“You’re not,” a woman’s voice spoke up from the darkness. “Alone, that is.”
Zachariah tensed, debating sitting up and trying to decide the merits of attempting to fight, even as he slid his fingers over his hip. His machete was gone. He didn’t bother checking for the rest of his weapons. If the machete was gone, then his other weapons were too.
Resigning himself to whatever was to come, Zachariah pushed himself onto his elbows and asked, “Where am I?” His throat was scratchy, and the words were hoarse and choked. He cleared his throat. “And what the hell happened?”
“Well, you’re most certainly not dead,” the woman said. A few footsteps shushed against carpet, and something bumped against Zachariah’s bottom lip. He parted his lips before he thought about doing otherwise. Cool water poured into his mouth, and he drank it greedily. It was only after the bottle had disappeared and the person who’d given him water retreated that the concern of drugs floated to the forefront of his mind. Nervousness rattled through his stomach, and the woman chuckled. “No, it’s not drugged. It’s just water,” she said. “As for where you are, you’re in the home of my coven. Which, considering the way you were sneaking around here yesterday evening, you’re already familiar with.”
Zachariah’s heart lurched at her words and at the dawning realization of what had happened. The fight. The overwhelming pain in his head. And the woman—the very woman in the room with him—making the pain stop, right before he’d passed out. He’d been kidnapped. He’d been taken prisoner by vampires, and who knew what they had in store for him? He swallowed and squinted into the darkness, trying to see the elder vampire who was in the room with him, suddenly uncomfortable with being unable to see his surroundings.
“Oh, I keep forgetting you humans can’t see in the dark,” the woman said. There was a soft scrape, and a match burst into flame on the other side of the room. Zachariah blinked as his eyes struggled to adjust to the meager light after so long in darkness. Once the candle’s flame flickered steadily, the woman in the room with him picked up the candleholder and moved closer to him, her hand shielding the flame. As she did so, Zachariah scanned the room, taking in everything he could as quickly as possible. Cream walls, soft carpet, bed, nightstand, and a dresser. No windows, one door—that he imagined was bolted to prevent his escape—and no light fixtures. It was as sparse a room as it could get, and he had the suspicion that not many people—if any at all—had been brought there before. His weapons were laid on the dresser. The woman caught him looking at them and laughed.
“You won’t need those anymore,” the woman said. She set the candelabra on the bedside table and eased to the edge of the bed. Zachariah studied her in the glimmer, taking the first good look he’d had of her in their three meetings. She was a beautiful woman, slender and pale, her skin like flawless porcelain. Her eyes were wide and a haunting, pale gold, framed with thick black lashes; they peered out from underneath a fringe of bangs. Blond curls of the same shade tumbled down to the small of her back. She was wrapped in a thin white dress that fell to below her knees. She made Zachariah think of something from an Anne Rice novel: picture perfect and quintessentially typical Hollywood vampire, and though she appeared about seventeen, for some reason he thought of the vampire from Let the Right One In—beautiful and seemingly innocent on the outside, but with an air of coldness about her, like she’d sooner rip his throat out than look at him. If it weren’t for the faint, metallic perfume of blood that reached his nose and the sense of unease she put off, he’d have thought she was a beautiful girl on the street. It was no wonder the elders captured their prey so easily if they looked as good as this one did.
Zachariah sat up straighter and took the bottle of water she offered him. He sipped from it as she continued to stare, appraising him from head to toe. When he spoke, it was to ask, “Who are you? And what do you want with me?”
A smile spread across the vampire’s face, and she inched closer to him, her blue eyes turning predatory. From the closer vantage point her position offered, Zachariah saw that her pupils were slit like a cat’s: the better to see prey in the dark with, he supposed. “My name is Elise,” she started. “In time, you’ll learn more about me. As for what I want with you…” She trailed off, inching even closer until her face was less than a foot away from his. “Two years ago, you were involved in a particularly nasty fight,” she started. “I’m sure you remember it. It was in a hotel room with three younglings and an elder. And somehow, you managed to kill all four of them, virtually single-handedly, since your partner was out of commission with some rather life-threatening injuries. Do you remember that?”
