by K. A. Linde
“Uh…guys?” Reyna said.
Meghan rushed forward and threw her arms around Reyna. “You scared the shit out of us.”
“I…did?”
“You’re all over the news. The entire city was in uproar looking for you.”
“Oh,” she muttered.
“They’re looking for the mayor’s murderer,” Meghan added. “We saw…saw the video.”
“Video?” Reyna asked, glancing at Beckham. They’d spent so much time in that convenience store, they’d apparently missed everything.
“You don’t want to see it,” Meghan told her. “It shows…her neck twisted. You two running out of the room. It’s being played on repeat despite the sensitive material.”
Beckham shrugged. “We’re safe. We’re here.”
Gabe’s eyes hit the ceiling. “Want to share with the class what happened before or after you, I don’t know, lost your shirt?”
“No,” Beckham told him menacingly.
He tossed the small recording device, which had somehow managed to stay in Reyna’s jacket pocket this whole time, to Zoya. She nodded. That was that.
“Any other questions?” Beckham asked.
The room was silent. Not because no one had questions, but because Beckham was shirtless, still partially covered in blood, and prowling like an animal.
“I have it!” Washington cried.
Reyna whipped around. She’d hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t among the rest of the crowd. He’d been locked up in his laboratory so long that sometimes it was easy to forget he was even there.
“Have what?” she asked.
He held up a tube full of gold liquid and stared at it with fascination and wonder. The look in his eyes said that he’d just changed the world. What was to come next would raze to the ground everything they’d ever known. A cataclysmic event beyond which mere mortals could hardly comprehend.
“Golden Blood,” Washington whispered.
“Come again?” Gabe said.
“Yeah. What exactly is Golden Blood?” Jodie chimed in. “It looks like something I would not want to drink.”
“The more I thought about it. The more I knew. The more you told me,” he said to Reyna and Beckham, “the more I suspected I could do this. How could two perfectly matched people possess such talents? How could the mixing of vampire and human blood like this heal? Or sense? Or produce such evocative shared emotions?”
Reyna shrugged. She had no answer to that. She’d just been rolling with it. “I don’t know.”
“How could he make you a little more vampire?” Washington mused, lost to his own epiphany. “How could she make you a little more human?”
“Impossible,” Reyna whispered.
The stunned silence in the room only echoed her belief.
“Not impossible. Highly improbable,” Washington said. “But I think I’ve done it…”
He passed Reyna the gold liquid, his newly deemed Golden Blood.
“A cure for vampirism.”
Chapter 28
Reyna nearly dropped the vial.
“What?” she gasped.
“A cure?” Beckham asked skeptically.
“That’s not…possible,” Meghan whispered, echoing Reyna’s previous comment.
Everyone else just stared at the golden liquid, stunned. Even Gabe didn’t have a witty remark. The room was silent and shocked.
“I assure you it’s quite possible,” Washington said.
“And you discovered this…in the last month?” Reyna asked. “I mean…don’t you need more time than that to make sure it’s for real?”
“The last month?” Washington stared at her in confusion. “Oh heavens, no. I’ve been working on this for the better part of the last two centuries. But it all clicked when I saw how a blood match reacted. How your blood reacted and the healing properties found in your blood. It was a next logical conclusion to assume that you could heal more than just each other.”
“But testing?” she pressed. Even if he’d been working on it this long, there was no way he could know for sure. It just…it wasn’t possible.
“Ah. Well, I’ve tested it on every kind of vampire blood I had on file here. When combined in perfect conditions, the virus that causes the disease was forced into paralysis and eventually killed. Essentially Golden Blood works as white blood cells attacking the foreign properties in the body. In this instance: vampirism.”
Washington hastily took back the small tube from Reyna. “Though…it hasn’t been tested on a vampire yet.”
Reyna’s eyes darted around the room. It was only Beckham who didn’t shrink back from the prospect of having Golden Blood tested on him.
“Well, let’s not all jump up at once,” Gabe said sarcastically.
“It’s untested,” Katarina said. “Who knows what it could do to us? I’ll take my chances as a vampire before that.”
“We have to test it,” Beckham insisted. “Think of the possibilities.”
Washington’s eyes lit up. “Indeed! Imagine the number of people we could save. The number of lives we could change.”
Beckham shot him an incredulous look. “Think of the weapon it could be.”
Washington’s face fell. “This isn’t biological warfare.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Not everything created has to be a weapon.”
“Fortunately for us the inventor doesn’t get to dictate its potential uses.”
“We don’t even know if it works,” Reyna said, jumping in before their argument got heated.
“It works!” Washington insisted.
“What we need is someone to test it on,” Gerard spoke up from the corner. He gently placed a bookmark into his romance novel and stood from his seat. “I’m not volunteering, but it’d be easy enough to find a vampire nearby to experiment on.”
“Absolutely not!” Meghan gushed.
“It is the most efficient option,” Zoya added.
“That’s unethical! It goes against all medical practice.” Meghan’s head snapped to Washington. “You cannot do that.”
