“Where are you keeping my mother?”
The vampire slowly blinked, caught off guard by the abrupt change in subject.
Unfortunately, Laylah’s hope she might blurt out the truth was doomed to failure. Instead, a calculating expression hardened her delicate features.
“Ah. Poor Kata,” she purred. “I can’t tell you how it’s broken my heart to have kept her locked away. But really, she gave me no choice.” She slid forward, the scent of expensive perfume and cold malice wrapping around Laylah. “Of course, now that we have you, there’s no longer a need for her to remain my prisoner. With the proper incentive I might be convinced to release her.”
Laylah’s throat threatened to seal shut as the vampire cupped her cheek with icy fingers.
She’d never tested the limits of her ability to heal.
She preferred not to start now.
“Incentive?” she managed to choke out.
The fingers on her face tightened, the nails digging into her flesh.
“The child.”
“Laylah …” Levet tugged on her jeans. “No.”
“Shut up, gargoyle,” Sergei snarled.
Marika ignored the peanut gallery, her dark eyes boring into Laylah with the flat, soulless gaze of a snake.
“What do you say, niece?” she urged. “Surely we can come to an agreement that’s mutually beneficial? After all, the child is worthless to you.”
Laylah swallowed her words of protest. At the moment the baby was her only bargaining chip. And her only means out of the cellar alive. “Hardly worthless.”
Marika studied her with undisguised suspicion. “You want to barter?”
Laylah forced a smile. “You did claim that I have gypsy blood.”
Levet tugged on her jeans. “Laylah.”
Sergei lifted his hand, sending an invisible blast of energy slamming into the tiny gargoyle.
“I said shut up,” the mage thundered.
Laylah glared at the towering bully. “That’s not the best way to start negotiations.”
Marika’s grip threatened to crush Laylah’s jaw as she jerked her back to meet the vicious craving that lurked deep in the brown eyes.
The vampire’s lust for power had become a dangerous addiction.
One that might very well be the death of Laylah. “I want the child.”
“Yeah.” Laylah tried to swallow, her bones beginning to crack beneath the pressure of those slender fingers. “I got that.”
“And I’ll do whatever necessary to get my hands on the brat,” Marika hissed. “Beginning with the sacrifice of Kata if you don’t give me what I want.”
Visions of death danced before Laylah’s eyes, but before the demented vampire could snap and slaughter them all, Sergei was laying a restraining hand on Marika’s arm.
Brave mage.
“Marika,” he murmured softly. “We’re no longer alone.”
There was a tense moment as the female battled back her bloodlust, her punishing grip on Laylah’s face easing as she tilted back her head to test the air.
Her beautiful face twisted with frustrated fury. “Victor.”
“And his entire clan.” Sergei was already headed for the door. “We have to leave.”
Marika shook her head. “Not without my prize.”
Taking advantage of the vampire’s momentary distraction, Laylah jerked free of her grasp, then gathering Levet close she held up a warning hand, more surprised than anyone when the earth trembled and a large chunk of rock fell from the ceiling to knock Marika to the ground.
“Stay back,” she gritted.
“You bitch. Do you have no respect for a Valentino original?” Rising to her feet, Marika brushed off the clinging dust, more concerned with the gown than the jagged wound on her shoulder. Of course, the wound would heal. The gown? It might be a write-off. “You’ll pay for that.”
Laylah braced herself for the looming attack, but with remarkable speed Sergei was grabbing the infuriated vampire’s arm and tugging her toward the door.
“Marika, let’s go.”
Frigid hatred hung in the air, but Laylah’s powers once again lashed out, cracking the stone floor and filling the air with the prickle of an approaching lightning strike.
An impressive display of powers.
A pity that they spent most of their time in hibernation. And when they did decide to appear they usually created more trouble than they were worth.
Thankfully, Marika was suitably freaked by tremors that continued to rock the cavern, and backing toward the entrance, she sent Laylah a glare of venomous warning.
“Bring the child to me or I will make your mother suffer unimaginable pain.”
Laylah tilted her chin. “Go to hell.”
The woman hissed. “Then spend the rest of your life knowing that she’s screaming in agony and that you have no one to blame but yourself.”
Smiling at the fear that Laylah couldn’t entirely hide, Marika allowed Sergei to pull her out of the cavern.
