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I guess we weren't pretending to be lovers anymore. Fancy that. I would almost have said the master vampire didn't trust himself around me.
There was a long hallway with doors on either side. Jean-Claude was halfway through one of those doors. I walked towards it. I refused to hurry. They could damn well wait.
The room held a bed, a nightstand with a lamp, and three vampires: Aubrey, Jean-Claude, and a strange female vampire. Aubrey was standing in the far corner, near the window. He was smiling at me. Jean-Claude stood near the door. The female vampire reclined on the bed. She looked like a vampire should. Long, straight, black hair fell around her shoulders. Her dress was full-skirted and black. She wore high black boots with three-inch heels.
"Look into my eyes," she said.
I glanced at her, before I could stop myself, then stared down at the floor.
She laughed, and it had the same quality of touch that Jean-Claude's did. A sound that you could feel with your hands.
"Close the door, Aubrey," she said. Her r's were thick with some accent that I couldn't place.
Aubrey brushed past me as he closed the door. He stayed in back of me, where I couldn't see him. I moved to stand with my back to the only empty wall, so I could see all of them, for what good it would do me.
"Afraid?" Aubrey asked.
"Still bleeding?" I asked.
He crossed his arms over the blood stain on his shirt. "We shall see who is bleeding come dawn."
"Aubrey, do not be childish." The vampire on the bed stood. Her heels clicked against the bare floor. She stalked around me, and I fought an urge to turn and keep her in sight. She laughed again, as if she knew it.
"You wish me to guarantee your friend's safety?" she asked. She had gone back to sink gracefully onto the bed. The bare, dingy room seemed somehow worse with her sitting there in her two-hundred-dollar leather boots.
"No," I said.
"That is what you asked, Anita," Jean-Claude said.
"I said that I wanted guarantees from Aubrey's master."
"You are speaking with my master, girl."
"No, I am not." The room was suddenly very still. I could hear something scrambling inside the wall. I had to look up to make sure the vampires were still in the room. They were all utterly still, like statues, no sense of movement or breathing, or life. They were all so damn old, but none of them were old enough to be Nikolaos.
"I am Nikolaos," the female said, her voice coaxing and breathing through the room. I wanted to believe her, but I didn't.
"No," I said. "You are not Aubrey's master." I risked a glance into her eyes. They were black and widened in surprise when I looked at them. "You are very old, and very good, but you are not old enough or strong enough to be Aubrey's master."
Jean-Claude said, "I told you she would see through it."
"Silence!"
"The game is over, Theresa. She knows."
"Only because you have told her."
"Tell them how you knew, Anita."
I shrugged. "She feels wrong. She just isn't old enough. There is more of a sense of power from Aubrey than from her. That isn't right."
"Do you still insist on speaking with our master?" the woman asked.
"I still want guarantees on my friend's safety." I glanced through the room, at each of them. "And I am getting tired of stupid little games."
Aubrey was suddenly moving towards me. The world slowed. There was no time for fear. I tried to back away, knowing there was nowhere to go.
Jean-Claude rushed him, hands reaching. He wouldn't make it in time.
Aubrey's hand came out of nowhere and caught me in the shoulder. The blow knocked all the air from my body and sent me flying backwards. My back slammed into the wall. My head hit a moment later, hard. The world went grey. I slid down the wall. I couldn't breathe. Tiny white shapes danced over the greyness. The world began to go black. I slid to the floor. It didn't hurt; nothing hurt. I struggled to breathe until my chest burned, and darkness took everything away.
Chapter 9
Voices floated through the darkness. Dreams. "We shouldn't have moved her."
"Did you want to disobey Nikolaos?"
"I helped bring her here, did I not?" It was a man's voice.
"Yes," a woman said.
I lay there with my eyes closed. I wasn't dreaming. I remembered Aubrey's hand coming from nowhere. It had been an open backhand slap. If he had closed his fist...but he hadn't. I was alive.
"Anita, are you awake?"
I opened my eyes. Light speared into my head. I closed my eyes against the light and the pain, but the pain stayed. I turned my head, and that was a mistake. The pain was a nauseating ache. It felt like the bones in my head were trying to slide off. I raised hands to cover my eyes and groaned.
"Anita, are you all right?"
Why do people always ask you that when the answer is obviously no? I spoke in a whisper, not sure how it would feel to talk. It didn't feel too bad. "Just peachy keen."
"What?" This from the woman.
"I think she is being sarcastic," Jean-Claude said. He sounded relieved. "She can't be hurt too badly if she is making jokes."
I wasn't sure about the hurt too badly part. Nausea flowed in waves, from head to stomach, instead of the other way around. I was betting I had a concussion. The question was, how bad?
"Can you move, Anita?"
"No," I whispered.
"Let me rephrase. If I help you, can you sit up?"
I swallowed, trying to breathe through the pain and nausea. "Maybe."
Hands curved under my shoulders. The bones in my head started sliding forward as he lifted. I gasped and swallowed. "I'm going to be sick."
I rolled over on all fours. The movement was too rapid. The pan was a whirl of light and darkness. My stomach heaved. Vomit burned up my throat. My head was exploding.
Jean-Claude held me around the waist, one cool hand on my forehead, holding the bones of my head in place. His voice held me, a soothing sheet against my skin. He was speaking French, very softly. I didn't understand a word of it, and didn't need to. His voice held me, rocked me, took some of the pain.
He cradled me against his chest, and I was too weak to protest. The pain had been screaming through my head; now it was distant, a throbbing ache. It still felt obscene to turn my head, as if my head were sliding apart, but the pain was different, bearable.
He wiped my face and mouth with a damp cloth. "Do you feel better now?" he asked.
"Yes." I didn't understand where the pain had gone.
Theresa said, "Jean-Claude, what have you done?"
"Nikolaos wishes her to be aware and well for this visit. You saw her. She needs a hospital, not more tormenting."
"So you helped her." The vampire's voice sounded amused. "Nikolaos will not be pleased."
I felt him shrug. "I did what was necessary."
I could open my eyes without squinting or increasing the pain. We were in a dungeon; there was no other word for it. Thick stone walls enclosed a square room, perhaps twenty by twenty feet. Steps led up to a barred, wooden door. There were even chains set in the walls. Torches guttered along the walls. The only thing missing was a rack and a black-hooded torturer, one with big, beefy arms, and a tattoo that said "I love Mom." Yeah, that would have made it perfect.
I was feeling better, much better. I shouldn't have been recovering this quickly. I had been hurt before, badly. It didn't just fade, not like this.
"Can you sit unaided?" Jean-Claude asked.
Surprisingly, the answer was yes. I sat with my back to the wall. The pain was still there, but it just didn't hurt as much. Jean-Claude got a bucket from near the stairs and washed it over the floor. There was a very modern drain in the middle of the floor.
Theresa stood staring at me, hands on hips. "You certainly are recovering quickly." Her voice held amusement, and something else I couldn't define.
"The pain, the nausea, it's almost gone. How?"
She smirked, lips curling. "You'll have to ask Jean-Claude that. It's his doing, not mine."
"Because you could not have done it." There was a warm edge of anger to his voice.
Her face paled. "I would not have, regardless."
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
Jean-Claude looked at me, beautiful face unreadable. His dark eyes stared into mine. They were still just eyes.
