"I can"t eat solid food, but I can drink d.a.m.n near anything I choose, except dairy products or anything with strong acids. They sicken any vampire, except Tori. And acids are d.a.m.n near poison."
She sulked at the woman"s name.
"Be careful, pet. Tori is a dear friend, and you do not know it, but you"d be dead if it weren"t for her," he warned, pointing a long, graceful finger directly at her nose.
Flinging her hair over her shoulder, she snarled, "How do you figure?"
"You would not have evaded the Council for very long if I had died. Tori is the only reason I lived. Her blood is what saved me, what bought me time while Kelsey rushed like mad to get here. If I had died, the Council would have hunted you down. And no reason, no excuse would have kept you alive. They would have pitied what you suffered thinking that Lori died. But they would have killed you still." Eli"s eyes blazed with anger as he pictured it. Most likely, Malachi would have found her and he would have killed her. It would have been quick, because he would never torture a woman, but she would still be dead.
"So, if it weren"t for Tori, Declan, and Kelsey, you"d be dead alongside me. Think on that, the next time you see her, and jealousy eats you up."
"Jealousy?" she sputtered, the embarra.s.sment inside her making her queasy and lightheaded. "Why the f.u.c.k would I be jealous?"
Eli laughed, setting the snifter down and moving across the room to her. "Well, I do not know," he purred, catching her body before she could dodge him and pinning her against him. Stroking his hands down her back, he asked, "Why would you be jealous? I smell it on you, in the air, on your skin." Catching her mouth, he kissed her roughly, deeply, his hands on her a.s.s, lifting her up against him. "Are you jealous? If I were doing this to Tori right now, and you saw, would you be?"
Her eyes blazed with rage and thunder rolled through the air outside. Throughout the room everything the wasn"t attached to something, including them, lifted several inches from the floor and hovered for long moments before drifting back down.
Eli pulled away, stroking her hair and smiling down at her with a tender smile that baffled her. "I missed you like mad while you were gone. You were in this house for only a handful of days but it was empty when you left," he whispered softly. "I could have kept on; I could have f.u.c.ked you last night instead of calling Byron when you were begging for it. Once the bond happens, it cannot be broken."
She wanted to believe the promise in his eyes.
But she didn"t want to risk it.
And forever was a long time to live on the edge, wondering if he would tire of her. A bond could happen, maybe-but who said he had to love her?
Shrugging his gentle hands away, though her heart melted at his words, she told him "I don"t want to live forever. Not even with a man who can f.u.c.k like you."
Then she walked out of the room.
Eli"s heart felt like it had been ripped out, danced on, then sewn back together by somebody who was very inept.
He had called the Council.
Sarel had to be sent to somebody else for training.
She could not stay here.
Very angry when he had informed her that somebody would be coming for her she had hissed at him, "I didn"t say I wanted a new trainer."
"I"m afraid, pretty Sarel, you do not have a choice," Eli informed her coolly, looking up from the spread of doc.u.ments in front of him. The sun was sinking lower on the horizon and hunger was a dull ache in his belly, but he wasn"t hunting while she was here. Once he got some business done, he"d call Jonathan.
The wolf was always willing to feed him, and then the wolf and he would go patrolling and try to discover what was amiss. Locate these wraithlike intruders that came and went with nary a trace. Though he wasn"t a Hunter in full yet, the lad had something many didn"t have, an instinct Eli rarely encountered. Caris had had that knack...a sad smile tugged at his mouth.
He should have taken Jonathan on as his partner, trained him and saved himself this heartache.
"If you didn"t want me here, then why allow me to come in the first place?" she demanded.
Lifting a blonde brow, Eli replied "I allowed it because I love you and I had hoped you would learn to feel the same for me. It"s obvious, now, it won"t happen, so why torture myself? After all," he mocked, stifling the hurt her words had caused, "I"m good enough to f.u.c.k for a while, but who wants to live forever with me? Byron will be here to collect you by midnight."
"Byron?" she asked, blus.h.i.+ng furiously. Her heart was racing a mile a minute. He loved her, he had said.
Baldly, openly, easily. But Byron? He was sending Byron to collect her?
"Yes. Another Hunter must take you to the Council until they can decide who can have you. Hunters are valuable, but untrained ones are vulnerable. Tori and Declan are the closest, but they are on a.s.signment and they can"t escort you. Malachi is close by, but he is-unwilling-shall we say. So, Byron it is. Now, I"ve work," he drawled, dragging his eyes away from her face.
