Chapter Four
A horrible, animalistic growl jerked Elena from oblivion. Her head throbbed, probably from the double-whammy of her low blood sugar coupled with the fact she was being toted caveman-style over the death angel’s shoulder.
From this angle, she could see that she was still in her kitchen and that Nikolai had a truly fine ass. Wait. What an absolutely absurd thought. He growled again. Something had upset him. Oh God. She had passed out. What if Aunt Uza had come back?
“Put me down,” she said.
The pacing stopped so abruptly her chin slammed into his lower back. He stooped and placed her feet on the floor. It was then she remembered she was bare-ass naked for the most part. She pulled the gown closed behind her as he steadied her by the shoulders.
“We have to leave,” he said.
“Nope. Not happening. Kill me here, or not at all. I’ve had enough.”
He jerked the cord, causing her to tumble forward into him. Heat rolled off his chest into her palms, and she resisted the urge to run her hands over the smooth leather of his vest. Wrong, Arcos. Wrong in every way imaginable.
“Listen to me and listen well. You will do two things in the next three minutes. You will drink enough orange juice to make you stable, and then you will find something you can wear in public and not be noticed.” He punctuated his order with another sharp yank on the cord.
Public. That sounded promising. Surely he wouldn’t kill her in public. Still, she wasn’t ready to go so easily. Perhaps he had realized she was not a vampire or whatever it was he thought her to be. Maybe he would let her go.
“Why should I cooperate? What’s in it for me?”
He took a step away and leaned down to where his face was level with hers. “I’ll put it to you this way. I’ll tell you what’s in it if you do not cooperate: torture. Horrible, painful torture at the hands of six or so of my kind coming to insure I carried out my orders.” He ran his forefinger in a line from her throat, between her breasts all the way to her navel, then back up in a path that almost made her faint again. “And after they’ve all had you, and broken you, you will understand why you should have cooperated with me. Believe me when I tell you I’m the lesser of the evils.”
Stubborn? Yes. Stupid? Hell, no. She picked up the carton of OJ and took a guzzle, then another, and another, until she couldn’t hold any more.
“Let’s go,” she said, heading toward the kitchen door. When the cord pulled taut, she gave it a jerk to get him to follow, which he did, all the way to her bedroom. “What kind of clothes? Where are we going?” She stopped short when she saw the suitcase on the bed. She popped the latches and found it packed with everything from a Parka to red lace lingerie.
The death angel snorted. “Sorry to alter your previous vacation plans.”
“What? No. I didn’t do this.”
His eyebrow shot up. “Perhaps one of your lovers packed for you. An unexpected trip, maybe?”
She stared at the suitcase full of enough clothes to last a week in any climate. There was also cash. Lots of it. What was going on? The only one with a key to her place was Uza, and she was usually too out of it to even organize for a trip to the grocery store.
He slammed the suitcase closed and snapped the latches. “You’ll just have to disappoint him. Now find something to cover yourself.” He pulled her to the closet by the cord.
She held up her wrist. “This is going to make it tricky.”
“There’s nothing I can do about that. You are a clever girl. Figure something out.” He pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Now.”
She yanked a halter-top sundress off the hanger and stepped into it, then pulled the cord to get more freedom of movement. “Help me out here,” she said. “I can’t do it one handed.”
He moved closer to give her use of both arms. She hated him being this close because it made her body go stupid. Really stupid. He plans to kill you. At least that’s what he said. He could off her so easily, yet he hadn’t. Something was holding him back. Her heart beat a tad faster as it filled with hope. Maybe she could escape before he made good on his threats.
“Please turn around,” she said once the dress was pulled to her waist under the gown.
“For God’s sake, woman,” he growled, turning away. “I’ve seen your body all day. Don’t flatter yourself.”
His words stung, which was beyond ridiculous. She yanked the hospital gown off and pulled the halter up and tied it behind her neck. “Fine. Done.”
He put the suitcase on the floor between them and extended the handle. “Hold this and don’t let go.”
Bossy jerk. She grabbed the handle.
He placed his hands on the side of her neck and then started that unintelligible chant he had done at the hospital. The tingly warmth from his fingers emanated through her body.
“Think of a hotel in another city where you have stayed that you can picture well. In your mind, recreate the lobby or the parking lot, if possible. Do not imagine yourself in any position other than standing next to me.” He arched an eyebrow. “Are we clear?”
A loud crash and men’s voices downstairs caused her to jump. “Yes.”
“Imagine it now.” He closed his eyes and chanted.
The air warmed, and she felt as though she were dissolving—or more accurately, evaporating. Then, like before, it was as if her entire body were slammed by pressure from all sides at once. When everything stilled, she opened her eyes to find herself in the lobby of a Texas hill-country resort she had visited last summer. She and Nikolai stared at each other in the dark corner where they’d landed, suitcase clutched tightly in her hand between them.
He nodded. “Well done.”
She fought the urge to smile. God, she was pathetic to respond to his praise.
“You look terrible,” he said.
So much for praise. “Thanks.”
