It brought him back to his senses. While he might be a bastard, and his soul might be incomplete, he wasn’t completely heartless. He wrapped his arms around her again until he was simply hugging her, and rocked her in a gentle, soothing movement.
“It’s all right now,” he repeated. “Melly, I promise you, everything is going to be all right.”
“I can believe you now.” Pulling back slightly, she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands.
After having gone so long without holding her, he was reluctant to let her go even that much, but fresh sounds came from the direction of the gate as the ferals began to return, reminding him of the challenges they had yet to face.
“You need to eat the rest of that sandwich,” he told her. “And I need to clear out the feral infestation so we can get the fuck out of here.”
Her expression calmed into resolve as she listened to him, and she nodded. “Before you do, you need to take more blood.”
Immediately, he said, “Absolutely not. You’re in no condition for me to take any more from you.”
“That’s not true.” When he started to argue, she put her hand over his mouth. “Listen to me. You have to. You were hurt so badly, you weren’t healing, and yet still, you barely took enough blood to close up your wounds. Not only are there too many ferals, but we really don’t know when Justine is going to come back, and she’s every bit as old as you are. You might be the Nightkind King with all the Power you’ve gained from taking blood oaths, but she hasn’t been injured like you have.” She searched his gaze. “It’s not like you can safely feed from the other Vampyres, is it?”
Closing his fingers over her slender wrist, he removed her hand. “No. They’re feral because they’ve had too much drug-contaminated blood. I can’t risk it.”
She shrugged. “There you go. You need to do it for both our sakes, because I’m counting on you to help me get out of here.”
His mouth tightened, but her logic was inescapable, so after a moment, he nodded. “Fine, I’ll take more blood – but only a little, and only after you’ve eaten.”
“Okay.” Not meeting his gaze any longer, she pulled off his lap to explore the contents of the grocery bag.
Only then did he remember that he was supposed to hate her. It was a little late in the day to be recalling something as essential as that. Rolling to his feet, he rubbed his face and regarded her thoughtfully.
He thought about saying something dismissive about the kiss, but he couldn’t help but note how studiously she avoided meeting his eyes.
All right, then. Message received. It looked like they were going to pretend it never happened.
Confused, he scowled at her. He didn’t know if he felt relieved or not. The aggressive, predatory part of him wanted to push for any advantage he could get, but his hands were still damp from her tears.
He clenched them into fists. Then he went to complete the job she’d started on demolishing the frame of her cot.
Within a few moments, he had snapped off two of the remaining three legs to use as stakes. He paused to look around. Aside from the cot and the blanket, there was virtually nothing else in the bleak cell. She really had pulled off a couple of miracles, with very little to work with.
There was a fresh scar on the rock at the back wall, and he strode over to investigate the spot. It was where the bullet from Anthony’s gun had struck. Julian rubbed the area with the ball of his thumb. She was so damn lucky the asshole had chosen to give her a warning and not shoot her outright, and doubly lucky that she hadn’t been hit by the ricochet.
Turning away, he picked up the blanket and the thin mattress. After tearing a strip of cloth from the edge of the blanket, he rolled the bedding into a tight bundle and tied it with the strip.
Now it was Melly’s turn to ask him, “What are you doing?”
He glanced at her. “We have no idea how big this tunnel system is, or how complicated it might be. We also have no idea where we are in it, so we don’t know how long it’s going to take for us to find our way out. If we need to take a break and rest, it’ll be a lot more comfortable to do it on a mat than on bare stone.”
Her shoulders sagged. “I hadn’t thought of that. When I first broke out of my cell, the tunnel system seemed pretty big.”
“I’m not surprised.” He walked back into the cell where he’d been chained. “If this is anything like the other tunnel system, some of it is natural, but Justine’s definitely added to it over the years. This area and these cells are man-made.”
“I hate her so much.” She popped the last of the sandwich in her mouth and peeled a banana. “I’m not used to hating somebody that passionately. I hope I get to see her turn to dust.”
The drawn, tight look to her features had eased, and a healthy flush of color banished the paleness from her golden skin. Squatting beside her, he opened the bag to look inside. There were more bottles of water, chocolate bars, a bag of granola mix, some single-portion packages of cheese, a couple more sandwiches wrapped in the distinctive paper of a well-known deli in San Francisco, another banana and a few apples.
“Look at that,” he said. “He really brought you good food.”
She said bitterly, “I guess this was supposed to be my reward for doing whatever he wanted.”
Julian met her gaze. Letting go of the bag, he stroked her hair off her face and pressed his lips to her forehead.
“I have such extreme, conflicting urges,” he murmured. “I still need to tear him limb from limb, but at the same, I also wish you could have gotten the chance to stake him twice. Because damn, Melly, now that I know you’re all right and my heart isn’t going to explode out of my chest, I can tell you, it was a mighty fine thing to witness what you did.”
Leaning against him, she sniffed. “I done good, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.” He laid his cheek on top of her head, and they rested together like that for a few minutes, without words of anger or pain spoiling the air between them.
