8
WHEN I WOKE, MY BODY WAS SORE FROM HEAD TO foot. I stayed still for a moment and concentrated, trying to determine if anything was broken. I didn’t think so. I was lying on my back in a cold, dark room. The air felt thick and smelled stale.
“Noah?” My voice creaked out. “Are you there?”
I shrieked as someone grabbed me by my hair, dragging me up to my feet. I stumbled along on weak legs as whoever it was didn’t slow their pace to let me catch up. Finally, I was thrown forward and I landed hard on my knees on a stone floor.
The first thing I saw when I pulled my hair back out of my eyes was Noah. He sat ten feet away from me, his back against the wall in the corner of the room. His throat was torn open and bloody and he stared at me through glossy, half-shut eyes. His chest moved with rapid, shallow breath, but that was all the movement I could see. He looked like an animal had attacked him and left him behind to die.
“What have you done to him?” I choked out.
“I just nibbled on him a little,” a small voice said. “I’ll finish him later.”
I struggled to breathe and slowly looked to my left. The blond girl stood there holding hands with a tall, dark-haired man with pale gray eyes. Another man with very short blond hair stood alongside them. They watched me carefully as I got to my feet.
They were vampires. The same vampires Matthias said we should avoid coming face-to-face with.
There was no time to let myself fall apart, but fear ate at my insides. Noah was dying, and we were trapped in the basement of an amusement park with a clan of bloodthirsty monsters.
“Who are you?” the dark-haired man asked.
“I—I’m Jill.” I tore my gaze away from Noah. “Who are you?”
“I am Isaiah. This is Ethan. And I believe you’ve already met Patricia.” He studied me for a moment. “Why did you come here, Jill?”
I licked my dry lips. “I—I’m here because I wanted to rescue Jade.”
Sometimes the truth will set you free. I was fairly certain this wasn’t one of those times, but lying to vampires didn’t serve any purpose. They could make me tell them the truth with a look. And if they found out I was lying, it wouldn’t do much to help me get out of this in one piece.
Showing my fear right now would only mark me as a victim. I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. I had to stall for time. I had to get Noah help as soon as possible. That wound looked really, really bad.
If Declan and Matthias were nearby, they might be able to help.
A horrible thought occurred to me. Maybe they’d received Noah’s message and they’d left the park to look for us, thinking that all was well and that we’d found the dhampyr with no problem and already taken off.
Shit.
“Why would you want to rescue her?” Isaiah asked.
I forced myself up to my feet and was surprised that I was able to do so without discovering a broken ankle or a more severe injury. I felt shaken and sore, but nothing more than that. Small mercies.
“I think keeping someone prisoner so you can suck their blood whenever you want isn’t exactly fair to her.” Bile rose in my throat as I looked at my friend bleeding to death in the corner.
I swallowed back tears. Noah, I’m so sorry.
“You’re being honest with me,” Isaiah said. “I’m surprised.”
I forced myself to meet his gaze. “If I wasn’t, you could just influence me to tell the truth.”
“We could. So the two of you decided to come here to my park and steal my dhampyr.”
“That was the original plan.”
He pressed his lips together, his gaze cold and detached as if analyzing a small insect under a magnifying glass. “Kill her.”
Another vampire I hadn’t seen emerged from the shadows behind me and grabbed me in his crushing grip. I fought against him, but he easily wrenched my head to the side and I felt his cool breath on my throat.
“No, wait! My blood is poison!”
“Stop.” Isaiah held his hand out. “What did you say?”
The vampire holding me didn’t let go, but he didn’t bite me, either.
“My blood is poisonous to vampires,” I said shakily.
What might seem like an asset to me right now really wasn’t. The moment the vampire holding me bit me and then died from it, my secret would have been revealed anyway. There were too many vampires in the room. They would have killed me before I had the chance to take another one out. Admitting it up front was my only chance for my life not to end in the next minute or two.
“She smells so good,” the vampire holding me said, and he drew his nose along my throat. “I have to taste her. It’s driving me mad.”
“Taste her and I’ll kill you myself.” Isaiah approached me slowly, cautiously, and walked a slow circle around us. I watched him warily, my attention flicking with concern toward Noah again. If I died here, he would, too. No matter what, I had to be strong for the both of us.
