The moment I let down my guard, something plunges into my neck. A pinprick. A needle. A dart. I don’t know. But in seconds, I’m slipping to the ground…

Part Ten

REDEMPTION

I think Riley’s tendencies have surpassed my own abilities. Doesn’t bother me. I like how strong she is. The control she’s learned in the short time we’ve been back from Romania blows my mind. It takes everything I have not to interfere. Her reflexes are scary fast. And the mind manipulation she exerts? No one is unaffected. Not even me. Especially that bastard Arcos. It’ll be interesting to see if Riley can keep from killing him. For the sake of all of us, I hope she can. A war between the Duprés and Arcoses wouldn’t be pretty. And I’m not willing to risk losing Riley. Without her, my existence is meaningless.

—Eli Dupré

Something hot and wet trails my cheek and rouses me from a drug-induced slumber. Forcing my eyelids to open, I squint into the near darkness. I try to move, but I’m shackled to a cot. The room is cold. Damp. Smells moldy. I turn my head.

And stare into a pair of dark eyes. Human. With tendencies.

“Awake now, are ya?” the man, apparently a guard, whispers in my ear. “‘Bout goddamn time.”

My first reaction is to bite off his damn ear, then head-butt him into oblivion. He can see me in the moonlight, but I can see only his shadowed shape. With my arms and legs bound, I can’t budge.

Instead, I slide him a slow, sexy smile. I trace my bottom lip with my tongue. “God, you smell good,” I lie. “Come closer.”

The guard pauses, probably stunned from what I’ve said, but then his brain cells rush to the winning muscle and he leans over me, just like I ask. “Yeah? You think I smell good?”

“Um-hm,” I croon, thanking God above that the man indeed didn’t smell overly stinky. “I bet you taste even better.”

Again, he pauses—but only briefly. His mouth moves to mine. “Why don’t you find out?” Moving a hand to my breast, he squeezes it hard and shoves his tongue in my mouth.

Biting back the urge to barf, I kiss him back, a furious, fast kiss, just to turn him on. It does. He gropes at me then, lifting my shirt and pushing my bra up, ignoring the tape wrapping my ribs, and grasping my bare breast and squeezing. He moans, and starts to climb on top of me. “You’re gonna like this, baby,” he grunts.

Fighting back the urge to kill him now, I move my mouth to his ear. “Wait,” I whisper, licking his earlobe. “Slow down.” I bite the shell of his ear to get his attention. “This would be a lot more fun if I weren’t tied up. Don’t you think?”

The guard, silhouetted by the light coming down from the ceiling, grunts. “You might get away. Then my ass is fried.” He bends his head and tries to kiss me, but I move my mouth.

“I’m just a girl. I can’t possibly get away from you. Besides,” I say, breathing hard, “why would I want to? I’m wet and horny as hell.” I move to his ear once more and give a whispered moan. “And I want to fuck your brains out.”

“Jesus God, woman,” he says after a second. Fast as he can, he pulls something out of his pocket. “Hold still.”

A pair of cutters clips through the thick plastic tie-wraps binding my wrists and ankles. As soon as I’m free, he throws them to the floor and falls upon me. Again, I give just enough to keep him interested, then push him away.

“Wait a minute,” I say in a fake, excited breath. “Not so fast.” I reach between his legs, grab his arousal, and give an even faker moan of sexual impatience. “Let me get on top.”

“Kinky bitch, ain’t ya?” he says. “With that weird tat on your face. What other tats you got, babe?” He chuckles. “Okay, whatever you say.” He rises, allowing me to move out from under him, then he takes my spot, on his back. He gropes himself impatiently. “Hurry up. I’m about to spurt in my goddamn pants.”

The moonlight spreads over him now, illuminating some of his features. Crew cut, mid-forties—an average-looking man. A pervert. A pervert with tendencies.

Internally repulsed by the disgusting threat of spurting, I sling one leg over his hips and straddle him, wriggling against his rising erection. He grabs my hips, shoving me harder against it.

“Yeah, baby, do me,” he says, his voice thick with excitement. “Take off your shirt so I can see your tits swinging in my face.” Apparently, junior here has watched one too many cheap pornos.

Grabbing the hem of my shirt, I slowly pull it off and drop it on the floor. His eyes glaze over as they lock on my dragons. “Goddamn, baby, that’s hot as shit.” He lifts a hand and fingers the ink markings on my arm.

