Reluctantly, she said, You have to let go. I can’t use my stake when you’re holding on to my arm like that.
He frowned at her. I’m taking point, but I still want you to stay as close to me as you can.
Don’t worry, she told him grimly. I have no intention of lagging behind.
When his fingers loosened, she missed the comfort of his touch immediately and grew annoyed with herself. As they came to the first intersection, she remembered her first foray out into the tunnels, before she had known anything about the ferals. It seemed like it had happened ages ago.
She told Julian, When I first got out, I went exploring and I found a large, cavernous room. The ferals were there, feeding on a couple of people. They chased me back to my cell. I barely got it locked in time.
He shook his head. The thought makes me shudder.
It was the worst few minutes of my life. She paused, thinking. But here’s the thing – if Justine and Anthony have been bringing victims in for the ferals to feed on, then doesn’t it sound logical that one of the tunnels leading from that room can get us out?
It does, indeed, he told her. It might take us a while to find the right tunnel, but if we keep the room as our reference point, sooner or later, we’ll be able to find the right one. Can you get us back there?
She nodded. I kept mental track of my turns.
There was approval in his gaze when he glanced at her. Good job.
When he started forward again, he followed her directions. Right, right and across. At that latest one, he cocked his head. Why didn’t you go right again?
She shook her head with a shrug. I didn’t realize at first how big the tunnel system was, so I was making decisions on instinct instead of some kind of well-thought-out plan. I was afraid if I took too many rights, it would lead me back to where I started.
Fair enough. He shone the flashlight both ways down the intersecting tunnel.
What happened to the stealthy someone? she asked.
I don’t know. There’s an echo down here. It could have come from farther away than I thought. Or he might have stopped moving.
That sounded a lot more sinister than she would have liked. If the feral had stopped moving, that might mean he was lying in wait somewhere.
She glanced over her shoulder. Beyond the range of her flashlight, the darkness looked as solid as a curtain. It seemed to have personality, like it was watching her. She studied the darkness carefully but saw nothing.
For the first time, she realized the ferals had to exist in total darkness most of the time. The cavern where they had been feeding had been lit, but she suspected the torches had been more for Justine and Anthony’s benefit, whereas the feral Vampyres would know every nook and cranny in the tunnels like the back of their hands.
After checking both ways, Julian stepped forward, and she followed.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of movement. Even as she turned her head to look at the feral that had dropped from a shadowed hollow in the ceiling, Julian sprang forward to engage.
Another feral dropped down and leaped after Julian. They had coordinated an ambush.
As soon as the realization hit, she whirled in a complete circle, her stake out and ready as she looked for the third.
He rushed out of the darkness, not from behind her, but from the tunnel ahead. She had never faced one without the barrier of bars between them. Terror flared, followed by a surge of rage.
She was done with being scared of these things. Done.
He came at her so fast, she wasn’t sure she could stake him accurately in the heart – and she didn’t dare get into such close quarters with him and miss, or risk getting her stake caught in his chest.
Leaping and pivoting at the hip, she went into a roundhouse kick that clipped the feral in the chin and knocked him back against the tunnel wall. He rebounded immediately – but that time she was ready for him. Even as he reached for her, she grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him toward her while she drove the stake into his chest.
For a moment she stared into the feral’s red gaze. She found herself searching for any sign of the personality he had once had, yet she saw nothing but madness in his eyes. As he bared his fangs at her, he collapsed into dust.
She turned just in time to see a snarling Julian in midlaunch toward her, easily two-hundred-plus pounds of deadly Vampyre male, complete with red eyes and fangs.
Flinching back against the wall, she gasped, “Holy shit.”
He landed in front of her, slapping one hand against the wall, so close that his body pressed hers against the cold stone.
“Jesus,” he said roughly. “I thought he had you. I thought I was going to be too late.”
Any other time, she might have slapped him with a retort for thinking she couldn’t take care of herself. But this time, she felt a shudder wrack his powerful frame as he sucked in an unsteady breath, and she realized he had been terrified for her sake.
Leaning forward, she put her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m all right,” she told him in a soft voice as she rubbed his broad back. “Everything’s okay.”
Still breathing hard, he buried his face in her hair and held her tight.
An odd kind of peace stole over her.
Maybe they weren’t going to have sex again. Or even if they did, maybe they wouldn’t be together for long.
Maybe they would never get over what had happened before. Earlier, when she had given him her truth, he hadn’t said whether or not he had believed her. Even now, after so long, their conversation remained unfinished.
But she did believe in one thing now.
Wherever she was, and whatever kind of trouble she might get into, he would always come for her to make sure she was all right.
Because he really did care for her at least that much.
Eleven
A
fter a moment, she lifted her head.
He had calmed down enough so that he looked human again. She told him, “At least they’re all gone now, and we don’t have to watch over our shoulders for them.”
He nodded. “And I know I don’t have to come back to clean them out.”
