Caught in Darkness (32 page)

“Okay,” Allison said, taking a
heavy breath. She nodded slowly and Veronica recognized the gesture as
Allison’s way of reassuring herself of something. Their eyes met for several
seconds before Allison forced herself to her feet and said, “Then I guess I’ll
go. But, V…if this is goodbye, then promise me one thing?”

“Absolutely,” Veronica replied,
attempting a reassuring smile. She kept her seat on the couch, just to be safe,
so she was forced to look up to meet her friend’s gaze.

A teary smile lifting Allison’s
lips, Allison said, “Be beautifully happy.”

All Veronica could offer in
response was a nod and her own teary smile as tears spilled from behind her
eyes.

Chapter Eighteen

“Distract me,” Veronica mumbled
with her head on Seth’s shoulder. She was leaning into him, hands curled into
his shirt and nose brushing his collar. They’d fallen into silence after
Allison had let herself out and Veronica was trying to cling on to her best
friend’s request. At the very least she didn’t want to have what seemed like it
might be the ultimate breakdown. She swallowed heavily and said, “Tell me about
Bonding. It won’t hurt for you to explain it to me, will it?”

Seth’s arm tightened around her,
this thumb rubbing slow, soothing circles into her side. “No,” he assured her. “It
won’t.” He was quiet for a second before adding, “In short, a Bond is an
unbreakable link between two vampires. Once a Bond is formed their souls will
have merged completely, meaning that if one of the vampires should die then the
other will also die.”

“Wow,” Veronica
whispered,
her grip loosening as she tried to imagine that level of connection. “How does
that work?”

“Bonds take four days to fully
form,” Seth replied. “For three days and three nights the two vampires can only
drink from each other, and they can only drink once per twenty-four hour
period. Vampire blood doesn’t have everything we need to maintain our strength,
so by denying our bodies another source of nutrition we’ll become weaker. Our
strength will wane and we’ll be vulnerable. By the dawn of the fourth day, if
both vampires have survived and restrained themselves from drinking from
another source, the Bond will be formed. They’re free to feed however they
choose.”

“And it’s irreversible?” Veronica
asked quietly. She could already see why Seth had said she wasn’t ready. She
couldn’t imagine only feeding once a day—and she knew she hadn’t been drinking
vampire blood, though she’d never asked.

“Yes,” Seth said. “For the rest of
eternity the vampires will remain connected. I’ve heard that Bonds allow the
vampires to know when the other might be in danger, as well as providing a sort
of internal radar that inevitably guides them back to each other. And in
addition to being irreversible, it is also impossible to form subsequent Bonds
with other vampires. As you can imagine, you won’t often run across a
Bonded
vampire.”

“
’Til
death do they part,” Veronica mumbled. Her breath caught in her throat as soon
as the words were past her lips. And he wants to Bond with me…. Love didn’t
even seem like the right word for that commitment. “Are you sure…you want to do
that?”

The steady up-and-down rhythm of
his chest stalled for a second and then his arm tightened again around her, his
thumb ceasing its motions. He shifted, leaning in to her, and brought his free
hand up to frame the side of her face and encourage her to meet his gaze. His
dark eyes were serious and his expression brooked no argument.

“I am,” he said firmly, “because I
love you. Never, in over two hundred years, have I known a woman who’s made me
feel the way you do. If there were a way for a vampire to Bond with a human I
would have suggested it before you’d ever been
Turned
.”

Her words were stuck in a tangle
somewhere in her throat and her eyes were burning again—but for a much better
reason—and she managed a small smile. “That’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s
ever said to me,” she murmured. She leaned up, then, and pressed her lips
firmly against his.

She wanted to ask how long she
needed to wait until she was physically ready. She wanted to tell him that
she’d have said yes if he’d asked when she’d still been human. She wanted to
find something even remotely as heartwarming to say back to him. But all she
could do was kiss him and hope that he got the message. So she poured
everything she could into the kiss, curling her arms around his shoulders as
his hand slid back and tangled in her hair. And she did her best to ignore the
door when it opened.

