9
THERE WAS SILENCE AFTER MY REQUEST. FOR A MOMENT, all I could hear was the rapid pounding of my heart.
Matthias’s jaw was clenched. “Noah didn’t ask for this.”
“He can’t ask for this. And he’s going to die any minute if you don’t help him. You said you owed me, and this is all I want.”
He looked down at Noah. “This is exactly what I’ve avoided, making more of my kind. I’ve only sired a handful of fledglings in four hundred years. A vampire in their early days is difficult to control and their newfound power can go to their heads. Their thirst can overwhelm them. Already weakened like this, he might not survive it. He might be better off if you just let him die.”
My stomach felt like it was tied into knots. “Are you saying you won’t do it?”
“Are you sure of this, Jillian? I warn you, the results may not be what you’re hoping for.”
I sniffed and ran my hand under my nose. “In a choice between life and death, I choose life. For myself and for the people I consider family. Noah’s one of them. So yes, I’m sure.”
He nodded. “Then wait for me outside.”
My eyes widened. “You’re going to do it?”
“Yes. Now go before I change my mind.”
At that moment I was certain right down to my core that this was the right decision. I cared deeply for Noah and I wanted him to live. I remembered what Meyers had said in the motel parking lot. He’d wanted to be sired by a king so he’d be strong. Matthias was a former king. That was good enough for me.
Noah would be strong. He’d be okay. He’d survive this.
There was no other choice.
Declan waited outside the room, past the archway and thirty feet down the long, dim corridor I vaguely remembered being dragged along by one of the vampires who was now just a bad memory. I slowed as I got closer to him. He wasn’t looking at me with an ounce of friendliness at the moment. There was grief on his face.
Seeing him displaying noticeable emotions like this was more unsettling than encouraging at the moment.
“You should have stayed in the car,” he hissed at me.
Tears burned at my eyes, but I forced them back. “But I didn’t.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“It’s going to be all right.”
“All right,” he repeated. “You think this is all right?”
“We found Jade.”
“She’s insane.”
“Well, yeah. There’s that.”
“And now she’s emotionally damaged from seeing her adoptive family murdered before her eyes.”
“They were vampires,” I reminded him. “And they nearly killed us. I thought you had a problem with vampires and didn’t mind when they stopped existing.”
“I hate vampires. But seeing that child turn to ash—” He swallowed hard, flexing his hands into tight fists at his sides. “There was a time when she was really only a kid and didn’t have any choice when some f*cking monster decided to turn her.” He scrubbed his hand over his scalp. “Damn it. The serum isn’t working right now. I wish it was.”
“It makes things easier for you.”
“Yeah.” He hissed out a breath and looked back in the direction of the room. “Matthias damn well better not hurt her.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“I can go after Kristoff. I don’t care what he said about him being my . . .” His forehead creased. “Even if it’s true it won’t make any difference. He can’t control me. I control myself.”
I touched his arm and was half-surprised when he didn’t pull away from me. “I don’t want you to go after Kristoff and get yourself killed.”
He swallowed. “Why? Because you need me?”
“No, because I lov—” I bit off the words and stared at the floor. I wasn’t sure where that came from. He was pissed at me right now. Rightfully so. This wasn’t the time or place to let him know the depth of my feelings for him. Frankly, I wasn’t ready to let myself know, either.
My interrupted sentence didn’t escape his attention. “Jill, this is all so f*cked up.”
I almost laughed. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
He brushed a lock of black hair off my forehead and I saw that his previously harsh expression had softened. “Why didn’t you tell me about my real father?”
I grimaced as guilt skittered through me. “I’m sorry. I should have. I was worried that you’d dealt with so much already after Carson and Dr. Gray were killed. I was afraid how you’d take it.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. “You were protecting me.”
“Trying to.” I bit my bottom lip. I had to tell him about Noah, but I didn’t want him running in there and stopping whatever Matthias had to do.
“I should have known this. I need to—” His expression changed so suddenly that it scared me.
“What?”
“Jesus, Jill. You’re bleeding again.”
