“You’re admitting us?” Kallias asked.
“Thank your girlfriend,” Aaron said. He glanced at her, a hint of curiosity burning in his cold, dark eyes. “She’s the only one of you three that I actually like.”
Rose stepped aside so that Kallias and Erik could let Aaron take their blood. She glanced down at her wrist, noticing that it had already healed. Her eyes widened as the scent of Kallias’s blood filled the room, igniting her hunger and calling out to the blood bond she shared with him. Her stomach burned with violent hunger, and her heart raced as adrenaline shot through her body.
“Hungry?” asked a familiar, breathy, accented voice.
Rose turned to find Kara standing right beside her. Kara watched Rose with an amused smile curling at the edges of her lips. With her hunger already so intense and Kara standing so close, Rose couldn’t help but notice that Kara’s blood smelled thick and sweet, like honey, and her skin smelled so soft and enticing, like flowers. Rose watched the soft, steady pulse of Kara’s neck.
Kara raised an eyebrow as she noticed the direction of Rose’s gaze.
“Are you all right?” Kallias asked, placing his hand on Rose’s shoulder.
Rose blushed as she realized what she was doing. She glanced up at Kallias, her mouth watering as she watched him lick the bite wound on his wrist so that it would heal quicker. “Uh…yeah. Just too much blood,” she mumbled.
Kallias nodded. “You haven’t fed since last night. I’m surprised that you’re handling the hunger as well as you are. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Mm-hmm,” Rose mumbled as she noticed Kara’s knowing smile.
“The computer will recognize your blood now,” Aaron said after he finished typing in their information. He walked over to the steel doors on the other side of the room and pressed his forefinger against a black box on the side. The black box flashed green and the steel door slid open, opening into a hallway.
“Seriously, the technology down here is impressive,” Rose muttered.
“I’m glad you like it,” Aaron said in a bored, emotionless tone.
He waited as they stepped out of the foyer and into the hallway. Then, he stepped through, the doors sliding closed behind him. The hallway stretched left and right for what looked like miles before it turned corners and stretched in other directions. Hundreds of doors lined each wall, darkly-stained wooden doors with small, block numbers carved into the center. The ceiling was low, barely six inches above Kallias’s head, and that, paired with the low, soft lighting made the hallway feel more like a tunnel than an actual hallway.
Aaron glanced at his phone. “Well, I have matters that I must attend to,” he sighed. He looked up from his phone and narrowed his eyes at Kara. “I was in the middle of something before you decided to start trouble. Again.”
Kara shrugged. “Lafi started it.”
“Take them to your room,” he told her. “They’ll be staying with you.”
Kara scowled at him. “All of them? Even Erik?”
“Oh… Ouch,” Erik muttered under his breath.
“They are your guests,” Aaron stated. “You’re responsible for them.”
Kara’s jaw tightened. “Fine.”
Aaron spun around and walked down the hallway, distractedly staring at his phone, his tennis shoes squeaking against the marble floor. Kara waited until he had turned a corner before she started walking in the opposite direction. Erik winced uneasily, apparently sensing something off about her emotions, and then followed after her. The four of them walked down the long, dark hallway, past countless wooden doors, until they reached the door with the number sixty-seven carved into the center of it. She shoved her key into the door and unlocked it.
“Uh, Kara?” Erik said, cringing in anticipation. “Maybe we should talk.”
She froze for a moment, her gaze narrowed at the door, and then, moving so swiftly that her body blurred before their eyes, she spun around and slammed Erik against the wall, her forearm over his chest, holding him still.
Erik winced in pain. “I knew you were going to do that.”
“Let him go,” Kallias growled at Kara, stepping toward her.
Erik held up his hand to stop Kallias. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Are you?” Kara snarled. “Because I’m not so sure I won’t kill you.”
“If you hurt him at all, you’re dead,” Kallias warned her.
“Kallias, it’s fine,” Erik said in a strained voice. “We’re just talking.”
Kallias frowned at him. “It looks an awful lot like fighting to me.”