Just to give the situation an added extra, I palm his crotch. “Oh, you’re so hard,” I say. “Are you ready for me?”

He presses my hand hard against him. “Oh yeah, bitch, I’m ready all right.”

“Good.”

He grunts with what I suspect is a sexually excited moan of pleasure.

Then I rise off him, stand next to the cot, and slowly unbutton my jeans.

“Hurry up, baby,” he says, yanking his zipper down and groping himself. “I’m gonna come all over my–Humph!”

The wind leaves his lungs in a painful, gurgling gush as I raise my leg and slam the heel of my boot down hard on his crotch. He gasps a few times, ineffective little puffs of wind as he curls into a ball, hands cradling his privates.

Wasting no time, I rear my foot back again and catch him full force under the chin, sending him sprawling off the cot.

“Bitch!” he wheezes, spitting.

Another stomp to the groin sends the guard into a spasm of air sucking and cussing.

Dropping to my knees, I fish in his pocket for the tie-wraps I’d felt while straddling him. Grabbing a handful, I quickly bind his feet.

The guard reaches for something, and knowing he has tendencies makes me not trust him for a single second, or waste a single move. I dive in the same direction, my fingers brushing the cutters, knocking them across the room where they ping off a wall. “Ah-ah, shithead. No getting out of the wraps.”

I stand and put my boot to his throat. “Turn onto your stomach or you’ll be whistling out of a brand new hole in your neck. Now.”

He curses, then turns over.

I drop a knee right between his shoulder blades, wrench one of his arms behind him and pin it with my weight. Quickly, I grab the other arm, then tie-wrap them together. I kneel over him, close to his ear.

“You’re going to tell me a few things,” I say, barely above a whisper. I concentrate, envisioning in my head that I can make this prick do anything I want him to do with no resistance. “And you’re going to do it quietly. Now roll over and be still.”

He does and goes completely motionless. Says nothing. Doesn’t move. But his eyes stay fixed on mine.

“Good boy. Now tell me where we are,” I command.

“The research center,” he mumbles. “Lab.”

“What research?” I ask.

“Experiments,” he says. “On blood.”

“Whose?” I demand.

“All of ours,” he mutters. “Yours. Mine. Those like us.”

The picture became clearer. “Vampires.”

He shrugs.

“Where’s Valerian Arcos?” I ask.

The guard remains silent. I give him a mental shove without even realizing how I’ve done it. Apparently, it doesn’t feel too good to have your brain pushed.

He screams.

I quickly back off.

“I’ve never seen him,” he says, whimpering. “He only talks to me in my mind. Tells me what to do, whose blood to collect.”

“How many others are here?” I ask.

“Not sure,” he answers. “Could be two dozen, could be one. They come and go.”

Just that fast, I’m tired of playing the game. I want answers.

“Where’s the lab?”

“Out and left.”

I pull my shirt back on and take off running, pushing through a single door that leads from the room and into a corridor. It has the feel of an old high school built in the fifties, with long halls and rooms on either side. The doors are closed, and only every other overhead light burns. Throwing open door after door, I find nothing. No one. It’s like the facility is abandoned.

I’m hit from behind.

Not so abandoned.

I fly—not literally, but my body leaves the ground and smashes against the wall. I drop, roll, and leap up. My hand feels for a blade down my waistband. I palm it and look.

Four young vampires. Three males, one female.

All four leap at me at once.

With two quick releases, I fling blades and down the two closest to me. I can tell I won’t make it far—they’re quick and almost on me. So I take off.

I know they’ll have a hard time catching me.

Down the corridor I run. It’s dim—almost pitch-black. I see a stairwell door and shove through and tear up the steps. In seconds I’m on the third-floor landing and I slam against the metal bar and open the door.

Six more young vampires are standing there, waiting.

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere, Poe,” the one in front—a male with blond spiked hair—says. “He called you here for a reason.” He takes a step toward me. “You’re stayin’ a while, darlin’.”

I’ve had enough. Valerian Arcos is a danger I no longer care to have lingering in my life. He’s been able to snatch Estelle right out from under our noses.

He’s capable of anything.

He has to be stopped.

I leap at the leader. His jaws extend and teeth drop. The others follow. I ignore them all. I plunge a silver blade into his chest before my feet bound off his shoulder. As I land behind the group, they turn and descend on me. In one move I crouch, sweep out with one leg and take down the next. The blade I have palmed is buried into the newling’s flesh. She screams and falls with the others.