Caught in Darkness (33 page)

Hurdle number four…in progress. She
ground her teeth together impatiently as the vampire guard—who, of course, was
the same one as the last time she’d been there—turned and strolled leisurely
down the hall. The other guard—no one she recognized—remained in front of her,
silently daring her to do something stupid.

It turned out, thankfully, that
passing all of the unsuspecting humans wasn’t as difficult as she’d feared it
would be. She suspected Allison’s visit had helped, in that she had an idea of
what to expect in terms of her physical reaction. And she also imagined it
helped that she had just fed. Never once had she gotten so distracted as to
take a wrong turn or even come to a complete stop. She was unspeakably glad
that she hadn’t done anything horrifying.

What had really had her concerned,
however, had actually been her plan to dash across the city. She’d never really
been much of a runner and she had no idea how much energy it took to move that
fast, let alone for that long. Fortunately it turned out that running at
unnatural speeds was actually fun. For the couple of minutes it had taken her
to get to Robert’s penthouse (partially because she’d forgotten which building
it was) she found she felt strangely free—like she could do anything or go
anywhere right in that moment. She hoped that feeling stuck around even after
she got used to her new abilities.

She yanked her attention forward
again when the guard returned with a disappointed scowl. It took a lot of
effort to keep from raising a pointed eyebrow at him or crossing her arms
impatiently.

“He’ll see you,” the guard stated
plainly. “But keep the door open.”

They both knew that hadn’t been a
part of Robert’s response, but Veronica ignored it and merely nodded as she
started forward. And she really hoped that she wasn’t going to get stuck
dealing with him a lot in her future, because he seemed about as friendly as
Jasen
.

“Ms. Wyndham,
what a surprise, I—Oh.”
Robert cut himself off, his eyes widening, when
he realized that she wasn’t exactly what she’d been the last time he’d seen
her. She certainly knew Seth hadn’t told him that detail, and only in that
moment did it occur to her to hope that there wasn’t a good reason for that.

“I’m sorry to barge in,” Veronica
offered politely, hoping to distract him from thinking too much on her change
in status. “I assume you know that Seth and
Jasen
found Richards again?”

Robert nodded slowly from behind
his desk, clearly confused. “I had heard, yes,” he replied.

Veronica stopped just behind the
guest chairs, gesturing thoughtlessly as she asked, “Are you doing anything to
help?”

“Help?”

It took an amazing effort to keep
from raising her voice as Veronica replied, “Yes, help. I know Seth told you
that Tobias Wilson is even more dangerous than Richards, and it seems only
logical to assume that Tobias’s brother would be at least as dangerous as
Richards. Do you honestly expect the two of them to be able to handle three
dangerous, murdering vampires? Don’t you think you might benefit from providing
them a little backup?”

Robert blinked at her, his
expression making it clear that he wasn’t used to being talked to that way—as
well as that he hadn’t, in fact, thought of sending out any backup.

Not waiting for him to find his
voice again, Veronica added, “I know you’ve lost men over this. I was there
when three of them were killed and I heard about your friend. These men killed
your friend. I know you must be angry about that—they killed one of mine, too,
and I’m furious about it. One of them even killed my father. They have to be
stopped, even if it means using a little excessive force.”

When she paused for another breath
Robert lifted one hand, palm out, in a silent request for her to stop. She
calmly held back the next argument she’d been preparing to hurl at him, waiting
to see how he’d react.

****

Seth and Richards sprang apart,
Richards stumbling and rolling into an already-damaged wall while Seth caught
himself in front of the overturned couch. The front open space of the house was
a shambles, the furniture tossed aside or broken and the old curtain that had
covered the living room window now half-torn and dangling. The window itself
was broken from when the other vampire—whose name Seth still didn’t know—had
growled something and launched himself through it. He’d disappeared into the
sunset with
Jasen
hot on his heels.

But Seth wasn’t worried about
Jasen
and he didn’t have the luxury or the energy to worry
about the other guy. He had his own battle to be focusing on.

