“You think because of his disabilities he was helpless?” He shook his head. “You underestimated him. He was a vicious creature in his time.”
“I guess it goes with the territory.” I tried to clear my mind of any panic I was feeling. I had to figure a way out of this, but it was looking pretty bleak. Declan was compelled to help Kristoff. Matthias was weakened and restrained. I was in deep shit.
“Alex had to die so a new friend of mine could step up to the plate as leader of the Amarantos. He has been waiting for years for such an opportunity and he didn’t want to delay.”
The hardwood floor felt cold against my bare feet, but the sensation helped me to concentrate. “A new friend.”
“Alex would have opposed me now that I’m back. I couldn’t have that. I knew there was no time to waste. In fact, it was an excellent chance to kill two birds with one stone because I wanted to show you off to Stephen. He was impressed.”
Stephen—the new leader of the Amarantos and Kristoff’s buddy. He was the one Kristoff planned to give Sara to. My stomach lurched.
“It’s nice to have friends in high places,” I said.
“He’s here. He arrived just before sunrise.”
Shit. He was going to sacrifice Sara this morning so his “friend” could live forever. I tried to think of a way out of this, but came up blank. But there had to be something I could do, something I could say to stop this from happening.
There were too many obstacles at the moment and, even though I allegedly had strength equivalent to a dhampyr now, I was still technically only human. Kristoff was an immortal vampire with a bloody agenda and a small army to back him up—including Declan.
I tried to remain as calm as possible—or at least appear that way. “Sounds like you have everything under control. Why did you want to see me?”
“Why do you think?”
“My first guess is that you hate my guts and want to kill me.”
He studied me for a long moment and I began to feel more hopeless than I did to begin with. “All of these vampires who are irresistibly drawn to you—compelled to taste your blood. That must be exciting for you.”
I blanched. “Not exciting. Scary and painful, yes. Exciting, no.”
“And you have the affection of both my son and my brother.”
“
Affection
is a debatable choice of words.”
“My brother claims you, a natural enemy to vampires everywhere, after four hundred years of claiming no one. He is bound to you for the rest of your now-extended life.”
I looked up into his pale gray eyes, identical to Matthias’s. “I didn’t ask him to do that.”
“I know you didn’t. I just find it interesting. And then there’s my son, who seems entirely smitten with you, so much so that he fights my influence over him even as we speak.”
I didn’t risk a look at the silent Declan to see if I could notice any fighting. After all, he hadn’t hesitated to drag me here in the first place. And smitten? I couldn’t really imagine Declan being smitten by anything—including me.
“Are you going to force him to kill me?” The words sounded horrible leaving my mouth, but I had to ask.
He cocked his head. “You presume that my solution to every problem is death. I don’t fully understand why you feel that way toward me.”
“I guess we just don’t see eye to eye on your plans for the future.”
“Such as?”
“Such as giving Sara to your new Amarantos friend as a gift so he won’t stop you from creating more vampires to rise up against the human world.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Sounds like I’m going to be very busy. My true aim is to make the world a better place. And I could debate this issue with you for hours, Jillian, but I have a feeling that we will never see eye to eye on this.”
I hissed out a long sigh. My hands were clenched so tightly that my short fingernails bit painfully into my skin. I was desperate to figure out a way out of this. I couldn’t save the world, but I had to save the kids. One goal at a time.
“Please, Kristoff,” I didn’t like the pleading tone to my voice. “Do whatever you want with me, but you can’t hurt my nieces. And you can’t give Sara away to someone who’s going to hurt her. It’s not right. You have to see that.”
He looked down at the ring that used to belong to Alex. “How did you escape the room you were in to go to my brother’s side earlier?”
I stared at him. “Pardon me?”
“I told the guards to keep you in your room, but you managed to get out. I don’t have security cameras up there.”
“I cut myself.” I held up my arm to show him, but the wound was almost healed by now. “And lured the guard in. He bit me.”
His gaze moved over the faint pink line. “And you say you’re not an assassin.”
“I had no choice.” I hated that I felt the least bit guilty about killing the guard, but I did.
“The problem with that story is that Declan was also guarding your room. And yet he’s still standing.”
My breath caught in my chest. He’d helped me against Kristoff’s wishes and that likely wouldn’t be acceptable. “He wasn’t there. Maybe he’d gone on a break.”
“My brother’s bond with you makes it impossible to coax the truth from your lips.” Kristoff appeared mildly frustrated with me, the first emotion I’d seen on his face during this uncomfortable conversation. “Declan, you helped Jillian escape and you also stole the heart from my chambers so she could return it to my brother. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Declan said, and I cringed at his automatic and unavoidably truthful answer.
“Why? I asked you to guard her.”
Declan’s gaze didn’t move to me; he stared straight forward. “To guard someone means that I must protect them. Keeping Jill in that room helpless and alone wasn’t protection.”
Kristoff was silent for a moment. “Do you have a knife on you right now, Declan?”
“Yes.”
“Hold it to Jillian’s throat.”
Before I could make a move to scramble away from him, Declan grabbed me from behind and I gasped as I felt the cold, sharp press of silver at my throat. It was so close to my skin that any move would force him to slice it straight into me. I stopped breathing as I clutched at his arm.
“Kristoff”—Declan struggled to speak—“don’t make me kill her.”
“I know this is hard for you. But sometimes we have to do things that are difficult because there’s no other choice.”
Even though I was trying desperately not to move, I felt the sting of the blade and the warm trickle of blood sliding down my throat.
