Caleb (36 page)

An
idea nibbled at her mind. She hung over the stairs, pretending a level of
nausea that didn’t exist as she explored back along Vincent’s energy, shielding
as she went, probing until she found that thread of energy she’d marked. She
tested. The shield around it was strong, but not solid. She knew Vincent wasn’t
weak, which meant he just didn’t perceive her as a threat. She could use this.
But not now. Now she needed to deal with the physical man who was advancing on
her in full vamp morph, eyes completely red with rage, talons bared. Shit.

“What?”
She wiped at her mouth. “You don’t like the way I kiss?”

His
snarl sent every reflex into full get-your-ass-out-of-here alert. She vaulted
over the rail and hit the smooth tile floor running. She made it three steps
before he was on her, his weight slamming her down. She brought up her knees,
protecting her stomach. His weight hit her like a ton of bricks, crushing her
knees into her ribs. His hand slapped the floor beside her head, setting off a
ringing in her ear. His other fastened in her hair, yanking her head back.

“If
you kill me you’ll never get what you want,” she gasped.

“I
don’t have to kill you to make you pay.”

Damn,
she wished he hadn’t thought of that. “You realize, of course, people don’t
really say things like that outside of movies, right?”

“Really?”
His weight left her body. Pain flared through her scalp as he yanked her up. He
held her high, her feet barely touching the floor. Tears poured down her
cheeks. She held on to her bravado because it was all she had left. Vincent
shifted his grip to her throat. “Then maybe you should just consider this your
own personal movie set.”

It
was hard to breathe, let alone talk with his hand on her wind-pipe. “If this is
my show, I want say over the script.”

“No.”
His head cocked to the side. “I don’t think so.” He tightened his grip.

She
couldn’t breathe and couldn’t escape. No matter how she kicked and clawed, he
held on, choking the words from existence. Spots spun before her eyes.
Blackness crept into the edges of her vision. In her mind she heard Caleb’s
howl and Vincent’s laughter. Her world diminished to the voices in her head and
the gleam of Vincent’s fangs.

His
lips moved with disjointed flashes of color over the white as he spoke words
she couldn’t hear. He turned and slammed her against the wall. Her head smacked
into the sheetrock. More stars joined the first.

“You
might as well give in. You can’t win.”

Against
him. That’s what he meant. She grabbed for his wrists. His flesh melted like
butter under the rake of her talons, but not his intent. He didn’t let go. The
scent of blood filled her nostrils. Hunger twisted in her gut. Vincent’s laugh
filled the room. The buzzing disappeared.

Give
him what he wants, Allie.
Caleb’s
order came through strong and clear.

No!
She’d never give him what he wanted.

Survive!

“Yes,
Allie, survive.” Vincent echoed the order in a seductive parody. He released
her throat. He brought his wrist up. Blood, thick and rich, dripped onto her
cheek, trailing inward, toward her mouth. She jerked her head to the left. He
brought it back with a ruthless yank. “Feed.”

A
drop hit her tongue. Then another. Her stomach heaved.

Caleb!

She
spat, but couldn’t get rid of the vile taste. Her fangs retracted. Her knees
drew up. The buzzing was back. She shook her head violently from side to side.
Vincent simply put his forearm across her throat.
Caleb!

“He
can’t hear you.” He slashed his wrist with his thumbnail. “Now feed.”

She
struck out with her mind, hit that invisible wall again. Vincent laughed. Blood
poured into her mouth in a torrent she couldn’t avoid. It was either swallow or
drown. Oh God, she’d rather drown but her survival instinct wasn’t quite ready
to give up. She swallowed. The foul blood hit her stomach. The cramps were
immediate. Violent and vicious.

“If
you puke on me, I’ll let you drown in your own vomit.”

He
meant it. Her face felt cold and clammy. Her stomach writhed in a knot of
wrenching pain. No way could she not vomit. No way could she drink more of his
blood. It burned like acid inside. She swallowed back her gorge. Two more
shallow, desperate breaths and she knew her options were coming to an end. She
either had to surrender or die. She looked straight into Vincent’s burning
eyes, Caleb’s order ringing in her memory, and went with the only option she
could accept.

Right
before she vomited, she groaned, “Fuck you.”

THEY
were taking her to see Caleb. Allie stood just ahead
of Vincent and her guards in the doorway of the room that had been her prison
for the last two days and kept her mind locked on that fact. Held it as a
talisman against the weakness that had her swaying. She had to see Caleb. Had
to know he was alive. Of all the doubts that had plagued her since she’d last
seen him, that had been the worst. Wondering if Vincent had killed him.
Wondering if the kernels of hope Vincent handed out that Caleb was alive were
just more of his sick mind games. She didn’t know how she’d missed it during
their dates, but the man was seriously warped.

He
delighted in pain, gloried in inflicting mental torture. Not just on her, on
everyone around. Including the pathetic hopefuls who thought conversion was
theirs for the asking. His to deliver. If they’d bothered to study up, they’d
know Mother Nature didn’t work that way. She had her own plans, complete with
checks and balances.

“Get
moving.”

A
hand landed in the middle of her back, sending her to her knees. She didn’t
have to look to see who it was. One of the hopefuls. Vincent didn’t like to get
his hands dirty. He preferred to have others do it. It increased his delight to
pull the strings that administered the pain. It added another layer of
satisfaction to his need for power.

Sick
bastard.

He
especially liked torturing her. He’d wait until she was practically delirious
with pain from the hunger, or violently sick from the blood they’d forced into
her, and then he’d weave tales of what he’d supposedly done to Caleb. How he’d
died. How he’d suffered. He might have succeeded in driving her crazy with the
emotional torture, with the worry she had that the vile blood was hurting her
baby, except every time he finished a tale, he’d end with, “I let the sun
finish him off.”