“You should’ve heard her cry,”
Richards taunted as he dragged in uneven breaths, an arrogant smirk twisting
his lips.

Seth ground his teeth as he rolled
his shoulder, glad that it was decently healed, and growled, “I did.” She’d
cried every day since he’d been forced to
Turn
her,
and even if some of those tears had been few and far between they had still
fallen. He knew, intellectually, that it was just a part of the adjustment
process. But Richards was the one who’d forced his hand. Richards was the
reason she hadn’t been able to be more prepared.

“Oh,” Richards continued as he
pushed to his feet, one hand braced on the dented wall, “does that upset you?”

“The fact that you’re still
breathing upsets me,” Seth replied. He launched forward, then, tired of giving
his enemy time to heal.

They crashed together, both
grunting from the impact, and Richards dug his thumb into an open bite wound in
Seth’s side. Seth hissed
,
bringing one knee into Richards’s
abdomen as he dropped an elbow into the back of Richards’s nearest shoulder
blade. Something cracked and Richards cried out, his grip loosening. Seth used
the opportunity to reach down, remove Richards’s hand from his side, and gave a
tight, sharp twist. Richards threw all of his strength into his shoulder,
ramming it into Seth’s chest and forcing him backwards as he pulled away,
cursing in pain.

Seth caught himself after several
steps, pausing to reach down and tear off the damaged section of his shirt. It
wouldn’t be particularly comfortable if the wound healed over fabric. In the
space it took for him to remove the section of shirt—and for Richards to
straighten his wrist—the front door burst open again, drawing both of their
attention.

Three vampires were crowding the
entry, two of whom were unfamiliar males. The third, however, was someone Seth
knew better than anyone else in the city. And she wasted no time in pushing
past the two vampires surrounding her as she cried, “Seth!”

What is she doing? He should have
expected her to show up. She had established the very bad habit of ignoring him
every time he asked her to stay. But before he could even wrap his head around
the idea that she’d shown up with an entourage he realized that it was too
late. Richards was already moving.

The two vampires behind Veronica
could only stare in wide-eyed shock as Richards tackled her to the floor with
an angry roar. “This time you’ll stay dead!”

Veronica cried out in startled
surprise as much as pain as she crashed onto the floor, but any other sound was
cut off by the hand wrapped tightly around her throat.

Seth reacted on instinct, launching
back to his feet and surging forward without even a glance to the other
vampires in the room. He knew that Richards wasn’t going to stall or try to
draw out her torture this time. Not saving her wasn’t an option, and that meant
he couldn’t afford to wait. He had Richards’s throat in both hands in the space
of a heartbeat, and a guttural cry tore from his lips as he threw his weight
backwards, forcing Richards to release her before he could do any lasting
damage.

They rolled onto the floor, making
the nearest vampire jump aside to avoid rolling with them, and Seth managed to
lock one hand beneath Richards’s jaw. Richards reached up to try and break the
grip, but Seth tightened his hold and twisted. The body beneath him went limp,
but Seth knew better. “Chair leg,” he snapped, holding out one hand
expectantly.

One of the vampires took the hint
and dashed into the kitchen. The sound of splitting wood filled the house and
then he was back, handing a splintered shaft of wood toward Seth’s outstretched
hand.

Seth took the makeshift stake,
adjusted his hold on Richards, and plunged it through Richards’s heart.

“Will you ever learn to stay back
when I ask you to?” Seth asked, leaning against a semi-demolished wall in the
living room with Veronica at his side, her hand wrapped in his.

Veronica hummed thoughtfully,
letting her thumb run lightly over the back of his hand, and replied,
“Maybe…after a century or two.”

Robert’s men were still working on
cleaning up the mess—and Richards’s gray, wrinkled corpse—while Seth took a
minute to recover from his injuries. Someone had had the foresight to bring a
couple packets of blood, so his healing was going fairly well. And before he
could vocalize his thought of sending someone to go find
Jasen
the vampire in question came striding in through the open front door.

