Stefan (Lost Nights Series Book 1) (10 page)

She smiled at me, little more than a baring of her teeth at me, but I think she might have been amused. “Brain damage?”

I nodded stiffly to more snickers. Yeah, it sounded bad. I sounded broken and slow of thought, but I wasn’t. Fine. Let them think that I was slow. Let them underestimate me. I’d use it to my advantage later and get the hell out of here. After all this bullshit, I didn’t want to see another nightwalker or vampire as long as I lived. And that included Stefan.

But there was something in Mira’s expression, something thoughtful. I had this feeling that she wasn’t going to underestimate me. There was something shrewd in the woman’s eyes. Despite all this talk of pets, I didn’t get the impression that she de-valued humans like the rest of her kind. If I was lucky, I might find a way around Carla, but I wasn’t going to find a sneaky way around Mira.

“What do you remember?” the man standing behind Mira asked. As he spoke, I noticed that his hand slipped down and took Mira’s, his thumb rubbing across the top of her hand in a gentle caress.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I clung to the sight of the man holding the nightwalker’s hand. It was a sweet, tender image that helped to push back the cold fear and growing frustration. This man had not been cruel to me. I would temper my words for him.

“It was late. After eight, I think, and I was lying on the couch, reading a book. One more chapter and then I was going to get ready for bed,” I started slowly, keeping my eyes closed and trusting that Stefan or Mira would keep me safe for that short time.

I left out the mention that I hadn’t been expecting Stefan that evening like I usually did. He’d already told me that he wasn’t coming over. Besides, these assholes didn’t need to know all my habits.

“There was a knock at the door. I remember thinking that it was strange because I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“Did you think it was Stefan?” Mira asked and my eyes snapped open.

“No. He doesn’t knock.” At my words, Mira smiled like she’d expected that answer. Had she managed to pull some thought from my battered brain? God, I hoped she had. It could save my life, even if I wasn’t a fan of having someone rummage around in my thoughts. “Anyway, I opened the door and...”

“And then what? Who was there?” Carla snapped, her voice lashing out at me from across the room.

I flinched at the harsh sound, taking an unconscious step back toward the dais as if I actually expected them to protect me. “I don’t remember. The next thing I remember is someone pounding on my door. It was the cops and I was covered in blood.”

“You killed her! You just don’t want to remember,” Carla shouted.

“No!”

“You said yourself, you’re damaged. You’re a monster. Something in your bad brain snapped and you killed her!”

“No!” I screamed, my voice cracking as her words scraped over an old fear. I had spent too many nights lying awake with that very fear dancing through my mind. There had been so much damage and I’d spent years rebuilding myself so that I closely resembled the person I had been before, but there were holes in my mind. Those voids haunted me and I didn’t want this woman’s death to fall into one of those voids. I wanted to remember.

“This is a waste of time,” muttered the nightwalker seated closest to Stefan. “We’re talking about a pet. Carla, will you be appeased with the life of this woman?”

“Yes, Mistress Elizabeth,” she said, bowing deeply to the dark-haired nightwalker. “Then, Stefan, allow her to kill your pet to even the score. It’s not as if you’ve had her long and amusing humans are easy enough to find.”

I wanted to cry out that I was innocent. That such a thing should count for something, but I held my tongue. Stefan would say something in my defense. I knew he would.

“She’s not my pet,” he said, seeming to look anywhere but at me.

That was not the argument that I had been hoping for. In fact, it only seemed to make things worse. While I certainly didn’t want to be regarded as a pet, I wanted to be counted as something to this creature. After spending our nights together for almost a week, I thought I was
something
. At the very least, a friend.

“Then why are we even discussing this?” Elizabeth said, sounding thoroughly exasperated by the waste of her time. “She’s nothing. Carla, kill her and let’s be done with this business.”

Carla laughed and I wanted to scream. The air froze in my lungs as I stared hard at Stefan, waiting for him to say something. Was he really going to allow me to be killed for something I didn’t do? He said he believed me. I know he believed me. It was more of a matter that he didn’t wish to dirty his hands with me. I wasn’t worth his time. I wasn’t worth putting him in a potentially vulnerable position. I was nothing to him and it hurt more than I wanted to admit.

I was about to die but it wasn’t the brutal ending that was coming for me that created the knot in my throat. It was Stefan’s betrayal.

“Wait,” Mira said, jerking all eyes to her. She lounged in her chair, her chin resting in her left hand while she twined the fingers of her free hand through the man’s. “I think I would like to have her for a pet. She’s adorable and can keep Danaus company during the day.” The man beside her rolled his eyes as he dropped her hand. He crossed his arms and frowned at Mira as if he were annoyed that she was dragging him into this.

“Why? She’s going to die,” Elizabeth argued.

