Waiting for Darkness (Blood Martyr) (12 page)

I hated getting angry over a man. But coupled with anger at Kieran
’s recklessness was a deep worry for Jamison. I sent some friends to ask about for him, and so far none of them had any news about where he was hiding.

“
I’m sorry, Mother. I’ll be a nice boy,” he said and pulled the sheet up to his nose, blinking owlishly at me.

“
Thank you, Kieran.”

“
What are my boys up to?”

“
Besides scaring away half the people in the waiting room? They’d storm up here if I let them.” I tried to keep my voice light, but I wasn’t too sure if I sounded convincing enough. “I noticed most of them are still scared of me.”

I thought he would
’ve shrugged if it wasn’t for the state of his back. “What can I say? Humans have their bogeymen to deal with. We’ve got you.”

“
Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Back then, I wouldn
’t have minded. Hell, I might’ve even enjoyed the reputation and milked it for all it was worth. But now, now that I was finally humanized…being thought of as a monster didn’t make me feel too hot.

“
But for what it’s worth, you really impressed the boys. They didn’t think you’d be fighting on our side. They say you killed two on your own.”

Another
sin, another stain to deal with. I sort of wanted to go to the nearest church I could find and confess my sins to the father there. Two things stopped me: the nearest church was over twenty minutes away by car, and if I ever stepped over the threshold of a holy building, I was bound to come away with some serious physical damage. I wouldn’t burst into flames, but I’d get burned pretty badly.

“
They were in the way,” I said, trying not to think about how their bones had shattered under my fists. I hadn’t killed in years and couldn’t remember why I loved doing it in the first place.

Even in life, before I was turned, I was a lady of privilege. I spent my days with a needle and embroidery hoop. I was always followed around by four ladies-in-waiting. My father h
eld the king’s ear in all business and religious affairs. I was supposed to get married to the Earl of Sandringham. How did I change from a quiet, retiring thing…to a complete monster?

It made me sick just thinking about it.

Kieran placed a hand over mine, and it felt weird being consoled by someone who lay in a hospital bed. Wasn’t it the other way around?

“
You’ve changed, haven’t you? When you killed Kaleigh, that was the last time you killed a living thing…wasn’t it? I think you’ve lost your taste for killing. Well, damn. I guess it’s true, then.”

“
What’s true?”

A gentle smile graced his lips. It was the sort of smile I would
’ve expected to see on Jamison, not Kieran, and I didn’t like it. It reminded me of Jamison.

“
You’re human. You’re human again, Tanith.”

I snorted. “
Yeah, right. I’m not human. I’ll never be human again. I’ve just gone soft, that’s all. Don’t mistake it for anything else.”

“
Oh?” His eyebrows went up, and I hated even more the questioning look in his eyes. “Is that it, then? Because you’re not out there wreaking havoc in the city, you’re just a big old softie?”

I shuddered at the term. “
Please. I’m soft, not a softie. Don’t call me that. Makes me sound like the Marshmallow Man. And that’s something I will definitely never be, all right?”

His smile turned downright devilish. “
How about the Pillsbury Dough Girl? That better for you, love?”

“
Uh, no.” I matched him smile for smile. “In that case, I don’t think I’d mind being called a softie at all.”

My cell phone rang, and for some strange r
eason I found myself oddly reluctant to receive the call. Intuition, it was. It’s the sort of call you get when you know that everything is bad and things could only get worse.

“
Aren’t you going to take the call? Is it another one of your lovers asking for another night with you?” he teased.

I shook my head. “
No, no, nothing of the sort.”

Walking to the window for a modicum of privacy, I received the call, trying to ignore my intuition. It yelled at me, screeched at me, screamed at me, and try as I might, I
couldn’t dispel its voice from my mind.

“
Yeah?”

“
Tanith, it’s Mitch.”

He was one of the few people I asked to find out where Jamison had run off to. He was a friend, a damn good friend, and without him, I knew I wouldn
’t be where I was.

So many good peop
le in my life...so many people who helped me, at one point or another.

Would I ever be able to repay them for all they
’d done?

He didn
’t sound happy, and my heart lurched, making me feel as though I was about throw up, right there in front of Kieran.

“
You don’t sound pleased. What’s going on?”

A pause lingered on the other end of the line.

“Jamison’s in deep shit, Tanith. He’s in very deep shit, and I’m not too sure if he’s going to be able to make it out alive.”

Well, fuck.

The sad thing was, I couldn’t even say I was much surprised. Trouble had a way of following me, and consequently, those around me. I was starting to seriously contemplate moving out to Mongolia.

“
What sort of deep shit are we talking about?”

Again, silence on the line, as if he wasn
’t sure how to respond.

“
Mitch? You still there?”

