chapter 14
The power they emanated flipped my stomach inside out and I had to put a hand on the wall to keep from falling face first into my own vomit.
I felt someone gather my hair up, keeping it into a loose queue at the nape of my neck. “Better in than out.”
Someone laughed. Shannon. “Really? How much more cliched could you get, Ryder?”
A hand rubbed wide circles on my back and even though my gut continued to clench and heave in the worst possible way, I pulled away. “Don’t touch me.”
I drew in a deep breath, and immediately regretted doing so as the sour-sweet smell of half-digested hamburgers and fries made me gag again.
“What’s wrong?”
I refused to feel shamed as Jason put a hand on my back.
“The power,” I managed to say through gritted teeth, determined to bring my body under control. Mind over matter. It really works...most of the time. “It’s making me feel sick.”
“I’m sorry,” said Vincent. “I forget. You’re human, so of course their auras would affect you in such a way. I suppose something like this has never occurred to me because, well, ordinary humans have never been called before the entire Committee before. I can see how this would be a bit...much.”
Breathing through my mouth made it easier to straighten back up, made it easier to take the handkerchief Ryder held out. “Here you go.”
“Thank you,” I muttered and tried to wipe the sick feeling off my lips.
I almost gave it back to him and then thought better of myself, stowing it back in my pocket, making a mental note to run it through some disinfectant before giving it back.
He winked at me. “Gives me an excuse to see you again.”
Shannon groaned, rolling her eyes. “Oh god, now I’m going to start throwing up.”
Ryder grimaced. “Please, don’t. Ran, I’ll try to comfort, but you, I think it’ll just make me sick too.”
They reminded me of siblings. “Please. I’ll be fine. I just...”
I swiped at the sweat on my brow and tried to ignore the strange, nauseating feeling that felt almost like I was standing on a boat in the middle of a squall.
So this was what power felt like.
I shivered and drew my coat closer around my body.
I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.
But I didn’t think standing outside while they deliberated on Jason’s fate was an option. “I’m okay. I promise you.”
All four vampires stared at me with varying degrees of disbelief in their eyes and I pushed away from the wall, praying my knees wouldn’t start knocking together.
They didn’t, although it was a near thing.
“See?” I said and even managed a very weak laugh. “I’m okay. I just needed some time to adjust.”
The furrow between Vincent’s eyes did not fade nor lessen. “Adjust? And have you adjusted, hunter?”
I swallowed another rush of bile, but managed to walk away from the mess on the violet carpet. “I think so.”
“Hmm,” he said.
Jason put a hand on my arm. “Can you stand it?”
In all honesty, I wasn’t terribly sure. The power coming from the room at the end was almost too overwhelming. Something that felt close to a hot wind kept pushing the hair from my face, and my stomach twitched again.
I decided to just keep my mouth shut and nodded.
Shannon peered into my face as she fell into step next to me. The hallway was wide enough so that all four of us could have walked abreast without hitting any of the furniture or wall and there still would’ve been room for a few more people.
“She looks green.”
In response, my stomach rolled again and I stopped in place, unwilling to move, just in case I really did lose it again. “Please. Let’s not talk about this anymore. Being reminded makes it harder.”
Breathing shallowly through my nose, I felt shame flood through my body. What sort of Ailward was I be if I couldn’t even keep my stomach from rebelling? If they killed Jason while I was hacking a lung out in the corner, I was going to be exceedingly put out.
The walk seemed inordinately long, even though in all actuality it only took about a minute to make it down to that final room, the room with the gilded double doors, the shining handles that glittered like gold in the moonlight.
The closer we got, the more distinct became the small, uneven grooves set in the handles and I realized that it didn’t just look like gold, it really was gold.
A smile jerked up the corner of my lips. “Gilt simply isn’t good enough for you vampires, is it? You must have the best in everything, don’t you?”
Vincent looked at me and in his eyes, I saw a smile reflected back in those green eyes. “It comes with age. The older we get, the more we appreciate what is good. And the more we want it. There are some who say there can only be the best for the best.”
