02 Blood Roses - Blackthorn (14 page)

Chapter Fourteen

C
aleb glared at the bodyguard who had the gall to block the door to his office.

The vampire skivvy may have been at Feinith’s beck and call, but fortunately he still knew enough of Caleb’s reputation to break eye contact and step aside.

Feinith was sat at his desk in the corner of the room, her legs elegantly stretched out on the surface amidst the papers she was riffling through. ‘Well, well, this business truly is thriving, isn’t it? Quite the little gold mine. But you always were the success.’ She stood up from the chair and sauntered towards him. She smiled as she stopped in front of him, placed her palms on his chest. ‘I see we’re alone this time. How romantic.’

He slapped her hands aside. ‘What the fuck do you think you were doing telling Jake?’

She widened her eyes slightly, took a step back. ‘Come on, Caleb. You know better than to defy me.’

‘You gave me your word that it would stay between us. Only us.’

‘And you promised me loyalty but that still didn’t stop you giving it to that little whore.’

‘Like you’re giving it to Jarin?’

She smirked. ‘You
are
jealous.’

‘No. I just despise your hypocrisy.’ He pulled away and marched over to the window, yanking back the drapes.

‘Okay, so I apologise. Is that what you want? It came out in a temper, but if you will tease me so…’ She stepped closer to stroke his face, her slender fingers playing over his jaw. ‘You know, you’re still the best I’ve ever had, Caleb.’ Pushing herself between him and the window, she ran her hand back down his chest towards his groin – a delicate hand that summoned death as easily as ordering a drink. ‘The very best.’

He didn’t flinch. ‘I wish I could say the same.’

Feinith smiled. ‘I understand why you want to protect yourself.’ She licked her lips and leaned in to kiss him. ‘Vulnerability doesn’t sit easy with you, does it? And you hate how I make you feel.’

‘You always think you can win me around, don’t you?’

She smiled against his mouth. ‘You’ve never wanted anyone like you want me. And we both know it.’

But not anymore. As he gazed into Feinith’s eyes – eyes so cold and emotionless in every way that mattered – he’d never known it more. How numb he felt in her presence, unable to bear the touch of the female he once craved, who he once thought capable of fulfilling his every need.

She had excited him once, enthralled him as he’d immersed himself in carnality, revelling in the submersion into his primal instincts. Feinith had fulfilled so many of those darker needs, so much so that she’d become an addiction he couldn’t be without. He had adored her. Thrived on the way they sparked. Before she’d torn him apart as she toyed with his feelings – feelings he’d believed were love.

She had relished in his darkness, his cruelty, his brutality, and had encouraged it. Now it sickened him, because he understood that all she had done was encourage him deeper into those depths for her own satiation. And hearing those descriptions of his past deeds dripping from her lips with such amusement made him feel a pang of shame – and not least, for some inexplicable reason, because of Leila’s presence as she uttered them.

‘Is that what you tell Jarin?’ he asked.

Feinith paused, her lips hovering, but there was now a slight frown marring her flawless forehead. ‘You know how it works. He’s of good inheritance. An equal.’

‘But we both know you don’t get off on having an equal, Feinith. Tell me, does he truly know just how much you enjoyed your visits to me? What all those business trips really entailed, in every little detail?’

‘I’m not accountable to anyone, Caleb. I do what I want to do. Betrothed or not.’

‘Jarin will never satisfy you, Feinith. He won’t even come near to what I can do. And you know it.’

‘He won’t need to. Because you’re going to keep on satisfying me, Caleb. Just like you always have. This doesn’t have to change anything.’

Caleb pulled away, turning his back on her as he strolled away. ‘You take so much for granted.’

‘We don’t have to be of the same breeding to want each other, Caleb.’

‘Only because the novelty would wear off if we were.’ Caleb turned to meet her gaze. ‘We both know I’d no longer have the same appeal if you couldn’t sully yourself by being with me.’

Feinith stepped towards him. ‘I want you for who you are, not what you are.’ She stopped within inches of him. ‘Betrothed to Jarin or not, you’ll still be able to give me everything I want. And staying betrothed to him will only add to that.’ She pressed her lean, hard body to his, a body he’d explored in every way possible. ‘And I know how much you enjoy having what you shouldn’t.’

She unzipped his trousers, sliding her hand inside his shorts. It was a hold that had once been enthralling and provocative. He’d loved her confidence, her sexual prowess and her want of him. And she had wanted him. Deeper than she’d ever admitted. Deeper than she ever would admit.

But instead of feeling that spark as she touched him, he felt numb. As she kissed down his neck before sliding her tongue up to his ear, images of what he’d done flashed in front of his eyes again. The depraved things they had both relished in now made his blood run cold.

