by Misty Evans
Cole, used to working in tandem with me, shoved Stephan forward, right into Volante’s path. She nicked his face, toying with him, before she recoiled and struck again.
Stephan, for all his French bluster, cried like a girl and went down. Absentmindedly, I noted Chloe slapping a bandage on the inside of my elbow while I sent Volante speeding toward Stephan’s brothers. Cole helped me out again, tackling one and kicking the other on his way down.
Brianna and two guards showed up at the door. Her nose was back in place, her eyes full of anger. Snaking Volante back to me, I prepared to deliver another round of whippings, but Brianna held up a hand as a peace sign. “My queen, we will take care of this.”
Hunh. Guess the female vamp had a change of heart after Cole was done with her. Whatever. I was a smidge disappointed I didn’t get to sick Volante on her ass, but if she was pledging allegiance to me over the others, I didn’t have any cause to.
Fighting resumed, Maddy throwing various heavy objects from Dru’s collections at the heads of the brothers, even after Cole and Brianna had them subdued. Stephan yelled profanities at me and various threats. There was going to be fallout from this, but his revenge was the least of my worries.
Once the room was cleared, Chloe handed me the first vial with a clean needle attached. “Hit him in the heart.”
Allowing Volante to snake around my wrist again, I swallowed hard and took the syringe of blood. “His heart’s been deteriorating. How do I find what’s still there?”
She took my empty hand, guided it to Dru’s chest. “Blood is as elemental as the air, the earth, fire and water. His blood is in you from what I hear. Use it to locate the living tissue that’s keeping him alive.”
Cole and Maddy stood inside the closed doors. Theirs and Chloe’s gazes heated my skin. “The fallout from this will be on my head, and my head only. I’ll take full responsibility for this. Understand?”
Cole rolled his eyes, Maddy nodded. Chloe gave me a tolerant smile, once again reminding me of a mother being patient with a child.
Closing my eyes, I willed my blood to call to Dru’s. Willed his blood and his magic to lock onto mine. Under my hand, I felt nothing but his cold skin. I pressed harder, searching for the smallest evidence of life. The rise and fall of his chest was negligent. The rattle had died down to a wheeze.
Come on, come on. I was running out of time. Grab onto me, Dru. Fight for your life.
No response. Not under my hand, not in my blood, not with my magic.
Kneading his skin with my fingers, I found a spot between the bones of his ribcage and stuck the needle in, his muscled pectoral resisting the stainless steel. I shoved harder…and hit nothing. “Damn it.”
Moving the needle to another spot, I repeated the procedure of finding an opening in his ribcage and sliding the needle into it. This time, I found something and a spurt of hope soared through me. I depressed the needle end and drained the blood into what I hoped was his heart.
His eyelids flickered, but he didn’t wake. The wheeze became a soft whistle. An uncomfortable minute ticked by on the bedside clock and he seemed to get worse in that minute. Had I finished him off rather than reversing the effects?
I shot a look at Chloe and she handed me the second syringe. “Try another dose.”
My fingers shook as I searched again for his heart with the tip of the needle. I felt the same resistance, but wondered if it was his heart or my imagination. Sweat broke out along my hairline. Please, Dru. Help me.
He drew a breath, stopped, drew another. I bit the inside of my inner lip, stuck the needle as far in as I could on his next inhale and released the blood.
Nothing changed over the next thirty seconds. His chest rose and fell intermittently, and what seemed to me with more time in between hitches. Tears dampened my eyelashes but I refused to cry.
And then he stopped struggling to breathe the air he didn’t need. His body sagged. He lay still. Seconds ticked off and a sudden surge of anger rose inside me. I climbed up on the bed and straddled him, snatching the third and final vial from Chloe’s hands. “Don’t you dare die on me, you bloodsucking son-of-a-bitch.”
Lifting the syringe high over my head, I rammed it home, not caring if I hit a bone, and smacked the plunger down, shooting the last of my blood into his heart.
His body jumped under mine from the force, but in the aftermath, it remained still, cold…lifeless.
