Forsaken by the Others

Sara led the way, bounding up the stairs two at a time. I couldn’t really blame her
for wanting to rush out. Yet she stopped at the door, blocking the way out.

I started to ask her what was wrong, but the words trailed off as a foul stench wafted
into the room. All the anger faded away like smoke on the wind as the combination
of death and rot invaded my nostrils like a physical assault.

The vampires behind me started complaining—some of them blaming Brendan for the stink—but
then Sara was stumbling back into me, and I didn’t have time to worry about where
it was coming from.

Bloated, discolored fingers with long, jagged nails were grabbing at Sara’s shoulder
and arm, dragging her out through the door. By the time I got over my shock enough
to reach for her, she was gone. . . .

HUNTED BY THE OTHERS

 

TAKEN BY THE OTHERS

 

DECEIVED BY THE OTHERS

 

STALKING THE OTHERS

 

FORSAKEN BY THE OTHERS

 

 

 

NOCTURNAL
(with Jacquelyn Frank,
Kate Douglas, and Clare Willis)

 

THE REAL WEREWIVES OF VAMPIRE COUNTY
(with Alexandra Ivy, Angie Fox, and Tami Dane)

 

 

 

AN H&W INVESTIGATIONS NOVEL

ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

Every part of me ached. Though I was wrapped up in blankets, curled up on my side
in bed, I was cold, too. Maybe it was my own shivering that stirred me out of sleep.
Whatever it was, I didn’t want to move right away.

Then something cool and spidery shifted under the covers, brushing over my stomach.

Startled, I screamed and twisted away, flailing at the sheets to bat it off. It only
tightened against me, yanking me back against a hard, male body.

A clearly naked—
quite
hard—male body.

“Shush, now. You’ll wake the whole building.”

Oh, hell.

My voice was a lot more gravelly and perhaps a touch more peeved than it needed to
be. “Let go.”

“Hmm. Someone is not a morning person.”

Annoyed for no reason I could readily put my finger on, I shoved at Royce’s arm, trying
to get him off me.

It was like trying to move a boulder. The rumble of his laughter vibrated through
my body, my hot skin pressed to his cold. It was only when he took hold of the wrist
of the hand I’d locked on his arm and rolled so he was on top that it struck me how
easily he overpowered me.

Which served as another reminder. The belt was gone. I wasn’t turning Other.

I should have been happy, I suppose. Maybe the twinge of disappointment I was feeling
came from trading one version of my own personal idea of hell for the uncertain future
of being a legally bound and contracted vampire’s toy.

Bitter? Me? Perish the thought.

Wriggling, I pushed at Royce’s arm with my free hand again, wincing as the pressure
of his body rubbing against mine revealed a whole slew of hurts from my battle with
Wesley—and more than likely from the far more pleasurable activities that had come
after.

He didn’t let go, one hand coming up to tweak one of my nipples. “Much as I enjoy
that delightful squirming you’re doing, I wish you would relax. I know you’re feeling
regrets—don’t bother trying to deny it; I can feel it as well as you can—though I’ll
be damned if I understand it.”

That did it. Snarling, I slammed a fist against his arm. Most likely it was surprise
rather than pain that made him move, but he finally let me go and pulled back, putting
enough distance between us for me to whirl on him. I twisted around onto my knees,
leveling a shaking finger at him.

“Don’t even pretend like you don’t know. You feel what I’m feeling, don’t you? Don’t
you know just how damned
creepy
that is? How invasive? ”

The thought alone made me ill. I was his property now, and not just on paper.

He owned me, body and soul. Not only had I abandoned my morals and common sense last
night, I’d
liked
it. Liked the feel of his lips and tongue and fingers and other parts so intimately
pressed against mine, all over, inside me, all while he drank my blood. What the hell
was wrong with me that I’d
liked
being wrapped in Death’s arms and pounded into the mattress while my life was siphoned
away a sip at a time?

Images of all of the ways he could take advantage of me while I was unable to defend
myself whirled through my head like a maelstrom of horror-show terrors, a painful
reminder that now I was just a blood whore, a plaything, and that I’d willingly put
my life in his hands. Something very close to terror warred with the anger, but I
wasn’t about to give in to the desire to run screaming from his bed. The things he
could do to hurt me ran far deeper and were many times more intimate than the threat
of what he could do with his fangs or physical strength, and running from them—from
him—wasn’t an option.

