Enslaved by the Others (28 page)

There were a couple of familiar faces, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

We hadn’t lost as many of our number who had been with Angus, but I had to fight not to shed more tears when I saw how few of the people I knew from my imprisonment returned with them. Vivian and Na’man were not among them.

There might have been other places where they were hidden, someplace I hadn’t seen, but I knew Max too well to be hopeful we’d find any other survivors.

Angus led us out, some of the vampires carrying the weakest and injured back to the cars, and the rest making sure the scared senseless ones didn’t run off. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but the shielding the magi had summoned was gone when we made it outside.

Moments after we hit the snow-covered lawn, the guy who kept sprouting bits of hair had shapeshifted into some kind of big cat and darted away from the rest of the group. Not to leave us, but to get some distance. I guessed it might be because the overwhelming scent of blood and fear from the clump of now screaming, panicking humans was tweaking his instincts to hunt and kill. Without my night vision, I couldn’t tell if it was a puma or jaguar or what, but he was looking to me, Angus, and Soo-Jin for direction.

It took more time than I wanted to think about to calm people down. The Were had to lie down in the snow and let one of the vampires pat his head—though the cat lifted his lip to show just a bit of fang to express his disdain—for them to believe he wasn’t about to maul anybody.

The robe-clad former slaves had no fur of their own, let alone coats or shoes to protect them from the cold. They huddled together, some still crying, but none voicing a word of complaint.

Freedom probably tasted as sweet to them as it had to me when I had fled this madhouse. A bit of momentary physical discomfort paled in comparison to the prospect of spending the rest of their lives in servitude. Well, unless they thought we were taking them from one bad situation to a worse one. If that was the case then the lack of bitching on their end could be due to being afraid of being eaten.

Then Kimberly pulled a surprise out of her hat I wasn’t expecting. Though shaky and pale, she still had some spark left. With a gesture, and a look of fierce concentration focused on each inadequately dressed human in turn, she did something that brought looks of wonder to their faces and stopped their shivering.

I wasn’t sure what she had done until she turned to the elf. He frowned and shook his head, his dark hair sliding like silk around his face and brushing his shoulders. His voice was just as buttery smooth and enchanting as Royce’s, and I’ll admit I might have sidled a few steps closer just to hear him better. “I have no need of your illusions, mage.”

Illusion. She made those people feel warm. They’d still get frostbite if they were out here too long, but it was one hell of a kindness to take the time and effort to block out the bite of cold on their feet and icy wind chilling their skin. Probably went a long way toward making them realize we weren’t here to deliver them to a worse fate than they’d already suffered. It appeared to be more effective proof that nobody here intended to take a chomp out of them, too.

Despite my initial misgivings about Kimberly, I was coming to like the girl.

The magi who had been maintaining the shield were waiting for us by the wall, shivering and clustered together for warmth. Even though they had smudges under their eyes and some were exhausted enough to lean against each other for support, they all appeared to be unharmed and relieved to see us. Most of them viewed Gideon with naked curiosity and maybe a bit of fear once they noticed him limping along at my side.

Soo-Jin shifted back into her human form, giving no sign of discomfort from cold or the stares she was getting, first for the change, then for being buck naked in the snow. There was an intricate tattoo on her back of what she looked like as her other self, similar to one of the paintings I had seen in her house. She dug an extra set of clothes out of a duffel bag in the backseat, dressed like she had all the time in the world, then donned a pair of sparkly pink Adidas sneakers and got behind the wheel.

Mental note: Figure out how to introduce this woman to a new color scheme.

Fitting everyone into the cars was a challenge, but we managed, albeit with a few people sitting on laps or riding in the beds of the SUVs. Nobody wanted to be anywhere near Gideon, so he ended up riding with me, Angus, and Soo-Jin, with the big cat sprawled in the flatbed of the pickup. Now that the Were was close enough, I could see by the glow of the headlights from one of the other cars that his cat-form was a cougar, all tawny fur and sleek lines. He stayed low in the bed of the truck so no random passerby might see him, but I doubted it would be a comfortable ride.