“Oh, shit.” I reached up and touched my face. It was my nose this time. My fingers trembled as I raised them to look at the reddish black blood.
The pain coiled its way around me. I could see it coming but I couldn’t escape it. It tightened its grip and washed over me like an ocean of acid, stripping my flesh away and leaving me raw and screaming. My head felt like it was trapped in a crushing vise.
My legs collapsed from under me and Declan grabbed hold of me.
“It’s okay,” he said, holding me tightly against him. “It’s going to be okay.”
He was lying to me. I thought he’d said he wouldn’t do that. There was no way anything that felt this bad could possibly be okay.
I didn’t remember blacking out this time, but I must have.
When I opened my eyes we weren’t in the tunnels under FunTown anymore. I lay on a beige-colored sofa in a beige-colored room. A glass coffee table with several magazines including the TV Guide sat three feet away from me.
The pain was gone, but I still felt it like a greedy phantom lurking at the edges of my mind. It would be back for more. The thought made me want to curl up in a ball and cry, but there was no time for tears. I’d have to schedule them in for sometime in my next life.
“You’re awake.”
I struggled to swallow because my mouth felt dry. I wiped at my nose but there was no blood that I could see, which was an immediate relief. “Where are we?”
“I found us a place to stay temporarily. The owners are out of the country.” Declan’s deep raspy voice sounded flat again. The control he’d been lacking before was back. Dealing with him had become like dealing with someone with a bipolar personality. Hot or cold, nothing in between, and the shift could happen in a split second.
I looked around at the house. It appeared as if the owners were related to Ward and June Cleaver. A nice, normal, all-American home meant for a happily married couple with two-point-five children. “How long since we got here?”
“You’ve been unconscious for a couple of hours.” He stood next to the sofa, filling my vision. A tall man with broad shoulders, dressed all in black, with scars and an eye patch. He didn’t look as if he belonged in this house.
Maybe this was heaven. Maybe I’d died with my last attack and that had been that. I’d been sent here to the beigest house in the country with Declan continuing to be my guardian angel. I was okay with that.
Too bad it wasn’t true.
“Why am I passing out from the pain now? Before I took the fuser I stayed conscious.”
“Your body—” he began, but stopped talking for a second. “Your body can’t handle it. For now it knocks you out, but it won’t be long before . . .”
“Before what?”
“Before you won’t wake up again.” His face was stony, but there was a faint flicker of emotion in his gray gaze.
“I’m going to die soon, aren’t I?” It was more of a statement of fact than a question.
Whatever it was, Declan ignored it. “I’m going to inject you. I’d hoped you’d stay unconscious for this.”
I tensed. “You really think the fusing potion makes any difference?”
“Yeah, I do. We’ll start doing this weekly to keep things under control. That’s how long the fuser lasted before, so that’s our timeline.”
I was quiet for a moment, but then I nodded. “Okay.”
The idea of getting the fuser injected in me every week wasn’t a pleasant one, but I knew there wasn’t a lot of room for guesswork here. It made me feel like someone being treated regularly for a debilitating disease. It wasn’t far from the truth.
“Where’s Matthias?” I asked.
“When you collapsed, I left without looking back. I texted him our location.”
“I didn’t even know he had a cell phone.”
“He’s a modern-day monster.”
I almost smiled, but couldn’t manage the expression. “The dhampyr—”
“She’s still at the park. I had to leave her behind—with him.” He didn’t look happy about it.
“But Declan, you wanted to see her. Talk to her.”
His shoulders stiffened. “It can wait, and I’ll go back later to find her again—although I’m not sure if that will make much of a difference. She seemed crazy. Besides, it can wait until you’re well again. Try to relax.”
He pushed up the edge of my shirt to bare my stomach and I felt the pinch as the needle slid into my skin just below my belly button. It didn’t hurt very much. It was a total breeze compared to everything else.
If it was like last time, I had about fifteen minutes before the potion started working, bonding my blood cells with the Nightshade. It was when they separated that I had problems. My body was trying to reject the poison inside me. I didn’t really blame it.