“How could I forget?” Zachariah asked in return. So that was why she had him there: she wanted to retaliate for him killing the elder. Though why she’d waited two years to do so baffled him.
“Quite frankly, you did me a favor,” Elise said. Her words caught Zachariah by surprise, and he raised his eyebrows, curious in spite of himself. “The elder you killed was my consort, my partner, but he had become weak in the years since he’d been turned. He was complacent, careless. He was dangerously close to exposing the secret of our existence. I couldn’t allow that. I was trying to decide what to do about him when you solved the problem for me.”
“Well, ah, you’re welcome?” Zachariah said.
“Of course, now I’m in a sticky spot,” Elise continued. Her face took on a downcast expression, as if she were thinking of something that depressed her. “With my consort dead, that leaves only me to care for my coven. That’s far more than one solitary elder can handle. As such, we are considerably weaker than any other coven should be. And there are those who would take advantage of that fact. Who have taken advantage of it.”
“What do you mean?” Zachariah asked. He was, admittedly, intrigued by the sadness that leeched into her golden eyes.
Elise slipped a long gold chain over her head and tugged a pendant free from underneath the top of her dress. She did something to it, and when it flipped open, Zachariah realized that it was a locket. She turned the locket so he could see that it held a black and white photo of a girl who appeared younger than Elise, her hair light and curly, her eyes serious as she stared into the camera. The photograph looked old, close to the turn of the century. He stared at the photo for several long seconds and then looked up at Elise questioningly.
“This is my little sister,” she explained, reading the curiosity in his eyes. “Chloe. I turned her not long after her thirteenth birthday, when she was in a riding accident that was bad enough to kill her. I saved her in the only way I had available to me.”
“She’s beautiful,” Zachariah acknowledged.
“I’m all she has,” Elise told him. “And she’s all I have. And now some bastard has taken her, is using her to make me do what he wants me to do, and I want her back.”
“And…what, you’re wanting to hire my services to get her back?”
“In a manner of speaking.” She looked away from him, as if considering something, and when she spoke again, her voice was determined. “I’m in need of a new consort. I want someone smart and strong, someone who can hold his own against not only the younglings of this coven, but the other elders too. Someone who has an in into the Agency. And you, my dear, fit the bill perfectly.”
A sinking feeling settled into Zachariah’s stomach at her words. Elise sounded like she already had her mind made up, and he doubted there would be anything he could do to change it. His mind was already scrambling to come up with a way out of the subject he knew she was about to broach, though it would likely prove futile. “And if I say no?” he asked, trying to buy himself some time to think. He leaned back as Elise leaned closer.
“Saying ‘no’ isn’t an option,” she murmured. She slid a hand up his chest and hooked it behind his neck, dragging him toward her while sliding to meet him in the middle. “An elder male vampire hasn’t been born in over five hundred years,” she whispered. “Let’s make some history, shal
l we?”
Elise’s eyes met his, and it felt like fog invaded his brain as she stared into his eyes, her fingers curling at the back of his neck. Zachariah struggled against the onslaught of voices whispering in his head, overlapping and tumbling around until he couldn’t decipher what any of them were saying. He shook his head, planting a mental image of Ashton in his mind, picturing one of the man’s rare smiles and focusing on how it made him feel: happy, warm, like he was standing in a ray of pure sunshine. It was a wild attempt to keep her from gaining entry, to keep himself focused on the one reason why he couldn’t consider her proposal-that-wasn’t-a-proposal.
“That’s not going to work,” Elise whispered.
Something in Zachariah’s mind cracked and broke, shattering Ashton’s image into a million fragments. Zachariah gasped as a haze descended over his brain, and it felt like his entire soul had detached itself from his body. His bottle of water tumbled to the floor, pouring out over the cream carpeting.