“And you?” I asked. “What do you say?”
His fangs glinted. A purposeful move. He had wanted me to know he was not human. “If we can have it, then why not?”
“Sounds like something your...” My voice trailed away. What was the word I should have used? “...people would say.”
Vincent laughed, a slow sound that made my skin tingle. Or was it crawl? All I knew was the longer I spent around these creatures, the less I saw them as the enemy. And that was dangerous. Noir had to be gone posthaste or else I feared my edge would be dull forever.
And once that happened, I was useless.
To be useless was worse than death.
I shook my head and tried to take a deeper breath. It was easier this time, and I took another breath.
A faint lightheadedness remained, but for the most part, the initial rush of nausea had faded away, as though it had never existed in the first place. “It’s gone.”
Ryder turned me toward him. “Are you sure?”
Eyes searching my face, he seemed...worried.
“Yes. I think I will be of use now.” There was something about the way his gaze flitted over to Vincent I did not, could not trust. “Is...something wrong?”
His smile seemed disingenuous, to say the least. “No. I mean. Why would you ask that?”
Jason cocked his head to one side. “Perhaps if you were a better actor, she wouldn’t have caught on.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, confusion warring with frustration. Why was it impossible to get a straight answer out of anyone? “Jason? What’s going on?”
But even he just shook his head. “I wish I knew. But I don’t. Vincent? Perhaps you would like to enlighten us?”
“Enlighten you?” he asked and then laughed softly. I wondered if they could hear us through the doors. “Enlighten you in what sort of way? Quite frankly, they are fascinated. And frightened. Not a particularly good combination in any sort of situation, I’m afraid to say. To be faced with such a anomaly that is protected by a member of an order with the sole purpose of exterminating our kind...can you understand why my people are...wary?”
A voice seeped through the cracks underneath the door and another hot wind pushed across my face, stinking of blood and something else, something that seemed not of this human world.
“We have been waiting for some time, Vincent. Do you seek to keep us waiting even longer?”
With a noncommittal shrug, he pulled the door open, letting in the faint candlelight that bespoke of presence of older vampires, the old ones who had, apparently, never warmed up to the idea of saving wax and relying on electricity like the rest of the world. “Do forgive us. We only thought to impress the importance of this meeting to our...guests.”
Someone snorted. “Guests? That’s only because they’re harder to kill than cockroaches.”
Jason smiled at me. “Cockroaches, they say. How do you like being called a pest?”
I matched him smile for smile. “That my prey would consider myself a nuisance merely means I am doing my job.”
Vincent gave me an odd glance. “Don’t misunderstand, hunter. Cockroaches are nothing but an insect. Stepping on one is no problem at all.”
I refused to feel cowed, opting to tilt my head up. “They say that if there is ever a nuclear war, the only things to survive are insects.”
His eyes narrowed. “A nuclear war. And is that how you think this will end?”
The threat was clear. “Isn’t that the end of everything?”
With a hand on my shoulder, Jason ushered me into the room that smelled thickly of metal and something else, something like flowers, incongruous with the smell of old blood.
The room was long, windows on both sides with a massive stone fireplace at the end, a large fire burning, although the heat did not seem to reach this close to the doors. The windows were covered in a heavy indigo damask curtains, none of them drawn, candles lit between each window.
The table filled a great deal of the room, chairs set at regular intervals, all of them occupied.
A man leaned forward, dressed like an actor with a large red tricorn hat and what appeared to be a parrot on one shoulder. The eyepatch on his left eye seemed laughably pretentious, but the darkness emanating from his body did not seem remotely hilarious. “You kept us waiting long enough.”
Vincent closed the door behind us and I felt the spot between my shoulder blades prickle almost insatiably. “My apologies. There were several things that needed to be said, that is all.”
The pirate leaned his chin on his one hand as he regarded us carefully. “So that’s him?”
Jason’s shoulders straightened as he pulled away from me. I wondered if it was intentional, this separation between us, as if to show that, above all, he stood alone. “I am of House Kumamoto. The Domina saw to my entrance personally.”
