And as Renee gathered herself to meet his attack a sudden flash, too brief to be called a memory, of her passage through the fissure burst through the psychic attack tearing Renee’s mind to shreds. The mist! Desperate, she grasped it with all her might.
When Niko lunged at her, his formidable jaws closed on air as she shot away, a stream of fog streaking away from the carnage. The last thing she saw as she fled was Niko turning on Kalen and attacking him in her stead.
Renee sobbed inside as she darted through the night. There was no home for her there. She would not turn Outcast, would never become a beast like Niko and those with him.
A sudden rush of fatigue rolled over her and Renee fell from the air, unable to hold the mist. At the last instant, she remembered Eli trying to teach her to make her body impervious to harm but it seemed like all her effort achieved was to keep her from losing consciousness when she slammed into the ground. Her hard impact with the pavement would have killed a mortal. The agony was indescribable as her shattered bones knit themselves back together, using the power in Eli’s ancient blood to heal her against all the laws of nature. It was a few minutes before she managed to push herself back to her feet. Every part of her body ached and throbbed. She hadn’t felt this terrible since the first time she’d woken after her Change.
Another wave of weakness swamped her and Renee looked suddenly up at the sky. The stars were fading. Dawn was coming. She covered her face with her hands, inexpressibly weary and discouraged. The day was breaking and she had nowhere to go, no one who would take her in, and not even any money to get a motel room to hide in.
But she only allowed herself a moment of self-pity. If she wanted to live she would have to find something, even if it meant sleeping down a hole or breaking into an empty house. Suddenly she wanted to live very much. She refused to meet her end this way.
As she struggled to her feet, the final straw fell. Ronin’s presence suddenly screamed across her nerves like fingernails over a chalkboard and she slammed her mental blocks in place. God, would she never learn to shield herself?
Ronin wasn’t just hunting Outcasts tonight; he was hunting her. She didn’t know how she knew it but she was positive she wasn’t mistaken, just as she was positive she had little chance of escaping him. She was too inexperienced to block him as she ran in animal form.
And as tonight had shown, fighting was out of the question.
He would find her as soon as she relaxed. There was only one place where she would be relatively safe.
Renee sighed in resignation. There was nothing else to do. Welcome or not, she had to return to Eli.
Fatigue and hunger were riding her harder than ever when she arrived at the cemetery and slipped down the jagged fissure. Even though she’d dropped all her mental blocks to save her strength, Renee struggled to hold herself in mist form. It was much more difficult now than it had been earlier.
To make matters worse, she sensed that dawn was only minutes from breaking. Although no light penetrated the fissure, she dreaded the lethargy the day forced on her. She didn’t want to imagine what would happen should she lose her concentration now as she had in the sky—the fissure here was narrow, the rocks around her jagged, and her mind shied away from the image of what would happen to her should she be forced back into human form here. She was positive it would make falling from the sky look like nothing.
But suddenly she felt a rush of power shoot through her, saving her from imminent danger. Eli surrounded her in a warm wave of energy, buoying her flagging strength and drawing her more rapidly down the narrow crack. Renee felt his anxiety and wondered at it even before she burst into the entryway and collapsed in her normal form, utterly exhausted.
Eli caught her before she fell to the stone floor and gathered her to his chest. “Where the devil have you been? I’ve been searching for you all night! What happened? Were you attacked? What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded in a rush, his hands running over every inch of her, clearly searching for injuries.
A bolt of pain from her abused head made her moan and she swatted weakly at his hands. “Ow! Quit that!”
He stopped at once. Eli cupped her chin in his hand and searched her face anxiously. “What happened?”
Renee remembered his rejection far too clearly and this display of concern made her wary. This was the last thing she’d expected after he’d driven her away. She wanted to pull away but she was too tired to fight. There was no choice but to let him support her. “I’m fine,” she told him, barely conscious of what she was saying in her pain and weariness, hoping he would let her go and let her collapse in peace.
