02 Blood Roses - Blackthorn (25 page)

‘You stay away from us.’

‘Have you any idea how difficult it is to wield a sword? To penetrate anybody with it, let alone a vampire?’

‘I’m willing to give it a go.’

He took another step closer. ‘Go on then.’

She took an instinctive step back, knocking into Alisha, her grip tightening on the hilt. ‘I’m warning you.’

‘Still so much to learn, fledgling.’

‘And I suppose you know it all.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘A hell of a lot more than you.’

‘Leave her alone,’ Alisha demanded, stepping between them before Leila had a chance to catch her.

She took one hand off the sword only to feel the strain on the wrist left behind. She grabbed it with both hands again. ‘Alisha, don’t,’ Leila warned with a hushed whisper, as her sister blocked Caleb’s way.

‘No,’ Alisha said firmly. ‘He can’t do this to you.’ She looked up at Caleb just as Jake pulled alongside him, his eyes brimming with concern. ‘You gave me your word, Caleb.’

‘Things change, Alisha.’

‘I can’t believe you’re allowing this,’ Alisha said, turning her attention on Jake. ‘You promised we’d be okay.’

‘Alisha,’ Jake said, reaching out to her. He looked genuinely troubled; more than that, he looked worried – a fact that chilled Leila even more.

‘Get her out the way, Jake,’ Caleb said.

‘No,’ Leila said, clenching the sword tighter as she tried to sidestep her sister and get between them.

Despite Alisha recoiling, Jake caught hold of her with ease, pulling her to him.

‘You leave her alone!’ Leila demanded, preparing herself to swing, however futile her effort would be.

But Caleb snatched the sword from her hand in an instant and pulled her back against him. He wrapped a vice-like arm around her, keeping both of hers pinned to her waist, his chest a solid wall against her back as he gripped his sword in his free hand.

‘Take Alisha back upstairs,’ Caleb said.

‘Get off my sister!’ Alisha warned, trying to pull Jake’s hand away, anger emanating in her eyes amidst the pain of betrayal.

Leila kicked and flailed, but Caleb held her tight against him. ‘Temper, temper, serryn,’ he said, turning her away from Alisha’s equal protests.

‘You get your hands off me!’ Leila warned through gritted teeth.

‘You’re so lucky he’s still alive,’ he uttered softly against her ear.

‘If he hurts her…’

‘He’s not going to. Not if her big sister stops with the escapology stunts.’

She kicked at his shins, tried flailing against him again. But even then, trapped against him, the stirring inside astounded her, irritated her.

She looked across her shoulder to see Alisha disappear back through the doors with Jake.

‘No!’ she snapped again, as much out of despair as protest.

‘We can stay like this until the place opens up in a few hours, if that’s what you want,’ Caleb said, holding her tighter, managing it with ease despite only having one free hand. ‘We could give all the guests a floor show, or you can calm yourself down before I’m tempted to do some really bad things to you. You’d better believe I’m just in the mood.’

After a few more moments, she stopped struggling. As she reluctantly stilled, he let her go.

She turned to face him as she backed away.

Enticing eyes locked on hers, Caleb lifted the sword to her collar bone, forcing her to freeze, the blade poised but not touching her, his hand impressively unwavering.

‘You worked out how to get out then,’ she said, trying not to let resentment cloud her tone.

As cold metal met her skin, she caught her breath.

He slid the tip of the blade gently from her collar bone down her cleavage. ‘Unlike you.’ He looked back at her, his eyes glinting.

Her gaze didn’t falter from his, her breath held, her body tense as he slid the sword back up her neck to under her chin, knocking it up slightly, the blade caressing her skin with lethal control.

She glowered at the taunting amusement in his eyes.

‘Take a seat,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’

He stepped over to the bar. Leaving his sword on the counter, he returned with a bottle and a couple of glasses. He carried them to the nearest booth and indicated for her to follow.

Reluctantly she did, taking the seat opposite his.

He looked painfully at ease, worryingly resolute, as he placed a measure of whisky in each tumbler before sliding one to her.