"Eli..."
His temper snapped. "Sarel, go away," he snarled, sliding his hands under the desk and flinging the heavy oak aside as though it weighed less than air.
"You said something at the airport, remember? I will never willingly cause you any sort of harm, ever again.
Now, unless your words mean nothing, you will leave me and not come back. Ever. I love you, but I obviously mean nothing to you except a stiff d.i.c.k. You can find that elsewhere. Now leave me alone."
Sarel stared at him, her heart pounding in her chest.
The look in his eyes equaled that of the tortured pain she had seen in his eyes the night she had shot a poisoned arrow into his body for a crime had not committed. Slowly, grief black and bitter in her heart, she left the room.
Crossing to the window, Eli threw it open, and for a moment he almost wished Hollywood had it right.
Because if it did, he"d be dead right then as the setting sun shone on him in all it"s glory. His body going up in flames would be much less painful than this.
Eli felt the tensing in the room only moments before Rafael knocked on the door. The other vampire was growing powerful, very powerful. He was nearing his second century. Idly he wondered how long the younger Hunter would be content to remain on a Master"s territory when he was likely able to be a Master of his own territory, his own enclave, able to come and go as he chose.
"Any news on those who dug the pit?"
"I"ve found their scent in town." Rafe moved slowly into the room, his dark eyes blank, watchful. It had been two days since the young witch had left, and Eli"s temper had not been...reliable.
"We shall go a-hunting then." Lifting his head, he glanced at Rafe and said, "Is this a one man job or more?"
"Small time, from what I can tell." He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, glancing absently around the room, tired, restless, discontent, angry-unsure why.
Eli smiled a little, all too aware of what the younger vamp was feeling. Sighing, he shook his head. And there went another. "We"ll go over what we have then."
And then he"d have to get Rafe off his territory, before the vampire lost his control. Two Master vampires couldn"t control themselves indefinitely, and Rafe was pus.h.i.+ng at the reins of a Master status, unless Eli was very much mistaken.
Eli glanced at Rafe with an arched brow.
"A small group of businessmen. You"re ruining their sport." Sport. Eli snarled under his breath.
Their sport...the buying and selling of teenaged runaways for the pleasure of being the one to rape them was sport?
One of them was a sorcerer, a talented one, which was how they had managed to detect Eli, and managed to go undetected themselves for sometime. As Eli prowled outside the small office just in front of the warehouse while they plotted a way to take another one of his people, Eli"s people, he raged in silence. They dare to harm what is mine-- "...some Exstacy and she"ll be begging for it. Bring a d.a.m.n high price. She"s got a mouth on her like a p.o.r.n star, an a.s.s made for a good hard b.u.t.t-f.u.c.k, and her cherry is still there. She"s only thirteen and looks it," one man said, jerking Eli back to the present. "I"ve got my two most reliable men watching her, making sure she stays in just that condition and I"ve already got a buyer. We just have to keep the local do-gooder away from here in two days. Then we make the sale and we"ll start talking about other places that are less risky to do our business."
His fangs dropped and the scent of blood was a siren"s call as he stared through the window, focusing on the blood that moved under the man"s skin, pounding within the vessel, beckoning to him.
But there was a girl. Another child to save.
Always another child- He dragged in air-forcing the cool air into his lungs- clearing his head. There was no child here now, but there had been a young one around this man recently, one still in the bloom of innocence, still fresh. Eli could smell it on him.
For a moment, he was pulled back to another child, Lori, and he thought of Sarel.
No...there will always be another lost one. I can not let every one remind me of her.
Not when I have eternity, and she wants less than a handful of years, and none of them with me.
Malachi stared at Agnes as though the old woman had lost her mind. "I think not," he replied slowly. "I do not take on students. And if I did, it would not be her."
"I do not want her as your student. She belongs with Eli. Just take her back to him."
"Eli doesn"t want her. He sent her away."
"They are bonded, whether they realize it or not," the stubborn old witch argued. "He deserves some happiness and she is his only chance. Now, you stubborn old ancient goat of a vampire, do it."
Only she would dare speak to him like this.
Malachi couldn"t resist the smile that spread over his face. "You"re wrong. And I"m sorry, but he doesn"t want her."
