Charlotte & Sebastian (10 page)

Chapter Nineteen

She had no idea how long she'd been held captive by Lucien but her weight had dropped dramatically with the lack of food.

Lucien had come to her every day with someone new and killed them in front of her. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could withstand it. She needed sustenance of some kind and the only choice she was being given was blood.

Her resistance was crumbling.

Sitting on the edge of her bed she clutched at her head as the latest dead body lay slumped against her cell door.

I will not feed from her, I will not feed from her! She chanted desperately of the pretty blonde victim who Charlotte guessed was barely out of her teens.

Her stomach cramped painfully and she sobbed.

Sebastian never need know
, a voice whispered in her head. It didn’t sound like her voice. It sounded crueller and deeper.
You need the blood,
it continued.

Eyes tracking across the cell they locked on the clotting blood on the floor and her mouth watered. Charlotte swallowed compulsively.

The voice was right. Seb would never know she'd had fresh blood.

Standing, she walked closer to the dark pool on the floor and knelt down beside it. Reaching out she ran her fingers through the thick liquid and stared at it with hunger.

A clang came from somewhere beyond her cell, followed by hurried footsteps, and she suddenly came out of her stupor and the hunger she'd felt turned into revulsion and she wiped her fingers on her dirty clothing, needing the evidence of her weakness gone for whoever was coming.

The dark outline of someone appeared outside her cell and she waited. They swore colourfully and her brows pulled together. All the guards she'd encountered knew what was going on down here. His reaction made little sense to her.

“Charlie?”

It was a quiet whisper but she recognised the voice. “Seb?”

He stepped up to the cell bars, avoiding the blood on the floor, and she did the same. His features came into focus and she could have cried with relief. “I'm so happy to see you,” she whispered, her voice clogged with emotion.

“
I'm going to get you out of here, I promise.” He looked her over for several long seconds before he moved away and unclipped a radio from his belt. “I've found her, start the attack. If you find Lucien, remember, he's mine.”

Tears coursed down her cheeks but at that she said, “Lucien's mine!”

“Scrap that, Lucien is Charlie's.”

“
Roger.”

He clipped the radio back to his belt and extracted a key from his trouser pocket. A key she recognised. “How did you—?”

“I'll explain everything later. Right now we need to get you out.” He hesitated a second and nudged the body with his boot.

“
I haven’t fed on any of them,” she told him. “I refused, even though it was all I was offered.”

Seb's eyes flared that icy blue. “You haven’t fed at all?” Charlotte shook her head. “Then we'll have to let you feed a little from me until we get out of here.”

Inserting the key in the lock, he turned it and stepped over the body so he could enter her cell. Charlotte didn’t waste any time and flew into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his chest.

Seb's arms came around her and squeezed briefly. “We don’t really have time now, Charlie. They're going to—” a loud boom split the silence, cutting him off. “They're going to divert attention so I can get you out of here and then start a full blown attack on this place. You need to feed so you can fight, if needed, and then we're leaving this hell hole.”

Taking a step back, he quickly drew his wrist to her mouth and the smell of his skin alone had her mouth watering. She'd missed that smell.

Her fangs lengthened and she struck as gently as possible considering her hunger and gripped his wrist in both hands as his blood ran into her mouth. Her eyes closed in bliss and she drank deeper, a moan vibrating up her throat at the ambrosia like feeling of Sebastian's blood in her mouth.

Her lover let her drink for several minutes before gently prying her away from his wrist. Charlotte's eyes flew to his and saw the icy blue that told her he wasn’t as unaffected as he seemed.

“
We need to go.”

She nodded and licked at the corner of her mouth where she could feel a small smear of Seb's blood and heard his growl of hunger. Her lips curved a little, happy she still had that affect on him in her current underfed state. “Then let's get out of here.”

They turned and left the cell, stepping over the cold body on the ground and hurried down the silent corridor to the doorway at the end. Sebastian held up a hand, signalling she should stay, and quietly turned the handle and peeked out. With the door now open, gunfire and shouting could be heard and Charlotte realised the door had been sound proofed. No wonder she'd never heard a peep in all the time she'd been down in the cell.

She briefly wondered what the hell they were going to see on the other side of the door as Sebastian beckoned for her to follow him as he slipped outside.

Charlotte could hear distant shouting and gunshots as they hurried through the larger room to the door on the other side. Sebastian held his hand up again and she waited as he looked through the small gap he made before giving the gesture to tell her it was safe. She rolled her eyes at him but followed obediently.

That was until she reached a crossroad in the long corridor and came to a halt as she recognised it from earlier on in her capture. She'd been brought this way when they'd moved her from her previous cell. Charlotte's gaze moved one way and then the other as she tried to remember which way she'd been brought from.