Erik tried to shift into a more comfortable position against the wall, but the force of Kara’s arm prevented any such movement. He glanced down at her, offering her a hesitant smile. “Okay. Clearly, you’re upset about something.”
“You think?” Kara snapped.
“It’s not what you think,” Erik said uneasily.
“So, you don’t kill vampires now?” she asked sharply.
“I do it to save lives,” Erik explained. “I kill vampires to save humans.”
“So, human lives are more important than ours?” Kara asked.
“Well, no,” Erik said, “but humans are innocent. It’s not right for them to die just so that we can sate our hunger. I have to save them, if I can.”
“Do you know who you sound like right now?” Kara asked. “You sound like Alana. So damn convinced that what you are doing is right. The logic you use to justify killing vampires is the same logic Alana uses to justify what she does. Who the hell gave you the right to decide who deserves to live or die?”
“Kara,” Erik said, desperate to explain, “you don’t understand.”
“No, Erik, you don’t understand,” Kara snarled. Her brows furrowed, and pain flashed in her light blue eyes. “I may be evil, but at least I realize it.”
Erik’s eyes softened with sympathy. “Kara, I never said you were…”
Kara released him so suddenly that he nearly fell onto the floor. She stepped back and waited as he regained his composure. “Go on inside,” she told them, avoiding Erik’s gaze. “Make yourselves at home. I need a drink.”
“Kara,” Erik sighed. “Please, let’s just talk about this.”
“Don’t Kara me, like nothing has changed between us,” Kara growled at him. “Everything has changed. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
New Friends…And Enemies
“Great,” Kallias said sarcastically as he watched Kara walk away. He turned toward Erik, his eyes narrowing. “Now, we’re stuck in a colony full of dangerous vampires, and the one that you said we could trust just attacked you.”
Erik shrugged. “She’ll forgive me eventually. She always does.”
Kallias scowled. “Your friendship with her is going to get us killed.”
Rose rolled her eyes at him. “A sociopath with an army is actively seeking us out, and you’re afraid of the woman who is slightly pissed off at Erik.”
Erik scratched his head, wincing a little. “In his defense, pissed off women are pretty scary. Case in point…” He jabbed his finger at Rose. “You.”
Rose narrowed her eyes at him.
Kallias pushed the door of the room open and gestured for them to go on inside. “Let’s just get inside before someone else decides to attack Erik.”
“Like me?” Rose asked, flashing a sassy smile at Erik.
Erik’s eyes widened, and then, much to their amusement, he practically leapt into the room. Once inside, he glanced around the room with a frown. “Huh, it looks like she’s changed a few things in the last twelve hundred years.”
“Well, I’d hope so,” Rose muttered as she followed him into the room.
The room was about the size of a hotel room, just spacious enough for a few people to sleep but not much else. Two full-size beds set against the right wall, and a door, opening into a small bathroom, set against the left wall. Against the furthest wall, a small black desk and an office chair set wedged be
tween the wall and the bed. Several piles of books, a ceramic skull, and five empty wine glasses filled the surface of the desk, leaving no portion of the desk uncovered. Two black dressers set on each side of the desk with an extremely large battle-axe propped on top of one of them. After circling the room a few times, Erik ambled toward the dressers and began to open each drawer and peek inside.
Rose frowned at him. “What are you doing?”
Erik shrugged. “Just taking a look around.”
“You could have gotten yourself killed, you know,” Kallias complained.
Rose turned toward him, watching as he sat on the edge of the closest bed, the mattress creaking beneath his weight. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean,” Kallias sighed, spreading his hands in frustration, “that you can’t talk to Aaron the way you did. He is more powerful than you can imagine.”
“But I did,” Rose said, shrugging, “and I’m fine.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “By a stroke of luck.”
“I don’t remember you being particularly well-mannered when you were talking to him either,” she said. “Or does the double-standard only apply to me?”
His jaw tightened. “Aaron and I do not see eye-to-eye. But…I can see his thoughts. I know when I’m pushing my limits,” he growled. “You don’t.”