“Could you at least have the
decency to keep that in the bedroom?”
Jasen
grumbled
irritably.

Veronica pulled back from the kiss
with extreme reluctance, finding herself actually fighting off a pout when Seth
turned his attention to
Jasen
. But her juvenile
reaction was quickly forgotten with
Jasen’s
next
declaration.

“We’ve got to go. Word has it
Richards was spotted heading back to that old house, and someone’s following
him.”

“Anyone we know?” Seth asked, his
eyes narrowing with focus.

“Not sure,”
Jasen
replied. “But he’s not being too subtle. If a fight breaks out in the
neighborhood police could get called.”

Seth cursed beneath his breath and
stood even as he returned his attention to Veronica. “I’m sorry; stay here and
try to get a little more rest. There’s plenty of blood in the fridge.”

“Are you sure I can’t help?”
Veronica asked
,
disliking the idea of having to sit
around at home and wonder what was happening out there.

“You can help the most by staying
inside,” Seth replied. He gave her hand a final squeeze before releasing it and
turning back to
Jasen
. “Let’s go.”

****

The neighborhood still looked
peaceful on the outside, for which Seth was grateful as he and
Jasen
reached the edge of the property line. It was clear
to their ears, however, that all was not peaceful on the inside. They had
barely crossed the driveway when a loud crash echoed from the vicinity of the
living room and the smell of vampire blood began wafting toward them. Without a
word
Jasen
dashed around the house, in search of a
back door, and Seth started up the steps. At least this time he was almost
certain that he wouldn’t be finding Veronica on the other side of the door.

He could hear Richards’s angry
voice before he was able to lay eyes on either party. “You really think you can
take me you fucking newbie?”

“I know the truth!” an unfamiliar,
slightly strained, male voice exclaimed even as Seth kicked the door shut
behind him.

Two pairs of dark, angry eyes
snapped over to him—one wide with shock at the intrusion and the other narrowed
with irritation. Seth took the opportunity to study the scene, noting the
vampire whose name he didn’t know that was standing with his back to the
heavily-covered living room window. The unfamiliar vamp was holding his
opposite arm, a thin and drying stream of blood smeared beneath his hand.

“Hunter,” Richards snarled, bearing
his fangs as he spoke. There was a small dot of the other vampire’s blood on
his upper lip.

The soft click of the back door
barely preceded
Jasen’s
responding commentary as he
declared, “I’ve always found that an odd choice of name for a man who’s not an
Enforcer. But that hardly matters at the moment.”

The unknown vamp’s eyes widened
again, the anger fading, and he looked between Seth and
Jasen
as he fearfully repeated, “E-Enforcer?”

Richards cursed colorfully, glaring
around the room. “Well this is just fucking fantastic.” His glare settled on
his former opponent and he spat, “This is
all your
fault, you know. I’m
gonna
eviscerate you.”

“That’s a big word for an oversized
bully,”
Jasen
commented. “You sure you know what it
means?”

Ignoring
Jasen’s
demeaning banter, Seth turned his attention to the unknown and said, “Whoever
you are, this isn’t your fight. Get out of here; we’ll deal with Richards.” The
last thing they needed to deal with was a newcomer trying to make a name for
themselves by taking on a seasoned murderer.

It was quickly apparent that
something Seth had said had upset him, because the vampire curled his fists at
his side and declared, “You’re all idiots! That’s not Greg Richards!”

“Boy,”
Jasen
growled, “
you’re not impressing
me.”

Richards spun on the other vampire
while
Jasen
was speaking, obviously incensed with his
words and, exclaimed, “Quit saying that!” He punctuated his exclamation by
rushing the boy, fangs bared and fist swinging.

Seth and
Jasen
lunged forward simultaneously, aiming to intercept Richards before he tore out
the boy’s throat. Seth managed to shove the boy back, into the window, and
position himself in Richards’s path even as
Jasen
latched on to their foe’s elbow and yanked him unceremoniously around.

