21
MY GRIP TIGHTENED ON THE JAR CONTAINING MATTHIAS’S heart and I felt frozen in place, afraid of failing and afraid of dying.
Nothing new there.
I left the room and retraced my steps, keeping close to the wall and freezing whenever I heard a sound. I figured even the vampires had to be headed for bed by now. Sunrise couldn’t be that far off.
I quickly crept down the stairs to the basement, then pulled up the trapdoor.
“Hey, where are you going?” a familiar voice said.
I nearly dropped the jar when I jumped. I whipped around to see Noah looking at me sheepishly. “Sorry, did I scare you?”
I tensed. “Why are you following me?”
“Caught a whiff in the hallway, figured it was you.” He grimaced and crossed his arms tightly over his T-shirt. “You know, the more I expose myself to it, the easier it is to resist. And by easier I mean fractionally not as difficult. Still, the scent of the Nightshade seems to trigger my saliva glands like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. It’s very interesting, actually.” His gaze moved to the jar. “Is that a human heart you’ve got there?”
Being near Noah didn’t set my mind at ease. It got my back up now that I wasn’t sure about vampires again. I wouldn’t recover from Declan’s act in front of his father for a while. But it was an act just to fool him, to keep Kristoff from realizing Declan was still helping me. He’d been trying to avoid a direct order that he wouldn’t have been able to ignore.
Maybe the stronger the vampire that made you, the more control you had. Weaker vampires sired weaker fledglings that had the most problems with control—the ones who couldn’t help themselves when they were near me, like the guard. Like several others I’d come across since meeting the syringe full of Nightshade.
It was a theory. And according to this theory, Noah should be one of the stronger ones, like Declan was. Only Declan had a better head start being a dhampyr to begin with. He’d already been halfway there.
“Uh, the heart?” Noah said. “Is there an answer or are you just wandering around looking for Frankenstein’s lab?”
I looked at the organ. It was hard to believe it was over four hundred years old, but I was no expert. “It’s Matthias’s.”
Noah blinked. “Never seen a vampire’s heart. Shouldn’t it be ash by now?” His face whitened. “Matthias is immortal. Holy shit, he’s still alive without that in his chest. He must be in agony right now.”
“And that brings you up to speed on the exciting night I’ve had.”
Noah whistled. “Damn. Remind me not to drink any baby’s blood in any secret-society rituals.”
I eyed him. “If I need to remind you about something like that I think we have a serious problem.”
“Good point. So, need some help?”
I glanced behind us at the empty basement, not nearly ready to let my guard down yet. “So they just let you wander around freely?”
“Are you kidding? I slipped out of the room they’d locked me in and I was about to take off, but I felt all guilty about leaving everyone behind. And there you were, lurking around in the basement.” He glanced at the rope ladder. “So what are we waiting for? Let’s go shove that bloody thing back in his chest.”
Sounded about right to me.
If I thought climbing the rope ladder was difficult before, I hadn’t tried it while carrying something breakable. I ended up shoving the jar down the front of my dress and praying that it wouldn’t fall out. I went down the ladder so quickly that I burned my hands on the rope, but I touched down to solid ground with everything intact. Noah made it down easily as if he’d climbed rope ladders all of his life.
“This way.” I started heading left along the humid, musty underground tunnels until I finally came to the green metal door that was slightly ajar after Declan had broken it off its hinges. “Here it is.”
I half expected someone to stop us. After all, Kristoff and some of his men knew where we’d been before, knew that we’d seen Matthias in his makeshift coffin. But after Declan’s “betrayal,” and my being thrown into a locked room, it was likely that Kristoff thought I was safely and soundly tucked away for the rest of the night.
While Noah seemed able to be around me without digging his fangs into my skin, he didn’t try to get too close, keeping several feet of air between us at all times.
“Open it up,” I told him, and he pushed up the lid of the coffin after undoing the broken padlock. Even in the near darkness of the room that was lit by only one bare lightbulb, Matthias looked so pale he nearly glowed in the dark.
I felt immediately relieved that he was still alive. Despite the promise of immortality, I wasn’t sure. “See? I told you I’d be back.”
He just stared up at me. I felt wearier than I had before, which told me he was pulling energy from me to stay conscious. If he passed out, I figured there would have to be a full awakening like what had been done with Kristoff. Matthias said it had involved the blood of a dozen human sacrifices. I’d really like to avoid that at all costs for too many reasons to list.
“Are you trained in first aid?” Noah asked nervously, looking around the empty room and ending at Matthias’s pale and sickly form.
