that?”
“To give me unlimited orgasms every day. I mean, I would think that would keep you pretty busy.”
A grin broke out on his beautiful face. “I think I like that purpose. I also think I can deliver, too.”
My expression went serious, and with my legs wrapped around him, I got so close to his face, my lips were almost touching his. “Prove it.”
Before I could blink, he’d stood up, with me still tangled around him, and blitzed us up the stairs and into the house.
Turned out, where Kellan had been being held was a small, two-bedroom house on Linden’s property. Sanja had explained that the little bungalow had been spelled with wards that made it invisible to everyone, and that was why I couldn’t find it. After he’d died, the spell had been broken. And after what I’d experienced today while watching the exchange between the two, it didn’t surprise me that Linden had not only made sure Kellan and I were separated, but he had put him up in a sort of comfortable imprisonment. All the while, I had been stuck in a dungeon cell with a scary bitch for a prison guard.
The bedroom where Linden had been strung up and killed, and where the trapdoor leading to the tunnels was, was on the opposite side of the house. Kellan had blitzed us across the living room, through a small kitchen, and into a cozy bedroom with a queen-sized bed in which I now felt against my back.
With his breaths hot in my ear, I arched my back and clawed at the shirt he wore. “I’m going to wear you out,” he said before assaulting my jaw and neck with feverish kisses.
“I need you, Kellan. I need you now,” I said breathlessly as I reached behind him and ripped his shirt from his back, shredding it. I tossed it aside, and he lifted off the tight, black long-sleeved shirt I had covering me.