When it started working, I’d know it. The pain I’d felt at the park was only an appetizer.
I didn’t understand how the fusing potion worked, but it did. Since it was based on preternatural science, I could only equate it to some sort of earthbound magic. Not the kind that Matthias’s old pal Houdini did—sleight of hand and escape tricks. Not hocus-pocus stuff, either. No Harry Potter wizardry here, but there was something truly supernatural involved to account for me still living and breathing with such an unnatural shade of blood. It was that magic that was keeping me alive, that helped to kill a vampire when he or she got a taste of what now ran through my veins.
Declan took my hand in his warm, rough one and squeezed it. I leaned my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes.
It felt like a moment of blissful calm in the center of a hurricane. It felt so strange sitting on a sofa with Declan in the middle of a very normal, very average Los Angeles home. No, not strange. It felt good. I could get used to this. Although, I figured the people who actually owned this home might have a problem with that.
I searched for a subject that didn’t involve blood or death. “You said Sara’s with the woman who raised you.”
“Yeah. Her name’s Emily.”
“She sounds nice.”
He snorted softly. “Sometimes she was. Other times, she was a real bitch. Hard as nails. It was like living with a drill sergeant.” The words were harsh, but there was grudging fondness in his voice. “I stayed with her from when I was a baby till I was about ten years old.”
“And then what happened?”
“Emily . . . I think I scared her a little. She didn’t know about vampires or what I was, so the first time I hurt myself falling out of a tree, she freaked when I healed fast and scarred from it. Got this right here.” He touched a small white scar by his right temple. “Apparently I bled so much she thought I was going to die right then and there. She cared about me, but it was too much for her. Carson came and got me.”
He said it as if it had happened to somebody else, just a story, not a tale of abandonment.
“Carson got you when you were ten?”
“Yeah. Then we traveled nonstop around the country for the next eight years as I trained to be a hunter.”
“That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. Did you go to school?”
“Carson homeschooled me. On the subjects he thought I needed, anyway. I learned what I had to.”
“Friends?”
“Kids of other hunters. Nobody close. Let’s face it, Jill, I’ve always been a bit of a loner. Not exactly a people person, am I?”
I leaned back and looked at him, then touched the scar on his temple lightly before letting my fingertips trail down over his cheek and the rough stubble on his jaw. “You just haven’t had much of a chance.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Sure it does. That kind of an upbringing can f*ck a kid up.”
He grinned a little. “That’s obvious.”
My hand came to rest on his chest. He didn’t push me away. “Considering where you came from and how you were treated, I think you turned out pretty damn good.”
“Exactly the kind of boy you bring home to meet your parents, right?” he asked dryly.
That did make me laugh. “Well, not exactly.”
“What do you think your family would think of me?” His expression shadowed. “I’m sorry. I remember you said your parents passed away.”
I nodded. “Five years ago. It was rough. But if they were alive . . . I don’t know. They probably wouldn’t know what to make of you.”
“An ugly brute like me.” At my sharp look, “What? It’s the truth.”
I shook my head. “I never knew you were so vain.”
He leaned back into the sofa. “What about admitting I’m ugly is vain?”
I cocked my head to the side. “I think you hold on to your scars to distance yourself from others.”
“Is that what I do, Dr. Conrad?” He said it flippantly, but there was a guarded look in his single gray eye. Declan was tough when it came to slicing and dicing vampires, but when it came to quiet moments and conversation like this, he was a bit out of his element. But practice made perfect in many areas he was unfamiliar with.
“For the record? I don’t think you’re ugly. Or a brute.”
He blinked. “Then what am I?”
I leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “Hot as hell.”
Laughter rumbled in his chest. “Yeah, right. And I fit so well into your life.”
“Maybe not my old life. But screw that. Right now this is the only place I want to be. Here. With you.”
“Waiting for the fusing potion to take hold, in a house we’re squatting in, sitting next to a scarred up, f*cked up dhampyr.”
“Pretty much.” I snuggled next to him and tried to clear my mind of anything but this moment and enjoy it for as long as I possibly could.