“And yet, as you can see,” Rose said, spreading out her arms, “I’m fine.”
Kallias shook his head, as if he couldn’t make sense of her. “Why must you insist on constantly putting yourself in danger? Do you want to die again?”
Rose sighed, her eyes softening with understanding. “Look, Kallias, I know that it hurt you when I died and that you’re only acting so overprotective because you’re worried, but you need to trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing.”
“Oh, cool!” Erik said, hunched over a drawer. “I found her sex toys!”
As Erik started to reach inside the drawer, it suddenly slammed closed, crushing his fingers inside it. He yelped and jerked his fingers out, whimpering at the pain. He spun around toward Rose. “You crushed my hand, you monster!”
“Well,” Rose said simply, “stop invading her privacy.”
“Privacy?” Erik cried, shoving his crushed fingers in his mouth. His words sounded garbled around his fingers. “Kara doesn’t know the meaning of the word privacy! She would tell you her social security number, if she had one!”
Rose narrowed her eyes at him. “Just stay out of her things.”
Erik pouted, “You’re abusing your power.”
She raised an eyebrow. “By closing a drawer with my mind?”
“By being boring,” Erik snarled immaturely.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re a thirteen-hundred-year-old child.”
Kallias laughed, “You’re just now realizing that?”
“I hate you both,” Erik whined.
As Rose cast another quick glance around the room, a painting caught her eye. She crossed the room to get a closer look at the painting. It hung on the wall, beside the bed, the swirls of purple, blue, yellow, and gray standing out against the black wall. The painting depicted a woman, mostly nude, except for the silky purple cloak draped around her shoulders. Majestic falcon wings sprouted from the woman’s back, and waves of golden hair fell to her breasts. A chariot, led by large, beautiful cats, carried her across the reckless ocean waves, and tears of gold streamed down the woman’s soft, alabaster cheeks.
“Who is this?” Rose asked curiously. “In the painting.”
Erik walked over to stand beside her, peering up at the beautiful, majestic woman. “That’s Freyja,” he said easily. “The Norse goddess.”
“Right,” Rose said, nodding. “The goddess of love, war, and death.”
“And sex,” Erik added. Obviously, he couldn’t leave that one out.
“Who painted it?” Rose asked. She leaned forward and squinted at the small, faded note scrawled at the bottom of the painting. “With love. Annette,” she read aloud. She frowned. “She says that she doesn’t care about the women she sleeps with, but she keeps their gifts. Don’t you think that’s kind of strange?”
Erik shrugged. “She’s always been like that.”
Rose looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, do you remember the pendant that the vampire gave her when we were in the cemetery?” Erik asked. “He said that her girlfriend left it for her?”
Rose nodded. “The one that was shaped like a woman?”
“Yeah,” Erik said. “You can’t tell anymore because it’s so rusted, but originally, it was molded in the shape of Morrigan, the Celtic Goddess. Twelve hundred years ago, a Celtic priestess named Vivien gave Kara that pendant.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “And she kept it?”
Erik nodded. “She used to wear it around her neck. Alana didn’t like it.”
“She was jealous?” Rose guessed.
He shrugged. “Possibly. Or maybe she just couldn’t understand it. You see, Vivien was only supposed to be a one-night thing for Kara. She hadn’t fed in a few nights, and she stumbled across Vivien outside of a little Celtic village. Vivien was dancing in the woods by herself. It was a full moon, apparently, and the dance was some kind of prayer or something. Kara loved it. So, she introduced herself to the woman, and then, she danced with her. And then, she…” He smiled. “Well, you know where this is going. But for whatever reason, when she fed from the woman, she couldn’t bring herself to kill her. So, she offered her blood to the woman. She created a blood bond with a human.”
“Like Kallias did with me,” Rose said, “when I was human.”
