Blinding Light (The Bloodmarked Trilogy Book 2) (34 page)

“All set,” said the blond woman who looked to be in her early thirties.

I searched her eyes for any sign of distress, but none of these women seemed afraid, as if their lives weren’t being spared in return for their service. I wondered if they were those unfortunate souls who believed they would be turned for all their hard work.

When they guided me to the mirror, I was pleased to recognize the woman staring back at me. The natural makeup only highlighted my cheekbones minimally, while the smoky eye shadow accentuated my striking green eyes. My dark brown hair was pulled back from my face and half was pinned. A few tresses hung in loose waves from my temples.

At one time, I considered my stand out appearance to be freakish for its relation to my vampire side, but over the past couple of months, I’ve begun to accept it as part of me.

“Okay, miss. Time for the dress,” proclaimed the squat brunette who did my hair.

The third woman ducked into the walk in closet and hauled out a piece of black material hanging loosely from a wooden hanger. There wasn’t much fabric to it.

“Uh. No. What else do you have in there?”

“Don’t be difficult. Just put it on and make our job easy, will you?” barked the short pixie woman with a black bob.

We engaged in an old fashioned stare down as I pouted inwardly. My crankiness would need an outlet soon, but I wouldn’t take it out on the girl for doing her job. And I respected her strength for standing up to someone who could snap her neck before she even batted those thick black lashes of hers.

Again, strange behavior for someone being held against her will. They must be undead wannabes. It was the only explanation that made sense to me.

I was the first to concede to her hard glare when I shifted my gaze begrudgingly to the thin slip of fabric in her hands. “Fine.”

Elias returned to escort me to what he referred to as the grand ballroom. I was not expecting anything like what I found when he pushed open a set of large double doors. A massive space unfolded before me. We stood at the top of a grand marble staircase that dipped into an open dance floor the size of half a football field.

The second level wrapped around the room to the left and right of me to meet up with another equally impressive staircase on the opposite side. Heavy chandeliers filled with glowing candles provided ample lighting, but like the bedroom, generators lit sconces along the walls. They must go through huge amounts of fuel.

The whole ballroom was heated, but not enough to escape the tiny prickling of skin along my very bare back. The thin material of my dress molded to my body and offered no barrier to the cold. The only parts of me covered were my legs and my front. The back was cut so low, I had to be careful which way I moved.

“Ready, Miss Masters?” Elias nudged me forward.

“Sure,” I replied.

I had no idea what I was supposed to be ready for, but I was anxious to get Gavin out of here and put as much distance between us and this strange time warp as possible.

I descended into the crowd of gallivanting vampires, scanning for possible threats. They didn’t take notice of me at all, playing the parts of early twentieth century socialites, men in their three piece suits discussing politics and their latest venture capital startups and women in their finest silks gossiping about the latest fashion trends and which blood types they preferred.

The soft sounds of a string quartet danced through the air until I spotted the source in the corner across the room. A small group of vampires in tuxes huddled together with their instruments and appeared to play more to themselves than to the indifferent crowd.

Waiters dressed in black and white tuxes circled the guests, offering champagne flutes filled with blood. A young black vampire stepped in front of me with one of those trays, revealing a smell so tantalizing, I forced myself not to inhale.

“Beverage, miss?” she chimed.

I jerked my head to the side in response. She nodded and turned to Elias, who respectfully declined as well, before she turned to make her rounds through the boisterous partygoers.

It was most definitely fresh blood. I had a hard enough time drinking from the hospital bags, knowing where it actually came from. Did they just keep the donors on tap in the kitchen?

“Is your head spinning yet?” Elias whispered by my side.

All I could do was nod my head, still reeling from the odd scene before me. He chuckled hoarsely and guided me toward the middle of the dance floor, where a small area was cleared for dancing couples. There were none at the moment. When we reached the middle of the clearing, he spun to face me and bowed, offering me his hand.

“May I have this dance?”

His suggestion snapped me out of my trance. I folded my arms across my chest. “Hell no! Where is Gavin?” I growled.

“It’s just a dance, Lucille,” he said, smirking. “Just to pass the time until Soren arrives.”