She didn’t dare take her eyes off him as he leaned back, placed a foot up on the seat beside her, blocking her exit.

He stretched one arm across the back of the booth and knocked back a mouthful of drink, his stony gaze chilling her as it rested squarely on hers. A stony gaze that lacerated her somewhere deep. Eyes that she had mistaken as being capable of affection now looked back at her as if she was nothing more than a commodity.

This was the real Caleb – not the one who had wiped away her tears and kissed her like he meant it.

This was a serryn hunter pinning down his prey.

She felt so stupid, so humiliated, so rejected. And it wrenched more than she knew it should.

‘So much hatred in such beautiful eyes,’ he coaxed as he lowered his glass.

‘Go fuck yourself, Caleb,’ Leila said, surprising herself with the venom in her tone.

‘Only you get away with talking to me like that.’ He slid the tumbler closer to her. ‘Drink. It’ll dull what’s to come.’

She lifted the glass and poured the contents onto the floor before letting go of it, letting it smash onto the floor, her defiant gaze locked on his.

He had used her. All along he had done nothing but use her.

And
nobody
used
her
.

Especially not someone she had dared to start to feel something for.

He licked his incisor as he smiled, looked at the floor then back at her. ‘It’s good to know your petulant streak hasn’t been suppressed. I’ve always liked that about you. How you’re willing to fight until the bitter end. Such an admirable quality.’

‘Thanks for the eulogy, but this isn’t over yet.’

‘Of course, and let’s not forget your optimism. Such an enviable, childlike trait. Or maybe it’s just naive denial.’

‘Do you really think it’s going to be that simple, Caleb? You take a bite out of me, bleed me dry and it’s all over?’

‘Sounds that way to me.’

‘I won’t go to the Brink easily. And I won’t hand over my soul easily, either. You may have the upper hand here, you may have physical strength on your side in these four walls, but there won’t be any of that there. Once we’re there, we’re equals. That’s why only a serryn soul can take you on. And I’ll fight you, Caleb. I can’t let this happen. I want you to know that. I’m not going down without giving it everything I’ve got.’

‘I wouldn’t expect anything less,’ he said, finishing the remains of his drink before pushing the glass aside. He leaned forward, resting both arms on the table. ‘So does this mean you’ve stopping running, Leila. Are you ready to face this?’

‘Are you?’

‘I’m ready to take you when I want, where I want, how I want. I have been from the minute you walked in here. You’re already mine. It seems you always have been.’ He leaned back in the booth seat. He poured another drink but slid the glass towards her. ‘So let’s have a toast,’ he said, keeping the bottle for himself. He clinked it against her glass. ‘One of us is going to save the world. Sounds like game on to me.’

She leaned forward, her palms flat on the table. ‘This is far from a game, Caleb. You’re talking about evoking civil wars. Devastation. Segmentation and fragmentation even amongst your own. And it will spread to other locales. Once this starts, there is no going back.’

‘That’s the whole point.’

‘There are other ways.’

‘Amidst decades of suffering? Until somebody decides this was never a good idea in the first place? Until some new, less liberal council comes to the forefront and decides that actually they’d rather do away with the new laws and resolve we have no entitlement to anything after all. Or until they decide to cull us altogether? And with these boundaries, what chance would we stand?’

‘It would never come to that. Things will improve. It just takes time.’

‘You don’t believe that any more than I do. Your kind – you so-called first species – don’t even trust your own. How are you ever going to trust anything remotely different to you? This will never improve – not as long as you’re in charge.’

‘And things will be so much better when you are? You don’t want things to get better for us all – you just want to swap places.’

‘Too right I do.’

‘Then you’re no better.’

‘Or maybe our kinds are more similar than they’d like to admit to and that’s what worries them. That’s why they have to keep us under lock and key – because you don’t like the uncomfortable truth staring back at you of what you can become.’

‘Our kinds are nothing alike.’

‘And the fact you say that so vehemently only confirms my point – that’s how we’ll always be perceived: no common ground. And you can’t share space without common ground, Leila, or at least a perception of it. We’re here while your kind bide their time – nothing more. A backdrop of false promises does nothing to improve it.’

