“He won’t be talking anymore. So you can do as you said and let my nieces go. We had a deal.”
He studied my tense expression for a moment. “Tomorrow. Let them sleep now. It’s been a long day for all of us. Good night Jillian.”
Two of his men took me by my arms and began to direct me out of the room. “Wait. What happened with Declan? Is he okay? Where is he right now?”
Before he could say anything in reply we were out of the room, and the vampires took me down a hallway and up a flight of stairs. They stopped in front of a door and unlocked it, then pushed me into the expansive, dark bedroom. All I saw were shadows and outlines. For a moment I figured this was where I was supposed to sleep for the night, although I’d never felt less tired in my entire life.
I gasped when I felt the rough slide of rope over my wrists.
“What are you doing?” I demanded as they tied me to the bedpost with my arms behind me.
One of the vampires grasped my face tightly. His eyes were black and his jaw was lined with dark veins. “Kristoff wants you to be part of a new experiment. Good luck.”
And then they were gone, closing and locking the door behind them.
What the hell?
Any anger I’d felt earlier faded away until fear was the only thing left. I hated to be left alone with my thoughts. The more I had to deal with, the better off I was. But now there was nothing except dread filling my senses. I pulled at my bindings, but it didn’t do any good.
Kristoff wanted me put in here, tied up, as some sort of experiment. I didn’t know what kind of experiment, though I supposed the options were disturbingly endless.
I stilled, both body and thoughts, and strained to listen.
Someone else was in here with me, only I couldn’t see who it was. My eyes adjusted to the darkness.
“Who’s here?” I whispered.
I wasn’t sure why I asked. I already knew who it was. I craned my neck to see the outline of his body lying against the wall. After a moment, he moved, muscles flexing as he looked across the room toward me. His black eye narrowed and his lips curled back from his teeth enough that I could clearly see his fangs.
Declan’s fangs.
18
DECLAN STOOD UP. HIS CHEST WAS BARE AND ALL HE wore were black jeans. His scars were still there, of course, but they seemed to have lightened slightly against his pale skin.
He was a vampire now. Just like his father.
This was the experiment. Kristoff wanted me to be in the same room with Declan now that my blood could kill him. It was a test to see if he was strong enough to resist biting me. Maybe a rite of passage as he’d done with Noah—a job interview.
Bite me and die or resist and live. But Noah had a full day before he’d been given the opportunity to test his strength around me. Declan would have been sired only hours ago. And he already had fangs.
Cold fear slid through me.
“Declan—” I began.
“Shut up.” There was pain in his voice.
I pressed my lips together.
“This is your fault,” he growled at me.
“That you’re still alive?” My voice shook, not sure if I should be encouraged or terrified that he could form complete sentences. “Yeah, I guess that’s all on me.”
“I was supposed to die tonight. I agreed to it.”
“Well, that’s just too fucking bad, isn’t it? Suck it up. Noah did. And—and don’t come any closer to me.”
He ignored my request and drew nearer to where I was tied up like a sacrificial offering. As predicted, six feet away he froze, his nostrils flaring. “Fuck.”
“Different now, isn’t it?” I cringed as I watched the alltoo-familiar spiderweb of veins appear around his eye and eye patch and down to his jawline. His hands were fisted at his sides, his muscles tense.
His face was shadowed, but his single black eye glittered in the near darkness. “Your scent . . . is complete . . . and utter torture.”
I pulled at the ropes but they didn’t give in the slightest and only cut painfully into my wrists. “It’ll be worse if you bite me.”
“He’s . . . testing me.”
“Brilliant deduction.” I eyed him warily as he drew closer still. There was dark anger on his face as he glared at me.
“He’s sure only one of us will leave this room.”
I gasped as he clutched my throat. “You can’t bite me.”
“No. But there are other ways of dealing with you so you’re not a problem for me any longer.”
My breath caught. I was right. He was going to kill me. “Let go of me.”
He tilted his head as he stared at me. He seemed suddenly as emotionless as he’d ever been, the rage disappearing from his expression completely. He looked like a stone-cold killer. “This relationship can only end in a couple of ways, Jill. My death or yours. I might slip up and bite you now and that’s a risk for me. I’m strong—stronger than he thought I’d be when he did this to me. Stronger than Noah was. But I’m not
that
strong. It’s hell being this close to you knowing I can’t taste you.”
I couldn’t see the scars on his face for the pattern of dark lines that showed his hunger. “Noah says my blood is like crack to him now.”
His grip on my throat tightened. “
You’re
like crack to me.”
I struggled to keep the fear out of my eyes. “Such a sweet talker when you’re talking about killing me.”
He shook his head and grimaced, his lips curling back so I could see those sharp white fangs again. I shuddered. The sight of them made me mourn for the Declan who was now gone forever. He pushed my head to the side so he could see Alex’s fangs marks on my neck and hissed out a breath.
“It was only a matter of time. You’re too soft, Jill. Too human. You don’t have the killer instinct like I do. If Kristoff decides to keep using you as an assassin, you wouldn’t last more than a couple days before some vamp snapped your neck.”
He believed it, every word. I could see it in his gaze. I was soft, weak, and I needed someone to protect me. Now that he couldn’t do it I was on my own—a baby bird that had fallen out of the nest.
I wasn’t as weak as he thought I was.