“Who’s Soren?”

“Look, Lucille, I know you have questions, but you can relax. No one is going to hurt you. Why would I save you only to turn around and kill you?”

“Save me?” I asked. Thinking back, I remembered the assassin in the woods sneaking up behind me. “It was you who killed her, wasn’t it?”

He was saved from answering when the sound of clapping stopped all conversations short and drew the attention of everyone in the room to its source. I followed the gazes of every other vampire in the room to an ancient who stood on top of the staircase opposite the one I came from.

“Greetings, and welcome to our Spring Ball. It came a bit early this year due to our honored guest. She has truly made a name for herself among our little community, and I believe her to be the very one who can break us free from our more…
traditional
ancestors. Please welcome her and treat her with respect this evening, as we hope to gain an ally in our fight against those who persecute us for wanting nothing more than our freedom.”

Say what?

All heads whipped toward me. Oops. Did I say that out loud?

Without time to react, the vampire who I presumed to be Soren stood in front of me. I just saw him at the top of those stairs. Freaky.

He appeared to have Scandinavian heritage with long, blond hair pulled back from his face to reveal angular bone structure that emphasized his squared jawline. His eyebrows were pronounced and straight, and his pale blue eyes seemed otherworldly. He was the only one in the room who wore an all-white tux. He could totally pull off the whole angel thing if he wasn’t the bloodsucking spawn of a demon.

“Lucille, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. My name is Soren.” His velvety voice glided over me as he extended his hand.

I stood frozen in place, casting glances back and forth between him and Elias.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” I finally asked.

Soren retracted his hand. “We have a great deal to discuss.”

I snorted and nearly choked over my laugh. It was a good thing I wasn’t sipping an A positive cocktail. “Look, I enjoyed the speech, John Adams, but you can’t be serious. I kill vampires. I don’t ally with them.”

“You do realize you are one, right?” Elias jumped into the conversation, ever so helpfully.

“That’s a technicality,” I directed at him before turning back to Soren. “You said yourself you’ve been watching my activity for a while. You know I don’t play well with others. A tiger can’t change its spots.”

He regarded me pensively before extending his hand once again. “I see you more as a butterfly who has finally shed its cocoon. Dance with me, Miss Masters?”

I glanced over at Elias for help, but he put his fist up to his mouth to cover the shit eating grin plastered there.

Seeing my discomfort, Soren added, “I promise I mean you no harm.”

I cautiously stepped forward, and he swept me into a graceful dance. He was nimble for a guy well over six feet and spry for an old person. The curious stares drilled holes into me, and I heard the whispered conversations about loyalty as he guided me in an elegant dance around the floor.

“Lucille, I understand your hatred for our kind, but I intend to show you how far we’ve distanced ourselves from the old ways, the barbaric violence most vampires still cling to. We don’t harm humans here. We employ them.”

My eyebrows shot to the candle lit ceiling. “You what?” I asked skeptically.

“We employ each human here. We pay them for their services and offer them no false hopes of becoming one of us. Most of them we’ve come across in the poverty lines or halfway houses. They are the ones who had already given up hope. We offer them jobs to get them back on their feet, and we treat them well.”

“But what kind of life do they have here as servants?”

He shook his head to correct me. “They fly in for a few days at a time, and we provide them with rooms and food. They are well compensated for their work.”

“That work being to feed hungry vampires?” I asked, still tasting bile on my tongue from the thoughts conjured by the question.

“Yes, but it is only with the human’s consent. Some of us prefer to only have blood drawn by our nurses, but most ancient vampires prefer blood straight from the source. The fresher the blood, the longer it sustains us.”

I had heard that once, when Gavin explained the ways of the First to me. Basically, those assholes preferred children. With that reminder, I was ready to tear my way through every vampire in the room with my bare hands.

When he sensed where my thoughts had gone, he stopped me. “Lucille, I assure you, we never harm the innocents. We only invite those who are old enough to make their own decisions.”

I calmed slightly, but the edge clung to me for the remainder of the dance. When I tried letting go, he squeezed my hand. “Please, I have so much more to discuss with you.”

