‘Great plan,’ I said, brightly. ‘I’ll crack the spells holding you.’ I pulled off my T-shirt. ‘Then once you’re out of the shackles, I’ll absorb the psychic-spell and you can take us through.’ I tugged off a boot.
‘Gen, cracking the spells isn’t going to work.’ He slowly turned his head back to me and gave me a shadow of his normal smile. ‘I really don’t want to lose any of my appendages.’
I levered off the other boot, paused as a wave of dizziness hit me. ‘Then I’ll absorb those spells too.’
‘You can’t absorb the shackles, and absorbing the spells could knock you out, or worse.’
I unsnapped my jeans. ‘Who cares, Finn?’ I wriggled the denim over my hips. ‘If you can’t carry me, you can always drag me.’
‘Be realistic, Gen,’ he sighed. ‘You have to go to Helen and get help. You have to go alone.’
‘I’m not leaving without you.’
‘The sucker will be back soon, and the closer she is, the more power she can take from me.’ His hands clenched. ‘You need to go as soon as possible.’
I almost screamed in frustration and fear—this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Taking a deep breath, I said, ‘Okay, tell me how to do it.’
‘We do the ritual, then you have to stand in a circle of your own blood and call to Helen. Once she feels the call, she’ll open the door.’
‘What’s the ritual, Finn?’
‘Nothing drastic, just blood freely offered and exchanged.’
I stared at him in horror. ‘You mean I drink your blood and then spill mine over the floor, then wait for your ex to answer.’
‘Yes, that’s pretty much it.’ His eyes drifted closed. ‘I think that should work.’
‘What do you mean, “should”? Don’t you know?’
‘I’m working from memory here,’ he murmured. ‘It’s not easy.’
Crap. I couldn’t drink his blood. Just the smell was tempting enough. And what if it didn’t work, or Helen didn’t answer? He’d end up in more danger from me than the vamps we were trying to escape from. Of course, there was still my other option: I could bring out my Alter Vamp and just break his shackles ... only she wasn’t strong enough to get us out of the cave, or to fight off more than a couple of other vamps. And she—I—would be right back to being hungry.
‘You have to do it, Gen,’ he said quietly. ‘I can’t kill the sucker, I’ve already tried. I can feel her in me, controlling me, feeding off me, like she’s turned a tap on and I can’t turn it off.’ He turned his head away again.
Something about that didn’t tally; I hadn’t noticed the spell at all, not even after I’d taken it from Holly—nothing other than tiredness, and maybe the bad dreams—
‘She’s not going to let me fade—’ Finn’s words shattered my thoughts. He was talking about fading—letting himself die—shit, it had to be bad. ‘Gen, you have to go and get help—’ He was almost pleading with me.
Heart aching, I finished tugging off my jeans and briefs as another flash of dizziness hit me. ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ I said.
He turned back to face me, hope turning the grey in his eyes back to their usual green for an instant.
‘Looks like it’s my turn to ride to the rescue.’ I gave him a lop-sided smile.
‘What are you talking ’bout, Gen?’
Leaning over, I gave him a butterfly kiss on the mouth. ‘You running off to do the shining knight bit earlier when the witches kicked me out of Spellcrackers.’
He gave a weak laugh. ‘If I’d known it’d impress you, I’d have tried it sooner, instead of the cheesy sex god line.’
‘Don’t worry; the sex god thing is pretty impressive too.’ I opened my eyes wide to keep the tears from falling, grinned at him. ‘Just don’t tell anyone I said so.’
Chapter Forty-One
All I had to do was bleed a large enough puddle that I could stand in. I grimaced at the blue veins mapping my naked body. Getting blood out of one of them wasn’t going to be easy.
‘Why can’t I just draw a circle in blood?’ I asked.
‘It doesn’t work that way, Gen.’ Finn gave another weary sigh. ‘It’s a sacrifice, a last resort thing, so no one opens a blood door without thinking seriously about it.’
Yeah, right. Heart labouring in my chest, I clambered to my feet, checked out my left wrist. Maybe I’d be lucky and the vein wouldn’t have healed yet.