“Shiarra, I’m hardly—”

“Oh, fuck
‘hardly.’
You know exactly what you’ve done. Instead of being Other, I’m just Other property
now. A toy, right? One you can use or discard or bleed dry—”

“Shiarra.
”

The sharp tone of his voice cut right through the head of rant-fueled steam I was
working up. He could have stopped a charging bull with that tone.

I shut my mouth and glared at him. He met my gaze squarely, his dark eyes narrowed
and unflinching.

“You know better by now. You know you’re not just a meal on legs. You know you’re
more to me than entertainment.”

That was . . . not what I had been expecting him to say.

“You,” he continued, and this time I didn’t withdraw as he leaned forward to gather
my shaking hands in his, “have continued to frustrate and fascinate me since we first
met. Do you realize that not one of my people noticed anything was wrong with me when
I was under the influence of the
Dominari
Focus? Not one of them, Shiarra. Yet you, someone I could have hurt or destroyed
in so many ways, chose to save me rather than leave me to my fate. Why would I ever
hurt someone who did something so selfless on my behalf?”

A growing lump made it too hard to squeeze any words out in answer. I turned my eyes
down, unable to meet his stare, focusing on our entwined fingers instead. He might
have had a point, but it didn’t mean I was ready to put my trust in him.

His grip tightened, just a bit, before he pulled one hand free and shifted on the
bed. He brushed the back of his hand against my cheek before sliding his fingers under
my jaw to tilt my head up so I would look at him. Stubborn to the end, I closed my
eyes.

“I’ve been over this with you before. You still have doubts. Why?”

After taking a few moments to swallow the emotions clogging my throat and to collect
my thoughts, I attempted to answer him. He was being candid with me. Even if the only
way I could get the words out was slow and halting, I’d try to do the same for him.

“Doubting is one of the things I do best, I guess. It’s just that being with you like
this—like last night—it means my dad was right. I’m not a Waynest anymore. Not myself
anymore. Just another vampire’s puppet.”

I peered up at him through my lashes, trying to figure out if that damning little
tidbit had upset him. Royce’s expression was unreadable, his gaze burning into mine.
I wasn’t sure if he was angry with me for being honest with him, but it was far too
late to take the words back, and I’d never been good at hiding my thoughts from him.
Especially when he was staring at me so intently, like he could see right past my
eyes to the darkest thoughts buried in the back of my mind. Like he knew all the horrible
things I didn’t want anybody to know. He might not judge me for them—but that didn’t
mean I wanted him to know every thought inside my head as intimately as he’d come
to learn the secrets of my body last night.

Practically vibrating with tension, I buried my face against his chest so I wouldn’t
have to think about how he was already in my head. Maybe I could pretend when I wasn’t
looking into his eyes that it made some kind of difference. It was as dumb as wishing
for some way of taking back all the stupid things I’d done in the last month or so,
but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t make a valiant effort at denial.

I think he got the picture that talking about the situation was only making things
worse. His voice, when he finally spoke, was strangely gentle, and made me feel like
an even bigger fool for finding comfort in it.

“Even after last night—you still think that I was only using you, or would abandon
you once I got what I wanted?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. He ran his fingers through my hair and down my back,
not saying anything for a time. It took awhile, but after the worst of my trembling
tapered off, he slid a hand between us and nudged my chin up again so he could peer
into my eyes.

“What is it you fear has changed about you? What do you feel I have taken from you?”

Biting my lip, I looked away again before answering him. Though it was hard to speak
without breaking into tears, making the words soft and breathy, I’m pretty sure he
still heard me just fine. “My soul. My free will.”

Shaking from a mix of stress and fatigue and a sickness more of mind than body, I
jerked out of his grip and put some distance between us, turning my back on him as
I swung my legs over the side of the futon—not that there was far for my feet to go
to reach the floor—and put my head in my hands. He might own me now, but that didn’t
mean I had to like it.

What hurt worst of all was knowing that my dad was right. I wasn’t fit to be a Waynest.
I wasn’t even my own person anymore. Without the belt, I was just another helpless,
hapless human, at the mercy of a monster who could feed off of or kill me at any time
with no cost to himself. No safety nets. No taking it back. I’d put myself here, and
now I would have to suffer the consequences of my own choices.

