by Irina Argo
“It doesn’t matter that some of us can shift or fly; it doesn’t pay the bills. We still need money,” Girtab clarified.
As they headed back toward Arianna and Simone’s cabin, Girtab told her more about the winged demons and the Legacy of Tyr. Antar’s group had come to Aldeia Alada to help them to find two young demons who had disappeared. As Antar had said, winged demons were common in the Legacy; each Legacy family had at least one member of that species. It was a good thing, too, because Legacy membership was a common ambition of young winged demons. Still only the best of the best were accepted into the Legacy, and those who achieved that status had to fight for it with singleminded determination. Antar, Sargas, and Rock were considered heroes by the locals. By the time he was done explaining, the tour was over. They paused outside the door to her cabin.
“How did Antar become Legacy Alpha?” asked Arianna.
* * *
Simone was seething, absolutely furious. When the helicopter had lifted off her stomach had dropped; she’d felt even worse than she had on the ride to Hunter headquarters a couple of days back. Clutching her abdomen, she’d been struck by a sudden thought and looked over at Arianna sitting across from her. Arianna looked even worse than Simone felt: hunched over, taking big heaving gulps of air, her complexion greyish.
It was the blood-bond: Simone was feeling what Arianna was feeling.
She’d heard that blood-bonds could do that—could share feelings and emotions, or block them from one another, and that earlier in the relationship it was an involuntary process, flickering uncontrollably in and out—but she’d always heard that it took awhile before that power manifested. Maybe her recent brush with death and Arianna’s rescue had affected that, accelerated the process. In any case, it would’ve been nice if this power had come online under different circumstances. She really didn’t want to throw up all over Antar.
Shaula said something to Arianna, and then Antar yelled at her to open the door. Simone grabbed at her harness reflexively as a chasm opened up where the door had been—and then Simone’s insides lurched again, roller-coaster style, as Antar leapt out of the helicopter, Arianna in his arms.
The connection disappeared. Dammit! Arianna got to experience the flight and Simone just got the motion-sickness? And then nothing?
She closed her eyes, focused, searched in her mind and heart for her connection to Arianna. Ah, there it is.
She was soaring above the earth, terrified, in Antar’s arms. She pulled back from the connection a little, got the terror to recede. Arianna’s face was buried in Antar’s chest. Simone could feel his hair tickling her nose, smell his dark, exotic scent.
Jealousy blossomed in her, a monstrous sunflower, its black center swallowing her heart. What the fuck?! Why was he flying with Arianna and not her? Simone had felt sick, every bit as sick as Arianna had. She’d known him forever, done so much for him, bared her heart and her body to him! He’d treated her like a child, and then when she really needed him, when she was miserable with nausea, he picked Arianna. He could have flown Simone, held Simone, and—and gotten Sargas or Rock to take Arianna.
He liked Arianna. He’d chosen Arianna. She was Simone’s opposite, after all, and the type of female Simone hated most, but all these guys wanted: breathtakingly beautiful but also quiet, loving, nurturing, and—her brain spat the thought out—dependent. Women like Arianna made men feel all strong and desirable; they plugged right into their caveman-protector brains.
In her rage, she’d lost the connection to Arianna, and spent the rest of the trip fuming, hating her sister. After they landed, as she marched along the paths toward the cabin she was sharing with that bitch, she’d actually had to check to make sure she wasn’t muttering out loud the string of curses rolling through her mind on a continuous loop. Every time she came close to winning Antar, something came between them. This time it was Arianna. He’d chosen Arianna. Fuck her. Fuck him.
She barked out a laugh at that—yeah, I would if I could—then looked around to make sure no one had seen her.
Across the wooden-planked bridge to their cabin, she could just make out through the low-hanging branches two silhouettes backlit by the bulb at the cabin door, a female and a big male standing on the front doorstep. Was it Antar? She paused to look more closely.
No, it was that guy Girtab, the Alpha of the winged demons. Even though she couldn’t see him, could barely make out his words, she recognized his rich tour-guide voice based on the few times they’d met in the past. She started walking again; she’d just blow past them and go to bed.
“... sold to a tribe that hated the winged demons ...” She could hear Girtab’s voice explaining. “... killed his father’s murderer ... fought to become Alpha ...” She was getting closer, could hear a little better.
“... has evolved into an organized army instead of a scattered band of loyal followers. It is now one of the King’s strongest allies.”
Oh, shit! He was telling Arianna about Antar and the Legacy’s ties to Tor. She broke into a run. The bridge wobbled, but muffled her steps.
Arianna’s voice rang out. “What did you just say?”
Why hadn’t someone warned Girtab that the King’s relationship with Antar should not be discussed? She burst onto the platform and finally saw them clearly, Arianna facing Girtab, Girtab just standing there looking puzzled.
Arianna heard her, wheeled around to glare at her, lips trembling. “You knew this! You knew that Antar is Tor’s adopted son. Why, Sim? You brought me into a trap.”
Chapter 10
“Antar said that you’re safe here,” Simone mumbled. “The King has no veto over the Right of Sanctuary.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Arianna covered her face with her hands. “The King knows where Antar is, so he knows where I am, and he always will as long as I stay with the Legacy.”
