Back at the Sea Breeze this morning when Finn had been telling me about Dekes, I'd thought that the vampire was just another businessman bad guy, a bullying thug with too much money who thought he was entitled to whatever he wanted.

Now I knew what a sick, sick bastard he really was.

"Let me guess. Vanessa and Victoria aren't the first women you've done this to, are they?" I asked. "How many women have you collected over the years? How many have you killed? And for what, their blood?"

"Hardly," Dekes sniffed. "This is about so much more than mere blood, Gin. This is about power - elemental power. You asked me before what my favorite thing was to collect. Well, this is it."

That cold finger of dread started crawling up my spine again. Dekes held up his hand, and elemental Fire sparked and crackled on his fingertips, glowing like red-hot matches. I tensed and reached for my own Stone magic, ready to use it to turn my skin into a hard, impenetrable shell. But instead of throwing the Fire at me, the vampire casually tossed the flames into the fireplace, causing the logs inside to ignite. He stared at the flames a moment before holding up his hand again. This time, a blast of Air roared through the room, swirled into the fireplace, and snuffed out the burning logs.

Now I knew why the crackle of elemental magic around Dekes felt like Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone all at the same time - because that's what it was. The blood that he'd drunk from various elementals had all mixed together in his veins, letting him tap into all four areas. He'd mentioned a woman with Ice magic, and I had no doubt that there'd been one with Stone power just like my own before her - and countless others over the years. All trapped here in Dekes's odd gilded cage and forced to feed him their blood one way or another until he sucked them dry or they killed themselves to be free of him.

"So you don't have any actual elemental power of your own," I said. "You just take it from the women that you force to give you their blood. You know what, Dekes? For all your money and knickknacks, you're nothing but a common thief."

"Yes, and it's a system that I've perfected over the years, if I do say so myself. And now I've decided to add you to my collection," Dekes said. "You should be honored."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really? You really think that I'm just going to lie down for you?"

Dekes gestured at his men, who'd spread out in the library like a group of NFL linebackers, putting themselves between me and the doors. "Of course not. That's why I brought in reinforcements."

I laughed in his face. For the first time, annoyance flared in the vamp's eyes, and his whole body bristled with indignation, including his mustache. He didn't like being laughed at - nobody did - but in his case, it was probably the first time that it had happened in a hundred years.

"In case you didn't hear, in case your buddy Jonah didn't tell you, I killed Mab fucking Monroe, who was rumored to be the strongest elemental born in the last five hundred years," I growled. "Do you really think that you and your giants are going to put me down? Dream on, you sick son of a bitch."

Dekes glared at me another second before making a visible effort to rein in his temper. "You will do exactly what I say," he said in a soft voice. "You will lay down the knife in your hand and all the others that you have on you, and then you will bare your neck to me."

"Or else what?" I asked, even though I had a pretty good idea what the or else was going to be.

Dekes stared at me. "Or else I will drain every single drop of blood out of sweet Victoria while Vanessa watches. Then I'll go do the same to your sister, Bria. Jonah told me about her too, and all that lovely Ice magic she has."

Yeah, I'd thought it would be something like that. I wasn't too worried about Bria. My sister was just as tough as I was, with her own Ice magic to fall back on. She could handle getting away from Dekes's goons with no problem, and she'd have Finn and Owen to help her. Sooner or later, the three of them would realize that things had gone to hell in a handbasket and find a way to escape from the mansion. They wouldn't like it, but they'd leave me behind, hole up at the beach house, and wait for me to appear.

Now the question was how I was going to get myself out of here.

Vanessa looked at me, pleading at me with her dark eyes, begging me to do what Dekes wanted to save her sister. I'd never killed kids or pets as an assassin, and I didn't want to be the cause of an innocent woman's death now either, but I'd do what I had to in order to survive. And right now, that meant playing along with Dekes until I could get close enough to him to strike - or escape. As badly as the situation had deteriorated, I'd be good with either one of those at this point.

