And then I started crying.
The traitor inside me that had rolled over for Abel, that wanted so badly to belong to him, began shaking and sobbing. Malcolm kept walking, ignoring the sounds I couldn"t stop, shifting nimbly when I shoved at him one second and clutched the next. Control slipped in and out of my grasp, leaving me dizzy and disoriented. I managed silence by the time we landed in a room full of vampires, but I was barely able to focus. Soraya ordered the soldiers out while Mal carried me to the couch.
"Take your time, Sydney." He settled me in his lap. I leaned forward, trying to wrap myself around my raw center. He pulled me back, and panic flared. When I shot to my feet, he jerked me back so hard it jolted the breath out of me.
"Christ. Settle, Syd. You"re safe. I"ll get you anything you need, but you aren"t going anywhere."
This was exactly where I needed to be, where I wanted to be, but it still didn"t feel right. Mal locked his arms around me and held my head against his shoulder until I struggled myself into exhaustion. It didn"t take long.
Soraya paced in front of the door all dressed in black, her doomsday best. Thurston arrived a moment later, stopping so fast when he saw me that Sora had to shoulder him aside to get the door closed.
I knew what I must have looked like. I was filthy, my eyes swollen and leaking. My dress-the dress Abel had put me in, pale and fancy and as restrictive as bonds-stained pink. Their voices buzzed and blurred as Abel"s leached out of my mind, the commands and directives he"d planted there disappearing as I sweated out his blood. As Malcolm"s energy ran over me like a steady downpour.
I tried to move my toes, and they responded. I clenched and unclenched my fists and my fingers stayed where I put them. I opened my mouth, and nothing horrible poured out. Finally, finally, I relaxed.
Malcolm"s arms loosened around me and, when I didn"t try to squirm away, he unstrapped my shoes and set them on the floor. Thurston offered a blanket, which Mal wrapped around me even though I felt fever-hot and his shirt had grown damp between us. Beneath the blanket, his hand stroked my ankle and calf, clamping down anytime I moved.
I wanted to tell him that I"d gotten the hint, that I wasn"t planning to go anywhere even if I had the energy. Instead I wavered, my thoughts slow, my body tired, as they talked around me. The room was dark blue and sea green, warmed by the light of two oil lamps and decorated with small sepia photographs. I surveyed it, examining each door and shadow. When n.o.body jumped out of the woodwork, I looked at Malcolm.
He needed a shave, which was unusual for him, grooming being more of a calling than an afterthought. I needed to explain and tell him things. I needed to get out of the sticky dress and spend a year in the shower. But instead I simply lay there watching him, the lift of his brow, the shadowed curve between his cheekbone and jaw. If Abel had had his way, I wouldn"t have been capable of recognizing Malcolm. To me, he"d ceased to exist. To him... He rubbed at his eyes, gorgeous and more tired than I"d ever seen him.
"Unacceptable," he said, and my awareness expanded beyond the small borders of my body.
"We should not dismiss anything that might work," Soraya replied, her patience thin. She"d stopped pacing and was leaning against the wall, hands shoved into her pockets. "There are two options-"
"One," Malcolm replied. "There is only one option."
Well, that didn"t sound good. "How"s Mickey?" I asked. "Is she okay?"
Three pairs of glowing eyes snapped to me and I flinched under the accompanying slap of power. Then everybody was moving at once. Thurston rushed to the bathroom and returned with a handful of dripping towel and a gla.s.s of water. Soraya stuck her head out the door to check the hallway. Malcolm pulled me up and crushed me against him.
I tried to say something rea.s.suring, but it was all too fast.
Soraya slammed the door and pointed at me. "He is controlling her still."
"He swore he didn"t bite her," Thurston protested, turning so that the cloth he"d raised toward me dripped on the side of my face. "To Chev he swore."
I fumbled a hand out from under the blanket and pushed it away.
"You would trust Abel?" Soraya asked.
"I would trust Chev to know if he was lying. Por supuesto."
