by HELEN HARDT
“You’re not as quiet as you think, shithead.” Decker turned around, meeting my gaze. He snarled.
My fangs dropped.
Decker gasped.
“Take me to the wolf,” I growled. “And then, take me to the others.”
“She talks about ‘the chosen one’ all the time.” He eyed my teeth. “Giles was right. Now I can see why. It’s you.”
The chosen one? Chosen to be put back in a dungeon, apparently. I growled. “I took you out once. I can do it again. I want to see the women you’re holding here.”
“Look, man, we have nothing to do with all that,” one of the others said. “We bring her blood and meds. That’s it. We don’t know where they are.”
“Wrong. Your boss here just said she wants the blood for the wolf.”
“The wolf is a little bitch. I should have sliced her innards out that night in the cemetery,” the third vamp said. “I say let her bleed to death.”
A menacing growl rose in my throat. This was the vampire who had stabbed Lucy. “Take me to her now,” I said in a voice not quite my own.
Decker shoved a small soft-sided cooler into my hands. “You want to see her? Fine. Take the blood in there yourself. We don’t fucking care whether the little bitch dies. Open the door, Flynn.”
Flynn, the vampire who’d wanted to cut out Lucy’s innards, inserted a key into the deadbolt and opened the door. “There you go. Have fun.”
Erin. She was still safely in the closet. She’d told me she had food and water. I hadn’t meant to be gone long, but now I had gained entrance to another part of her lair. I had to take the chance while I had it. Plus, if Lucy was truly in trouble, both Erin and River would want me to take care of her.
I’m sorry, baby, I said silently. I love you and I will return for you.
Then I dropped the cooler and pounced on Decker with a right hook to his nose.
“Fuck!” he cried out.
The one called Flynn jumped onto my back, but I shrugged him off as if he were a toddler. I turned around quickly and slammed him against the wall. “You fucking stabbed her, you piece of shit.”
“Little bitch had it—”
I choked him until he passed out, and I let his big body fall to the floor.
I turned to the other vampire.
“Hey, man. We’re good here.”
“Sorry. I can’t leave you standing. You all need to be out cold.” I executed a roundhouse to his kidney.
He doubled over, and I finished him with an axe kick to the small of his back. His head hit the tile floor, leaving him unconscious.
I returned to Decker, whose nose was spewing blood. I slammed him up against the wall, my fingers squeezing his neck. “How many more of you are there?”
“Fuck you!” he said with a rasp. He attempted to spit in my face, but he lacked the velocity and his saliva dribbled down his chin.
I squeezed harder. “There’s Giles, right? That makes four. Any more?”
“Fuck—”
I squeezed harder. “Do you think I care if you live or die? You either tell me how many there are, or I find out another way. I can kill you right now. Right here.”
“You…can’t—”
One more pinch to his neck, and he caved.
“Six altogether. The other two…are…above ground. Getting drugs.”
“And Giles?”
“She…” He wheezed. “She put him…in…the arena.”
Chapter Nineteen
Erin
“Shit!” I clasped my hand to my mouth.
Three men lay unconscious in front of a steel door.
A steel door that was cracked open.
River inhaled. “They’re vamps.”
“I… I recognize them,” I stammered. “From my dream. He’s the leader.” I pointed to the bearded one, who was bleeding profusely from his nose. I knelt down and checked his wrist for a pulse. “He’s alive. Just out.” I quickly checked the other two. “Alive as well.”
“Dante,” River said. “Who else could take on three vampires?”
“I’ve seen him take on two,” I said. “And he seems to get stronger by the day. But why wouldn’t he come back for me?”
“He will,” River said. “But if he found a way to get through this door, he probably took it. Just like we’re going to do.” He sniffed. “Lucy is in there somewhere.”
“You’ve picked up her scent? Great! We can get right to her.”
River inhaled again, closing his eyes. “I’ve missed her scent.”
“You can get googly-eyed later,” Jay said. “Let’s go. Or as you like to say, ‘let’s roll.’”
I nodded. “Dante’s in there somewhere. But what about these guys?” I pointed to the vamps.
“We leave them,” Jay said. “They’re criminals.”
“Yeah. I know, but—”
“Don’t get all nursy on me,” Jay said.
“But I’m supposed to help people.”
“Your boyfriend most likely did this. They’re not on our side, Sis.”
“Fine. Let’s go.” I reached toward the door.
“Nope, me first,” River said, gently pushing me out of the way. His hand was on his holster. “You in the middle. Jay in back.”
I nodded and followed River through the doorway.
The hallways looked the same, white and sterile. Perhaps this was another part of the hospital. I listened intently. Were Patty and the baby here?
We walked silently down the corridor, but we didn’t meet anyone. No staff milling around. Nothing.
River led us, sniffing. “She’s here. This way.”
We headed down another hallway toward a doorway.
“In there,” River said. He walked to a door and pushed it open.
“Hey! This is a sterile environment. Get out of here!”
I recognized that voice. I pushed my way past River and faced the man in the white coat and hospital mask. “Logan?”
And in a hospital bed, unconscious and battered was—
“Oh my God! Lucy!”