“Only if she’s actually guilty. If not, she remains safe within my care.” Mira sat up and gave a wide smile that was full of fangs and menace. I wasn’t exactly sure this was an improvement over my current fate. No one ever said they felt safe when they were in the company of a vampire. Well… I had… with Stefan, but not anymore.

“No!” Carla screamed. She started to run toward me and I froze. She was moved with frightening speed so that she was nearly a blur of garish color. There was no escaping.

A ring of flames burst up from the marble, surrounding me in a neat circle. I gasped, lurching back a step away from the wave of heat while Carla screamed. Her hard-soled shoes scraped along the marble as she fought to stop herself in time from plunging into the flames. Sliding the last few feet, she halted mere inches from the circle of fire and then jumped back, landing on her hands and knees in her haste to reach safety.

The nightwalker’s face was twisted with impotent rage and anguish. My heart went out to her. She saw me as Sabrina’s killer and there was a chance that I was now escaping justice. I knew that I would be heartbroken as well if someone I cared about had been harmed and the killer was walking away.

“I’m sorry, Carla,” I murmured with a shake of my head. “But I didn’t kill Sabrina.
I had no reason to harm her.”

The nightwalker hissed at me as she rose to her feet. “Lies. You’re guilty and your lies will catch up to you in the end. Not even the Fire Starter can protect you. You will pay for what you did and I’ll be there when you do.”

Carla ran from the massive throne room, disappearing through a pair of wide double doors on the other side of the chamber. At the same time, the flames surrounding me disappeared and I breathed a small sigh of relief.

“This matter is still not settled to my satisfaction,” Elizabeth said irritably.

“True,” Mira murmured.

“I don’t like the idea of Sabrina being murdered and there being no one to punish.” Elizabeth slid gracefully from her chair and approached me, moving as if she were gliding across the marble floor. Her movements were almost hypnotic. “She served the court well over the past three years. Her killer must be found.”

“And the killer will be found,” Mira said. “It will be my new pet’s first task.”

“You trust her to find the killer when she could be the killer?” Elizabeth said skeptically.

Mira shrugged, seeming indifferent to the entire conversation. “No, but then she won’t be working alone. And if it is discovered that she is the killer, I will hand her over to Carla so we have peace again.”

Elizabeth remained standing close for several seconds, her lovely green eyes narrowed on me. If she was trying to read my mind, I felt nothing. In the end, she made a soft tsking sound and then turned away from me. “That will be acceptable.”

Mira rolled her eyes and shook her head, and I swallowed back my own giddy relief. Apparently the redhead didn’t give a shit what Elizabeth thought was appropriate. A part of me wanted to ask her about this gathering of nightwalker rulers and how they all got to where they are, but then as she rose, the other nightwalkers shrank away from her. Their fear and distrust of her was a palpable thing in the air. It might be best if I didn’t try to be too chummy with her.

In the next second, Knox was at my elbow again, guiding me firmly back across the room toward the door through which we had entered. I looked back over my shoulder toward Stefan. He had stood and turned his back on me. And like that, I belonged to someone else.

Chapter 7

“Well, I’ll admit that that was not how I expected things to work out,” Knox announced the moment that the bedroom door closed behind me, shutting out the rest of the nightwalker world.

I stood in the middle of Mira’s room, staring down at my bloodstained hands. I trained all my attention on my hands because if I let myself think about anything else I was going to crack right down the center and nothing was going to pull me back together again.

I’d trusted Stefan. I don’t know why. He’d been amusing, tender, and annoying. Not once had I thought him to be harmless. Yet, I hadn’t thought he would intentionally hurt me. When he turned his back on me, refusing to give me any kind of aid, that was exactly what he did.

“Would you mind if I get a shower to get this blood off me?” I asked in a low voice, struggling to keep it from breaking.

“Erin, I’m—”

“Don’t!” I said more sharply than I had wanted to but it was too late to suck the word back now. There was something in his gentle tone, something too close to the sound of pity. I couldn’t take it.

“Just wait. Mira is on her way.”

Luckily, we had to wait only another couple minutes before the redheaded nightwalker swept into the room with the large man trailing her. The nightwalker stopped directly in front of me while the man dropped into a large black leather chair in the far corner and propping his feet up on the coffee table. He watched me, not quite glaring but his expression certainly wasn’t welcoming.

“Thank you for the loan of the clothes,” I said, dragging my gaze back to her.

Standing close, Mira was taller than I would have expected. But then I was barely over five feet; middle school children were taller than me. Her skin was flawless and nearly marble white, while her eyes were this brilliant shade of lavender. I would have said that they were contacts, but I couldn’t imagine her putting in contacts. The color had to be real. She was amazingly slender and seemed even more lethal up close, but for some reason I couldn’t summon the fear I knew I should be feeling. I was numb.

“For the clothes?” she said with a little laugh.

“Yes, thank you for the clothes. I’m sorry about getting blood on them.”

