I grimaced. “I’m not in the mood to play mind games. “
“No games, just the truth,” he responded. He took another step toward me.
“There is an entire room of vampires between you and your way out of here. If they catch you having done this … what do you think is going to happen to you?”
I adjusted the stake in my hands, still pointed at him. “So you aren’t going to curse me or swear vengeance for your friend?”
Mill spared the body a short glance. “He was no friend of mine.”
“Really?” I asked. “You looked pretty chummy to me. “
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to live in a world of heartless indifference? To live among a people who kill without conscience, without care? Who feed like locusts on human beings? Whose loyalty is so fickle, so transitory that the alliances change every month or so?” Mill’s gaze burned with intensity. “There can be no friends in this society; only allies of convenience.” He gave the black puddle that was Theo one last look.
Glancing back at the doors, he said, “I’ll guide you back through the room before anyone can come out here and find this. We should hurry, though.”
Right. The fact that so much had gone on, that there had been so much noise, and no one had heard and come investigating—was fortunate. My luck couldn’t hold forever though.
Mill was offering me an exit—
But then, just ten minutes ago he’d been running like Theo’s wingman.
“You don’t have much time to make a decision,” Mill said. “So you’d better come to it quick.”
I glanced back toward the balcony, out over the city sprawled out before me. It was so beautiful.
If Mill was lying, it was likely I was going to die this night, whether by my own hand or by someone else’s.
Which meant I didn’t really have a choice.
“How are you going to get me through there?” I flicked the stake toward the door.
“The same way you came in—casually.”
“So we just walk right out. Like nothing happened?”
“Yes,” he said, “it’s that simple. Act like you belong, like nothing has happened.”
I glared at him. “You know I can’t believe a word you are saying, right?”
Mill sighed. “If you want to get out of here alive, I’d suggest you try.”
A sound from instead made me turn. Talking, drifting out as someone or someones passed close by the doors—then a tinkle of laughter.
It faded.
Still safe.
Mill said, “You better make up your mind soon.”
I really didn’t have a choice. I had to trust him. He was quickly becoming the only chance I had of possibly getting out of here alive.
And I hated it.
I harbored a dark suspicion that he was going to turn on me as soon as we were inside and I was surrounded by the blood sucking freaks. He was going to lull me into an even more false sense of security than Theo had by trying to be my friend, and then abandon me, or bite me right then and there. It would be certain death.
But it was my only way out. So: “Okay,” I said reluctantly. “What do we do?”
“First, you have to put that stake away.”
I laughed hoarsely. “Yeah, right.”
“I don’t mean out of reach,” Mill said. “Just out of sight. Do you want to walk into a room full of vampires carrying a stake? Because it’s a little like walking into a human party carrying a knife.”
I stared at the stake, then back at him.
I slid it into my messy bun up on top of my head, so it would be easy to reach.
Mill nodded, then gestured at the door. “Come on.”
Hesitantly, I approached. My legs felt like they’d gone to jelly—but they took me.
When I was within Mill’s reach, I stopped.
He didn’t try to grab me—and so, with bated breath, I moved closer still.
He pulled the door open, and immediately he snaked his arm around my waist.
I nearly back-handed him, but he pushed me gently inside.
The music was louder than I remembered, and I could hardly hear Mill when he leaned closer to me and murmured in my ear.
“Pretend we were just having a drink and a laugh outside. Now, laugh quietly, like I just said something funny. “
I surprised myself when I obeyed. It sounded way more nervous than flirtatious, but I think I made my point. Another lie, and they were coming easier all the time.
I had half-expected everyone to look at us when we walked back in, but no one noticed. It didn’t make sense. I’d just murdered a vampire outside, wore the murder weapon in my hair, and had his blood smeared all over my jeans, with traces on my face and under my fingernails. How could any of them not see this?
Maybe they weren’t as cunning as I thought they were.
Mill took the long way around the room, away from most of the other vampires, and toward the glass stairs. My knees trembled. I hoped they wouldn’t give me away.
“Nice idea on the stake, by the way,” he murmured, “putting it in your hair like that.”
“Not too obvious?” I said, the venom loud and clear in my tone.
Mill laughed quietly, and put his hand on my shoulder, drawing me closer to him.
“Acting like you have something to hide is the surest way to be found out. Putting it in plain sight and walking confidently? It practically guarantees that no one will challenge you.”
Another couple was walking up the stairs as we descended. The woman was devastatingly beautiful, with dark eyes and platinum blond hair, long, flowing and perfect. The man she walked in front of was just as gorgeous, with dark eyes and ebony hair.
Xandra was right. Everything about them was meant to draw humans in.
But I could clearly see them all for what they were when they smiled, baring their pointed teeth—monsters.
“I suppose it’s a good thing,” Mill said when we were on the bottom floor. The lights from the dance floor washed over his face one second, and then plunged him into darkness the next. “That the way you kill vampires is common knowledge, I mean.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
I could see the elevator. It was right there, on the other side of the rounded room. It was so close I was almost in tears. Just a few more seconds.
