Love Me to Death (Underveil) (30 page)

The one closest to Aleksi shifted into a huge bear with black claws and fangs as big as the head of a claw hammer, while the one nearest Elena remained in human form. He grabbed Claude by the collar.

“She took me prisoner!” he shouted. “She’s dangerous. Release me!”

The guy let him go and spun to face Elena right about the time the bear stood on his hind legs, towering over Aleksi, who remained in fighting stance, sword in both hands in front. The bear roared, and both boys shifted into dog form.

Keeping her eyes on both the bear and the man stalking toward her, Elena sent a charge to her hands. Very little energy was building up. She must have used it up zapping the guard on her way into the dungeon or maybe lighting the cells with her palm. She slipped the sword from the sheath on her thigh.

“We’re not supposed to kill ’em,” the man hollered to the bear. “Jus’ maim ’em.”

The bear made a swipe at Aleksi, and she ducked, spun, and buried the sword in the beast’s chest. It roared in pain, right as the second bear man grabbed Elena by the hair, knocking the sword out of her hands. One of the dogs launched itself at his neck, but missed, biting and latching on to the man’s shoulder instead. Immediately, he shifted into his bear form, and before Elena had built up enough power to deliver a shock, he sunk his fangs into the dog’s neck, ripped it loose from his shoulder, and flung it across the barn, where it slammed into the wall with a yelp and a sickening crack. When it turned its enormous head back to Elena, she shoved her palm against its nose and released all of her current into the beast. His human-looking eyes widened, and soundlessly, his body went rigid and tremors jerked through his huge form. When his eyes glazed into a blank stare, she released him and he collapsed to the floor, bear skin sluffing off to reveal the man again.

Completely drained, Elena was mildly aware of the sounds of struggle going on behind her, but could focus only on the boy in a heap on the floor where his body had landed, limbs sprawled at unnatural angles.

As if someone had turned the volume up on the television, the sounds of fighting behind her came back into focus, and she spun to find the bear swinging wildly at Aleksi, Claude, and the other boy, still in dog form, barking and biting at the enraged animal. She had no charge left. In fact, she was having trouble standing at this point.

Claude picked up a pitchfork, hefted it over his head, and slammed it down right between the bear’s shoulder blades. It gave a roar and rose on its hind legs, towering over Aleksi, sword still in her hands. The dog bit its heel, and as it dropped to all fours, Aleksandra thrust up with her sword into its chin, driving the blade all the way through the beast’s skull and out the top of its massive head.

Elena turned away, unable to watch the transition as it turned back to a man, but what she saw instead, was the dog shifter resuming his human form, then throwing himself over his friend’s body. She closed her eyes, surrounded with the smell of blood and the faint whimpers and whines of the surviving boy. Was this the world she was condemned to live in now? A world of violence and hate?

Shouting came from outside. “More are coming,” Aleksi said to the surviving boy. “Shift and run, Iosif! Get out of here.”

“No, Lady Aleksandra. I will fight for you. For Simion.”

“Now. Dammit. Obey me. Out!”

Iosif shifted into a dog and loped to the back of the barn and squeezed under a board at the back of a stall.

“You should have teleported out,” Aleksi said, scooping Elena’s sword from the ground and handing it to her. “Claude can’t and I’m not healed enough yet.” She wiped the blade of her sword off on the bale of hay beside her. “Why did you stay?”

The shouting grew louder as the new enemies approached. “It never dawned on me to teleport out.” Everything was still too new. Stefan was right; she needed to stop thinking like a human. Though, she would not have left them to fend for themselves against two of those creatures. She would have remained regardless.

“They’re in the barn!” a gruff voice shouted.

“Fuck. I’d know that voice anywhere,” Aleksi said. “That’s Commander Mihai.”

A quick glance at Claude confirmed this was bad news. “Leader of Fydor’s Elite Slayer Force. We are as good as dead.”

No. They were not going to die. “Not yet.” She hadn’t seen this ending here. If the visions were correct, she still had to hug the vampire and take an item from the elf. “Whatever happens, I need you to remain here. You must go back to the fortress and act like you were against me. I have a plan.”

The first three Slayers, swords drawn, filled the wide opening at the front of the barn. Backlit by the rising sun rendered a dramatic silhouette effect, like something from a horrible second-rate action movie. Only this was real.

“Get out, E!” Aleksi whispered from behind her.