‘Then I have no choice but to stop you.’

He exhaled tersely. ‘I love the way you say that as if you really believe it possible.’

‘And I hate the way you make out like it isn’t.’

‘So what plans do you have to stop me? Trap me in another circle? I’m hardly likely to fall for that again.’

‘But you did fall for it the first time. It’s all about what you least expect.’

He broke a hint of a smile, knocked back the remains of the drink. He leaned over to the floor and picked up a fragment of glass. Leaning on the table between them, he twisted the two inch shard deftly in his fingers, his attention focused on the motion, the glass glinting in the dim light.

For a moment he fixated her with the rotating motion to the point she didn’t notice him reach out for her hand that rested on the tabletop.

As soon as he gripped her wrist she wanted to recoil, but she refused to let herself. She refused to show him any fear.

She was forced to extend her elbow as he drew her hand closer so it was equidistant between them.

She stared into his eyes, her silence the only defiance she could offer him as he maintained his unrelenting grip on her wrist.

‘The only reason you didn’t kill Jake when you had the chance was because you knew you weren’t getting out of here, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘You just wanted me to know you could. Just like you wanted to tell Alisha to escape so that’s one less backup. You’ve told her everything. And you know that means I can’t let her go now, don’t you? Not ever.’

‘You weren’t letting her go anyway. Ever.’

He spread her thumb and forefinger, exposing the delicate flesh between. She clenched her other hand in her lap out of sight, resolute not to show an ounce of fear.

‘You really don’t like the fact I could have killed him, do you, Caleb?’ she said, unable not to goad him as he dared to try and wield such control over her. ‘That I
chose
not to. It’s hard to justify what you’re planning to do to me when time and time again I prove you wrong, isn’t it? I think there’s actually a conscience in there. Deeply buried maybe, but there all the same.’

‘And time and time again, I’ll prove you wrong, Leila.’

‘So prove me wrong now.’

His green eyes remained squarely locked on hers as she stared him down. He drew her hand a little closer, placed the tip of the shard of glass against her flesh and raked it lightly, coaxingly over her skin. ‘Your resilience has improved these last couple of days.’

‘My resilience has always been there. I’ve just got no reason to hide it anymore. Whatever I do or say will make no difference to you. You only see what you want to see. You’ll only ever see what you want to see. Just as you’ll do whatever you want to do. Make me bleed, Caleb, if it’ll make you feel better.’

‘It’s not about making you bleed, Leila. I just like the taste of you,’ he said, dragging the glass gently through her skin. ‘Watching the way you catch your breath,’ he said, his eyes glinting darkly.

Before the first droplet of blood could hit the table he lifted her hand to his mouth, parted his lips and took a slow and steady draw, his eyes locked on hers.

And despite fighting it, instinctively she did catch her breath, hypnotised by those green eyes that almost absorbed her soul as easily as he consumed her blood. Heat pooled at the base of her abdomen as she watched him feed on her unashamedly, as his cool, soft lips removed every trace of blood.

‘Such sweet nothings,’ she quipped.

He licked her blood from his lips. ‘I’ll take you on a bed of roses, if that’s what you want.’

‘Thorns intact? Prepared to bleed with me, are you?’

‘Maybe a drop or two.’

She stared deep into his eyes that transfixed her with their stare. And she would fight him, with all that was left in her. She couldn’t save herself, she might not be able to save her sisters, but somehow she would stop this happening. And he was right about her running – it wouldn’t happen until she stopped and turned to face what had terrified her for too long.

This was her fate. And there in that dim, empty room, she finally had no choice but to acknowledge it.

‘Then roses it will be,’ she said.

‘Pain with the pleasure,’ he replied.

‘Just as you like it, right?’

His smile was fleeting. ‘By the time I’m done, you won’t care what’s happening to you.’

‘By the time I’m done, you won’t even know what hit you.’

He smiled, lowered her hand again and released it, his attention diverted as in the distance the sound of the glass shutters lifting sent a quiet buzz through the club.

‘Dusk,’ he said, looking back at her. ‘Perfect timing.’

