Everdark (36 page)
Authors: Elle Jasper
Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary, #General, #Paranormal, #Fiction
I find my voice, and I struggle against him. “What are you doing?”
Victorian studies me. His grip on me tightens. “You don’t remember?”
For a second, my brain races. I don’t remember, and I don’t stick around to try to make myself remember, either. I buck hard and Victorian’s grip breaks; I leap up and take off. A slice of light from several tall lamps illuminates the side of the concrete building of the rest area; I avoid it and run straight for the shadows and the trees beyond. With arms and legs pumping, I fly through the darkness. I don’t care who sees me. It’s not like there are a lot of people out at the rest stop at two a.m. In seconds I’m sifting through dense pines, and because I’m still wearing the same gauzy skirt, tank, and Vans I had on at Tunnel 9, brambles grab my bare legs and scratch the holy hell out of them. I don’t care. I have to get away. Ease the craving now gnawing at my insides—
I jerk to a sudden stop. Confusion webs through my mind, and my memory races wildly. Craving? I only crave Krystal burgers and Krispy Kremes. What—
A body rushes mine, and I am once again flung to the ground. Without looking, I know it’s Victorian. Sharp pine needles and cones littering the wood dig into my skin as his weight presses against me. My face is smashed into the damp leaves and moss.
Quickly, my hands are tethered together.
“Sorry, love,” Victorian apologizes. He binds my ankles together, too. “You can’t imagine how I hate this, but somehow”—he helps me stand, then looks at me—“you broke free of my suggestion.” His head cocks to the side as he studies me, and the moonlight shooting a slender beam through the trees glances off his face. “Intriguing. I’ve never met another who can break free of my suggestion.”
Rage fills behind my eyes, pounds in my chest. “Well, now you have. So now what? What are you gonna do now, Vic? Throw me over your shoulder like a sack of dog food and haul me to the car?”
The slightest of smiles tips his sensual lips upward. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” In one move, Victorian ducks and over his shoulder I go. He keeps his hands secured around my calves. My skirt is probably up around my waist. We move out of the wood and start across the lawn of the rest stop, past the concrete picnic tables and restrooms. No one was about. Only a few semitrucks parked, their drivers more than likely sleeping. It wouldn’t do any good for me to scream; Victorian would simply suggest to anyone who heard that I was really okay, and they’d believe. So I keep quiet.
Until I hear the lock click, and the Jag’s trunk open.
“No freaking way,” I say evenly. “Victorian, do not put me in there.”
Victorian puts me in there. Lays me gently on a soft down comforter. Warm brown eyes look down at me with obvious regret. “I apologize. I truly hate this. But for you to break free from my suggestion?” He shook his head. “You’re stronger than I thought—than you even think you are. You’re a danger to yourself, Riley. I can’t let anything happen to you.” The trunk starts to close.
“Wait!” I say frantically. He waits. “Where are you taking me?”
Lowering his hand, Vic grazes my jaw with his knuckles. “Somewhere safe. Somewhere I can help you.”
Without another word, he closes me in. The moment he does, another voice rises.
“What the fuck are you doing, man?” a deep voice grumbles. “Open the goddamn trunk.”
“Perhaps you’d be better off minding your own business,” Victorian warns evenly, gentlemanly.
A heavy thump hits the back of the car. “Perhaps you’d be better off shutting the fuck up and opening the motherfucking trunk,” the stranger says. “Now.”
Silence.
“What the fuck—”
The only noise I hear is a choked gurgle.
A car door slams, and in seconds, the purr of the Jag’s engine rumbles around me. I know without having seen what just happened. Victorian fed. In his defense, he tried to warn the guy. In the guy’s defense, he was trying to save me. It’s all so messed up. Victorian shifts gears and roars up the interstate. We’re on the move. To where, I have no clue.
The one question I have right now is, where the hell did a centuries-old vampire get friggin’ tie-wraps? I jerk my ankles and wrists—no go. That thick, hard plastic won’t budge even a fraction. In fact, they tighten. So I relax and try to forget I’m in the back of a trunk, bound. And that back at the rest stop, a man lay dead in the parking lot, his blood drained. I close my eyes, the sound of the road and the Jag’s engine a respite.