I shook my head. “Afraid not. You?”
“A little. But this is your show, Jill. I’m not going near that heart. It disturbs me how delicious it looks.”
I cringed. “That is disturbing.”
“Should you wash your hands first?”
“With what?”
“Right. That’s another excellent point. This place isn’t decked out with a full commode, is it?”
I didn’t exactly have a game plan here. Matthias must have seen the trepidation in my gaze.
“It’s . . . okay . . .” His voice was so quiet I barely heard it.
I felt weak suddenly with the prospect of what I had to do. “There’s nothing okay about this. This is going to hurt you, and I don’t even know if it’ll work. Plus, I think I might throw up.”
His forehead was creased and he let out a small sound that may have been a laugh.
I glared at him. “This isn’t even remotely funny.”
“You’ll . . . be fine. Just . . .” He paused and swallowed thickly. “Take it . . . shove it into my chest . . .”
Shove the vampire’s severed heart into his bloody chest. This wasn’t happening. This was a horror movie I’d fallen into and couldn’t get out of.
“What do you want me to do?” Noah asked.
I tried to breathe. “Catch me if I pass out.”
“Will do.”
I unscrewed the lid of the jar and placed it on the ground. Then I forced myself to reach into the glass container and wrap my fingers around the cool, slippery heart. My own heart beat so wildly in my chest it made me dizzy. Matthias’s heart didn’t currently beat. It felt cold and dead, like meat you might buy from the deli section of the grocery store.
I faltered. Maybe I couldn’t do this. I’d failed biology in high school and never dreamed about being a nurse or a doctor when I grew up. This was a million miles outside of my comfort zone. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then . . . do it . . . quickly.”
I nodded. “Uh, Noah?”
“Yeah.”
“Which way is up?”
He drew a bit closer. “You have it upside down.”
“Okay.” I adjusted it.
I gripped it tightly and pushed apart Matthias’s bloody ruined shirt so I could clearly see the gaping wound in his chest. I gagged. Couldn’t help it. If nothing else, at least it hadn’t healed over yet. That would have meant I would have had to cut him open again.
Not a good thought. None of this was good. But if it worked, then it was worth it. I’d chalk the inevitable nightmares up to a successful learning experience.
I looked in his pale eyes, this vampire who’d claimed me so he could use my blood to destroy his brother. His brother who’d tried to gain vengeance on him by tearing out his heart and locking him away in a coffin to let him suffer.
He’d saved my life. I wasn’t saving his—he’d live even if his heart was destroyed. But this wasn’t living.
My soul mate. The other end of my metaphysical rope. The leech on my energy. The reason I wasn’t going to die because of the Nightshade.
“Do it . . .” Matthias whispered.
Before I could second-guess myself, I shoved the heart into his chest.
He arched his back and cried out in pain as my hand disappeared deep into his flesh and up under his rib cage where the original wound had been.
I gagged again at the feel of the inside of Matthias’s body. Vampires were warmer on the inside than I would have expected. Not regular human body temperature, but warmer than room temperature. I forced the heart in as far as it could go, then pulled my hand out. It made a disgusting, wet smacking sound.
I tried not to think. I pressed down on the wound that started to ooze blood again. My right hand and arm were now red and slick with blood up to my elbow.
“Okay, I’m a vampire now, and that was still pretty f*cking gross to watch,” Noah said, the disgust naked in his voice. “Wow.”
Matthias writhed under my touch, his face contorted with pain.
“Shit, Noah—” I’d begun to feel more panicky with every passing moment. “I don’t think it’s working. He’s not healing.”
I heard a creak and my head whipped in the direction of the door expecting to see we’d been discovered and Kristoff’s men would drag me away from Matthias before he’d recovered.
Jade peered in at us. She wore a long blue dress printed with sunflowers and her red hair was back in a ponytail.
Relief mixed with annoyance. The last thing I needed to deal with right now was an insane dhampyr. She entered a little more, her gaze moving over each of us in turn and ending with Matthias. By the look on her face, I knew she recognized him. He was the vampire who’d forced her to give him blood to help heal his internal damage from drinking my blood. The same vampire she’d been forced to feed earlier tonight when he’d been staked.
It had helped him both times. Her blood healed. My blood killed.
Life and death, Jade and me were. Like two sides of a coin.
“Jade,” I whispered fiercely. “What are you doing down here?”
Her expression was distant but there was concern there. “He’s evil, you know. And there is so much blood. An ocean to wade in and a sunrise beyond. It scares me.”