He scowled at her as his arm tightened around her. “Damn it, Renee, you’re not fine. You’re hurt. I feel it. What happened to you?”
It was too much trouble to answer. He tilted her chin back when she didn’t speak. It took her a moment to realize he was looking for bite marks on her throat. “No one bit me,” she tried to reassure him, wondering if he had honestly been searching for her all night. It was too incredible to be believed. “I just need to rest, that’s all.”
He swept her up in his arms and carried her into the den. She didn’t have the strength to resist and hated herself for loving how it felt to be in his arms again. When she shivered, he conjured a roaring fire in the hearth with a single glance before placing her gently on the couch. She sensed his worried gaze as he knelt beside her.
“Why did you hide from me?” he asked again, but his voice was softer as he cupped her face in his hands. “You’re weak again. Didn’t you hunt tonight, Renee? Don’t you know how vulnerable you are in this state?”
Her laugh was bitter. “It became apparent.”
He frowned at her vague comment. “What happened?” he asked again, his voice no less urgent for its softness.
She sighed. His obvious concern made it difficult to stay angry. His warm hands slid down her arms and closed over her cold fingers, and for a moment, she couldn’t help clinging to the strength he offered.
But his harsh rejection replayed in her mind, every painful word he’d said to her echoing anew in her ears, and she pulled her hands free. “I had nowhere else to go, so I tried to find the one who turned me,” she told him coolly, opening her eyes to see if he had any reaction at all to her words. “Don’t worry, I won’t be staying. I wouldn’t have come back at all if I could’ve thought of anywhere else to stay today. You made it more than clear that I’m not wanted here.”
Eli went very still. His hands captured hers again and tightened, making it impossible for her to pull them away again. “And what did you find?” he asked, his eyes and tone suddenly and totally unreadable.
She swallowed with difficulty. Eli didn’t move but she felt the readiness of every muscle in his body in his sudden stillness all the same. Niko had watched her just the same way from the eyes of the bulldog when she’d defied him. Kneeling beside her, holding her hands, Renee knew Eli was as ready to spring as Niko had been even though nothing in his expression betrayed the slightest hint of his tension.
Strange, this new ability she had to feel the intentions of others. Or had she had it all along and simply never needed to use it until she’d been out on her own?
Eli’s grip tightened at her silence and Renee’s legs quivered with the sudden need to run. She didn’t know where the impulse to flee came from but it was strong, even stronger than it had been when Niko’s Clan had closed in around her in the park.
“I didn’t find him,” she said nervously, fighting the urge to try to get away. She had no hope of escaping Eli and she knew it. Besides, she’d done nothing wrong. She had no reason to run. “But they found me. The Clanless ones, the Outcasts.”
Eli took a slow, deep breath. He bowed his head for a moment before meeting her eyes again. The sense of impending danger radiating from him did not lessen in the slightest at her answer. “Tell me what happened, Renee. Tell me where you’ve been tonight.”
“They hunted,” she whispere
d, reliving the horrible slaughter in the park. Screams echoed in her mind. “It was terrible. They tried to make me kill even though I told them no. They tried to force me but I didn’t do it, Eli. I swear I didn’t.”
He let out his breath in a long sigh and the tension melted from his shoulders. Only now that he released that tension did she see how rigid his muscles had been, and she abruptly remembered her first night as a vampire.
Remembered his warning that he’d slay her should she ever kill her prey. She wondered if he’d been readying himself to do just that.
A shiver ran down her spine. No, she didn’t wonder.
“You refused them,” Eli breathed as if stunned. “I’m surprised they let you live.”
She bit her lip, remembering her desperate flight, the flash of fangs and talons in the moonlight, the glittering spray of blood from their unfortunate victims. “It was more like getting away before they killed me, rather than them letting me live.”
He didn’t reply. The tension in the room was unbearable, and with a deep breath, she forced herself to meet his eyes. “They—they told me some things,” she said carefully, nervously. “Things about the League, about the Slayers. About where we come from.”