Chapter Forty-three
Crying for Dru wouldn’t bring him back to life.
Tears threatened and I ground my teeth together and blinked them away. Never in a million years would I have believed I would cry over a vampire, but lately it seemed as though the tough shield I had kept around me for so long had become filled with holes. Holes created by friendship. Holes created by love.
I had turned into a sucky emotional pincushion, and I was pretty sure it was because I was not the island Di believed me to be.
I didn’t want to feel this pain. Didn’t want to think about how hard it was to lose Dru after knowing him such a short time. How it would feel to lose any of the other people I cared so much about.
Pressing my hand against Dru’s unmoving chest, I fought back the anguish, stuffing it in a deep crevice inside my heart.
It wasn’t just the loss of my friend overwhelming me. I could feel the emotions of the others in the room. Maddy laid her hand on my back and spoke consoling words. There was so much turmoil in my brain, I couldn’t understand her, but the tone of her voice was soothing and I knew she was doing her teenage best to comfort me.
She felt the loss, too, only her emotions drew from the loss of her family as well as the death of the House Master. The loss of her childhood, her friends, the future she had envisioned as a human.
Cole’s warrior magic reached out to mine, attempting to fortify my defenses. Underneath it, though, he was hurting along with me. He was hurting because of me. He’d never seen me break down and it troubled him. Along with that, he was distressed over Brianna. Underneath his tough exterior, he was one tormented demon.
And Chloe? Her emotions were the hardest for me to take. She was sad I was upset, but she didn’t understand it. Vampires, in her world, were disposable. Some of them helped keep her in business and she never had any quarrel with Alexandru. My reaction to his death, however, disturbed her because she suspected I had become weak. She pitied me for letting a vampire reduce me to a quivering ball of emotion and she wondered how a demon with so much potential could constantly screw up her life.
Anger bit me in the ass. She was right. I dashed the wetness off my cheeks, sat back and took a deep breath. I wrapped Volante around my arm, combed my hair back from my face with my fingers and blinked away the last of the tears. “What happened in this room today stays between the four of us.”
There were murmurs of agreement, although I knew Chloe would tell everyone what had happened. I looked down at Dru’s face. The dark eyebrows, the sharp cheekbones, those soft, pale lips that would never smirk at me again. “Faccia di culo.”
Something smacked me in the ass where I sat on his lower stomach. I looked around and found the sheet tented above his pelvis. The site, and what it meant, was almost funny. Even in death, the vamp had a hard-on for me.
Then out of nowhere, the hand I had held just minutes before rose up and locked around my wrist.
I gasped, as did Chloe and Maddy. Chloe backed off that bed, nearly falling in her haste. The eyes I never thought I’d see again flipped open, black pupils nearly filling the irises and a red-tinged ring outlining them.
“Dru?” I said.
It was him…but it wasn’t. His gaze was harder, flatter. The eyes looking back at me were half-vampire and…
I knew that look. Had seen it in the mirror a time or two. Windows of the soul. Had my blood turned Dru into a half-demon?
Whatever he was, he was hungry.
In the next second, I was thrown down on the bed, my head slamming into the pillow, my body covered
by Dru’s as he reversed our positions. I saw a flash of fangs and then he struck my throat hard and fast. His teeth drove deep into my carotid artery, a fiery pain igniting in their path, and a powerful scent sheeting off his body. The Undead usually smelled of old blood and grave dirt, but at that moment a dark, rich aroma, like grilled meat and expensive cabernet invaded my senses. My body responded by arching into him, even as my hands fought to push him off.
For a dead guy, he was damn strong.
He was also starved for blood. Mine was apparently on the menu.
Taking great drags from my vein, he seized what he needed to heal his damaged heart and survive.
There was shouting and a blur of faces above me, but it was if I was seeing and hearing them from a distance. As both pain and pleasure rocked me to the core, all I could focus on was Dru.
Thank Satan there was a sheet between us because my hips parted as he moved against me, allowing him access to the sweet spot throbbing between my legs.
