Stefan (Lost Nights Series Book 1) (9 page)

“He said that the woman found dead in my apartment belonged to another vam—nightwalker and that she was a pet.” I wrinkled my nose at the term, but shoved aside the question that went along with that. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what a pet was in the nightwalker world. “He said that I’m to be put on trial for the murder.”

I grabbed up the brush on the sink counter and ran it through my windblown hair so that it no longer looked like rat’s nest. On a whim, I even started to rummage through the female vampire’s make-up. Her color choices were much bolder than mine, but then I like neutrals and warm colors. I put on a quick layer of a pale pink lipstick. I figured she couldn’t mind since we couldn’t give each other cooties.

“Did you kill her?”

Clenching my teeth together, I jerked open the door and stepped out. “No, damnit! Of course not!”

Knox stared at me for several seconds, his body perfectly still as if he were a classic Roman marble statue wrapped in Ralph Lauren. “I didn’t think so, but it might have been better if you had.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do you have any combat training?” Knox asked, ignoring my question.

“What?”

“Fight experience? Can you use a knife?”

“I had a couple self-defense classes back in college,” I said, my uneasiness growing by the moment. “Why do I need to know how to fight? I thought this was a trial.”

Knox ran one hand through his thick dark hair and frowned, looking a bit lost for words as he stared at the floor. Apparently things were not going as well as he hoped. That made two of us. “Sit down, please. I will try to explain,” he finally said, motioning toward the large canopy bed that dominated the room.

When I hesitated, the nightwalker stood and started to walk toward me, but stopped after two steps and cocked his head slightly to the side as if he were listening to something, though I had heard anything to indicate someone else was near.

“
Merda
,” he cursed, his eyes squeezing shut.

“What?” I demanded warily. My Italian might not be that good, but I did know a curse when I heard one.

“They’re ready for you,” he said harshly. When he opened his eyes, they were filled with sympathy or at the very least pity. “I didn’t think they’d be ready for you so quickly.”

“I take it that’s not a good sign.”

“No, it’s not.”

Gently taking my arm, Knox started to pull me toward the bedroom door. I dug my heels in and tried to pull free. The nightwalker stopped walking, but didn’t release me. “I can’t go up there. You haven’t explained anything to me yet. I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“I know, but being late isn’t going to help your cause either,” he said sharply, giving me a small jerk to get me moving again.

“Wait. I’m not wearing any shoes.”

Knox looked down to see my bare toes poking up from under the long black skirt. “It works for this outfit and I really doubt anyone is going to notice.”

There was no stalling after that as he half pulled me back down the long ornate hallways we had passed through not much earlier. The only difference this time was that I didn’t see anyone along the way. All the nightwalkers and their companions had disappeared, but I had a sneaking suspicion that they were already in the court room waiting for the show I was about to provide for them.

“What’s going to happen?” I demanded as we started to mount the stairs.

“They’re going to ask you questions about what happened. Keep your temper, watch your tongue, and tell the truth,” Knox said sharply.

“I don’t remember anything,” I nearly cried as panic started to take hold.

Knox stopped on the stairs and turned sharply around to look at me. “No! Don’t cry. Don’t ever cry in front of them. I take back what I said.”

“What?”

“Lose your temper. Hold onto that anger you felt earlier. Think about how nightwalkers are destroying your life.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Anger and venom will keep you alive longer than tears and pleading. Do you understand?”

I nodded. Anger gave the appearance of strength. Tears were a sign of weakness. Stefan had taught me enough to understand that nightwalkers were all about power and control.

“Good girl.” Knox resumed walking at a brisk pace with me in tow.

At the top of the stairs, we turned down a different hall, but stopped just before the door. The nightwalker turned and grabbed both of my shoulders. “I need to give you two pieces of advice before you go in. First, this isn’t about you. This is about another nightwalker trying to either manipulate Stefan or weaken him. I think he will try to save you, but he won’t sacrifice himself to do it. It’s just not our way.” Knox paused and gave me a little smile as if it to soften the blow of the news. It wasn’t big news since I’d known far too few humans within my lifetime who would sacrifice themselves for another and Stefan hadn’t struck me as the self-sacrificing sort.