“Where is Gavin?” I asked through gritted teeth. As cordial as everyone was being, they still offered no glimpse at their hostage.

“He is well. Mr. West is waiting to see you until after you’ve heard my entire proposition.”

“Oh, well that’s just dandy, but he…” Wait. “He’s what?”

He chose not to see me yet?

“He agrees with us, but he wanted to let you come to your own conclusions first.”

I was terrified something had happened to him, but if what Soren said was true, then I was outraged Gavin put me through that kind of agony again.

“He did, did he?”

Soren continued to discuss his plans to aid us in our quest to find the sword and fight the First when possible. He said his men couldn’t get too close yet without blowing their element of surprise, and he couldn’t afford to have the First come down on his people until the time came for them to fight.

All the while, I was seething over Gavin’s deception. He hadn’t once tried calling to let me know he was fine, and he went so far as to block his feelings and location from me after his disappearance.

When the song ended, Soren released me, and I turned to see the parted crowd revealing a very dapper and very alive Gavin at the bottom of the staircase Soren had descended.

I saw red. The crowd blurred as I rushed forward and when I stood in front of him, my arm was already drawn back.

My palm connected with his face before he had the chance to wipe that sexy as sin smile off of it.

A hush blanketed the room, leaving the loud crack to reverberate through the vast hall. Gasps of surprise slowly rose from the following silence. Clearly, they hadn’t expected their high class evening to be interrupted by a physical altercation. Because vampires were known for being so civilized.

Gavin’s face tilted to the side but returned to show, not shock, but slight annoyance. “Was that necessary?”

“That was mild compared to what’s really necessary,” I snapped, still furious at him for leaving me in the dark to believe the worst.

I turned to the gaping onlookers. “What?” I barked. “Haven’t you ever seen vamp on vamp violence?”

They snapped back and began shuffling about to reclaim their version of a gothic masquerade. Soren and Elias approached from their former safe distances.

Gavin non-so-discretely stepped into me, placing his hand on my lower back, just like Elias had done when guiding me here. Except, Gavin’s touch set my blood on fire, stirring up a sinful mixture of lust and wrath.

A tingling sensation began where his hand sat as warmth cascaded through my body. I refused to acknowledge the urge to jump on him when the urge to slap him again still had my hand twitching.

Gavin’s rumbling voice was threatening when he spoke to Elias. “Touch her where you’re not supposed to again, and you’ll lose that hand.”

Clearly, he had witnessed my entrance. Great.

“Just being polite,” Elias responded with an easy smile.

“Overly polite, I’d say,” Gavin said coolly.

“Gentlemen,” I interrupted. “This is hardly the proper setting for a showdown. Pissing contests should be taken outside,” I scolded, even though I had zero room to talk after my bitch slap heard round the castle.

Getting back to business, I addressed Soren. “There are only a handful of the First left, correct?” I asked.

“Yes, seven remain.”

“So if all the assassins outnumber them by so much, why haven’t they rebelled against them? Why are you the first to try? And why now?”

He contemplated it before answering. “What makes the lot of them stay far away from fire and churches? Fear. You can control anyone with the right amount of fear.”

His eyes bore into mine. “Do you really believe others before us haven’t tried something like this? The Elite like to make an example of any ancient who steps out of line. They make a grand spectacle of torture to ensure no one else is thinking of disobeying, and they hunt, to the end of the world, anyone who dares to break their rules. Why do you think we’ve learned to cover our own tracks so well?”

“You mean how you hide so well? Sounds like they still have all the control over you.”

Soren’s jaw clenched minutely, giving away his frustration. Gavin’s hand moved to my hip where his grip tightened, and he angled his body so he was standing in front of me protectively.

After a long, tension filled minute, Soren relaxed and continued. “Ah, yes. Ever the brash one, aren’t you? We can’t all confront our enemies head on. We can’t all be the chosen one. We’ve been patiently waiting centuries for our chance at ending their reign of terror. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Ugh, not this whole ‘you are the only special snowflake because the prophecy says so’ business again.