A little smirk lifted one corner of her mouth. “It’s okay. Happens all the time.”

“Mira,” the man growled, causing the nightwalker to laugh.

“I know I should be thanking you for more, but I don’t know you. I don’t understand what has happened the past two nights and I don’t know what a pet is. I don’t know if I’m better off with you or Carla.”

Behind Mira on the other side of the room, I saw Knox wince. Yeah, it was far from a compliment since Mira had saved my life, but slavery didn’t seem better than death. It was with a little reluctance that I looked back up at Mira.

There was a wealth of sympathy in her eyes and it shook me to my core. “I understand,” she simply said and I believed her. Possibly more than if anyone else in my life had said those words.

“Would you mind if I washed this blood off?” I asked, holding my hands up to her.

“That’s fine. We’ll talk when you get out,” Mira said with a reassuring smile.

A heavy sigh slipped from me as I closed the bathroom door. Tears were starting to build, but I held them back. Mira seemed patient. I didn’t know why she helped me, but I wasn’t willing to think that it had anything to with compassion for me or a wish to save an innocent person. After turning on the water, I stripped out of her clothes and carefully folded them before placing them on the sink.

Stepping under the hot spray, I felt my carefully built walls crumbling. My life had been ripped from me and I didn’t yet understand why or by whom. In the past twenty-four hours, I’d discovered a dead body in my apartment, been incarcerated for murder, sprung from jail by a nightwalker, flown across the city, and then nearly killed by another nightwalker. And now I was someone’s pet.

I gave myself a hard shake and put my face into the hot spray to wash away the tears. I was still alive. I’d battled back from the edge before and I could do it again. Mira said that I was going to look for the killer. When I found Sabrina’s killer, I could finally get away from these insane nightwalkers and return to my life.

And the lesson learned: Don’t fucking talk to nightwalkers. Let them do their business and walk the other way. Their life was a nightmare and I didn’t want to be a part of it.

Feeling a little better after my pep talk, I started scrubbing off the blood and the griminess that had accumulated over the past two days. A small, tentative smile rose on my lips to see the three sets of shampoo and conditioner in the shower; all were those expensive, designer salon brands that I’d touched longingly but never tried because my paycheck was never big enough. Apparently my new companions liked the finer things in life even if they were dead. The thought gave me pause — Was the man dead? He didn’t look or move quite like one of the nightwalkers and he wasn’t pale like them.

The last of the suds were disappearing down the drain when I heard the door open. “I’m almost done. Be out in a second,” I called.

“Erin...”

My entire body froze at the sound of Stefan’s ragged voice. I didn’t want to see him. I had just gotten control of my emotions and convinced myself that I could tackle this new problem. I didn’t need to be reminded of how I’d been betrayed. “Get out of here!” I snarled as I violently shut off the water.

“I just want to talk.”

“Talk?” The metal rings holding up the shower curtain screeched along the metal rod when I jerked the curtain open. I grabbed the towel and quickly whipped it around me as I stepped out of the shower. “You want to talk? You had your opportunity to talk and you blew it.”

I continued to approach Stefan. He backed up with each of my steps closer until we were standing in the bedroom. A quick glance around revealed that Danaus and Knox were where I’d left them, while Mira was now stretched out across the rumpled sheets on the bed. I ignored them. There was something I needed to get off my chest if I was going to ever find a little peace in my new life as Mira’s pet.

“You had your chance to talk up there,” I said, pointing toward the ceiling and the dark throne room. “You could have told them that I didn’t kill anyone or that you weren’t going to let anyone kill me. I might not know who the hell you are, but I’m willing to bet that you had the power to keep my head from being ripped off. You could have said a lot of things up there, but you didn’t. You decided to keep your mouth shut. Well, you know what, buster? You don’t get to talk now.”

“Erin, you don’t understand about our people—”

“You’re fucking right I don’t understand. You had a week to make me understand about your people, but you didn’t. What I do understand is that I don’t mean anything to you so I don’t have to listen to you.”

I started to turn back to the bathroom where I could dry off and actually put some clothes on, but Stefan didn’t let me. He grabbed my arm and roughly pulled me against his chest. My first mistake was looking up at him with the intent of telling him to get off me. I should have just put my knee in his balls. My second mistake was letting myself think that I no longer cared about the nightwalker, because he too quickly proved me wrong.

Stefan captured my lips in a rough, possessive kiss that effectively wiped all thought from my brain. I remained still in his arms, letting him dominate my mouth while emotions that I didn’t want to feel rolled through me. After a couple seconds, Stefan gentled the kiss and his tenderness finally broke me so that I was now kissing him back.

“You mean so much to me,
ma petite
. So damn much. I want only to keep you safe, not only tonight but for the nights to come. I… I  need to explain. To fix this.”