“She needs a transfusion. Someone is supposed to bring me blood.”
“Who?”
“Her runners.”
The vampires. The vampires who were unconscious on the other side of the steel door. Did they have packs? I couldn’t remember.
“Take mine. I have her same type. B positive.”
“I do too,” Jay said.
“That’s not protocol. Blood has to be tested and—”
“For God’s sake, Logan. Is any of this protocol? I don’t have hepatitis or HIV. I promise.”
“I don’t either,” Jay echoed.
“I don’t have the equip—” He turned abruptly. “Doctor.”
Dr. Bonneville stood in the doorway of the room.
Chills of fear swept through me, and both Jay and River stepped in front of me.
“Where’s my father, you bitch?” River demanded.
Bonneville entered, ignoring River and seemingly unconcerned about our presence. “How is our patient, Dr. Crown?”
“She needs the transfusion. Soon.”
“The blood hasn’t been delivered?”
“Does it look like it’s been delivered?”
I couldn’t help a slight smile. I was glad he got rude with her. “Dr. Bonneville—” I began.
She whisked past me, ignoring me. “Get these people out of here. This patient needs quiet.”
“Where’s Dante?” I demanded.
“Where’s my father?” River demanded again.
“Get them out of here,” Bonneville said again to Logan.
Logan turned toward us. “You heard her.”
River stalked forward. “Oh, think again.” He approached Lucy’s bedside. “What have they done to you, sweetheart?”
I gulped. Lucy’s face was bruised, her eyes closed and puffy. Lacerations etched the swollen contours of her cheekbones and jawline. A wound on her neck was bandaged, and the rest of her body was
covered by the white sheet of her bed.
“Who the fuck did this to her?” River’s fangs were long and sharp.
Dr. Bonneville ignored him. “Get them out of here.”
Logan’s face paled. “He’s a…”
This time, Dr. Bonneville bared her fangs.
And I gulped.
I’d seen her like this before, only I hadn’t remembered. But seeing her…her cuspids so thin and long and sharp, so different from Dante’s. The images came hurtling into my head.
“You. I knew it was you.”
“Yes, Erin. Your blood is delicious. I couldn’t help myself. Blah, blah, blah. You won’t remember any of this anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
“I’ll remember it, bitch,” River said, holding Lucy’s pale hand.
“Actually, you won’t,” Bonneville said. “Do you think I’d even allow you in this place if I thought you’d have any recollection at all?”
“Dante remembered,” River said. “So did his father.”
Bonneville smiled, her fangs a strange contrast to the saccharine oozing from her lips. “Dante remembered only what I allowed him to remember. He needed to remember enough to return to me, and now he has.”
“Dante is—”
“Shut up, Erin!” she growled. “And before I need to say it again, the rest of you shut up as well. This patient needs blood.” She looked at Jay. “You. Come here.”
“I don’t think so,” Jay said.
“I need your blood for this patient. Sit down in that chair. Dr. Crown, take a unit of blood from that human.” She sniffed. “He’s B positive.”
“No!”
Jay gestured for me to be quiet. “I’ll be fine. Lucy needs the blood. You know that yourself.”
“Doctor,” Logan said, “this isn’t protocol—”
“We don’t have time for protocol. She needs blood now.”
“I’ll go back to the blood bank and get some blood,” River said. “It will take less time than taking blood from Jay and then transfusing it.”
“Go ahead,” Bonneville said. “We’ll be done here before you’re back. I have sophisticated equipment here, things most doctors don’t have access to.”
“That’s bullshit—” River’s eyes glazed over.
I shot my brow upward. “Did you just glamour him? A vampire?”
“Your boyfriend has educated you well, Erin. You believe vampires can’t glamour other vampires. Most can’t. I’m not most, however.”
“But Dante—” I stopped. Dante was remembering. Every day he remembered more and more. Did she know that? She must. She knew he’d come back, apparently.
Jay had taken a seat, and Logan was checking his blood pressure.
“No time for that,” Bonneville snapped.
“But if his—”
“I said no time!”
Logan’s eyes went glassy, and he swabbed off the crease in Jay’s elbow. Jay closed his eyes and went rigid when Logan inserted the needle into his vein.
Jay went white. Was he afraid of the needle? No, it was already inside his skin. Was he glamoured?
He shook his head slightly at me.
No. Not glamoured. I wasn’t glamoured either, which was odd.
But River…
River was the only one who could protect us, and he was incapacitated.
“Doctor,” I said, “why are you playing with Lucy’s life like this? River could have gotten B positive blood from the bank a lot faster than this.”
“Erin, did I ask for your opinion?”
Then it hit me, what she was truly up to. “Oh my God! You want Lucy to die!”
“I’m a physician, for God’s sake. I don’t want anyone to die.”
“You’re lying. I always defended you in the ER. But the others. They were right. You do want her to die! Why?”
“Shut up!” Her voice came out in a ferocious growl.
“Where’s Dante?”
“Erin, you’re a smart girl. What part of ‘shut up’ don’t you understand?”