A vision of Eli crowds my mind: his face, his jaw, his eyes. The way he touches me; his lips against my skin. More than that, the last words he spoke to me as we drove away from Tunnel 9 resonates inside my memory.
I will come for you.
How would he know where we are headed? The look on his face as I’d driven off with Victorian had been that of anguish, betrayal, then of determination. All in about five seconds. It was not in Eli’s nature to give up. I think he probably was that way, even as a human. Before vampirism. It’s definitely a quality I like.
Time flies by. I drift in and out of slumber. The back of my legs and back are sweaty atop the down comforter, and I wish I could get a small breath of fresh air. I don’t know how long we drive for; but I’ve reached my limit. With the flat of my Vans, I start kicking the side of the Jag’s trunk interior. I kick for maybe five minutes before the car comes to a stop. Victorian’s door opens and closes; the trunk pops. The scents of car tire, motor oil, fill the cool air. We’re in a large area—one that echoes.
“Are you okay?” he asks, pushing my long, choppy bangs from my face. He traces my sooty angel-wing ink on my cheek. Concern is etched in his face.
“You mean besides not having any air to breathe and being hot as hell? Not to mention I’ve had to pee for the last hour. Sure. I’m great, Vic.” I glower at him. “Get me out of here.”
Victorian freezes, glances around. “We’ve got to hurry.” He easily lifts me from the trunk and sets me on my feet. “Are you going to make me carry you in the same way I put you in the trunk?” he asks.
“Nope,” I say. “But as soon as we get to where we’re going, you’re telling me everything.”
He nods, and produces a pair of wire cutters from his pocket. In a few quick snaps, my ankles, wrists are free.
“Let’s go,” he says, slams the trunk and grasps my elbow; he leads me through a parking garage that is slightly lit and mostly empty. We make it to the elevator, and Victorian pulls me inside. I know he’s using all of his suggestion to keep me restrained because I try to break free; this time, I can’t. He pushes the L. Just as the doors begin to slide together, I catch a scent. A familiar scent.
With my next breath I am literally snatched out of the elevator by my arm and flung. I land with a grunt on the concrete floor of the parking garage, ten, twelve feet away, on my side. Phin is there when I stand.
“Are you okay?” he asks. His hands are everywhere, checking me for injury. As I knock him away, my eyes search for Eli. The moment I see him, I leap for the elevator.
“Riley, stop!” Phin yells, makes a grab for me, but misses.
I don’t listen. I can’t listen. Because I know Eli.
He’ll kill Victorian.
Just as I hurl myself at the elevator, Eli and Victorian fall out of it. In a mass of growls, grunts, French expletives and Romanian curses, we all hit the ground. Eli is completely changed—fangs dropped, face contorted, eyes white with a pinpoint scarlet pupil. Victorian’s appearance has totally morphed; it’s unlike anything I’ve yet seen. His skin is ashen, almost dead looking. His eyes are bloodred, his fangs long and jagged. Eli shoves me away, and I once more hit the ground. With a violent curse, I jump up, but Eli and Victorian are already thirty feet away. They’re tangled, snarling, throwing each other. I run up, despite Phin trying to grab me. Just as I reach them, I stop. With one hand around Victorian’s throat, Eli takes his other hand and makes to fling me again. I slap his hand away.
“Eli! Stop it!” I yell, and throw myself between them. It’s like being in the middle of a pair of fighting pit bulls. “Now!”
“Move, Riley,” Eli growls, his voice inhuman, nearly inaudible. He once more tries to hurl me.
I cling to Victorian, but my eyes are fastened onto Eli’s. “No, dammit! Stop and listen to me!”
“Phin!” Eli shouts. “Get her the fuck out of here!”
With as much emotion as I can summon, I hold Eli’s gaze. “Please, Eli, don’t kill him.” I’m not used to begging, and it doesn’t sit well with me. But in this, I have no choice. “Please.”
Phin’s hand is on my shoulder, and he pulls. I resist.