“Exactly,” Erik said, “but it’s not normal to create blood bonds with anyone, much less humans. Of course, there are some vampires, like Theron, who do it to manipulate the human, to use them like a plaything, but Kara’s not like that. So, Alana couldn’t understand why she did it, and Kara refused to explain.”
“I have a feeling that this story doesn’t have a happy ending,” Rose said.
“Kara and Vivien met every night for a few years, and Alana hated it. She said that Kara’s fixation on Vivien was inappropriate,” Erik sighed. “The bad thing about blood bonds is that vampires can smell them. One night, Alana commanded Kara not to leave home, and she found Vivien and killed her.”
Rose’s throat constricted with sympathy. “Why?”
“Because she knew that Kara would feel it,” Erik answered. “She knew that it would mess with Kara’s mind. Guilt can be a very powerful manipulator.”
“That’s why Alana told Olivia to give Kara that pendant before she died,” Rose said, horrified at the realization. “She wanted Kara to realize that it had happened again. She wanted Kara to feel that same pain all over again.”
Erik sighed, “That’s Alana for you.”
Rose turned to look at the painting again, tilting her head to the side as she studied its careful placement on the wall and how well Kara had taken care of it. It wasn’t that Kara didn’t care, Rose realized. She just couldn’t let anyone see that she cared. More specifically, Kara couldn’t let Alana see that she cared.
Kallias sighed, “Now that we’re here, we need to get to work. The first thing we need to do is find out what the vampires down here know about Alana.”
Rose turned toward him. “How do you intend to do that?”
His lips tugged into a smile. “Passive interrogation,” he told her.
“Passive interrogation,” Rose repeated dryly. “Dang, I knew I should have taken that Unheard-of Criminal Justice Tactics class when I had the chance.”
He chuckled at her smart-aleck remark. “What I mean is…we can talk to the vampires, ask them a few casual questions, and then, I’ll read their minds.”
“Oh, good, because I love socializing,” Rose said sarcastically.
“If you want to talk to a bunch of vampires—and not raise too much suspicion about it—then, you should probably go to the bar,” Erik suggested.
&n
bsp; Rose rolled her eyes. “Alcohol is not going to help anything, Erik.”
Erik laughed. “The bar down here…in the Tomb of Blood,” he clarified. “There will be plenty of vampires to question, and it’ll seem less suspicious.”
“There’s a bar here?” Rose asked. “What’s the point of that?”
“Dancing and drinking,” Erik said, grinning, “and a few other things.”
Rose frowned. “Alcohol doesn’t even intoxicate us.”
“It does when it’s mixed with blood,” Erik said.
Rose suddenly remembered noticing a faint scent of blood while Kara was drinking that glass of wine. The wine had smelled of blood and fruit. “Oh.”
“Where is the bar?” Kallias asked Erik.
“If they haven’t moved it, then it should be at the center of this floor,” Erik said. “Just turn that corner at the end of this hall, and you should see the door.”
“Wait. You’re not going?” Rose asked.
Erik laughed, “If I set foot in there, they’ll tear me to pieces.”
“Because of Alana?” Rose asked. “That’s a little extreme.”
“Because I tortured them,” Erik said. “Or…some of them, anyway.”
“But you didn’t want to do it,” Rose argued. “Don’t they realize that?”
“I don’t think they care,” Erik laughed.
Kallias stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well, I guess we should get to work, if we want to find out anything important before sunrise.”
Erik walked over to the bed and collapsed onto it. He grabbed the remote control from the nightstand and turned on the television. “Sounds good to me. You two can do all of the work, and I’ll hang out in here and watch TV.”
Rose grimaced in anticipation. “But I’m not good at…talking.”
“Ha!” Erik snorted. “That’s an understatement.”
“You’ll do fine,” Kallias said, walking toward the door. “Just come on.”
“And make sure you prepare for culture shock,” Erik added with a grin.
“What…what do you mean by that?” Rose sputtered. Kallias left the room before she could demand an answer from Erik, so she sprinted after him, catching up with him halfway down the hallway. “What did he mean by that?”
The Tomb of Blood Page 23