Someone tried to tug him off—Cole, no doubt—but Dru was locked on tight, continuing his feast. The room spun for a second, black shadows dancing on the edges of my vision. I had the sensation of lifting out of my body, like the astral projection I’d experienced seeking out Toel. While the odd feeling disoriented me on one level, it cleared my head on an entirely different one.
If Dru drained me, I would die.
My demon flashed to life. A growl came from low in my throat, grabbing Dru’s attention. His drinking slowed, and without losing his hold on my neck, he lifted his face enough to look me in the eye. Lots of eye-to-eye contact, my demon and his vampire playing tag with each other. The red ring around his irises had dulled, nearly to the point of blending in with their dark depths.
Recognition awakened deep inside him. He retracted his teeth reluctantly, and licked his blood covered lips. The action, combined with the scent he was giving off, triggered an instinctive desire in my bones. I shuddered underneath him.
But with the direct connection broken, my body sagged into the sheets, limbs trembling. The pain, the unexpected pleasure, the implications of what had just happened. The ginormous loss of blood…I blinked several times, trying to clear the dots from my peripheral vision and clear the damning thoughts swirling like a blender in my head.
Didn’t work.
“You’re alive,” I whispered, touching the hair at the side of his head.
A stake appeared at Dru’s throat, the point digging deep into his skin. Cole, standing over us, pressed the point even deeper, a trickle of blood escaping and dripping onto my chest. “Get. Off. Her. Now.”
Dru released my wrist, shifted to my left, raising his hand in a conceding gesture, but something lit his dark eyes. They were still wild with blood lust, but less so. There was a controlled message in them. Commanding. Demanding.
Strike. Protect.
You’re mine.
In one swift movement, I knocked the stake from Cole’s hand—no easy feat, considering his strength and warrior reflexes. He didn’t expect me to attack, though, so as I jumped from the bed and tackled him, we both went down on the floor, me grabbing the stake and using it as leverage across his windpipe.
Dru was my master. Master of my Undead House, yes, but also my master.
“Never attack him again,” I threatened Cole. “Or I’ll destroy you.”
Cole’s eyes widened. I was pretty shocked myself. What was I doing? I was no one’s slave, blood or otherwise.
The sudden burst of activity exhausted me. Dazed, I slid off Cole, threw the stake across the room. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I don’t know what just came over me.”
“I do.” Cole stood, helped me to my feet. His face was drawn tight. “You are one fucking messed up demon.”
Rubbing my temple, I agreed with him. Chloe’s early assessment of me was spot on. I screwed up everything.
Damn.
“We need to get to the airport. I’ve already wasted too much time.”
“What about him?” Maddy asked, pointing at Dru.
He stared at me from half-lidded eyes. “You did it, demon. Gave me life again. I won’t forget that.”
The words sounded like a thank you. They also sounded like a threat. I had little strength to figure it out. Nearly falling against Cole, I murmured, “Get me out of here.”
Cole made a chin motion at Chloe and Maddy and they scurried to grab the doctor bag of supplies and my cape and follow us as he held me tight against him and headed for the door.
Dru’s voice rang out behind us. “Send in Brianna on your way out.”
Jealousy, hot and fierce, swiped across my heart. He wanted Brianna because he wasn’t done feeding. First Cole and now Dru. Who was next? Damon? Rad? I stumbled out the door, images of her locked in Dru’s embrace making me sick to my stomach.
But then my demon kicked me in the ass. Who was acting like a pubescent teenager now? Not Maddy, but me. I slammed my emotions down and let my demon rise. She was happy to oblige, as confused as I was about my succumbing to the vampire. In the doorway, I broke away from Cole’s grasp and stood tall. “I’m going to bring Toel’s head on a stake to you and then we’re done.”
The insolent grin I’d wanted to see again crossed his lips still red from my blood. But there was no evil in it, only a friendly teasing. “We’ll never be done, Kali. You’re in my blood, literally, and I like it that way.”
My knees wobbled. Just a little. I locked them and flipped Dru the bird before turning on my heel and stomping out.