I frowned. “Who’s evil?”
“The man who looks like this one.” She nodded at Matthias. “He wants to kill my baby.”
“Your baby.” I remembered what Isaiah said before he was killed, that Jade had a child who died years ago, which was likely why she fixated on the child vampire Patricia so much. “Do you mean . . . Sara?”
She nodded. “Yes, my baby. How could anyone want to hurt her?”
“Who wants to hurt her?” Kristoff said she wasn’t in danger. I wasn’t surprised he’d lied about that, too. I kept my hands pressed firmly against Matthias’s bleeding chest. He suffered in silence now, but I knew the pain hadn’t lessened for him. I blamed that knowledge on our brand-new bond.
Jade leaned against the doorframe. “I heard the blond man talking on the telephone. He said they could have her and use her blood however they wanted. He told them to come immediately to take her away. Amore, amar—”
“Amarantos,” I finished for her, stunned. “He said he’s going to give Sara to the Amarantos?”
“I don’t want Sara to be hurt.” Tears streaked down her cheeks.
My head hurt as I thought it through as quickly as I could. “Do you know how you can save your baby, Jade?”
“How?” she asked eagerly, drawing closer to me.
“You need to give Matthias some of your blood. He can stop Kristoff.”
She looked down at the badly injured vampire. “He can?”
I nodded. “I swear he can. If you can help him, he can help Sara. I promise.”
It wasn’t a lie. I believed Matthias had the motivation and the ability to stop his brother. However, I didn’t know for sure that he’d be successful, especially not after going through all of this.
Jade frowned deeply. “They all drink from me. I should be used to it, I suppose, but I never am. It hurts so much. They give me gifts and let me ride on the Ferris wheel, but it doesn’t make it better.”
Maybe her insanity was a blessing more than a curse. It helped her escape into a world where her baby was still alive and all was well with the world of amusement-park rides and family dinners. “I’m sorry.”
I eyed Matthias with deepening concern. He looked close to death, struggling to breathe, struggling to deal with whatever pain he felt right now. And the only relief I could get for him was in the form of a crazy dhampyr with some major maternal instincts.
There wasn’t enough time to try to convince Jade to help the easy way. The hard way would have to do. “Do you want to help Sara or do you want her to die a horrible death at the hands of greedy, child-killing monsters?”
She visibly flinched.
“They’ll tear her apart, drink her blood, and throw her tiny body away like garbage.” I forced the words out, twisting like a knife to get the reaction I needed. “Is that what you want? Or do you want her to live?”
She drew in a shaky breath. “I want my baby to live.”
“Then give Matthias your blood now, Jade. Now.”
She stared at me in silence for so long I was sure she was going to run away. I’d been too harsh. Pushed too hard.
But instead, she nodded.
I held my breath as she moved closer to the coffin and extended her arm over Matthias’s mouth.
“Drink from me,” she said.
His pained gaze flicked to mine for a moment, before he slowly reached up to grip her arm and brought it to his lips. I saw her wince as he bit into her wrist and the slide of red blood down the corner of his mouth as he began to feed, his eyes blackening, and hunger branched along his cheeks.
Noah watched with rapt attention. “Damn, I’m so thirsty right now.”
It was as if all of my coiled up energy disappeared and I stumbled backward until I felt the solid stone wall behind me. It helped to keep me on my feet. I didn’t think it had anything to do with Matthias and my bond this time. I’d just been so tense for so long that something had to give. What gave was my ability to keep myself upright at the moment. I wiped my right hand and arm off on the skirt of the black dress I wore until only my fingernails were stained with Matthias’s blood.
Matthias fed for a while. Finally Jade staggered back a few steps and sat down on the floor, holding her arm to her chest. She looked at me and I hated to see the pain and confusion on her pale face, but I wasn’t sorry I got her to agree to this. I pushed away from the wall and went to Matthias’s side. His eyes were closed and there was blood on his lips. I thought for a moment that it hadn’t worked, but then I looked down at his wound. It was still bloody, but it had begun to heal. I let out an audible sigh of relief.
“Go,” I said to Noah. “Get to the kids upstairs. We’ll be up as soon as we can and then we’re leaving.”
He nodded and helped the dhampyr to her feet. He closed the broken door as best he could behind him.
A couple minutes later Matthias’s eyelids fluttered open and he immediately focused on me. His wound had healed over, although it wasn’t completely gone—a thick, raised pink line remained. Maybe this injury would actually leave a scar this time.