Chapter Twenty-four

L
eila didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t to be led back upstairs and certainly not back to the library. She warily glanced at the splintered and battered door on her way through, making it perfectly clear what temper Caleb had left in.

She followed him over to the back wall of bookcases beyond the table.

When he removed a handful of books from one of the shelves and a secret chamber was revealed, a surge of panic hit her chest.

It was only a small space – books and paperwork piled on the floor-to-ceiling shelves. It was the door to the left that caught her attention though – the door that Caleb promptly opened to reveal a dark void beyond.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked.

‘Out.’

‘Through there?’

‘I don’t trust that we’re still not being watched.’

‘And then?’

‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’

‘Why don’t I like the sound of that?’

‘You will. Trust me. Maybe more than you’d like to admit.’

Her heart pounded. The thought crept into her mind – Sophie. She didn’t dare vocalise it, least of all for fear of being disappointed. She watched him warily as he stepped into what her adjusted vision could see was the top of a stairwell.

He braced his arms on the doorframe. ‘Do you need to be dragged?’

Knowing it wasn’t an idle threat was sufficient to make her step over the threshold.

She descended the dark, dank and cold steps, the lengthy corridor at the foot of them maintaining the same unappealing attributes. Neon lights flashed through gaps in the boarded-up windows that ran along the length of the corridor.

Leila glanced anxiously at the heavy doors they passed along the left. ‘What is this place?’

‘Storage chambers and archives from when it was a library.’

‘What do you use it for now?’

He glanced across at her, the hint of a smirk doing nothing to assure her.

‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to know.’

After several twists and turns along further corridors and through abandoned rooms, Caleb keyed in a code at sliding doors.

Night air filled the musty room as Caleb pulled opened the door.

She followed him out into the alley.

It was the epitome of what she had come to know of Blackthorn – murky, gloomy, abandoned and rife with threat.

Parts of Blackthorn had been a blur when she’d been driven through them the night before but now, as she walked up onto the main street with him, as he led her through the crowds, the noise and brazen lights, there was nothing to hide the neglect, the squalor, the unpleasantness.

The noise levels rebounded off her eardrums – the music reverberating from bars, from open windows above, laughter and jeers emanating between shouting.

She sidestepped litter – broken bottles, discarded food bags.

As the crowds thickened as they reached a denser part of Blackthorn, once or twice Caleb caught her arm, tugging her out of the way of an approaching crowd, his arm sliding down her waist on one occasion, making her spine ache with the intimacy of it. Then he’d let her go, making her walk alone again.

There were the occasional stares, mainly from females. She wondered at first if it was because they sensed what she was, but realised it was more than likely because of whom she was with. She saw them sizing her up, their frowns telling her they were trying to work out why she was the one walking down the street by his side.

The further they went, the more the crowds started to dispel, until he led her down a couple of cobbled side streets, to a quieter part of the district. Heading down a lane, Caleb led her towards what would have once been a grand Edwardian house.

Caleb slipped his hand into hers; the feel of his cold, strong hand gripping hers sent her spiralling back to their encounters in his penthouse – encounters that now felt like a distant dream. Out there in the starkness of reality, their intimacy almost seemed unreal.

She lowered her gaze from the curious stares as he led her though the front door and into the dim and sordid-looking bar.

A melancholic singing voice echoed his misery over the speakers, the conversation around the room troublingly low. The fact everyone was segregated off in booths told her this wasn’t as much a social arena as one where business meetings were conducted – trade-offs, shady deals. This was the kind of arena she’d envisaged she would have ended up in had she not been proved more than just financially lucrative.

He selected a U-shaped booth in a dark recess and indicated for her to slide in first, shifting her around to the centre where they would both have a clear view of the bar.

‘Is this where we’re meeting whoever we came here to see?’ she asked.

‘It is,’ he said, his attention instantly diverted to the tall and slender waitress heading over.

She raked Caleb with a swift, admiring look, her large brown eyes smiling. ‘Caleb Dehain. It’s been a while.’

‘You’re looking good, Flick.’

Leila glanced across at him, his reciprocating smile prompting a tight coil in the pit of her stomach.