The vampire’s hand settled on my shoulder. The irony of that possessive gesture coinciding
with my thoughts wasn’t lost on me. If anything, it made it harder to get the tears
under control. When I didn’t turn around, he gripped my upper arm, not tight enough
to hurt, but definitely enough to keep me from pulling away from him again.

“Shiarra, please look at me.”

I wouldn’t—couldn’t do it. He made a soft, frustrated sound in his throat before speaking.

“I wish I had some way of expressing to you how much you mean to me in a way that
you would accept. You saved my life, Shiarra, back when I meant nothing to you. You’re
brave when you have every reason to run scared, you’ve shown a remarkable ability
to think on your feet, and you’re resourceful. You’ve faced many of your fears, which
is more than could be said for some of the most loyal of my number—but you hold to
this idea that belonging to me makes you less than a person, and it’s simply not true.
You are no less the woman you were before you let me touch you last night, and I have
no intentions of discarding you like some broken toy.”

“This isn’t something you can fix, Royce,” I said. My voice might have been thick
with tears, but I was proud of myself for being able to say what I was thinking for
once instead of choking on my own angst like a brooding teenager. “You were just .
. . you. It was my choice. I let it happen.”

His voice was deadly cold and quiet. “Are you telling me you consider last night a
mistake?”

I twisted to look at him, shocked.

He leaned in, using his grip on my arm to push me to my back. Before I knew it, his
fingers, icy and implacable, tightened around my wrists. The growl rumbling in his
throat made my knees quiver, and I gasped as my hands were abruptly pinned above my
head, his lips brushing over my throat with a teasing rake of fangs as he leaned into
me. His usually smooth voice came out rough, ragged, and I could very nearly taste
the anger and frustration radiating from him around the bitter flavor of fear on my
tongue.

“Why is it you can’t accept that I don’t intend you any harm? I have fought everything
that I am to be what I thought you would desire of me. I have left you to live your
life as you wished it, rather than as I willed it. Do you know how difficult it was
to wait idly by while you hemmed and hawed about whether you could trust me? Don’t
you know that the temptation to interfere with your choices was nearly unbearable?”

“Don’t you know that’s what scares me about you?” I shot back.

That seemed to startle him out of his sudden surge of anger. Though he drew back,
peering down at me, his eyes still glittered with a hint of red deep in the pupils,
pinpoint sparks gleaming like the reflection of light on his fangs.

His voice, though it had deepened with his anger, was steady. “I have been as kind
and generous and understanding as I know how to be, Shiarra. I waited for you to come
to me of your own will—and now that you have, you think that what we did was a mistake?
After all that I have done? Still you spurn me, fear me. Am I not generous enough?
Have I not been merciful? What must I say or do to make you understand that I have
leashed
everything
that I am so that you would choose me of your own will?”

“I don’t know,” I cried, voice breaking even though I was doing my best not to let
him see how much the truth of his words stung. “Don’t you think I know it’s stupid?
For God’s sake, look at you! You’re a walking wet dream, you’re great in bed, you’ve
got money and power and you have this fascination with me I can’t even begin to fathom.
I
know
you haven’t done anything to hurt me, but I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop—I
just don’t know, Royce! I wish I had a neat answer wrapped up in ribbons and bows
to give you, but I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m so scared of what I’ve done
and what I’m becoming that I can’t even think straight anymore. For crap’s sake, I
barely trust myself, let alone someone I hardly know who holds the power of life and
death over me. I’m not even close to coming to terms with what I did this month, so
to ask me to come to grips with how I feel about you, too—please, just give me time.
Please.”

An aggravated hiss escaped from behind his clenched teeth before he leaned in. He
closed his eyes, his hair becoming an inky curtain as he rested his brow lightly against
my own. It took him a bit to speak again. Probably trying to collect himself so he
wouldn’t throttle me out of sheer frustration.

“If you think I’m about to let your inaccurate, specious beliefs about me continue
to stand, you are very sorely mistaken. You are every bit as human now as you were
when you first entered my home last night. I have done nothing—
nothing
—to change that. Don’t hate yourself for letting me make you feel good. Giving in
to me isn’t a crime. Liking the things I make you feel isn’t a sin against your family
or your God. There is no shame in it. I won’t tolerate these misconceptions any longer,
or see you destroy yourself, physically or emotionally, now that you’re finally mine—do
you understand? You mean too much to me for me to allow that to happen.”