“You know everything, don’t you? You tried to get me pregnant with Dante’s baby. You’re trying to— Oh my God. That’s why you took Emilia. That’s why you took— You’re trying to produce vampire children by mating vampires and humans. Admit it, Doctor. Admit it!”
“I’m sure your boyfriend has told you that a vampire child from mating a vampire and a human is impossible.”
“That’s what you’re doing here. What Levi Gaston tried to do but failed. But why would you take Lucy? I don’t underst—”
“Levi Gaston was an old fool.”
“He was a genetics researcher.”
“And an alchemist. Alchemy is not science. It’s voodoo.”
I opened my mouth to shout out my defense of voodoo, because of Bea, but quickly shut it. Not a good time, when Bea had allowed Julian access to all the shielded portions of this hellish place. Bonneville didn’t need to know that.
“Something about females with B positive blood. You’ve been stealing blood from our hospital and having your thugs steal more of it. And the drugs, and the—” I regarded Logan. “The lithium. You’re using it to control Logan somehow, because he’s descended from a vampire.”
“Erin, you’re in way over your head here, and I could take you out with a swipe of my hand.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
“I have my reasons, and you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I may not, but I know you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing. You’re imprisoning people. You’re killing peo—”
“I am not a killer!” Her voice morphed into a monstrously low volume. “I’m saving this little bitch’s life, and she’s been nothing but a thorn in my side since she was brought here.”
“Then why did you bring her here? If you’re trying to produce vampires, why on earth did you take Lucy?”
“She was figuring out too much.”
My mouth dropped open. Was Bonneville telling the truth? And if so, why would she admit it to me?
“You’re trying to kill her. We could have gotten the blood sooner, and now—”
“I am not a killer!”
“Don’t believe her, Erin.”
Dante’s voice.
My heart leaped as I turned. He stood in the doorway, large and magnificent.
“She’s very much a killer.”
Chapter Twenty
Dante
Rage whirled through me, and my teeth, already descended, lengthened and sharpened with a painful snap.
“Move away from her,” I said to her, motioning to Lucy.
Logan Crown was catatonic next to Jay, who was sitting in a chair getting blood taken. I handed the cooler to Logan. “I have the blood she needs. Get it into her. Now.”
His glamour released. I wasn’t sure how I did it, but clearly I had. Then I turned to her. “What did you do to River?”
“Something you’ll never replicate.”
Anger pulsed through me with a roar. “Release him. Now.”
“Or what?”
I lunged toward her, but River snapped out of his glamour and caught me. “Don’t, Dante. Lucy might need her.”
I inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, cooling myself off. Lucy. I didn’t trust Bonneville anywhere near Lucy, but she was the priority at the moment. I turned to Logan Crown. “Get her transfused. Now.”
He nodded. Erin rushed to help him. Within a few minutes, Lucy was hooked up and the lifesaving blood was trickling into her vein.
I inhaled again.
Only Erin’s scent in this room, despite the fact that Lucy, Jay, and the transfused blood were all here.
Still, I smelled only Erin. The blood bond.
I snarled at Bonneville. “If Lucy dies, her blood is on your hands.”
“I am not a killer,” she said again through clenched teeth.
“Keep saying that, and maybe you’ll believe it yourself. I never will.”
I knew, now, that she w
as a killer. I’d seen evidence with my own eyes. Evidence I could never forget. Evidence I had to eventually share with River, Erin, and Jay.
How could I? What I’d seen would break them. All of them. And though I hadn’t killed, I’d reaped the benefit.
“How long will the transfusion take?” River asked Erin.
“It can take anywhere from one to four hours,” she said. “I’m not leaving her.”
“I’m afraid you are,” Bonneville said.
I threw a lasso of anger toward her, and her eyes widened. She didn’t move. She couldn’t move.
“They’re not going anywhere,” I said, clenching my teeth.
Bonneville’s mouth dropped open, but nothing came out.
River looked to Jay still sitting in the chair. “You okay, partner?”
“Yeah. I’ve given blood before.”
“Get something out of your pack to eat, and drink some water,” Erin said. “You need it.”
Jay nodded and opened his pack.
She stood quietly, immobile. I was between her and the door.
“You put Lucy in that fighting pit with a vampire,” I said.
“She was trained.”
“Trained? In a day?”
“She was adequately prepared.”
“You wanted to kill her.”
“I am not—”
“Spare me. You used Erin and River as leverage to keep her from shifting, and you dropped her in the arena with one of your thugs. Just because you don’t pull the trigger doesn’t make you any less a killer.”
“Think before you accuse, Dante. You’ve done some heinous things yourself. Or do you not remember?”
How many fights had there been? I’d lost count. I’d never kept count. As soon as I left the arena, all I wanted to do was forget what I’d been forced to do.
No.
What I’d done.
Yes, I’d been forced to do it.
But in the end, I had done it. I could have stopped. I could have let her kill me. That would have ended the madness.
My will to survive was strong, stronger than my desire to end what she was forcing me to do.
Dad! I cried out in my head. Where are you? Why didn’t you come for me? Why didn’t you find me? She’s forced me to do heinous things. Things I can’t even remember. Things I don’t want to remember.