“I’m too weak to teleport,” she answered under her breath, standing perfectly still.

“In here,” one of the Slayers shouted over his shoulder.

There was no way they could fight off the Slayers. Their only hope was to buy some time. “Overtake me,” Elena whispered. “Act like you’re my hostages and are turning the tables.” Not a great plan, but it was all she had since she had no clue how she would get out of this.

“Move and die, parasite!” Aleksi said, yanking Elena back by the hair and placing her sword blade against her neck.

Claude caught on to the ruse and pointed the pitchfork, still slicked in the bear’s blood, at her chest. “Tell Fydor we’ve got Arcos,” he shouted to the Slayers. “She killed the bear shifters and the boy.”

“You should consider a career in acting, there, Claude,” Aleksi murmured.

Heart hammering, Elena closed her eyes and searched for a vision showing her how the hell she was going to get out of this one, but came up blank. If only she had freed the vampire and had him come up here with Claude.
Stupid mistake.

“Not stupid.” The deep, rumbly voice behind her caused her to flinch. “What was stupid was broadcasting your location by calling out to me in your mind with Borya in the fortress. It’s how they knew to come here. He is telepathic, too. Now, hum.”

She did. It was a shrill version of “We’ve Gotta Get Out of this Place,” and the vampire actually chuckled as if they weren’t facing Slayer Armageddon.

“Send word that the vampire escaped the dungeon!” one of the Slayers shouted.

“They already know,” he replied calmly. “Well, those I left alive, anyway.”

Aleksi pulled Claude close and whispered in his ear.

When the first three Slayers began to advance, swords raised, the vampire moved within inches of Elena. “Touch me. Do it now. You must choose to come, or it doesn’t work.”

Without hesitation, she did as he instructed, and the moment her fingers met the cool skin of his arm, everything blurred and the pressure of teleportation wrapped her body like a cocoon. She had no idea where the vampire was taking her, but wherever it was, it beat the hell out of a barn full of angry Slayers.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

E
lena solidified from teleportation with more discomfort than usual. Her knees buckled, and the vampire caught her before she hit the floor—the very elegantly appointed floor covered in an Aubusson rug.

“Nadia,” the vampire called. A square-shouldered woman with high cheekbones and full lips rushed to them from across the huge stone room. They appeared to be in the great room of a castle or fortress of some kind. Expression neutral, the woman called Nadia stood silently as if running over to wait for his command were a normal thing. “Please escort our guests to rooms and provide them with baths.”

Guests?
Elena swung her gaze around to find Claude on the other side of the vampire, still clinging to his tattered, filthy shirt. The vamp was a fine one to order baths when he had the dungeon grunge working. She met Claude’s gold eyes. “You were supposed to stay behind with Aleksi.”

“This wasn’t my doing,” he replied. “Aleksi ordered me to stay with you.”

“Nadia, they are not to leave their rooms until I return, are we clear?” the vampire said. “I have work to do.”

“Yes, sir.” She took Elena by the elbow, grip firm, and started to lead her away.

Jerking her arm out of the woman’s grasp, she suppressed the urge to zap her. “Wait a minute. I need to do some things. You can’t just lock me up, Vl… Whatever your name is.”

Dozens of people had entered the cavernous room, servants or friends perhaps… Did creepy vampires even have friends? Most of them wore hooded capes in a dark brown, leaving their faces only partially visible. None of them reacted to her outburst; it was as if someone had flipped an emotional off switch on the entire population of the place.

The vampire moved close. So close she could see the variations in the shades of red in his eyes. “Keep your voice down and your emotions in check, and never again tell me what I can or cannot do in my own home. I can do whatever I wish. I can slaughter every living creature in this castle in the matter of minutes, and no one could do a thing to stop me. Not even you, Elena Arcos.” He calmly turned and strolled toward the gaping mouth of an archway at the other end of the room where several women wearing long, drab dresses stood in a cluster. “At least, not yet,” he added over his shoulder. At the snap of his finger, the women stood shoulder to shoulder, and he pointed to the tallest of them. She smiled and approached him, no fear evident in her features despite his ominous threat to butcher everyone in the castle.

Stopping right in front of him, she appeared totally relaxed as he removed whatever held her silky brown hair in a tight bun on the back of her head. He ran his fingers through the strands, fanning them out over her shoulders in an affectionate caress. “It has been so long,” he murmured, brushing the hair to one side to reveal her neck and bare shoulder. “Too long.” The woman, still showing no fear, tilted her head to expose the bare column of her long neck. “The things we do for love,” he said as he ran his fingertips over her skin and she closed her eyes.

