Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Dominic’s name had barely started to form on his lips when Sammy felt himself jerked backward and hurled through darkness.
He recognized the relique’s summons, but it had been urgent, sloppy. Instead of a smooth transition with a subtle swoop in his stomach, it felt like his insides had been scrambled and rearranged.
His heart pounded out a drumbeat against his ribs, and blood roared in his ears. Sickness twisted inside him, making his mouth water as he fought the urge to gag. Every nerve ending felt like a live wire, flayed and raw.
Dizzy and disoriented, he stumbled sideways when he landed, nearly crashing into the glass coffee table. He managed to correct at the last moment and staggered around it, catching himself on the arm of the sofa to stop himself from falling.
A red velvet sofa.
He was right back where he’d fucking started.
“Sammy? Are you okay? Sammy, answer me.” His mate’s voice pounded inside his already throbbing head.
It was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.
A hiccupping sob stuck in the back of his throat as relief overwhelmed him. Without the magical block, Dominic rushed in to fill the void, his steady presence a soothing anchor.
Sammy reached for it like a lifeline.
“I’m okay,” he sent back, filtering out the emotion.
No panic. No desperation. Nothing for Dominic to worry about except finding his way to him.
“Thank fuck.”
It was faint, barely distinguishable from his own thoughts. Sammy smothered a smile. Something told him he hadn’t been meant to hear that.
“Where are you, colibrí?” Dominic demanded, his voice louder and more forceful now.
“Inside the mansion.” He tried to remember the path he’d taken to the garden—the spiraling staircase, the twists and turns along the labyrinth of corridors. “Well, technically under it, on the west side.”
“Hold tight, colibrí. I’m coming to get you.”
But the hope those words ignited in him proved to be short-lived.
“Terribly sorry about that little scuffle outside.” The unfamiliar voice rang through the room, bleeding authority and confidence from every syllable. “No need to worry, though. I’m sure the guards will sort it out.”
Sammy followed the sound—deep, cool, and exceedingly French—to the wingback chair in front of a fireplace. The male who sat there looked pale, almost ashen, and even the glow from the flames couldn’t infuse warmth into his complexion.
Yet, he appeared polished and sophisticated in a burgundy tuxedo, one leg crossed elegantly over the other. Eyes like icy moonlight cut across the distance, sharp and penetrating, but he wore a strange little smile.
Crooked, subtle, and brimming with secrets.
“Who are you?”
“Henri Delacour.”
Sounded fake. Kind of like his accent.
“I suppose you can consider me your new benefactor.”
Sammy could think of several words more suited to the situation, but he didn’t waste breath correcting him. The guy would be dead long before they finished arguing semantics.
Well, deader.
He swirled a goblet between his fingers, the red liquid clinging to the glass, too viscous to be wine. In his other hand, he held the relique, the leather cord trailing down his arm to his wrist.
Sammy frowned. He hadn’t seen the vampire among the partygoers in the garden. In fact, there had been no bids at all when the auction had started.
The auctioneer had announced him, highlighting his abilities like he was some fancy new tech gadget. Then he’d concluded by slamming the gavel down on the podium.
With how quickly he’d been summoned, Sammy could only assume Henri had been in possession of the locket long before that. Meaning the auction had been entirely for show. Pageantry. A victory tour for others to admire his trophy.
He wondered if the same was true for Aerin and the rest of the captives. If they had been paraded across the stage for everyone to covet what already belonged to someone else.
Gross, but from what he’d seen of the mansion, he couldn’t say it surprised him.
“Please, sit.”
Pulled out of his thoughts, Sammy jerked his head up to stare at the vampire.
An order, thinly disguised as a request, Henri Delacour was clearly used to people falling over themselves to do what he commanded. Too bad for him, Sammy had zero interest in obeying.
“I’ll stand, thanks. I won’t be here long anyway.” He had no doubt Dominic would tear the mansion apart brick by brick to get to him.
Henri’s smile broadened, revealing the tips of sharp, glossy fangs, as he rubbed his thumb across the surface of the locket. “But I insist.”
Jerked forward by an invisible force, Sammy gasped when his legs carried him to the sofa. His body turned without his permission so that he faced his captor, and a heavy pressure pushed down on his shoulders, forcing him to the cushions.
Shocked but unwilling to give the asshole what he wanted, he fisted his hands in his lap and stared back with a bland, neutral expression.
It wasn’t easy.
