Chapter 19

Istood back and stared down at my handiwork. It had taken a lot of effort, but somehow, I managed to carefully roll each garment Valen had bought me into tight bundles for packing. It had worked, though my backpack and Valen’s bag were bulging at the seams. My clothing would be a mess of wrinkles, but at least I would have them.

I wondered idly where we would go after we left here. I had never been to the West Coast. When I traveled with my father, it was usually to conventions. Then we headed straight back to the plane and on to our next campaign location. So even though I had traveled quite a bit, it had never been for vacation or to just have fun. I looked forward to all the places he could show me.

I paused in the process of hauling the bags toward the lift as the sound of an engine broke through the silence. I hadn’t noticed until now how quiet it was in this area of town. I smiled as my heart made a little leap in my chest at the thought of Valen coming back. Then I realized that the sound I was hearing wasn’t just one motorcycle engine.

I stood frozen as I listened to multiple engines approaching. I glanced over to the alarm panel, relieved to see it was blinking, indicating it was armed. As I continued to listen, the engines seemed to slow, making me tense up as fear began to crawl up my spine. As they roared past the warehouse, I let out a gust of air as my shoulders relaxed.

I took a step toward the lift so I could set the bags down when the group of bikes sounded as if they had turned the corner. Were they circling the warehouse? I held my breath, waiting to see if they would move on. Perhaps they were just on the wrong side of town and took a wrong turn. It wasn’t until the sound of engines circled back around to the front of the warehouse that I began to panic.

“Shit, shit, shit! What do I do?” My gaze darted around the loft, bouncing over every surface as if searching for the answers that wouldn’t come. I had no weapons and no experience with them, even if there was a gun or a knife. By the sound of what was outside, there were at least three motorcycles. There was no way for me to defend myself against that many men, even if I were trained to handle myself in a fight.

I looked at the window near the bed to see the sunlight streaming through. Vampires couldn’t come out into the sun; that much I knew from what Valen had told me. So whoever it was wasn’t a vampire. That was good, I supposed. But if it wasn’t the vampires who were after me, then who the hell was outside?

The engines finally came to a stop and began to idle with a rough rumble that shook the floor beneath my bare feet. I listened intently for any sounds indicating what was happening below as my heart pounded so hard that it felt as if my ribs were going to bruise from the inside.

There was a muffled popping sound, and then suddenly, the window at the front of the building exploded inward. I screeched and ducked, dropping the bags I was carrying and throwing my arms up over my head. I stared, wide-eyed, as the small metal canister that had broken through the window rolled to a stop just a few feet from where I stood half-crouched. Before I could do anything more than blink, thick smoke began to pour from the canister.

“Oh, fuck!” I darted my gaze to the broken window and then to the bathroom. I didn’t know if I should take my chances locked in the bathroom or…

I looked toward the window behind me. It was at the back of the building, and there was a fire escape for safety. Surely, the bad guys outside were waiting for me to escape the building, the way rats ran from sinking ships. If I even thought about climbing down the ladder, they would be waiting for me before I even reached the bottom.

I held my arm over my mouth as I began to cough nearly uncontrollably. I ran to the bed, yanked the blanket from the top of the mattress, and buried my face in it as I stumbled toward the bathroom door. The open door that had already allowed thick smoke to fill it. I was fucked.

It felt as if I were walking through thick sludge as I put one foot in front of the other, pushing myself to make it into the relative safety of the small room. The only thing I could allow myself to focus on was that maybe I could get the door shut, the blanket wedged under the door to stop any more gas from getting in, and the exhaust fan turned on to clear out the smoke. I couldn’t think about why they were gassing me. If I thought too hard about what they hoped to accomplish, I was going to truly panic.

I slammed the door shut with my shoulder and leaned heavily against it as tears streamed down my cheeks. I started to stuff the blanket along the open bottom edge of the doorway to block any more smoke from making it inside, but my vision was wavering, and my chest was aching from the full body-wracking coughs that I was helpless to control. I became so weak I could barely force enough strength in my arms to push the thick blanket. With regret, I could see more of the noxious gas creeping under the door.

