Enslaved (12 page)

Viktoria
turned the knob on the door after knocking and slid into the room, closing it behind her for a moment.

Splice listened closely...

"...Ah, my
Viktoria
."
There was a quiet kissing noise and a slight sigh.
"Who was at the door, angel?"
Vince wondered in an unusually tender tone. It shocked Splice to hear his cousin so- so AFFECTIONATE to someone...than that must mean...

The door opened once more and
Viktoria
appeared, "Come in Splice," she said in a soft voice that sounded too sweet to belong to a vampire; too human-sounding.

Splice walked in and watched, stunned as
Viktoria
moved into Vince's arms. And for a moment, Splice's system seemed to flood with a mysterious disappointment...why was that? Why was he disappointed that his cousin- Splice's favorite cousin who had been taking care of HIS own mate
- had this intriguing woman...?

"Ah, that was fast, Splice. Didn't expect you to be here so fast," Vince grinned. "This is
Viktoria
, my angel."

Splice noticed that he hadn't said "mate" like most vampires would've if they as close to someone as these two seemed to be.

"Well, seeing as you threatened my...my mate's life," those last words resisted to form on his lips for a moment, "and I don't want
Raina
getting hurt."

Vince examined Splice's eyes for a moment,
then
glanced at
Viktoria
. "
Viktoria
, do you mind if I talk to my cousin alone for a moment?"

"No," she said with a shrug, kissed him on the cheek, and for a moment, Splice saw Vince's eyes soften slightly at the small contact, then his expression changed from loving to strained and nervous when
Viktoria
had departed.

"Oh, no."
Splice sighed, he knew his cousin well enough to know that Vincent Gabe
DeChorello
never got nervous...or frightened. Something was terribly wrong. "What's wrong?"

"It's
Viktoria
..." he choked out
. "
She- She's the Siren."

Those three words were enough to make
Splice
anxious, he couldn't imagine how his cousin must be feeling.

"Oh, man." Splice breathed, the strange soul-tug he had been getting from
Viktoria
was
correct,
she was powerful...beyond anything that wa
s normal by vampire standards.

"Yeah, you can say that again." Vince said, sitting down in a chair by the window, resting his elbows on his knees, and burying his face in his hands.

"Oh, man."

Vince shot him a look, he was in no shape for jokes,
no
one would be if they had a goddess as a mate.

Chapter 25

Splice was left gaping at Vince after his cousin had finished retelling the events of the Gathering. "So...those bandages on her arms, they're just there to cover them up? So she can't use her powers?"

Splice rose from his seat on Vince's bed, threw his head back and covered his face with his hands, exasperated.
"Dude!
You can't let a power go to waste like that! It will KILL her! No stake necessary, man. That's probably why the Oracle told you not to let her know about them, Vince. It's in the Old Commandments of Vampire. The book that explains powers...it states 'if a vampire possesses a power that is untapped, then the soul and power of the possessor will die, therefor killing the vampire who beholds the Old
Magics
.'"

Vince just stared at him, face paling to a sickly gray. "Do you just memorize that stuff?" He asked idly, hanging his head in stark despair. Without waiting for an answer he muttered, "Shit, how am I g
oing to fix this damned mess?"

Splice winced at his cousin's use of vocabulary. It was rare for this master of torture to cuss, and when he did it meant that he was close to his breaking point.

"Okay, let's just stay rational and
think,
cuz
." Splice said, sitting back down on the bed. "So, you've been lying to her since she entered the next life?"

Vince
nodded,
eyes darting to the door as if someone might be listening, then averting back to Splice.

"And you've covered up her marks, told her that the soul-tugs she gets were because you two are mates? Do you even know what a 'soul-tug' is?"

Vince shook his head no and waited for Splice to tell him.

"Only copy-cats get it. It tells the copy-cat who has a power and who doesn't have a power. The soul of vampire isn't like the human
one,
it's harder, less breakable. It contains the Old
Magics
," Splice explained, "which are the things that allow vampires to live and allow some to get extra abilities, a sixth sense. In
Viktoria's
case she has a sixth and a seventh sense, which makes her soul even more fragile than it should be, seeing as she's
friggin
' half human! And now, her powers are deteriorating and she's slowly dying inside...what can we do about this little dilemma?"

The two vampires fell into a thoughtful silence....this was not going well at all, Splice thought and saw the same feeling written plainly all over
 
Vince's tortured face.

So, Splice thought, the torturer gets tortured, hmm, interesting twist.

Vince shot him another I'll-kill-you-with-my-bare-hands looks as if he knew what Splice had been thinking.

