3. Lane
THREE
LANE
Pain cut through Lane like lightning. He collapsed to the floor, distantly aware he was screaming. How could it possibly be worse than before?
The curse still had hold of him. He would die and had wasted any chance of finding help on tracking down a vampire who hated him.
“Lane!” Hunter grabbed him, maneuvering him onto his back. “Talk to me. What’s happening?”
Lane clutched his tightening chest. His voice strangled, no longer able to scream, and the resulting silence was crushing.
Commotion outside the room met his ears. Hunter spoke, but Lane felt like he was underwater and couldn’t make out his words. He closed his eyes against a growing dread so potent, it felt like a physical presence looming over him.
Before, he’d focused on warning Rowan. Having a purpose obscured the reality of his situation. With no distraction, no goal to achieve, nothing to show for his life, and no hope, he couldn’t bear facing the end.
The pain in his chest vanished, and he gasped, his eyes flying open. Grogginess clouded his senses, and then, like he was waking from a deep sleep, everything cleared.
Hunter had a bewildered look on his face. “What the hell?”
“What’s going on?” The vaguely familiar man from the club entrance stood near the doorway. “Are you okay, boss?”
Beside him, Rowan was being held up by a huge man Lane recognized as one of the coven enforcers, Felix. Rowan shook himself, and the enforcer let go. “I’m fine.” His cold gaze landed on Lane. “What did you do?”
“Me?” Lane waited for clarification, but none came. “I nearly died. The curse isn’t broken.” Fear clogged his throat, and he couldn’t go on. Pain and death could take hold any second.
Rowan looked murderous. Was he pissed Lane hadn’t died screaming? “Why did I nearly suffer a heart attack?”
Lane felt nauseous, his insides twisting. “What? You?”
All four vampires stared at him. Rowan’s eyes flickered, an orange glow overtaking his dynamic brown irises, and Lane’s blood ran cold.
“Your heart came close to stopping when you left the room?” Hunter asked into the deadly silence. Rowan nodded in confirmation without taking his eyes off Lane. “Shit… Lane’s heart nearly stopped, too.”
Then what saved him? What the actual fuck was happening?
Rowan seemed to find more clarity than Lane, his attention sharpening in Hunter’s direction. “The same thing happened to both of us?”
“How?” A frantic feeling clawed at Lane’s insides. “I’m the one who’s cursed.”
Rowan strode forward, towering over Lane. “You spread the curse to me.”
“No.” Lane pushed to his feet, coming chest to chest with the vampire. He was shorter, but not by much. “I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who drank my blood. If anything, you spread the curse.”
Rowan’s nostrils flared, his glowing eyes flashing. “You knew this would happen. That’s why you came. Your warning was a bullshit excuse to get to me!”
“No it wasn’t!” Outrage flooded Lane, his voice raising to match Rowan’s. “I’m telling the truth. I didn’t do anything wrong! I came here for your help. To try and help you.”
“I’d like to know why Lane’s heart attack stopped,” Hunter interrupted, a steady presence amid the storm.
Rowan turned a furious gaze on him. “This isn’t the time for professional curiosity, Doctor.”
Hunter remained unaffected by Rowan’s fury. He looked way too young to be an actual doctor, but then again, vampire, so…
“The attack stopping matters,” Hunter said with firm authority.
“The curse was killing Lane until you sucked it out. We thought it was removed. Seems it wasn’t, but I did nothing to halt its effects this time.
The blood you gave Lane clearly wasn’t enough to prevent a new attack, even if it healed previous damage.
So why did this episode start and then stop? ”
“Well, Lane? Explain it to us,” Rowan growled at him.
“I don’t know. I didn’t cast the curse. I didn’t ask you to suck it out, either, by the way.”
“You asked for help, putting me in an impossible position where I could do nothing else.”
Hunter’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, like he wasn’t even listening. “Rowan left the room and returned. That must be it.”
“What?” Lane and Rowan said at once, then glared at each other.
“I bet if Rowan walked away again, the same thing would happen.”
Lane’s heart skipped. “No, please.” Rowan could survive a heart attack. He couldn’t.
Don’t hurt me.
Rowan’s thunderous expression smoothed out. For a brief, absurd moment, Lane expected him to say something reassuring. Instead, he turned to the bouncer lingering by the door. “How long until Nicole arrives?”
“Should be here any minute. I’ll wait downstairs and bring her up.” He rushed from the room.
“Who’s Nicole?” Lane asked.
The other vampires seemed to wait for Rowan to answer. He ignored everyone and settled heavily in one of the surrounding chairs.
