by K. A. Linde
“I’m Reyna. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.” She snapped her fingers in the vampire’s face, twice. “Let’s get a move on.”
The vampire looked to his buddies in confusion. She blew out an exasperated breath and tried to walk past them. But one of them decided he had another idea. He grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her to him. She was only an inch from his face and nearly gagged.
“Dear God, did you stop brushing?” she gasped.
“What is wrong with you? Don’t you fear me?”
“Not in the slightest. I contend with the heavyweights, not a grunt.”
The vampire snarled and reared back as if he was going to sink his teeth into her.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Harrington would probably kill you if you drank from me. I’m Reyna fucking Carpenter. Now bring me to the boss before I get pissed off.”
The vampire was so confused that he actually did what he was told. He probably thought this was a joke and seeing Harrington would be worse for her in the long run. She couldn’t really argue with that. Harrington was never someone she actually wanted to see. But sneaking into his private area was not how she wanted to have this confrontation.
She wanted to play chess on her board, not his.
No traps except the ones that she set.
The idiot vampire dragged her around the action and up a wide set of stairs. She knew where this was going—the observation deck. Sickeningly, there was a platform to watch what was going on below. To check to see who was feeding and when and change people out when necessary. Reyna was sure a lot more sinister shit had gone on down there, but she didn’t really want the details. The ones she envisioned were bad enough.
She stumbled over a step and was nearly dragged up the rest of the way, but hastily regained her stride. The vampire was faster than her…unsurprisingly. And he cared nothing for how fast her human legs could carry her.
They made it to the landing, and Reyna hazarded a glance behind her. She shuddered at the glimpse of the pandemonium below. Casualties in war. So many casualties. She prayed that it soon would be over.
“You want to see the boss?” the vampire snarled at her.
“No, I just asked you to take me to him for no fucking reason.”
The vampire laughed a vicious, deadly thing. It sent a shiver down her spine.
She could sense Beckham’s unease about the situation from a mile away. It was hard to separate it from her own terror, which she was harnessing like a whip. But she couldn’t back down now. She was clutched in the jaws of an alligator, waiting for it to bite.
“You asked for it.”
The vampire pushed open the door to the observation deck and tossed Reyna to the ground.
“Boss, brought you a present.”
Reyna groaned on impact as the metal flooring collided with her body. That was going to bruise. More bruises. Ugh!
“Excellent,” a female voice said from above. “Dismissed.”
Reyna’s head snapped up at the sound. The sound she only heard in her nightmares. The sound that haunted her like a ghost.
“Bronwyn?”
Chapter 33
Well, fuck, Harrington was stupid enough to let Bronwyn out.
She was totally, impossibly insane. The last time Reyna had come face-to-face with her, she’d been smartly locked away where she couldn’t hurt anyone but herself. She’d been manic and uncontrollable. She was still the only other vampire who had ever bit Reyna.
Reyna felt her muscles freeze as she stared up at Bronwyn from where she’d landed on the floor.
“Fuck,” Beckham spat into the earpiece.
Oh shit.
Beckham.
He hadn’t seen his sister in fifteen long years. He’d mourned her death. He’d hated himself for what he’d done to her. Now here she was. And his first look at her was through the camera attached to Reyna, on a tiny screen in an SUV. She could feel his emotions like a roller coaster through his typically controlled exterior.
He was wrath.
He was vengeance.
He was murder.
Reyna shuddered under the weight of everything he was feeling. How much he wanted to rush in and murder Harrington for what he was doing to Bronwyn. For using her again. For letting her out.
“Don’t,” Reyna gasped. “Please don’t.”
She was speaking to Beckham through the earpiece, but it was Bronwyn who heard her.
“Oh my pet”—Bronwyn lifted Reyna’s chin up at a sharp angle—“we meet again.”
The same insanity that Reyna had witnessed in her eyes the first time they met hadn’t lessened an ounce. Why wasn’t she behind locked bars with the key thrown away? She was a danger to everyone around her. At least before she was only a danger to herself.
A shudder ran through Bronwyn. “Don’t like the…smell.”
She took a step back and snarled. Her head whipped to the side, and she grabbed onto a metal table, and her nails dug points into it as if it were aluminum.
“So wrong,” she spat. “Yellow and purple and the stars are listening.”
She teetered from foot to foot a second before grasping Reyna by the front of her T-shirt. Bronwyn glanced at it and grinned like a cat.
“L. L. L,” she singsonged. “All wrapped in a bow.”
Reyna had momentarily forgotten that they’d spray-painted the Elle logo onto her shirt, a cursive L in yellow with a circle around it. Her jacket had fallen open when she’d been dragged up the stairs and now it was visible.
“Bronwyn, please, I know that you’re in there.”
But she had retreated back into whatever demented place was trapped in her brain. “Up!” she shouted.
“Please,” Reyna begged.
Bronwyn flashed her fangs and then grabbed Reyna roughly by the shoulders. She hoisted her off of her feet and then dropped her back down, jarring Reyna’s teeth. Beckham was cursing violently in her ear, a constant stream of profanity and anger. She prayed that he didn’t react exactly how Harrington wanted him to. That he didn’t come barreling in here and confront Bronwyn.