“What are you doing?” the nameless
vamp cried as
Jasen
grabbed Richards by the throat
and hurled him bodily toward the farthest wall in the room. The younger vamp
planted his foot in Seth’s spine as he added, “We can’t kill him until we get
him to admit who he really is!”

“What the fuck is your problem?”
Jasen
demanded, tone somewhere between bored and angry, as
he turned a raised eyebrow back to the boy.

Seth stumbled, caught off-guard by
the kick, and turned to keep the other vamp in his line of sight. “We’re trying
to help you,” he growled, his own temper flaring. “And trust
me,
we know exactly who that is.”

“Clearly you don’t!” the vampire
returned, glare unwavering.

Richards was growling and cursing
as he climbed out of the
hole
Jasen
had helped him put in the wall. “I take it back. I’m
gonna
eviscerate all of you—and yes, I know what that means.”

Seth cut a glance toward Richards,
but
Jasen
drew his attention before he could say
anything.

“Technically Richards is your
problem,”
Jasen
declared, a note of irritation
coloring his voice. “Not that I’m not happy to slaughter him for you, but
Wilson’s my real goal here.” He paused, jerked a thumb toward the boy, and
added, “And he’s pissing me off. So which one do you want?”

“This isn’t target practice,” the
boy argued, “you can’t just pick and choose who you’re going to deal with—and
the guy you think is Richards is mine!”

Jasen
arched a brow at the boy and said, “That was a bad idea.”

“
Jasen
,”
Seth called warily. Now was a bad time to have to remind him that the boy was
likely more misinformed than anything, and that certainly wasn’t a
justification for killing him.

“Let the Enforcer take that brat
off my hands,” Richards laughed. “I’ll be done killing you before he gets
back.”

Cursing under his breath, Seth
returned his attention to Richards. Like it or not he couldn’t afford to be
distracted. This was the best chance he was going to get to make Richards pay
for everything he’d done to Veronica. Still, there was one thing they needed to
know first. “Where’re your little friends?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,”
Richards growled. “But, at the moment, I could care less about those cowards.” He
rushed forward as soon as he was done speaking, aimed straight for Seth.

****

Veronica was standing in the
kitchen, staring into the bottom of her glass and wishing she’d had the
patience to let the blood reach room temperature before drinking it, when an
idea struck her. It was possibly stupid, and Seth would surely not like it. But
she just wasn’t sure she could handle pacing a hole in the floor until he
returned—and she sure as hell wouldn’t be able to get any sleep. She was going
to go stir-crazy if she stayed inside, waiting and worrying, and she doubted a
stir-crazy vampire freshman was good for anyone.

I’m going to do it. It was the only
thing she could do, really, but she had to try to help. So she set the glass in
the sink, filled it with water, and spun on her heel. After detouring to tug on
her shoes and drop her cell phone in her pocket she stepped up to the door. And
then she froze.

This was the part she hadn’t
necessarily thought through. She knew she couldn’t just drive over, because if
anyone saw and recognized her car that could cause all sorts of problems, but that
meant she was going to have to be outside. It was late afternoon/early evening,
and the sun was probably starting to set, but it was still technically sunny
outside. She had a hard enough time standing in front of the bathroom window
with the curtain only half-open. And then, of course, there was the minor
detail of all of the people she’d undoubtedly have to pass between Seth’s condo
and her destination.

And if I don’t go then I’m back to
pacing a hole in his floor.
And waiting.
Really, it
was the waiting that was liable to kill her.

She took a deep breath, clenched
and unclenched her fists, and reached for the doorknob. I can do this.

After stepping into the open
daylight Veronica immediately understood two things. First, she felt like she
might quite literally be melting as the sun pelted her exposed flesh, and,
second, she finally knew why vampires hissed. Hissing was just the only vocally
acceptable response to that kind of pain.

She held her position in front of
the relocked door, lips drawn into a thin line as she attempted to become
accustomed to the heat. Her skin was burning but, fortunately, like any other
burn a lot of the pain was fading now that the initial contact was over. She
still felt like she was going to need an ice bath, but after a minute she found
she could breathe normally again. That was good. Okay; hurdle number one
cleared.