To Hell and Back (Hellcat Series Book 4) (4 page)

While the woman hadn’t relaxed her posture, she was at least
not castigating the men anymore. She’d fallen quiet, and it was
obvious that the men tasted victory.

“
We can teach you,” Deimos said fervently. “We can show you
the Dark ways. The pathways to true power. Levels of power the
Casti have never dreamed of.”

The woman’s eyes flashed, suspicion clouding them. “If your
power is so great, why do you hide in the shadows while the others
rule openly?” Her contempt was almost tangible. “With such great
power you should’ve relegated the Casti to the shadows or
annihilated them.”

“
We have been biding our time,” the white-haired Elder
explained, as though to a slightly dim-witted child. “We are few
while they are many. Enough ants can take on even the deadliest
spider and win the battle.”

“
We have reached the endgame, and the most powerful piece in
the game has just risen to the surface,” the other continued, with
a more pacifying tone. “It has been in the control of the Casti for
centuries, but now it is ours for the taking.”

“
You don’t want to be on the wrong side of this war,” Phobos
warned with an ominous finality.

The woman’s expression grew shrewd. “You need me.” She smiled,
but it wasn’t an expression of joy or mirth. “Without me you have
no hope of winning this war. Do you?”

Both men narrowed
their eyes, the grandfatherly act abolished. “And without us you
have no hope of achieving your full potential,” Deimos hissed. “You
will live the rest of your life in the shadows, scrounging for
scraps of power, inflicting as much damage on the Casti as a bee
inflicts on a buffalo. Never knowing the full glory of your power,
never achieving the acme of your capabilities. You need us to teach
you the Dark ways. And the Blood Magic.”

“
Make your offer, Old Ones,” she demanded after a short
contemplative silence. “And make it a good one.”

CHAPTER 3

All thoughts of exsanguinated Werewolves were abolished as
twilight settled over the City, and Gabi’s house suddenly seemed
claustrophobically small. She was doing her best not to pace the
length of her lounge, a difficult endeavour in her satin evening
dress anyway. The midnight blue fabric clung to every curve of her
body all the way down to her ankles, severely limiting her range of
movement. Julius had promised her that Trish, his newest employee
and Gabi’s close friend, had helped choose her dress for the
special evening, but on seeing herself in the full-length mirror a
few minutes ago, Gabi was convinced that Julius had had more say in
the choice than Trish did. It was a good thing she’d spent a bit of
extra time working out recently. While the dress fit to perfection,
it would show the tiniest flaw in her body and was only half a step
shy of being downright immodest in places.

She fidgeted with the locket around her neck. She wasn’t used
to wearing a necklace, but it seemed fitting to wear this
particular one tonight. It had belonged to her friend Marcello, one
of Julius’s personal guards, who’d been killed by the insane human
Jason King. Touching it brought back memories of the Italian
Vampire’s quick, easy laugh and his mischievous sense of humour.
Gabi still missed him; she would’ve loved to have had him at her
side tonight.

Razor, her oversized, long-haired tabby cat, watched her from
one of the sofas, his glare baleful now he knew he wasn’t allowed
to join her this evening. He’d taken to accompanying her more often
than not when she went out since their trip to the Princeps’ Court.
As though one trip away with her had created an ongoing habit.
Slinky the ferret had long since abandoned the idea of trying to
climb up her dress to settle in his usual spot curled around her
neck like a living scarf, and was instead folded into the fruit
bowl on the kitchen counter, hoping that he was out of the path of
the russet, furry, half-pound speed demon with a bottle-brush tail.
Rocky, the tiny squirrel that Alexander had renamed Rocket, was
dashing recklessly around the house at breakneck speed, chirping
anxiously from the top of the curtains as Gabi’s nervousness grew
strong enough for the tiny animal to sense it.

Gabi reached up her hand towards Rocky, calling the little
squirrel. She leapt from the curtain rail into Gabi’s outstretched
hand without hesitation and chattered excitedly, immediately trying
to clamber onto Gabi’s head.

“
No, sweetie.” She sighed, pulling the squirrel away from her
hair. It’d taken the hairdresser nearly two hours to style it;
fixing it herself was way beyond Gabi’s feminine abilities. She
held the little creature cupped in two hands and breathed
tranquillity towards her, using her supernatural Dhampir gift to
push aside the nervous energy and replace it with subtle waves of
reassurance.