‘Though you might find it hard to believe, I do have other things on my mind beside you, Feinith.’

‘But nothing more important than me. That’s the only thing you should have on your mind right now.’ She squeezed but then she released him, withdrew her hand from his shorts. She arched an eyebrow. ‘You really are difficult to please tonight.’

He pulled away, fastened his jeans, and leaned back against the sofa, his arms folded. ‘You made a big mistake telling Jake, let alone threatening him.’

She raised her pale eyebrows slightly. ‘So is that what this little mood is about now? You know I wouldn’t
really
hurt him.’

‘You already have.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have been playing hard to get. I can’t have you humiliating me like that. I won’t. I’m only trying to help you. You know how much trouble you’ll be in if the Higher Order find out about this. How much trouble I’d be in if anyone knew I was here. I wanted to give you a chance. I’m doing this for you.’

‘Of course you are,’ he said. ‘As selfless as ever.’

‘The Higher Order–’

‘Fuck the Higher Order.’

‘I know how you feel about them, Caleb. I know how much it frustrates you. I know you disagree with so much of what we are about, but it’s about what is fitting.’

‘About keeping us underlings in our place, right?’

‘The mixing is not acceptable. You know the bloodline must be retained. Weaken our bloodline and we weaken our cause.’

He exhaled curtly. ‘Don’t hide behind that, Feinith. You despise some of the ways of the Order as much as I do. You’re not worried about the bloodline; you’re just worried about weakening your reputation – losing your place, your influence, your power. None of which you would be willing to give up for me.’

‘I have given myself to you time and time again, like I have given myself to no other. Is that not enough?’

‘No, Feinith, it isn’t. But I’ll think about what
is
enough.’

Feinith’s eyes narrowed in irritation. She placed her hands on her hips, her temper beginning to seep out. ‘Is that what this is, Caleb? Blackmail? Is that why you’re holding her back?’

‘Come on, Feinith. You clearly want her.
Really
want her. There has to be something more in it for me than just handing her over.’

‘Don’t make me take her from you.’

‘I will kill her before you get within twenty feet of her. I assume you want her alive?’ He saw the flare in her eyes. For the first time she was unsettled. Unsettled because she knew him well enough to know he meant every word and that he didn’t bluff. She wanted Leila alive. The look in her eyes told him she
needed
her alive, an advantage he needed to hold on to. ‘Tell me, Feinith, why did the Higher Order change the rules on the serryn slaying? There never was an explanation.’

She frowned. ‘And as I’ve told you before, those issues don’t concern you.’

‘They do now. You playing this so cautiously tells me you must want her badly. Why is that?’

‘Just give her to me, Caleb.’

He folded his arms. ‘Always the stalemate, isn’t it, Feinith?’

‘You know her value. It’s no great secret. There’s money to be made for her blood – blood we cannot risk having black-marketed on the streets.’

‘Control you can’t risk having taken away from you, right?’

‘There were those using them against us, Caleb. Human and vampire alike. We have to keep order. We have to keep control.’

‘And that’s the only reason you want her? To keep that little pot of poison off the street? To keep the peace.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So why not let me carry on killing them? Same outcome.’

She studied him warily for a moment, the uncharacteristic unease in her eyes even more rife.

He sauntered over to the drinks cabinet. ‘It seems we have some serious negotiating to do,’ he said, placing two glasses on the counter.

‘You wouldn’t kill her,’ she said, her usual steady tone wavering a little. ‘She’s too convenient a bargaining tool for you.’

‘And far too entertaining between the sheets to dispose of just yet.’ His eyes lingered coaxingly on hers as he held out a glass to her.

‘You are not invincible, Caleb,’ Feinith warned, reaching for the drink. ‘You dance too close to the edge with that one.’

‘Is that what concerns you, Feinith – my welfare?’

‘There is self-assurance, Caleb, and then there is stupidity. Now give me the serryn, or my patience will wear out.’

‘I’d say her market value just went up a hundredfold, wouldn’t you? Instead of selling her on the street, I sell her direct to the Higher Order. Just like old times.’

‘Money? This is about money?’

‘When has it ever been about money, Feinith?’

‘Then what do you want?’

‘I’m not sure yet. I’d like some time to think about it.’

‘No.’

He shrugged. ‘Then I’ll deal with the serryn myself.’

She stepped up to him. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘I made a vow that I would not rest until every one of those bitches that slaughtered my brother is wiped off the face of the Earth, remember? And I’ve already got this one right where I want her. Why wouldn’t I?’

