Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
Belle drove like Antoine: fast and without any care for the laws of the road.
Fortunately, it was the early hours of the morning.
“About thirty Order soldiers?” Antoine confirmed.
“It’s just my estimate.”
“What does Darian look like?”
“Dress pants, a button-up shirt, and polished Oxfords.”
“And did he leave at the same time?”
“I don’t know. He said he was going to, but not when. I couldn’t see; they had a hood over my head.”
“So he might’ve taken some with him, or traveled by himself.”
“Or still be there,” Belle added.
“I hope so.” Antoine paused. “I would very much like to meet him.”
Cally gingerly touched her cheek. The swelling was going down as her phenomenal healing kicked in, and her chafed wrists already felt better.
But her cheekbone was broken, she was sure of it, and it was taking longer to heal.
She wanted to ask if it would fix itself without help, or whether there was a risk of scar tissue and…
not looking herself. But she had no right to say anything, other than to answer his questions.
Antoine turned to her and stilled as he caught her with her hand raised to her face. She dropped it guiltily. “Does it still hurt, ma chérie?”
“Not so much.” Not as much as my heart. Her eyes filled with tears again, and she couldn’t look at him.
“Do not worry, we will get her back.”
He thinks I’m crying for Eve. But she was, in part. “Won’t they use her as a hostage?”
“It’s been barely an hour since you left, and they will expect you to still be on the road.
It will swiftly be clear to them that it is vampires that they fight, and having taken Nico, they will assume it is him we want.
” He bared his fangs. “It will be Nico they protect, and we will have taken Eve before they realize their error.”
Cally nodded jerkily. It sounded plausible. It sounded high-risk, too. If anything happened to Eve, she’d never forgive herself. “What of Nico?”
“I will kill him if the opportunity presents itself, but from what you have told me, he’s not escaping easily.
I don’t much care what happens to him.” He said it lightly; the tightening in his eyes showed a different story.
He was foregoing his vengeance for Eve’s safety, but he was doing it because of her.
Had she told him to? Was the bond already at work, compelling him subtly and insidiously?
She retraced everything she’d said. The soldiers. The raid on Nico’s house. Waking in the bed. The interrogation and Darian’s demands. She’d only answered questions, right? No preferences, no imperatives.
Damn it. From now on, I have to second-guess every single thing I say to him.
Unless…
“I… don’t want you to do what I tell you. Ever.” Would that work?
His eyes flicked lilac and back to his usual blue, and he turned in his seat, facing away again. “We will discuss it later.”
Cally cringed at his tone, slumping in her seat. He knows. He knows about the bond. But how? Had he always known?
Belle pulled onto a narrow country road. “We are close, mon amour.”
“Good.”
“I think I will lead. It is my prerogative as your sire.”
He glanced across with amusement. “Is that you being honorable, or greedy? I can’t tell anymore.”
“When you take a lady out for a treat, do you not wish her to enjoy it?”
“Not even you can survive many hits of direct automatic fire.”
“Pah! These are not even thralls. What on Earth makes you think they will ever hit me?”
“They are professional soldiers,” Cally said. “Not amateurs.” She’d told them already; why didn’t they care?
“We know,” Antoine said quietly.
Cally hushed herself, looking down at her lap.
“This is the place,” Belle said, as she turned off the road. Ahead lay a large house with a high wall around it, the gate shut and sturdy. “I can’t smash through that without destroying the car.”
“Wait until we’ve opened the gate, and count to thirty,” Antoine said to Cally. “Then drive on in.”
“Yes, Antoine.”
He seemed to pause at her tone, but Belle had already opened her door, and a second later both vampires were gone. Cally got out and climbed into the driver’s seat in time for the gate to blast open, wood splinters raining down.
Antoine always likes to make an entrance.
She waited thirty seconds, then drove through the remains of the gate, following a long drive up to a stone manor that loomed between the trees, its slate roof catching the moonlight.
Dark, lifeless figures sprawled across the gravel courtyard, and she pulled up in time to see Belle walking away from two more crumpled bodies.
Cally got out as another Order guard plummeted from above, hitting the ground with a sickening crack.
Antoine leaped down from a high balcony, landing beside the corpse.
“Give me a moment to clear the house,” he said, then took off at speed for the main door, putting his shoulder to it and bursting straight through.