“Oh?” This time, a woman leaned into view, long dark hair pinned up in some elaborate fashion with long metallic sticks and ribbons strung between them. “And where is your Domina then? Did she run away because she was afraid?”
Vincent cleared his throat. “Annabelle? I would not speak further of Reiko’s involvement. We all know some...thing like him is completely up to chance. No one can dictate when something like our young friend here is brought over.”
The female vamp slapped a hand on the table and I watched a goblet fall further down the table, spilling a rich, dark liquid that I hoped was not blood. Still, what else could it have been? “Where is she? Why has she hidden herself from us then? It’s because she’s ashamed, Vincent, isn’t it? Are you trying to protect her?”
Jason took a step forward, drawing the entire attention of the table. “She is...indisposed at the moment.”
Annabelle hissed and her face turned paler, the skin stretched painfully thin over the delicate skull.
“You keep your mouth shut.”
He flinched and the skin split over one eyebrow, spilling a thin, almost dainty line of blood down his immobile face.
Involuntarily, my hand rushed up to the hilt straddling one shoulder. I had not even thought about it, but still my fingers clenched around the hilt and it drew the entire Committee’s attention on me.
Not the wisest move, unfortunately.
Annabelle’s eyes narrowed and she pushed herself out of her chair, fangs lengthening almost past her pointed chin. “Are you challenging me, human?”
My mouth went dry and I thought my heart would burst. “I seek only to protect my Master.”
Vincent drew in a deep breath. “Take your hand away from the sword. Slowly. Very slowly.”
I should have. But when I am pushed into a corner, I do not relinquish my position easily. “I cannot. Not until she sits down. Not until I can be assured of Jason’s safety.”
The pirate leaned back into view, a strange look on his face. I would have thought it was interest, but why he would have interest in me, I could not fathom. “How...novel! I thought she was of the Fellow...something or another. Aren’t they sworn to wipe us from the face of the earth or something like that?”
The pulse pounded almost unbearably loud in my mind. “We are.”
The parrot squawked and it made me jump a foot in the air. They saw it and I saw smiles on every face visible. They were not friendly smiles.
“Jumpy, are you?”
When in doubt, honesty is the best policy. “I’m not stupid. I know the chances of my survival here.”
“Fenrir, what are you getting at?” asked Vincent.
It must have been the pirate he referred to, for the man smoothed a hand down the parrot’s vibrant orange chest and leaned back, putting his feet up on the table. Of course, he wore boots. “I am just interested, Vincent. As are you. Reiko comes back to town after years and years of avoiding the rest of us, and that notoriously private little girl turns a human? Who then turns into a Sanguinate? Who then hires someone like that girl to be his Ailward? Am I the only one who finds all of this rather suspect?”
Annabelle sat back in her seat, her dark eyes on his and I let my hand drop slowly, degree by painful degree. “What are you getting at, you crazy man?”
The pirate’s eyes widened, comically so. “What if this were, quite simply, a coup?”
This created a flurry of activity in the room, and not one Vincent liked, judging from the way he cursed under his breath.
Someone sitting at the far end of the table held up a hand for attention. He got it, although it took some time. I thought it strange, almost polite his method of wanting the voice and eyes of those who sat at the table. “Fenrir, you are basing everything simply on speculation. Are you merely being dramatic?”
The pirate grinned. “You know me all too well.” Then, the smile faded away, replaced by an empty expression I trusted even less. “But that doesn’t change the fact there is something going on that hasn’t happened in a very long time. When was the last time we had a Sanguinate before us?”
Glasses glinted in the flickering candlelight as he placed folded hands in front of him on the table. I blinked. When was the last time I saw glasses on a vampire? “Almost a hundred years ago. But he was far gone. There was nothing we could do, nothing left in him to reason with. A hundred years ago, we had a monster on our hands. And that is why we have hunted them, haven’t we? For they were nothing but ravaging beasts. We, who have always prided ourselves on our dignity,” at this Annabelle snorted and he ignored, “had a monster that could not be quelled. So we hunted it down. And we killed it. That is the way a Sanguinate has always been. But look at the man standing there. Does he look like a slavering monster?”
