Fresh Blood (15 page)

The gothic mansion had a modern flair, bright
lights, and cleaner lines than before. The spiked wrought iron
rails that had adorned the parapets and widow’s walks when Gregori
ruled now lined a perennial garden and gave purchase to flowering
vines.

Fresh blood in the vampire world meant lots
of changes but not all of them were good.

A distinguished older man in a dark suit met
Max at the front door. He bowed as Max climbed the front steps.

“Mr. Hart. Mr. Vitale told us to expect you
this evening.”

“Is Mr. Beaumont here? I’d like to speak to
him as well, if I may.”

“Not this evening, sir. Come inside. You can
leave him a message.” The butler stood aside to allow Max to step
into the huge foyer. Max stood in the center of the room for a
second, looking up at the enormous chandelier dangling overhead.
The place seemed so different since his last visit, larger somehow
and just a shade more inviting.

“I’ll see Mr. Vitale,” he said. “And I’d like
to leave a message for Mr. Beaumont.”

“Very good, sir. This way.”

The man gestured to the dark paneled wall and
a hidden door slid open at his approach. A narrow, dark corridor
stretched beyond. Max eyed the butler skeptically. The lower levels
of the mansion had always been reserved for the darker aspects of
Gregori’s world. He had to wonder how they were now being used.

The man bowed. “Mr. Vitale is in the room at
the end of the corridor.”

“Thank you.”

Max entered the hallway and crossed
cautiously to the far door. He knocked.

“Yeah?”

Max opened the door and peered inside.
Candlelight illuminated the small room beyond. A round bed draped
in red satin dominated the room. As Max entered, Lucas rolled to
the edge of the bed. He gave a sardonic look as he pulled the blood
red sheet around him.

A sleek, dark head bobbed up from the nest of
pillows at the top of the bed. Kyra grinned at Max as she arched
languidly to a sitting position, licking her newly acquired
fangs.

“I’m ready for more,” she purred. “How about
you, Max? Come let me show you the new me.”

Max’s gaze bounced from Kyra to Lucas and
back as his partner began collecting discarded clothes from the
floor.

“I guess I don’t have to ask if Kyra woke up
all right,” he said. Thoughts of Erica plagued him. While she
worried and mourned for her sister, Lucas was welcoming Kyra into
the vampire fold with a good fuck.

“I’m great!” Kyra slithered from the bed and
padded naked across the room. She sidled against him and draped her
arms around his neck. He avoided her gaze, too similar to Erica’s,
and disengaged her slender fingers from his collar.

“So this was planned. Benton Carlisle turned
you by request.”

She nodded, gave him a quirky grin that
showed her fangs. “He had permission, too. He did it to save me
from myself. Poor messed up Elena--drowning in booze and strung out
on drugs. He offered me a new life.”

“I’ve never seen you drunk or stoned.” Max
crossed his arms over his chest, kept his gaze leveled at a spot on
the wall above the bed while Lucas yanked on his jeans and shirt.
Kyra accepted the discarded sheet and draped it artfully over her
thin frame.

“Of course not. I had to get clean first.
Now, I can stay clean. I don’t need all that stuff anymore.”

“Didn’t it occur to you that if you could
kick your habits as a human, you didn’t need to be turned?”

Kyra laughed. “No. Do you know how many times
I tried? How many times I swore to Ricki that I’d give it up, I’d
let her sign me into some rehab where some half-assed counselor
would tell me my problems stemmed from the fact that I didn’t get a
pony for my seventh birthday? And that I need to ‘own’ my
addictions in order to conquer them? Just the thought of spending
twelve weeks in a ‘share circle’ sent me running for a fix or a
drink. I don’t need that anymore. All I need is a ripe feeder.” She
turned a sultry grin toward Lucas. “Can you get me another one,
Luke? I’m hungry again already.”

“What about Erica? Why did you drag her into
this?”

Kyra’s laugh was ice cold. She shrugged her
pale shoulders and reached for the door but he blocked her path.
When she looked up at him, he saw vampire in her eyes.

“Erica will do anything for me. If you know
her, you’ve seen that already.” Kyra leaned toward Max again and
she breathed in the warm essence of Erica that lingered on his
skin. “Mmm. You do know her, don’t you? She’ll do whatever she has
to in order to see that I get what she thinks I need.”