I pressed my hand against his cool forehead. “How are you feeling right now?”
He looked up at me. “I’m improving.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Kristoff ripped out your heart and stuffed you in a coffin.”
“My brother doesn’t forgive easily.”
“No shit.”
He blinked. His eyes had returned to their normal pale gray color. The dark patches under his eyes were fading. “You saved me.”
I couldn’t help but smile a little at that. “If you call stuffing your heart back in your chest and hoping like hell that it worked, then I guess I did.”
“Others would have left me right where I lay.”
“I couldn’t do that.” His intense gaze was making me nervous. “And it has nothing to do with our bond, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I never said it did.”
“Honestly Matthias, you should have told me you were going to do that to me.”
He swallowed, then reached down to touch where his wound had been. “You weren’t well after Declan injected you with the fusing potion. I was certain you’d die.”
“But I didn’t.”
“That’s right, you didn’t.” His meaning was clear. I would have died if he hadn’t claimed me right then and right there.
“I’m not saying I’m sorry you did it. I want to live. But—but maybe you should have saved it and used it on someone who wanted to be bound to you for all eternity. Declan says this makes us soul mates.”
He didn’t reply. I’d take that as a confirmation.
I sighed. “Fabulous. And now I can find you—that’s how I found you down here. I sensed where you were like a rope that ties us together. I’m guessing you can do the same for me.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“It’s a good metaphor—the rope. Your life is tied to mine. You’re still human and can be hurt or killed. But it will take a great deal more effort. You will also be stronger—as strong as a dhampyr. Along with your blood it will be a lethal combination.”
I thought it through. “How can it be reversed?”
“It can’t be.” He didn’t look upset by this, there was the slight glimmer of amusement in his eyes now, which was nothing but infuriating considering the topic of conversation. “I know you’d prefer to be bound to Declan.”
“I’m not sure I want to be bound to anyone. Not this much.”
“He’s a vampire now.”
I gripped the edge of the coffin. “I guess I’m a sucker for men who like the nightlife.”
Matthias was silent for a moment, then he struggled to sit up so we were at eye level to each other. “I can make you forget him if you want.”
I frowned. “What?”
“No other vampire can ever influence you again, except for me. Let me show you. Look at me, Jillian.”
The moment I looked at him everything else suddenly flew away from me. Every stressful thought, every worry, every single problem. There was only Matthias.
He had complete and total power over me.
He’d influenced me before just after I’d first met him. Influenced me into his bed and made me desire him even though I knew on some level that it was wrong and unnatural and not how I truly felt. My emotions weren’t involved then, just my body.
But now everything had changed.
I loved him. I knew for certain that he was the only man I wanted to be with. I’d do anything for him. I craved his touch, his kiss, his caress. I wanted to be at his side forever. In his bed every night.
I touched his face, trying to memorize every feature, every line. My fingers trailed over his cheek, his jaw, his mouth.
“What do you want, Jillian?” he whispered.
“You.” I brushed my lips against his, my hand moving to tangle into his hair.
I needed his body against me, filling me. It was a desperate need that I couldn’t—
Suddenly, the feeling vanished as if I’d just had a bucket of cold water thrown at me.
“See what I mean?” he said, amusement sliding behind his gray eyes.
I slapped him so hard across his face that my hand stung.
“Don’t do that,” I snapped.
He shrugged. “It worked though, didn’t it?”
“It wasn’t real. Stop f*cking with my mind.”
He raised a pale eyebrow. “What’s real? If every one of your senses tells you something is real, then why can’t it be?”
“I’m not in love with you.”
He studied my face. “In the beginning I could only increase the desire you already felt for me, but now it sounds like there are more interesting emotions to play with. Let me know when you want me to make it permanent.”
I tried to slap him again but he caught my wrist.
“I’ll take that as a polite no?” he said.
“You can take it as a hell no.”
Matthias scared me and this was just another example of why. He had too much power over me. If he chose to exert that power again and not take it away, I knew he could make me do whatever he wanted and I’d follow him around happily like an adoring pet. It seemed so real, if only for a moment. That was almost scarier than anything Kristoff could do.
He eased himself out of the coffin. “Enough of this. I’m better now and I need to find my daughter.”
“Nice to know we agree on something.” I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. “And by the way, Matthias? Influence me like that again and next time I’ll rip your heart out myself.”
I could have sworn I saw him grin at me, but I turned my back and exited the room.
Maybe I should have left him locked in the coffin after all.