Isaiah looked into my eyes. “You’re the one they’re talking about, the mythical poisoned human meant to bring death to us all. Were you sent here to assassinate me?”
I felt his influence wrap around me. While it did nothing to lessen my fear, it did freeze my body in place so I couldn’t struggle any longer. I became as limp as a rag doll. “I don’t even know who you are.”
He flicked his chin at the vampire behind me, who finally and begrudgingly let me go. Then Isaiah clutched my throat so tightly it cut off my breath. I couldn’t move, not even to grab his wrist. He inhaled and his eyes blackened and the veins branched across his forehead and down the sides of his face. “You’re a great danger to us.”
He released his hold enough to let me gasp for breath, but didn’t let go of me completely. He nodded in Noah’s direction. “What is that man’s name?”
“It’s . . . Noah. He—he’s hurt. Please, you have to let me get help for him. He’s going to die.”
“Yes, you’re right. He will.”
“The little girl bit him.” I squeezed my tears back. She more than bit him by the looks of it. The little monster had gnawed and torn at his throat to get to his blood rather than simply pierced his flesh with her fangs.
“That little girl is much more dangerous than she looks,” Isaiah said. “She’s over a hundred years old, even older than I am.”
I gasped. “She looks like a child.”
“She is a child. Frozen forever at five years of age, mentally and physically, only with an eternal thirst for blood and difficulty following the rules we set forth for all who live here. We try not to let her attack anyone without supervision, or she tends to make a mess like this. She doesn’t understand that there’s a much more civilized way to feed.”
“I’ve tried to teach her table manners.” Jade’s voice made me strain to look to the left but Isaiah held me in place until the dhampyr came into my peripheral vision. “But she’s a naughty girl sometimes. And she doesn’t use her napkin to clean up after teatime. It makes quite the mess.”
I swallowed hard. “Why does Jade think Patricia’s her daughter?”
Isaiah sighed. “She lost her own child years ago in an accident and never recovered from it. We choose to go along with her fantasies since they make life around here much more pleasant.”
“She needs help.”
“No, she doesn’t. Besides, Patricia likes having a doting mother again as well as living so close to an amusement park. Children.” He smiled, showing his fangs. “Such simple creatures.”
I honestly didn’t give a shit about Jade anymore, all I cared about was Noah. I felt bad that she was crazy and stuck living with vampires, but my priorities had quickly shifted. I didn’t want to let myself lose hope, but the sand was falling through the hourglass at a furious pace.
“Your blood, it’s intoxicating . . .” Isaiah’s face looked monstrous and his upper lip peeled back from his teeth.
“Bite me and you won’t like it very much. That warning has to be worth something to you. I could have let your friend die.”
His jaw clenched. “Yes, of course. How rude of me. Your warning is appreciated.” He brought a sharp silver blade up against my throat, pressing deep enough to sting and I whimpered at the sensation of warm blood sliding down my skin. He touched it and raised his fingers to look at the nearly black shade of it.
My teeth were now clenched. “You need to let me go.”
“I can’t let you leave here.”
Panic sliced through me. “I told you who I am. I warned you about my blood. And now you need to let me help my friend. We won’t come back, I swear it.”
Isaiah shook his head, the knife now pressed to my jugular just above his grip on my throat. “No. What I need to do is to kill you.”
“No—”
“I promise to make it fast—” He stumbled forward a foot, pushing me backward. The influence he’d had over me suddenly lifted and it was as if a cold glass of water had been thrown into my face. I leapt back from him as his hand fell slackly to his side. The knife clanged against the ground as he dropped it. He moaned, and it was a pained sound deep in his throat.
I didn’t know what had changed to make him release me, but then he turned and I saw what it was. There was a knife with a familiar carved silver hilt sticking out of the back of his skull. Isaiah grappled for it and pulled it out with a sick, smacking sound. He fell to his hands and knees on the cold stone floor.
I half expected him to burst into fire and ash, but a knife to the brain, even a silver one, just wasn’t enough to kill a vampire. I looked over to see Declan standing under the archway leading into the cavernous room. He looked furious enough to kill after throwing the knife at the vampire’s head as if he’d been playing a game of darts—hard enough to penetrate a skull.