Rocky subsided with a tiny whoosh of breath and relaxed into
her hands, gazing at her with adoring eyes. Gabi grinned despite
her uneasiness and gently placed Rocky in the thick furry bed
created by Razor’s half-curled tail. Rocky instantly burrowed in
and made a comfy nest, and Razor, though still put out with her,
carefully repositioned his body to curl protectively around the
drowsy squirrel. Just as Gabi realised that calming Rocky had
actually helped calm her too, Roman barked outside the
window.

The Rottweiler’s bark signalled the arrival of her ride for
the night. Her anxiety ratcheted back up to full power in a
heartbeat, and she quickly left the lounge before she upset the
content animals again. She would’ve preferred to simply get herself
to the Estate, even though it would mean arriving in her borrowed
Audi, but Julius insisted that she wasn’t driving herself tonight.
He’d warned her that it wouldn’t be him collecting her, so she
quickly spoke the short incantation, using the power encapsulated
in a small turquoise ring on her left hand to nullify Irene’s ward.
Only a select few people were keyed into the ward and able to pass
through unharmed; for anyone else, Gabi had to magically disarm it.
She filled her lungs with what she hoped was courage, and checked
her make-up and hair one last time in the hallway mirror before
opening her front door to find Roman keeping Alexander at bay with
a low growl. The big dog was all right with Julius and rarely
bothered to challenge Kyle anymore, even though dogs and Werewolves
detested each other as a rule, but he still refused to allow any
other supernatural to the door unless Gabi told him it was
okay.

Alexander folded his arms in impotent exasperation as Gabi
lingered in the doorway behind Roman, one eyebrow raised in teasing
challenge.

“
You know I’m not going to risk hurting the dog, Hellcat,” he
groused. “Just get your sexy, little ass into the car so we can get
you to your party on time.”

“
So tell me again why I couldn’t just have got ready at the
Estate,” Gabi griped, annoyance bubbling up to mask her nerves.
Alexander had tried to get her to sit in the back seat, but one
look from her and he’d opened the front passenger door
instead.

“
Because,” Alexander drawled, taking his eyes off the road to
rake her body with a meaningful gaze. “Julius wouldn’t have been
able to drag himself out of the bedroom to make his
appearance.”

“
Bullshit,” Gabi returned dryly, though Alexander’s overdone
leer was almost enough to make her laugh. As blazingly attractive
as the English Vampire was, he’d never stood a chance with her in
Julius’s company, and he’d never shown any indication that he even
found her remotely appealing, but apparently that didn’t mean he
couldn’t derive a little enjoyment out of her decidedly feminine
form.

Alexander threw his head back and laughed, steering Julius’s
Aston Martin effortlessly through the tail end of peak-hour
traffic.

“
I think he was worried if you saw the number of guests
attending tonight that you’d bolt and never be seen again,” he
explained. “But he does also have a thousand small details to
oversee, and he’s being ridiculous and refusing to delegate
anything tonight. Like the rest of us might just fuck it
up.”

Gabi frowned. She knew Julius to be good at delegating,
especially the trivialities of something like a party. Maybe her
state of anxiety wasn’t entirely unfounded after all.

“
Just how many guests are we talking about?” she asked, not
sure she actually wanted to hear the answer.

“
Oh, about two hundred, give or take a dozen or so,” he
remarked casually. At her gasp Alexander tried to hide a grin, but
the slightest twitch of his jaw muscle gave him away. He was trying
to wind her up, and enjoying it. She gritted her teeth; he would
pay for this.

“
There can’t be that many in the Clan. Julius has only been a
Master for a few years,” she said, tucking a marauding curl into a
pin near the top of her head.

“
You don’t have to be a Master to create other Vampires,
Hellcat,” Alexander retorted. “Julius has been Turning Vampires for
two hundred years.”

Gabi stilled; that was true. Simone had created Julius,
Caspian and Dantè even though she’d never been a Master. And Julius
had created Alexander long before he’d been a Master. She hadn’t
given the issue much thought, but she’d assumed his Clan numbered a
few dozen, not a few hundred.