All eyes turned to Jason who merely returned it with a tilt of his lips. He held out his arms to his sides and turned a slow circle. “The last time I drooled, I think I was two.”
No one laughed and the one with the glasses stood up. Dressed in a simple white dress shirt and dark pants, he looked the most normal out of everyone there, although his hair, straight and shoulder-length was beautiful as each strand seemed to glimmer like spun gold. “This man is of no threat to us.”
Vincent cleared his throat. “As much as I would like to agree with you, I’m afraid I cannot. He turned Vivienne’s throat into dog food. What he did to her throat...had Ryder and his Ailward not stopped him in time, he would have consumed her whole, Noir.”
Noir.
I felt like someone had slapped me across the face.
Next to me, I felt Jason stiffen.
“Don’t do it,” he whispered. “You’d never make it.”
And indeed, the thought had occurred to me. Conceivably, I could jump upon the table, dash down the long length, and bury my sword into his heart in less than five seconds.
Were he human, perhaps I could have killed him.
But he was not.
Still, I had little doubt this man was the one the Fellowship sought to eliminate. It seemed true, the fact that he seemed more civilized, perhaps even weaker than the other three Lords of the City, but watching him argue with Annabelle for the life of my Master, I realized only a fool could possibly mistake civility for weakness.
Someone sitting at the far end of the table stood up and it was not like how Noir had gained his turn at the conference. This one merely stood up and it was as though all sound had been sucked from the room.
You could have heard flowers bloom in the silence that issued from his acknowledged presence.
And when he spoke, it was with a low twang, an accent that put him south of Illinois, very much south. Perhaps Texas or Louisiana? I admit to a certain lack of knowledge in that area of the world.
“And while we sit here arguing for one’s life,” he said and leaned forward on his palms flat on the scarred, wooden table that seemed to weight a thousand pounds. “Did it not occur to any of you to think of the one standing next to him?”
All heads swiveled, as though on command, to Jason, and the person standing to his side.
Me.
So this was what it felt like, to be the snake in the eyes of a mongoose, the mouse in front of the cat, the prey before the hunter.
I felt as though I could choke on the thick, stifling air.
He pushed his seat back and proceeded to walk around the table. Towards me. I prayed he would keep his distance for even from this far away, I could smell his power, could smell the ages drifting from his body like the bouquet of the finest wine.
Even Vincent seemed to pale next to this individual who wore a dark coat buttoned to his chin, who kept his hair tied back mercilessly, not a single strand out of place.
“I find it rather interesting that she could stand there, and stay there for so long.”
Ryder spoke up, although his voice sounded quiet, which seemed unlike him. Was it respect or fear that kept his voice so low? “She lost it in the hallway.”
The stranger smirked. “Just once?”
Vincent stepped closer to me. For my protection? “Just once. What are you proposing, Matthias?”
He turned his head to one side and I saw a thin scar stretching from his temple almost to his jawline. Considering how well vampires healed from injuries, I found it interesting that he carried a scar. What sort of blow, what sort of weapon could have caused such a wound that even a vampire could not heal from?
But mercifully, he stopped behind Annabelle, more than half a table away and I let out a slow breath. Would that he not come any closer...
“We are all strong, aren’t we?” he asked in an almost casual voice, as though conversing about the weather or whatever vampires considered the mundane and ordinary. “Because we are old, because we are strong, we have formed this Committee here in America. I think it would not be a lie to say we are the Elders here, would it?”
Noir peered at him over the turned heads. “What are you getting at?”
He pointed at me and my skin felt as though it would jump off my muscles and scurry down some dark hole where it could possibly hide for the next century or so, however long it took for these monsters to forget about my very existence. “Vincent, I think you know what I’m talking about.”
The vampire in question sighed heavily. “I wish I didn’t. But I do. And I fear it will only mean her death.”
Jason drew in a sharp breath and abruptly stood in front of me, shielding me, hiding me. “What are you talking about?”