I raised my wrist to my mouth.
‘What are you doing?’ Finn was watching me.
‘I haven’t got a knife.’
‘Use one of my horns.’
‘They won’t be sharp enough.’
‘The spells in the restraints aren’t muting my magic, they’re just stopping me from getting free. And the sucker’s not getting all of it; I’m holding back as much power as I can.’ His chin jutted out. ‘Touch one.’
I crouched near his head and gently pressed my finger to one of his horns. It quivered, its ridges scraping against my fingertip as it elongated and stiffened until it was seven inches of smooth curved horn, its tip sharp, like a whittled bone.
‘You need to do it quick, Gen.’ His eyes were closed again, face tight with strain.
I wrapped my hand round his horn and he groaned, low and deep. Pleasure or pain? I wasn’t sure.
‘Hurry.’
Gritting my teeth, I pressed my inner arm against the sharp point, pushed until it pierced the skin. Blood seeped sluggishly out of the wound. I waited for the pain, but it didn’t come. Jerking my arm back, I scored a deep cut from my inner elbow to my wrist.
The blood welled slowly and I stared at it transfixed.
The tattoo on my hip throbbed like a second heart. My nostrils flared as I drew the sweet smell into my lungs. My mouth watered. The urge to rub my blood into the tattoo filled my mind like the cry of a rapacious spirit. I gazed at Finn, at the wounds on his body, and felt nothing but hunger.
And he couldn’t get away.
My mouth stretched in a smile.
‘Have you finished?’ Finn whispered.
Suddenly appalled at my own thoughts, I scrambled back from him.
‘Gen?’ His horn was shrinking back down into his hair. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ I looked at the floor, not wanting him to see the hunger in my face. Holding out my arm, I squeezed the wound, watched the blood trickle into a puddle the size of a teacup.
‘Gen, we need to do the ritual first.’
‘I’m doing it,’ I muttered.
‘You can’t. You haven’t taken my blood.’
‘And I’m not going to, Finn. There’s someone else I can call for a blood door, someone who can help us better than Helen can.’
‘But you’ve got to go to Helen. She’s the police.
‘I know, but she upholds the humans’ laws, Finn. We’re fae. The human laws don’t apply to us, not with things like this.’
‘She’ll still come,’ he said with certainty. ‘She’s not going to leave me here.’
‘Finn, you don’t get it, do you. Helen is police. She has to go by the rule book whether she wants to or not.’ Look what she’s just done to me, I wanted to shout but didn’t. Instead I carried on, trying to be calm. ‘Technically, the vamps have done nothing wrong. She can’t force her way in here, and no way is she going to start a full-scale war with the vamps, especially not on my say-so. And even if she does work out a way, by the time she gets past them and gets to you, there’ll be nothing left to find. I’m sorry, Finn, but I’m not taking that chance.’
He turned his head away.
The pool of blood was the size of a plate.
‘You’re going to the sucker, aren’t you? The one from last night.’
What if the blood door didn’t work?
‘Gen you don’t have to do this, Take my blood, go to Helen, she’ll come, I know she will.’
I looked at Finn, lying shackled to the floor. No way was I going to take his blood—if I fell into blood
lust, how was I going to stop?
‘I thought you were dead,’ Finn whispered. ‘I thought I’d killed you. I didn’t know a sidhe could survive cold iron like that.’
My heart fluttered with palpitations. I answered him without thinking. ‘It’s the human blood in me.’
The quick movement of his head caught my attention. ‘No part of you is human, Gen, not with those eyes.’
‘My mother was sidhe, my father was human.’ Or he was once, I added silently.
‘Then you would be faeling.’
‘I’m not.’
After a moment he spoke again. ‘They brought you in and started feeding on you. She made me watch ...’
I looked at him, horror invading my mind. He wouldn’t have, would he? ‘What did you promise her?’ I breathed, not sure if I actually wanted to know.
‘I couldn’t let them do that to you,’ he murmured, and I heard other words echo as he spoke. I can’t kill the sucker, I’ve already tried. I can feel her in me, controlling me, feeding off me.