“Help him help you,” he continued, his smile disappearing. “Don’t say anything that could trap him or put him into a corner. In fact, the less you say the better. Let the nightwalkers do the arguing.”

“I understand. And the other piece of advice?”

“Stefan has few allies in there. Beyond him, you have no one on your side, but that could change for reasons you may not understand. If it looks like someone else might be willing to… come to your aid, don’t turn it down. It may be your only chance of survival.”

Horror cut through me at his words. “Are you telling me to… sell myself to another nightwalker?”

“If it means living to see another day, yes, I do, but I’m hoping it won’t come to that.”

Knox didn’t give me that chance to argue further with him. Grabbing my elbow, he jerked open the door and stepped into the yawning darkness, dragging me behind him. It was time to face the nightwalkers.

Chapter 6

The room was enormous. The black marble floor stretched out in front of me like a frozen lake at midnight. It reflected the light of dozens of torches and candles. Three-story ceilings soared overhead with ancient flags and banners hanging from their rafters. On my right, nightwalkers stood in clusters and lounged in chairs along the wall as if they were all gathered to watch a show. Their clothes were a strange motley of black leather, silver chains, designer silks, and blue jeans. All classes and lifestyles were gathered; joined by a single common thread — they all drank blood to survive.

I glanced back at Knox, who motioned for me to continue into the center of the black lake. It was only then that I finally looked to my left and noticed the tiered dais with the four thrones covered in gold leaf. Three of the four were occupied with nightwalkers, but that wasn’t what caused my heart to skip. Stefan sat among them.

My feet stopped before I reached the center of the room and I stared dumbfounded at his grim expression. When he spoke of his job, he’d always alluded to the fact that he was in a position of importance and power, but I hadn’t expected something like this. The throne room and the chairs made me think that he was some kind of king or prince among his people.

A loud cackle jerked me from my inner thoughts as I heard a nightwalker sneer in an overly loud whisper, “She didn’t know who he was.”

No, I didn’t know, but now that I did, I wasn’t sure if I was in a better or worse position for it. It made it all a little easier to understand why someone might be out to get Stefan or at least manipulate him. It was just a damn shame that I was getting stuck in the middle of this mess.

Ignoring the murmur of laughter that was rippling through the room, I continued to walk to the center of the room. The floor was wet and slightly sticky, as if someone had recently cleaned up a spill but missed a few spots. I ventured a glance down to see that the soles of my feet were now stained red with blood. My stomach lurched and I had to take a couple deep breaths to keep from getting sick. That would have been a great first impression. Stefan and Knox had made it perfectly clear that my life was on the line here, but I could have done without that sickening reminder. Jerking my eyes back up to the dais, I stopped so that I was now standing directly in front of Stefan and the empty chair. My hands were balled tightly at my side to hide my trembling fingers.

There was a regal, dark-haired woman sitting on Stefan’s left. There was something about the woman’s bearing and posture that made me think that she had been something akin to royalty during the Middle Ages. She was small and slight in form, but there was a strength to her that seemed to radiate from deep within her. And despite her small size, this woman had the strength to take what she wanted.

On the far right of Stefan seated in the other chair was woman with long red hair that resembled a living flame. She was dressed in black leather pants and clingy sleeveless shirt that accentuated her slender figure. She lounged in her chair as if she didn’t have a care in the world, but she reminded me of a leopard draped across a tree limb. She might seem like she was relaxing, but there was coiled power to her as if she were ready to leap on a victim in the blink of an eye. While the brutnette’s expression matched Stefan’s neutral gaze, the redhead’s was more... curious.

Unlike the others, this woman also had a man standing behind her right shoulder. Broad shouldered, the man was obviously a battle-hardened warrior. It was stamped in the way he stood with his arms folded over his chest and frowned at me. His black hair hung down, brushing his shoulders, threatening to obscure his face, but there was no missing his stunning blue eyes. They were almost an electric blue and as cold as Stefan’s when he was pissed about something. Was he the redhead’s bodyguard? Lover? Both?