Eli laced his fingers through hers. His grip offered comfort now, not bondage. “Tell me these things and let me answer their accusations.”
His calmness soothed her and when she spoke again it was easier. This was the Eli she knew, the one who had taught and protected her, the man who had made such incredible love to her.
She forced herself to focus on the conversation, not the painful memories. “They said the League was formed with the sole purpose of eradicating them.”
He nodded, not denying it. Renee looked at him in shock. She’d expected him to refute it and claim some higher purpose. “Why?” she asked plaintively. “Why do you want to kill them all? How can they all be evil?”
“They are killers, little one, all of them. They like blood spiced with terror and they take it all. They kill their prey, and at the moment of death, they devour the human’s life-force. They kill for pleasure even when they do not need to feed. Didn’t you see them do this tonight?”
Renee couldn’t speak, her eyes filling with tears as she pictured the couple who had been led to her. The group standing around the fountain was perhaps too large for Niko’s Clan to threaten but there was no hope for the pair who had been offered to her. Their faces filled her mind, young and helpless.
“I left them to their deaths,” she breathed in horror. “I didn’t even try to save them!”
Eli squeezed her hands tightly. “No,” he said firmly. “Don’t do this to yourself. You could not have saved them, Renee. If you’d tried to rescue them, you would have been killed, too.”
Regardless of what he said, she knew the guilt of leaving the couple in the park to their deaths would haunt her. “Why do they do it?”
He sighed. “It gives them the ability to walk in the day, at least for a short time. Some would do anything to feel the sun on their face again, but the taking of a life does something to them. They become addicted to the high it brings to kill their prey. Like any addiction, the craving is nearly impossible to resist, and few of them try. Once that happens they’re beyond any hope of redemption.” He brushed a tear off her cheek, making her aware she was crying. “That is why we hunt them, Renee. They see humans as nothing more than food, or pawns to be turned into vampires at their whim. Just like what happened to you.”
They are cattle, Renee. It is a mercy to kill something so weak!
Niko’s words echoed in her head and she knew Eli spoke the truth. She turned her face away and stared at the pillows on the couch. She forced the memory away and said the first thing that came to her, wishing she had the power to erase the horrible images from her mind forever. “They said it was our right to rule the humans. That we were created by a god to rule the earth.”
She felt rather than saw his sudden stiffening. “So, they told you that story.”
She looked up at his strange tone. “Will you tell me a different one?”
Eli shrugged, all fluid grace and nonchalance. She wasn’t fooled. He was wound tight as a bowstring again but she couldn’t figure out why. “Some of it is true,” he replied, looking past her rather than at her.
Renee stared at him. Niko’s story had been too incredible to be believed, and now Eli was telling her it was true? “You’re telling me vampires were created by a god who wanted to improve upon the human race? That we are all pawns in a power struggle between the gods and nothing matters except which race is more powerful?”
“Do you believe that?”
His cool non-answer irritated her. “Well, what else should I believe?” she asked pointedly. “I don’t hear you offering any other explanation.” He didn’t respond to her unsubtle hint and she narrowed her eyes, suddenly furious at his reticence.
Damn it, this time she would get a reaction from him.
“They claimed the League was jealous of them because the blood of this god runs purest in their veins. They said it was the League who were going against what he had intended, and the Outcasts kept closest to his plans when he created us. He hated humans and wanted vampires to exterminate them—”
Eli snarled and Renee couldn’t help but jump at the unexpectedly fierce sound. The firelight glinted off his fangs and she bit her lip at this evidence of his rage. She hadn’t sensed any emotion from him—but she rarely did.
She felt his emotions now, though. Waves of frustration and anger filled the room. He paced away to slam a fist against the stone mantle, every movement a study in tightly-controlled fury. She scooted back on the couch in alarm.
She’d wanted a reaction, but this barely-leashed violence hadn’t been what she had in mind. “Eli?”
