When she lowered her arms, blood dripped from her hands and splattered onto the perfectly polished concrete of the basement. She hadn’t dipped herself in an adversary’s blood; it was her own, running from long slices carved into her forearms.
“Aleksandra asked me to tell you something, Niki baby.” The guard’s fingers still around her neck, she motioned Nikolai closer with a finger. He approached and stopped a foot or so away. The woman grabbed him on either side of his face with her blood-soaked hands and pulled him to her, dragging his mouth to hers and planting a hard, openmouthed kiss. He kept his lips sealed tight, and she growled. He shoved her away right as the security guard yanked her back. And then he smelled it—the bitter, sickening smell of almonds: cyanide, mixed with the floral scent of an elven elixir. It was fatal for Slayers, but the concentration had to be strong. In fact, it took so much of it to kill a Slayer, it could never be ingested accidentally or slipped into a food without being noticed. It was taken by his kind deliberately to avoid capture. This woman’s blood flowed with poison, and she would die soon.
“Come on, Arcos,” she taunted as the guard snapped a collar around her neck that was attached by a chain to a ring in the wall. Good old-fashioned dungeon hardware. Nikolai’s estimation of the Time Folder went way up.
The woman strained against the chain, reaching for Elena. “You want it. It’s right here. Just waiting.” Drips splashed to the floor. “Yum!”
Slayers were never taken alive. This explained why she hadn’t destroyed herself instantly before capture. She was trying to poison Elena. Fury flooded Nikolai’s body.
“Come on, vampire. Do what you were designed to do.” The woman’s grin was maniacal. “Dinner time! Come and get it!”
“Enough,” Darvaak said, pushing the elevator button. The doors slid open, and he stepped inside.
Nikolai wanted to question this woman before she died and find out why she had mentioned Aleksandra. Surely Aleksi wasn’t part of this. He’d left her at the Fortress where she’d be safe. He leaned close to Elena’s ear, and she flinched. It pained him that she feared him. “Can you stand it a moment more? Her blood is poisoned. Does it tempt you? We can leave if it does.”
She shook her head. She was so strong. Stronger than most immortals he knew.
Darvaak rolled his eyes and stepped out of the elevator. “She won’t talk. She is a tool and nothing more. They used her to get to Elena. She has no value.”
“Where is Aleksandra?” Nikolai asked her.
She leaned against the metal wall and grinned. “In Fydor’s bed.”
Rage flared like a match had hit kerosene in his veins. Nikolai grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head back against the wall. “Liar!”
Elena cried out and moved away to the extent the cord would allow. Shit. He’d pulled her too close to the Slayer’s blood. He backed up several feet, and Elena scooted with him.
The woman laughed, eyes unfocused. “You idiot. She’s sacrificing herself to buy you more time. Just like your mother did.” A shudder passed through her. “Destroy the girl now before he kills Aleksandra. Before he kills us all…” Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she slipped to the floor.
Aleksandra.
Nikolai’s breaths came in quick gulps. His mother had married Fydor to buy him time? Time for what?
She had to have been lying. He needed to return home. Now.
Chapter Nine
Elena’s skin burned and itched. She reached up and scratched her collarbone for the billionth time while Nikolai scrubbed the woman’s blood from his face in Stefan’s bathroom sink. The dead woman’s blood. She shuddered.
He hadn’t said a word since the woman slumped in a heap on the concrete floor at his feet. He’d acted like he didn’t know her, but he certainly knew the woman she had mentioned: Aleksandra. That was the name of the doctor at the hospital—well, the woman pretending to be a doctor. The one who kissed him and called him Niki… His lover, obviously.
She rubbed her burning chest. Images of the dark-haired, supermodel-gorgeous woman clouded her brain. Compared to Aleksandra, Elena knew that she was exactly what he had called her repeatedly: weak and pathetic.
“Hey.” His wet, warm hand stilled hers. “What’s going on?”
She stopped scratching and dropped her hands. “Nothing.” But something was going on. She was upset because he preferred some Slayer woman to her. That should thrill her. Make her the happiest human—well, mostly human—on the planet. They’d get out of this cord, and she’d be free of this bossy, lying, miserable man.
But somehow that wasn’t as appealing as she’d like it to be. Something in her sought his approval. Longed to be with him. Wanted to help him… A freaking sick part, and it had to be tied to ingesting his blood. No. Just, no. She must rein in her hormones or libido or whatever this was until he removed the cord.
“What’s wrong with you? You keep scratching and rubbing your chest.”