Demon's Kiss (14 page)

“I wouldn't presume too much about the newbie,” Topaz said, glancing Vixen's way.

Vixen responded right away, which Seth found a little surprising, since she seemed so absorbed in her explorations that he'd begun to think she wasn't listening. “I know how to camouflage my presence. I've been doing it all my life.”

“But you've only been a vampire for—how long, Vixen?”

“Mmm, it was springtime. Apple trees were in blossom.”

“Maybe a few months, at the most,” Roxy muttered.

“How is it you've been shielding all your life, if you've only been a vampire for two months?” Seth asked.

She shrugged, walking in that bouncy way she had, up on her toes so she always seemed to be dancing everywhere she went, to inspect the contents of a hanging basket full of ivy. “Had to. Survival and all that.”

Topaz frowned at Seth, who just shrugged, while Reaper went on. “Okay, so we're all actively shielding.”

“I can help with that,” Roxy said. “I can put up wards around the place, cast a reflective circle, draw some runes at the four directions, that sort of thing.”

“I wonder if that's the sort of thing Gregor has done at his headquarters,” Reaper said softly. “It's like there's no one there at all, no energy whatsoever emanating from that place.”

“I think it would take more than magical charms to be that completely effective,” Roxy told him.

Reaper sighed, but shrugged it off and moved on. “Okay, let's begin with what we know. Gregor is the leader, and probably the most dangerous of them all. Jack is likely the second biggest threat. Then we've got—”

“Jack is no threat at all,” Vixen said. “He has…there's a goodness in him.”

“You are a
terrible
judge of character,” Topaz said. “Jack is evil, through and through.”

“He's self-centered. But not evil. I don't think even he knows who he really is. But I do,” Vixen insisted.

“How?” Topaz demanded, and she was searching Vixen's face with a dangerous look in her eyes.

Vixen turned away from the hanging flowerpot and flashed her a smile. “He brought me a blanket.”

“Oh, well, there you have it, then. Proof positive. A blanket.”

“See? I told you,” Vixen said, totally missing the sarcasm in Topaz's tone. “And Gregor is dangerous, yes, and evil, but he's not the biggest threat.”

“Who is?” Reaper asked.

Vixen's smile died, and her face lost its sparkling animation. It just went still, expressionless, and her gaze seemed to turn inward. “Her name is Briar. And she is the darkest, cruelest creature I've ever seen in my life. She's pure evil.”

Reaper averted his eyes, looking genuinely troubled. Seth noticed it, and so, he saw, did Roxy.

“What makes her more evil than Gregor?” Topaz asked. Then she grinned. “I mean, this oughtta be good.”

“Gregor kills for personal gain. He has no remorse, takes what he wants, grows richer and stronger. But Briar…she kills because she enjoys inflicting pain and suffering on others. She likes hurting them. She liked hurting
me.
I could feel it. It fed something in her, some darkness that has devoured her soul and still demands sustenance. Her own suffering can't feed it anymore. There's nothing left. She can't feel pain any longer, I think. She's numb to it. So she feeds that beast inside her with the pain of others.”

She looked at Reaper, and he met her eyes, his own seemingly reluctant. “I've never been more afraid of any creature in my life. And I fear very little, Reaper. Briar is the biggest threat. Believe me.”

He nodded, but said nothing. Seth felt some kind of turmoil going on in him, but he couldn't figure out what it was. Did he know Briar or something? “Having seen her, I agree with Vixen,” Seth said. “She's mean.”

“How many others are there?” Topaz asked.

“I don't know. I was kept in the dungeon. But I know there are other vampires. Younger ones, not close to Gregor. Mostly I only saw Gregor, Briar and Jack and my guards.” She slid her eyes to Seth's. “I thought there were only two or three guards, Seth. I was shocked when so many came after you.”

“We've got to get a handle on how many we're facing,” Reaper said.

“I don't know why,” Seth said. “The solution is obvious, if you ask me. We burn the place to the ground while they sleep. Wipe 'em out, all at once. Nice and clean. Anyone escapes, they're toast.”

“That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard,” Topaz snapped. Everyone looked at her, and she seemed to calm herself. “I mean, suppose there are other captives locked up in there somewhere?”