Bronwyn started humming a nursery rhyme to herself as she patted Reyna down. “Don’t need these,” she said as she discarded two knives strapped to Reyna’s forearms.
She found a third wicked thing down her back, then the two guns attached to her thighs, and a lock pick in her pocket. Bronwyn casually tossed the items into a container. Then continued with her perusal.
“Oh bad toy. Bad, bad toy.” Bronwyn found earpiece, popped it out of its place, and then smashed it under her foot. “No other toys allowed.”
Reyna blew out slowly. It was okay. She hadn’t thought that they’d let her keep the earpiece. It’d been nice while it lasted.
Then Bronwyn ran her hand over the video camera. It met the same fate as the sound piece. Finally she found another smaller knife in Reyna’s boot and a tracker. Reyna winced at the loss of that. Not that she wasn’t a beacon already for Beckham, but they’d hoped that would be of value if they took her too far away.
Too late now.
She hated the loss of Beckham being able to hear and see what was happening to her, but at least they had each other. She tried to broadcast clearly to him that everything was okay. Or…as okay as it could be. She could still sense that he was in the van, but…for how long?
“Any other tricks up your pretty little sleeves?” Bronwyn asked. She made a dangerous predatory circle around Reyna. “I like the way the music sings in battle. It suddenly all makes sense. All the other noise is gone and I can finally hear.”
“War makes sense to you?”
Bronwyn tilted her head to the side. “Battle is what I am built for. Can you hear it?”
Reyna tried to listen to whatever Bronwyn was talking about, but there was nothing different. J
ust the din in the background of fighting. Fighting that she needed to stop.
Bronwyn’s hands were in fists in front of her and they started to shake. Her head swiveled side to side as if she were listening to a song only she could hear.
“You need help,” Reyna said. “We can…we can get you help.”
Bronwyn hummed louder.
“Beckham would help you.”
Her eyes snapped open. Something like lucidity came back in her black eyes. Her black bob swished around her chin at a haphazard angle. Her spine straightened to her considerable height. For a second—a small second—she almost looked human.
“Nooooo!” Bronwyn screamed. She put her hands on her head and shook back and forth. “No! Not then. Death and death and death. And say hi to mom. Cut and slice and burn. Murder. Turn it around. Show me how. Do it again. And again.”
She mumbled again and again and again until she was crouched in on herself, all sanity forgotten. Reyna swallowed, torn between leaving Bronwyn behind and escaping now that she had the chance, and finding a way to reach her. She knew there was no way to reach her. It was impossible. Not here. But it was hard to see her like this.
Reyna took a breath and then darted for the door. She almost had her hand on the handle when Bronwyn realized what was happening. Suddenly Bronwyn was upon her, dragging her back.
“Bad pet. Not how we act.”
Reyna cried out as pain lanced up her arm from Bronwyn’s grip. Blood seeped out of her veins as Bronwyn’s nails dug deep into her skin. Shit. Her blood. It was going to cause a frenzy to all these vampires if they smelled it. It was so sickly sweet that it attracted them like moths to a flame.
Bronwyn stared down at the wound as if she didn’t know how it had gotten there. Then she threw Reyna’s arm away from her.
“Rotten! Trash! Sick!” Bronwyn gagged as the smell of Reyna’s blood assaulted her. “Make it stop!”
Reyna clamped down on the wound. She couldn’t exactly ask Beckham to heal this. They couldn’t exactly show their hand to Harrington. But fuck…it was going to drive Bronwyn mad. Reyna reached out for Beckham and tried to project that she wanted him to stop the bleeding but not heal it completely. Do what he could.
She felt his energy wrap around her like a cocoon. It was warm and then hot and then burning. She gasped at the pain. Then it was gone. Her breathing was ragged when she looked down to see the cut was healing over but not whole. Thank fuck he could read her so well. Even like this.
Bronwyn had stopped shrieking and was staring at Reyna from a crouch on the ground. “You hear them too.”
“Yes,” Reyna lied.
“I was built for an army. Battle is my lullaby. Murder is my fairy tale,” Bronwyn muttered.
“You don’t have to be.”
“I haven’t had an army in a long time. No battles. No murder. Just voices. So many voices.”
“I’m sorry.” Reyna’s heart broke for the girl that Beckham had shattered into so many pieces she could only find herself surrounded by violence and death.
“Why are they so loud around you? They should be quiet. I can hear the battle cries below. The sweet scent of destruction on the wind.”
“I remind you of him,” Reyna said.
“No,” Bronwyn said. She straightened again and stared at her, a complete blank slate of insanity. “No.”
“You can smell Beckham on me. You can hear his voices in me. You can feel your brother when you are near me. The voices are louder because of him. He did this to you.”
“Stop,” Bronwyn commanded.
“He did and he’s so sorry. He wants to help. He still loves you.”
“I said stop!” Bronwyn started counting loudly as if it would drown out the memories that Reyna brought back to her.
“You can’t change the past, but you two can have a future.”
Bronwyn ceased counting. Her eyes slid to Reyna like a viper ready to strike. Then she sprang toward her. She grasped her by the throat, crashing her body back against the table she’d indented earlier. Bronwyn held her aloft with her feet dangling off the ground.