“Let me get this straight. You aren’t afraid of fire.” I glanced up, indicating the flaming chandelier above. As if on cue, a drop of hot wax splattered against the tile, only inches in front of my spikey black heels. “And you continue to defy the First despite the stories of their retaliation, so you’ve clearly learned to let go of some deeply engrained phobias. Yet, you still readily accept a prophecy passed around by word of mouth over thousands of years? Probably started by someone who was high on opiates.”

Soren bristled. “You don’t have to understand the reasons or intentions behind our actions and beliefs. We’ve lived over thousands of years and have a much different view of the world. We are merely asking for a truce to unite and defeat our common enemy.”

My old stubbornness reared, and I fought hard not to scream. This was what I had engrained in me. It went against everything I ever believed to not kill vampires, let alone work with them. Look how well the whole Shane debacle worked out for me.

Gavin caught my eye, pleading to concede. “Lucy,” he started softly.

I was still pissed at him, but now I had the urge to mutilate and dismember.

“Will you excuse us?” I asked the other vampires through clenched teeth. I grabbed Gavin’s tux jacket lapel to drag him to a secluded corner.

While wading through the crowd of dancing vampires, he grasped my hand and came to a dead stop, abruptly halting me. I spun on him, glaring, but he easily pulled me into him in an intimate embrace with soft eyes gazing down at me. My temper waned, but I remained stiff, wrapped in his embrace.

His fingers trailed lightly down my arms as his head bent so he could whisper in my ear, “You look breathtaking, by the way.”

“Like you need to breathe,” I shot back. The sting of him skipping town without telling me was evident in my tone.

“No, but the sight of you makes me think I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he said, cracking a lazy smile.

I melted a little more at his breezy attitude. It was infectious. “Okay, enough with the bad one liners. I can’t take it.”

He chuckled briefly but paused, and his eyes drilled into mine. “You’re absolutely stunning,” he rasped in a low tone.

His genuine compliment was all it took to rock my entire foundation. My looks went from being part of my freak factor to making me feel beautiful. I know, I know. Poor me, I’m so beautiful. But the thing was, I never truly felt beautiful before, because I never considered what that might be like. I attributed my looks to the vampire side of me, another thing to resent about myself.

Right now, however, it wasn’t about being vampire or human. The way Gavin looked at me turned my insides to melted butter. It went deeper than looks. Beauty, as I was beginning to realize, was a feeling. An attitude about myself that I never had before. I was a goddess, and Gavin had given me that gift.

I was so in love with this man I couldn’t imagine going back to life without him. He’s brightened this dark world we come from and given me so much joy. He was the one who really brought me back to life, or maybe brought me to life for the first time since I was born.

He held my gaze as his fingers came up to chase a few strands of hair away from my face. The touch was so tender I turned my face into his palm. But when I did, I caught a glimpse of Soren’s eyes boring into mine.

Just like that, the moment shattered and all my anger flooded me like black smoke coiling deep in my core, suffocating my brief happiness with the reminders of how dire the situation was.

I stepped out of Gavin’s embrace. Confusion and a bit of disappointment furrowed his brow at my sudden mood shift, but he let me tug him away from the party.

Remembering his ‘pro working with the vampires’ stance, my fury flared hot. I loved the guy, but his sanity was questionable. Once we were out of sight and nestled into a deep alcove near a corner, I laid into him.

“You can’t be serious?” I made a grand hand gesture toward where Soren and Elias were standing at the bottom of the far staircase.

He traced fingers down my arm. “Lucy, I think it-“

“No,” I said firmly, yanking my arm away. I tried taking a calming breath, and then another.

“You know I didn’t purposely leave you behind. You’re acting like I conspired against you when it was the exact opposite. They didn’t really give me a choice whether or not to come with them.”

“Well, you could have called!” I shouted. The tremble in my voice betrayed the hurt I felt.

“No, I couldn’t. They… incapacitated me before taking my phone away.”

“They what? How did they…?” I trailed off, pondering what on earth could possibly incapacitate this man.

“Let’s just say they learned a few tricks from our friend, Monroe.”

“They drugged you. With spiked blood?” I asked incredulously. Maybe they weren’t as pro human as they made me believe.