Her painted red lips, a stunning contrast to her glossy, black bobbed hair, parted briefly. ‘What can I get you?’

‘House whisky will be fine.’

‘And your friend? Shall I get her a milkshake?’

Caleb’s smile broadened. ‘I think she’ll need more than that.’

Flick grinned as if they shared some private joke, sending spirals of irritation through Leila. ‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said before strolling away again.

‘She’s a charmer,’ Leila sniped.

‘She’s a great girl.’

‘A conquest I take it?’

He glanced across at her, but said nothing.

Leila scanned the bar. Her skin crawled just being there. ‘If she’s such a great girl, why’s she working here?’

‘We’re in Blackthorn, honey – home of the free. We’ve got an abundance of choices here.’

‘Is that why I’m here? You want to show me what life is like? You want to justify what you’re planning to do to me? Do you think for one minute that your kind wouldn’t do exactly the same if fortunes were reversed? And you call me sanctimonious.’

Flick came back over and placed two whiskies in front of them, her raised eyebrows telling them that she’d picked up on the tension at the table before sauntering away.

‘Just tell me why you’ve brought me here?’

Caleb stretched his arm across the back of the seat behind her, rested one leg out along the seat as if he was settling in for the night. ‘Not worried, are you?’ he asked as he turned his head towards her, his eyes glinting in the shadows.

‘This isn’t exactly my kind of place.’

‘This is where you’d be spending your time,’ Caleb said, ‘if you’d already embraced who you were. These are the kind of places you’d target, the people you’d rub shoulders with. You’d slink in here, wait for your target and lead them into some dark recess. This is how your life could have been if you’d come to avenge your mother like you should have.’

‘If that isn’t an advocate for how right I was not to, I don’t know what is. What’s your point?’

‘You and I could have met in a place like this. If fate hadn’t dealt us the hand she has.’ He looked across at her as he lifted his glass to his lips. ‘You might even have succeeded under different circumstances.’

‘Don’t play the king until you’ve got your crown, Caleb.’

He leaned into her ear. ‘Of course, the alternative is more likely that I would have been a hell of a lot less restrained. I might not even have bothered to ask your name before I pinned you to the wall in some dark, private corner.’

She looked back at him, the turning of her head almost bringing her lips into contact with his. ‘Are you flirting with me?’ she asked, refusing to be intimidated.

He smiled. But his eyes narrowed as he watched someone stroll past. Man or vampire, Leila couldn’t be sure. He lifted himself onto one of the bar stools directly ahead, his hunched body making him look much older than he was, which she guessed to be around late-thirties. It gave him a shifty look, someone who was used to ducking and diving, trying to keep himself out of the trouble he was clearly immersed in.

He raised his fingers from the bar, catching the attention of the barman who in turn nodded in acknowledgement. He prepared a drink before taking it over to place in front of him. Clearly a regular. And seemingly being a regular there was no good thing.

‘See that guy at the bar?’ Caleb asked.

‘Man or vampire?’

‘Oh, very much vampire.’ Caleb lifted the tumbler to his lips. ‘A very bad vampire.’

Leila glanced nervously back at the focus of Caleb’s attention. He looked across both shoulders as if sensing he was being watched, but he didn’t look in their direction.

Unease clenched the pit of her stomach. Something told her that’s who they were there for, and the chill that swept through her told her things were about to get a whole lot worse because of it.

‘From the tension in your body, I’m assuming the possibilities of why I’ve brought you here are already sparking,’ Caleb added.

Her attention snapped to him again. Her heart lunged. Her pulse raced. She repressed the dark and sordid thoughts that filled her head before they could properly surface, before she could acknowledge them. ‘He’s who we’re here for?’

‘I want you to go and get to know him. I want you to see exactly how it works here.’

Her throat burned. She couldn’t even speak through her shock, her horror at what he was suggesting.

‘There are plenty of dark spaces around here, if you’d rather not be so public,’ he added.

She stared at him, unable to conceal her revulsion at the suggestion. Something in her heart splintered despite the fact she should have known better. ‘You can go to hell, Caleb,’ she declared firmly, turning away from him to slide out of the booth.