Malcolm leaned me away from him, his hands flat against my shoulder blades. Gold filaments rose and flashed on the surface of his eyes before retreating. I could lose myself in that light. I wanted to, wanted the entire world to sweep away except for that. And maybe he had a similar thought, if less modest.
He dragged the zipper down the back of the dress and tugged on the sleeves. My arms came up as I instinctively covered myself, but wrapping an arm over the naughty parts of my chest only brought the vivid bite marks closer together. Malcolm"s fingers dug into my ribs and his head reared back as though he"d been struck.
"He lied to Chev, in her house," Soraya ground out, her anger razor-sharp.
I reached for Malcolm. He captured my hand and wrapped his gently around it. But he didn"t look at me, and my stomach twisted.
It wasn"t as if I"d come to him in perfect condition. He"d been the one to tell me that bites, that changing even, was simply something that happened. This was a few more scars, nothing more. If I spent enough time with him, they might even heal.
Thurston stared from where he knelt a foot away. If he was looking for more of a show, he could f.u.c.k right off. I wasn"t about to squander the little dignity I had left.
"Blood in, blood out," Soraya whispered.
Mal shook his head.
I looked back and forth between them. "What are you talking about?"
"We can only keep it from Bronson for so long," Soraya murmured, ignoring me. "To give you time."
"Give you time to what?" I asked Mal. He didn"t answer. It was like he couldn"t hear me.
"Do you know me?" Thurston asked, speaking very slowly and shattering the last of my patience.
"Yes, Thurston, you muttonchopped a.s.shole. Now, what the h.e.l.l are you guys talking about?" I jerked my hand away from Malcolm. "And where is Mickey?"
"She"s resting," Thurston said, after a moment of collective silence.
"She"s hardly slept since she returned," Malcolm murmured, his eyes on the dress crumpled around my waist. "Do you remember when she left?"
"We were going to..." A cold knife sliced through my mind. I took a shaky breath and pulled the blanket up to cover myself. "We were trying to escape and got separated. Did Abel come here last night?"
"He came with hat in hand, full of plat.i.tudes and promises, asking to meet with Bronson in person." Malcolm"s tone was flat and, for the first time in a long while, I felt nothing from him. He was withholding when I was starved for him. It felt like punishment.
"That was not last night, though," Soraya said. "It was four nights ago."
I shook my head, denying it. But n.o.body corrected her. That was a long time, long enough for the foggy gaps in my memory to turn all kinds of sinister.
"Four nights, huh?" I took a ma.s.sive breath and pushed my hair back from my face. "Abel fed me his blood. That"s why I was out of it earlier, why I wasn"t...tracking so well." Why I was crying for him, demanding that Malcolm return me to him. No wonder he couldn"t look at me. I lifted my chin as a sinkhole opened inside me.
"Are you certain that"s what happened?" Soraya asked, her gaze on my body as if she could see the marks through the blanket. As if they were evidence that I wasn"t trustworthy. So maybe my brain felt like a giant bruise, but I could actually think again and I could feel exactly where I"d been bitten. That, I remembered.
"He didn"t bite me. Others did, on his order, but he didn"t. When the fangs didn"t have the intended effect, that"s when...that"s when he started." I swept a finger past my mouth, not wanting to say it again. Sometimes confessions didn"t make you feel better. They just threw you down and laid your shame out for everyone to see.
"Started?" Malcolm asked. "How many drops?"
"I don"t know how much. He cut himself and forced it down my throat. It got blurry after that."
Mal shifted beneath me, straightening so that I was perched on his knees rather than sitting with him. Soraya made a sound and raised her eyebrows at him. And that was it. I was hurt. I was a mess. And now they were acting like I was a f.u.c.king liar.
"You know what? Screw you, Soraya. I don"t need to convince you. I might have been out of it, but I was still the one who was there and you weren"t, so-"
"You wouldn"t be alive," Thurston interrupted. "Humans can take blood in small doses. Drops at a time. Not more. It would have killed you."
"Well thank goodness they had a defibrillator handy. Real Boy Scout of them. Always prepared."