Annabelle laughed, a sharp, strident sound that reminded me of a bucket of glass being shook frenetically. “Well, well, well. How astute of you, to point such things out, Matthias. You always were the shadow behind the throne, weren’t you?”
“That she is with a Sanguinate, only make this situation even stranger,” he said mildly.
Vincent looked at me with what seemed to be regret in his bright eyes. “Even if we could have saved your Master, I’m afraid you have doomed yourself.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jason.
Shannon pushed herself away from the wall, arms uncrossing. Her face was hard and yet with a furrow between her eyes. “I didn’t expect this. I don’t think anyone expected this.”
Ryder put a hand a hand on my shoulder and I pulled away from him, unsure and confused. “What have I done?”
Was that sadness in his blue eyes? “Something the vampires have not seen in a very long time.”
“Longer than something like Jason?”
He nodded. “Longer.”
Vincent sighed. “If I’d known you would react in such a manner, perhaps I would have kept you from coming with us.”
I shook my head and tried to look over Jason’s shoulder at those unnerving eyes, still centered on me, as though they tried to look straight through me. “I wouldn’t have allowed it. I am his Ailward. We made a deal. I never go back on a promise.”
Matthias leaned against the wall, one hand on his hip. “Do you know something about a vampire’s aura, hunter?”
It seemed like a silly question to ask. But I couldn’t provoke him, not when I knew just how much power contained in that slim, tall form. “I do.”
“Then you’ll know that it is similar to magnets. When you have lived for as long as we have, we tend to form a certain...barrier.”
I blinked. “You mean, like magnets pushing each other away.”
He nodded. “Just so. After a while, it gets the point where normal humans cannot stand to be around us. Our aura engulfs theirs and they become violently sick to be in our presence. Sometimes they even die.”
“I was sick in the hallway,” I pointed out.
“Once,” he said. “You were sick once. By all rights, you should be bleeding from every orifice, dying from the blood willingly leaving your mortal body. To be standing for so long in the presence of so many of the Elders...do you know what that means for us?”
There was a lump in my throat and I felt the walls begin to close in around me. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“You are not afraid of us.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It was such a preposterous idea. “Not afraid of you? Are you joking? I’m surprised I haven’t pissed my pants yet.”
His eyes, a light brown that reminded me of coffee narrowed. “That’s not what I meant. You have grown used to us. You have, for the lack of a better word, evolved.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
“You have adjusted to our presence, and that is worrying,” he continued. “Were your so-called Fellowship to find out, they would not hesitate to...” he paused. “Incidentally, were you given orders to assassinate someone? Is that why you are here?”
Heart in my throat, I could only shake my head. “I couldn’t possibly slay anyone. Not here.”
Fenrir took his feet off the table, one eye speculative. “And yet you are here. Guarding a vampire. Guarding what you have sworn to destroy? Forgive us if we find this situation highly...unusual.”
Jason put a hand around my shoulder and it seemed awkward, to say the least. I was not used to standing this close to someone. “If you know who I am, you will know I have money. Money enough to persuade a hunter to protect me.”
Vincent pulled away from us, face immobile. “And yet, if one were to inquire into her past, it seems as though she is not the type to be persuaded by just money.”
Someone spoke up, a feminine voice not Annabelle. “If not money, then what about sex?”
I wondered if they could see my face burning in the dim candlelight. If my true purpose were to be ascertained now, the chances of me leaving this room alive was worse than zero.
I ran a hand down Jason’s back, trembling badly, and in his dark eyes, I saw a question. “Not just sex.”
My fingers found his mouth, traced the curve of his plump lower lip and when his tongue licked my thumb, I swallowed a painfully dry throat. That I was doing this when I had never once initiated sexual contact with anyone was...strange.
Jason’s hand slid down to my waist and drew me to him, body pressing against his as if our only thoughts were to meld into one. “As you can see, there are a multitude of reasons why she is mine.”
I prayed my smile did not wobble too much, as I smoothed a lock of hair from his face. “And why you are mine.”
That we could fool anyone with our almost childlike romance seemed almost too much to hope for.