He
didn’t know Caleb could walk in sunlight. That was a good sign. She wrapped her
arms around her chest, shuddering from the cold that was embedded so deeply in
her soul that she knew she’d never get warm again, and stood in the doorway to
her room, blinking against the light and the flood of color after the enforced
darkness of the last fourteen hours.

With
a rough jerk on her arm, Vincent pushed her forward. “Let’s go.”

She
took a step, bracing her hand on the wall as dizziness rose. The white robe
they’d put on her swished annoyingly against her bare legs. She hated the damn
thing. It was too long, too white, and left her too vulnerable.

“If
you don’t keep up, I’ll leave you where you drop,” Vincent snapped impatiently.

“Bastard.”
She took another step. The distance between them widened. Allie bit her lip
against the hunger tearing at her strength, pushing back the waves of nausea
that built, swell upon swell. The hall seemed to stretch forever, too long to
contemplate walking if she fixated on the end. By keeping her focus on
Vincent’s back and the mechanics of putting one foot in front of the other, she
got herself moving.

The
hunger blossoming inside magnified the sound of every heartbeat of the hopeful
bimbettes lining the passage. One of the males stepped in front of her, hand
out. He was just as perfect as the women. Perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect
lashes. Perfectly handsome. She waved him aside. Walking was easier now that
she had momentum, and she couldn’t afford to falter. The man stepped aside with
a small bow, the move sending his perfect blond hair sliding over his perfect
broad shoulders. Had Vincent and his cronies physically altered the people or
had they simply pasted an illusion around them, making them merely seem
nauseatingly perfect? Next time Vincent interrogated her she’d ask. She needed
new material to goad him with when he started on his perfect race mantra.

Allie
hugged her middle. Holding on to her sanity with a scant thread, reaching for
humor. Who knew bad guys could be so disgustingly pedantic? It wasn’t like she
was ever going to share his narcissistic dream of a genetically superior race.
She would never feel for him what she felt for Caleb, and if she ever did, she’d
slit her own throat.

She
made it halfway down the corridor before pain writhed like a wild thing inside
her, and for a moment she didn’t have the strength to hold on. She braced her
hands on her knees and landed back against the wall.

“Damn
you, Caleb,” she muttered to her knees. “You owe me for this.”

She
took a breath as the pain lessened, garnering strength in the void before the
next assault. Despite his threat, Vincent waited, implacable and unconcerned.
Obviously, he didn’t see her as a danger.

That
she could make work for her. Vincent absolutely believed she was no threat. Too
unskilled, too . . . weak to be dangerous. But she had skills. Things she’d
discovered in the hours he’d tortured her. And as long as he kept believing her
to be nothing more than a loudmouthed blowhard with grandiose ideas of her own
importance, she might have time to hone those skills. And escape.

But
she wasn’t going anywhere without Caleb. He might be overbearingly protective
and old-fashioned in his ideas, but he was honest, loyal, and caring. And he
was hers. Besides, he was still the hottest thing she’d seen, and her hormones
would shoot her if she just up and left him behind. Hormones could be very
demanding things, she had discovered.

So
could hearts.

She
ignored that prompting from her emotional side. She wasn’t going there right
now.

Vincent
checked his watch. The first sign of impatience she’d seen.

“I
thought you were in a hurry to see that cowboy.”

Bastard.
She pushed off her knees, her bones aching with weariness and weakness, and
went forward. Away from the sunlight. Deeper into the mountain. They passed
doors left and right, but she did not hear the strong, steady heartbeat she was
listening for.

She
needed Caleb. Way down beneath the hunger, deep in the bottom of her soul.
Right there on the level of gut instinct, she needed him. And he needed her. He
was way too serious if left to his own devices, missing a lot of the fun around
him. And as for how she needed him? She forced herself to continue walking. And
sighed.

Quite
simply, the man understood her. He didn’t think less of her for the way she
laughed even when something bad happened. He understood it was her coping
mechanism. Sometimes, she thought he even appreciated it. Men could be strange
beings, but until she had encountered a vampire male, she had never understood
that there was a man who might just fit her. Who would take her humor in times
of stress as an asset. That was a very endearing asset in a man.

They
reached the end of the corridor. The only option was a sharp turn to the right.
Vincent took it and she followed, moving with mechanical precision. The sense
of leaving sunlight was stronger now. She wondered if this meant they were
going underground.

The
corridor ended at a big, impressive-looking door. On the right side perched a
small panel of flashing lights, and the closer they got, the sturdier the door
looked. Caleb must have put up a hell of a fight if they had decided he was
dangerous enough for heavy steel doors and electronic bar locks. Allie strained
for the sound of life, any sign of life, beyond the thick panel, but there was
nothing.

It
took excruciating seconds for Vincent to punch in the code. He didn’t bother to
hide it, which tossed a new ember of worry onto the pile she was collecting.
Why wasn’t he worried about her knowing the code?

The
door slid open on an almost silent whisper. Inside, a row of fluorescent lights
ran the length of the ceiling, reminding her of every science lab she’d ever
seen in every horror movie she’d ever watched. Not comforting.

She
took a step inside, driven by hope. There was no sign of Caleb. Behind her, the
door hissed closed. She spun around, lunging for it, catching it halfway. It
continued on its track with the same silent precision with which it had opened.
Eventually, she had to jerk her fingers free or see them crushed. Why didn’t
she have vampire strength?

Vincent
caught her arm and pulled her back. “You said you wanted to see the cowboy.”

“Caleb’s
not here.”

He
motioned to a door at the other end of the room. “He’s in there.”

Why
would Vincent have Caleb locked in a sci-fi-horror-movie-thriller-lab
environment that was cold, sterile, and intimidating enough to put the fear of
God even into her. “In that particular room? Now?”