"He sent her away because she refuses him. She thinks the bond isn"t there. I see it, I know it"s there. If we keep them apart, we will lose them both." Craftily she said, "We need them both. And I"ve seen...a darkness.
Something new has begun to hunt the Master in the Mountains of Virginia."
Malachi stilled, his blood freezing. "You lie."
"No. And you know that. However, in order to save him, you must save her as well. By the time you find him, he will already be injured. And that means she is injured. They must be together to recover. She will have to feed him to save him and he must be saved in order for her to not die."
Malachi glared at her. "You old b.i.t.c.h," he snapped.
The gray haired witch laughed as the handsome vampire left her home, the afternoon sun s.h.i.+ning upon his banner of red hair. "I"m still not as old as you," she called.
He flipped her off.
Sarel dragged her heels.
Malachi ignored her, his fingers locked around his wrist, dragging her from the room the Council had given her for the duration. She had felt their displeasure. n.o.body knew what had transpired, exactly. But none of them blamed Eli.
They blamed her.
h.e.l.l, she blamed her.
She figured Malachi could kill her here and now, in the halls, and none of them would save her.
"I"m not here to kill you," he said.
She gasped. Mind reader?
Casting her a cold look and scanning her from head to toe, he obviously found her lacking. "You may be a witch, but I"m older than the ages, and your powers are nothing to me," he said.
"Where are we going?" she asked breathlessly, trying to keep up with his long strides.
"Would it frighten you if I said I am your trainer?" he asked maliciously.
"Yes," she answered bluntly and honestly.
"Good," he said coldly.
"Are you?" she asked, hating how timid she sounded.
Malachi didn"t answer.
b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
She flinched, knowing he heard her.
Hearing an odd, stifled sound she didn"t dare wonder whether he was laughing at her or trying to suppress a snarl.
Following him meekly, silently, she willed her mind into a blank canvas. Something told her that if he wanted her dead, and decided to follow through, the Council would do little to punish him. Malachi couldn"t help it-she may have been a mean, dangerous b.i.t.c.h to Eli, but she was an impudent little thing. Hearing the silent b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he couldn"t completely stifle the laugh.
Herding her onto the private plane he had chartered, he pushed her none too gently into a seat. It had only been two weeks since Eli had sent her away. It was already showing on her and he had to admit, he suspected Agnes was right. The girl had lost weight, her lovely mellow gold skin had turned sallow, and her eyes were dull.
Which meant Eli wasn"t going to be at his best either.
They had to hurry. Various reports coming in did little to soothe Mal"s temper, or the fear that was lurking just under his skin. A wounded young vamp in Eli"s territory-wounded in a vamp pit. Vamp pits...the wolves would have discovered them, unless a witch was helping to hide the scent.
Questions asked by people whose faces couldn"t be remembered. Aye, something was stalking Eli.
And not just Eli.
Two more Masters, one in France, one in Canada had been suffering similar problems and not reporting them.
One finally reported it last week. One would not be reporting at all. That Master, the one from France, ah well, Malachi knew that Agnes was going to her wake tomorrow. She was traveling to Scotland to bid her farewell to the vampire. Sabine Delacroix had fallen to a weapon no vampire could escape. Her house had been torched at noon, and when she had tried to flee with the help of two of the s.h.i.+fters who had come to her aid, they had all been shot down.
Something deadly was stalking them all.
He thanked whatever G.o.d existed that had kept Agnes from allowing Sarel to be sent back to England, where she had technically belonged. The flight from New York to West Virginia would take little time. And if he prayed hard enough, it just might be in time.
"What do you mean, she is not in England?" Eli asked wearily. He pushed a hand through his hair, cursing the weariness that had plagued him the past few weeks.
On the other end of the line, Byron shrugged. "I don"t know, Eli. Agnes told me to take her to Excelsior. I"m just a peon. I follow orders," he said.
Excelsior. Why was she at Excelsior? "That makes no sense? Why is she at Excelsior?"
"She"s not. At least not any more," Byron said, keeping his voice level. "Malachi has her. Agnes has paired her with him."
Hours later, Eli still couldn"t believe it. He wandered through the streets as he circled around the house where the girl was supposed to be sold.
Elijah felt the bitter anger work through him and had to shove it aside, it exhausted him so. "Not while I breathe," he swore softly, peering at the warehouse.