Trueblood 01-The-Consolation-Prize (18 page)

Her legs shook like a newborn colt’s and her head whirled as if she was drunk. Chloe forced three glasses of water down her throat. She’d lost a lot of blood -- not enough to kill her, just incapacitate her. Strangely enough her face, though pale, was unmarked. Constantine said he’d healed her cheek and he had. Her neck was a mess but her sweater hid the bruises. When she reached for the door handle, it turned, but the door didn’t open. Chloe struggled for a few moments, unsure whether it was locked or she wasn’t strong enough to pull it open.

One more tug and Chloe admitted defeat. She had to use the passageways. She’d go down to the room where Luka had been held and make her way back upstairs from there.

“Go to him. Go to him.”

“Shut the fuck up.” She put her hands over her ears. The voice still came.

“Go to Luka.”

Chloe moved as fast as she could, afraid the taxi would leave before she reached the rendezvous point. She’d asked him to wait at the bottom of the drive, guessing he might be sent away by Miranda or Matt if he drove up to the hall. The long trek down the drive was going to tax what little strength she had left.

Chloe picked up Rufus, Angel, and Phoebe on her way through the hidden corridors. It felt wrong to leave them in such a horrible place. She stuffed them in her bag and then crawled out into the room where Luka had been held. A slow climb back upstairs and a slide along the wall through the reception. No sign of Miranda. Probably on the floor eating chocolate. Chloe had forgotten about the swishing noise the doors made.

“Are you leaving?” Miranda called. “I thought you were leaving much earlier. I’ll have to check you don’t owe anything.”

Chloe didn’t even have the energy to throw back a sarcastic retort. She stumbled outside. One breath of fresh air and she almost keeled over. With her bag slung over her shoulder she made her way down the drive.

“We’re out of Washburn Hall. We’re free. I can smell fresh air. I want to pound my hooves on
the ground.”

“She’s sick, Angel. We can’t leave her.”

“We have to help her show Mr. Stupid what a mistake he’s made.”

Chapter Eighteen

From climbing in the taxi to getting out at Rebellion, everything was a blur to Chloe. When the cab driver commented on how sick she looked, she had a vague memory of telling him she’d been attacked by vampires and he’d laughed. He thought she was crazy. Maybe she was. She was definitely ill. Moving her arms and legs took conscious thought and each movement hurt.

Her head felt wobbly on her neck and the throbbing pain in her arm was driving her insane. She rubbed and scratched. It made no difference.

“Go to him.”

One last time she’d listen to her sixth-and-a-half-sense. Then again, maybe it wasn’t one of her inner voices talking, maybe it was Constantine. She had to warn Luka.

* * * * *

Luka had gone to sleep feeling ill and woken up feeling ill, and since vampires never got sick, the sensation was somewhat worrying. The noise coming from the club’s loudspeakers annoyed him more than usual, the beat pounding through his office so he could feel it rising through his desk, through his chair, up his spine. His head throbbed, his forearm throbbed, and his dick was in a jealous sulk.

He sat with his head resting on his arms on his desk trying to work out what to do about Selena and trying not to think about Chloe. Each time he started to question her involvement and wonder if he’d been wrong, he snapped his mind back to the way he’d been held. Humiliation and fury hurtled round his bloodstream. Selena had played Chloe like a puppet and Luka still couldn’t believe he’d fallen for it.

When the phone rang, he put it to his ear, moving nothing but his hand.

“What?” he snapped.

“There’s someone downstairs to see you,” Dan said.

“I’m very busy.”

“Her name’s Chloe.”

Luka sat up so fast it made his head spin.

“Send her up.”

Shit
. Why did he say that? How did she know where to find him? Ah, she’d seen his business card. Luka didn’t take another breath until she came into the room and the door was closed. Then the breath he took was a deep gulp. She let her bag drop from her shoulder and tried to stand straight. The struggle appeared genuine. She looked awful, her face pale, hair limp, and her lips cracked. Dark circles underlined dull eyes. Her body seemed wrong, arms hanging as though she wasn’t in control of them.

What was she doing here? Then he remembered he’d taken her vehicle.

“Your car’s in the parking lot around the corner,” he said.