Hunter looked Lane up and down. “I’d like to check you over. Take a seat.”
For lack of anything else to do, Lane returned to the exam chair, and Hunter took his blood pressure.
Rowan watched in stony silence, and Lane’s gut twisted into knots. How could he convince the damned stubborn man he wasn’t lying?
Hunter asked to draw blood, and Lane grunted his consent without much care.
If Rowan deemed him a threat, he might be killed.
Rowan had banished the Blackburns rather than execute them because their betrayal hadn’t been violent, but if Rowan took this fucking mess as an attack, an attempt on his immortal life, all bets were off.
“Try to relax,” Hunter murmured.
Seriously? In this hostile environment?
The massive Felix stood guard at the door as if a threat had indeed been identified. Lane was no match for Rowan or any vampire in strength or speed, let alone three at once. Did they really expect him to attack with magic? To attack at all? He was the one in danger.
Rowan didn’t move a muscle as they waited, his expression melding from murderous to indifferent so subtly, Lane might have missed it if not for the resulting contrast. Vampire stillness was unnerving at the best of times, but the sheer control it took to sit perfectly still and hide all emotion scared Lane more than Rowan shouting.
What would Rowan decide to do with him?
“It’s too bad I don’t keep more equipment here,” Hunter said to no one in particular, or perhaps to himself. “I’ll process this sample and see if it shows anything.”
“Thank you, Hunter.” Rowan sounded painfully professional. “You may stay and see what Nicole discovers, if you wish.”
“Thanks.” Hunter sealed Lane’s blood sample in a bag and put it aside.
He wore a faded T-shirt of a nineties B-horror film about vampires and looked completely out of place compared to Rowan and Felix.
“Now that you’re conscious,” he said to Lane, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his distressed jeans, “and the situation has, uh, shifted, are you okay with me telling Rowan what I find in your blood?”
“Sure.” Lane couldn’t care less about confidentiality. He was surprised Hunter remembered at a time like this. Maybe he was a real doctor, despite appearances.
“I don’t imagine you’ll suffer any lasting effects,” Hunter said with all seriousness. “Vampire blood heals exceptionally well, even if it didn’t stop the second attack.”
Lane nodded. Lasting effects wouldn’t be an issue if Rowan deemed him a threat.
Would the curse return before then? Could he escape if it didn’t? Lane needed to be in control of his fate, not stuck here without any say in what happened to him.
A dark-skinned woman of about Lane’s age burst into the room wearing a heavy coat and pajama pants. “Apologies I couldn’t get here sooner. What’s the situation?”
The bouncer who’d been sent to fetch Nicole trailed behind. Presumably, this was her. Lane sensed Nicole’s magic, just as he sensed magic in the three vampires. The difference between witches and vampires wasn’t obvious, so she could be either.
Nicole listened with keen attention as Rowan explained the situation. From the way Rowan spoke, she must be a witch. She was clearly one of Rowan’s people and showed no emotion when Rowan accused Lane of spreading the curse on purpose.
He wasn’t sure why he’d hoped she’d be offended on his behalf.
“I’ll take a look,” Nicole said to Rowan when he’d finished.
“You’re right about vampire blood not stopping the curse on its own, but if you sucked the magic out, the curse should have died when it contacted your vampire magic, or at least run its course.
Maybe that’s why your heart nearly stopped.
The curse you ingested could’ve been working to kill you, and your vampire magic defeated it in the end, just not as instantaneously as you initially thought. ”
Rowan’s face released the smallest amount of tension, the serious line of his mouth relaxing. “That doesn’t explain why Lane almost died a second time.”
“One thing at a time.” Nicole set about examining Rowan with magic, then moved on to Lane without saying a word. She worked purposefully and without asking permission, like she had no doubt the vampires in the room trusted her completely.
Must be nice.
Eventually, Nicole returned to Rowan and reinspected him. She gave a decisive nod and addressed the room. “I won’t sugarcoat it, this is a mess. Lane, the curse hasn’t been removed. It’s clearly not hurting you at the moment, and I can’t say why with one hundred percent certainty.”
“But you have a theory,” Rowan prompted, the picture of a man at ease.
“Of course I have a theory.” Nicole gave a tiny smile. “The curse is running through you, too, Rowan. It’s not hurting you either. Not surprising since you’re a vampire.”
“Why hasn’t my immortal magic destroyed it?”
“I’m not sure. What I can say with confidence is that the curse is linked between you. The same curse runs through both of you at once. This isn’t two castings of the same spell or a case of contagious spreading.”
Lane was momentarily stunned. He’d never heard of such a thing. “How’s that possible?”