Everything after that was a blur of motion and noise and feeling. Her mouth on his, their breaths mingling in a passionate kiss that seemed to suck the very life out of him. His arms around her slim waist, pulling her closer as she tugged at his clothes. Her fingernails digging into his skin, drawing blood. Her blond strands sliding through his fingers. And then her mouth on his neck, her fangs scraping against his skin before sinking into it, tearing through flesh until blood poured out, flowing into her mouth as she pushed him back against the bed.
The last thought that fluttered through Zachariah’s mind before he succumbed to the darkness of unconsciousness again was of how disappointed Ashton would be in him for not fighting Elise off as hard as he should have. And then the pain hit his brain, and that was the last thing he knew.
Chapter Eleven
Riley stared out the passenger window and off the side of the parking garage, watching the building across the street with a critical eye as she licked yogurt from her plastic spoon. Scott sat in the driver’s seat, looking hung over but attentive as he pantomimed looking at a map like a typical tourist, his wire-framed sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose. Riley smirked and ate another spoonful of yogurt before nodding toward the building below. “So are we ready to go in yet? Or do we want to wait a few more minutes so we don’t look over-eager?”
Scott lowered the map and scanned the street and the parking garage. The garage was filling up, and cars and vans and buses were pulling to their stops in front of the Smithsonian’s museums, their inhabitants piling out to head inside the buildings. Scott shrugged and looked down at his map. “Let’s give it a few more minutes,” he said. “I don’t want to go in too early. Needs to be more crowded.”
“Can I ask why?”
“If there’s not enough people inside, then it’ll be more noticeable when we slip off from the rest of the tour group to look for the box,” Scott said. He folded the map along its creases and, when finished, tossed it onto the dashboard. “And the last thing we need is to get noticed by security.” He scratched at his eyebrow over his sunglasses and added, “We’ve got to figure out where they’re keeping the thing and not get noticed in the process. God knows we don’t need this job getting any more difficult. He turned the car’s engine off and pocketed the keys. “You done with that yet? I want to get moving.”
“Oh, now you want to go in when it’s your idea instead of mine,” Riley grumbled. She looked into her half-finished yogurt cup and sighed, climbing out of the rental car. The stitches Scott had put in her side the night before pulled at her skin and brought with them a fresh sting of pain. She gritted her teeth and shut the door; the thud echoed against the concrete around them. Then she circled the vehicle to join Scott on the other side.
Scott looked her up and down, scanning his eyes over her body, and she couldn’t help but fidget at his scrutiny. She felt dreadfully exposed as he took in the sight of her black heels and short black skirt and fitted red blouse that was low-cut enough to almost be considered inappropriate, but she also felt an odd tingle of anticipation roll through her veins. At the same time, though, it took everything in her to not wrap her arms around herself, as if the motion could ward off his intense gaze, her mind lingering on Kevin and how similar Scott’s look was to the ones Kevin had used to give her. Wavering between flattery at the man’s perusal and discomfort at the very same, she bit her lip and tried to not look at him. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of staring, he cleared his throat and walked to the edge of the garage’s deck, looking down at the National Museum of the American Indian that sat in all its glory below them. Then he stepped away and headed for the garage’s elevator. Riley scrambled to follow, her heels clicking on the concrete, and she tossed her yogurt into a trashcan near the elevator before boarding it; throwing away her half-full cup of yogurt felt like sacrilege, but she didn’t have any other options, since she’d left her backpack in the car against everything she’d learned in years. She felt naked without Linus and the stash of food inside of it. Nothing’s going to happen, Riley, she told herself. You’re not going to magically become homeless and starve to death on the short walk to the blasted museum. Despite her attempts to reassure herself, she felt a stirring of worry in her stomach, and she shunted it aside and remained silent until they’d reached the street level and were halfway to the museum’s entrance.
