Vincent stopped pacing and looked back and forth between us.
“And if we do this, Vincent will tell us exactly what’s going on?”
Vincent shook his head. “Why should the details of my past have any weight on your decision to help me now?”
“Because we want to know what we’re fighting for.”
“I told you I would share with you the Sovereign’s secrets. I can tell you how many of them there are, their typical advances on prey, what they are capable of, how to defend yourself against it, and anything else you need to know. But the specific details of what happened nearly five centuries ago have no bearing on what we will be facing should you agree to take this situation on with me.”
Was he right? Was I badgering him for answers just to know, or did it matter? If I was going up against a group of ancient vampires, did I really need to know why the initial fight started, or would having Vincent’s family stand behind us against Riley be enough?
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?” Vincent sounded confused.
“If you say it doesn’t matter, than fine. What’s important is when we do this, and it’s all over, you and the Taryk family stand behind us one hundred percent.”
“Once again, you have my word.”
“Then what do you need me to do?”
“I’ll give you the location of the safe house and specific instructions on how to enter the refuge. I need to know how many in my family are still alive and who has taken command in my absence. Based on the time we spent in Drakar, it’s been nearly two weeks since our house was attacked, which means they’ll be low on blood.” Vincent’s eyes locked with mine, and the suggestion they carried made me shudder.
“What do I look like, a blood bank?” I paused, replaying those words in my head. “Don’t answer that. But you can be damn sure I’m not feeding anyone.”
“I don’t expect you to open a vein, Williams. I’m simply asking you bring them some.”
“Am I supposed to rob a blood bank?”
“Don’t be outlandish. I’ll arrange a shipment to the condo. All you need to do is deliver it.”
“You have those kinds of connections?”
“Right now, I don’t know what I have. We’ll see after I make the call.”
Chapter 22
After Vincent pulled some strings and made deals I wished I hadn’t heard, an extremely over caffeinated man dropped off a Styrofoam container full of type A positive blood. Tiki, Willy, and I loaded it into the back of the Jeep, and Vincent walked us through the instructions once again.
We were only on the highway for a few minutes before we took the turnoff. A series of unpaved back roads took us to a small, abandoned-looking house on the back end of a country lot.
Tattered shingles hung off the roof, the siding was broken and jutting from the house, and the front door was boarded up with plywood. None of the windows had any glass left in them, and the detached garage had collapsed in on itself. The grass was brown and the shrubbery under the front bay window was covered in cobwebs. It looked like nobody had set foot on the property in a decade.
“Are you sure this is it?” I asked. Tiki handed me the paper and I checked the address. “You know, considering the name he’s made for himself here, he has horrible property choices.”
“Vinc—Vincent isn’t exactly known for his outstanding decisions,” Willy said. “Why did I even have to come?”
“You didn’t have to,” I said. “Grams thought it would be good for you to get out and spend some time away from the pack. And Kate…”
“Well I could’ve d—done something else. I don’t want to do anything that involves helping Vin—Vincent.”
“Nobody does, but we need him right now.”
Willy didn’t respond. Instead, he stared out the car window in silence.
“What’s going on in your head, Willy?”
“Nothing…”
“Come on, we hardly see you anymore.”
“Nothing’s new, what do you want me to say?”
“How about telling me what Vincent did to make you so uneasy?”
As I watched Willy in the rearview mirror, his skin paled slightly and I heard the leather seat creak beneath him as he shifted his weight.
“Come on, you’re still alive so it couldn’t have been that bad, could it?”
Willy’s eyes stared back at me now, and they were angry in a way I’d never seen them. “You’ve seen what Vincent is capable of. What do you think?”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. You never talk about it.”
“That in itself should be reason enough. Just drop it, Chase!”
The lack of stutter in his words told me just how angry he was. Whatever Vincent had done to him must have been bad. I’d never seen him like this.
“Okay…sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I said.
The anger in his eyes softened and he shook his head. “No, I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have yelled. I just don’t want to talk about it.”
I nodded. “Then we won’t.”
Tiki nodded beside me and a half-smile curled from his lips.
“I really don’t get why he sets up shop in places like this. What a dump,” I said, dropping the Jeep into park and trying to change the subject.
“It’s actually very smart,” Tiki said. “If you were a prince on the vampire council, and had been on the run for hundreds of years, would you choose to flaunt your lifestyle by living somewhere extravagant, or would you prefer something plain and unnoticed?”
“I guess I’d prefer to go unnoticed. This is all so strange. Even seeing it for myself, I have a hard time thinking of Vincent as a prince, let alone a prince in hiding.” I scanned the dilapidated house and shook my head. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Yes, please.” Willy jumped out of the Jeep and slammed the door.
Tiki picked up the case of blood with ease and followed me around the back. Willy walked a few paces behind us, and as we came around the rear of the house, I noticed it was even worse than the front. Old couches, broken lawn chairs, rusty cars, and a tower of rotten fabric and rusted springs that looked like it had once been a pile of old mattresses.
Tall weeds came up past my knees, and we slogged through the overgrown yard until we got to a barn. The doors were both missing and the smell coming from inside suggested more than one animal had ended its life there.