Eli’s inhuman white glare freezes onto mine. “Why?” he asks, his voice deadly smooth, even, quiet. I can tell he is confused, hurt. Angry is a given. I don’t blame him.
Behind me, Victorian’s body shudders, but I keep my eyes trained on Eli’s. “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “It . . . just doesn’t feel right.”
Eli’s sharp gaze flicks to Victorian. It’s filled with hate. “Doesn’t feel right, Riley? He abducted you.” His grip tightens on Victorian’s throat. “He almost killed you.”
Yeah, I already know all that. It doesn’t matter. “He isn’t the monster his brother is,” I say. “Please. Trust me.”
Eli literally shakes with rage. The scarlet pupils widen, like a cat’s adjusting to darkness.
“Eligius,” I say calmly, and he looks at me. “Move.”
Pure white eyes stare at me in silent debate for what seems forever. Without looking at Victorian, he manages, “Not until he tells me what the
fuck
is going on.”
fuck
is going on.”
Moving from between them, I turn to Victorian. Bloodred eyes seek mine. I keep my hand on Eli’s arm for support, and give Victorian a nod. My stomach churns with anticipation.
Victorian simply breathes for several seconds, head bowed, collecting himself. His shoulders, broad but slim, rise and fall with air I’m certain does not circulate within his lungs. When he lifts his head, the only remnants of his vampiric morphing are his eyes. They remain crimson and fixed on me. “Riley has too much of my brother’s strigoi DNA. It’s . . . changing her.” He glances at Eli. “Changing her in ways even her dark brethren cannot cure.” His Romanian accent is heavier at times, like now. “She is beginning to crave. I’ve seen it.” His voice lowers. “She will kill.”
“I will what?” I ask, shocked, staring back at Vic. “Are you friggin’ crazy?”
“Bullshit,” Phin says, and his angry voice echoes off the concrete walls of the parking garage. “She went through weeks of cleansing.”
“You underestimate the power of a strigoi,” Victorian replies.
“We underestimate nothing,” Eli says quietly, deadly. Threatening. “You’re wrong, Arcos.”
“She broke my power of suggestion,” Victorian argues, flashing me a glimpse. “Started growling, convulsing.” He glances at me, then to Eli. “Nearly jumped from my car going eighty-five. I had to pull over and restrain her physically, and even then she briefly overpowered me.”
“So where were you taking her?” Phin said. His voice sounded not his own; he was getting impatient. Out of character for Séraphin Dupré.
Then again, the flashes I’d had while running through the wood behind the rest stop had been out of character for me. What the hell was that? I settle it within myself to believe it was nothing more than backlash from the trauma at Tunnel 9.
“Where?” Eli states. His patience is going fast, too.
Victorian’s unholy gaze settles on mine. “To my family home in Kudzsir. To my father.”
I blink, and Eli’s body flies in front of me. By the time my vision finds them, Eli has Victorian crushed against a wall. “So you can turn her? Have her for yourself?”
“Eli!” I yell.
With his face close to Victorian’s, Eli growls, “I’ll fucking tear your limbs from your body and burn them myself before I let that happen. And I’ll start with your goddamn head.”
“No!” I run now, because Eli’s looking like he’s about to start dismembering Victorian right where they stand. My arm is grabbed and I jerk to a jolting halt. I turn and glare at Phin. “You’d better turn me loose.”
Phin just looks at me. Tightens his grip.
Just then, a beam of light arcs over the gray concrete walls of the garage; an SUV pulls in.
“Eli, let’s go,” I plead. “Now. Just forget about this. I’m all right.”
At first, he ignores me—nothing new there. Then he flings Victorian several feet and storms toward me. As he passes, he grabs my hand. He doesn’t say a word.
Victorian has more balls than I give him credit for. He’s leapt up and now stands directly in Eli’s path. With an assured look, he speaks. “Know this, Eligius. Only a powerful strigoi like my father can cast out the evil growing inside Riley. And you will soon see—it is definitely there.”
Eli stares at Victorian for a split second, then takes his hand and shoves him out of the way. We continue on through the parking garage. I turn and watch Victorian.
“You will soon see,” he says, standing in place. “You’ll bring her back to me. I will be here, waiting.”
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