“No. Straight into the vein. No blood. They kept sticking me to get through the plane ride so my body couldn’t burn through it too quickly. But once we arrived, they let me clean up and explained everything.”

His voice dropped low with severity when he spoke again. “Lucy, how did things end after I was taken?”

I sucked in a harsh breath and shook my head, unable to grieve our fallen friends around the current shit storm we were in. He nodded somberly and backed off the topic.

I still had trouble wrapping my head around all this, but my anger with Gavin waned. A little. Brushing off the despondency before it sunk its teeth in, I got back down to the business at hand.

“And you think it’s a good idea teaming up with vampires?”

He smirked. I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, with the
evil
vampires,” I corrected myself.

“Lucy.” His voice got all mentory, which meant he was about to serve up some wisdom. “We’re about to make some very powerful enemies. Well, we already have. Sometimes, before you make new enemies, you have to make a few more friends.”

“They are not my friends,” I spat heatedly. My old hang ups resurfaced with a vengeance. Old mantras scrolled through my head like a marquee.

Never trust a vampire… Vampires must die… I hate every last one of them…

Rage fueled my bias views, and vampire emotions were much stronger and much harder to shake than my old hybrid ones. Gavin would most likely agree that my anger before was no picnic.

My pulse raced with adrenaline for the hunt. All my instincts screamed at me to kill. I struggled to remember my meditative techniques.

Closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose in an effort to block everything out around me, I breathed deeply and slowly to calm myself. I felt Gavin’s eyes on me as he waited in silence. I wished we were on a beach right now, away from all this craziness. Just like normal people.

I pictured us lying on the beach, digging our toes into the soft sand and listening to the gentle crash of waves against the shore while being drenched in warm sunshine. This was my happy place, where no other vampires could go. It was the farthest place from the cold winter nights they inhabited.

When I opened my eyes, Gavin was staring at me with a look I could only decipher as awe. “Lucy, where did you learn to do that?”

I squirmed under his scrutiny, unsure of how I earned such a complimentary appraisal. “What? Should I be insulted right now by your lack of faith in my meditative skills?”

He stepped closer with a wicked grin in place. His hand found my hip. “I have every confidence in your… skills.”

He added the last word as his eyes scanned every inch of me from head to toe. The heat behind them seared my flesh like a branding caress. By the time he met my eyes again, my breathing had become heavy and my heart rate shot right back up to where it was.

“Very mature,” I breathed.

He smirked at my reaction. “I was referring to how you managed to block your feelings from me.”

He moved near, stepping so close our toes brushed, and my pulse jumped in response. “Temporarily.” His dimples flashed wickedly, hinting at my currently on-display thoughts.

Fighting off the lust cloud threatening to reduce my attention span to that of a fruit fly’s, I lightly pushed him back and considered his words. He was telling me I could actually shield my moods from him by going Zen. Why the hell couldn’t I figure that out sooner?

“You really couldn’t feel me?” I asked hopefully.

He arched an eyebrow, and I realized how that sounded. I held up a finger in warning. “Get your mind out of the gutter and answer me.”

“I love it when you get all bossy with me,” he responded playfully. “I really couldn’t feel you, and believe me, Lucy, no one projects like you do. You make me completely insane at times, and it’s hard to concentrate when you’re so…” he trailed.

“So what?” I demanded, crossing my arms.

“So…” He emphasized his meaning by cupping my cheek in his hand and stroking his thumb across my skin. He stepped close again, his body flush against mine and his lips mere inches from my mouth. His eyes drifted down to it while his wandering thumb traced across my bottom lip. I parted on a gasp.

“…Lively,” he said, and I had completely forgotten what we were talking about.

My concentration had narrowed solely to how I imagined those skillful lips working mine into a passion-filled oblivion, like they’ve done so many times before.

“So…” His nose grazed the skin below my ear. “Vivacious,” he added.

I sucked in a sharp breath when his hand crept up my ribs until his thumb met the underside of my breast. His lips against my neck pulled into a grin.

“I thought this kind of activity was dangerous,” I panted.

“Mmhmm,” he murmured as his lips began devouring my neck, trailing from my collarbone to my ear.