Walking around the barn, I ran my hand over the splintered wood as Vincent had directed. There were multiple entrances into the refuge, but this was the easiest and fastest for us…according to him.
My fingertips walked along the rough wood until I felt the magic. Just as Vincent had said, energy pulsed from the ground and rode up the side of the barn. The air wavered, growing foggy before my eyes like waves of heat were pulsing in the air.
I reached inside and called my magic up from within. This wasn’t elemental magic; this was something all hunters had. Narrowing my gaze, I peeled back the glamour layer by layer. As it faded, I pushed a newly revealed rock to the side and started digging.
After a few inches of dirt had been scooped away, my fingers hit something solid. I brushed away the earth around it and retrieved a small black box. I broke the brass lock off the front and lifted the lid. Inside was an unblemished purple and red jewel. The stone was triangular in shape and fit nicely in the palm of my hand.
Following Vincent’s directions, I paced the yard. The entrance had been built decades ago by a coven of witches, and the spell changed the door’s location every few minutes.
I walked forward and waited for the sensation to fill my palm. The gem grew colder and I stopped, stepping back and shifting directions. Growing colder still, the stone nearly burned my skin, and I struggled to keep my fingers wrapped around it. I changed directions again and again until the gem began to warm.
I stepped slowly, keeping a straight line. The stone sent small shocks into my fingers and I gripped it ti
ght, slowing my pace as it began to vibrate. The jewel grew hotter and I opened my palm. The color had begun to fade and I knew we were close.
A few more steps and the stone started to turn from a beautiful gem into a solid black stone. When darkness had engulfed the gem, I reached out and dropped it to the ground.
I lost sight of the stone in the high weeds, but I felt the ground moving beneath me. I reached my arms out and guided Tiki and Willy back a few steps.
The wind picked up, and one by one, the weeds began to pluck themselves from the earth. Specks of black dust filled the air and the wind churned harder. In moments, a small funnel of green weeds and black dirt turned in front of us.
Using my hand, I protected my eyes from the debris. The funnel turned, moving away from us and tearing up the field. We kept our distance but followed the small tornado. Grass, weeds, and the occasional stone whipped through the air around us before the tornado stopped nearly a hundred feet away from where it began. As the funnel spiraled down into the earth, it shot dirt and soil high into the sky before it slowed and finally began to fade.
Approaching with caution, we followed the tornado’s destructive path. The ground had been torn away, leaving a dirt trail that led to a shallow excavation. Reaching down and using my hand, I swept away a thin veil of dirt.
A long, rectangular door was buried in the earth. A bright red circle was painted in the center and inside it sat the gem. It started turning, and as it did, the black jewel began to melt. Liquid spilled over the surface and transformed to a blood red, spreading across the inside of the circle until it had formed a T in an old script-like font.
As it finally settled, the door unlatched, opening just a few inches above the ground. Willy’s eyes widened and he took a step back. Tiki watched in amazement, still clutching the white Styrofoam case in his arms.
There was no handle, so I grabbed the edge of the door and pulled it up. Hydraulics sounded and held the door open, revealing a dark entrance. All that could be seen was a set of old wooden steps, and I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the flashlight I’d brought.
“Here we go,” I said, descending the stairs first.
Wooden studs and bracing kept the inside of the tunnel from collapsing as we walked along a dirt-lined corridor. It wasn’t very high, so I spent most of the trek hunched over. There were even points low enough that Tiki had to duck. Willy, however, coasted under everything just fine.
At the end of the passageway, the ceiling height rose and a rusted steel door blocked our path. There was no handle, only a small sliding slot. I reached up and knocked precisely as Vincent had instructed, then listened to the sound echo on the other side.
I heard muffled voices, and after someone spoke in a commanding tone, there was silence. The metal slat on the door slid to the side, but when I shined the flashlight up to see, nobody was there.
“I do—don’t like this,” Willy whispered.
“What’s the password?”
“Lazzario,” I said.
There was a long pause before the metal slat slammed shut. The sound of locks sliding out of place sounded and after multiple latches had been retracted, the door opened.
“Quite the system you have here,” I said.
“Hardly,” said a female voice.
Goose bumps rode up my arms, and as I shone the flashlight on her face, I saw the person I had least expected to see: Alessia Lazzario.
I stood frozen in the doorway, Alessia’s purple eyes with their ring of gold studying my face. An ankle-length white sweater hung off her shoulders, and a low-cut red shirt revealed ample cleavage and flawless skin. Her thin lips were painted bright red with lipstick and curled into a welcoming smile.
“Come in, come in,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting company quite this early, but I must say this is a welcome surprise.” Her voice was sweet and warm, not the demonic tone I’d expected.
I looked back at Tiki, who only shrugged. Willy stood in the dirt-lined corridor with his head down. “I’ll ju—just wa—wait here.”
“Nonsense.” Alessia walked into the hallway and wrapped her arm around Willy. He looked instantly afraid, and his eyes pleaded with me as she guided him into the room.