‘It’s not just the spell, is it?’ I whispered as shock settled cold and hard inside me. ‘You took the sucker’s Blood-Bond, didn’t you? That’s how she’s draining so much power from you—she’s combined them together.’
‘Gen, you have to get to Helen.’ He looked at me and the fear and despair on his face gave me my answer. ‘She can sort everything out. Fix this.’
Rio dead was the only way to fix this, and no way was Helen Crane going to kill her.
‘I know you think Helen can’t do anything,’ he continued, ‘but you’re wrong about her. Going to that sucker for help isn’t the right thing for you.’
Fucking shining knight complex! Even if I got him out of this mess he’d probably still come after me, still try and rescue me, thinking I was some distressed damsel he needed to save—and he’d get himself killed, or worse. No way could I let that happen. He had to know the truth.
I squeezed the slash on my arm again, forcing more blood out, concentrating on it instead of him. ‘When I said my father was human, Finn, I meant he was human, before he became a vampire.’ I kept my tone matter-of-fact. ‘So you see, there really is only one place I can go for help, Finn. And that’s to the vamps.’
‘That’s not possible; vamps can’t reproduce like that.’
‘My father found my mother at a fertility rite, got her pregnant, and then after I was born, he let her fade.’ Of course the story wasn’t as simple as that, but it covered the basics. ‘Vamps have their own magic, Finn. And the sidhe can breed with anything magic—and most things not—you know that.’
He didn’t answer, and I stared blindly at my blood as it dripped onto the stony ground.
A chill crept up my spine and my heart stuttered. I closed my eyes, ran my tongue over my teeth and sniffed at the air. A glorious miasma of pain and fear and the liquorice scent of venom had me shifting uncomfortably.
The shush, shush of his blood rushing through his veins, the fast da-dum, da-dum of his heart.
‘Gen?’
My eyes snapped open.
His pulse was jumping in his throat, his skin glowing with blood heat, and I was too close for safety.
‘Gen, I think it’s large enough now.’
‘What?’ I slurred.
‘The blood. You’ve got enough now.’
I looked down. The puddle was larger than a dinner plate. I brought my arm to my mouth and slowly licked the blood off. The sweetness muted my hunger and I sighed. Then I noticed Finn, an odd, indecipherable expression on his face.
Shit. I’d finally succeeded in frightening him.
As I staggered to my feet, the cave swung round me like a fairground ride.
‘Be careful, Gen.’ Finn’s voice was faint in my ears.
Frowning, I half-waved my hand. There was something else. What was it? Oh yeah. ‘I’ll come back, okay?’
His mouth moved, but my ears were ringing and I couldn’t hear him.
The blood looked wonderful. I wanted to fall back to my knees and lap it up. I dipped my toe. I felt it cool against my skin. I stepped in, then lifted my other foot and set it down.
Dark.
Cave.
Dark.
A figure.
Dark.
The woman stood, head thrown back to expose her slender throat, mouth open wide. The image flickered on and off, like a silent movie.
Thick carpet beneath my feet, smell of sex and blood in my nose, buzzing in my ears.
The vampire stood behind her, his face buried in the curve of her neck, his jaw working.
Hunger hot in my stomach, I snarled, the vamp in me clawing to get out. I pushed my wrist down towards my tattoo.
My arm stilled in midair.
A shudder rippled through the woman and she grasped the vampire’s dark hair and pulled him from her neck. She reached out and took my outstretched hand in hers.
She smiled, the smile of an angel, and that smile promised me whatever I wanted. Moving closer, she pressed her body up to mine. Her skin felt slick, hot with blood. Her heartbeat throbbed, pumping sweet life from the fang marks that pierced the swollen flesh at her neck. She tilted her head to the side and offered me her throat, the smile still playing on her face.
I shoved my fingers into her glossy dark hair and fed.
Chapter Forty-Two
The blood was hot and salty and thick—human blood—with an extra kick from a recent venom hit. And when that thought finally penetrated, so did another: the vampire sucking on her neck hadn’t been Malik. The blood door hadn’t worked, or at least not as I’d hoped.