"He convinced you that"s what happened," Mal said, his gentle tone grating against me, his hand unmoving against my back. I didn"t want to be managed or coddled. I wanted to be held. "The bite confuses events in your mind."
"No. That"s what I"m trying to tell you. Nothing got confused. It hurt, and nothing else. There was no glamour, no thrall." My voice, what was left of it, wobbled. I swallowed around a hard lump. "Is that why Chev didn"t ask if I"d been fed blood? Because I shouldn"t be alive."
"You reacted when Mickey burst into the room," Soraya said. "If you were under thrall, you could have been distracted. If you"d been blood-bonded and programmed to do Abel"s bidding, you wouldn"t have reacted at all."
Programmed. The word didn"t agree with me.
"Away from our energy, our blood doesn"t gel or evaporate. It dies, turns to a kind of ash. You could have absorbed a few drops quickly enough that it did no harm, but more...it would have killed all contacting tissues as it died. It would have been extraordinarily painful."
It had hurt. My throat had burned like the blood was acid. But I hadn"t felt like it was killing me.
"Chev"s some kind of mind reader," I said. "Why don"t you ask her what happened?"
"One of her talents is for gauging compulsion," Malcolm said. "She knows when a human has been glamoured beyond free will or is resisting a thrall. And everyone knows the look of a blood-bound human."
That didn"t make sense. I knew what had happened. The horror and panic of Abel trapping me and forcing the blood into my mouth. That was vivid. What came between those moments...
"You shouldn"t be listening to her," Soraya said, shaking her head. I glared at her. We weren"t BFFs, but that was G.o.dd.a.m.n cold, especially when she"d relied on someone else to pull her out of her darkest days.
"Sora, please." Malcolm took a deep, unnecessary breath, then hesitated a moment before he spoke. "These others...what happened when they bit you? How long did they drink? How did it feel?"
I would have punched him if the questions hadn"t hurt so much. I was so raw, sliced open and laid bare in front of him, in front of them all. Having them think I was still under Abel"s influence sucked. Having Malcolm think I"d enjoyed getting there was worse.
I"d fought Abel and, even though the battle wasn"t visible, it was the hardest thing I"d ever done. But I"d gotten away. I"d survived. We should have been G.o.dd.a.m.n celebrating.
"Why didn"t you try to find me?" I asked. "Why do you get to treat me like s.h.i.t after leaving me with him for so long?"
"She"s trying to manipulate you," Soraya said. "Make you feel guilty." I could barely hear her over the pounding in my head.
"I can"t feel any worse than I already do." Malcolm looked at me finally, his eyes crinkling like I"d blown smoke in them. Then his face smoothed out until no emotion lived there. "We had to transfuse Mickey after we tracked her down. A falling-down trailer on the side of the road with no memory of how she"d gotten there or where she"d come from, no trail to trace back since she"d hitchhiked. That was after less than twenty hours. Yet you look relatively well."
"You know, after these last few days-each of those nights you didn"t come for me-let"s go ahead and admit I look like s.h.i.t. Those two who walked me in here each bit me once, at the same time. Then they dropped me because apparently I taste like poison."
I forced myself to stand. My legs felt ninety feet long and like they were made of jelly as I made my way to the bathroom.
"And, since you asked, I"m not sure how long it lasted. It felt like forever. But I can guarantee that I didn"t enjoy a single second of it." My voice broke somewhere at the end. The lamps flared, then went out with a hiss.
"You both need to leave," Malcolm said. There was the sound of jostling, then the door opened and closed. Whatever. I fumbled my way to the bathtub, dropped hard onto the side, and turned on the water. He should have been happy to see me.
"Your blood has a peculiar taste to it," Malcolm said. "A strong flavor, not something that could be produced by spicing. The poisoned feeder is an urban myth, but it"s a persistent myth. And it"s a good thing."
"Yeah, "cause if they"d kept chewing on me, there would have been nothing left for you to treat like c.r.a.p, and wouldn"t that have been a shame."
"I"m sorry, Sydney. I had to know."