I didn't want to leave Vanessa and Victoria behind, didn't want them to suffer anymore at the vamp's hands, but I couldn't get all three of us out of here, not with Victoria unconscious and Dekes and his giants watching my every move. It was a calculated gamble, but I didn't think the vamp would actually kill either of the two women - not as long as they still had elemental magic he could feast on. He was too greedy that way to back up his threat. No, he was just trying to use them to subdue me, and I'd be damned if I let that happen.

"Fine," I snarled, playing along and pretending I was already beaten. "You may have the winning hand right now, but I'll tell you the same thing I told your man Pete before I dumped his body in the pool. You have no idea who you're messing with."

"Oh, I think I do," Dekes said. "So get rid of your weapons - now. All of them."

I put the silverstone knife I was holding on top of the stone mantel that jutted out from the fireplace, then pulled out the four others I had hidden on my body and placed them there as well. I made my movements slow and exaggerated so the giants wouldn't have an excuse to rush me en masse and also to give myself a few more seconds to think.

I had two choices. I could reach for my Stone magic, use it to harden my skin, smash through one of the French doors, and run like hell. It was the safer option, even though there was no guarantee of success. And of course, I'd have to leave Vanessa and Victoria behind to face Dekes's wrath. Or I could wait for Dekes to move within arm's reach, grab him, blast him with all the Ice magic that I had, and hope that it was enough to cut through his own stolen power and turn him into a Popsicle. A much bigger gamble, since I'd still have the giants to deal with, but the reward was much greater: kill the vampire now and hopefully save the two women from this house of horrors.

Run or fight, run or fight.

I decided to fight.

I put the last of my knives onto the mantel and waited for Dekes to move into range.

"How nice," Dekes said, walking over and picking up one of the blades. "A matching set. I'll have to add these to my weapons collection."

He sidled even closer to me. I reached for my Ice magic and waited - just waited for him to take a few more steps in my direction.

"I collect weapons, you know," Dekes said, not seeming to realize the danger he was in. "I'm sure you saw some of them earlier during our tour. I especially like small guns, dart guns. Like this one."

And that's when the vamp whirled around and shot me.

Too late, I heard something mechanical snap and saw the glint of metal appear in Dekes's left hand. In addition to the elemental power that he stole from his victims, their blood also gave Dekes something else, something that blood gave so many vamps - unbelievably fast reflexes. He already had his gun up and pointed at me before I realized what was happening, and I didn't even have time to create an Ice shield to block his attack or use my Stone magic to harden my skin before he pulled the trigger and a small dart stung my neck. I cursed and yanked it out, but it was already too late. Even as I tried to summon up enough of my Ice magic to blast Dekes to hell, I could feel my limbs going numb.

I only managed to take one step toward the vampire before my legs went out from under me. My last thought before I thumped to the floor was that I'd made the wrong choice, picked the wrong magic - and now I was going to pay for it.

Chapter 16

My arms and legs went dead - absolutely, immediately cold, numb, and dead - but my mind remained strangely clear, and I didn't lose consciousness. No, I was painfully aware of lying there on the library floor, wanting to kill Randall Dekes more than anything else and not being able to do it. I couldn't get any part of my body to work, not so much as a finger to twitch, much less point my hands at Dekes and blast him with my Ice magic.

"Prop her up in one of the chairs, and tie her there nice and tight," Dekes said somewhere above my head. "I don't want any surprises. Quickly now, before the drug wears off."

Hands lifted me up and maneuvered me into a chair in front of the fireplace. One of the giants hurried over to the wet bar and reached down for something hidden on one of the shelves there. He came up with a coil of rope, the kind of thick, heavy, almost unbreakable rope that you'd find on a sailboat, the kind of rope that would be a bitch to slice through, even if I'd still had one of my silverstone knives on me. Not that I could have used them, given how numb my fingers were right now.

The giant stepped forward and quickly tied me down to the chair, looping the rope over my chest, arms, and legs until I was trussed up tighter than a Thanksgiving turkey.

Never let yourself be immobilized by the enemy. Fletcher had told me that over and over again, but here I was, tied down to a chair and about to be tortured for the second time in my life. Fuck.

