Riding Rifts (Vampire's Elixir Series Book 2)

by Pippa Amberwine

  “Hello, again. I enjoyed our little chat.”

  I yelped loudly, hearing the echo seconds later from the cliffs on the other side of the canyon.

  Jevyn jumped awake and sat up beside me.

  I turned around slowly.

  “Kam,” I said, my heart pounding. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Huh,” a groggy Jevyn said and then turned around too. “Kam. How did you find us?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t hard. You should try and keep the noise down when you’re—”

  “Right, I’ll try and remember next time,” Jevyn cut in hastily.

  I was going to ask why he thought there might be a next time, but I could see he was nervous.

  “You weren’t, you know, watching or anything weird, were you?” I asked, realizing that might be a possibility. A horrifying possibility.

  “Oh no, I could just hear. You know, with my ears. Although I don’t suppose I could hear with anything else so that was a bit of a stupid thing to say, wasn’t it?”

  I was about to say it was, but I caught a glint in his eye and a hardening of his face just in time.

  “Easy mistake to make,” I said instead.

  I was still a little nonplussed that he was there squatting down on the rocks just a few feet away, balancing with the tip of his sword against the dark stone.

  “What do you want, Kam?” Jevyn had obviously come around a bit more.

  “What do I want? What do I want?” He put a finger to the corner of his mouth, play acting that he wasn’t sure. “Oh, yes, I remember now. I want to know what you two are doing here.”

  “We came to scavenge food and heard about what you did. We thought we’d wait and see—”

  “If you could help?” Kam said with a grin.

  “No,” Jevyn said.

  “If you could admire my handiwork?”

  “Not exactly. We wanted to try and persuade you to go back to Nindock’s.”

  He laughed at that suggestion. A long manic laugh that was scary as hell. “I don’t think so, not yet. Anyway, Nindock as good as sent me out here.”

  “He did?” Jevyn sounded very surprised.

  “Well, not in so many words. After you two left a couple of days ago, when we’d had our little chat.” He nodded and grinned at me, and I felt sick. “I heard him say he was convinced those Gregori people were kidnapping dragons and doing stuff to them. He said he’d like to teach them a lesson. He said it so loud I assumed he was trying to pass me a message, so as soon as I was released, when I’d pretended to calm down and promised not to kill anyone randomly, I found out where these people were based. Then, last night I came over, had a bit of a to-do with the guards, and you know, I had so much fun chasing them around and killing them that I clean forgot why I came over. I had to rest up all day, but now I’m off to do what I should’ve done yesterday.”

  “Which is what?” I asked.

  “Now that would be telling,” Kam said with a sly look toward me.

  I had a fair idea it would involve a great deal of killing even though the people he was killing were part of Gregori Industries, the company I was growing to hate more and more.

  “It would.” I stared at him. “So?”

  “So, what? I’m not going to tell you, or you’ll try and stop me.”

  “I’ll try and stop you anyway, Kam,” Jevyn said.

  In a flash, Kam had leapt forward and had the point of his sword against Jevyn’s throat.

  “I won’t let you,” Kam said, growling the words out from deep in his throat.

  “Kam,” I said quietly so as not to make him jump. He seemed kind of jumpy anyway, which I didn’t suppose was too surprising given what he’d been doing for the last twenty-four hours. He turned to face me, and I realized he had changed somehow since I’d talked to him back at Nindock’s. He looked almost at peace with himself, at least for the time being. Beatific.

  “Yes, Katie. By the way, you did sound as though you were enjoying yourself.” Kam flicked out his tongue and wet his lips. I shuddered, both at that and at the idea that he heard me and Jevyn while we were . . .

  “I did, but never mind about that,” I said, shutting down any chance of him ribbing me about it. “Jevyn’s no threat to you. You do know that, right? He can’t force you to go back.” I sneaked a glance at Jevyn’s face. I expected him to look terrified, but he seemed to be smiling faintly. That confused me, and then I thought back to what I’d said. Maybe me admitting I’d had a good time with him had stroked a bit of ego, but with the noises we’d both made, that should have been obvious anyway.

  Kam turned his head to look at Jevyn. “I know that. It just pisses me off when someone gets the idea in their head that they can stop me. Big Oscar sucker punched me back at Nindock’s. He got a lucky break. It won’t happen again. Tell me you won’t try and stop me.” He stared straight into Jevyn’s eyes after those last words.

  Jevyn flicked his eyes at me. I nodded, hopefully conveying that he should say whatever Kam was asking him to. “Okay, Kam. You’re right. Katie’s right. I can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

  Kam stared at Jevyn’s face for a moment and then stood and slowly withdrew the sword.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, and Jevyn rubbed away a tiny spot of blood from the spot where Kam had been pressing his sword a few moments before.

  Kam resumed his squatting position and looked across at both of us in turn.

  “Thing is, Katie, I don’t want to go back.”

  “But if you went back, you could re-bond with Myn and be whole again. Surely you would want to do that?”