He balled the cord in his palm, then placed her hand over his, concealing it for the most part. To anyone else, it looked like they were simply holding hands. A huge, sword-wielding, bare-chested god with a scrawny chick. “Wait. You can’t just go prancing around with that thing strapped to your back.”
“Number one, I never prance. Number two, I’m concealed by a partial human Veil. What they see is me in a business suit.”
“What do they see when they see me?”
“You. Exactly as you are.” Grabbing the handle of her suitcase in his free hand, he pulled her to the gift shop near the registration desk and plucked the first baseball cap off of a souvenir display and passed it to her, dropping her other hand. “Put it on with your hair hidden underneath.”
She read the cap out loud. “Ride ‘em cowgirl?” Classy. She twisted her hair on top of her head and slipped the cap over it while he paid. A disguise, maybe? No telling. The guy was unpredictable.
He balled the cord up and pressed his palm against hers again. “Do as I say and follow my lead. Do not act out or let on that you’re unwilling, or I will not only kill you, I will kill everyone in this room. Are we clear?”
Giggles erupted from two little girls getting their faces painted at a table across the room near the door.
“Clear.”
He sauntered to the desk with Elena in tow as if he owned the world—and her, too, for that matter—and requested a room for the night. He paid in cash and took the card key from the girl who all but openly propositioned him from behind the counter. Holy crap. He probably got this all the time. Elena looked him up and down trying to imagine him in a business suit. Were the situation different, she would probably be drooling just like the clerk who told him to call her if he needed anything. Emphasis on anything.
The room was decorated in Texas rustic style with a huge king-size bed that seemed to scream “ride ‘em cowgirl,” just like the freaking cap she wore. The death angel’s eyes were locked on the bed as well. Maybe he was tired… He adjusted himself. Maybe she was an idiot.
She caught a glimpse of her reflection
in the mirror over the desk and gasped. She still had blood smeared on her face and neck from the shooting. It seemed like it had happened ages ago. No wonder he had her put her hair in a cap. It was caked with blood. She shuddered.
“Are you cold?” he asked, pushing the handle down on her rolling suitcase.
“No. I’m grossed out.”
He looked around the room. “It doesn’t meet your approval?”
“No. I’m grossed out by me. I’m disgusting.” She pulled the cap off, and her blood-caked hair tumbled down over her shoulders. “I can’t believe you didn’t cloak me in a magic spell or whatever it is.”
“Vain, are you?”
“Hardly. I just don’t like going around looking like I bathed in blood.”
A dark look crossed his face. “Isn’t that your wildest dream, vampire?”
Her stomach churned at the hatred in his tone. “I’m not a vampire. I never will be one, so if that’s what you’re waiting on, settle in, buddy. You’re going to get to feel all superior dragging me around looking like you rescued me off the street for a looooong time.”
He blanched at the acid in her tone. “I didn’t cloak you because it takes energy to hide a human in the human world. The energy caused by teleporting dissipates, but cloaking leaves, for lack of a better description, a trail. Simply cloaking my clothes will leave a weak signal. Cloaking you would leave a much stronger one.”
That made sense, she supposed, but she still hated it…and him. She looked around the room again and spotted the open bathroom door. She really needed to use the restroom and take a shower. Surely he’d untie her for just a moment. “I swear I won’t run. Please untie me so I can have some private moments in the bathroom.”
“No.”
“So I can’t even pee?”
“Of course you can. You may do whatever you wish. Shower, relieve yourself. Hell, pleasure yourself for all I care. The cord remains.”
“Until I’m dead.”
“Yes.”
She really didn’t have a choice. Unless he killed her in the next two minutes, she was going to pee herself.
“Let’s go.” She entered the bathroom and realized the cord was long enough for him to remain outside while she used the toilet. She closed the door in his face with a slam and stifled a grin. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
He would have to come in if she were going to shower. Though it probably wouldn’t be that big a deal. Even though it was obvious from the perpetual bulge in his pants he was male and she was female, he had made it clear he hated her—or he hated whatever it he thought she was. Tears stung the back of her eyelids. Clearly he considered her beneath him.
Nikolai leaned his forehead against the closed door. He wanted to have this woman beneath him. His body all but screamed it out loud. He had to have her. No more games. No more waiting. She was his, and he would make it so.
He stared at the pulses of his soul as it traveled the exposed inches of the cord before disappearing behind the closed door. There had been fireworks when their souls collided on the cable between them. There would be fireworks when their bodies met as well.
She had flushed minutes ago. He knocked. “My turn.”
There was no response. He tried the door to find it locked. What the devil was she up to? He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a lock pick, and popped the door on the first try. He found her sitting on the closed toilet lid, knees drawn to her chest, sobbing and trembling all over. He crouched in front of her, but she buried her face in her arms.
“Hey.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “You okay?”
A choked laugh came from her. “Am I okay?”
He ached to see her like this. “Yes. That was my question.”
She lifted her head and met his gaze directly. “No, I am not okay.” She unfurled and sat up straight. “I can’t believe you have the balls to ask me that. How can you even imagine I would be okay?”