Reyna gasped and choked. She struggled to free herself from Bronwyn’s solid grip, but it was useless. She couldn’t budge her. And as she kicked and clawed at Bronwyn’s hands, she realized that she might die. That she might have finally underestimated Harrington’s ferocity.
“Bronwyn!” a voice snapped from the doorway.
Time slowed to a standstill. Bronwyn released Reyna, letting her fall into a heap on the ground. Reyna gasped for breath, coughing as air filled her lungs again. Bronwyn turned to face the new arrival. Every movement rigid and deliberate.
“Beckham,” Bronwyn said softly. A child’s voice. One who hadn’t seen her brother in fifteen long years. And hadn’t seen beyond the monster within him in much much longer.
“I’m here, Bronwyn. I’m finally here.”
“You let them take me,” she accused.
“I believed you dead.” He took a step toward Reyna. “You were my second, my sister, do you think I would not have torn apart the world to get you back?”
“You left me to rot.”
Another step closer to Reyna. He was circling Bronwyn, getting Reyna out of danger.
“I mourned you.”
Bronwyn laughed. It wasn’t musical in any way. It was madness personified. An insane high-pitched squeal.
“Fifteen long years and I missed you every day.”
“You do not feel,” Bronwyn accused.
“You know that is not true.”
“Stop.”
“What I did to you, I…it was wrong. I’m so sorry. You are still my sister.”
“No!” Bronwyn assessed the situation as Beckham finally put himself directly in front of Reyna. “You are not a person,” Bronwyn said, tilting her head sideways. “And she is not leaving.”
“Your quarrel is with me,” Beckham said instead. “One last battle for the ages, B?”
“The girl stays.”
“Nonnegotiable.”
Reyna’s head moved back and forth between Beckham and Bronwyn. For the first time, she could completely see how they were related. When Reyna had first met Bronwyn, it had been such a blur. She hadn’t even known until weeks later that she was Beckham’s sister. Now seeing them so close together, it was obvious.
Beckham must have noticed the second that Bronwyn relented, because he said, “Reyna, go. Now!”
“But what about you?”
“I will take care of this. Be ready.”
Reyna gritted her teeth, took one last look at the stalemate happening in the room, and sprinted toward the door. She hated leaving Beckham behind, but what could she do? He was supposed to be in a van a mile away. She’d been so fucking freaked out by Bronwyn she hadn’t even felt him moving closer toward her. He must have hightailed it over here as soon as he healed her. Which meant…he could be weak. He was going up against his insane sister…and he might be weak. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
No, she couldn’t think about that. Beckham could handle himself.
Reyna didn’t stop sprinting as she ran as far and as fast as she could away from the room where Bronwyn had tried to kill her. She knew where she was going. She’d studied the map well enough to have a mental guide for which way to go. It would be easier with Beckham directing her, but she’d done her homework.
Still worse…the way to Harrington’s office was empty of people. As if, like before, he’d wanted her to find him. But there was no backing down. Not with a battle raging behind her and Beckham taking on his sister. She had to finish this. That was the only way. Cut off the serpent’s head to scatter his army.
When she reached the last hallway, she skidded to a stop.
“Bonjour, ma cherie,” Rowland said. His thick French accent sweeping over the word
s as his eyes did the same to her battered body.
Reyna put her hands on her knees to catch her breath.
“Did you believe you could just stroll through these walls unnoticed? Barge in here and save the day?”
She had no response for him. She wanted to spit in his face. He was waiting for her. He had clearly double-crossed them. But at the end of the day, it didn’t change anything. She still had to see Harrington.
“You’ve played your part. Now your fight is up. Surrender and he may be merciful.”
“Yeah. Sure. Okay,” she said sarcastically. “Has that ever actually worked on someone?”
“Or I could kill you right here.”
“Now we’re talking.” She stood up and began to stride toward him. “You’re standing between me and that door. Either get out of my way or do something about it.”
“You have no weapon. Beckham is occupied. It is just you—a weak, defenseless human against two of the most powerful vampires in known existence. What do you seek to gain from walking into that room?”
“Justice,” she spat in his face. She would not back down. She would not walk away. She could speak Rowland’s language. She knew what made him tick. “Now open the damn door.”
He laughed seductively. “I love when you order me around.”
“Liar.”
“Oh yes, I’d prefer to rip your throat out to shut your loud mouth, but watching you walk to your own death will do just fine.”
Then Rowland did the unthinkable. He turned the knob on the door and held it open for her.
“After you.”
Chapter 34
“About time,” Reyna said, and then entered the monster’s lair.
She held her breath as she walked inside. She couldn’t believe she was here. That she was actually doing this. It was impossible to think that she was face-to-face with her kidnapper and torturer again. That she could actually look at him and not just see the man who had turned Brian and set him loose in a room full of people. That she didn’t just see Beckham’s murderer.
Harrington was sitting behind a glass desk in a glass room. The walls were opaque so that he could see out, and undoubtedly her exchange with Rowland, but no one could see inside. Clever, creepy, and voyeuristic all at once.