But Ryder spoke up then. “Yeah. They could hardly keep their hands off each other in the car.”
I was glad the Committee could not see my face, could not see the surprise flitting through my eyes.
“It was kind of sweet, actually,” he continued and then sighed deeply. “I mean, even for me, it was sweet. I know you don’t really have to take my word for it, but there’s history between these two lovebirds. Serious history.”
Matthias tapped his chin. “Is there? Vincent? Can you collaborate on his story?”
After a moment of silence, a moment spent in which he looked at us, he nodded once. “I knew of their relationship when they came to Centennial. Reiko seemed worried about it.”
Matthias turned to Shannon. “And what of you? You were with them. What do you say of their...relationship?”
She sneered at me, but nodded all the same. “They seemed quite...friendly. I can think of no other reason why she would protect him, if not for love.”
She flung out “love” as though it were an arrow and I felt her hatred as clear as night and day.
“So if you are not against us, and if you are truly his Ailward...” Matthias smiled. “Quite frankly, I find your ability to be quite useful.”
Vincent made a sound deep in his throat. “She is not your Ailward, Matthias.”
The other vampire nodded. “Indeed she is not. But what a shame she is not. Surely, you can see what an asset she can be to you, to me, to all of us.”
Annabelle looked at me with a scrutinizing expression that scared me even more than her attack on Jason. “We have not had someone like her in such a long time, Matthias. Was Betrand our last champion?”
Champion? Over my dead body.
Fenrir clucked his tongue. “What a shameful way for the man to go. I wouldn’t wish his death on anyone, not even an enemy.”
Image after image played through my mind, none of them appealing in the least. “I am no champion. I only want to protect Jason as is my duty. That I have grown used to your auras is a fluke.”
“But ours would be the greater mistake, if we were ignore such, as you said it, fluke.”
Jason’s arm tightened around my waist, breathing a gasp to my lips. “I will not give her to anyone.”
Noir’s glasses glinted and a strange smile graced his pale lips. “I fail to see how you can stop anyone of us. A Sanguinate you may be, but you are still young.”
“Enough,” said Vincent. “We have come here to discuss their fates. There is little doubt he is a dangerous presence, but surely, we can come to some sort of arrangement.”
Annabelle laughed. “Arrangement? What sort? I thought he was to die. Have we decided otherwise and I am not yet aware of it?”
Fenrir shot a sideways glance at her. “I have yet to see a Sanguinate so...articulate. Weren’t they supposed to be nothing but ghouls? Why does this one looks so normal?”
Noir nodded. “It is interesting, isn’t it?”
“Do you want to study him?” asked Vincent, voice dry.
The object of my most intent attention nudged his glasses up with a slim index finger. “I must admit to a certain curiosity. I have never gotten the chance to observe such a specimen under these circumstances before.”
The breath caught in my throat.
Surely...surely not...
He drew in a quick breath. “Yes, I think I have made up my mind. I will take him under the guidance of my House.”
That my jaw did not bounce on the thin indigo carpet was surprising.
Jason let out a small laugh. “You would be my Dominus? I regret to tell you I already have a Master.”
Noir tilted his head to one side. “Do you know where she is, so that she may vouch for you? Without someone to lay claim to you, you are anyone’s meat. Without someone’s sponsorship, you would not survive a night out there. Not when we have seen your face, not when we know you are the Sanguinate we have been searching for. You would not last another moon.”
And that, regrettably, was the truth, and I did not think I could survive.
After all, I had to protect him every time while his killers only had to succeed once. The odds were not on our side.
Jason’s jaw tightened. “I have one condition.”
Noir nodded magnanimously. “And that is?”
“You are aware of my beginnings,” he said quietly. “I am Jason Eldridge. I had a fiance, a pregnant woman who had turned vampire.”
Not a flicker of emotion ran across Noir’s face. “Go on.”
“The vampire who turned her,” he continued. “I want his head. I don’t care how I get it.”
Shannon froze “Jason. Stop.”
Jason did not stop. “Her name was Shannon.”
Noir raised a brow. “You mean, the female vampire next to you?”