“
So how does it all work, then?” she demanded, deciding it
might be best to take another crash course in Vampire politics
before the ceremony. “If any Vampire can create others, how do the
creators keep control of their underlings if they aren’t
Masters?”

“
We are all beholden to our Sires, irrelevant of whether
they’re Masters or not,” Alexander explained. “It’s one of our
laws. While the Princeps try to discourage the rest of us from
Turning others, it’s not unusual for it to happen. What is unusual
is for a non-Master Vampire to have as large a House as Julius did
before he became a Master.”

“
House?” Gabi asked, confused.

“
It’s what we call a group of Vampires Turned by the same Sire
or Sire’s line. We only become a Clan when our Sire becomes a
Master.” He paused and glanced over at her again, one eyebrow
raised quizzically. “Julius hasn’t explained any of
this?”

“
I never got around to asking. And life has been a little
hectic lately.” She frowned. “What do you mean by a Sire’s
line?”

“
That means as long as my Sire is still alive, and I haven’t
been freed by my Sire to begin my own house, anyone I Turn is
automatically beholden to my Sire, not to me. It requires an oath
of Fealty to me to break the bond from my Sire. To do that I either
need my Sire’s agreement or I need to be stronger than my Sire.
That’s why Julius had a House long before he killed
Simone.”

Gabi’s mind was racing, trying to fill in blank spaces she
didn’t know she had. If she didn’t know enough about Vampire life,
this evening could turn into an unmitigated disaster.

“
So all of the Vampires at the ceremony tonight are part of
Julius’s Clan?” she checked.

“
No, not all.” Alexander shook his head. “There’ll be some
other Masters from nearby Cities as well as a few lone Vampires who
Julius considers friends.” He finally seemed to take pity on her
and added, “There’ll be some familiar faces, though.”

That was a small relief when Gabi realised there was no more
time for cramming Vampire knowledge into her brain; the gates of
the Estate loomed in front of them, and the guards on duty gave
them a quick, respectful salute as Alexander sped through. Dozens
of cars lined the lantern-lit drive and overflowed onto grass
verges. Instead of driving to the front of the mansion, Alexander
eased the car around the back of the house and into the underground
parking garage.

As he cut off the engine, he put a cautionary hand on her
wrist. “If you try to run, I’ll be forced to catch you and drag you
back,” he warned with an evil grin.

“
I’d have your fangs before you dragged me anywhere,” she
retaliated “but, lucky for you, I don’t often run from something
that scares me.” She tugged her arm away and flung open the car
door before planting her dainty evening shoes firmly on the ground.
Before she could alight from the car, Julius was there, one hand
out, waiting.

“
No, you don’t,” he purred in agreement. “Or you would’ve run
from me ages ago.” A warm blanket of reassurance wrapped around her
as his strength and confidence flowed through their bond. He was
breathtaking as he stood waiting for her to take his hand. The
black tuxedo was flawlessly tailored to his build, his shirt deep
red, and his bow tie black. The tiny dash of gold fabric peeking
from his jacket pocket completed his outfit in
her
colours, the braided bracelet
she’d tied to his wrist as part of their official ceremony just
visible from his right cuff. Her bracelet, in Julius’s colours of
black, blue and gold, was woven into her hair.

“
You don’t scare me.” She smiled, her tension dissipating just
a little as she allowed him to help her from the car. Heedless of
Alexander, she pressed close to him, drawing his familiar scent
into her lungs.

“
He should,” Kyle muttered, coming up behind
Julius.

“
Wolf,” Gabi almost shrieked. “What are you doing here?” Her
surprise was doubled as she pulled away from Julius and saw that
Kyle was dressed in a formal tuxedo with an emerald green bow tie.
Her best friend since they were both teenagers, she tended to
forget how attractive he actually was, especially if he put in a
bit of effort. He wasn’t exactly in Alexander’s league of male
beauty, and he couldn’t rival Julius’s indomitable presence, but he
pulled off athletic hunk-next-door quite nicely. An inch or two shy
of Julius’s six and a half, he looked the same height with his hair
artfully spiked into a disarray quite contrary to the formalness of
his attire.