Nikolai swallowed the lump in his throat. “I simply wanted to—”
“To what?”
He could hardly believe it himself. “Calm you.”
“Calm me? What, before you kill me?” She pushed to her feet, and Nikolai stood as well. The air was charged with her anger. “Because that’s what all of this is about, isn’t it? Killing me.”
He didn’t know what to say. That was how it started, certainly, but things had changed.
“Let me tell you about my day, and you tell me if I’m okay,” she said.
He moved to sit on the toilet lid and give her free reign to rant. Perhaps, like Aleksandra, letting it out would make her feel better.
She held up a finger. “First, my asshole boss berates me for not being productive enough, which is total bullshit, but tells me he’ll look the other way if I go out for drinks with him.” She switched the finger she held up to her middle one, making a crude gesture. “Right. Drinks my ass. My ass is what he wants. Not a chance.” She straightened her forefinger again, leaving two fingers up. “Second. I have a hideous blood sugar attack and stop to buy a candy bar, but get killed by some freak instead. You’d think that would be the happy ever after ending, but no. I get revived by…” She gestured to him. “Whatever you are, taken to the hospital, interrogated by cops, assaulted by a crazy lady, transported to my house to be murdered, then moved here to be murdered instead, all the while being insulted and degraded.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “Oh yeah. I’m just great. Any other questions?”
There was so much power inside this tiny human. He wondered what she would be like if allowed to come into her immortal powers. He stifled a smile. She would be a force to be reckoned with, for certain. But his orders were clear. He must destroy her, which hardly seemed just since she had no involvement with his father’s murder whatsoever. Fydor’s intel could not have been that faulty. Why had he lied to him?
While she caught her breath, Nikolai watched the blue and silver threads of their souls dance along the cord. What a cruel trick of fate that they were bonded. If only there were a way to release himself from her and release her from her execution. He must find a way.
She dropped to her knees at his feet. “Please. Please let me go. I’m not what you think I am. I’m just a human trying to make a living and get by.”
He wished he could set her free, but severing the cord would mean death for them both. “No. And you are not human. Not entirely. You see under the Veil. I think you will become something else with the right trigger.”
She slumped back onto her heels. “Like what?”
He pulled a dagger out of his boot, and she scooted as far away as the cord would allow. He pricked his thumb with the tip, and her eyes grew large, and then her pupils dilated to the point where they filled her irises completely. She never took her eyes off of the drop of blood balanced on the pad of his thumb as he rose and approached her. He wiped it on her lower lip and stepped back. She resisted at first, but eventually, darted her tongue across it. He pulled her to her feet to look at her herself in the mirror. “Like that.”
Elena gasped at her reflection. Her eyes were red. Only for a moment, but still red—just like the guy who’d shot her in the convenience store. Shit. The bathroom walls closed in a bit. Surely this wasn’t happening.
Wait. Nikolai said her dad had been a vampire. His eyes were never red. Maybe it was the freakish death angel blood that did it. Maybe it would make any human’s eyes red.
“It’s a trick,” she said. “It’s your wacked-out blood that did that, not my physical composition.”
“No.” He almost looked sad. “No trick. Biology and genetics. Your father was a vampire. So are you.”
“Dad’s eyes were brown.”
“He wore lenses in your world. They were blood red at court.”
“At court?”
“Your dad was a powerful man. He was the ambassador and ruler of the vampire nation until its collapse. He lived dual lives because he had a human to protect.”
�
�My mom.”
“Yes. A foolish move on his part. And in the end, he couldn’t protect her anyway. Like you, she was frail and weak. Her humanity was his undoing.”
Nothing about her mother had been her father’s undoing. They adored each other. “He loved her. Some things are worth dying for.”
“Many things are worth dying for. Love is not among them. Love is a fabrication of humans to glamorize and rationalize desire.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m not. Lust and desire alone drive us, regardless of species. The lust for power…” He ran his hands down her arms, and she trembled. A smile pulled his lips as he placed them next to her ear. “The lust for pleasure…” His breath tickled as his wicked hands moved to her waist and slowly traveled up her sides, around the swell of her breasts, and rested on her shoulders, leaving her a trembling mess. “Pure lust and desire. Nothing else. Love does not exist.”
Elena struggled to control her ragged breaths and slow her misfiring heart. His simple touch made her lose control. She was on fire, and it made no sense. None at all. She opened her eyes and met his in the mirror.
He leaned down to her ear again. “Is what you are feeling right now love?”
“Of course not.” She was relieved her voice came out solid and not breathy.
“Most humans would confuse what you are feeling with that tender, fictitious emotion.” He bit her earlobe, and she swayed a bit. His grip on her shoulders tightened. “What exactly are you feeling, Elena Arcos?”
It was bad enough he was going to kill her. Torturing her was beyond sporting. She straightened and lifted her chin, meeting his eyes directly in the mirror. “Lust. Pure, unadulterated lust.”
He grinned.
“But not lust for you. Lust for a shower, you asshole. Take your hands off of me.”
His grip on her shoulders tightened.
Love Me to Death (Underveil) Page 4