At the bottom of the stairs closest to the pair, Knox stood with his hands shoved in his pockets. His expression was blank, but I took his placement as a sign. Was I wearing the redhead’s clothes? Was she the one who was trying to give Stefan a small helping hand? If I could garner someone else’s assistance, she might be the one who would step forward.

“Woman,” the small nightwalker on the dais said, capturing my wandering attention.

“Erin. Erin Prescott,” I corrected with a stiff smile.

The nightwalker raised one questioning eyebrow at me, looking less than pleased that a human dare correct her, but then I wasn’t going to let her continue to call me woman like I was some animal. “Ms. Prescott,” the nightwalker continued, grinding out my name between clenched teeth. “Do you know why you have been brought here?”

Straightening my shoulders, I dropped my smile completely. “A woman was found dead in my apartment. I have been told that she was considered... important to a nightwalker within the city.” I carefully evaded the “pet” term that Stefan had used. I had no idea if it was an insulting term or not in their world. It certainly didn’t sound like a compliment, but then I didn’t know shit about nightwalkers. “I have been accused of her murder.”

“And did you kill the woman?”

“No, of course not,” I replied a little more sharply than I had meant to. I had never harmed a soul in my life, at least not intentionally and never physically.

“Lies!” another vampire snarled. A lean female vampire with short, wild blond hair leaped from the sidelines and rushed toward me. I struggled to hold my ground as she drew within a dozen feet of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Stefan shift in his seat, but he didn’t rise. “You killed Sabrina! You murdered her!”

The nightwalker wore a pair of shiny black pants that looked like they had been painted on her body while her tiny bright purple top was little more than a band of stretchy cloth that covered her breasts. A couple dozen silver bracelets clinked and jangled on both of her wrists while rings sparkled on each of her fingers. She looked like she had been in her mid to late thirties when she had been changed into a nightwalker, but her outfit said that she was trying very hard to appear to be much younger. That’s not to say that she wasn’t attractive, but I had never been a fan of the style of clothing where she showed off all your goods.

“Prior to finding her dead on my floor, I had never seen that woman before,” I said calmly.

“You lured her to your apartment and you killed her!”

“That’s ridiculous!” I said with a defiant little laugh that seemed to only fuel the vampire’s temper. “I’d never seen her before; never met her before. I had no reason to harm her, let alone kill her.”

“You were found covered in her blood, holding the knife that ripped through her,” the vampire growled, edging slowly closer.

“And how would you know that? As far as I know, the woman and I were the only ones in my apartment. Or am I wrong?”

The vampire hissed at me as she circled. Her fingers were bent and tensed as if she wished they were a tiger’s claws so that she could more easily gouge out my eyes. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I had little doubt that every nightwalker in the grand hall could hear it. But I wasn’t going to show my fear to this bitch. If the woman was hurt because she had lost someone she cared for, I was sorry about that, but I wasn’t about to let her make me into the scapegoat for this crime. While my memory might be faulty, I knew without a shadow of doubt that I had not killed that woman.

“I looked into the memories of the police officers that found you. You were covered in her blood and held the weapon that murdered her. You have the look of a murderer,” she sneered.

“And you have the look of a whore in those clothes. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I should assume that you are one,” I sneered. At this point, my temper had gotten the better of my common sense and forgot to more carefully choose my words. I didn’t react well to being threatened or accused of things that I didn’t do.

The nightwalker screamed in rage a second before she launched herself at me. Gasping, I immediately dropped to my hands and knees on the cold and sticky marble floor and rolled away from her. I felt the breeze she created as she passed over my head and I swallowed a whimper of fear. I didn’t know shit about protecting myself, but I did know that it was a lot harder for them to hurt you if you weren’t where they expected you to be.

I shoved up into a crouched position, ignoring the feel of the partially dried blood filling the grooves in my fingers. My breath was trapped in my chest as I held as still as a nightwalker, waiting to see if I would be able to escape her a second time. My hopes weren’t high. She might be out of her mind with rage, but she didn’t strike me as being completely stupid. She wouldn’t fall for the trick a second time.

With a soft grunt, the nightwalker lunged for me, a cruel smile already stretching across her wide mouth. I started to push out of the way, but I was moving too slow and she was moving too fast. Muscles tensed, preparing for the impact. But it never came.