He brought his other hand up to my throat so he would be able to squeeze the life out of me the moment he made the decision to end this conversation. “I don’t understand why you’d do it, Jill. Why would you get Kristoff to sire me when you damn well knew I’d never want something like that?”
His grip was nearly too tight for me to speak. I felt a wash of emotion—fear, anger, frustration, despair—as I stared at the vampire in front of me.
“You were dying.”
“Why didn’t you let me die?”
“Because I needed you to live.”
He shook his head. “Why would you have me made into something I hate?”
“I knew you’d want to kill me for this.”
“And yet you asked Kristoff to sire me anyway. Why?” His brows drew together.
“Because I wanted you to live, no matter what. I was too selfish and too stubborn to let you die like that.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because—” My voice caught. “Because I love you.”
He didn’t move, didn’t react, but his hands loosened on me. My heart pounded so fast and hard that I could hear it loudly in my ears. Tears slid down my cheeks.
And then he released me completely and took a step back. The air in the room felt cool on my throat.
He was frowning deeply. “You love me.”
I inhaled shakily. “Is—is that really such a big surprise to you?”
“No one has ever—” His jaw tightened.
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. No one had ever told Declan that they loved him before—probably not even Emily, the woman who’d looked after him as a little boy. Not Carson in all the years he’d raised him. Declan had had no previous girlfriends since he couldn’t experience true emotion or desire while on the serum. And his birth mother had never told him the truth, had never loved him a day of his life.
No one had ever loved Declan enough to make a stupid, selfish decision like this on his behalf.
I’d known I loved Declan for a while now, but I’d been afraid to admit it even to myself. Lust was easy. But love was an emotion far more dangerous and unpredictable than the thirstiest vampire.
I licked my dry lips as the silence spread between us. “Matthias said vampires don’t love the way humans do. They have detached emotions, I guess. They can see things more objectively. So they can’t become emotionally attached to anyone.”
His gaze hardened again. “And yet he claimed you.”
I cringed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is.”
“It’s the only thing keeping the Nightshade from killing me. I feel better than I have for weeks.”
His eye widened slightly at the news that my death watch could be called off. “So do I.”
“Your serum—”
“Gone. The vampire blood . . . it burned away any remaining serum. And since I’m not a dhampyr anymore, I don’t have the mindless rage to deal with, either.”
“Just a little bloodlust and an aversion to sunlight.” I grimaced. “Sounds like a fair trade.”
“I’m not sure about that.” Declan pulled his silver blade from the leather sheath at his hip.
So much for my heartfelt admission. It hadn’t made any damn difference. He was still going to kill me. “You don’t have to do this. You need to untie me, and then we have to find Matthias and get the hell out of here.”
“I find it difficult to give a shit what happens to Matthias, actually.”
“My connection to him is no different than your connection to Kristoff. A means to an end, that’s all.”
His eye narrowed. “The only difference is I didn’t have to fuck Kristoff for our connection, I just had to drink his blood.”
I stared at him. “I didn’t have sex with Matthias.”
Surprise flickered in his gaze. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
He pulled back enough that I could see his shadowed face and that fiery look in the black as midnight eye. “I don’t know how he can be so close to you and not lose control of himself.”
I eyed the sharp knife he held. “Maturity. Practice. Self-denial.”
“It was a rhetorical question, but it’s great to know you’re such a fan of the former vampire king.”
Anger burned away anything else I was feeling. “I’m sick of talking, Declan. I’ve had my say. Do it. Get it over with.”
“Okay.” He raised the knife.
So much for my bluff. I couldn’t die, not before I knew Meg and Julie were okay. “No, wait! You’re not the same as the others. You can control yourself. You’re not like Noah was last night. And Kristoff has no power over you. He’s your father, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing. I know you, Declan, and I know I’ve hurt you, but you don’t have to—”
“I’m not going to kill you, Jill. I never was.”
I sucked in a mouthful of air so deeply I nearly choked on it as his words registered with me. I glared at him. “Then stop fucking around and untie me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He moved behind me to slit the ropes with the knife, freeing my hands. I rubbed my rope-burned wrists gingerly as he sheathed the knife. I didn’t move an inch from where I stood. Neither did he.
“Tell me again why you asked Kristoff to sire me,” he said softly, raising his gaze from my wrists to my eyes.
I blinked. “Because I need you.”
“Why else?”
“Because I didn’t want you to die.”
“Why else?” He slid his hand down my right cheek and wiped away a tear there.
I touched his hand, still warm unlike Matthias’s cool skin—the difference four hundred years as a vampire would make. Relief washed over me. “Because I love you so much I knew I’d die if you did.”
He shook his head. “That’s your bond with Matthias, not ours.”
“Maybe on paper. But not where it counts.”
His frown deepened and the dark veins were still there on his face. “He’s better-looking than me, richer, more powerful. And he can control himself around you.”
“I’m sure you’re trying to make a point, but it’s lost on me.” I flattened my hands on the broad, muscled slabs of his chest. His warmth was more a relief than I thought it was. I guess vampires took time to cool off, since Declan was still hot to the touch.
His expression showed dark hunger as his mouth closed over mine. I kissed him, pulling him against me. He growled against my lips and it sounded pained and uncertain.
“Fuck,” he whispered harshly against my lips. “This is pure torture.”
I tried to catch my breath. “You don’t have to be this close to me.”