There was, however, plenty of sexual tension. He would have to be truly dead not to notice the way her soft, plump breast felt as it pressed against his bare chest, or the way her fingers curled around his bicep as he stroked her hair.
But it was a tension he held under strong control. Not that long ago, she had been in tears, and he still had a pack of ferals to kill.
That left room for her words to come back to him.
I told you I wasn’t going to leave you.
No matter what you might think of me, or what anybody else might have said, I always keep my promises.
She had made promises to him before. Not forever promises or formal vows – they hadn’t gotten that far in their relationship – but still, she had said things that he had internalized and relied upon. And he had believed her when she had said them.
If keeping her promises meant so much to her, why hadn’t she kept those promises she had made to him then?
It felt excruciating to have Julian hold her, to kiss her on the forehead, to stroke her hair. Melly felt as if she were the one who was being staked, as a heavy nail of pain drove into her heart. Worse, she welcomed the pain, just so that she could feel his arms around her again.
Any moment now, she was going to get a spine and reject his overtures, but not just yet, not when he held her with such evident, overabundance of care, as if she were a person who had incalculable value to him.
Then she did something dumb. She closed her eyes and pretended the last twenty years had never happened, and that all of the emotions she felt for Julian were strong, bright, shining and true.
But she couldn’t maintain the pretense, because the twenty years had happened. She had become a different person. She was older, more cynical and guarded, and this powerful man who held her so gently, and treated her so kindly, was still the same bastard he had always been. A leopard did not change his spots. A battle-worn lion did not lose his scars.
Oh, soldier, how did we come to such a place?
> With a shock, she realized she had murmured that aloud, as he whispered into her hair, “Damned if I know.”
Well there, she had a spine after all, because suddenly it decided to start working again. She stiffened and pulled out of his arms. “You need to feed,” she said abruptly. “Then while you go kill things, I’m going to eat a candy bar. After that, we’re going to waltz out of here. Got it?”
He had lines on either side of his mouth that deepened as he almost smiled. “Got it.”
She held out her wrist. He took her hand in his and held it, as he speared her with a hard, intent gaze.
“We need to get one thing straight, you and I,” he said, his voice soft and ruthless. “And we’re going to do it before I bite you, so we don’t have the bloodlust interfering with either of our thinking. I have every intention of taking you again. And taking you. I’m going to make you want it so bad, when I finally sink my cock in you, you’ll cry from the relief.”
She felt her eyes widen from shock. Once again, he knocked her breathless. Senseless. Her mouth worked, as her brain tried to sputter out something pithy enough with which to lambast him.
She had to lambast him. She had to drown out the teeny, tiny part of her that had clapped its hands and squeaked finally, yay!
After a Herculean effort, she managed to whisper, “You’re delusional if you think I would ever let you take me again, after the way you’ve treated me. You see this?” With her free hand, she waved her fingers in the air down the length of her torso as she shook her head. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You’re neeevvver getting this goodness again.”
At that he gave her a real smile, a slow one, full bore, that creased his rough face. The impact hit her hard, in all her most vulnerable places. In desperation, she thought, how am I ever going to stand strong against him?
As his fangs descended and his eyes flashed red, he told her, “We’ll see about that, princess. We’ll see.”
With that, he bit her wrist, not brutally, but with an elegant, lethal efficiency. Before the pleasure hit, she had room to wonder, And I thought Anthony was remarkably stupid. How much more stupid is Justine, to make such an enemy out of this man?
Then the sweetest, most delicious euphoria stole into her veins. She didn’t welcome it. She was still angry. With her free hand, she slid her fingers through his short salt-and-pepper hair at the back of his head.
She whispered, “And you dare to accuse me of cheating. How many people have you seduced just like this?”
Anger flashed in his reddened eyes. He glared at her even as his mouth pulled on her with such knowledgeable care. Gods, she wanted to smack him.
Or kiss him.
No, definitely smack him…
As she tore off his jeans, straddled his prone body and took him.
After only a few sips, he eased his fangs out of her flesh and held still, his mouth resting in the place where he had bitten her. Even with the hostility that now radiated from him, he still took care this time to make sure the tiny wounds had stopped bleeding before he left her. She realized her hands were shaking and clenched them into fists to make them stop.
Then he lifted his head and snapped, “You did cheat.”
She snapped back, “Like I said, you’re delusional. I never cheated on you. I loved you with all of my heart, and you took that and trampled it into the ground. Even after the three months we spent together, you couldn’t even give me the benefit of the doubt.”
At that, strangely, all his hostility seemed to vanish. He looked deathly tired, more tired than any other man she had ever seen. “Didn’t you stop to think that I might have loved you with all of my heart once, too?”
With a single sentence, he wrenched her heart out of her body. She cried out, “Then why couldn’t you have had a little faith in me?”
“I had faith in a lot of things once,” he said. “Including you. Then reality came along and trampled that into the ground as well.”