And if Tor knew where she was, it meant that the other vampires knew it too; Sekhmi were well connected. She was like a lobster in a restaurant aquarium. It didn’t matter that it lay on the bottom, merging with the pebbles, nurturing an illusion that it was invisible: when the right customer showed up it would be caught and fried. Arianna rolled her eyes up to the sky then glanced down at the ground under her feet as if trying to decide which force to pray to for help. She didn’t know who to trust, what to think, what to do. She turned and fled across the bridge.
She could hear Simone darting after her, calling, “Ari, please, let me explain. Come back.”
“Leave me alone! This is too much ... I need time to think, I need to be alone ...”
“Then let’s do it together. You have to trust me; I’m your blood-bond.”
Blood-bond. The word had an effect of a cold shower on Arianna. She stopped and stared at Simone. Who was Simone, really? Was she a rotten princess or a sincere friend? Arianna longed to believe that she was her friend, her family. Simone was all she had. And she was her blood-bond. Her father had taught her that the bond of blood was the strongest connection possible. Blood-bonds were like two halves of one heart. Then why did she feel so alone right now?
“I’m scared, Sim. I didn’t want to tell you this, but before you came, I had a dream—every night!—that I was locked in a cell without windows and drained of my blood. It was like being in a grave, buried alive. Every single night, over and over again, the same thing. It still haunts me. I’m scared ... I don’t know what to do. I was just starting to believe that I could be safe, here, with the Legacy. But it’s, an illusion, isn’t it? The dream is more real.” She would have thought she’d be crying, but instead she could feel her eyes were wide open, unblinking. Maybe some kinds of fear were beyond tears.
She willed Simone to feel her pain through the blood-bond. Even if Simone was a spoiled-rotten princess, if she could really feel what Arianna was going through, she’d understand. She had to. Anyone who loved joy, pleasure, and fun as much as Simone did would have to.
She couldn’t be sure, but
she thought she saw Simone stand up straighter, like she was listening, then slouch, like she was ... sad? Or disappointed? Annoyed? Had it worked?
Simone sighed. “Well, I told you that you’re safe here but you don’t believe me. So I guess we have to find something else to do. Let me think.” She cocked a hip, brought a finger to her chin, rubbing it. For a long moment there was silence; Arianna could hear insects chirping in the jungle. She felt so helpless, always waiting to hear Simone’s ideas for her to follow. But what else was she supposed to do?
“We’ll have to run.” Simone concluded.
Arianna sputtered out a dismayed laugh. “Run? Seriously? But where to? There are vampires everywhere, they’ll be able to find me, and I can’t shield.”
“You can learn, and your blood-bond with me is giving your powers a boost, so you can do things you couldn’t do even last week. You can practice on the winged demons. They’re more sensitive than Sekhmi; if it works on them, it’ll work on Sekhmi. Meanwhile, we’ll start going out with the tourist groups for a few days and check out ways to escape. Once we’ve found an escape route, we’ll just disappear from the tour group.”
“Where will we go?
“Peru, I guess. It’s pretty safe. I’ve been there. There are all these hidden villages and towns in the mountains. Nobody will ever find us.”
Could Simone’s plan work? She couldn’t imagine being able to avoid all of the vampires who’d be coming after her, not to mention all the other powerful immortals like those she’d been hearing about tonight. But it was better than spending her whole life being a sitting duck in this so-called Sanctuary. Maybe they could just disappear into the vastness of the South American continent. What else could she do but try Simone’s plan?
The next day while their Legacy guardians were out searching for the missing demon youths, the girls begged Girtab to take them along with him on the daily tour. They told him that they were dying to see the jungle and it would be so unfair to live in the rainforest without seeing it at all. After some hesitation, Girtab agreed.
That night, they reviewed what they’d learned that day and laid out their plan. The demons began by collecting the tourists from the lodges and cozy indigenous-style hotels that lay scattered in the jungle around Manaus. At each stop, they were occupied with gathering the tourists, creating a perfect opportunity for the girls to escape, and the largest hotels offered both maximum chaos into which Simone and Arianna could disappear and taxi stands right outside their doors. All the girls needed to do was walk out of a hotel lobby without being noticed, hop into a taxi, and get to the Manaus train station and from there to Peru.
Easy-peasy, except for the without being noticed part: on the tour that day, the demons had been watching them like hawks. Clearly Arianna and Simone had to get the demons desensitized to their presence. To do that, they’d convince Girtab to let them come along every day; he’d agree to it, figuring that it would keep them happy and occupied and that he was as good a guardian as anyone. If they did that for a week, Girtab and his colleagues would let down their guard and get used to having them wander off for brief periods. Meanwhile, they could use the week to develop Arianna’s shielding skills.
It worked perfectly. Every day the girls went with Girtab and the demon tour guides to pick up the tourists, and then the whole group headed out on the jungle tour. Arianna and Simone quickly became common fixtures and even managed to step outside of the hotel lobbies to befriend a couple of taxi drivers.