"Sorry," Splice muttered. "Do you want me to tell her? I can make it look like you didn't know anything..."

Vince groaned, leaning his head back against his chair and closing his eyes as he said, "Great, make me look stupid now, too."

Splice rolled his eyes at his cousin, "I think I know a way to keep her living for a few days while we think of a plan, but I also think you won't like it..."

Vince opened his eyes a slit and glared at Splice. "What do you mean?"

"Well, a vampire with power can transfer their...power-energy into another vamp with
an ability
, although it leaves the donor rather weak." Splice trailed off, was he really going to give some girl his own energy to keep her alive and drain himself of life in the process...?

"You'll be willing to do that for
Viktoria
?" Vince asked, dumbfounded.

"Yes, after all, I owe you for taking care of
Raina
while I've been gone."

"Okay. So, now to the part where I might not like, explain." Vince commanded, not in the mood for a polite question.

"Well, in order to give her that kind of life- okay, well, to do that it gets
kinda
intimate..."

Vince went stiff. "How intimate, Splice?"

"Blood-drinking between the donor and the acceptor..."

Splice's cousin was silent and all the while
Splice
just wanted to crawl into a ditch and never come out. When a vampire bites another vampire it was because they were mates, another vamp didn't just randomly go up to some
vampiress
and sink his teeth into the woman if she wasn't his mate....

Vince sighed, "How long will this...intimacy keep my angel alive? And how many times will you have to do...it?"

"
Viktoria's
already pretty drained, I can tell by her soul-tugs. They're hungry, not subtle like a normal tug would be. So I'll have to do that
alot
. And it should keep her going for a good week if we exchange twice a day." Splice answered, not meeting his Vince's gaze that was filled with so much feeling that he couldn't even show any kind of emotion.

Vince stood from his seat, "If this is going to work, we have one problem."

"And what would that be?"

"How are we going to convince
Viktoria
to feed from you?"

Splice chuckled slightly, "There's no 'we' to that part, that's ALL you."

"Great," Vince growled and smashed his fist into the wall.

Splice sighed, "I'm going to go feed,
cuz
. Any more schemes we need to come up with."

"Just leave for now, Splice, I need to be alone." Vince breathed, back to Splice, head resting on the wall a few feet away from the hole in the drywall.

Splice obeyed to command thinking, Vince has finally reached his breaking point, prepare for the explosion.

Chapter 26

A wave of sudden vertigo swept over Tori as she took her first step down the stairs. Everything seemed to blur in front of her for a moment, the world swimming before her bleary eyes. What was happening? Her head ached suddenly, the dizziness accelerated and all of a sudden she found herself tipping over, body falling down the stairs, hitting each ledge with a sickening thud.

Tori must've blacked out for a moment, for she found herself at the bottom of the staircase, body aching, mind reeling at how fast she hit the floor, the last thing she remembered was the spinning world and her face coming close to the black-oak wooden stairs...

She barely had enough energy to move her head and open her mouth to let out a slight shout for help that couldn't have carried all the way to Vince's room, but he heard, he always seemed to hear her...Tori stared up at a blurry black and white form at the top of the stairs, not sure if it was her Vincent or...

"
Viktoria
?"
 

It was Splice, not Vince....where was Vince?

"What happened?" Splice asked, feet moving swiftly and gracefully down the steps until he reached her, offering a hand. "Are you okay?"

Tori sighed and allowed Splice to help her up, one cool hand on the small of her back, the other still clasping her hand after she was standing. Right as Tori touched his skin, the images around her sharpened painfully, every color, shade, hue, they all cleared up into they were nearly glowing with radiance. It was as if Splice had sent power- energy through her, strengthening her. Tori locked eyes with Splice and the room around her seemed to be leeched away as the rusty-red color of Splice's eyes sucked her in, nearly drowni
ng her in an odd familiarity...

Splice inclined his head, pulling Tori
closer,
wiping her mind of any thought, sweeping it clear of any person that seemed to matter...Tori began to stand on her tip-toes, their faces getting closer and closer.

Splice's lips brushed hers slightly when, suddenly, Tori's mind caught up to her actions. She tore away from him, stumbling backwards, her newly found strength draining when their physical connection snapped.

"Uh, um," Splice looked away, fumbling with his words, glancing anywhere but at Tori. "
Er
, I'm going to go feed now." Splice slipped away, his voice reaching a peak as if he wasn't finished speaking.

Tori didn't really mind, she minded the fact that in that split second where she and Splice were about to- about to KISS, she had forgotten all about Vince....he had flew out of her mind like a leaf being carried on the wind.