Declan flicked a glance at me. “I thought I asked you to wait in the f*cking car.”
He did have a point there.
I didn’t have a chance to say anything before three vampires including Ethan swarmed toward him.
Declan dodged out of the way just in time to miss a knife aimed for his throat. He knocked it out of his attacker’s hand, snatched it up, and sank it into the vampire’s chest. Before he’d exploded into fiery ash, Declan had his silver stake in hand and was ready for the next.
The second vampire growled, crouching low like a wrestler, then jumped at Declan, grabbing him and throwing him to the ground hard. I didn’t see the weapon make contact this time, but the vampire was gone in an instant. Declan’s stake skidded on the ground, coming to rest a few feet away from me.
Ethan’s fist connected with Declan’s jaw and he staggered back, hitting the wall behind him. He was out of weapons. I grabbed for the stake as fast as I could.
“Declan!”
When he looked at me I threw it at him. He snatched it out of the air and sank it into his attacker’s heart.
It had all happened in less than fifteen seconds.
Declan’s head was bleeding from hitting the wall. He wiped at the wound by his temple absently as if it was more of an annoyance than an actual injury.
I thought the attack was over, but then Patricia raced across the room, hissing and screaming like a child possessed. Declan grabbed her by her long blond hair to hold her back from him.
“What in the hell is this?” he growled.
“A vampire.”
Patricia screeched. “Let go of me! You’re a bad man! I hate you!”
Declan look over at me with shock and disgust etched into his features. “What kind of monster would do this to a helpless child?”
My face felt tense. “That helpless child did that to Noah.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Noah, his expression turning from disgust to grim concern. He let go of Patricia like she was on fire and she scrambled back from him, clawing at the air like a deadly kitten.
Jade had stood silently in the shadows of the room watching everything, not moving or speaking. The woman made me very nervous. Finally, she came forward, wringing her hands.
“This isn’t good.” She shook her head back and forth. “All I wanted was to introduce you to my family. This isn’t good at all. They’re all dead now and who will come to dinner? The Ferris wheel keeps spinning and spinning and no one shall ever ride it with us again.”
Declan stared at her for a moment. “This is the dhampyr.”
She looked up at him. “Oh my, yes. Dhampyr, dhampyr. That’s what I am. You are like me, just like me. We shall be marvelous friends, won’t we? All I want is for all of us to get along like a happy family. Can that be? Please? Will you stay for dinner, sir? We’re planning a lovely buffet and shall make all the food forget after the meal is over.”
My heart broke to see the bleak expression on Declan’s face as he regarded the crazy woman. He hadn’t let on that he’d had any hope about finding her alive and well, nonviolent and sane, but he must have had a lot of it. That hope was what I saw fade away from his gaze as he realized that his one clue to his future was a babbling lunatic.
“Declan, it doesn’t matter,” I said. “We have to help Noah.”
He drew in a breath. “You’re right.”
He turned to Isaiah, who was recovering slowly from his head wound.
“Kill me,” the vampire gasped. “And be done with it.”
“Why would I want to kill an old friend?” Matthias asked, finally entering the room, glancing around at us each in turn.
“Your majesty.” Isaiah raised his gaze to the former king.
“I thought it was your clan here, Isaiah, but I wasn’t sure. I would have predicted that you were one of those who set up camp so close to so many warm and happy potential victims. You were always lazy that way.”
“I’ve followed the rules, your majesty. We don’t murder humans when we feed from them. And we make them forget immediately. There’s no harm done.”
Matthias glanced at Noah, whose breathing had become less noticeable. “Doesn’t look like it from where I stand.”
“That was a rare mistake. But we don’t claim to be perfect.” Isaiah struggled to stand, but failed. The wound in the back of his head had already begun to heal, but he still seemed worse for wear. Even a vampire couldn’t bounce back immediately from having their brains scrambled like a dozen eggs.
What the hell were they waiting for? I forced myself to remain in one place and swallowed back the panic about Noah. I hated to think it was too late. If we could get him to a hospital he might still have a chance.
“I know you’ve sided with those who believe in awakening Kristoff,” Matthias said.
Isaiah looked nervous. “It’s a lie.”
“You don’t know what a mistake it will be when he—” Just then, Matthias clutched his hands to either side of his head and a ragged scream escaped his throat. He collapsed to his knees.