During the tours themselves, Arianna practiced using her new energy shield, first on Simone and then by playfully sneaking up on demons or hiding from them in bushes. By the fourth day, the demons couldn’t sense her at all. She could’ve stood right next to them; as long as she was out of sight, the demons weren’t aware of her presence.
Things were going so well that they were ready to implement their plan a day early, so on the fifth day they made arrangements with one of the taxi drivers to take them to the station the following day.
On the sixth day, while the demons were all busy dealing with the tourists’ logistics, Arianna activated her shield and they slipped out to the taxi stand, where the driver was waiting for them. They jumped into the cab and the driver took off for the train station.
Arianna rolled her window down and let the wind whip her hair haphazardly across her face and neck. She stuck her head out the window, closed her eyes and inhaled. Once again she was escaping from the vampires, and even though she felt less protected this time—no burly warriors to guard her—the past six days had left her feeling more secure than ever in her relationship with Simone. And her skills had grown so much! The threat from vampires was something she’d never eliminate entirely, but it was growing more ... abstract. And it was something all Amiti had to live with all the time. She’d get used to it. Everything was going to be okay.
Ten minutes later, a tingle of unease from her Amiti intuition disturbed her thoughts, and she made herself aware of her surroundings. The bumps she’d been feeling were those of a country road, not urban potholes. And the taxi, she realized, had passed by several lodges that Arianna remembered seeing on previous trips. They were not on the way to the train station. Fear flooded her body. She reached across and jabbed Simone’s thigh.
“I thought the train station was in the city.” Arianna watched the driver’s eyes through the rear view mirror. They didn’t meet hers.
“Shorter way,” answered the driver. He was terse now, all traces of his earlier chattiness and warmth gone. He muttered something else into his radio or a phone; Arianna couldn’t tell.
Simone glanced at Arianna and then the driver and commanded, “Turn around, right now.”
“Almost there.” Five seconds later, the driver turned onto a dirt road, then came to a stop and cut off the engine. There was nothing around but jungle.
“Where is the train station?” Simone yelled. Arianna sat frozen. She had that prey feeling again.
“You are arrived, senhoritas.” His voice sent a shiver through Arianna.
The next moment five tall figures surrounded the taxi and yanked open both back doors. Before Arianna could even open her mouth to scream—but who would have heard her anyway?—she was snatched out of the cab. Sekhmi. She struggled to break free from her captors but was hit by a powerful blast of energy.
Agony sliced through her body. Through dimming vision she saw Simone fighting off the abductors. One of the Sekhmi threw a radiant energy beam into Simone’s spine. Simone screamed and collapsed next to Arianna, her face the last thing Arianna saw before she blacked out.
Chapter 11
Somewhere in the Amazon Jungle
Arianna came back to consciousness through a fog of pain. She was trapped in a nightmare, freezing, every part of her body aching like a throbbing bruise. Her arms were being yanked from their sockets, her wrists burning and fingers numb. She opened her eyes and groggily took in her surroundings.
She was in some sort of cave, naked, her arms stretched over her head, her wrists tied firmly with rope. Arianna jerked on the rope, but it only tightened the knots around her wrists. In total panic she screamed and started thrashing back and forth like a trapped animal.
“Well, well, well, seems our little one is awake.”
Arianna jerked her head around to where the voice was coming from. A tall blond male walked over to her. Everything about him was pale—blond hair, pale blue eyes, pale skin, even his clothes were a kind of colorless beige that accentuated the effect. Reaching her, he put two fingers under her chin and raised it so she was forced to face him. Those icy blue, merciless eyes fixed on Arianna.
“I am Khay, the Crowned” he said, his voice slippery-smooth. Vampires usually provided the meaning of their names, which erased Arianna’s slightest doubt that the he was a vampire. Well, that and the fangs that he showed her, very deliberately, as he’d said it.
“Why are you holding me here? Let me go!” She tried to make her
voice sound assertive, but it was breaking into sobs.
“Well of course I’m not going to hold you ... here. We’ll go home.” He grinned and tilted his head. “But first you will learn a few lessons.”
“What are you talking about?” Arianna’s mind was painting horrific pictures of this maniac’s victims. He was going to torture her and then mutilate her body and feed the pieces to the jungle creatures. Nobody would ever even find her bones. The jungle would conceal everything. She was going to throw up. No: she shoved down the horror and nausea and pulled up the fury that was lying buried under it.
“Let me go, you asshole!”
Khay slapped her so hard that her head smashed into the wall behind her. She was sure her skull had cracked.
“Lesson number one.” Khay pulled her chin back to face him. “You will respect your owners. You have no rights, no privileges. From now on, little one, you belong to my pride and specifically to me. You are no more than a piece of property. The sooner you accept it, the easier it will be for you. The choice is yours— you can make it easy or hard.”
He’s talking about bloodstock! Her worst fears were materializing. Every muscle of her body strained to the point that she felt spasms in her legs and arms and then for a few minutes she lost sensation in her limbs. She was deafened by her inner voice shouting at her: Get out of this prison! Whatever it costs ... everything!
“Please, let me go. I have money; I can pay you,” she mumbled through numb lips.