  Kam sniffed and then turned his head to one side and spat a great glob onto the rocks. “He’s weak. He holds me back.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “He holds me back. When some of those cheats and vagabonds in the market on Dracos shortchange us or steal from our pack when he isn’t looking, I’m always there, ready to go, ready to wreak righteous vengeance on the perpetrators, but he won’t let me.” Kam’s strong, deep voice changed to what I guessed was his impression of what Kammyn spoke like when he was whole. “Count to ten. They must need it more than me. I’ll be more careful next time.” The voice was almost childlike. “And all the time those people laugh at us, knowing that next time will be just the same.” His voice had returned to normal, and he was looking at the ground in front of his sword. “Just once, I keep telling him, just once if we fought for what was ours, the bad people would back off and leave us be, but no . . . not even once.”

  “Maybe he’s scared you might get hurt.”

  “He’s scared he might piss his pants, more like.” Kam spat again.

  “Can you blame him?”

  Kam looked up at me.

  “You cannot live your life being scared about what might happen, Katie. You might not get to live to regret not fighting for what’s yours.”

  Kam’s voice had dropped much quieter. Who would have guessed this killing machine could have such deep thoughts?

  “Is that what you’re doing, now?” Jevyn said. “Fighting for what’s yours? Nindock’s place?”

  Kam looked back to Jevyn but didn’t speak for a few seconds. I thought we might be about to go back a couple of steps and end up with him threatening Jevyn again.

  Eventually Kam piped up. “Nah. I just really enjoy killing people, Jevyn, and if they’re people who are working against the dragons at Nindock’s, then it’s a win-win. I’m happy, Nindock’s happy, and Gregori Industries is peeved but doesn’t know who’s doing the deed against their people.” He stopped talking and seemed to be thinking for a moment. “See, the thing is, back on Dracos, I was a nobody. I had few friends, my family was all gone, I had no real skills, nothing to offer. I got by, and only just at that. Here on Earth, you only have to look around you. This world is full of ruthless people. I mean, what could be more ruthless than infecting people with a vampire virus and then offering a way to stop the symptoms which
brings you under the control of the people who infected you in the first place? If I knew anything about science, that’s what I might have done. It’s brilliant. Because of that, I fit in. I belong. I haven’t felt that way for a long time. In fact, ever.”

  “But we could find you something useful to do back on Dracos. My mother would be more than happy to have you in the guards. You and Myn, if you were re-bonded.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” said Kam.

  “Why? It would make things safer for Nindock here and for my family in Dracos.”

  Kam’s face was getting angry again. “Did you not hear what I was saying, Jevyn? When Myn and I are together, that weakling controls us both. He’d be about as much good in the guards as a candle in a furnace. I bet he’s back there now being all pious and self-righteous, trying to persuade people that there’s another way, that we don’t have to live like we do, that something will come along and help us meet our destiny. I hate him. He’s all talk, and I’m all action.” The venom with which he spoke worried me. I couldn’t see any kind of good outcome if he was forced to go back to Dracos.

  “So, what now, Kam?” I asked.

  “What now? I told you I’m off to do what I came to do.”

  “No, I meant for us?”

  “Us? I didn’t know there was . . . oh, wait, you mean for you and him.” He flicked his head toward Jevyn.

  “Yes.” I shuddered again. The thought of . . . with Kam . . . yuck.

  “Well, first thing is you two need to get a room.” I felt myself blushing at that. Kam leaned back and then rocked forward to stand up, towering over both me and Jevyn. “I could kill you both. That would be easy.” He leaned in and grinned at us. “But not very clean. Or I could let you go, but then you’d try and stop me. I think”—he shrugged the pack he was carrying off his back—“the best thing I could do would be to tie you both up and leave you here. By the time you get loose, I’ll have done what I came to do.”

  I nodded. That seemed like a pretty good result given our predicament, although I didn’t think Jevyn was too enamored with the idea by the thunderous look on his face.

  Five minutes later, Jevyn and I were sitting back to back, my left hand tied to his right and vice versa, with our legs also tied together but not to each other. I might be flexible, but I’m not a contortionist.

  Kam looked down on us both as he shrugged his pack back on and picked his sword back up from the ground where he’d left it while he tied us up. “Well, time for me to leave you two lovebirds to it. Take your time getting out of the knots. I made them as hard as I could, so it should take a while. By the time you’re out, I’ll be done and dusted and on my way back to Nindock’s for the night. I’m sure we shall meet again, but for now, I wish you a good night.” He mock-bowed with a flourish aimed at Jevyn, and then he was gone, vanishing into the dark of the night.

  Then he reappeared. “Oh, I forgot to mention. If you follow me or try to stop me again, I will kill you both, understand?”

  I nodded, and again he vanished. I waited for a solid five minutes before I twisted my head around to talk to Jevyn. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure.” He sounded kind of fed up.

  “Can we get out of these knots?”

  “Eventually. I wanted to stop him.”

  “I know. You have time though. Maybe not this time, but sooner or later.”

  “Not before he finishes whatever he came here to finish, and even more people are going to be hurt.”

  “It isn’t your fault.”