“I agree with Meghan. I won’t force someone,” Washington said.
“For fuck’s sake,” Gabe said. “We have a couple of vamps here. One of you should man up.”
Every vampire in the room turned to glare at him. He hastily held up his hands and backed down from that notion.
“There’s only one option,” Gerard said. “We’ll go now.”
He nodded at Beckham before moving at super vamp speed out of the house. Katarina and Zoya followed close behind. Only Beckham remained.
“You’re not going to let them do this, are you?” Reyna asked.
He just stared at her. Fuck, he was going to let this happen. It made her sick to even consider it.
“Becks,” she whispered.
“It’s been a long night, Reyna. You should clean up and rest.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“In war, there are no rules.”
“No. In war, we decide what rules to break. We decide how much of our humanity we will have left. We decide.”
“Then you would rather choose to do nothing?” he asked. Not an ounce of offense or blame in his words. He was truly curious. In every world he’d ever lived, this was his reality. His life was a never-ending war of his own choosing, where rules applied to someone else and might was right.
“Not nothing. But we’ve known about this for a few minutes. We can’t expect there to be only one answer.”
“Find me another solution, then.”
He affectionately brushed her hair back and then disappeared. Reyna cursed softly under her breath. She turned to find the rest of her ramshackle team of Elle members staring wide-eyed at her.
“You heard the man. Anyone
know another solution?”
“I hate to say it, but…this seems like the only answer,” Gabe said, getting a good scowl from Meghan. “We have to test it. There’s an army of vampires out there somewhere who want to take us down and rogue vampires going mad with an incurable disease. Would you rather have a weapon to stop them or not?”
“Start looking,” Reyna said, and strode to a computer.
She wouldn’t believe there was no other option unless she had to. And she really fucking didn’t want to have to.
* * *
—
“Get the fuck off of me!”
Reyna jolted awake. She stared blearily around her and realized she’d fallen asleep at her computer. The screen was blank. She’d accomplished nothing. Great.
She rubbed her eyes to try to clear the haze of the evening. It was late. When she glanced at the giant clock in the corner, she realized it was just past six in the morning. So much for trying to find a different way to test this cure. She’d been brain-dead.
Jodie was passed out on the couch in the corner. Gabe, Meghan, and Tye had long ago gone to bed, by the looks of things.
Another string of curses came from the entranceway. Reyna stood and stretched her aching limbs. When she walked out of the dining room, she found Gerard and Zoya restraining a blond woman. She appeared to be in her late twenties. Tall, trim, otherworldly beautiful with blue eyes that nearly glowed. Reyna watched in horror as the blonde snapped her fangs at Gerard. He dismissed her as if she were nothing. And to him she probably was.
“What’s going on?” Reyna croaked. She cleared her throat. “Who’s this?”
Gerard shot her an impassive glance. “You asked for a vampire. I brought you a vampire.”
“I didn’t ask for anything.”
“Irrelevant.”
“What the hell is going on here?” the blond woman asked.
“I won’t be a part of this,” Reyna said, ignoring the woman.
“Then don’t,” Gerard said.
He had begun to muscle his way past her, when Katarina and Philippé entered the room, holding an unconscious man between them. He looked to be in his forties in a battered button-down and slacks. Unlike the screaming blonde, he looked as if he’d come out of a gutter. Dirty and disheveled.
“Another one?” she whispered.
Katarina tipped her head at Reyna and smiled as she pushed past her. “Morning!”
Beckham appeared then. Coming out of the early morning light in a fresh three-piece suit. Not a trace of his near-death experience on him.
“Little One,” he said with a smile as he approached.
“What are you doing with these people?”
“They’re vampires. My circle found them. Do you have another solution?”
“Becks, please. This is wrong.”
“I know,” he said.
“If you know, then stop this.”
“What’s going on?” came a voice from behind her. It was Jodie. She glanced between Reyna and Beckham and Katarina’s disappearing back. “You found someone to…experiment on?”
“Beckham is going to put a stop to this,” Reyna said.
“It is us or them. And none of my men are going to volunteer for something like this.”
“So instead you’re going to force people to do it against their will?” Jodie asked, her voice near hysteria.
She stalked toward them, stomping her feet with each step. By the time she’d made it in front of Beckham, the rest of the house had woken up. Gabe, Meghan, and Tye were standing at the top of the stairs, staring down at them. Even Genevieve had peeked her head out for a moment.
“I was taken at the age of twelve and experimented on by men who believed that this was ethical, or who just didn’t fucking care. They wanted my blood and they didn’t care what the fuck it did to me. If you do this…how are we any better than Visage?” Jodie asked with fire in every word.
“We wouldn’t be,” Reyna said. “We do not need this cure to win. We can be better than them.”
“I would keep you innocent of this if I could,” Beckham said. “But sometimes we have to think like our enemies to defeat them.”
Jodie reared back and slapped Beckham across the face. His head moved not an inch. She rung out her hand like a dirty dish towel as she yelped in pain. Reyna’s jaw dropped. Holy fucking balls!