Gunfire cracked from within, muzzle flashes marking hurried shots. But he was already behind the soldier, one hand shoving his weapon high while the other ripped out his throat. Belle flashed past in a blur of maroon, disappearing within.
“Find Nico!” Antoine shouted, giving Cally a wink. Then he was gone, and she was left alone in the entry hallway as gunfire echoed sporadically deeper within the house.
It looked like the sort of place the Order would choose: high ceilings, wide staircases, a wrought-iron chandelier.
Tasteful, yet edging toward the gothic. More what she would’ve expected from a vampire’s abode, ironically.
She would’ve smiled at the thought, but with the bodies outside and fighting still echoing through the house, her mood had turned grim.
Being left alone didn’t help either; it was eerie.
Antoine was back in minutes, and she was glad to see him. “The house is clear. Do you know where the basement entrance is?”
She forced herself to stay steady. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“It’s here,” Belle called from up ahead.
“After you.” Antoine gestured gracefully, and she followed the sound of Belle’s voice past a large study, a living room, and down a wood-paneled hallway.
Belle waited beside a door that had been yanked off its hinges, revealing a flight of steps beyond. As soon as she caught sight of them, she disappeared again, and from beneath came more gunfire and then a scream, cut off abruptly.
“Stay close,” Antoine reminded her, slowing to a more human pace as they descended.
The white-painted concrete walls were now smeared with blood, and bodies lay in pools of crimson on the floor.
These were humans, not thralls. She felt a wave of nausea.
But she forced it down. They were holding Eve, and would’ve hurt her at Darian’s orders.
“Another staircase,” Belle called from ahead. “Do try and keep up.”
“Are you all right, ma chérie?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Cally said, clenching her jaw and lifting her chin. “Don’t wait. Go and get Eve for me, Antoine.” Shit. “I mean… do what you want. Please. Always do what you want.”
He stilled, searching her eyes, then reached up and brushed his fingers against her cheek.
“You have always held the power to command me, ma chérie. If such magic has to exist, I would entrust it to no one else. Now, I will go and find your friend and maybe help Belle. She will be insufferable if she kills them all by herself.”
He was gone an instant later, the air rushing in where he’d been a heartbeat before. Cally stared after him, her hand on her cheek where the feel of his touch still lingered.
The path was lined with bodies, and she had to step over more than one.
Sightless, staring eyes, necks twisted awry, throats bloody and torn.
The air reeked of blood and the sharp chemical tang of burned propellant, cloying her throat.
She fought the nausea and kept moving. Down the next set of stairs, past smashed open doors and empty rooms, bullet holes in neat lines along the walls.
So many dead, all of them brutally and efficiently killed, none merely injured.
The carnage was absolute, the full rage of two powerful vampires unleashed.
She found them on the next floor, amid more corpses.
They’d stopped outside the door to Nico’s cell, and were waiting for her.
Belle’s dress was torn in several places, showing more skin.
She was wounded too; a bullet had grazed her abdomen and another had lodged in her thigh, though neither seemed to faze her.
“What’s in here?” Antoine asked.
“Nico’s cell.”
“Huh,” he grunted. “That’s where the rest of them will be.”
“They’ll be waiting for you,” Cally said. “Couldn’t we leave him?”
“If Darian is anywhere, he’ll be in there.” Antoine nodded to the door. His gaze lingered on the bruises marking her face. “I should introduce myself.”
Belle gripped the handle and flashed her fangs at Cally. “Stand back, if you don’t mind.”
Cally retreated down the hallway and pressed to the concrete wall.
Antoine moved a few paces with her, then stood ready.
Belle waited until they were in position, then pulled the handle.
The door crashed back with force, but she kept pulling even as it hit the end of its runner, jerking it loose of its mountings.
Automatic weapons opened in a barrage, peppering the wall through the opening with holes, the fire gradually slackening as the soldiers realized no one was there.
Belle held the door like a shield, and charged through the opening. At some point she had kicked off her heels, for her bare feet slapped the floor like a drum roll. Antoine was after her just as fast.
Cally longed to risk a look, but the guns had started up again, and stray bullets still struck the wall near her. A deafening clang marked Belle’s impromptu shield colliding with something solid. More screams, cut off with the sickening crunches of vampiric kills. Within seconds, all was quiet.
“Good evening, Nico,” Antoine said.
“Outcast bastard.”