My last thoughts were of Valen as I was unable to keep my body from slumping into an ungraceful heap.

Wakingup was just as traumatic as passing out had been. It didn’t take me long to figure out where I was, even if I didn’t know the exact location. The sight of the blond vampire glaring at me from behind bars was enough of a dead giveaway.

I tore my eyes away from his and looked around me as I pushed myself to a sitting position with an embarrassing amount of effort and leaned my back against the wall. I was still wearing my pretty sundress. I intended to change into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt before we left. I hadn’t done it yet in a secret hope that once Valen returned, I would be able to convince him to fuck me one last time before we got on the road. Now, I was sitting in what appeared to be a small six-foot by six-foot cell.

The floor was concrete, and the walls were cinder blocks, surrounding me on three sides. There was a row of evenly placed bars at the front of the tall cell, which conveniently allowed the pissed-off vampire to glare daggers at me. I did my best to ignore his presence as I took in the floor and walls. I took a second more thorough look around, and hugged myself, using my arms for the little warmth they provided.

It didn’t take much time to see that there was literally nothing else to the cell other than a small bucket that sat in the far corner with a lid on it. I mean, at least there was a lid, right? I just hoped it was empty because if I had to use a shit bucket that already had someone else’s shit in it, I would probably end up vomiting all over the floor.

I closed my eyes and dropped my head back against the cinder block wall. It took all the effort I possessed to stop myself from screaming and crying with all the despair I felt inside my heart.

Valen was going to lose his mind when he returned to the loft to find the place a mess and me missing. I could only imagine what my kidnappers had done to the place in order to get me out of it.

I heard footsteps moving somewhere out of sight, sounding as if they were descending stone steps. The footfalls grew closer the longer I tried to ignore them until they stopped right outside my new jail cell. I refused to open my tired and aching eyes to see who it was. Frankly, I didn’t care. It was hard to care about anything without Valen here to comfort me.

“When did she wake up?”

The voice that spoke was not what I expected to hear, not that I had any specific expectations. But I certainly hadn’t thought I’d hear a thick western drawl. I gave into temptation and cracked my eyes open to catch a glimpse of the man. I had to cut off my gasp of shock when I managed to understand what I was seeing.

The man’s entire face looked as if it had been made of wax and was left outside on the hottest day of the year. His cheeks, jowls, and lower eyelids were so saggy that I was afraid the hanging flesh would fall right off and slip to the floor. A sour taste of bile filled the back of my throat, and I had to swallow hard to keep it from making an appearance all over the floor.

I tore my eyes away and instead stared at the branding on the inner portion of my wrist.

“The little bitch just came to a couple minutes ago, Master.” Even if I hadn’t recognized the blond vampire by sight, I would have remembered that voice as belonging to the man who had ripped the heart from Tiny’s chest. A single tear managed to escape as my feelings became so overwhelmed by fear and grief that I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Excellent. Go grab my chair so the lady and I may converse comfortably.”

“Master.”

I wanted to snort or curse at the suggestion of comfort. I was fucking freezing while sitting on the cold concrete floor in a goddamn sundress. There was the sound of heavy footsteps walking away, a pause, then a scraping sound.

“Pick the chair up, Claude.” The words were exasperated, the way a parent might speak to a young child with whom they were attempting to be patient, but were becoming increasingly less so.

“Yes, Master.” The scraping sound abruptly stopped, and the footsteps came close again quickly. The chair was placed down with a small thunk, and then there was a shuffling of feet as positions were shifted. Then, there was the unmistakable sound of someone sighing in relief as they sat down.

There was a long beat of silence, one so long that I began to tremble from more than the cold that was slowly seeping into my bones. I continued to keep my head down, refusing to give in to the man. That was until he spoke.

“Miss Hargrove, you sure have made a few people rather angry.”

A gasp escaped my trembling lips, and my head whipped up at the use of my legal name. “H-how?”

A wicked smile curved his fleshy lips, revealing twin sets of sharp fangs that glinted in the dim lighting of the cell.