“She's right,” Reaper said. “Besides, how can we attack by day? We'll be as asleep and helpless as they are.”

“We locate shelter near the house.” Seth was thinking it through as he went along. “We set everything up the night before, while they're out hunting. We rig a remote-control device, so we can set it off just as the day sleep kicks in.”

“Or I could set it off for you,” Roxy added.

Vixen stood there, staring at them. Her eyes were wide, black velvet lashes fluttering like butterfly wings. Seth thought she looked close to tears as her confused gaze moved from one of them to the next.

“Vixen, what is it?” he asked. “What's wrong?”

“You…you're just like they are.” She shook her head, backing away a few steps. “You're going to
burn
them? Burn them alive? All of them? How can you…how…?” Shaking her head harder, she turned and ran.

Seth started to go after her, but Reaper clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Leave her alone. We gave her our word that she would be free to go. You chase her down now, she'll never believe us again.”

“But—”

“He's right, Seth,” Roxy said. “She'll want to come back—to demand an explanation, if nothing more. And once she sees we didn't try to stop her from leaving, she won't be afraid to come back, because she'll know we won't try to hold her. You see?”

“She really does bristle easily, doesn't she?” Topaz asked. “I wonder what her story is.”

“I just hope she gets back before dawn,” Seth muttered. And though it killed him not to go after her, he believed Reaper and Roxy were right. So he waited, and he waited.

But she didn't return. And when the day sleep was calling him, and he could no longer resist its pull, Seth told himself he should have followed her. Because now she was on her own, and anything could happen.

“I'm going after her tonight,” he said, as he headed to his room. He would have gone then, if it wouldn't have meant certain death at the hands of the blazing sun. “Don't anyone even think about trying to stop me.”

V
ixen ran through fields and woods, played tag with field mice, and just enjoyed the sheer rapture of being alive; of being a fox.

She didn't have to stay and deal with her disappointment in the people she had been beginning to trust. She didn't have to deal with anything. She felt no angst when she was in vulpine form. There were none of the unfamiliar and silly human emotions she'd always managed to avoid, welling up so big that they choked her. No tears. There was just
life,
and God, how she loved it.

What she felt for Seth…it was powerful. There were moments when it was exciting and delicious, and other moments when it was frightening and hurtful. She didn't know what to do with the power of those emotions, having so little experience with them. But she wanted to be near him, that much was certain. She wanted to be touching him all the time. That was odd, wasn't it? She'd never felt the need to be in physical contact with anyone else that way. And when she thought of his face or the look in his eyes, of the feel of his hand on hers or his arms around her when he'd carried her—when she thought of him at all, her heartbeat quickened, and her tummy tightened and her breaths grew short and eager.

Such drama—she guessed emotions were as heightened as every other sensation seemed to be once one became a vampire.

God, she longed for him as if he were air and she were drowning.

Her respite from the drama of being a human was short-lived. She couldn't maintain her fox form for long. Not anymore, apparently. She was exhausted after only a few hours, her body straining to return to its human lines. No, not human. That part of her was gone forever. It was the vampiric form pulling her back, powerfully, irresistibly. It felt as if the part of her that embodied the spirit of the fox was dying, too. It had always been as real to her, as important to her, as her human side, and now…

She had been a shape-shifter, mostly human, but partly fox, just like her mother and grandmother before her. But now she was a vampire, and that seemed to be overtaking everything she had been before.

She
hated
it.

She began trotting on her toes, tail straight out behind her like a rudder, toward the plantation house and all its drama. She supposed she had no choice. The sun would come up soon. And she was determined to watch it rise, one more time, just in case it turned out to be the last.

She could bear the sun's touch in fox form for a very brief time—this she knew on some instinctive, gut-deep level. But since she couldn't maintain that form much longer, she thought it best she get close to the house, find shelter and watch the sun rise from there.

Her plans, however, were cut off as surely as her dainty paw nearly was when there came a loud snap, and a set of iron jaws closed hard and fast on her foreleg. She yipped and jerked backward, but that only resulted in the cruel trap's teeth digging deeper. Oh, it
hurt!
She eased closer, to relieve the pressure, but the pain screamed on, and she could do nothing, only lie there, pawing at the metallic mouth with her free paw, pushing at it with her nose, licking at the bleeding wounds on her leg.