Beckham took a step forward. His face mere inches from Jodie’s. “You have known torment of the likes I have inflicted. You are stronger for it. Do not break now.”
Then he walked away, leaving them standing in his wake, wondering what they were going to do. They could not overpower a vampire. Not a one of them. They weren’t about to shoot them. If they did nothing, were they giving their implicit acceptance?
“I can’t…I can’t let them do it. These two are innocent,” Jodie said, choking on unshed tears. “Innocents should not be the casualty of war.”
“And yet they are,” Reyna said. “We all are. Innocence lost.”
Reyna took a deep breath and then did the only thing she could—she walked away. On some level, she knew that Beckham was right. What else could they do? This was war. It was messy. It was awful. It brought death and destruction and mayhem. Why wouldn’t it destroy her integrity as well?
A few months ago, she wouldn’t have even stopped to think about this, but now she was different. Now she had to be a leader. She had to win this war. And at the end of the day, there were only two options—what she could and couldn’t live with. Walking away wasn’t the easier choice, but it was the only real one. As much as that ripped at her heart, Beckham had already come to this conclusion. He was the hardened warrior allowing them to vent their human morality on him. It wasn’t the first time he’d been the bad guy. It wouldn’t be the last. But he’d get the job done…and so would she.
Jodie disappeared out the front door, silent tears streaming down her face. Meghan dashed down the stairs and out the door after her. But Reyna couldn’t follow. She a hundred percent understood where Jodie was coming from. If anyone did, it was Reyna. But she couldn’t be of comfort here. Not when she understood why they must do this…even if she hated understanding.
Instead, she went up the stairs, resigned. Both Tye and Gabe moved out of her way. Neither of them had to say anything. Her face said enough.
She should go back to Beckham’s room and pass out. She definitely hadn’t gotten enough sleep and her emotions felt as if they’d gone through a blender. But that felt too accepting. As if it wouldn’t matter if she could just stay up a little longer.
Her feet carried her the opposite direction until she was standing outside of Brian’s room. Reyna took a deep breath and then entered the room.
Genevieve had ceased reading her book and was looking down at the words absentmindedly. Brian was staring directly at Reyna. He was lucid, sharp, intelligent. It was clear that this much time feeding had helped. Yet he still appeared…savage. Not quite civilized. It was eerie.
“Miss Reyna, now might not be the best time,” Genevieve muttered.
“I want to speak to my brother. Alone.”
“I said I didn’t want to see you,” Brian snarled.
“Doesn’t look like I care what you want right now.”
Brian snarled but Reyna held her ground. What the hell could he do to her? He was chained to that chair.
“Five minutes. I’ll come back if I hear anything out of the ordinary,” Genevieve said. She looked once more at Brian. “Behave.”
He flashed his fangs at her in warning. She laughed this little tinkling thing in response and then left, closing the door behind her.
Reyna grabbed Genevieve’s abandoned chair and moved it so it was facing backward across from Brian with enough distance to make her feel safe. She kicked a leg over the side, sat down, and placed her arm
s on the back of the chair.
“Hey,” she said.
“Leave.”
“No.”
“You’re obstructing my recovery.”
“Bullshit. That’s what you are. You’re bullshit.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Brian snarled, pulling against his chains.
“Tell me what happened and I’ll leave.”
A low growl came out of him. She was too numb about what was happening downstairs to care about the warning call.
“I said tell me what happened,” she repeated. “Or I’m going to bring Drew and Laura here to see you.”
“No,” he snapped.
“I know you want to see them. That you’re just feeling guilty about what happened. I saw it. I know the devastation. But I’m pretty much learning that we all have casualties to this war. And whatever happened to you happened against your will. You were another experiment, another weapon in Harrington’s arsenal.”
“Don’t say his name.”
“Harrington? Yeah, I’m not too happy with him either. Remember when he kidnapped me? That wasn’t great.”
Brian’s chest heaved up and down, but his eyes were on the ground. “He…tortured me.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“He captured us that night, brought us to his facilities, stripped us naked, and tortured us near to death. He killed Xavier in front of us. He did anything you can imagine…and anything you can’t, to get information out of us.”
Reyna swallowed. Jesus. And poor Xavier. He’d been one of the few vampires of Elle that Reyna had known. Quiet but dutiful.
“Then he turned you?” Reyna guessed softly.
“Almost. Over and over again. Drain us near to dying, then keep us alive, and then do it again. He did it all without the bites so that we never had a single feeling of euphoria, only pain. A few people died. A few people…killed themselves.”
Reyna closed her eyes against the images that assaulted her.
“Then he turned me. Me and one other—Andrew. I don’t know what happened to him. We were taken into different rooms and starved. I remember little of that time, only when I was unleashed on the safe house and you found me. Beckham stopped me.” Brian released a harsh breath. As if finally telling his story had loosened something in him. He stared down at the floor as he said, “I heard you talking downstairs.”