He opened his drawer, took out the keys, and tossed them. Chloe was years too slow lifting her hand. The keys hit her arm and fell to the floor. She looked at them for several seconds before she bent to pick them up. Luka pondered snatching them back. She didn’t look fit to drive.

“That’s not why I came,” she said, her voice hoarse and croaky.

“So you’re sorry. Fine, now leave.”

She stood a little straighter. “What do you think I’ve done? What proof do you have that I betrayed you?”

The questions rendered Luka speechless. He sat there with a death sentence hanging over him and she asked what she’d done. How could he still want her? Fuck it, he
did
want her. When he looked at her, even in the mess she was in, he felt a tug deep inside, a desire to protect her. His cock tried to nod in agreement.

Chloe tottered a few steps forward. “I’ve done nothing to hurt you.”

Luka leaned back in his chair.

She raised her head and looked straight at him. “You’ve been cruel beyond belief to me. I helped you and you left me to face -- I thought…I thought I loved you.”

The words yanked at his heart. He’d thought he loved her too. He watched a range of emotions cross her face. Hope. Uncertainty. Then resignation when he failed to respond.

“If you didn’t come for your car, or to say sorry, what are you doing here?” His voice was sharper than he’d intended.

Chloe’s sigh was so heavy, her body shook. “You don’t deserve my help, but I came to warn you. Selena isn’t the one in charge. It’s a vampire called Constantine Nevchek. He’s nearly a thousand years old. He wants to go out in the sun and he thinks the blood of Trueblood babies will give him that ability. Seems he and Selena have different agendas.”

Luka didn’t hide his surprise. He pushed himself up from his chair and began to pace. He recognized Nevchek’s name. An Ancient who’d fought for control of the VHC and lost the last election.

“How do you know this?” he asked. “Was he the one who recruited you?”

A spark flared in her eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Luka, I’m trying to do you a favor here. You don’t want to believe I had nothing to do with your abduction, then fine. I give up, but Nevchek won’t give up. He told me why he wanted you. Bragging. He knows you fed me and he thinks you’ll come for me.”

“And he let you go?”

“No one let me go. I escaped. They locked me in my room but they don’t know about the passageways.”

She panted as though the effort of saying that much had exhausted her. Luka sat on the edge of his desk, picked up a pen, and twirled it in his fingers. “Why would they think I’d come for you?”

“Because I’m as much a victim as you in all this. They were going to find a way of letting you know that you’d made a mistake so they could lure you back to rescue me.”

Chloe sagged and Luka had to fight the impulse to jump up and grab her.

“How did your grandmother find out I was a Trueblood?”

“I’ve no idea.”

A shiver of doubt trickled along Luka’s spine and he sat back on his chair. There
was
truth in this, but how much? Selena wouldn’t need to tell her everything. He could see that Chloe had been used too.

“How much were you supposed to be paid?” he asked more gently.

She shook her head. “Luka, I’m tired of this conversation. I’m tired of you not believing me. I’ve never worked for them. I won the visit to the spa as a consolation prize. Selena didn’t know I was there until I’d got you out of that room. It was the blood I brought for you. I signed for it.

When she found you’d gone, she took it out on me.”

Chloe pulled her sweater over her head, together with her T-shirt. Luka’s eyes slid over the dozens of dark purple marks on her body and on to the crawling branch on her arm that matched the one on his.
Shit
. His chair toppled backwards and he crashed to the floor. He jumped up, put his chair right, and sat again. Her arm was much worse than his. The vines curling along his skin looked gentle in comparison. Chloe’s were malevolent streaks creeping from her wrist, spreading well above her elbow. He gripped his wrist, fighting the urge to drag up his sleeve and see if his had grown too.

As he stared, Chloe looked down and it was almost as though she saw the marks on her body for the first time. She rubbed a couple with her fingers and her head dropped.

“See what they did? Why would they do that if I was working for them?”

“Come here,” Luka said, his voice catching.

Chloe walked to the edge of his desk and as she stood there in her bra and jeans, battered, bruised and broken, Luka’s heart hardened, not softened. What was she trying to do? Make him feel sorry for her so he’d believe her? Was this a final attempt to harvest his sperm? They’d given her one more chance, playing the sympathy card. It was a strong possibility. On the other hand, he could have made a terrible mistake. He felt like a clawed hand gripped his heart. How could he tell what was the truth? Maybe test how far she’d go.