This time, instead of taking point, he took her hand, lacing his long fingers between hers. The gesture stole into her heart, damn him, and she couldn’t make herself pull away. Instead, she fell into step beside him.
As they walked in silence for several minutes, she found herself thinking ahead. “Justine has to be local, doesn’t she?” she said. “Somewhere in the city, so that she can get back and forth from the tunnels.”
His attention sharpened on her. “Yes, unless she has come to some kind of agreement with Malphas. I wanted to ask you about that. Did you overhear them making plans or setting up some kind of arrangement?”
Biting her lip, she shook her head. “The only thing I heard them discuss was him getting you in the cell, and they weren’t careful about what they said in front of me, so I think it’s likely he’s still helping her, but I can’t say for sure.”
“Fair enough.” He frowned. “As soon as I can, I need to set up road barriers and search the city block by block if I have to. Maybe I can flush her out, unless she can fly.”
She raised her eyebrows. She would love to hear he was making a joke about that, but he sounded dead serious. “What do you mean?”
His mouth tightened. “We have all her assets frozen, at least those assets that we could find, but she might still have the funds to hire a helicopter. Either that or one of her allies on the council might have agreed to help her.”
Staring at his profile, she asked, “By now her allies must know what she did to her own household. Do you really think they would continue to support her?”
His expression turned cynical. “Anything is possible, including that.”
She tried to keep her response as quiet and noncommittal as possible. “You sound pretty fed up.”
He bit out, “I’m sick to
death of the lot of them. Every year the council goes through the same damn arguments. Even Dominic is interested only in doing what is best for him.”
Unsettled, she chewed her lip. After a moment, she said gently, “Since it makes you so unhappy, would you ever consider stepping down?”
“What makes you think I can?” The sharp bitterness in his look lanced through her. “My sire set me on this task, remember?”
Melly sucked in a breath. Carling, his sire, had once been Queen of the Nightkind demesne, but a long time ago, she had set Julian to be Nightkind King while she became a member of the Elder tribunal.
So very much had happened since that long-ago political maneuver. Melly was sure she had only heard a fraction of the entire story. When she and Julian had been together, he hadn’t discussed it much, but even then she could tell there was tension between him and Carling.
Then last year, a series of fast-paced events had jolted through the demesnes of the Elder Races. Some of it had involved the Nightkind. Melly had heard the news from a distance.
All she really knew for certain was that Carling and Julian had had some kind of falling out, and he had banished Carling from the demesne. Carling had also lost her seat on the Elder tribunal, and she had even been incarcerated for several months, while Rune, one of the most Powerful sentinels from the Wyr demesne, had left his service and mated with her.
Since Carling was Julian’s sire, the only way his banishment of her could be effective is if he never saw her again, because with one meeting and a single order, Carling could take control of him again.
That also meant that he would continue to carry out whatever orders Carling had already given him. He would never have any choice. He would never be able to walk away. He would work and work at those orders, until either somebody killed him, or Carling herself released him.
Horrified pity shook through Melly. She whispered, “Would you want to step down, if you could?”
His expression went blank, and for a moment, he looked utterly empty.
“I have no idea what I would want to do, if I could.” His brows drew together. “But I think I would like to take a vacation and find out.”
She tightened her hand on his. “What happened last year between you and Carling?”
“That’s a long story, and neither one of us came out of it looking good.”
“Whatever happened, it was a strong enough disagreement for you to banish her.”
“I had to.” His reply was as harsh as his expression. “Her behavior had gotten too erratic. Sometimes it happens with very old Vampyres, and she’s one of the oldest. She kept giving me contradictory orders, and they were literally tearing me apart. At least by banishing her from the Nightkind demesne, I can keep her from telling me to do anything else.”
She said, “Julian, I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t feel too sorry for me. When Carling’s attendant Rhoswen came to me with stories of how dangerous she had become, I didn’t question her very closely. Instead I went to the Elder tribunal, even though I knew they would probably issue a kill order. I was right, and they did.”
Her hand tightened on his as she worked to absorb that. “Wait a minute. The tribunal doesn’t issue kill orders for no reason.”
“No, they don’t,” he said. “There was ample reason. There was also more going on underneath the surface. Long story short, Carling’s attendant was acting out of spite and ended up getting herself killed, while Carling managed to convince the tribunal to put her in quarantine instead of enacting the kill order. Apparently she found some way to stabilize her condition. I don’t know for certain. She and I don’t talk. I don’t dare risk it.”
“Good gods,” she whispered.
“Enough about that.” His hard mouth twisted. “We’re getting close to your cavern. Can you smell it?”
She could.
Before, when she had been exploring without any idea of what lay ahead, she had thought the stink might have come from a sewer line.
Now she had a different idea of what caused it, and her stomach rebelled. She had to breathe through her mouth to get past a wave of nausea.