‘You truly think you can bargain with me over this?’ Her eyes narrowed in fury. ‘You think I can’t have this place torn apart to find her if I wanted to?’

‘So do it,’ he said, his arms spread. ‘Let them come in here. Let them search every corner. But you’ll never find her. I promise you that. Then you’ll be forced to admit to your lover and the whole Higher Order that you had a serryn in your grasp and you failed.’

She shook her head slightly. ‘You wouldn’t risk prosecution. For Jake’s sake you wouldn’t. You’d be finished here. Banished to The Pit. To nothing.’

‘And you wouldn’t risk exposing that you’d come here to collect a serryn non-legitimately. Because Jarin doesn’t know, does he? Or he’d be here revelling in finally having a reason to see me go down. No, I think your actions so far could throw up a lot of awkward questions.’

He stepped up to her. ‘I think it would be far more sensible for you to curb your impatience for a few more hours while I mull over how I’d like this to work to my advantage and how you’re going to make up for what you did tonight. In fact, if you hadn’t burst in here making your demands, if you’d had the good manners to call first and offer me something in exchange, we could be avoiding all of this. Do you really want to further your mistake and make this more complicated than it needs to be?’

‘I am not walking out of here without her, Caleb.’

‘Then make yourself at home. The sofa isn’t as uncomfortable as it looks. But you already know that. You’ll excuse me for not inviting you into my bed, but it’s going to be occupied for a while.’

Feinith shook her head slowly, her eyes narrowed. It was clearly one jibe too many but she watched him with wary caution. ‘Caleb. Always the game-player. But you know I’m not going to walk away from this until I get what I want.’

He knocked back the contents of his drink. ‘So come back tomorrow night.’

He placed the glass back on the drinks cabinet, tension gripping him as he waited for her to take the bait.

‘I’ll be back at dusk,’ she said. ‘And you’d better have your demands.’ She turned away with the appeal of a sulky child, slamming her glass on the workstation as she passed. ‘Because after that,’ she glowered across her shoulder, ‘I won’t feel like playing anymore.’

Chapter Fifteen

L
eila clutched the edge of the sofa seat, her foot bouncing in agitation on the floor as she looked back over at the open sash window.

From the grey sky, dawn could have only been a couple of hours away at most – a dawn that had seemed terrifying enough, but now her and Alisha’s freedom had never seemed more impossible.

Now that the Higher Order were involved, there was no way she was getting away.

She bent forward, rested her elbows on her knees and clutched her head as she tried to calm the terror that tore through her at the prospect of being prisoner in some Higher Order lab somewhere, her blood siphoned off for the rest of her life for them to use to maintain order in the ranks.

Or worse.

No – they couldn’t know. It was a secret only ever passed on by word of mouth from the patrons to their serryn wards. A secret each of them guarded with their lives.

A secret the Higher Order could
never
know.

She had to get out of there. She had to get out of there now. Somehow.

She stood, wrapped her arms around her chest and turned to face the room. So many of his beautiful books lay limp and discarded on the floor. All she had as an indication of his civility, his humanity, lay damaged and torn – cast aside so easily in his fury.

That was the real Caleb she saw in those moments – the vampire who wasn’t holding back to play her to his own ends. That was the true Caleb – not the vampire who had scrutinised her so curiously before they were interrupted, the ice in his eyes, for just a moment, melting, revealing more than just a cold killer. The reassuring grip of a vampire she thought was shielding her from the enemy until she heard the facts spill from Feinith’s lips – the torture and depravity and cruelty they had shared. Worse, had enjoyed.

Caleb, whom she now knew had every reason to hate her kind with every fraction of his being.

A hatred she understood and reluctantly empathised with only too well.

She stepped amidst the chaos and fell to her knees on the floor. Closing the covers on the books nearest her, she realigned broken spines before putting the books in neat piles.

She sank back on her haunches.

Just as she’d sensed from the moment she got that call from Alisha, just as she’d sensed it the minute she’d arrived in Blackthorn, there was no going back. Even if they did stand a hope in hell of getting out of there, they’d both be checked and tested at the border back into Summerton. If they couldn’t convince the authorities Alisha had been an unwilling feeder, she would be banned to Lowtown alone to fend for herself. They could discover Leila was a serryn and then that would be it – the authorities would own her, leaving Alisha truly alone.

Things were never going to be the same again.

And she had to accept that.

But she and Alisha
would
get out of Blackthorn, even if it was only as far as Lowtown. They would get out of there – away from Caleb and Jake, away from the Higher Order. They’d be together and they’d get through it.

She stood and scanned the room. He could be gone for a matter of minutes or another hour, but he would be back.