Then she felt warmth, and turned to look toward the east. It was the sun, climbing slowly from its place of slumber, rising bit by bit. The first streamers of golden light spilled across the sky, and then more, and soon the topmost yellow curve of the fiery sphere was peering at her from the horizon.

The sun. She loved it. And yet, right now, she feared it. Because the pain and the bleeding were making her even weaker than she had been before. And within minutes she would be too tired to keep from shifting back to her human form. Or rather, her vampire form.

And when she did, she was going to die. Jack had told her as much, back at the mansion when she'd been imprisoned there. She almost wished he hadn't. Death would be more merciful if she didn't know it was coming.

She pushed more desperately with her paw, whining and crying out as she tugged, because each movement sent bolts of pain through her.

And then, all at once, she stopped and went still. Her head tipped to one side, ears perking up high. She'd heard something.

“Vixen? Vixen, where are you?”

The voice was female, and familiar. Vixen sniffed the air to pick up the scent and recognized Roxy. Her first instinct was to return to human form as quickly as she could manage—it wouldn't take long. All she had to do was stop resisting it. Her body was fighting hard to shift. But if she allowed that now, with the sun climbing higher every second, she would die. And so she remained as she was, and she howled, a high-pitched, broken wail that she prayed would draw the woman closer.

And it did. She heard Roxy's steps in the brush, coming nearer, and she cried on and on, urgently. So weak, so very weak, and bleeding so much now…

“Oh, for the love of—all right, little one. All right, take it easy now.” Roxy knelt on the ground, quickly yanking a shawl from around her shoulders and dropping it over Vixen's head. “Forgive me for that, sweetie. I can't have you biting the hand that saves you, though.”

Then Roxy was prying at the trap. And it hurt. God, how it hurt, when she got the jaws to open, because sensation rushed into the area anew, and with it came crippling pain. Vixen moaned and whined, though even her cries were weak now.

“There now. My goodness, it's bleeding like hell. Hold on.”

A moment later Vixen's pain was magnified as Roxy twisted something around her wounded leg and pulled it tight. The agony was unbearable, and Vixen screamed with it.

“I know. I know, I'm sorry,” Roxy said. Then she was gathering Vixen up, bundling her in the shawl the way humans bundled their infants, and carrying her rapidly back to the house.

Within moments they were inside. Roxy laid her on a fainting couch in the darkened theater room. “Wait here now, little one. I'm going to get some bandages to patch you up properly.”

Vixen stared into her eyes as she spoke, and Roxy paused before turning away, then turning again and staring back at her.

“It's almost like you're listening, like you understand every word I'm saying.”

Vixen gave a yip to tell her to hurry, then lowered her head onto her good paw, careful not to touch the injured one, quivering and trembling with pain, dizzy now from the blood loss.

As she walked away, Roxy glanced toward the curtained windows and shook her head. “I just hope Vixen found shelter before now.”

And then she was gone, and Vixen's weakness overcame her. She felt her body changing, her spine and limbs lengthening, her features shifting. And she was helpless to prevent it, and glad Roxy hadn't laid her down in a sunny room instead of this darkened one.

She couldn't move, could only lie there, her forearm throbbing just above the wrist, bleeding despite the wrappings, which were even tighter now. She was naked, except for Roxy's cloak, which was still draped around her, and she was rapidly giving way to the day sleep.

She heard Roxy's footsteps approach, then stop all at once.

“Well, I'll be dipped,” the woman whispered. “It's
you.
Vixen.
Vixen.
Of course.”

Vixen met her eyes and whispered, “Please don't tell.” And then her eyes fell closed as the day sleep took her into its sunny embrace.

 

“What in the name of hell happened to you, Vixen?”

Seth whispered the question even as she stirred awake. Vixen found herself still on the sofa. Seth was sitting on its edge, close to her, and her gaze followed his, to where her wrist was swathed in thick wads of gauze, much of it stained with blood. Blood stained the couch beneath her, as well, and spots formed a trail across the carpet, still visible, though they had been cleaned.

Roxy was sleeping in a chair, still wearing the same clothes she'd had on before. She opened her eyes, and they met Vixen's.