As she stared, his expression went blank, truly blank, as if he had become too empty to show even tiredness. He bent to scoop up his stakes.
More disturbed than she had been in a long time, she said, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to kill things.” He spoke without emotion, like an automaton. “It’s the one thing I still remain good at.”
He snatched Anthony’s keys up as well, and strode out of the cell. Moments later, the snarling began. She covered her ears and buried her face against her raised knees, while inside, she remained frozen in a place of stricken realization.
TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT ME TO DO, AND I’LL DO IT! he had said.
You’re going to be okay, he had told her. You, not we.
He had come down here in the tunnels, fully expecting to die. Calmly waiting for it. Possibly a part of him had been hoping for it?
He’s broken, she thought. Something, or a combination of things, has broken him. In spite of everything he had done to her, she had room to feel a horrified sense of compassion.
He had also gone into the darkness to fight over a hundred ferals for her, just as he had given himself up to Justine, without complaint or hesitation.
She was so tired. This wasn’t supposed to be her fight.
But she couldn’t take it.
Leaping to her feet, she snatched up Anthony’s big flashlight, her stake and the gun. She checked the gun over quickly. It was a large .357 revolver, with seven bullets left. She should save two bullets in case Justine showed up. Unless she got incredibly lucky with a shot, those bullets wouldn’t kill Justine, but they might help to slow her down if it came to a fight.
That meant Melly still had five. Five shots to the head or heart would mean there would be five less ferals that Julian would have to fight.
A glint of metal caught her eye. It was Anthony’s whistle. After a second’s hesitation, she snatched it up too.
Her heart rate revved up in preparation for battle. She strode out of the cell.
The scene at the gate was something out of a nightmare, dark and claustrophobia-inducing. Ferals upon ferals clawed over each other to get at Julian, who whirled, lunged and kicked so fast, she could barely track his movements.
Steadily and inexorably, he was taking them out, two by two. He was an unstoppable juggernaut, but there were too many of them for him to stake without taking some damage himself. They slashed and tore at him with fangs and talons, and blood flew everywhere.
It sickened and enraged her all over again.
She told him telepathically, I’m right behind you.
She caught a brief, piercing flash of his reddened gaze. He snapped, Go back to the cell and lock the door!
I can’t do that. You’re going to have to make sure they don’t get through the gate. She set the flashlight on the floor and directed the beam toward the open gate where Julian fought. What if we tried blowing Anthony’s whistle? It might back them off.
There are too many, he said. They’re not just trained to back away. They’re trained to expect food, and we don’t have any to give them. We can’t risk confronting them outside the only shelter we’ve got – we’ve got to get rid of them.
Sometimes she hated that he was right.
She told him, Watch yourself. I’m firing to the right of you.
Some of the ferals turned their attention away from Julian and fixed on her. Taking careful aim at one, she pulled the trigger.
The revolver was a lot bigger than the trim semiautomatic pistols she used in target practice. Not only did it have quite a kick, but the report in the enclosed space was deafening.
The forehead of the feral she had shot exploded. More blood spurted everywhere, until the feral’s body collapsed into dust. The noise made her ears hurt, but damn, making a feral disappear felt good.
Carefully, she took aim again. She couldn’t afford to waste a single bullet. Refusing to let the emotional impact of the battle push her into shooting too quickly, she didn’t pull the tri
gger until she felt confident of her shot.
Another feral vanished into dust.
Then a third. And a fourth.
After the fifth one vanished, she almost kept shooting. It was so difficult not to pull the trigger again when she saw how hard Julian was laboring. His broad, muscular chest and heavy, powerful arms were torn again with wounds. He was caught in the toughest kind of marathon, one that wouldn’t come to an end until every one of his enemies was dead.
How many times throughout the years had he been forced to fight alone, without anyone to stand by him or guard his back? For so much of his long life, he had been a commodity to somebody – to his owner in the arena, to his emperor, and then for so many centuries to his sire, Carling. Even now, he was a commodity to the Nightkind council, useful and yet never fully trusted, no matter how much he did for the demesne.
Sometimes he would have had people at his back. Yolanthe was unswervingly loyal. So was Xavier, and Julian had once commanded entire armies.
But all too many times, he would have had nobody. Certainly there wouldn’t have been anybody in that ancient Roman arena, not for the young, half-starved alley cat Julian had once been.
Fighting back tears, she tucked the gun into her waistband.
She might not be able to do anything for that long-ago young man, but she could by gods do something for him now.
When she had a good, strong grip on her stake, she strode forward.
Nine
T
he pack of ferals had thinned markedly. Now there were only thirty or so, but those would be the hardest thirty to kill. They were probably the strongest and the smartest of the pack, while she and Julian were at their most tired.
Standing to one side of the open gate, just out of reach, Melly watched them closely until one strained too far between the bars in an effort to grab her. She snatched its arm, hauled it hard against the bars and lunged forward to stake it.