“
Yeah. Yeah, still here,” he said and then cleared his throat, as though biding for time. “Hey, Tanith?”

“
Mitch?” My hand tightened around the phone, and I waited for him. “Are you going to tell me, or are we going to have to play a guessing game?”

“
Where are you?”

“
Uh...the general hospital on Florence and Grand. Why?” A pulse thudded painfully slow in the back of my head, and scenario after scenario played themselves out in my mind. Bad, bad scenarios, at that. “What the fuck is going on, Mitch?”

“
Right. See you outside in about fifteen minutes. I’ll tell you everything then,” he said.

“
Hey, wait a mi—”

But the dull buzzing of a disconnected call was the only thing ringing in my ears now, and I shoved the ce
ll phone back in my pocket, feeling more than a little sick.

Sick with worry. Sick with fear.

“Everything all right?”

I turned back to Kieran and pasted a grin on a face that felt horribly wooden. “
Not really. But it’s not the end of the world.”

“
You sure?”

I lied. After all, it
’s something I did well. “Of course. How can it possibly be the end of the world?”

And I was sort of right.

If something did happen to Jamison, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

The end of
my
world?

T
hat’s a different story.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“
Ugliness is superior to beauty because ugliness lasts.”

“He’s in a what?”

It wasn
’t that I was hard of hearing. My hearing was far superior to that of a human, but there were some things that just needed to be said and heard twice.

Like what Mitch had just said and what I just heard.

He tugged on his earlobe, agitation clear in the way his eyebrows furrowed downward. The streetlight glinted off his black hair, making it look almost blue.

“
I’m serious, Tanith. He’s in a cat house.”

I didn
’t like this. I didn’t like this at all. “Which cat house? Catering to what?”

“
It’s an S and M club.”

If Jamison had been in front of me at that very moment, I would
’ve smacked him silly for doing such a reckless, stupid thing. Then again, if he’d been in front of me, Mitch and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.

“
Has he gone completely insane? Why?” There was no point in asking Mitch; he wasn’t very close with Jamison, but I just had to ask.

Mitch shrugged, of co
urse. “Damned if I know.”

“
Well, how long has he been there?” I asked, half afraid of what I’d hear. If it was just one day, then that was all right, there wouldn’t be any permanent damage done, but if it was longer than that…no wonder Mitch had said Jamison might not make it out alive.

“
Can’t say for sure. But I’m thinking, maybe three days. How long did you say he was missing?”

“
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” 

I stared through Mitch's dirty windshield and wanted to cry.

An S&M house. A place where you can be slapped around and slap around people who are looking for it. But the term “slapping around” was light, considering how bad things were in those places. A pretty boy like Jamison wouldn’t even last an hour before someone ended up carving his heart out. And he’d be too goddamn passive to say the safety word…if he even knew about having one.

Mitch peered at his watch, squinting in the darkness. “
It’s four-thirty, and the sun’s coming up in less than an hour. What’s the plan?”

It would be a risky move. But I ne
eded to go and bring Jamison out. Alive. And if he wasn’t…there was going to be hell to pay.

“
Let’s go spring him out.”

* * * *

The S and M club hardly looked like one. In fact, it looked like a regular mansion, built high in the hills of Centenni
al, only twenty minutes away from the bustling city center and where Kieran was hopefully still lying down and letting his wounds heal.

Thick damask curtains covered the windows, and the only sign of it being a cat house was the single bronze rose twined a
round the door knocker. Huge, and even from just looking at the outside, the mansion could have contained more than thirty bedrooms. I tried to not think about where and what Jamison was doing.

I had to admit, though, whoever built this place knew more tha
n a thing or two about discretion and subtlety. Only those skilled in the sexual arts would be aware this was a club. That eased my mind, if by just a little bit. The professionals were generally very good, and they knew how to treat a young blood, which Jamison was, definitely. It was the unskilled lunatics that scared the shit out of me. They wouldn’t know when to stop, and only death could stop them, and even then sometimes death wouldn’t….

I shook my head and snuck a glance at Mitch, who sighed and wrap
ped a burly hand around the knocker and letting it fall several times.

Every second spent outside seemed like hours. In truth, it was only a minute before the door opened, but to me, it felt like fifty years.

“May I help you?”

A woman, shorter than me by a
few inches, stood in the doorway. Her short hair, cut in a pageboy style with wispy bangs that flitted over her delicately arched eyebrows, suited her. A light trace of makeup enhanced her features, although she was beautiful enough not to need it. She didn’t look like a notorious owner of a cat house, and for a moment, I thought Mitch must have brought us to the wrong place.

“
You’re Madame Gabriella?” Mitch asked.

She inclined her head gracefully. “
I am.”