“Take off your clothes.”

She didn’t hesitate and somehow that damned her further. Luka clenched his teeth when he saw the vivid bite marks on her breasts. He switched his gaze to her legs as she stepped out of her jeans. They were in as bad a state as the rest of her body. But he saw past the marks, remembered only the smell of her, the taste of her, the way her pussy clamped around him. His lust grew like a rampant weed, overwhelming his common sense. He had the urge to kiss every mark away and stamped it down.

“They punished you for failing them,” he said.

She shook her head. “They did this because I helped you.”

He wouldn’t believe that. Maybe she wasn’t here because they’d sent her, but because she wanted something from him.

“You want me to fuck you?” he asked. “Is that why you’ve come?”

Chloe looked right at him. “No.”

“Then why did you take off your clothes?”

Confusion flooded her face. “I wanted to show you what they’d done. I thought it would prove I wasn’t working for them.”

“Come here.”

She moved to his side of the desk, her eyes downcast again. His cock was rock hard. Luka didn’t understand it. His arm hurt, his head ached, and his cock wept with need of her. He couldn’t stand the sight of her and he couldn’t bear not to look at her. Luka stood up, spun her round, and pressed her face down over his desk. Oh Christ, she was trembling.

He needed her to tell him she was sorry, to ask him to forgive her because that was exactly what he wanted to do. Goose bumps sprang up on her skin. Her back was a pattern of oval bruises and scars where she’d been pinched, sucked, and bitten. They could have healed her yet they’d deliberately left the marks. They wanted him to see, wanted him to feel sorry for her. Luka bristled. This was another trap.

“I know Selena sent you.”

“No one sent me.”

Luka ran his hands down her arms and felt a prickling sensation in his streaked forearm as it touched the mark on hers. Had they both been poisoned? He dropped his head to her neck and scented another male vampire. Luka bared his teeth and hissed. Constantine had fed from her.

Had he fed her, fucked her? Yes. This was a trap. They wanted him to feel sorry for her, to fuck her, to capture his seed.

“You’re a liar,” Luka whispered. “Liar. Liar. Liar. Get dressed and get out.”

Chloe had never lied to him, though she almost felt too ill to care what he thought. She’d wanted Luka to believe her, yet she doubted he ever would. A burst of anger flared in her heart that he hadn’t given her the benefit of the doubt, not even attempted to uncover the truth. She’d rescued him. Why would she do that if she worked for Selena? She’d told him about Constantine, but he didn’t seem interested. She struggled into her clothes.

Despite Luka’s cold disdain, a little part of Chloe wanted him to touch her, to made love to her --

well, to fuck her. There would be no love involved. When he finished, he’d drink from her. New plan. He thought she’d tricked him and she hadn’t. Maybe the final trick could be hers. She’d encourage him to keep drinking; then she’d go home and wait to die.
Kill me
.

Chloe trembled. Did she really want that? Had she given up on life? No. She didn’t want to die, only something told Chloe the decision wasn’t hers. She was sick and no hospital could fix her.

The flame inside her faded. No matter what she did or thought, this was out of her hands. She was already dying.

“Yes.”

That wasn’t the answer she wanted from her voices. “
No
,” she screamed back. She wouldn’t give in.

“Hurry up and get out of my sight,” he snapped.

She let a cry of sadness escape, then clamped her lips together and bit back a sob. He hadn’t even wanted her blood. Chloe pushed herself upright and turned to face him.

“Tell Selena she’ll have to come up with someone more tempting.”

Chloe’s head dropped, her humiliation complete. This had been a mistake. Her sixth-and-a-half sense was wrong. He neither wanted nor cared about her, not even enough to kill her. As the realization hit that she’d never see him again, her arm ached so much she’d have ripped it from her body if she could.

One last look at him sitting behind his desk, then she picked up her bag and left. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she stumbled into the man who’d led her to Luka. He stood guard by the main door. He pulled her to one side as she tried to slip past.

“Leaving so soon?”

Chloe nodded. She knew he was a vampire. How was that possible?