Clearly, the terms of the contract had been revised, benefits negotiated, and new constraints woven into the original binding spell. At least with Chandler, he’d been granted some degree of autonomy.
Now, he was truly little more than a paper doll, and he wouldn’t deny that scared the hell out of him.
“See?” Henri cooed. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” he muttered under his breath.
Of course, the vampire heard him easily, but he simply smirked around the rim of his goblet.
“I thought it would be nice for us to get to know one another,” Henri said a long moment later. “First, however, let us test your abilities. You can sense what it is I crave, no?”
“Nope, sorry.” Sammy shrugged. “No idea.”
While he spoke with purposeful glibness, he meant what he said. Now that Dominic had claimed him, he no longer acted like a mirror to other people’s desires.
“Now, now,” Henri chided. “Don’t be stubborn. Show me what you can do.”
Sammy shrugged, faking nonchalance and praying the vampire wouldn’t notice the way his hands shook. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
Henri’s pale eyebrows drew together in a shallow V, the first outward sign of disapproval he’d shown. “Your eyes are lovely,” he said, rubbing his thumb over the relique again. “But I prefer blue. Show me.”
Pressure built behind his eyes and spread to his temples as two fundamentally different magics collided, each vying for space. He felt the blood magic press against him, compelling him to submit, but in the end, the threads of fate that bound him to Dominic proved stronger.
“Oh, well, that won’t do,” Henri commented, an edge to his voice now, and his smoky eyes narrowed to predatory slits. He gripped the locket tighter, digging his thumb into the aged pewter. “You belong to me now, Samuel. The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be.”
Sammy felt the pressure in his chest this time, fainter than before, weaker. “I don’t belong to you.”
“But you do. Say it.”
The words whispered in his mind, and his mouth moved to form them against his will, but they became lodged in his throat—thick, cloying, and bitter.
“Say it,” Henri repeated, a subtle snarl vibrating beneath the command.
This time, he felt only a vague tightness in his neck that faded before it could even fully form. “No.”
“Stand up.”
Sammy found himself on his feet before he registered the intent to do so.
It seemed he had no resistance to orders that didn’t conflict with his mate bond. Not ideal, but he could work with that. He only had to hold out a little longer, and hopefully, he wouldn’t be there long enough to get himself into any real trouble.
And where the hell was Dominic?
“Dominic?”
“On my way. Just hit a bit of a roadblock.”
His mate said this like someone who had encountered traffic on their commute home from work. Yet, he could hear the strain, the slight growl that rumbled through the words.
“What kind of roadblock?”
“Hold tight, colibrí. I’m coming.”
While Dominic’s deflection wasn’t comforting, he resisted the urge to press for more information, concerned he would distract his mate during a critical moment.
Instead, his attention flickered to Henri again. Probably best not to let himself get distracted either.
“Remove your clothes.”
His hand twitched at his side, but it took almost no effort to defy him this time. “No.”
The bloodsucker’s eyes flashed with menace, but when he spoke, it was in that same calm, overly polished tenor. “Come here.”
His legs propelled him across the room, and knowing it wouldn’t do any good, he didn’t try to fight it. His trajectory carried him right into Henri’s outstretched hand, and he winced when cold fingers gripped his jaw painfully.
The vampire forced his head to one side, then to the other, craning his neck at nearly impossible angles. Sammy wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what the male expected to find.
Only a heartbeat later, Henri confirmed his suspicions when he gripped the collar of Sammy’s see-through top and jerked it to the side. The sound of tearing filled the room, and the fabric fell away from his shoulder, revealing the mark Dominic had left on him earlier that evening.
Henri didn’t curse. He didn’t hiss or growl, nor did he recoil from the sight of the twin punctures. But a hardness came over his face, transforming his already sharp features into something truly terrifying.
“Bring me the witch.”
For a heartbeat, Sammy thought the guy was talking to him. Then movement from the corner drew his gaze, and his heart jackknifed into his throat when a guard emerged from the shadows and hurried out of the room.
“You are mated?”
Sammy forced his eyes back to the vampire. “Yes.”
“A true mate bond?”
“Yes.”
Henri sighed. “Am I to assume your mate is the werewolf currently destroying my home?”
Sammy’s lips twitched. “Sounds about right.”
“He is no ordinary wolf.”
Not a question, but Sammy shook his head anyway. “No, he’s not.” And because he couldn’t resist, he added, “He’s the alpha of the Blackrock Pack.”