“It’s not my cavern,” she said tightly. “And yeah, I can smell it. I would appreciate it if we could get through the next bit as fast as we can.”
He gave her a sharp look. “Of course.”
They finally came to the archway she remembered so well. This time there weren’t any lit torches in the wall sconces, nor was there any other kind of illumination. The cavern looked black as a pit.
As she braced herself, Julian directed the beam from his flashlight into the open space.
There were corpses everywhere. In grim silence, Julian sent the light over the massive open space. Skeletal remains had been pushed to the edges of the cavern, against the walls, while fresher bodies littered the open expanse of the rocky floor.
She had never seen anything like it. Not in person, not right in front of her. For a brief, stricken moment, her gaze strained to find the body of a woman in a black pencil skirt, who was missing a shoe.
Then a low, shaking moan broke out of her. Pulling her hand from Julian’s grasp, she let the things she had been carrying slide to the floor, and bent at the waist and wrapped her arms around her middle.
Julian’s broad hand came to rest on her back. He didn’t try to say anything or attempt to make things better, and she was glad for that. Sometimes things couldn’t be made better.
Instead, he gave her what she needed, which was time. Rubbing her back, he waited until she was finally able to straighten up again. With the back of one hand she wiped at her wet eyes.
“Are you okay?” he murmured.
She would not let the gentleness in his voice break her down again. Gritting her teeth, she nodded. Her voice was hoarse as she said, “I’m fine.”
“I count four other tunnel entrances that open into the cavern,” he said. “And we know one thing for sure – the way out isn’t going to be back the way we came.”
She glanced at him. The slanted beam from the flashlight distorted how everything looked, including his face. The crags and the hollows of his face were accentuated, and he looked tired and angry.
He met her gaze. “We have to go through. We can’t go around.”
“I know.” Bending, she snatched up the grocery bag, and when she straightened again, she stiffened her back. “Let’s go.”
He hesitated long enough that it brought her attention back to him. “What?”
With a quick shake of his head, he said, “Never mind, it will wait.”
But he had caught her attention now, and she cocked her head. “You can’t bring something up only to drop it again like that. Tell me quickly, and if we have to, we can discuss it in more depth later. What is it?”
At that, he shook his head and gave her a small not-quite smile. He told her, “No big discussion necessary. I just realized, there isn’t anybody else I would have wanted at my back down here, aside from you.”
Rough and outspoken as he was, his quiet statement hit her all the harder because of it. Despite the silent horror of what waited for them in the cavern, she felt her spirits lift, not a lot, but just enough.
She said softly, “I feel the same way. Julian, thank you so much for coming to get me. I’ll be grateful to you for the rest of my life. Now, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Inclining his head, he strode forward. She followed as close as she could on his heels without actually treading on him.
In order to see where to walk, he had to keep the flashlight trained on the floor. She tried not to look down, but after she stumbled twice, she was forced to watch where she put her feet as well. The images burned into her brain.
The cavern was so large, filled with tragedy and implacably silent. It was the hardest walk she had ever taken, and she felt sick and saddened to the bottom of her soul.
Julian said gently, Okay with you if we start with the left tunnel? If it doesn
’t lead to the way out, we can work our way around the cavern clockwise.
For some reason he had asked it telepathically. Maybe he felt the weight of silence was what the dead deserved. If so, she couldn’t argue with that. Breathing through her mouth, she nodded then realized he couldn’t see her.
Yes, she said shortly.
He adjusted course, and she followed. After a moment, he held one hand behind him, fingers open in invitation.
“I told you I’m fine.” She spoke out loud, but if she had known how thin and strained her voice would sound, she wouldn’t have.
“Maybe I’m not,” he said very quietly. “I’ve seen horrible things before, and some were just as bad if not worse than this. But none of them makes this any less horrible.”
She grabbed his hand, and he squeezed hers so tightly she felt the blood pound in her fingers.
“It’s not right that they’ve been thrown aside like this,” she whispered. “They were people.”
“I’ll make sure each one gets identified so they can go home to their families.” Like her, he kept his voice low. “If they don’t have families, I’ll see they get proper burials.”
“Thank you.”
After what seemed like forever, they finally came close to the opening of the first tunnel. Julian came to a stop, which meant she did too, but she didn’t stop until she had walked right up to his back. Then she leaned against him, burying her face between his shoulder blades. She had no idea why they had stopped but trusted that Julian would let her know when they could move forward again.
“All right,” he said. “We’re moving on to the second tunnel now.”
She lifted her head. “Why?”
“There are a couple of bodies across the mouth of that entrance,” he told her. “They’re pretty decayed. It looks like the passageway isn’t used very often. We can come back to it if we have to.”
“That makes sense. Maybe we can be quicker if we check out the entrances to all the tunnels.” She tried to reclaim her hand, but his hold on her was like iron. “You can let go now. I’ll work from the right, and you can work from the left.”