“You okay?” Scott asked. Riley bit back a grimace as the speed at which she was forced to move jerked at her side.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Scott shrugged and ran a hand through his dark hair, pushing it back from his forehead. “I don’t know. I was just thinking about last night. You got roughed up pretty bad.”
Riley raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, well, so did you, remember?” she pointed out. “I wasn’t the one who got tossed against a van. Or a sidewalk. I managed to stay on my feet.”
Scott snorted. “Believe me, I’m hurting. I’m just really good at hiding it.” He gave her a crooked smile and, as they reached the museum’s entrance, opened the door for her and swept his hand toward the inside of the building. “After you, my dear?”
She tried to stop it, but Riley couldn’t keep the grin from spreading across her face at the gentlemanly gesture. It seemed so like Scott to do something like that, and it didn’t appear forced or scripted at all. She slid her sunglasses to rest on top of her dark hair and nodded in his direction in thanks before she stepped into the museum’s entry hall. Cool air washed over her as she slipped inside, raising goose bumps along her bare arms and shoulders, and she breathed out a sigh of happiness as they retreated from the hot morning sun. Scott looked as relieved as she did, and he offered her his elbow. She ignored it—that was too much—and opted instead to smooth both hands over her skirt. She wished she hadn’t decided to play the tourist card and dress like one. She was far from being a girly-girl, and for the second assignment in a row, she was trussed up in a skirt and useless shoes. She probably looked ridiculous with her too-pale legs and her ankles feeling like they were about to snap in these stupid heels. “Can we hurry up and get this over with?”
“Feeling exposed?” Scott asked with a knowing smirk.
Riley huffed a breath. “You have no idea.” She took another step and wobbled on the marble floor just enough to make her heart leap in her chest. Scott looped his arm around her waist for support, and she gave him a grateful look. She might have thought the gentleman-act was a bit pushy, but it was better than hitting the floor with a twisted ankle. “My ankles feel like they’re going to break. I’m not that good in high heels.”
“Why’d you wear them then?” Scott asked, raising an eyebrow.
They were passing the middle-aged security guard posted at the door as he asked that, and Riley grinned as the guard looked her up and down. “That’s why,” she said, leaning close to Scott and murmuring the words so only he could hear them. “They make my legs look very…long.”
Scott’s smile was huge, and h
e tightened his arm around her waist. “Thereby distracting the guards while I do what I need to do, right?”
“Precisely.”
It took over an hour of sitting through boring tours and presentations—boring according to Riley’s attention span, anyway—before she and Scott reached the Roanoke exhibit. It was small, focused on the Native Americans that had lived in the area, and no one else paid much attention to it as the tour guide nattered on. Riley drifted from the rest of the group as they moved on to the next exhibit, and Scott followed her lead, his fingers wrapped loosely around her elbow.
“Have you seen it?” Scott asked, his mouth brushing against her ear. Riley suppressed a shiver, clenching her fists as she tried to focus on something other than the sound of his voice so close to her ear.
“Not yet,” she said. “But that’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”
Scott cracked a grin and led Riley from the group and back to the exhibit. “Indeed it is,” he agreed. He let go of her elbow as they slipped inside, out of sight of the security guard that lurked near the stairs. Riley studied their surroundings.
“Hell, where do we start?” she asked with a frown. “Maybe we should split up.”
“No, we stick together,” Scott insisted.
“But we could cover more ground faster if we split up!” Riley argued.
“True, but if we get caught and we’re here alone together, well, we’re supposed to be newlyweds,” Scott said with a mischievous shine to his eyes. “We’ll just say we were looking for a spot to be alone for a bit.”
Riley rolled her eyes at that. “Sounds like a terrible excuse to get a woman alone,” she said. She grabbed his wrist and tugged as she moved to the right, where the exhibit was darker and she figured it was better to start.
The Unnaturals (The Unnaturals Series Book 1) Page 16
