The demon’s eyes locked onto hers. Evil. Knowing. Anticipating.
You’re not going to win, either, Elise silently vowed. Determination welled up in her, stronger than any emotion she’d felt in decades. I won’t let you..
Chapter Six
Elise hadn’t seen her sire in months. That wasn’t unusual, except in this case, Mencheres had been the one to keep himself secluded away. One glance showed that the toll from the recent war that resulted in Mencheres’s long-estranged wife being killed still hung over him. Physically, Mencheres looked the same. His waist-length black hair was just as lustrous, his creamy skin still held the amber tint of his Egyptian heritage, and his features were as handsome and regal as ever. But sadness clung to him in a tangible way, making the familiar lines around his mouth seem more likely to form a frown than a smile.
She hugged him, feeling none of her normal aversion to close contact. At the feel of his arms around her, the same peace washed over her that Mencheres always inspired. Father, I’ve missed you.
When he let her go, Elise touched his face. “You look terrible.”
Mencheres gave her a strained smile. “True, but I will be better in time.”
All things heal with time, he’d told her shortly after turning her into a vampire. Elise still wasn’t sure she believed that, but things did numb with time, at least.
“Tell me about the man,” Mencheres said.
Blake wasn’t there; Bones had taken him directly to the basement, where the vampire cell was located. Every permanent vampire residence had a reinforced room for confining new vampires while they fought to control the initial blood craze. If a new vampire couldn’t break out of it, Bones had reasoned, neither could a demon.
“He’s back to himself now,” Elise replied, shuddering at the memory of their hours-long car ride. The demon had continued to torment Cat by mimicking her grandparents’ voices on what had—apparently—been the scene of their murder by vampires. Bones couldn’t keep his hand over the demon’s mouth the entire time, either. Not with the demon biting Bones and trying to drink vampire blood off the wounds. Or choking when Bones gagged him. Several times, Elise had worried that Bones’s temper would snap, and he’d kill Blake, but they’d all made it in one piece, though Cat was still outside composing herself.
Mencheres studied Elise. She looked away from his probing gaze. Finally, a heavy sigh came from him.
“You’ve come to care for the human.”
It wasn’t Mencheres’s mind-reading skills that betrayed her. Those only worked on humans, not other vampires. Mencheres just knew her too well.
“It makes no sense,” Elise admitted. “He has no value in this world, no reason to go on. Plus, he wants to die. But I was like that, too, once. Maybe more than once.”
The silence stretched between them, filling with the unspoken memory of their history. Mencheres didn’t need to be reminded that Elise had also been desperate to die when she was human. After all, it was how they’d met.
“I will try,” Mencheres said at last. “But there may be nothing that can be done.”
Elise laid her hand on her his arm. “Sire… father… thank you.”
Mencheres’s dark gaze was bleak. “You may not thank me when this is over.”
The metal clamps bit into Blake’s wrists, ankles, and waist. Bones had shackled him to the wall in a way that let Blake know the vampire wasn’t concerned whether he was bruised in the process. Add the green glinting in Bones’s eyes and the fangs curving where normal teeth had been, and Blake knew he was staring death in the face.
“No one’s here,” Blake said quietly. “You could say it was an accident, that I tried to get away.”
Bones shot him a single glare. “Mate, if killing you were an option, you’d have met your maker hours ago. But I’m not giving that foul beast inside you the satisfaction of freeing it. Not until there’s nowhere for it to run.”
Elise’s entering the room with a tall, foreign-looking man stopped Blake’s reply. She had her hand in the stranger’s, and Blake wondered if this was her husband or boyfriend. Oddly, he didn’t like either thought.
“You tried to control his mind?” the stranger asked Bones, traces of an unfamiliar accent in his voice.
Bones grunted. “Too right. Filthy get wouldn’t shut up in the car, and for some reason, he kept after my wife the whole bloody trip.”
The stranger looked thoughtful at this information. Blake winced.
“I’m sorry.”
The stranger moved to the side, and Blake saw he had a dog behind him, of all things. Elise shut the door. It was just the four of them and a mastiff in the room. What now? Blake wondered.