“Jason, please,” whispered Shannon. “Jason, please, don’t. Don’t do this. Please don’t.”
“She was pregnant with my child.” Jason continued as though he couldn’t hear a thing. “She was pregnant with my child and kidnapped one night. I was going to ask her to marry me.”
I watched the tears coarse down her cheeks as she fell to her knees. “No, no, no, no. Please don’t. Please stop. No more, Jason. I’m begging you!”
“Who is the one that took my fiance and turned her into a vampire? Who is the one who killed my child?”
Matthias walked a few feet forward. “Are you looking for the one responsible for taking Shannon?”
“Matthias, no!” screeched Shannon and I could only stand and watch as he wrestled a skinny, dark-haired vampire out of a chair. “Stop!”
The vampire tried to claw his way out of taller man’s grasp. “Let me go!”
Matthias forced him down to his knees. “Sanguinate, when you say you wanted the one who turned your fiance, what exactly did you mean?”
Jason’s hands tightened around my waist and I heard him swallow.
“I want him dead.”
“No!”
It seemed like instinct, as simple as scratching an itch, to pull free out of Jason’s embrace, to place myself in front of my Master’s body, to unsheathe my sword in one fluid movement, to meet Shannon’s rushing form.
Everything seemed to move slow, like flies covered in honey.
I saw her eyes large and black, the amber fading away into monochrome. Saw her hands extended towards us, saw the fangs already sticking out of her mouth.
Surprise raced across her pretty face and I knew she had not expected this, had not expected me to take Jason’s place.
But once you jump, you can’t take it back.
“Ran, stop!” Jason screamed, but it was too late, much too late.
I didn’t even have to use my Sight.
Her body crashed into mine, but my footing was sure, steady. I did not stagger, did not move.
Except to twist the hilt deeper under her rib cage.
I was an expert at piercing vampire hearts and Shannon was no exception.
Her hands scrabbled at my shoulders weakly as she let out a small sound.
Hands wrenched me away from her, but the damage had been done and it only did more harm to her as the full two feet of silver composite metal was pulled free from her torso.
Blood, darker than anything I had ever seen, fell in a pool at my feet, soaking into my boots, the bottoms of my jeans and I flicked the sword once, scattering blood everywhere.
She fell back, fell back into Jason’s arms, eyes already closed, arms cradled over the womb that had once carried their child.
Nothing.
I felt nothing.
While my Master wept over the loss of his lover, I felt nothing but a very distinct chill that seemed to come from the very core of my body.
And when his eyes, wide and frightening, fell on me, I could do nothing.
“Why?” he mouthed, silvery trails of moisture making their way down his lean cheeks. “Why did you kill her?”
“Because you asked this of me,” I said quietly. “Because I am your Ailward and any and all threat must go through me.”
Tears spilled free from those onyx black eyes. “She was not going to kill me!”
I wished I could have felt something, anything, but there were no emotions I could dredge.
“She made herself a threat.”
He threw back his head and howled, his lover already turning into dust in his arms.
I stared at the glint of metal in her right hand, the small dagger that had brought Lazaro into Death’s embrace.
She had meant to kill.
Perhaps not Jason, but someone.
I bent down and took it from the rapidly flaking hand already smelling like acrid smoke and ashes. “You see this?”
For one moment, I thought he would kill me. Ah, and wouldn’t that had been just ironic?
“I see.”
“She wanted someone to die,” I said. “She wanted someone to hurt. Do not ever question my actions. I am your Ailward. Your life, your very existences lies in my hands.”
He was speechless.
Had anyone ever spoken to him like that?
“Don’t f*ck with me.” Was this my voice? Did I really sound so heartless, so empty, so...void of life? “I mean it, Jason. Don’t you ever f*ck with me. Or Ailward or no, I will hunt you. And I’ll kill you.”
The male vampire Shannon sought to protect groveled on the floor and Matthias shoved his face into the floor. “Ailward. What do you plan on doing with this piece of filth?”
I looked at Jason weeping over his ex-fiance. “Kill him.”
I sheathed my sword and left.