I dragged my mouth from her throat and shoved her away. I threw my head back and stared at the ceiling, trying to calm the exhilarated thunder of my heart. I wanted more. I felt like I could feed on her forever. Clenching my fists, I looked down at my half-finished meal: Hannah Ashby, the ladylike accountant who’d delivered the silver invitations, aka Corset Girl, the vamp junkie from the Leech & Lettuce.
She reclined on the floor, a more normal smile on her face. ‘Well, that wasn’t quite as exciting as I’d imagined, but I suppose allowances should be made.’ She touched her hand to her still bleeding neck and pouted. ‘I really was hoping for more than a quick snatch and suck. You’re sidhe—I thought faeries were supposed to be hot.’
Ignoring her, I looked round at the stone ceiling, stone floor, steel door, thick navy rug and massive oak furniture. It all appeared horribly familiar. I was still in the same underground place, just in a different cave room. I strode to the door and waved at it. Nothing happened. A combination of anger, frustration and fear expanded like a whirlwind inside my head. I wanted to scream and cry, punch something, anything—
I concentrated on calming my thoughts. The blood had banished the hunger and the deep slice on my arm had almost healed, the skin knitting together in a raised red scar. Now I had to get out of here.
I wiped a hand over my mouth and walked back to where Hannah was sitting on the bed. ‘Let’s skip the after-dinner pleasantries, shall we? Instead, why don’t you tell me what I’m doing here?’
‘You need help, and I like to help people.’
‘Right. Hijacking me is being so helpful.’ I stuck my hands on my hips, ‘I have to tell you, it’s not working for me.’
‘Oh, I didn’t hijack you.’ She tapped her chest. ‘I felt the blood door open and offered.’
‘Come off it, Hannah,’ I snorted, ‘until now I haven’t had your blood.’
Her smile turned sly. ‘But you did, a tiny taste, maybe, but enough to still count.’ Reaching out, she stroked her fingers across the tattoo on my hip. ‘You may not be wearing the same body, but that’s a minor technicality. It appears that the two of you are becoming so entwined that there is almost no separation.’
I gritted my teeth. Had the need for blood pulled her—Rosa, my Alter Vamp—from—well, wherever she was, and given Hannah an opening? Maybe the tattoo hadn’t worked in the gardens because Rosa hadn’
t been hungry? I pushed all the questions into a dark corner in my mind; I didn’t have time for them.
No use crying over spilled—well, blood, I guessed. ‘Again. What do you want?’ I demanded.
‘I like helping people, Genevieve. I find it very rewarding.’ She stood and gestured behind her at the bed. The vamp sprawled across it, one leg hanging over the edge of the mattress as if he’d been so exhausted he’d just fallen onto it without conscious thought. ‘For instance, I rescued this poor lamb. His Master gave him the Gift and then left him to starve. He was going quite mad with hunger.’
‘We should all be so charitable.’
‘Exactly. Rio thought you’d make a nice first meal for him, only I appropriated him before that happened.’ She took hold of my left arm, stroked her fingers over the almost healed skin. Her touch was gentle, hypnotic. ‘And I’m sure that the four vampires Rio did finally give you to enjoyed you immensely—and they were much more effective at removing the iron poisoning from your body than just Darius would have been.’ She leaned in and licked the swollen bite on my neck.
A shudder of need rippled through me.
‘Without the loss of blood, you really might not have survived, even with your strange heritage.’ She kissed my mouth, the faintest touch of her lips. ‘My help is always free, I never ask for anything, but I always find it returns to me in such interesting ways.’ She sat back down on the bed, circled her hand round Darius’ ankle and smiled. ‘He really was very satisfying.’
I shook my head to clear the slight wooziness brought on by her touch. Had she just told me she’d saved my life? Not that it mattered; she was after something and no doubt I’d find out what sooner or later. Until then I had other more important things to do.
‘If you want to help so much, take me to Malik al-Khan,’ I said flatly.
‘Malik can’t help you, Genevieve.’ Her low, warm laugh echoed round the cave room. ‘I am afraid he still dances to his Master’s tune.’
The Sweet Scent of Blood s-1 Page 31