Surely, he wasn’t skeevy enough to bite that poor woman, no matter how willing she appeared, in front of all these people.

His rumbling chuckle stalled her heart for a moment. “Skeevy is not a word with which I’m familiar. And, yes, I
am
…not skeevy, based on context, but planning to bite her. Stop thinking like—”

Like a human, yeah, I know.

“And hum or sing in your head when you don’t want your thoughts to be heard. In fact, for my benefit, do so now, so that I can concentrate on refueling rather than refuting.”

Too bad his personality and manner weren’t as good as his looks.

He straightened and glanced over his shoulder at her, a wide, cocky grin exposing his fangs.

Shit, shit, shit.
She launched into the chorus of the old Carly Simon song her mom used to play when she cleaned house, “You’re so Vain,” and he chuckled again before returning his attention to the woman in front of him.

Still singing the song in her head, she took in the reactions—or lack of reactions—from the others in the room. They watched him bite the woman’s neck with complete detachment. The only ones who reacted were the vampire, who made a yummy sound, the girl who moaned as if being bitten were pleasing, and Claude, who turned away in disgust.

The woman he’d called Nadia took Elena’s elbow and pulled. Another person, a guy much taller than Claude, did the same to him, and they were led through a doorway at the opposite end of the room. When the girl made a louder, clearly erotic moan, Elena sang out loud, wishing she remembered more than just the refrain.

She and Claude were taken to separate rooms off the same hallway, and she took note of where he’d been taken in case she’d misjudged the vampire and needed to find Claude in a pinch. Nadia entered the room with Elena and locked the door behind them, then slipped the key into her pocket.

“You cannot teleport in this wing of the castle, so don’t waste your time or energy.”

Elena gave the woman her best “screw you” glare, but it had no effect whatsoever.

“Please assist Miss Arcos with her bath,” Nadia said in a clear voice. No one else was in the room, at least no one visible.

The click of the tumblers seemed unnaturally loud as Nadia left and locked it from the outside. She was a prisoner.
Again.
Nik was being tortured in the Slayer fortress, and the thought of that made her want to vomit. She had to get out of here somehow.

“You asshole!” she shouted to the vampire, hoping it was as loud in his head as it was in the room. “I have things to do! You can’t just lock me up. I’m the reason you’re free at all, you ungrateful, bloodsucking…”

The sensation of being watched crawled over her neck like a spider, and she spun to again, find no one.

“Who’s here?”

A scratching drew her attention to the corner. She almost screamed when a tiny gray mouse lifted its head high, whiskers circling as it sniffed the air.

Surely not. Not even in this messed up world.

The mouse recoiled when she narrowed her eyes to a glare, and then it scurried under an armoire.

“You can’t just lock me into this vermin-infested hellhole, Vlad!” she shouted.

“I can and will.” The voice was deep and menacing, and
close
—right behind her. His breath ruffled the hair on the back of her neck, but she didn’t flinch or react at all other than to ball her fists at her side as he continued to speak. “Keep your voice low and level in my home, please. And maintain your control.”

“It’s a little hard to control myself when I’m a prisoner.”

He rested his hands on her shoulders and kept his voice a bare whisper. “You are not a prisoner. You are a secured, temporary guest. I have something I must do. It is important and you will wait here.”

She shrugged off his hands and faced him, then took a step back because he was way too close for her comfort. “Why? So you can go make some other poor girl moan while you drain her blood?”

He gave a long-suffering sigh. “I wish that were my mission. I could do with more fuel after being starved for months. I could do with a lot of things.” His crimson eyes scanned her from head to toe, and ended on her lips.

“Screw you,” she said.

“Are you offering?”

She took a step back. “No.” He wasn’t someone to trifle with, yet here she was provoking him.

“Good, because it would be a tremendous conflict of interest for me and I have things I need to do.”

“I need to save Nik.” And possibly the entire human race.

“My mission is more important at this juncture. You will wait here until I return.”

Bossy jackass.

“See she bathes,” he ordered the empty room, just like Nadia had.

There was that bath thing again, coming from Mr. Dungeon Dweller. “Maybe
you
should bathe.”

“I fully intend to. I, however, do not smell of fear and bear blood. You will upset my household. Please do as instructed.”