“You knew exactly where to stake Theo,” Mill said, even more quietly. He was walking behind me, bending closer to speak in my ear.
“Like you said, it’s well known,” I said, pretending like it hadn’t been a lucky guess informed by over a century of pop culture. “Like sunlight … right?”
Mill nodded, a fake smile on his face. He was trying to keep up appearances. So I smiled too. To anyone else, we were having a perfectly pleasantly conversation.
“Fire?”
He nodded again.
I grinned, for real this time, in spite of myself. This was helping. “Garlic?”
“Speaking for myself, yes, I am repulsed by garlic. But not because it can hurt me,” he added when he saw the smirk on my face. “I just think it reeks. Most vamps would still bite you anyway.”
Now I understood why Byron thought it was so funny that I had strewn garlic all over my kitchen.
We made our way through a particularly dense group, who parted relatively easily. They were too immersed in the music to really pay us much mind.
And then we were at the elevator. Freedom—or the confined, steel room when Mill would finish me off, alone, in a space so small I’d never even have a hope of yanking the stake from my hair in time. I would be dead before we reached the first floor.
Mill reached out and pressed the button for the lobby, and I watched with desperation as it bloomed into bright life.
So close …!
Maybe I could distract Mill somehow and get in the elevator and close the door before he could get inside.
“Now, now, are you truly leaving without introducing yourself first?”
>
The voice flooded my veins with ice cold horror. I swallowed hard and forced myself to remember that I was pretending to be one of them. I couldn’t let my guard down.
Maybe the blood draining from my face would work in my favor.
I turned around to face none other than Lord Draven himself, smiling at the both of us, his fangs evident and menacing.
Chapter 21
“Lord Draven,” Mill said, inclining his head. There was a small smile on his face, and I was incredibly surprised to see that he was calm.
I, however, was anything but. So I bowed my head a little too to hide my freaking out.
“My apologies,” Mill continued. “I was unaware that you had not yet been introduced.”
His tone was even, and I was amazed. Was he being serious? No, he couldn’t be. If he was trying to help me, then why would he even pretend to want to introduce me to the oldest and probably most powerful vampire here?
This was it, then. The betrayal I had known was coming all along.
I forced a tight-lipped smile onto my stubborn face as I looked at the old vampire.
Somehow, it came surprisingly naturally.
Distinctly more gothic than his cohorts—or minions, or whatever the partygoers were—Lord Draven looked even less human up close. Dark, black veins snaked across his temples and forehead like marble. A chill seemed to emanate from his very being.
Mill gestured to me formally. “This is Elizabeth. She’s from New York, but not from the city,” he added, just as I had, with a smirk on his face.
Lord Draven, whose fingertips were together, nodded his head, his eyes fixed on my face.
They looked like a snake’s, cold and dead. Black and beady and calculating. Little black veins even crossed the white of his eyes.
I suppressed a shudder.
“I had a cousin from there once, before there even was a place called The City. Human, of course.” His expression did not change. “I assume he died like the rest of them.”
I swallowed hard.
“So, Elizabeth, are you here to mount a takeover of the territory?”
I blanched. Mill seemed to be caught off guard as well.
I shook my head, stayed frigidly cool, and said, “Not yet.”
Why did I say that? Was I a complete moron?
No, I was trying to play the field. If I was going to pretend to be a vampire, then I would need to act the part—and that meant I had to flex.
Lord Draven’s face split into a wide grin, and then he threw back his head, and laughed, a draconic, unnatural sound that hurt my ears. But I kept my smile plastered on—even laughed with him, at a glance from Mill, chuckling politely.
Lord Draven grinned at me. “I like you, Miss Elizabeth. Not everyone would have had the sheer nerve to say that to me.” He seemed to take me in with a long, appraising look, before he nodded his head once in satisfaction. “You are welcome here in our community any time you like.”
“Thank you, Lord Draven,” I answered, and bowed my head again. I had never been so formal with anyone in my life, but when the stakes for being informal involved being potentially found and devoured by bloodsucking vampires, I got really polite, really fast.
“Have a good evening, you two. Oh, and Mill?”
Mill perked up at his name.
“Do make sure you tell Theo that I heard about that girl on Thirteenth Street, and that I do not approve of his reckless attacks. If he proceeds to act like a wild animal running the streets, I will see he ends his days like one.”
“Understood, sir,” Mill said, expression giving away nothing of what had occurred on the balcony—that Theo was no more.
“Very good.” And with that, Lord Draven turned and walked away and faded back into the crowd.
If I hadn’t had the elevator right behind me—and been surrounded by vampires who could probably smell weakness—I would have slumped against the wall in sheer relief.
I had dodged death’s cold embrace far too many times to be considered lucky tonight.
No, I was past that.
I was a walking miracle by now.
I restrained myself as much as I could from diving into the elevator. I pressed myself as flat as I could against the back wall. Mill lumbered in behind me and pressed the button for the lobby. The doors remained open, waiting for any last-moment passengers … then they glided closed.
I could have shouted with joy when we started to move.