“Matthias!” I ran to his side and grabbed his shoulder. I looked at Declan whose brows were drawn tightly together.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know. Matthias, what the hell’s happening to you?”
Matthias turned and clutched my upper arms so tightly I thought he was going to break them off from the rest of my body. The next moment Declan was there, pushing him away from me.
“It’s Kristoff.” Matthias looked as if he’d seen something that scared him. “He’s being awakened right now. I can clearly see it in my mind’s eye. I can see his mind, everything, every thought that’s going through his head. It—it can’t be stopped now. He’s drank the blood of a dozen human sacrifices. He’s covered in it. It fills his mouth, his hands, his senses—the smell, the taste, the feel—he’s awake. And he can see me, too, right now . . . and he wants to kill me.”
Goose bumps had broken out all over my skin. I didn’t like seeing him like this, filled with pain and fear. I much preferred the cocky, powerful vampire king to be totally in control of himself, but this—this was despair. Defeat. All because of something he saw in his head. He had a psychic connection to his twin brother. That sounded scary as hell to me.
He blinked hard. “It’s already gone from my mind. It shuttered off as if he didn’t want me to see any more of his plans. The—the bond is stronger than it ever was before.”
“He’s free,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“What I’ve been trying to prevent all of these years, it was in vain. Kristoff is king again and every vampire currently in existence must follow his rule if they don’t want to be hunted down and brought in front of him to face his wrath. This is only the beginning.” He slowly got to his feet and, looking drawn and terrifying, he loomed over Isaiah. “You would really side with him over me?”
Isaiah shook his head. “I side with whomever is king. I have no choice.”
“No, I suppose you don’t. And neither do I.” He glanced over at Jade. “I need your dhampyr’s blood to heal my recent injuries.”
Isaiah’s jaw tensed. “If I give her to you will you let me live?”
“Yes, you may live.”
“Then take her. Take anything you want. Kill her if you have to.”
Matthias didn’t hesitate. He went toward Jade, grabbing her arm tightly. Jade let out a frightened shriek that didn’t sound human.
“You can’t kill my mommy!” Patricia screamed and she moved like a pale streak through the room.
I watched in shock. “No, Matthias! She has a knife!”
But it was too late.
The girl launched herself at him and plunged the knife deep into Matthias’s back. He growled in pain, let Jade go, and swatted at the child vampire. She fell to the ground in a tiny heap.
Matthias swore loudly and reached backward to grab the knife and pull it out, a mirror of what Isaiah had done only minutes ago.
Jade cowered away from him, reaching out for Patricia.
“Come here,” she cried.
“He’s a bad man.” Patricia was back on her feet, grabbing for the discarded knife. Despite her small size she looked like a monster ready, willing, and able to kill.
Declan snatched her right out of the air by the back of her blouse as she jumped toward Matthias again, this time aiming for his chest. She hissed at him and instead tried to stab him with her weapon, but he grabbed it out of her hand and threw it to the side before placing the child firmly on the ground.
“Behave yourself,” he growled.
Isaiah crawled over to her. “I’m sorry, your majesty. Patricia shames us all, both with what she did to your friend, and what she’s tried to do to you.”
Matthias glared at him. “There are more important things than this to deal with right now. I’ll heal.”
“No, she must be punished immediately.”
I saw him snatch the knife off the ground. The next moment I heard a sharp, bloodcurdling scream and then saw a small burst of fiery ash.
There was absolute silence in the room for several moments as I registered with horror what he’d done.
A keening wail filled my ears. Jade scrambled forward, gathering Patricia’s ashes in her hands. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You bastard! You murdered my baby!”
Isaiah looked at her with pity. “She wasn’t your baby. She was and always has been an abomination that never should have been allowed to—”
And then he was gone as well. As the ashes cleared, I saw Declan standing there, stake in hand, a look of redhot fury replacing his normally cool, stoic gaze.
“Declan—” His name caught in my throat.
“That f*cking monster killed that child.”
“She wasn’t a child. She was old—a vampire, just like the others.”
Declan dropped the knife and squeezed his eye shut. “This is what comes from me helping a vampire in the first place.” He opened his eye and pointed at Jade. “You cannot drink her blood, Matthias.”
