Lucian set the head onto the tabletop, red puddling around its base as it drained from the brain. Robere’s expression was startled, and his eyes still held the red flare of Other. Not dead, Lia noted, merely incapacitated, but dying, slowly dying.
Lucian returned to his seat and drew her back onto his knee. “I believe I will tear Robere’s body into quarters, and put each quarter into a cage,” he informed the other vampires around the table.
They were shocked, she noted, and wary, watching Lucian through narrowed eyes as if he were behaving unpredictably and she wondered if they were as surprised by his speed as she had been. One of the vampires had gouged furrows into the tabletop with his nails as he had pushed back in his chair recoiling from the violence in reflex.
“And sink each quarter into the sea. He will have a long time in which to think upon the error of his ways as the fish pick his bones clean and his brain dehydrates. His head, I will keep here, a trophy and a reminder,” Lucian’s voice grew cold. “That I will not tolerate treachery.”
“Robere’s family,” the man to Lucian’s left murmured. “They will want retribution for this, Lucian. Elior will -”
“The old ways are done,” Lucian snarled interrupting him. “The bloodlines grow weak. It is time for a new order of vampire. The weak will fall, and the strong rule. Elior is nothing, nothing,” he growled it. “If he could do anything against me, he would have done it by now. He hides his weakness well, but he is weak, make no mistake about that.”
“Lucian,” one of the other men protested. “You cannot mean to declare war against the ruling families.”
“I do mean,” Lucian inclined his chin, the Other vivid in his eyes, eclipsing the blue. “This war has been brewing for centuries. It is time to have it out. I will no longer kowtow to weaker vampires, like Elior, just because he was born of a royal line. The gods created vampires for their strength, not their family allegiances.”
Elior. Lia remembered the name and had an image of a smouldering handsome dark-haired man with grey eyes in a noisy place. Paris, she thought. The club, and Paris had brought her there for work. It was where she had met Raiden. Elior was her boss… Her vampire boss.
Lucian stood, setting Lia to the ground. “You are either with me, or against me,” he rested his hand on Robere’s head. “My pet, I want the truth from those in the room.”
“Veritatem dicere,” she commanded distractedly obedient whilst she pushed back the edges of the veil that kept her that way. Raiden, she thought, I have to find Raiden, my wolf, my mate. He had been injured. She remembered the whimper of a werewolf. Lucian had stolen her from him, and he had been injured fighting for her.
Lucian’s grin was vulpine. “I think a blood oath of loyalty is appropriate.”
Once the vampires filed out of the room, Lucian caught Lia’s face between the palms of his hands and kissed her hard enough to split her lip against her teeth. His tongue found the cut and soothed it as he deepened the kiss and pulled her against him so that she could feel that he was hard.
Oh god, she thought, please no…
He lifted her onto the table and stepped between her knees, drawing his nail across his neck. “Drink up, pet,” he cradled her head, bringing her lips to the wound. She didn’t want to drink it, knew that doing so would place her further in his power and kept her lips closed. He laughed. “Still fighting me?”
There was a knock at the door. He sighed heavily, resting his forehead against hers for a moment before lifting. “What is it?” He demanded.
“Lucian,” the voice was familiar, and Lia turned and met Elior’s eyes as he opened the door. She saw a muscle in the corner of his jaw stand out. “What is this?” He demanded, shoving the door open and striding into the room to grab Robere’s head off the table by the hair, spraying blood across the table, carpet and wall like the off cast of a paint brush.
“Robere confessed to disloyalty to you,” Lucian lied so easily she knew that it was second nature to him. Don’t believe him Elior, she pleaded with the grey eyed vampire wordlessly. Don’t believe him. Free me. Help me. “I dealt with it.”
“This will bring the wrath of his family down on this region, of which I am in charge,” Elior shook Robere’s head in fury. “It is bad enough that you have stolen a mate from the Grenmeyer Clan and injured two of their alphas in the struggle, but now you do this! You will bring war to us from all quarters.”
“Not a mate, yet,” Lucian tilted his head with a smirk. “So, also not an issue.”
“You grow arrogant,” Elior set the head onto the table, and Lia saw a change in his posture as his voice chilled. “I told you not to touch the girl. She was in my employ, and Raiden Grenmeyer had scent marked her.”