  “I know, but that won’t stop my mother from thinking it is, when and if she finds out.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  Jevyn huffed, and we sat in silence, just the breeze blowing through and making any sound except for distant noises from the city on the other side of the river.

  “Why do you think Kam didn’t just kill us?” I asked. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he didn’t, but he could have, quite easily.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he only has it in for humans.” Jevyn’s answer was curt.

  “I’m human,” I said, nudging him with an elbow, which made the bindings on my wrist rub even more than they already were.

  “I know,” Jevyn said. I was sure he opened his mouth to say something else too, but he didn’t say whatever was on his mind.

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, it’s just something that lunatic said.”

  “Which bit?”

  “When he said about fighting for whatever it is you want.”

  “What about it?”

  “That’s me. I always spend so much time wondering about what might happen that I don’t get to have what I want.”

  I was surprised. That note of self-doubt was something new I’d never heard from Jevyn before. It curled around my heart like the fresh, new, bright-green shoot of a climbing plant, sucking out the feelings I had developed for him, but then vanished into ash and blew away on the breeze when he spoke again.

  “Not anymore though,” Jevyn said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean from now on, I’m going to do whatever feels best for me, and my mother can either like it or not. I don’t care anymore.”

  If I could have turned around and hugged him, I would have. Instead, I said, “What would happen if you changed into dragon form? Would it break these ropes?”

  “Yes, it might. It might hurt you though as they pull tighter. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I know, but we need to get away from here. The rest of the guys at the shop will be wondering what’s happened to us. We don’t want them sending out a search party and putting themselves at risk, do we?”

  “Guess not.”

  “So, do it. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “Your hands could get torn off.”

  “Shit.” That wasn’t something I could imagine being a pain-free experience.

  “Want me to try?”

  “No, no,” I said quickly and loudly.

  “I thought not.”

  “So, what’s your plan?”

  “I thought we could sit here and watch the sun rise and then try and work something out. I know it isn’t the most romantic way to do it, but we might not get the chance again for a while.”

  I laughed and leaned back into Jevyn.

  “You sure know how to sweep a girl off her feet.”

  “I try,” he said, and I was glad to hear a little humor coming back into his speech. Yes, we were in a crappy predicament, but hell, if you couldn’t enjoy a beautiful sunrise sometime in your life, then was that life really worth living?

  By the time the sun had broken through the thin early morning clouds, we had finally managed to pick the knots without me losing my hands and were flying back to meet up with the rest of the group.

  We might not have managed to find some food, but our night on the rocks had fed my body and soul in ways I hadn’t been expecting, and even though I knew I didn’t have to, I clung tightly to Jevyn’s neck as we traversed the bright morning sky.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jevyn

  Lynnette’s shop

  Boise, Idaho

  WE LANDED ON the roof of Lynnette’s shop and Katie jumped off, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

  “Nice landing,” she said, smiling happily and not bothering to turn around as I changed back into human form. I held out my hand for the clothes she pulled out of her pack.

  “Certainly was. Nice butt too, Jevyn,” came a different female voice.

  Katie squealed a little squeak, and I turned around without thinking.

  Penny was standing just outside the door of the roof garden with a massive grin on her face and staring straight at me. Well, part of me at least.

  “Hell, Penny, what are you doing up here?” Katie asked, standing in front of me as I dropped my hands to mask my nakedness.

  “I would have asked you the same thing, but afte
r what I just got an eyeful of, I know the answer already.” Penny tried to lean to one side to look around Katie, but I’d managed to quickly get my underwear on, so it was too late . . . this time at least. “So, you two are a thing, now, are you? No wonder you’ve been spending so much time together. To answer your question, I was actually up here looking for you two. We’ve been keeping watch from up here to see if we could see a car or anything, but after seeing you fly in like that, Jevyn, I see you don’t need one. Can anybody get a ride?”

  Huh?” I said in shock, still pulling on my pants.

  “Penny!” Katie said, sounding horrified.

  “What? Oh, you thought I meant . . . no, I meant can anyone ride on your back?”

  The little smirk on her face suggested that we had the meaning right first time.

  “No,” Katie said.

  I said, “Yes,” at the same time, which kind of confused the issue and drew a look of surprise from Katie when she turned to look at me, her eyes slipping down to my abs as I pulled on my shirt and made myself decent at last.

  “What I mean is that it’s possible for anyone to, but not right now. It tires me out.”

  “Oh, right. Is that the only reason you’re tired?” Penny was slyly examining her nails.

  “Quit it, Penny. Stop giving us the third degree,” Katie said. “We’re all adults here. Why were you up here looking for us anyway? What’s going on?”

  “Something you might or might not like.”

  “Like what? Come on, spill it.”

  “We have company.”

  I stepped around Katie and glanced at her face. Her eyebrows were crunched up, and she did not look at all happy.

  “What do you mean by company?” Katie asked.

  “I mean, we have people here with us. Other vampires.”

  “What do you mean other vampires? Do they have implants?”

  Penny shook her head. “Now that you’re here, come on down and meet them. Word of warning though, they’re not happy bunnies.”