God, she hated controlling men. And ever since the convenience store, that’s all she’d encountered. Maybe that’s all there was in the Underveil…that, and people who turn into animals and kill boys. Her heart constricted as she thought of the poor little dog shifter who died in the barn.

The vampire reached out, as if to comfort her, then dropped his hand, blurred, and disappeared. Evidently the teleportation block wasn’t in place here, like it was at the fortress. Well, good. She had no intention of allowing Mr. Bossy Pants to keep her prisoner. She’d freed herself from the cord that bound her to Nik, and there was no way she’d let herself be held captive again. Even if he
had
saved her from the Slayers in the barn.

Nik needed her. She had to get to him. Focusing all her energy, she imagined the wall outside Aleksi’s room. Her body went warm for a moment, then returned to normal, still in the same room.

Maybe this part of the fortress really was teleport proof. Again, she closed her eyes. This time, she focused on the room where she had just been. Nothing.

“Shit!”

The hall outside the door. Nope.

The bed across the room. Nada.

“I hate this place. I hate vampires and shifters and every damn freaky thing that lives under the Veil. You all suck!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Covering her face, she slumped to the floor, legs folded under her. Before getting shot in the convenience store, she’d just gone along with the ebb and flow of life, never fighting fate’s current. Now, she felt like she was constantly struggling to swim upstream—like those salmon that fight and fight to reach some place at the top of the river, only to breed and die. She rubbed her hand over her belly. Well, she sure as hell wasn’t going to be one of those salmon. If being part of this freaky existence had taught her anything, it was to be proactive. Being helpless and going with the flow was as much of her past as her humanity.

Pushing to her feet, she took in her surroundings. It looked like one of those museum castles she’d seen on television. The walls were stone, as was the floor, with heavy, rough-hewn, wooden support beams overhead. A small, ornate four-poster bed with emerald damask curtains tied back with gold cords stood in the center of the room, the only furniture other than the armoire. A door on the opposite side of the room stood open with a view to a modern bathroom.

A skittering sound drew her attention back to the armoire where the mouse peeked out at her. “You’re not really a mouse, are you?”

It shook its head, which should have creeped her out, but didn’t. Maybe she was adjusting finally…or maybe she was just tired.

The mouse moved out from under the armoire and rose up on its hind legs, still studying her.

“Go ahead,” Elena said, crossing her arms. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Even so, the mouse stretching and a full-grown woman morphing in that spot was still unsettling. The woman was completely naked, the tiny, discarded mouse pelt in a ball at her feet. Wordlessly, she opened the armoire, pulled out a simple frock, and pulled it over her head. “Shall I run a bath, Miss Arcos?”

Be proactive.
“Nah, I’ve got this.” She tromped to the bathroom, turned on the faucet in the enormous claw-footed iron tub, and held her hand under the water until it turned warm. “What’s with the bath anyway? I’m not as grimy as he is.”

“Our master will wash when he returns.”

“Where did he go?”

“It is none of our business. Our job is to trust, learn, and obey.”

Like hell.

The water had reached a good level in the tub, so she turned it off and reached up to unfasten the leather halter she’d borrowed from Aleksi. She paused and arched a brow at the mouse girl.

“Go ahead,” the girl said, in a fairly good imitation of Elena’s tone earlier. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Touché.
She unzipped the soft leather at her neck and back and pulled the halter off. The pants and boots followed. Mouse girl, despite her words, was transfixed by the markings on Elena’s body. She stepped into the tub. “Who are the people in the big room? No. Better question is
what
are the people in that room?”

“Some are shifters, but most are vampires. They are the Master’s students.”

“What are they studying?”

“Pacifism.”

And here she’d been thinking it couldn’t get weirder.

She lowered herself into the warm water. “Pacifist vampires.”

“Yes. It is a special order. They are all empaths.”

“Including your…Master?” The word rankled. Nobody should be a Master. She felt like she’d been dumped in the middle ages. She dunked under, wetting her hair.

The mouse girl picked up a small bottle and poured some of the gold liquid in her hand. “No. He took over the job for someone else. He is telepathic with empath tendencies. The previous master was an empath.” She rubbed the shampoo into Elena’s hair, and despite her desire not to, she found herself enjoying it. It seemed so wrong to be here, in a tub big enough for two people, being pampered while Nik was in a cell, enduring torture.

“Where is the previous master?”

“He was murdered.”