Raiden. She saw the shards of glass spray, the blood welling on Raiden’s back and cheek as they cut him, and his shift into his wolf. She remembered the wolf crumpled by the Ute, and the yelp of the other as Alex carried her to the 4WD. She had flashes of Raiden in bed, on his motorcycle, in a garden. They filled the blank spaces, and pushed back the veil.
She remembered the grey box of a room and the filthy mattress upon which Lucian had raped her, and felt her heartbeat increase with fear and rage. She had to get free of Lucian and find Raiden. Both vampires turned to look at her, picking up the change in her heartbeat and breathing. Lucian sighed and started around the table.
“You are upsetting my slave,” he reprimanded Elior, coming to Lia’s side and stroking his hand over her hair as he brought his wrist to his teeth and bit. He gripped the back of her neck and pressed his wrist to her mouth, forcing the blood into her mouth.
“You are getting too cocky, Lucian,” Elior replied as he picked up Robere’s body in one hand and his head in the other. “You are lucky that Raiden Grenmeyer and the other wolf survived the attack, or we would be facing war from their pack. If my father and your father were not friends, I would have destroyed you by now for the trouble you have caused me and just because I don’t like you.”
Lucian released Lia and licked his wrist. “You are hurting my feelings, Elior.”
“Raiden,” Lia said, fighting against the blood, determined not to lose ground. “Elior. Raiden. Help.”
Both vampires looked at her in surprise.
Elior raised an eyebrow. “Your blood is not strong enough to restrain her. She is aware.”
“My blood is fine,” Lucian hissed in irritation at the insult. “She is just… unusual.”
“Perhaps the bond with the werewolf is interfering with the blood bond.”
“I just need to spend more time with her,” Lucian decided stroking her hair. “That is no hardship.”
“Why are you so determined to have her?” Elior watched him with narrowed eyes. “You have a harem of slaves, why go to so much effort for this one?”
“Have you never seen a human and just known they are meant to belong to you?” Lucian replied, drawing Lia against him. “I have had it happen three times during my lifetime. The first time, I was young and foolish, and drank her dry. The second time, I turned her. This time, I am older and wiser. This one, I will keep bound to me.”
Elior did not reply but left with the two pieces of the vampire, his grey eyes meeting Lia’s fleetingly as he did so. There would be no help for her there, she thought. The vampire did not like the situation, but he did not intend to change it.
Lucian sighed heavily. “Well, that will complicate things. No doubt he will put Robere back together, and I will have to find another way to destroy him. Come along, my pet,” he lifted her from the tabletop, and took her by the hand, leading her down the hallway to an elevator. He hit the call button and wrapped his arms around her as he waited impatiently.
Raiden, Lia thought, had survived the attack. The relief was profound. Her wolf had survived. She just had to do likewise and fight her way free to return to him.
The elevator doors opened, and Lucian selected the penthouse. “Thanks to Elior’s untimely arrival, I have some things I need to take care of,” he said conversationally. “But that will not take long, and then we will spend some quality time together, my dear.”
The doors opened into a luxurious apartment with a breath-taking wall of windows overlooking the city. She could see the academy on the streets below. She knew this building, had seen it as part of the city landscape without ever having been within it.
He led her past a kitchen, a seating area, and a dining table, to a double door which he opened, revealing a large bedroom with two walls of glass, and an oversized bed set against the third wall, behind which she could see a walk-in-robe and glossy en suite.
“Right,” he said. “Use the bathroom and then undress and lay on the bed.”
The blood had enough hold that she moved automatically to fulfill his commands. Fight it, Lia, she told herself. You need to fight it and get back to Raiden.
There were chains from each corner of the bed attached to cuffs. Lucian chained people to his bed often enough to have chains ready, she thought with horror, as she lay naked upon the sheets. He attached the cuffs with deft movements.
“Now, because of your magic tongue,” he grinned down at her, “open wide.”
She opened her mouth and he gagged her with a tie.
“Good,” he purred, and drew the bed sheets around her tucking them around her body in between caresses. “And that is because I am fond of you, and know that you are prone to chill,” he leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Have a sleep until I return.”
She closed her eyes and listened to him leave.
Raiden was alive, she repeated herself, a galvanizing mantra. She needed to escape. She remembered the woman, Charlotte. She needed to get free of this bed, free the other women of the harem, and escape to Raiden.
But first she needed to wake up. Wake up, Lia.
She opened her eyes.