Brianna was standing guard again outside in the hallway, her sharp gaze snapping to Cole’s as he followed me out. Questions poured from her mouth. “Are you all right? What happened? Is he…”
“He’s alive,” Cole told her. His voice was flat, his movements tight. The images flickering in my brain starring Dru and Bri were alive and well in his too.
“I did what you asked,” she said, and Cole nodded. I wondered what he’d asked her to do, figured it had to do with keeping Dru’s brothers out of our hair.
Cole didn’t tell her Dru wanted to see her. We just kept walking until we were out of the House and in the car. I sank into the backseat and blocked out any further thoughts of what would go on inside Carpathia while I was gone. What might happen inside the House once I returned.
I’m no one’s slave. I’m no one’s slave, I repeated over and over.
Only time would tell if I was lying to myself.
Chapter Forty-four
As we left Carpathia, a dozen large, black SUVs joined us. “Friend or foe?” I asked Cole.
He eyed them in the rearview. “Your vamp army.”
Stephan and his brothers hadn’t sent anyone to O’Hare. “Brianna rallied the troops, I take it.”
“Yep.”
Annoying, but I had to give her credit for stepping up and casting her lot with us rather than the kings of the Undead. Gutsy move, all considered. That move would probably get her a nice stay in the dungeons under the House, or worse, unless Dru intervened.
I was sure he would intervene. “Thank you for…you know.”
“Yep.”
“Here,” Maddy said, handing me her scarf and pointing at my neck. “You’re bleeding a little.”
The wintery day was as dark and foreboding as earlier. As we tore down the road and I wrapped my neck, I wished I had a wall to beat my head against. “I screwed up. Again.”
I expected another monosyllabic response from Cole. Got nothing. That was almost worst. A damning confirmation.
But Cole was a straight shooter. He didn’t believe in platitudes any more than I did. Needing to drown out the nasty voices in my head, I reached for the radio button.
His hand stopped me, encasing mine with his rough, warrior fingers and holding it. “I would’ve done the same thing. If the situation was different. If you were dying and I could save you.”
I held his gaze for a long moment before he looked back to the road. “Regardless of the consequenc
es?”
“Worrying about consequences is a pussy move.”
Maybe so, but I was worried anyway. The car ate up the road, making me dizzy. He released my hand and I closed my eyes, sinking low in the seat. In seconds, the loss of blood and my exhaustion put me to sleep.
I woke as we left the Kennedy Expressway headed for International Parking Lot D. O’Hare airport is a world unto itself and the international terminal is like a separate island next to that world. The entire airport dominates the northwestern corner of Chicago and claims to be one of the busiest airports in the world. I happen to think it’s also one of the nicest, even though my flights are most often delayed in and out of there.
Terminal 5 was located on Concourse M and going through that section of the airport, even though it was separate from the main airport, would have been a futile exercise. Cole and our band of merry Undead rolled into the terminal’s parking lot and spread out on foot.
We’d already dropped off Chloe at a friend’s house. She’d get a ride to her place from there. I insisted Maddy stay in the car, but she refused, and I didn’t have the energy to argue.
Which bothered me. I didn’t have much energy period, even after my nap. I’d hoped it would restore my strength, and at least the little black dots were gone, but I still felt drained. Maybe I should have taken a bite out of Dru before I left.
For some reason, that thought hit me as inexplicably funny.
It wasn’t, of course. Something was definitely wrong with me. I had to get control and prepare myself to not only kill Toel, but take on the Noctifectors if they were still here.
Apparently, they were. If Rad had contacted them and told them what was going down, they’d ignored his advice to kill Toel and get out of Dodge. Cole was in communication with Damon, who relayed details and instructions to us, as well as the head of the vamp brigade and the shifter battalions. So far, no one had seen any action, although several shifter trackers had located a dozen of Toel’s minions inside the airport, staking out the entrance to Terminal 5. The shifters reported the minions were wearing sunglasses in order to hide their weird eyes, but the shifters could smell them.