Max grabbed her wrist and twisted. Kyra
snarled, fangs extended. Lucas came up behind her, trapping her
shoulders with his massive hands. “What do you mean, she’ll do
anything she has to do?”

“Whatever Benton Carlisle expects of her. He
owns her now. In exchange for turning me, I gave him Erica.”

Erica floated to consciousness with the eerie
awareness of a presence above her.

“Max?” His name left her lips on a contented
sigh. She stretched and reached toward the blurry figure standing
near the couch.

“He’s not here, little one. He left you alone
... unprotected.”

Erica struggled to fit a name to the cooing,
feminine voice. “Vera?”

“Yes, it’s me. I’ve come to take you
home.”

“Home?” Erica blinked, but her blurry vision
cleared only marginally. She felt heavy and warm, weighted into the
soft cushions of her sister’s couch by an invisible force.

Vera hovered above her, her lovely features
distended and indistinct.

“What’s happening to me?” Erica’s question
came out breathless. She was too tired to force the words out.

“You’re just resting now, my sweet. When you
wake up again, you’ll feel better, stronger. You’ll be ready to
begin your new life.”

Somewhere in her foggy brain, a warning bell
sounded. Panic slithered through her ribcage and clutched at her
lungs. Where was Max? Why had he left her?

“Please...don’t turn me,” she said as her
leaden eyelids drifted closed. She felt Vera’s cool fingers on her
forehead, brushing strands of hair from her face. A moment later
all sensation left her body and she drifted into blackness.

* * * *

“We’re going to need more backup,” Lucas said
as Max turned off the highway and headed into the rich section of
town. Here, the mansions sat well back on manicured lawns and iron
gates blocked the entrances to rolling driveways. Benton Carlisle’s
estate loomed into view before Max answered.

“If we go in with a posse, who knows what
Carlisle will do to Erica. We’ve got our insurance policy. That’s
enough for now.” Max jerked his thumb toward the back seat where
Kyra lay unconscious, he wrists bound behind her with strips of
crimson bed sheet.

She’d put up quite a struggle when Max had
suggested she come with them to retrieve her sister. Knocking her
out hadn’t been easy and Lucas had vibrant scratches across his
chest and jaw to prove it.

“Do you think Carlisle cares enough about
Kyra to bargain for her?”

Max glanced at Lucas as he turned the car off
the main street to circle around to the back of Carlisle’s
property.

“I don’t think he gives a crap about Kyra.
But I think he’ll care about getting a chance to keep all this
secret from Beaumont. An even trade--his secret for Erica’s
life.”

“Guys like Carlisle don’t like compromise.”
There was a dangerous glint in Lucas’s eyes and Max remembered why
this man was his closest friend.

“But we’re going to make him like it.”

* * * *

Erica awoke gasping. She clutched at her neck
searching for new bite marks but found none. She struggled to sit
up and take in her surroundings. The dark paneled walls seemed to
close in on her and the cloying smell of cinnamon and clove drifted
from the dozen or so red candles that adorned the dark wood tables
and shelves that decorated the room.

She lay on a narrow bed, swathed in white
sheets. Leather-covered handcuffs hung from the high brass bedposts
and across the room other chains and cuffs dangled from pegs on the
walls.

This was Benton Carlisle’s home and it was
just as she’d suspected. Nevertheless the décor in the tiny room
sent chills through her.

She rose from the bed, grateful to find her
clothing intact, and tried the door.

Of course it was locked. Why would she have
suspected otherwise?

Panic tickled the back of her throat. She
swallowed the strange sensation and tried to take deep, calming
breaths.

She was practically hyperventilating when the
door finally opened.

Benton Carlisle stood in the doorway. He wore
a modest, dark suit and a power tie. He leaned against the door jam
in a casual stance and adjusted the diamond cufflink in his right
sleeve.

“How are you feeling?” He sounded as if he
were speaking to a coworker rather than a captive.

“Scared shitless,” Erica replied. Why lie?
False bravado would get her nowhere.