"And this is how you find s.h.i.t out? Taunt me to see if I still care about myself enough to be upset by it? Well, congratulations. I"m upset." I"d thought I was out of tears but they welled up and spilled over again, and I laughed so that I wouldn"t sob.
"Blooding, allowing..." He swallowed and power burst from him before he reined it in. His voice was still harsh. "...or forcing a human to drink directly from the body is done only to heal or to control. In such an amount, though, it should kill. If it doesn"t, it triggers the first phase of the change, but that"s a one-way connection." He was quiet for a moment, after which he spoke slowly, almost dreamily. "We"ve all felt it take hold and pull us under. We know what it does, how impossible it is to escape. The change or death, those are the only outcomes. I want you to still be you. G.o.d, you don"t know how much. But, try to understand how it is to want something you know isn"t possible."
"And here I thought you liked long odds."
"There are no odds to be made. It"s an absolute. With anyone else...it"s an absolute."
"So I"m the lucky exception."
"I don"t think you understand how lucky you are."
Abel meant for me to be a mindless puppet by the time he brought me to Tenth World. He wanted to roll me in like a piece of luggage, and the fact that I was able to think at all was a miracle. The fact that I was alive was impossible. I shuddered.
"I"m getting the idea."
I didn"t understand why I was the exception, but then, I didn"t understand any of what was happening. Abel had applied for sanctuary, but that only applied within the territory of Tenth World, which meant he couldn"t leave until he and Bronson came to an agreement. And Bronson was here, which was another disturbing thought but one I didn"t have the capacity to explore. If they didn"t kiss and make up, maybe Abel couldn"t ever leave. So what was the point of bringing me along, in that condition? It seemed like a lot of effort if all he wanted was to f.u.c.k with Mal. Not that he was short in the spite department.
My head throbbed at the thought of him, deep in the aching s.p.a.ce where my memories should be. I stood and began pulling off my clothes, but stopped when my hands b.u.mped into Malcolm"s.
"Is this okay?" he asked.
"It"s fine," I said, hunching back and trying to minimize contact.
"Sydney..."
When I didn"t protest further, he placed my hands on his shoulders for support while he eased the dress down my waist. He didn"t make contact with my skin again. The dress lumped on the floor around my feet. He wrapped his arm around my waist to help ease me into the water but kept his sleeve between us the whole time. Panic fluttered when I sank down, as the blood-warm water rose up to my chin.
"It"s dark in here," I said through clenched teeth. I didn"t want him to hear them chattering. The water sloshed against the sides of the tub, and that might have had something to do with how hard I was shaking.
"I"ll bring you light."
A match struck in the other room, then he returned with a tray of lit candles. He set them on the counter, and the light tripled as it found mirrored surfaces, the chrome of the fixtures and faucets. Malcolm lowered himself to the floor outside the deep tub and leaned his head back against the wall.
"Someday," he said roughly, "many years from now, I will ask you to forgive me."
Holding my breath, I slid beneath the water, and stayed there until my lungs began to burn. Malcolm"s arm draped over the tub and his hand rested against the inside of my elbow. As if rea.s.suring himself that I was there, even diminished as I was. He withdrew it, dripping shirt and all, when I surfaced with a gasp.
"So, is this when you explain how you know what my blood tastes like?" I asked.
He rolled his head to look at me. Our eyes were level. The water was boiling hot and I could barely feel it. I could barely feel anything. The ashen remains of anger. Flutters of the fear I"d been living with. I didn"t want to recall the details of whatever still had me shivering.
"That night in Alaska," he said. "When you drove out to my house and pulled a bomb out of your car, I tasted your blood."
"I was hurt. That"s so tacky."
"It was an opportunity. It meant I didn"t have to glamour you to take it. It"s a standard tactic for tracking, a thread that I can home in on if I need to find someone quickly. I wouldn"t do it now."
"But with a stranger, it"s fine?"
"With an a.s.set, it"s acceptable. That...sample should enable me to find you a hundred miles away, but sometimes you surprise me when you walk into the room."
"How awful."