“Slade.” She cupped his square jaw in her hands and brought his face to hers. “In a few days I’m going to be his anyway.”
He shook his head, trying to fight her grasp, her words. She found the scruff of his jaw again, and sent her fingers stroking the sides of his cheek. “It’s against khiss rules to mate before the Valcdana. Both sides have to be sexually pure for one another. He won’t touch me for fear of losing me forever. If I can distract him, or convince him to leave me alone in his chamber, we might have a chance.”
“I don’t like this,” Slade grumbled, his hands sliding to her waist.
“Neither do I. Sometimes you just have to do what needs being done. We need to get in there to see if your suspicion is right. Our future depends on finding what’s wrong with the blood and right now this is the only thing I’ve got to go on.” She smoothed her shirt, brushed her hair over her shoulder. “Now do I look all right?
Slade dipped a finger oh-so-gently into the crease of her cleavage, sending chills scattering across her chest. He pinched the top ridge of her tank and pulled it up. “Now you’re ready.”
And they smiled.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Bite marks were discovered on the neck of a fifteen-year-old girl who was found murdered a few blocks away from her home on Sunday evening. Authorities say the marks on her neck resemble the same puncture wounds that were found on three other bodies just this week. The investigation is ongoing.”
—Channel 13 News, Mundane Smith reporting
Letting Dylan walk into Erock’s quarters was the hardest thing he had to do in ages. Unfortunate for him, Slade was a realist first and foremost. What other option did he have? He couldn’t very well storm into Erock’s chamber, demanding to be left alone to snoop around.
No, Dylan was right. She had to do this all by her lonesome. Somehow she had to convince him to leave her in his chamber.
The thought of her even being in another male’s personal space made deep thunder erupt through his chest. He tried to trust in her words—that Erock wouldn’t touch her for fear of losing the opportunity to complete the Valcdana with her at his side.
Little did that fucker know, that ceremony was so not going down. Not while Slade was in her life.
Dylan was his now. It didn’t matter if she had fangs and he had the ability to shift. It didn’t matter that their races had been enemies for centuries. The thoughts skating through his head should’ve bothered him more than they did, yet he couldn’t help but feel the first pangs of happiness when he looked at Dylan. What was happening between them couldn’t be wrong.
He didn’t know how things would work out, or if she’d get over the truth of what was really behind the red eyes and gleaming fangs. All he knew was he wanted her. Needed her. There was no way he would give her up for some ridiculous ceremony, simply because some tattered piece of vampire history deemed it so.
Speaking of tattered history, they’d better get a move on if they wanted to find the scrolls sometime this century. Any moment Dylan should be calling to report the news—good or otherwise.
Slade checked the slow-moving hands of the clock. Pushed Erock’s greedy hands out of his mind. Little by little, he’d somehow gotten a hold of his anger issues and no longer felt like a volcano ready to explode any given minute. However, his skin constantly crawled with unease and his fangs had a way of lowering without him realizing it. Even though he felt more at ease in the vampire form this time around, there were definitely feelings stirring inside him that were different. . . .
The phone rang.
Slade jumped. “Yes?”
“When you get to the first guard station, tell them you have an appointment in Erock’s office,” Dylan said quietly. “Make your first right down the hall. Follow the passage around to the last door on your left. Move fast once you’re in. Give me five more minutes before you head over.” The phone went dead.
Just like that she was out of reach again. Alone. In Erock’s chamber. For another five agonizing minutes.
Counting the seconds one by one by one, Slade thought he’d burst by the time he was ready to roll. He changed into jeans and a white shirt, threw a black hooded sweater over the top, scrubbed his short hair back and forth, and headed to the guard station with seconds to spare.
A big bastard with an arrogant mug and a mean, towering frame to match, blocked Slade’s path. “Help you?” he grumbled, arms weaved across his chest.
“Erock’s expecting me.”
“That so?” The guard sized Slade up and must’ve decided he wasn’t much because he turned his back to check the desk log. “Don’t have anything mentioned about no meeting. Now scat.”
“One call to his office will prove it, though I’m not sure Erock will like being bothered with such a ridiculous question. He has more important things to worry about. . . . like the updated list of removals from the khiss.” Slade hoped to God this big sucker wasn’t as dumb as he looked. He took a step closer to the royal quarter.
“I wasn’t aware the list was being updated today. My apologies.” With a wave of his monstrous hand, the guard let Slade pass.
Just his luck. Brains and brawn did mix in some leech pools . . . right alongside gullibility.
Slade remembered what Dylan said. Once inside the corridor, he moved fast, veering down the hall on the right, not slowing until he came to a dead end. He turned left, meeting an oversized wooden door with intricate woodwork lacing the edges. Should he knock? Barge in? Would Dylan have gotten rid of Erock, or would he still be trying to get into her pants?
Oh, to hell with it.
Slade swung the door wide, stopped in his tracks. Shock rippled across his face at the sight before him.
Wearing nothing but a pair of navy blue pajama pants, Erock was sprawled on top of an immaculate four-poster bed, his bare chest glowing in the candlelight. Dylan stood over him, hands clasped in front of her, looking all colors of distraught. No matter what words came out of her mouth, Slade got the feeling she cared for this leech.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Are you all right?”