She needed something to fight with.

She looked towards his bedroom and strode across the threshold. The rain smattered against the sealed window, drawing her attention to the window seat tucked in the corner to her left before she tentatively scanned the room. The bed directly ahead looked dangerously soft, the pillows plumped up invitingly. To her right was an ajar door to what she could see was an en suite. Between that and a double wardrobe to the right was a chair – a chair on which she saw the shirt he had worn in the dungeon, and something poking out from beneath it.

Blood thrummed in her ears.

She strode over without registering the journey, her gaze locked on the corner of the partially exposed leather wrap. She pushed the shirt aside, unfolded one side of the leather and stared down at the syringes.

Her heart pounded.

The thought sickened her at what her blood would do to him, for more reasons than she felt comfortable allowing herself to acknowledge. But it was either that or the unthinkable alternative.

She didn’t owe him anything. Anything at all.

She removed one of the clean syringes from the sleeve and stared down at the tip. She hated needles. Always had. Her first and only other encounter with needles before Caleb was after her mother’s murder. The Serryn Union had to be sure. They’d assured her it was only for lab tests, where her blood would be mixed with a sample of vampire blood. She’d gone along with her grandfather’s advice.

She remembered the look on his face the night he came to pick her up. They’d had the vampire’s body removed and with it any evidence of what had happened. But they’d had to leave her mother there to be found. The official story she’d been told to give was that her mother had been called away by someone at the play so had asked her grandfather to come and pick Leila up, and that was the last they had heard of her.

Leila still didn’t know what was harder – watching her mother die or leaving her still-warm body abandoned and alone in that dark alley.

And that’s what she had to remember. What they were capable of. What Caleb was capable of. She wouldn’t allow herself to be next. And she certainly wouldn’t sit there helplessly waiting for them to decide her fate, let alone Alisha’s.

Grasping the syringe, she tucked herself away in the bathroom where she would hopefully be able to clear away any evidence if Caleb did return.

Inside was plush and immaculate. A simple roll-top bath and glass shower cubical sat opposite the toilet. A basin and towel rail sat directly ahead, plump towels draped over each rung.

She leaned back against the roll-top bath but, with her legs too weak to sustain her, she lowered herself cross-legged to the floor.

Her hand trembled, her palms perspiring as she placed the needle against the crook of her left arm, relieved Caleb had opted for the right arm in the dungeon.

She immediately pulled it away again, the prospect of it piercing her skin turning her throat arid.

She rested her head back against the cold ceramic.

Taking a deep and steadying breath, she clenched and unclenched her hand to encourage the blood to flow. Barely able to look, she placed the tip of the needle over one of the thicker veins. She breathed and exhaled deeply, and slid the needle in.

She leaned her head back again as she drew back the plunger, the pain making her bite into her lower lip, making her light-headed, a hot shiver flushing over her. The nausea was overwhelming. She couldn’t even bear to look for the first few seconds but then forced herself to see if she had taken enough. Seeing the syringe a third filled with her blood, she pulled the needle out and lifted the crook of her arm quickly to her mouth. She sucked to try and curb the pain and stem the flow.

She needed to hide the syringe somewhere. She couldn’t just go at him with it – he’d snatch it off her in an instant. She needed it to be somewhere where she could get her hand on it with ease.

Somewhere he wouldn’t notice. Somewhere she could catch him unexpectedly.

She looked back down at the syringe.

And she also needed to have a backup in case she failed.

❄ ❄ ❄

Caleb descended the steps into the lounge and joined Jake at the bar.

Jake closed Leila’s purification book and pushed it aside. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I’ve bought us some time,’ Caleb said, easing up onto the stool beside him as Jake poured him a drink. ‘Only until tomorrow night, but it’s something.’

‘How did you manage that?’

‘I told her I wanted to make it worth my while. It helped that she thinks I’m going to concede. You know Feinith.’

‘But it’s nearly dawn, Caleb. What if Leila proves you right? What if she has saved me? There’s no way you can hand her over. What then?’

Caleb knocked back his drink, reached for the bottle and unscrewed the cap to pour himself another. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’ He glanced over his shoulder out at the pale grey sky through the sealed terrace doors, before looking back at his brother. ‘How are you feeling?’

Jake knocked back a mouthful of whisky, his hand tense, his eyes lowered. He shrugged. ‘Fine.’

He didn’t look fine. But then he couldn’t expect him to.

‘Have you checked on Alisha lately?’ Caleb asked.

‘She’s out of it. Probably will be for hours.’ Jake knocked back the remains of his drink before pouring himself another. ‘Not that that’s a bad thing.’