My first encounter with an honest-to-God Were-cat, and I was too tired and hurting too much to give a shit.

Angus said nothing during the interminable ride, but the way he watched the necromancer made it clear that if he so much as twitched in a way the Highlander didn’t like, he would suffer for it. Gideon had deep circles under his eyes and kept uncharacteristically quiet, but he stayed awake and behaved himself the whole way.

We went back to Soo-Jin’s place. Our little caravan made it back with plenty of time to spare before sunrise, but exhaustion drove everyone—vampires included—to seek quick showers and a place to collapse.

After everyone was settled in and showered, some of the vampires went around to each of the rescued humans, using black enchants to put them to sleep. Considering how scared and lost most of them looked, for once I didn’t think that was such a bad idea. Judging by all the hollow eyes and shaking limbs, they might never have gotten a good night’s rest otherwise. That, or they might have made attempts to run off on their own, much like I had after snapping out of the blood-fueled haze I had been in after being bound to Max and Royce. The enchants would keep them in a dreamless state, free of nightmares, if only for tonight.

I wished I could have said the same for myself.

None of the vampires or magi would abide having Gideon stay near them, and Soo-Jin was still worried Fane would try to make a move even though Iana had cured me. After getting everyone else settled, she led me and Gideon into her bedroom—but she drew the line at letting the big cat padding after us inside. He made a grumbling, growling-type sound of complaint before curling up in the hallway right outside the door. That settled, she made me shower first, then Gideon, lending us both some bathrobes before she took her own turn.

As soon as she stepped out, a big towel wrapped around her slim frame and a smaller one scrubbing the remaining moisture from her hair, she paused in the doorway and her nose wrinkled in disgust.

She made Gideon take a second shower before she’d let him sleep in her room with us. On his way in, I got a good gander at the bottom of his toned, bare ass hanging out of the too-short, fuzzy pink bathrobe Soo-Jin had given him.

Once he came back out, she also made him spritz himself with half a bottle of jasmine-scented perfume. Then she lit some candles and incense. The mixture of cloying scents made it hard to breathe, but it was better than the rot-and-chemical odors still wafting from the necromancer. How he lived with that constant stench was beyond me.

He must have been exhausted, because he didn’t have any snide comments for either of us and seemed perfectly content to curl up on the carpeted floor with nothing but the robe and a pillow.

His green eyes, dull and heavy-lidded, tracked me around the room as I tugged one of the blankets out of the closet for him. He mumbled thanks as I draped it over him, but he didn’t close his eyes until I was in bed and under the covers. Having him staring at me like that was worrisome. He’d proven one too many times how clever and vicious he was capable of being, so I had no interest in letting him trick or use me again. Whatever was on his mind, it meant I would have to be on my toes until he was out of my life.

Once it was clear he was passed out, Soo-Jin pulled out a pair of fuzzy handcuffs from a drawer beside her bed and cuffed one of his hands to the foot of a large teak armoire. Probably a good idea since there was no telling what he might do if he woke up during the day and decided that having the vampires running around uncontrolled wasn’t good for his health. That, or if he got it into his head to take off and maybe bring Sara along for the ride.

No doubt, even if he was (sort of) on our side now, he was going to prove to be a tremendous amount of trouble.

Soo-Jin turned off the lights and crawled into bed next to me, breathing out an exhausted sigh as she sprawled on her stomach. By dim candlelight, I could see she was staring at me with her eyes narrowed to slits. First Gideon, then her. They were both getting on my nerves and making it difficult to relax.

“Something on your mind?” I asked, keeping my voice soft.

A slow, lazy smile curved her lips. She kept her voice down, too, neither of us wanting to wake Gideon. “You didn’t run from me when you saw me feed. You took off on your own to go after Max. You stand up for the necromancer despite who he is and what he’s done. The more I see of you, the more I understand why Rhathos and so many others like him are attracted to you.”

With a huff, I looked away, not wanting to hear it. It was a sentiment I had heard from Others before, if not in the same words.