His words seemed to wake her from some sort of trance. Her gaze whirled his way, her eyes glossing over with tears. “I don’t know if I can do this. He’s . . . he really is a good guy beneath all his bullshit.”
Slade walked across the cool and shadowed room and pulled her into his arms. Invigorating plumes of rain floated through the air. “It’ll be all right now. Just tell me what happened.”
“I drugged him with an experimental plasmid sedative. Oh, God. He’s going to know it was me,” she said. “He’s going to know I was the one who gave him the drink.”
“How much time do we have?”
She twisted her head against his chest to peer at Erock’s tired form on the bed. “He should come around in six hours, give or take.”
“Doesn’t give us long.” He threaded his fingers through her hair. “Dylan, look at me.”
Crystal blue eyes, the hue of heaven, met his.
“I’ll take care of everything when he rolls around. I don’t want you to worry about what happens to him.”
“I don’t want him to be hurt.”
Damn it, could she read his mind? Putting Erock out of his misery would’ve been so much fun. A kill didn’t get easier than this, Slade thought, looking at Erock sprawled out and helpless on his bed. “Fine. I give you my word. Now let’s do what we came here to do.”
She nodded, slipped out of his arms, and slowly paced the length of the bookshelf lining the back wall, as if she was leisurely window-shopping for shoes. She stopped at the far corner, pointed over her shoulder. “Bring me that candle over there, would you?”
Three white tapers perched on a cherrywood dresser in the corner. Slade wondered if they were always lit, or if Erock wanted mood lighting for his time with Dylan. Repressing the growing growl was difficult. He pushed it back with a forced cough and brought her the longer of the three candles.
“
Thank you.” Walking even more slowly, Dylan extended the candle higher, then lower, higher then lower. The flame wavered oh-so-slightly as a soft breeze caught it. She hesitated. “I think I’ve found something.”
Slade approached her side, watching the candle dance as she waved it near the floor. The tiniest of drafts seeped from under the bookcase. “Aren’t you a smart one,” he said. “What on earth made you think to do that?”
“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is my all-time favorite movie.”
“Oh yeah? We’ll mine’s Dawn of the Dead so if we run into any zombies on the other side of this door, have no fear.”
Soft melodic laughter escaped her perfect mouth. She put the candle aside, and ran her hands along the seam between the first and second bookcase, tugging on bindings, slipping books out of place, then replacing them as nothing moved. “To be honest, I don’t fear anything when I’m with you. Zombie or otherwise.”
Shit, that flutter in his chest was annoying. He wondered if the blood he drank gave him some sort of crazy acid reflux.
She was stunning like this, he thought. Exploring the unknown with no fear. Hunting down the secret catacomb entrance like some sort of erotic archaeologist. Not many women would have that kind of courage. Or undeniable sex appeal while exhibiting it.
Standing on tiptoe, Dylan reached the binding of the top corner book and pulled. A quarter panel of the bookcase rumbled, groaning as if it hadn’t been moved in centuries. Cold blasts of air shot through Erock’s chamber, blowing Dylan’s curls in front of her face, extinguishing the candle in her hand. They both shielded their eyes from the ghost-cloud of dust until it fell dormant a large gust later.
When Slade opened his eyes, he was peering through a crack in the bookcase into a long hallway drenched in black.
“Grab another candle,” he said, pushing the case open. When she returned with the second taper, he grabbed her hand and held it against his back. “Don’t let go of my hand and watch your step, all right?”
She weaved her fingers between his and squeezed; the most tender acknowledgment he’d ever received.
He stepped into the darkness, treading carefully over the dirt floor, his eyes quickly adjusting to the pitch-black interior. These vamps had better eyesight than he’d given them credit for, he thought. Like night goggles without the itchy strap.
At the far end of the hallway, a winding staircase spiraled into the bowels of the earth. Tiny slats above the stairwell shone streams of daylight onto the walls—not enough to put them at risk for sunburn . . . just enough to make them squint and hiss, and question their route to the bottom.
Shielding Dylan from the onslaught of light, Slade tucked her under his arm and proceeded one slow step at a time. He refrained from breathing in the cool scent of her hair. Focusing on the task at hand was imperative. But damn it, when she pressed against him, huddling closer into his embrace, Slade couldn’t help himself. One rough breath of her hair sent chills racing across his skin, exploding like a fireball in his chest. He loosened his hold on her shoulder, although it went against every instinct bubbling inside him.
When they reached the bottom, Dylan raised her head from the protection of his chest and gasped. Lined on either side of the long corridor were large slabs of stone, one piled on top of the other, like some sort of ancient bunk-bed. Dylan released Slade’s hand, moved around him to examine the first opening of slab.
“This must’ve been where we buried ancient royals,” she said, carefully picking up a small satchel off the closest end-cap. She loosened the tie, pulled out a chunk of stone, turning it around in her hand to read the inscription. “I take that back. They were martyrs.”