“Declan . . .” I gasped. “Please . . . fight this . . .”
“I can’t,” came the strangled reply. “Fuck. Kristoff—please . . .”
A long, tense moment went by before Kristoff spoke again. “You may drop the knife, Declan.”
A moment later I heard the clang of metal as it hit the ground. Declan’s fingers dug painfully into my shoulders, his breathing labored. I exhaled shakily, but didn’t try to pull away from him. He fought it and that must have been very difficult for him.
Kristoff watched us carefully. “Go get my brother and Stephen and bring them in here, please.”
Declan let go of me and strode across the room, opening the door between two six-foot-tall oil paintings of oak trees and lush, sunny meadows, and disappeared.
I held a hand to my throat.
“I spared your life,” Kristoff said evenly. “I wouldn’t do so for anyone else who’d crossed me as much as you have.”
I struggled to breathe and scanned the room. Two guards stood at the far wall next to the tall archway leading toward the front hallway. “You obviously need me.”
His lips curved to the side. “You think so?”
“The only reason I’m still breathing is because you like what I did to Alex. I proved myself to you.”
“I expected you to fail. You didn’t. But despite that and despite what you did to the guard earlier, you don’t have the killer instinct, do you?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “However, you could still be a valuable weapon. The government researchers who held you originally saw that, too, didn’t they?”
I was so popular at the moment both vampires and humans wanted to use me for my blood. I should start charging an hourly rate.
“The Nightshade was developed to kill vampires, but I wasn’t the one it was supposed to be given to—it should have been injected into a trained agent. It’s a fluke that it’s in me.”
He nodded. “Fate works in mysterious ways.”
Declan returned with Matthias, pushing him in the room ahead of him. He seemed unharmed and furious. Another man entered the room as well, tall, dark-skinned, with a shaved head and the expected pale gray eyes.
Kristoff stood. “Welcome to my home, Stephen.”
The man scanned his surroundings. “It’s been a long time.”
“Too long. But I’m glad for the chance to renew our friendship. Thank you for coming out on such short notice. I promise my gift for you will be well worth it.”
My stomach twisted. I couldn’t let him give Sara to this monster so he could drink her blood. Anything I had to do to prevent that, I’d do it. But, damn it. I didn’t know how to stop this.
Stephen’s gaze went to Matthias. “Your brother looks terrible. It looks like you’ve been taking out your vengeance on him rather extensively.”
Kristoff laughed. “You know our rivalry has gone on for some time. But right now I’m the one with the power.”
Matthias kneeled on the ground, his forehead coated in a sheen of perspiration. His bloody shirt was gone and his chest was pale and bare. He looked weak from earlier. He’d need a lot more time to recover from having his heart torn out and shoved back in. Despite his pallor, his expression was fierce. “Stephen, you son of a bitch—you’re the reason Alex is dead.”
Stephen cocked his head, his face showing nothing but bland interest. “Actually, I believe we can thank your brother’s secret weapon for that. But I’m happy to reap the rewards of it. I’ll make an excellent leader of the Amarantos. Bring it back to its prior glory that Alex attempted to smother with his misplaced morals all of these years.”
Matthias looked at me and I saw the worry in his gaze. It didn’t help ease my mind very much that everything would work out for the best this morning. His attention moved to his brother and his eyes narrowed.
“My poor brother,” Kristoff said. “You do look a wreck. But I have the dhampyr here now and will allow you to drink from her whenever you like.”
“I’m guessing there will be a price for that.”
“Like what?”
“For me to stand back and let you offer my daughter up as a sacrifice to help you gain friends and influence people. But I won’t sign my own child’s death warrant.”
Kristoff considered this. “I have to say that I’m impressed. You never put anyone but yourself first in the past.”
Matthias’s expression shadowed. “I’ve changed.”
“You’ve become much too fond of humans over the years. It’s made you soft.”
“No, it’s made me think about my actions before I set any master plan into play.”
“Master plan. I don’t think you’re capable of having one of those anymore. You’ve been much too focused on pleasure and wasting your gift of immortality for the last thirty years.”
“You call it a gift. I’m not so convinced anymore.”
Kristoff smiled and glanced at me as I warily watched their exchange. “He plays the part of hero well, while making me out to be the villain.”
“The soap operas always have a good twin and a bad twin,” I said.
“Are you sure which is which, Jillian?”
I glared at him. “I think so.”
“Then it would probably surprise you to learn that it was Matthias who discovered the immortality ritual. It was he who founded the Amarantos Society. And it was his master plan for vampires to become a stronger race and take hold of the world, making humans our blood servants.” Kristoff spread his hands. “If he told you any differently, he was lying to you.”
The news crashed over me and took my breath away for a minute. I felt as if I’d been struck. I looked at Matthias. “Is any of that true?”
His expression was unreadable. “All of it is.”
Stephen stood close by with his arms crossed. He wore a suit that looked designer, modern, and very expensive that was tailor-fit for his tall, lean frame. “Matthias read about the immortality ritual in one of his ancient books of magic and wanted to learn more about it and any other method to make himself more powerful. That’s why he founded the society. The entire purpose of the Amarantos is to discover ways to lengthen life and gain power. It was a spell using dark magic that originally created vampirism in the first place; the ritual is simply an extension of that.”
“I drew the line when it came to the blood sacrifice of a child. But my brother drew his line in a different location.” Matthias’s voice was flat. “Kristoff, you’ve seen for yourself the ritual’s effects. It’s unnatural for anyone to live forever. All things must have a beginning and an end.”