“Who called the cavalry?” His tone
made it hard to decipher whether he was appreciative of the backup or annoyed
by it. Seth suspected it was the latter anyway.

Veronica turned and looked over at
him, declaring, “I did.” She didn’t say the rest, but she had already explained
it once. She’d thought they’d be fighting all three of their enemies and she’d
wanted to be sure that no one got away.

Jasen
scowled faintly at her and replied, “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

“What happened to the kid?” Seth
asked, drawing
Jasen’s
attention.

Irritation flashed through
Jasen’s
eyes and he said, “He made me chase him. But the
idiot doubled back so it didn’t take as much effort as it could have.”

“Did you kill him?” Seth pushed. He
was on the fence about whether or not the vamp had really deserved to die, so
he was settling for hoping that
Jasen
had at least
gotten a little information from him first.

“No,”
Jasen
grunted. “But I gave him a beating to keep him in line for the future.”

Seth was honestly surprised by the
answer, but he chose to drop the subject.

“So,” Veronica began, looking
between them before finally settling her curious gaze on Seth, “what now?”

He gave her hand a squeeze and
replied, “We stick around for a little while, see if we can’t find the Wilson
brothers.”

“And if we can’t?” she asked. He
could see in her eyes that she suspected the same thing he did.

“Then we assume they’ve skipped
town,” he said, “and we take our search elsewhere.” Later he would explain that
that ‘elsewhere’ would have to wait until he’d dealt with the situation waiting
for him in California, but he trusted that she’d understand.

Veronica sighed softly and nodded,
her gaze falling to the ground.
“All right.”

Jasen
shifted his weight before declaring, “I’m going to go talk to
whoever’s
running this cleanup,” and turning on his heel,
leaving them alone.

Seth leaned over, pressing his lips
to Veronica’s temple, and murmured, “In the meantime, I think we should lock
ourselves away for a few days.” When she looked up with surprised eyes he
added, “Starting tomorrow.”

She grinned and replied, “Tomorrow
is good.”

Chapter Nineteen

It didn’t take Veronica long to
decide that whatever power-that-be that had given vampires the option of
Bonding had also secretly not wanted them to choose that option. The first day
hadn’t been too bad; Seth had suggested that they each have a large drink shortly
before midnight, in order to give them what strength they could gather. Waiting
until the middle of the day, when the sun was at its hottest, had been a bit of
a struggle, but the edge had waned as soon as she’d started feeding. And she
noticed immediately what he’d meant about vampire blood not having what they
needed to sustain themselves.

It was a strange sensation, she
decided, to sink her teeth into someone else’s flesh. But she was glad it
didn’t disgust her the way she’d feared it would. And while she’d found
drinking from him to be overwhelmingly erotic she would have been lying to say
that the feeding itself was as satisfying as the human blood she’d already
become accustomed to. She was thirsty again much earlier than she would have
been otherwise, and waiting until the same time the next day to feed again
proved to be incredibly difficult. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was as
hard for Seth, who was at least more used to being a vampire and dealing with
those urges and instincts.

By the third day she felt like she
might be dying. Her body was weak and covered in a cold sweat and just thinking
about how hungry she was made her want to cry. She barely had the energy to
crawl out of bed.

Seth seemed to be handling it a
little better, as he was still able to climb to his feet and walk around
(though he was definitely walking slower and more deliberately than usual). He
was paler than she was used to seeing him and if he did too much at one time he
had to brace himself for a long minute against the nearest wall. She wished
there was something more she could do for him, and she knew he felt the same.

“Coffee’s ready,” Seth declared as
he returned to the bedroom. He was carrying a large, covered thermos in one
hand (they had learned the hard way that it was officially too challenging to
walk with two regular mugs at this stage). Their mugs were now resting on the
nightstand beside the bed for easy reach.