I managed to loll my head to one side to look at Vanessa, but the Fire elemental lowered her eyes. She didn't want to meet my gaze. Couldn't blame her for that. I wouldn't want to watch what was about to happen next either - especially since there was nothing I could do to stop it. Not one damn thing. For a moment, I wished for the blindfold Mab had used when she'd tortured me by melting my spider rune necklace into my palms. At least then I wouldn't have to see Dekes bite me. But I wasn't that scared thirteen-year-old girl anymore. I was older and stronger, if not exactly wiser. Either way, I'd face my enemy head-on.

Dekes walked around so that he was beside me and leaned forward over the chair, so close I could feel his hot breath brush against my cheek and smell his spicy aftershave. The floral scent made me want to gag.

"Don't worry, Gin," Dekes purred in my ear. "I just gave you a muscle relaxant to make you a little more pliable so my men could get you into the chair right where you needed to be. The effects won't last more than another minute. You should already start feeling some sensation returning to your arms and legs, while your mind remains completely unaffected. You see, I want you to know exactly what's happening to you. I want you to feel every last bit of it. I wouldn't have any fun otherwise."

He was right. The absolute numbness was already starting to fade, replaced by small, painful tingles. I concentrated and was able to move my fingers, but I knew that it wasn't going to be enough, that I wasn't going to recover quickly enough to escape what the vampire had in mind.

Dekes reached down and tilted my head to one side, exposing my throat to him. I couldn't help but look up into his face. Lust blazed in Dekes's green eyes, and his tongue eagerly darted out to moisten his lips underneath his bristling mustache. The vampire smiled a final time, letting me see just how long, sharp, and deadly his fangs were.

Then the bastard sank them into my neck.

There are some folks who think that being bitten by a vampire is sexy.

Some people like that first pop of pain, the dizzying rush of their blood leaving their own body, the weak, languid feeling of having someone else steal away part of them. Some folks even get a high off those kinds of feelings, a heady, electric charge that seems to make it all worthwhile.

I am not one of those people.

Being bitten by a vampire is like being stabbed in the neck with a dagger - two of them at the same time. Dekes's bite was hard, brutal, merciless, and vicious, just like he was. I screamed as he drove his fangs deep into my neck, and I screamed again as he started to suck out my blood in long, agonizing spurts. The last of the numbness from the drug immediately vanished, replaced by pure, pulsing pain. It felt like there was a giant fist wrapped around my neck that was just squeezing and squeezing and squeezing the blood and everything else out of me. The magic, the power, the life.

Some vamps are skilled enough to make their bites feel like minor annoyances, like a veteran nurse knowing exactly how to slip an IV needle into a patient's hand to minimize that initial prick of pain.

Dekes was not one of those vamps. He didn't want to minimize my pain or discomfort - he wanted the elemental power in my blood, and he wanted to brutalize me while he took it. The only one getting any pleasure out of this was him, and I could feel his erection pressing against my thigh as he leaned over me. Sick, sadistic bastard. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he was one of the vamps who got a power boost off sex just like he did from drinking blood.

The hot stench of my own coppery blood filled my nose, overpowering everything else. Sweat slickened my hands, my whole body trembled, and white starbursts exploded in my eyes. And still, Dekes kept sucking out my blood. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

As an assassin, I'd suffered just about every injury big and small that a person could experience over the years. I'd been stabbed, shot, beaten, burned, electrocuted, blasted with elemental magic, and buried alive too many times to count. But this was a different kind of agony altogether because not only was Dekes hurting me, he was also taking a piece of me with him at the same time - the elemental magic that was as much a part of who and what I was as the spider runes branded into my palms.

My hands were tied down to the chair arms so I couldn't see the scars, but I could feel the silverstone - and the magical metal seemed to be wriggling around like hot worms underneath my skin. I blocked out the agony of the vampire's bite and concentrated on that strange sensation - and I realized that I could feel my scars burning, burning, burning with the cold power of my Ice and Stone magic, until it seemed like the silverstone was soaking up just as much of my power as Dekes was. I didn't know if I was consciously doing it or some self-preservation switch had been flipped in the back of my brain, but somehow I was directing my magic into the silverstone that had been melted into my flesh, storing the power there and trying to keep as much of it away from the vampire for as long as possible.