He caught hold of her forearm, yanking her back next to him.

‘You’re going out there alone?’ he asked. ‘You really think that’s wise?’

‘Any less wise than staying here with you? I am not playing your sick games, Caleb. I know what you’re trying to do. But I am not going there – not for anything.’

‘Even when I’m handing you vengeance on a platter?’

Her pulse thrummed in her ears. ‘Vengeance for what?’

‘He comes here the same time every Monday and Thursday. That’s so his buyers know where to find him. Vampire and human.’

‘Buyers of what?’

‘Entertainment. Indulgence.’

He reached into his back pocket and placed the photo in front of her. As soon as Leila saw the familiar picture of her sisters again, she almost wretched. ‘Why don’t you go and show it to him, Leila? Ask him if he recognises Sophie?’

She shook her head, subconsciously trying to force out the possibility. ‘You’re lying,’ she said quietly.

‘He’ll do well out of a girl as pretty as your sister. Probably why he took her right off the street.’

Leila glowered back up at the vampire at the bar.

‘So why don’t you go and ask him if he’s still got her?’ Caleb added. ‘He’ll want some payment for the information though, so think carefully of what you’re willing to give in exchange. I hear he’s a harsh negotiator.’

The coldness of his suggestion lacerated her soul as much as the dark intent in his self-assured eyes, the icy stab of betrayal once again fracturing her heart. Leila gripped the seat, his hold on her forearm feeling colder than it ever had. ‘You wouldn’t risk me, with all I’m worth to you.’

‘Oh, I won’t be too far away. I might even watch.’ He leaned into her ear. ‘You let your mother down, Leila, and you let Alisha down by trying to escape tonight. Do you really want to let Sophie down too?’

‘Her name is Sophia,’ she said curtly. ‘Only her loved ones call her Sophie.’

‘So
phia
?’ He smirked, unnerving her further. ‘That makes a lot of sense.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why no one knew of her. Your little sister has given herself a nickname on the street. Phia apparently. Nice little play on words. Very mature.’ He leaned a little closer. ‘Show him the photo of
Sophia
– see if there’s a flash of recognition, do something about it or walk away a coward.’

She glared into his eyes. ‘Just when I thought you couldn’t get any lower.’

‘I’ve got sublevels like you wouldn’t believe. And so have you. Dig deep, serryn. Go do what you’re made to do. Find out where she is and I’ll get someone to go get her. Your choice.’

‘And that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Your last-ditch attempt to make me exactly what you want me to be.’

‘And you’ll be fine – as long as you’re as good as I think you are.’

‘My sister could be dead already. If you knew where she was and you did nothing…’

‘I have word she’s still very much alive. For now. And I have reliable sources.’

She snatched her gaze back up to Marid. She could. That was what grated at her most deeply. She could march over there, smile sweetly and lead him somewhere to find out the truth.

And if he was responsible, if he had done anything to hurt Sophie, she would gladly see him suffer. She would gladly watch him writhe in agony.

For what?

She shook the thoughts out of her head.

Would she even care after that point? Is that how she wanted her sisters to know her?

It was just another manipulative game. The realisation that he felt so little for her – the lack of respect, of understanding, of compassion tore through her.

He was not going to do it to her. He’d used the final hook he had, clearly thinking it would be the clincher. But he needed to learn that his biggest mistake was not in taking her there; it was in assuming he knew how she’d react.

‘Do you think that I’m so weak that I don’t know my own mind, Caleb?’ she asked, snatching her gaze to his. ‘Do you think I will let myself be manipulated by you any more than I already have? You’ve got everything you want by using Alisha as leverage over me and where has it got me? Do you think you can use Sophie too? Do you think it’s that easy to mould me into whatever you want me to be? Do you think I can’t see right through you?’ She yanked her forearm from his. ‘You want to ease your conscience before you kill me – find another way. You want to give me to him – you do it. You may possess me but you don’t own me, Caleb. And you never will. I am not yours to toy with, to manipulate, to use to your own ends. Do you understand me?’