Alone with Levet, Laylah dropped to her knees, her power switched off as abruptly as it had switched on.
Dammit. She’d survived the encounter with her aunt-from-hell, but at what cost?
“Laylah.”
The distant sound of Tane calling her name echoed through the cellar. So distant that she could almost pretend that the edge in the dark, smoky voice was fear instead of fury.
She tried to rise to her feet.
Within moments the cavern would be filled with vampires and she didn’t want anyone seeing her on her knees. Not again.
But her body refused to cooperate. Instead a tide of darkness began to creep relentlessly through her mind.
Obviously even mini-earthquakes took their toll on her strength.
She trembled, her head spinning. Then, as the cool, exotically male scent of Tane filled the cavern, she found herself tumbling into a pair of waiting arms.
Chapter 9
Tane was vaguely aware of the wary vampires who scurried to clear him a path as he stormed his way from the London town house to Victor’s lair. And the curious glances at the sight of him cradling the unconscious woman in his arms as he headed up the stairs to the privacy of the ivory and lavender bedroom.
But beyond demanding that Levet reveal precisely what had occurred from the moment Laylah had left the country estate until she’d fainted in his arms, he’d been indifferent to all but overriding need to have this woman safely hidden from those who would harm her.
And far away from prying eyes so he could personally demonstrate his opinion of impetuous, pigheaded Jinn mongrels who didn’t have the sense of a drunken dew fairy.
Entering the vast room that was softly lit by a fire in the marble fireplace, he kicked shut the door with enough force to rattle the windows. Then, crossing the floor he ruined his splendid display of bad temper by settling her slender body on the canopied bed with a gentleness that was utterly foreign to him.
On the point of straightening, Tane was halted as Laylah’s thick tangle of lashes slowly lifted to expose the weary amusement shimmering in her dark eyes.
“Feel better?”
“No,” he growled, his throat tightening with a terrifying relief as Laylah struggled back to consciousness. “The next time you try to take off without me I’ll have you locked in chains and thrown into Victor’s dungeon.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
He snorted as he settled on the mattress next to her, his hand instinctively reaching to brush over her pale cheek.
“You sound like a spoiled human.”
“It doesn’t make it any less true.” Her voice was weak, but her magnificent eyes flashed with stubborn independence. “I don’t have to take orders from you.”
His frigid power blasted through the air as he recalled his alarm when he’d discovered she’d slipped away.
Victor had been forced to physically restrain him from charging through the dark in pursuit, and it was only because Juliet assured him she knew exactly where to find Laylah and the obnoxious gargoyle that he wasn’t currently ripping London apart brick by soggy brick.
“You’re not that naïve, Laylah.” He leaned down until they were nose to nose, absorbing her scent that was becoming fatally addictive. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to let you blindly charge into danger.”
Her hands lifted to press against his chest. He shuddered as the heat of her palms seared against his skin, melting his icy fury and replacing it with a far more pleasurable sensation.
“It’s none of your business.”
He stole a brief, starkly possessive kiss. “Have you forgotten that you’re my prisoner?”
She flexed her fingers, digging into his flesh with just enough pain to bring pleasure.
Tane groaned, lust slamming into him with an intensity that might have been shocking if he’d been in his right senses.
But he wasn’t.
And he hadn’t been since he’d gone on the chase of a mongrel Jinn.
“I think you have that backward. You’re my prisoner.” She sucked in a startled breath as he grabbed the hoodie and with one smooth motion had it yanked off her body and tossed on a dainty Louis XIV chair across the room. “What the hell are you doing?”
He curled back his lips to reveal his elongated fangs that throbbed with need.
Gods, he ached to taste her.
Never had his hunger been so acute.
Not even during those dark days when he’d retreated from the world, feeding only when his body compelled him to seek substance.
But he’d just watched her collapse in his arms after a brutal skirmish with a vicious vampire and a mage who had some mysterious connection to her past.
His primal need to protect her overcame the lust for her blood on his tongue.
Amazing.
Of course, there was more than one way of satisfying his hunger.
Lowering his head he used his fangs to slice through the thin top, liquid heat pouring through him as the yellow fabric fell to the side, revealing the bit of lace that did nothing to hide the swell of her breasts.
“If we’re going to fight then we might as well do it in comfort.”