‘You really care about her, don’t you?’

‘We look after our own, Caleb, that’s how it’s always been. We show loyalty to those who show loyalty to us. She took a risk bringing Leila here. She took that risk for me.’

Jake took another large mouthful before staring down into his half-empty glass.

Caleb licked the remnants of alcohol from his own lips and stared ahead in the silence for a few moments. ‘I’m sorry you had to find out that way about Seth.’

Jake kept his gaze lowered. Caleb could see the emotion brewing in his eyes. Emotion he clearly didn’t want his big brother to see right then.

‘But I’m not sorry I didn’t tell you,’ Caleb added. ‘I did what I had to in order to protect you. I know you may not see it that way but it’s—’

‘I know why you did it.’ He met Caleb’s gaze. ‘And I know how hard it must have been for you to bring Leila here. Why you’ve been having so much trouble getting your head around the fact she might have saved me. But she has. And any time now you’re going to see it.’

The need to protect Jake was overwhelming. The need to reassure him, particularly in those final few minutes, wrenched at him. But Caleb couldn’t reassure him. He couldn’t agree with him. Because, as confident as Jake was that Leila had done purely what she’d been brought there to do, Caleb couldn’t believe it. Not enough. Not when encompassed with the deep-rooted pain that at any moment he could be back on the cusp of losing the only one he had left to love.

And if that happened he would drag her up there and she
would
do what she’d been brought there to do. And she would see the Caleb that drove the reputation. She would see the Caleb even his brother dreaded. Because he couldn’t lose another brother. He
wouldn’t
lose another brother.

Caleb glanced back up at the clock, at the seconds scraping by.

‘How did you know where to find him? Or was it just a fluke?’

Caleb took a slow steady swallow of his drink. ‘I was due to meet him. When I got there, he wasn’t around. I waited. And waited. I asked around and found out he’d left with a woman. We both know that wasn’t Seth’s style.’ Caleb glanced across at his brother again to see he had his full attention. Finding the distress in Jake’s eyes too oppressive, he looked down at his glass before taking another mouthful. ‘It took me about an hour to trace his steps but I got there. She’d taken him to a derelict building tucked out of the way so no one would hear his cries. He’d bitten and she’d left him. Alone.’ Over a century later, it still made him sick to say it, the anger always there ready to surface. ‘In the dark and in the cold, on some stained, dirt-ridden floor.’

Jake stared up at the ceiling then turned his head away so Caleb wouldn’t see the anguish in his eyes that consumed the space between them. ‘You ended it quickly?’

‘As soon as I could bring myself to do it.’

‘You held him until the last moment?’

‘The very last moment. And a long time after that.’ Caleb knocked back a mouthful of drink to curb his tears. ‘But do you know what he told me? Even after that? Even knowing what that first serryn bitch did to me? “Let it go.” He still wanted me to let it go.’ He looked back ahead. ‘I shouldn’t have listened to him the first time. I should have started hunting all those decades before, then there wouldn’t have been any serryns left
to
slaughter him.’

Jake looked back at him. ‘He didn’t want you to succumb to it, Caleb, just like you didn’t want me to.’ He hesitated. ‘Just like he wouldn’t want you to hurt Leila now.’

Caleb held his brother’s probing gaze. ‘I understand how you feel, but it’s not just about what she is – it’s about what she can become. Don’t you see that?’

‘You have no right to judge her. No right to predict her future.’

‘There are no exceptions, Jake.’

‘There’s always an exception.’

Caleb continued to hold his gaze until the familiar grating of the day-shields lowering diverted his attention back over to the terrace doors. The grey sky gradually disappeared behind the darkened-glass barrier, dawn minutes away from igniting the horizon. He looked back at Jake. ‘We’ll know soon enough, won’t we?’

‘Whatever happens,’ Jake said. ‘Don’t let Feinith use you, Caleb. Don’t let her bring that part of you out again. Please. She’ll destroy you, whether it’s by her hand or making you think it’s by your own volition. Don’t let her.’

‘I’m not going to.’

This time when Jake looked at him, he held his gaze. ‘Promise me.’

‘I promise you.’

They both looked up at the clock. The hands continued to scrape in silence. After ten minutes had passed, Jake looked back at Caleb.

‘It’s dawn,’ he said. ‘I’m still here, just like I said I would be. Just like Leila did.’

Caleb stared back into his glass.

The evidence was undeniable. Against all her better judgements, against her very nature, Leila had saved Jake’s life.

He should have been celebrating; instead, despite his all-consuming relief, he struggled to swallow as he knocked back the remains of his drink, the bitter aftertaste coursing down his throat.