Carlisle laughed, flashing fang for an
instant. “My dear, I love your honesty. Of course you’re scared.
But you have no reason to be. I have no intention of mistreating
you. I promise.”

“Can I get that in writing?” Erica inched her
way backward toward the bed as she spoke, her eyes on Carlisle. His
wide shoulders filled the doorway, leaving no room to slip past
him.

A glowing candle full of molten wax flickered
inches from her fingertips. She could hurt him, distract him and
run. Something inside her turned cold with the realization that she
probably wouldn’t leave the building alive, but it didn’t matter.
As long as she didn’t submit to him, didn’t allow him to win. Death
would be a reward at this point.

“I could most certainly put all my promises
in writing. If that would ease your fears. I would be more than
happy to solidify an arrangement with you and I guarantee it’s one
you’ll be satisfied with.”

“I doubt it.”

“Would you care to talk to Vera? She’s quite
pleased with the relationship we share. She enjoys a wonderful
life, and you can, too.”

“Do I have a choice? Waking up here after
passing out at my sister’s house sort of gives me the idea that I
don’t get a say in the matter.”

“If you’re willing to negotiate terms with
me, my dear, you’ll be surprised how many choices you have.”
Carlisle sobered and his dark eyes bored into hers.

“What’s to negotiate? Why am I here after
all? You want to own me. You can’t.”

Carlisle took one step forward into the room
and Erica backed up. Her fingers rested on the edge of the bedside
table behind her, glided toward a fat red pillar of dripping
wax.

“Let’s talk about what I want. And what you
want. You want your beloved sister to be happy, don’t you?” The
tone of his voice changed then, and Erica’s flesh tingled
uncomfortably.

“You turned Elena. She couldn’t have wanted
that.”

“Of course she did. Begged for it, in fact. I
wouldn’t have obliged her under normal circumstances. She was a
junkie. Not worthy of being a feeder and certainly not worthy of
being a vampire. I had her thrown out of After Dark one
night--about six months ago. Vera felt sorry for her so we gave her
bus fare and followed her to make sure she actually got on the bus.
She didn’t--you came to get her.”

“I remember. That night was the first time
she talked seriously about joining AA. She almost convinced me that
she wanted to sober up for good.” Almost, Erica thought. Was I
already too jaded to believe her?

“She did want to. She wanted to be part of
this world. I told her she had to straighten herself out or no
vampire would want her.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“I saw you that night. You wore a gray
herringbone suit and a white blouse. You had your hair up and your
collar unbuttoned showing off that beautiful neck. I’ve been
watching you since then.” Carlisle’s smile made Erica queasy. She
heard the candle crackle behind her and tried not to react.

“When Kyra came back to us, sober and eager
to please, I asked her about you and she told me who you were. She
said you were the good twin. The responsible sister with a firm
grip on reality and normal life, a boring job and a knack for being
there when she needed you. I told her how she could kick her
addictions permanently and take away all the pain, the meaningless
desire to hurt herself and punish you for being better than
her.”

“I’m not better than her--”

Carlisle held up one finger as if scolding an
errant student. “Yes you are! And Kyra knew that her whole life.
You were the pretty one. She always hated that you didn’t look
exactly alike. She wanted the blonde hair, the healthy glow. She
was always the thin, pale one. You were smarter, more popular,
stronger. She loved you so much--and she hated you. She hated
herself for wishing she was better than you.”

“Stop it! Stop it!” Erica fought the urge to
cover her ears and drown out his words. “How do you know so much
about my sister? How do you know things I don’t?”

“I know because she wasn’t afraid to tell me.
I offered her something you couldn’t. An end to her problems.”

“That’s all I ever did! I tried for years to
get her help, to give her a reason to want to get better. And then
you came along and offered to make her into a vampire and you took
it all away over night.” A bout of shivering wracked Erica’s body.
She inched closer to the candle flame.

“Yes. We took away your purpose. I’m sorry
for that. Elena was your project for half your life. Fixing her was
your .... career, for lack of a better term.”

“My curse.”

“Yes! Exactly. That’s over now. The curse is
lifted. Elena is gone and all her problems are gone, too. She’s
become something else. Something invincible and immortal. In a way,
you made that possible.”