Slade squinted through the winding hall at the twenty or so layered tombs. “What’d they all die for? Religion? Some cult thing?”
“No.” She brushed a layer of dirt off the stone with her thumb. “It says they died during the Crimson Bay Massacre of 1912 . . . for failure to feed.”
She wasn’t making a lick of sense. “I’ve heard of that revolt. Bloodlusting vampires took to the streets, feeding at whim, killing just as easy. They were grouped in Fort Point beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and executed for their crimes against humanity.”
“You mean they were grouped together and massacred.”
“The way I heard it, the humans were the ones massacred.”
Their records sure were twisted. Thorough, but twisted nonetheless. Therians didn’t have any kind of history documented on paper. Stories of revolts and vampire executions simply passed by word of mouth generation to generation. Moses was the first therian to share the stories with Slade. He suddenly wondered whom Moses heard the stories from.
“Well, I don’t know where you get your facts,” Dylan continued, “but vampires have been targeted for centuries. Set up to look like raging animals by the therians. Refusal to feed on that day in 1912 meant taking a stand against therian beliefs. The move infuriated them and I suppose these are the ones who were killed for their courage.”
Courage. For failure to feed? The thought pinpricked the nerves going up and down Slade’s back.
She kept walking, following the winding pathways deeper into the dark pit. “Come on. Let’s find those scrolls and get back before Erock realizes I’m gone.”
A loud boom echoed through the catacomb.
“What was that?” she asked, spinning around, worry in her eyes.
“Shhhh.” Slade listened for footsteps, whispers, signs they were being followed. “It was the door to Erock’s chamber closing. You left it open didn’t you?”
“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Tell me we’re not locked in . . .”
“We’re not locked in,” he grumbled.
“Real funny, Slade. That was the only way out.” Her voice kicked up a notch or two. “What do we do now?”
“Think of it this way,” he said. “It most likely closed on its own on some sort of automatic hinge which means we have more time to ourselves without being disturbed.”
“How do you figure? What if someone found the door and knows we’re down here? What if they’re locking us in here on purpose?”
“If someone found the bookcase open, their curiosity would probably propel them down the rabbit hole after us, and no one’s coming. At least not that I can tell. Now the bookcase will be a regular bookcase and no one will think to look for the door. Erock will wake up, you’ll be gone, and we’ll have all the time in the world to find the scrolls. Sounds like we planned it this way, doesn’t it?”
“All the time in the world to rot down here is more like it. I’ve already lived two centuries, I can’t imagine having many more left. Especially if we’re stuck down here with no food. Starvation doesn’t sound real pleasant to me.”
Panic streaked through her tone. She was losing focus on the goal. Lucky for her, Slade was no amateur when it came to keeping his head in stressful situations.
“Dylan, we’ll keep moving forward and find another way out. For now, we need to remember what we came here to do. Are the scrolls rolled up and tied, or are they in books? Maybe single sheets of paper?”
“They used to be bound in the Grimorium Verum, but when my ancestors separated the pages to protect the secrets written on them, I heard they rolled and tied them.” She tunneled her fingers through her layered chocolate hair. “Hell, I don’t know. I mean, that’s what I’ve heard, but who really knows. We’re talking about ancient history here.”
“Does anyone know where the Grimorium is?” Slade asked.
“No. It’s long gone. It’s rumored that only the person who hid it can recover it.” She paused. “Shit, there’s something else I didn’t think about.”
“What?”
“What happens if David found the scrolls and took them? What if he brought the originals to an elder to decipher and didn’t return them?”
“That’s a possibility, but if we don’t keep searching for them we’ll never know. You know, I don’t remember Indiana Jones sweat
ing the small stuff.”
“Smart ass.” She smacked him square on the shoulder. “Actually he was deathly afraid of snakes.”
Slade kept walking down the long martyred corridor, scanning tomb after tomb, waiting for something to catch his eye. “What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing, really. Bugs and reptiles don’t bother me. I’m not afraid of water or anything like that.”
“Not all fears are tangible, you know.”
Silence spun circles of tension and hesitation through the air.
As they reached the end of the layered tombs, the corridor forked in three directions, each one covered in murky shadows.
“Got any inklings as to which one we take?” Slade asked.
“What do you think about splitting up? We’ll be able to cover more ground that way.”
“That’s not an option.” He turned to her, his eyes penetrating the dark, setting upon her olive-shaped sky blues. “Where you go, I go. From here on out.”
“All right. Let’s try this way.” Dylan veered down the right hall, Slade following closely behind.
After another winding passageway and two more forks, her sweet voice cracked the stagnant air. “Failure.”
“What?”
“I’m deathly afraid of failing. Everything in my life has been laid out for me, planned from a very young age. Even though I love science so much, my career wasn’t my choice at all. It was designated by my khiss. Living at the haven wasn’t my choice either, although I wouldn’t change a thing if I could go back in time. Sometimes I feel like I’m floating inside a mist that’s carrying me wherever it wants to go and I don’t have any control. Excelling in school and work hasn’t really been that difficult for me and I’ve always been on the fortunate end of things. . . .”
Intervamption Page 16