We were halfway to the bottom when Mill cleared his throat.
“Need a cough drop?” I asked.
He barely glanced over his shoulder and snorted with laughter. “I’ll pass.”
Down, down … then the elevator stopped, there was a genial ding, and the doors slid open.
Mill extended his elbow to me.
I looked at it, and then back up at him. Really?
He looked meaningfully at his arm, and then raised his eyebrows.
Ever so slowly, my eyes never leaving his, I slid my arm up through his elbow and allowed him to lead me out of the elevator.
Thirty plus stories—and he hadn’t attacked me. Hadn’t touched me. Hell, he’d barely even looked at me, except for my remark about the cough drop. It floored me.
I almost started to believe his line about that ten percent he counted himself among.
The lobby was full of vampires as we stepped out, mingling and laughing quietly. It was a totally different feel down here, much more subdued and relaxed. Many still held crystal flutes in their hands, the red blood inside of them far more evident in the light of the gold and glass chandeliers overhead than it had been upstairs in the dark.
Only a few spared us a look, and we were able to cross to the tall glass doors with ease.
“What time is it?” I asked as we drew closer to the windows.
“Just after two,” Mill replied quietly. He stepped ahead of me and pushed the door open, standing aside to let me pass.
It was almost flattering to be treated like a lady. But I knew better. This was an act on both our parts.
The air outside was still cool, and I was grateful for the breeze on my hot cheeks, in a way I had never been, even after Byron’s attempted assault on the bunker Xandra and I had locked ourselves inside.
I was alive.
Alive, damn it.
A number of limos were parked along the curb, most of them with their engines running.
The same tall, green-eyed chauffeur who had brought me to the party stood waiting by the third limo from the door. He smiled when he saw me and lifted a hand to signal me over.
“That yours?” Mill asked, and I nodded. With me still hanging off of his arm, he started over to the green-eyed chauffeur.
I wondered again whether the driver was a human or a vampire. If he was a vampire, it was impossible to tell. He opened the door to the back of the limo and motioned with his hand for me to climb inside.
Mill lowered his arm, and I withdrew my hand from the crook of his elbow. I didn’t wait for a further invitation to get inside the car.
As soon as I was inside, the chauffeur closed the door. Mill was standing there, his hands now in his pockets, and I got my first proper look at him in the light.
Out of the dark and dank room upstairs, I could see that he must have been pretty good-looking when he was a human. The strong, silent type. He had broad shoulders, was very tall, and dressed smartly in a black button-up and dark jeans. He wore shoes that were probably more expensive than my parents’ car, but he didn’t look any older than nineteen or twenty.
His hair, which was closely cut to his head, like he’d been in the military in life. His jaw was wide and prominent.
I had a thing for men with strong jaws.
I rolled down the window, but he didn’t move.
I didn’t really either, because I didn’t know what exactly to say.
“I’m sorry this all happened to you,” Mill said quietly.
I could only stare up at him. He was sorry? I�
�d put a stake in his wingman’s heart.
“I had no idea that Theo would do that. I leave him for two minutes …” He trailed off, his eyes on the cracked pavement beneath his feet.
Still I didn’t know how to reply. I was still terrified about everything, yet Mill had done as he had said he would, and gotten me out of that party alive.
And he was apologizing after I was the one who had killed his friend.
Killed. Murdered. Normally, I’d be looking at a life sentence in prison for what I had done, but I knew that society would thank me from removing even one of those vile creatures from the face of the Earth.
Even so, even knowing that he wasn’t really a man, I felt the bubbling in my stomach, heralding extreme revulsion and guilt for my actions. I had seen the remains of his body for myself, felt the hot, sticky muck with my own hands. But that image would be forever seared onto my brain, a memory that would likely haunt me for the rest of my living days.
And all of this pointed back to Byron. The party, the stake, meeting Lord Draven … I’d done it all to rid myself of vampires. But in doing so, I felt like I was only getting deeper into it all.
Mill was looking at me again, with those same intense eyes as when I had first been introduced to him. But the gaze wasn’t threatening, I realized. Just … thoughtful.
And he had showed me kindness, when he could have just as easily been just like Theo.
“Thank you,” I managed to say. I hoped he knew that I was thanking him for a lot more than just getting me to the limo.
He pulled something from the pocket of his jeans and thrust it in the window at me.
I held out my hand, and a small, cylindrical glass vial, capped with a cork and tied with a red ribbon, fell into my hands. It was no bigger than my palm. A clear liquid that moved just like water splashed against the glass sides, not even enough for a swallow.
“What is it?” I asked, but when I looked up, Mill was already at the glass doors, heading back into the lobby. Only for a moment did he pause, looking back at my limo, at me … and then he was gone.
Frowning lightly at the glass vial, I closed my hand around it and leaned back in my seat as the limo began to move. Subconsciously, I reached up and checked to make sure that the wooden stake was still there, and I couldn’t decide whether it was because I was worried that I might get attacked again … or because it had changed me, made me different, somehow, than when I’d gotten in this limo the first time.
No One Will Believe You Page 12