“I told you—you pissed off certain people bad enough that they decided to figure out what or who you were on the run from.” He cocked his head to the side, the simple movement enough to set off a slight swinging of his loose skin. If I had to be any closer to him without the safety of solid iron bars between us, I would likely faint. “What do you think your rich senator father would have to say about the company you’ve been keeping?”

I swallowed hard and turned my head away to stare at the cold gray cinderblock a couple of feet to my side. At this close, I could see the imperfections in the concrete, the pits and pores that seemed to be steeped in icy cold. My father. It wasn’t so much him that I was frightened of as it was my mother and her mental illness. I didn’t know what her condition was exactly. I just knew that no sane person would go to the extremes that she did when she felt I was being evil.

What would my mother do if she knew that not only was I the mate to a demon hundreds or even thousands of years old, but that I was also literally part demon? That thought had a snort bursting out of me unbidden. For most of my life, she accused me of being possessed by a demon. Little did she know that I was the demon. Can’t exorcise my entire body, Mother.

“Well,” the vampire Master who sat in front of my cell murmured thoughtfully. “I have to say, that wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. Care to share what is so humorous about the situation?”

I finally glanced back in his direction, bracing to keep myself from reacting to his appearance. “My mate is going to rip your fangs out of your face before he rips your heart from your chest.”

His deep belly laugh had shivers skittering down my back as if hundreds of little spiders had scattered. He grinned at the reaction I couldn’t hide from him. “Oh, lovely little girl. I want nothing more than to have your demon mate show up here. I have been hoping and planning on it for over two hundred years. He’s been a little elusive. Then you show up and make all my dreams come true.”

He shifted in his big cushioned chair, making the wooden frame creak from his bulk. “Tell me, Kallista, darlin’, how well do you know the demon called Valen?”

My brows creased together in confusion. “I don’t know? We were just getting to know each other.” It seemed safe to admit. As well as this man already knew details about my life; it would be stupid to tell him otherwise.

“Ah. This is going to be fun then. Sit back, make yourself comfortable, and I will tell you all about the demon.”

I glared up at him, pissed at his displaced humor. He damn well knew I was cold and miserable. To top off being cold and scared, I was fucking hungry. Valen had left to get us food probably hours ago now. Though there was no way to tell what time it was, my stomach told me that it was starved. Plus, these were vampires. I knew very little about how vampires lived, but I couldn’t help but believe that they were nocturnal to the point they likely slept during the day. Which made me wonder, who the fuck attacked the warehouse loft?

“Did you know Valen has the ability to cause illness?”

I shook my head slowly. I didn’t know what his power was other than to kill. I saw what he had done to the other vampire that had been holding me against my will the night we had met. The way the man’s face had melted… Oh, shit. This vampire in front of me. The sagging skin. The way it appeared as if his face was melting…

“You’ve heard of the bubonic plague?”

I nodded hesitantly, horror starting to make my face go numb.

“They estimate 25 to 50 million people died.” He smiled widely. “Small pox? More than 300 million people. Influenza? More than 50 million in 1918 alone. Imagine how many more have died before and after that tragic year?”

I was going to be sick. Literally. I scrambled over to the bucket a few feet away and ripped the lid off. I had the briefest of seconds to be thankful the bucket seemed to be brand new before what meager contents I held in my stomach were expelled viciously. I continued to dry heave as my stomach twisted as hard as my heart did in my chest.

“Ah, I see I don’t have to explain that your precious mate is the one responsible for all those deaths. He is illness. He is a walking plague. Unfortunately, the demon can’t die. I’ve done my research on him, too. There are stories about the man in black walking through dying villages. He would touch a person, and the next day, they would die. He has been hunted down, tortured, hung, and burned at the stake. I even found an accounting of him being drawn and quartered.” Again, he cocked his head at me and studied me with his gleaming, scheming eyes. “You do know what being drawn and quartered means, yes?”

I was going to be sick again. I put my head back over the bucket, but when nothing but air came out of my body, I groaned weakly and placed the lid back on the bucket before scooting back to my spot against the wall. I wrapped my aching arms around my legs, hugging them tight to my chest. My entire body was trembling uncontrollably now.

“So, yes. I have plans for your mate. He won’t be able to harm another innocent soul again.”