The inside was nothing like the corridor. Hardwood floors, dark brown painted walls, and high ceilings made up a modern-looking room. Old canvases hung on the walls and leather furniture sat below them, some of the seats occupied by Vincent’s vampires. These vampires were fierce warriors of Stonewall’s Underworld, and now they sat silent and domesticated on their cushions, averting their eyes from Alessia and cowering from her power. It never ceased to amaze me how quickly the tables could be turned.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. Tension rose in my shoulders and I reached inside to put my shields in place. I wouldn’t make the same mistake I’d once made with Vincent. Nobody was getting inside my head.
“I feared Vincent would reject my offer. Your presence here only confirms that suspicion.”
“Can you blame him?” I asked.
Alessia turned and questioned me with her eyes.
“You’re asking him to concede and admit he was wrong to a room full of people he has no respect for. He’s spent years building a family here and creating a new life, and you all but destroyed them in one fell swoop. You’re not offering him anything he wants.”
“Interesting analysis, my dear boy, but you are uneducated on many of the details.”
“Care to educate me?’
“Perhaps…” Her eyes gave me a head to toe and she turned away, hips swaying intensely with each step. She gracefully fell into a black leather chair that contrasted with her skin. “Do you know why all of this began, my darling hunter?”
My eyes wandered the room and saw doors and hallways branching off in multiple directions, but everything seemed strangely quiet, and the tension in my shoulders tightened.
“Chase?” Alessia said. “If I’m going to take my time to share something with you, I expect your complete and utter focus. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
I did as she asked and shook my head. “No, I don’t know why.”
“Of course, why would Vincent tell you? He wouldn’t want to corrupt his reputation, after all. Well, if he’s chosen not to share his story, then perhaps I should respect that. Just mentioning her name provokes the demon inside him. Pathetic and cute all at the same time.”
“Whose name?”
“Rozeilia Vaneltio,” she said, and then covered her mouth with a faux guilty smile. “Oops. I shouldn’t say anymore…I’ve said too much already. Let me just tell you that Vincent did some very, very bad things. He broke ancient laws, disgraced his family, and stole many precious lives from royal bloodlines.”
“So you think taking over Vincent’s safe house and keeping everyone hostage is going to sway him? Or were you planning on killing them all to send a message?”
The vampires on the couch all looked up at once, eyes panning back and forth between us. It was the most movement I’d seen from them.
“Of course not. I’ve been here for weeks now. If I was going to kill them, they’d all be dead. Poor things were too afraid to even go out and hunt. Mother had to bring you snacks, didn’t she, dears?”
The vampires on the couch tensed as her gaze fell upon them. They nodded and remained silent, letting their eyes fall back to the hands fidgeting in their laps.
“And I see you’ve come bearing gifts!” A gust of air carrying the smell of perfume brushed past me and before I noticed her move, Alessia’s warm breath was on my neck.
“Let us see what you have.” Her lips brushed my ear and she twirled around, scooping the container from Tiki’s arms. She grimaced the moment she lifted the lid. “Blood in a bag…” She shook her head. “The depths he has sunk to in order to survive makes my heart shed a tear. A pity.”
Alessia turned to one of the vampires on the couch and her gaze narrowed. “Take this to the back and let the others k
now this is all they’re getting. If this is what you typically dine on, I have no desire to bring you any kind of treats. I will keep them for myself.”
“Yes, mistress.” He bowed and picked up the container, disappearing down the hall.
“Are there many of them left?” I asked.
“More than I had hoped to see in a lifetime. Although there are only a few dozen here, I suspect he has more than just this safe house.” She cringed. “It seems my son has opened an orphanage, bringing the scum of the vampire world together like a pack of mutated rats, all struggling to survive on a single rotted corpse.”
I shivered at the imagery.
“I have to admit, I expected Vincent to arrive, not you.” Alessia’s black heels tapped along the floor and her perfume engulfed me. “If I’m going to be completely honest—and I see no reason not to be—you’ve ruined my surprise.” Alessia’s smile faded and her face stiffened.
“We just came to bring the blood. We’ve done that, so we should probably go,” I said.
Alessia’s power started to tremble. Waves of it pulsed off her skin and the steel door behind us slammed shut. All of the locks slid into place and the click echoed through the room. “Nonsense, you’ve only just arrived.”
A pang in my stomach sent a chill through my spine. I wanted to reach behind me and check for my daggers, but I knew there was no movement subtle enough that she wouldn’t notice. Not that the blades would do me any good. I’d put one directly above Vincent’s heart once and he was unaffected by it. I didn’t want to imagine what little damage it would do to her.
Alessia snapped her fingers. The remaining two vampires got up from the couch, bowed to her. “Leave us.” They nodded and disappeared down the hallway. “You three, please sit.”
“That isn’t necessary, we really should be—”
“You are sweet, Chase, and so very handsome. For that, I will offer you leniency—just this once—for your disrespect of my hospitality. Sit,” she demanded, still maintaining her honeyed tone.
Tiki moved in front of me and took a spot on the couch. I felt Alessia’s eyes burning through me and her power came with it. On one hand, I wanted to be close to her. I wanted to crawl into her lap and feel her hands on my face. On the other, I was terrified.
Release (The Protector Book 3) Page 18