He stroked the hair off my forehead. “I need to go back to the park later and get Noah’s body.” His voice caught. “Damn it. He was a good kid. Getting shot in the chest was bad enough and now this? It’s so f*cking unfair.”
I tensed. I hadn’t told him what I’d asked Matthias to do yet. So much for enjoying the moment.
“Declan—”
“Shh, Jill.” He pulled away from me and got up from the sofa, his heavy boots clomping against the hardwood floor. He pulled his silver knife from the sheath at his hip. “Somebody’s here.”
The next moment the front door swung open and Matthias walked in and scanned the surroundings, stopping when he came to me. “Not perfect, but better than that shoddy motel room.”
I gripped the back of the sofa as I forced myself up to my feet. I still felt weak from my attack.
“What did you do to the dhampyr?” Declan demanded.
“She ran away when I was occupied with other matters. I know there are a few members of that clan who didn’t die tonight. She’ll be fine.”
Declan’s jaw was tense. “You got your fill of her, did you?”
Matthias smiled. “You know, I’ve always been a connoisseur of human blood, but now that I’ve sampled an adult dhampyr’s it made me realize that it’s a much finer vintage. I’d watch your neck, Declan. I do get thirsty very regularly.”
Declan glared at him.
It hadn’t worked. I knew it. Noah had been too weak, too drained and he’d died.
“Is Noah’s body still at the park?” Declan asked after a moment.
Matthias glanced at me. “His body?”
“Yes, I’ll need to bury—” Declan paled visibly as the corpse in question slowly dragged his feet through the open door. My heart raced at the sight of him. He looked like hell. The wound at his throat was still there, although it had stopped bleeding and looked as if it was slowly healing. His face was gaunt, his previously light brown eyes were now black.
“Noah—” I began, and his gaze tracked to me and widened. His lips parted. While I couldn’t see fangs yet, his teeth looked sharper than before.
“Blood.” It was the one word that spilled from his mouth and it made me freeze with fear. It sounded more like the ragged voice of a monster dhamp than someone I considered a friend.
“Are you sure of this, Jillian? I warn you, the results may not be what you’re hoping for.”
I’d been warned, but I hadn’t listened.
Noah lunged across the room for me, getting close enough that I felt his hand brush against my throat, but Matthias grabbed him by the back of his shirt. With a flick of his arm, he tossed the brand-new vampire backward. Noah flew across the room and hit his head hard against the wall. A framed photo of the unfortunate family who owned this house fell to the floor and smashed. Noah crumpled to the ground unconscious.
I clamped my hand against my mouth so I wouldn’t scream.
“My apologies.” Matthias looked down at Noah’s still form. “It’s difficult for me to be close to Jillian; I can only imagine how bad it is for a fledgling.”
I barely saw Declan move, but he stormed toward Matthias, grabbing him and slamming him hard against the railing of the stairs leading to the second floor. He pressed his knife against Matthias’s chest until I could see a patch of blood appear on his white shirt.
“No, Declan!” I staggered closer to them on weak legs.
“Release me,” Matthias hissed.
“You did that to him. You changed him into a bloodsucking monster.” Declan’s face was red with rage. “I’m going to f*cking kill you.”
I grabbed his arm. “Declan, stop! Don’t hurt him!”
“Don’t you see what he did?” There was enough raw emotion in his voice to make me realize that the permanent serum he’d been given was completely worthless. Whatever Declan’s dhampyr nature was, and whatever it was evolving into, couldn’t be held back by drugs anymore.
The timing couldn’t be worse. Emotion-free Declan would have been pissed about this turn of events, but he wouldn’t look ready to destroy half of Los Angeles in his quest to sink a silver blade into Matthias’s chest.
“Yes, I see.” My voice sounded breathless. “Noah’s a vampire now. And you need to calm down before somebody gets hurt.”
“Why would you do this?” Declan snapped at Matthias. “Why would you turn him into a monster like you?”
“Declan—” I began.
His head whipped toward me. “What?”
I met his furious gaze. “He did it because I asked him to.”