Sebastian appeared at her side. “Charlie, we need to get out of here. Come on.”

Shaking her head, she stared down the left passage. “I know this corridor,” she told him. “Lucien had me taken from a much plusher room when he realised I wouldn’t have sex with him and had me taken to the cells. I came this way, I remember.”

Seb had gone as still as a statue. “He tried to have sex with you?” His voice was calm but his jaw was clenched and his eyes icy.

Charlotte ignored it for the time being. “I'm assuming that room was his. If I can retrace the route, we can find him. Kill him.”

“He tried to—”

She cut him off the only way she knew how: with a kiss. Sebastian was tense beneath her lips but he quickly relaxed and kissed her back, his hands gripping her hips with brutal intensity as he walked her backwards until her back hit the wall. He held her there with his body as he worked out his relief and anger in the kiss.

When he finally pulled away, they were both a little breathless. “You can remember the route to this room you were kept in?”

She nodded her head jerkily. “I think so.”

Reaching for the radio on his belt, he held it to his mouth. “Change of plan. We aren’t coming out; we're going for Lucien. Start the attack.”

“
Copy that.”

Multiple explosions sounded seconds later and the wall shook at her back. The lights flickered above them as Sebastian twined their fingers together. “Let's go find the bastard.”

Chapter Twenty

Charlotte jogged down the left corridor, her fingers still clutching Seb's. As they reached the end she glanced at the door in front of her and then at the staircase to her right. She tried to remember which way she'd been brought by the guards.

Closing her eyes she thought back. Stairs; she'd come down some stairs and been taken through the door to the lab.

“This way,” she said, and tugged him towards them.

The floor rumbled beneath them and loose items clattered to the floor. One item, probably a vase, smashed, but they paid it no heed as they hurried up the flight of stairs.

There was a guard at the top, luckily he had his back to them. He was human, an easy opponent.

Sebastian tugged on her arm to stop her from going for him and stepped past her to strike. He wrapped his arm around the guards throat and held on as the man struggled, his face going a bright red as he fought for breath. Seconds later he slumped in Seb's hold, out cold. Seb lowered him to the floor gently and stepped over the body to scan the hallway before them.

“Which way now?” He asked.

Charlotte pointed to the left and the door at the end. She glanced to right again, to check, and saw that the hall turned at the end. That wasn’t right. It had been a direct route until the crossroads downstairs. “Yeah, it's this way. That room at the end.”

Her eyes met his. Purple meeting blue.

Seb's hand caught hers again and squeezed. “You know if he's in there, he wont be alone, right?”

With a nod of understanding, she gave his hand a return squeeze. She knew what he wasn’t saying. Of course she knew. Neither of them could make it out of this alive. Not if Lucien had barricaded himself in with numerous human guards who were likely to shoot at anything that moved.

Together they moved forward.
The door opened suddenly and they dropped into fighting stances as three guards filed out of the room, machine guns in hand.
Sebastian was a blur as he launched himself at the men, managing to take two down with him to the floor. The third turned for a second to watch his two comrade's struggle and Charlotte took advantage of his distraction. She ran at him as fast as she could, probably a blur much like Seb had been, and caught him in the chest with her hands sending him flying backwards into the wall. He collapsed to the floor with a groan but pushed himself back to his feet and fired his gun.
Time seemed to slow and she saw each bullet as it headed for her. Swerving her body left and right—just like something out of The Matrix—she managed to avoid them all until all the guard was left with was an empty chamber. The guy continued to try and shoot, his eyes wide as they met hers.
She couldn’t help the smile that graced her lips, or the evil tilt to it.
Arms wrapped around her middle from behind, trapping her arms at her sides. Charlotte snarled and threw her head back, smashing it into the guards unprotected nose with a crunch. He howled and his arms dropped away from her. She spun and the smell of blood flooded her senses as blood flowed freely from his broken nose.
Before she could do anything Sebastian punched the man in the side of the head and he dropped to the floor out cold.
She opened her mouth to thank him when his eyes widened. “Duck!” She didn’t question the order and dropped to the floor, hearing the whoosh of something fly over her head and the dull thud of it hitting something. Charlotte's eyes widened as she saw the blade protruding from Sebastian's chest.
Her head whipped around to the remaining guard and his eyes widened at whatever he saw on her face. Charlotte was at his side in an instant and grabbed his right arm with both hands. He tried to pull it from her grip but she refused to let it go. In a cold move she broke his arm, snapping both bones in a quick movement of her hand. The man screamed before passing out from the pain.
Quickly returning to her lover's side she winced as she saw him pull the knife from his body. He gritted his teeth as he finally removed the five inch blade from his body and dropped it to the floor.
“Seb?”
He waved away her concern and walked the few steps to the door. “We need to end this. Now.”
Nodding, she stood at his side and turned the handle on the door and pushed it wide open.
The room looked empty.