“I admire your bravery. Take care who you waste it on and how you exercise it, or you may not survive our world.” She paused, then rolled to put her back to me. Something about her tone changed. I wasn’t sure if it was warning or sorrow in her voice. “Your choices have led you to a very hard road. You’ll be tempted upon your return to take a stand against him in a matter that will seem cruel and heartless to you. Don’t. For your sake, and that of everyone involved, accept that there is nothing you can do.”

She didn’t say anything else, and I didn’t ask what she meant.

If I had been any less wiped out and she had been any less cagey, I might have asked for further details. I had the feeling she didn’t want to be the one to tell me what was coming. Prying it out of her would be too much damned work. With all the other crap already heaped on my plate, I had zero fucks left to give. Whatever the problem was, I would deal with it when it came.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Getting back to New York was a freaking
nightmare.

First we had to get out of Max’s territory. Due to complications and some kind of bullshit Other protocol that Angus and Soo-Jin didn’t care to explain but insisted we needed to follow, Royce had no way of sending us any more resources. All they would tell me is that they didn’t want to leave Athena any more clues about his involvement.

That meant we had to drive south over three hundred miles through Illinois and Indiana to cross the invisible bully’s line in the sandbox. We couldn’t just drive the half an hour or whatever to O’Hare International. Even if whatever Other-related rules that forbade him from helping us weren’t deterring Angus and Soo-Jin from taking the easy way out, Royce had no way of providing enough fake IDs or buying off security rapidly enough to get us out of town as fast as we needed.

For some reason, he also couldn’t send a plane into Max’s territory without it being tracked back to him. Some combination of Max’s payoffs to the local cops plus the Other-related networks in the area made it too much of a risk for him to leave a tangible trail of his involvement. That explained why I didn’t know any of the vampires he sent along save for Angus. They weren’t part of Royce’s bloodline, so any part of themselves they left behind couldn’t be traced to him by supernatural means.

Knowing that didn’t make the inconvenience of our situation any easier to swallow. Never mind that the guy was dead, Max
still
managed to be a tremendous pain in my ass. Royce insisted that we had to find a private airport in northern Kentucky with loose enough security to bypass pesky things like TSA searches and passenger manifests required by Homeland Security.

Soo-Jin, who had been thoughtful enough to get up early and buy a bunch of sweats for those of us whose clothes had been mangled beyond repair or had none to speak of, came with us as far as the airport. She wished us all luck, and told me to call her now and then.

She also told me to pay her a visit if I was ever back in the neighborhood. I tried not to let too much hysterical laughter slip at the thought, but it was a losing battle. Thank goodness she thought my reaction was funny instead of taking offense.

There was one other thing. Right before she left, she pulled me aside, keeping her voice low and furtive like she didn’t want anyone to overhear.

“That boy-child you were so concerned about. The one at the store? He’s alive, if a bit more pale than you might remember. He did not recognize me, and had some bandages on one arm. When I asked, he thought he might have slipped on a patch of ice and knocked himself cold when checking on a customer in the parking lot.”

So, Max hadn’t killed Dustin, just taken a bit of blood and removed his memories of our presence with a black enchant. I was ashamed to admit it, but in all the uproar, I had forgotten about the kid at the convenience store. She did not look too pleased to admit that she had checked on him for me, but the gruff face she put on to tell me the news didn’t hide that she was relieved, too.

“Thank you, Soo-Jin.”

She gave me a terse nod, turning away. I put a hand on her arm to keep her from rushing off.

“Really,” I said, repeating myself with a bit more force. “
Thank you.
Like I told you before—you’re kinder than you know.”

Her eyes flashed orange as she gave me a fierce, fang-filled grin. “You’re welcome. But if you tell anyone I’ve gone soft, I’ll eat that boy’s heart.”

That startled a nervous laugh out of me. Mostly since I wasn’t totally sure she was kidding. Her smile widened, and she shifted to take one of my hands in both of hers, bowing deep over it as she shook it.