Matthias straightened his shoulders even though it looked as if it caused him pain. His new wound would take a little longer to heal. “Don’t you understand? My brother is awake now. You know what this means.”
“I only know what you’ve told us.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You really believe that all that stands between you and the power to stop Kristoff is forcing this dhampyr to give her your blood?”
Matthias’s expression turned icy. “That’s exactly what I believe. And if you stand in my way there will be repercussions.”
“I’ll stop Kristoff myself,” Declan snapped.
“You can’t.”
He frowned. “How can you sound so f*cking sure about that?”
“Because he’ll have power over you, dhampyr. And he won’t hesitate to use it.”
“Power over me? Why?”
“Because he’s your father.”
I felt as frozen as when Isaiah mentally influenced me. How did Matthias know that? I hadn’t told him. He was already gone when Dr. Gray shared that information with me.
Declan reacted to this as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He even took a step backward. “What the f*ck did you just say?”
“Kristoff was Monica’s lover twenty-nine years ago shortly before I imprisoned him. Her only lover. He kept her on a tight leash and his jealousy was not something anyone would have wanted to face. I’m certain that you’re his son.”
Declan’s gaze shot to me and he looked confused by the bleak look he must have seen on my face. He didn’t speak for a moment. “Did you know this?”
My stomach sank. I’d wanted to tell him, but it never seemed like the right time. I should have told him anyway. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
“You knew?” His voice was barely audible.
I felt ill. “Noah needs help. Now. Please, Declan. Anything else can wait.”
I ran to Noah’s side and sank down beside him. His pulse was weak. His forehead felt cold and clammy. His throat was open and ragged and bleeding profusely. I wasn’t sure if he was unconscious or if he simply didn’t have the strength to keep his eyes open.
Declan crouched beside me and checked Noah’s vitals before shaking his head. “There’s nothing we can do for him.”
“No.” I felt like hyperventilating. “He can’t die.”
“He’s already lost too much blood.”
“We have to do something. What are we supposed to do without him?”
Declan looked at me and there was a strange set to his gaze. “Noah lies here bleeding to death after you drag him into this mess, and all you care about is that when he dies he won’t be able to help us anymore, is that it?”
I struggled to breathe. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I didn’t. I wasn’t being a mercenary. It wasn’t all about my needs, my problems. I cared about Noah deeply, but he was an integral part of this puzzle. I hadn’t given up yet—on myself, on Declan, on anything. And I wouldn’t give up on Noah, either.
But Declan didn’t seem to understand that. He stood up, leaving me on the floor.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Matthias said. “But it changes nothing. Kristoff needs to be stopped and I need the blood of this dhampyr. Will you stand in my way?”
Declan hissed out a long breath. “If you kill her, or harm her, I swear I’ll break you in two.”
He left the room without another word.
I didn’t move or speak, but I turned away, clutching onto Noah’s still arm as I heard Jade’s fear-filled shrieks a few seconds later. I didn’t cry. I felt numb and shaky as I tried desperately not to hear the sickening sucking sound as Matthias fed on the woman’s blood. It took all my concentration not to let myself vomit.
Matthias’s hand on my shoulder a few minutes later made me jump. I looked up at him expecting his mouth to be bloody, but it wasn’t.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve taken all I need.”
I swallowed. “She stopped screaming.”
He looked over his shoulder. “She fainted, but she’ll be fine.”
“Did it work?”
“I don’t know yet. But thank you, Jillian. If it wasn’t for you, this wouldn’t have happened. I owe you for this.”
I nodded, crossing my arms tightly over my chest, feeling sick to my stomach. “Can I take you up on that favor right away?”
He eyed me. “Of course. What do you want?”
I looked down at Noah, who’d only an hour ago been so concerned for my well-being that the idea of me being in pain had upset him. There’d been a couple of times when I thought he was my enemy, someone who’d betray me at a moment’s notice, but he wasn’t like that. He was a good kid, and he didn’t deserve any of this.
And yes, I’d admit it. I still needed him around because of his head for research and his knowledge of all things Nightshade and dhampyr.
Steely resolve filled me, giving me some well-needed strength.
I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to ask for this. But I had no choice.
I looked up at Matthias. “I want you to turn Noah into a vampire.”