“Enough, Carla,” said a weary voice. The nightwalker froze, hovering in the air as if she were held in place by invisible wires before she flew across the room with frightening speed and slammed into the far wall. Carla fell to the ground with what sounded like a bone-crunching thud.

I looked up to find that the redheaded nightwalker had shifted in her seat, looking a bit irritated by the proceedings. “She’s right. You do dress like a whore.” She paused as several nightwalkers around the room snickered, while others shifted nervously, seeming to edge a little farther away from the redhead. “We didn’t gather tonight to witness your temper tantrums. We’re here for justice.”

“Then give me justice!” Carla screamed as she shoved back to her feet. While her movements were initially a little stiff, she didn’t act injured despite being flung against the stone wall. “Let me kill the bitch!”

“For what? Being in the wrong place? Being framed?” I shouted back at Carla, feeling a little better now that there was a little breathing room between myself and my attacker. Sure, I’d seen her close that distance in a heartbeat, but I appreciated the space while I had it. “I didn’t kill your friend. I have no reason to touch her.”

“Silence!” Stefan thundered, pushing to his feet so that he loomed over the gathered masses. Everyone was instantly quiet and still, their breath held as if fearing to catch his narrowed gaze. “We have more important things to deal with in our world than the insignificant death of a pet.”

“Your pet killed mine,” Carla said in a low, respectful voice, but there was no masking the boiling rage within her. “By our laws, I have the right to kill your pet without fear of retribution.”

I bit back the urge to shout that I wasn’t Stefan’s pet, holding to the belief that he would say the words. But he didn’t. Stefan didn’t speak. He didn’t move. And a little part of me died inside. Why wasn’t he telling everyone there that I wasn’t a pet? He knew that this was all some kind of insane misunderstanding; that I had been framed.

Knox’s warnings rang loud and clear in my brain. It was the only thing that was keeping me from shouting at all of them. I wasn’t his fucking pet, but I was hoping that the sneaky bastard had some nifty idea rattling around in his head and I didn’t want to ruin his attempt to save my ass.

“That’s true,” Stefan said blandly with a slight indifferent shrug. He stepped back and seemed to flow back into his throne as if he were made of water rather than bone. That was it? He was going to hand me over like that? My mouth fell open and I prepared to let these damn vampires know what I was thinking, but Stefan continued, cutting off my rant. “But you have yet to prove that Ms. Prescott actually killed Sabrina. If you kill Ms. Prescott when she had nothing to do with it, then...”

The sentence was left hanging ominously in the air. A sickening cold smile slithered across Stefan’s face and I glimpsed the reason he had been able to climb to his position of power. There was a ruthlessness glinting in his eyes that I had seen associated only with playfulness. If Stefan discovered that I was truly innocent after I was killed, not only was Carla dust but so was anyone close to her.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Carla struck a pose that reminded me of a rebellious six year old. “Read her memories,” Carla said defiantly. The statement struck me as strange. She had to know that I had no memories of Sabrina. Of course, I had been assuming that Carla had been involved in Sabrina’s attack. Maybe Sabrina and I weren’t the only victims of this nasty trick.

I turned my attention back to Stefan to find him glaring at me. He couldn’t be more pissed at me. I hadn’t done anything too horrible since stepped into their throne room. Well, at least I didn’t think I had. Not liking the look on his face, I looked at the nightwalkers on the dais and took a nervous step backward. They were all looking at me that way.

“I can’t read her,” the nightwalker with the dark hair murmured in surprise.

Stefan shook his head in frustration, only willing to admit his own failure now that another had done it. Everyone looked expectantly down at the redhead with the frightening man leaning against the back of her chair.

“Mira?” The blue-eyed man’s voice was a low rumble, prompting her when we’d waited nearly a minute in absolute silence. Everyone was watching her. It made me wonder if she was the oldest among them, or at the very least, the most powerful.

She frowned and gave a small shake of her head. “Small bits and pieces. It’s very fragmented. Something is wrong with her.”

It was my turn to glare at the nightwalker. There was nothing wrong with me, but I swallowed back that declaration. “I was in a car accident several years ago,” I admitted through clenched teeth.