Vixen held her breath, certain Roxy would reveal her secret—a secret she wasn't ready to share. Partly because she feared what they would think of her, particularly what Seth would think of her.

She hated this state of being, of caring so much. A fox
never
cared what anyone thought of her!

“Roxy, what happened?” Seth asked. “Where did all this blood come from?”

“No big deal,” Roxy drawled with a casual wave of dismissal. “She had a run-in with a barbed-wire fence on her way back here, right after you all turned in. It was barely a scratch.”

“Barely a scratch?” He looked again at the blood-soaked gauze, and the sofa and the floor.

“Well, you know how much your kind bleed. Honestly, I intended to have that all cleaned up by the time you woke. Guess I fell asleep.” Roxy got up and moved closer. “It will be totally healed by now. We can get rid of the nasty wrappings.” As she spoke, she reached for Vixen's arm, and Vixen held it up, too shocked by Roxy's behavior to do otherwise. The woman was going to keep her secret after all.

“I'll do that,” Seth snapped.

Vixen looked at him sharply. He softened his expression, and his tone along with it. “If it's okay with you, I mean.”

Vixen nodded, still wary, and Roxy quietly withdrew from the room, leaving them alone. Gently, Seth moved Vixen's forearm until it rested across his thighs. Then he began unwrapping the bandages. He slid his fingers over hers, twining them to lift her hand, so he could untwist the white gauze from beneath her arm. Over and over, around and around, he unwrapped her, until all the gauze lay in a tangle on the carpet and only the thick cushy pads remained on her skin.

Then he noticed a basin of water and a clean cloth nearby. He took the cloth, wet it and laid it on the pads, soaking them so that they would come away without pulling, stuck on as they were with dried blood.

Finally he peeled them away, washed the blood from her skin, patted it dry, and then looked very closely at the place where the wound had been.

Vixen looked, too, uncertain what she would see. But then she became distracted by the way his fingertips touched her skin, the way they trailed over it gently, his touch so soft.

She trembled, and wondered why the mating urge came alive so fiercely and so urgently at such a minute touch.

And yet, as he kept stroking her skin that way, the urge only grew stronger. Especially when he lifted his head to look into her eyes.

She stared back.

“Did it hurt terribly?” he asked.

She nodded. “It was horrible, worse than the collar. I've never felt pain like that before.”

“It's because you're a vampire. All our senses are heightened far beyond what they were before, the sense of touch included. So we feel pain far more keenly. Pleasure, too, or so I'm told.”

“Oh.”

He looked away briefly. “Does it hurt now?”

“No. It's as if it never happened.”

“Good,” he said. “I'm glad.” He drew a breath, seemingly thinking about his next words before he spoke them. “I want to talk about what happened. About why you ran away.”

She lowered her head. “I'm free to come and go as I choose. You all said so.”

“Yeah, I know. And you are. I promise. It's just that you were upset, and I don't like that we—that I—did something to upset you.”

She blinked slowly, considering that. “You. It was definitely you.”

His brows rose in apparent surprise. “Because I'm the one who suggested burning the killers while they sleep?”

“Yes. And because you're the only one who intends to do it.”

“I am?”

She nodded.

“I don't follow. I mean, Tope argued, but no one flat-out refused.”

“No, but I can sense things that others can't.”

“We can all read thoughts, Vixen.”

“It's not so much that. I
sense
things—anger, fear, reluctance. A person's scent changes, their stance changes, their eyes and faces and voices—everything. You can look at them and tell what they're thinking, even if they're guarding their thoughts. You don't have to read their minds. You can read their bodies, their scents.”

“You mean,
you
can,” he said.

She shrugged. “Yes, I can. So I know that Topaz has no intention of doing what you suggested. Nor does Reaper. They both had things on their minds, plans of their own unfolding even while you were talking about yours.”

He lowered his head, and she thought he felt insulted. “If they had plans of their own, they would have shared them. We're a team.”

“You think so? They were both keeping their own secrets for their own reasons, Seth. If you don't believe me, just ask them.”

“I will.”

He surged to his feet, his hand finally breaking contact with her arm, and for one mindless moment, all she wanted to do was grab it and pull it back to her. She
loved
him touching her.