He spun and she gasped at the fury in his suddenly blazing eyes. “And do you believe that?” he demanded. “That vampires were created by some foolish god to run amok, killing at will, with no thought but to dominate? Do you truly believe such evil would ever be created deliberately?”
Unable to find her voice, she shook her head. Instinctively reacting to his anger, she slammed her mental shields in place.
Red flames flared in his eyes when he felt that shield go up. Suddenly he was before her and she involuntarily flinched when he reached for her.
He froze. Visibly repressing his anger, he closed his eyes and bowed his head before walking away from her to lean against the mantle. His sigh held such sadness, it made her ache for him.
Her fear evaporated as she looked at him standing there silhouetted against the flames. She didn’t understand his pain but she ached to comfort him. Her earlier fury at him was forgotten. How could she stay away from him when he was obviously suffering? “Eli, please tell me what’s wrong,” she whispered.
He turned and looked at her with haunted eyes. “You have to understand that it was an accident,” he said hoarsely. “No one even knew it was possible. Someone surely would have stopped it otherwise.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand. What was an accident?”
He ran his hands through his hair and dropped his head back to stare up at the ceiling with a harsh sigh. He hesitated so long that Renee was about to ask again when he looked back at her and finally replied.
“They have some of it right,” he said, his voice low but clear. “But most of it is wrong. You’ve asked me before where vampires came from, Renee, and if you still wish to know, I’ll tell you how it started. How my foolish mistakes resulted in a new race and an eternal war.”
Chapter Ten
Renee stared at Eli and struggled to breathe.
His power surrounded him like a cloak. Like an aura, living and dangerous and intensely inhuman. Niko’s story returned to her—the Atlantean, the pinnacle of human strength, beauty, intelligence. Renee gaped at Eli as the realization burst across her mind.
“It’s not possible,” she whispered. “No—it can’t be. I
t can’t be you.”
He gave her a painful, bitter smile. He walked slowly back to the couch and knelt on the floor beside her, taking her hands again. She was too shocked to flinch this time.
“I’m sorry,” Eli murmured. “I should have told you before now. I should have told you first thing tonight, and instead I deliberately hurt you and drove you away. I didn’t want to frighten you—” He broke off and shook his head wearily. “No. I won’t lie to you now, little one. I didn’t tell you because it’s not something I’m proud of, Renee. I don’t want anyone to know my part in this.”
Little dark spots burst behind her eyes and Renee knew she was on the edge of fainting. On some level she’d felt it since the first time she’d seen him. His power was too great for any mere vampire, could only be explained if he was extremely ancient. Every legend she had ever heard about Atlantis swirled around her until she felt dizzy. She took a slow, deep breath and let it out again, trying to rein in her confusion and awe.
At last she managed one word. “How?”
Eli stared into the fire, his eyes shadowed as the light danced over his face. “Like many before me and since, I was a fool for a woman,” he began softly, speaking to the fire and the ghosts of the past rather than to her, it seemed.
Then he glanced up at her and saw her confusion. “My father wanted her,” he explained with a pained expression. “She didn’t return his regard. That never mattered much to him, though. I don’t think he ever even saw her, not really. It was the chase he loved, the pursuit and the thrill of victory when he finally seduced them. The conquest. After that he moved on to the next chase, the next thrill. He never seemed to tire of it.”
Renee bit her lip to keep silent. She didn’t understand what any of this had to do with becoming the first vampire, but she saw how difficult it was for him to speak of this at all. If he had to tell it in a circuitous way, she could understand.
“Nyssa held out longer than most,” he continued, looking into the fire again. “But no one ever resisted my father, not in the end. He always got what he wanted. She knew it as well as he did.” He turned Renee’s hand over in his, tracing her fingers. “She asked me to hide her,” he murmured. “Like a fool, I did. You see, I was also infatuated with her, and she knew it. She used me, just as my father would have used her. And I was too blind and besotted to know it.
Amelia Elias - [Guardian's League 02] - Outcast Page 17