Someone cleared their throat and I pulled away from him. A slow, tender smile grew on Stefan’s lips and I groaned, dropping my forehead against his chest. Was I really this weak? The man abandons me to my fate and I crumble when he kisses me.

“You’re a fucking bastard and I’m still really pissed at you,” I grumbled, shoving out of his arms.

My other companions in the room laughed and Stefan’s expression immediately soured as he glared at Mira. His shirt and slacks were damp from where I’d leaned against him so that the material now clung to him in spots. But somehow he managed to stand there like a king looking down on an insolent servant.

“I’m getting dressed,” I muttered, starting to scurry back into the bathroom. I was just grateful that I hadn’t lost my towel while in Stefan’s embrace. It was bad enough they’d seen me shouting at Stefan. Would Mira be angry about that? I got the impression that I was considered beneath her and Stefan. At the moment, she seemed amused by me but I didn’t know how long that was going to last.

“Wait a minute,” Mira said, catching me. She walked over, carrying a fresh stack of clothes. “Just to hold you over until we can get your clothes.”

I nearly cried when I saw them, but I bit down on the inside of my mouth and held it together. I was tired. That’s all it was. I was exhausted and had been through too much. Tomorrow, I’d be as tough as nails and ready to beat the pulp out of the asshole who framed me.

Accepting the clothes from Mira, I disappeared into the bathroom and quickly dressed. After running a brush through my hair and taking a deep, steadying breath, I stepped back into the bedroom to find everyone exactly how I left them. Stefan extended his hand toward me, expecting me to return to his side, but I carefully sidestepped him and took up position in the center of the room. I needed answers, not distractions.

Stefan didn’t look pleased as he leaned against the wall with his arms folded over his chest in a sulk. Let him pout. I had a right to be pissed at him.

“He didn’t want to abandon you,” Mira said softly, jerking my gaze to the nightwalker standing directly in front of me. “I’m Mira.” She smiled without revealing her fangs and extended her hand to me. I glanced down at it and then over at Knox, who had thought it was odd that I would try to shake hands with a nightwalker.

Knox gave a little shrug of his shoulders, looking amused. “Mira knows humans.”

I didn’t question it further, but shook her hand. Her skin was cool to the touch as if she had been walking outside without gloves on a cool fall night. There was also an underlying feeling of strength without her overwhelming me or breaking my hand.

“I’m Erin Prescott.”

“Yes, Stefan’s pet.”

“No!” Stefan said sharply before I could.

A wicked grin spread across Mira’s lips and she winked at me before turning to face Stefan. “No? Then what is she?” Stefan mutely glared at the redhead as she turned and put her arm across my shoulders. “She’s certainly not just a warm meal. A friend? But that couldn’t be right? Not after a kiss like that! A lover?”

Stefan said nothing and I blushed. I was beginning to think that maybe I didn’t want him to answer that question. Why put a label on this when we had been going along so well without one?

“Mira, let it go,” the man said.

She dropped her arm from around my shoulders and looked at the man still lounging in the large chair. “This is Danaus. He’s my boyfriend.”

“Consort,” he grumbled, shooting her a dirty look before he pushed to his feet and extended his hand to me.

“Lover,” Mira said with a smile that managed to be both teasing and affectionate. “My everything,” she finished with a whisper, her eyes locked on Danaus’s back.

It was a struggle to suppress my own smile as I took his hand, but I immediately jerked it away when I touched his warm skin. I blushed, thoroughly embarrassed by my reaction. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting you to be warm. I mean, not a vamp-I mean nightwalker.”

“Definitely not a nightwalker,” Danaus said returning to his chair while Mira and Knox laughed.

“And you’ve already met Knox.”

I sent a smile over to the nightwalker that initially helped me to keep from getting killed and he gave me a little salute.

“Why did you say that Stefan didn’t want to abandon me?” I asked, now that we had all the introductions out of the way. Sure, it wasn’t the most important thing that we had to deal with, but I had been dying to know what she meant by that statement since she’d made it.

“Because I didn’t,” Stefan said gruffly, looking immensely uncomfortable at having to admit that while facing everyone else. “Someone is trying to either kill or manipulate me. I was concerned that if I showed any kind of favoritism toward you, it would make you an even bigger target and put you in danger.”

“You mean more danger than being killed up in that room?” I demanded, my temper starting to return.

“Yes.”

“He asked me to take you in as my pet,” Mira said, drawing my angry gaze away from Stefan to her. She arched one thin brow at Stefan and gave him a speculative look. “He made it sound as if he would be willing to do things for me, as if he now owed me a favor.”

“I think we are quite even after I offered my assistance in Budapest,” Stefan snapped.

“Budapest? You had your own agenda in Budapest,” Mira scoffed. “Besides, I think you still owe me a little gratitude for clearing a chair for you upon our return from Budapest so that you could easily become member of the Coven.”