Charlotte didn’t buy it. Lucien wasn’t the type to give up without a fight.

She stepped over the threshold and glanced about the room. It looked exactly as she remembered from her short stay. Sparsely furnished but expensive.

Pushing out with her senses she tried to locate him in the room but felt nothing at all. Either the room was protected from such things or he wasn’t here. She dreaded to think it was the latter. He had to be here.

“Lucien, you're going to lose. Your men are dying or being detained at the hands of the Agency. They have the place surrounded. You cant escape. I won't let you escape. Neither will Sebastian. You may as well hand yourself in.”

A wry chuckle echoed through the room making it impossible to tell where it had originated from. Her eyes danced across the room looking for something that didn’t fit.

“Why would I do that,” he asked, “when it would be so easy to kill both of you?”

Charlotte tensed, her body ready for anything that might happen.

A sudden disturbance of air behind her had her spinning around to see Lucien had managed to sneak up on Sebastian and had him by the throat, his claws embedded in her lovers throat causing little beads of blood to run down his neck.

Instinctively she took a step forward.

“Huh uh,” Lucien shook his head and dug his claws deeper. Seb grunted with the pain and met her eyes, the icy blue depths urging her to finish it. Her own pleaded with him not to do anything stupid.

Of course he didn’t notice...or chose to ignore her.

In the next second Sebastian sagged in Lucien's arms causing them to stumble. Lucien grunted from the weight and let go.

In that split second that he was distracted she flew at him. He sensed her coming a fraction too late and was unable to move fast enough to avoid her tackle. She managed to catch his shoulder and he lost his balance, crashing to the floor. Charlotte tucked and rolled, ending up in a crouch a few feet from him and snarled a warning.

Lucien bared his own fangs and sprang to his feet, his bloody claws slicing at the space she'd been seconds before.

She brought her leg around in a powerful roundhouse kick that connected with his unprotected ribs and the sound of breaking bones reached her. Lucien let out a wounded cry and tackled her to the floor lightning quick. His fist had connected with her face before she could get her bearings and white hot pain flared through her. He hit her again, harder than the first time, and her vision blacked out for several seconds.

A loud thud had her eyes blinking open again and she saw Sebastian holding something heavy looking which he's just hit Lucien with.

Her eyes stayed on her lover for several seconds taking in the blood still running down his neck from the wound Lucien had inflicted and that on his chest from the knife wound, which should have almost healed by now.

He swung it again and Lucien slid off her body with a groan.

Charlotte scooted backwards away from him and pushed to her feet. Sebastian came to stand at her side and they stared down at the injured vampire. Lucien's head now had a slight indent on the left side from the force of the blow Sebastian had dealt and he was bleeding from several places. He was a sorry sight to behold. Luckily for them it would take hours for him to recover from such injuries if not days.

A lethal looking serrated blade was offered to her handle first and she looked at it in wonder.  “Where'd that come from?”

Sebastian's lips quirked, “My pocket.”

Raising her brow, she asked, “And you forgot about it until just now?”

“
No. But you wanted to be the one to finish him. Here.”

He offered her the blade again and she took it, testing the weight of it in her hand. It was fairly heavy but it felt right. It had a swirling tribal like pattern engraved into the metal and she absently traced a curve as she admired it. It was the perfect weapon; beautiful and deadly.

Shouts and footsteps sounded somewhere outside in the hallways and Seb touched her neck gently. “You don’t have much longer before they find us, Charlie. It's now or never.”

Eyeing the blade once more, she slowly moved to Lucien's side and dropped into a crouch near his head. “You should have listened,” she told him calmly. “I said you couldn’t escape and you haven’t. You're a monster, Lucien. You don’t deserve to live after what you've done to all those people over the years. My family didn’t deserve to die like that; nobody deserves to die like that!” A garbled sound was his only response. “This is justice for everyone you've ever hurt,” and with that she slammed the knife into his chest, straight through his heart.

Lucien's eyes widened in the second it took for him to die and then he burst into ash, gone forever.

The door was flung open behind them and Agency staff rushed into the room. Mikey, Sarah and Harry pushed past the line of agents and met their eyes in turn.

Sebastian nodded once and smiles broke out amongst them in celebration of one of the evillest vampires in history meeting his end.

“
Mission complete. Let's clear out, guys!” Mikey called and everyone began to file back out of the room.

Charlotte found Seb's hand and gave it a squeeze.

They'd survived.

THE END