Chosen by Blood (34 page)

Knox frowned. Vamps that were bigger than him were few and far between, especially after the War and the distribution of the vaccine. Could O’Flare be seeing dharmires? Or vamps from outside his clan? Maybe a pair that had come in from outside the United States?

“What else can you see about them?”

O’Flare closed his eyes, concentrating.

“They’re flying above them, and Felicia and her partner don’t see them. They’re dancing more furiously, spinning and dipping, covering the whole dance floor, but the vamps don’t go away. But I see the look in their eyes. It’s lust.”

“What kind of lust? Desire? Blood lust?”

O’Flare’s eyes popped open. “Both,” he said.

Knox straightened. “I’ve got to—”

A blur of movement was their only warning. Hunt attacked from nowhere, knocking O’Flare down and pinning him to the ground.

“Hunt, stop,” Lucy breathed, obviously keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t telegraph their presence to the guards.

“You better have a damn good reason for deviating from the plan, my friend. Even though I can’t die in wolf form, I can sure feel pain. I sure as shit don’t relish the idea of being riddled with bullet holes.”

Stepping in front of them, Knox bent and grabbed the were by the throat. He picked him up, his fear for Felicia obviously giving him the kind of strength he hadn’t exhibited in years. When Hunt started to fight him, Knox tightened his grip. “Stand down, Hunt,” he growled. “O’Flare had a vision that Felicia was in danger. Do not get in the way of me finding out what he saw.”

Hunt’s glower slowly faded. He deliberately relaxed his muscles. “Fine,” he choked out.

Knox released him and turned back to O’ Flare, who’d picked himself up again. Knox gripped O’Flare’s arm. “What about my mother? Or children. Did you see two young children in your vision?”

O’Flare shook his head. “No. No other females. No children. But I saw something else, Knox. The three vamps with Felicia?” His eyes shifted down until they rested on Knox’s chest. “They were all wearing the same medallion. They’re all from your clan, and even though the vision might seem vague and benign, I know what it means. Felicia’s in danger, Knox. Grave danger. And you don’t have long to save her.”

Knox shook himself free of O’Flare’s grasp and swiftly penetrated his thoughts.

He sensed no deceit in O’Flare, no malevolence. Only truth. The truth that Felicia was in danger.

But how could he know for sure? The timing seemed ridiculously convenient. And his powers had failed him before. He hadn’t been able to read those scientists’ minds and then they’d ended up dead. He looked through the trees, but couldn’t see the compound or the guards from his current vantage point.

“Go,” Hunt said. “He’s telling the truth. I can feel it.”

Grimly, Knox shook his head, not denying the truth of O’Flare’s words but expressing disbelief for how fucked the situation was. “We’re talking about teleporting halfway across the world. If I go, even assuming I can return, I’ll have depleted some of my power. I can’t guarantee how much I’ll have left. Whether I’d be able to transport all the Others and the rest of you as well.”

“Go,” Lucy said.

Knox looked at O’Flare, who nodded.

But still Knox hesitated. “Shit,” he said, wanting nothing more than to teleport to the Dome and ensure the safety of his family. But he had no real proof that Felicia was in danger. He had a duty to his team, as well. And his entire clan. If he left now and couldn’t return, then whether the team was able to retrieve the antidote would be irrelevant. They’d be left with no way to get out. Which meant they could very well die here in this frozen hellhole.

“Go.” Wraith’s voice came over the line. “Now, before it’s too late.”

Knox felt himself softening. He flexed his fingers, gathering the power to teleport so that it buzzed throughout his body in an electric wave.

“I’ll be in charge while you’re gone. We’ll stay low and wait for you to return.”

No one responded to the were’s words. The fact that neither Wraith nor O’Flare protested his assertion of leadership told Knox how earnest they were in their urgings.

“I’ll be back,” Knox promised. “So long as there’s a breath in my body, I swear to you I’ll come back for each one of you.”

Hunt nodded. “I’m going to hold you to that, vamp.”

With a surge of energy, Knox left.

“I knew the bastard didn’t have the guts to do what was right,” Lesander taunted as he pinned Zeph against a wall. The vamp’s efforts to restrain Knox’s brother seemed negligible, as if he were a dinosaur pinning down a gazelle. Felicia hadn’t seen him since before the War, but he looked exactly the same as he had then—tall, imposing, bulging with muscles, a vamp in full health, suffering no ill effects from the malnourishment that the rest of his kind were.

Fully pinned to the ground as she was, hands and legs locked in place by Niles, Felicia tried to focus on Lesander’s words rather than the erection Niles had deliberately shoved against her. “You mean the guts to betray your leader? Does Knox know you’ve been feeding on pure blood and keeping it to yourself?”

Although she’d been speaking to Lesander, the clear leader of the pair, Niles lifted his hands, keeping her pinned in place with persuasion, and slapped her hard across the face. Felicia bit back any sound of pain, so he slapped her again, this time splitting her lip. Blood gathered at the side of her mouth and she swiftly lapped at it with her tongue, internally cringing when Niles followed the move with eyes that suddenly flashed red.

“I might not have shared the source with Knox, but I gave old Zeph here a little taste, didn’t I, Zeph? What, it wasn’t pure enough for you? Did you feel sharing blood with your lessroyal cousin was beneath you? Yet you’d rather side with a half brother who has the poison of human DNA in his system?” He turned his head to look at Felicia. “No offense, of course.”

Felicia glared at him. “None taken. The only poison I see are a couple of vamps who are acting like trained pets for the humans they claim to despise so much.”

Lesander narrowed his eyes at her and added another layer of persuasion. He cut off her breath. Within seconds, Felicia’s eyes were watering with the effort to breathe and the world started to lose focus.

“Stop,” she heard Zeph yell.

Frantically, Felicia shifted her gaze between Niles and Lesander. Niles grinned evilly. Lesander had turned away to wrestle with Zeph, who’d obviously had an unexpected surge of strength.

The fingers constricting her throat were suddenly gone. Sucking in a deep breath of air, Felicia felt her arm twitch. Glancing up, she saw that Niles’s attention was on Zeph and Lesander, who were still struggling. Niles’s inattention had caused his persuasion over her to slip a little.

Gathering her strength, Felicia heaved herself up, trying to slam Niles in the head with either her fists or her own skull. Before her torso could lift off the ground, Niles turned back to her. This time, he hit her with a closed fist.

Felicia’s head thumped back against the floor so hard she saw stars. When Lesander laughed, she saw he’d once again subdued Zeph, who was pale and breathing hard. His gaze latched on to Felicia, the apology in them as clear as the knowledge that they were going to die. She closed her eyes, calling forth memories both recent and older. Her parents. Noella. Knox and Bianca and the children. She remembered the feel of Knox’s kiss and the sweetness of Joelle’s hug as she’d squeezed her with her little arms. She felt a tear trail down her face; it mingled with the blood seeping from her nose and mouth.

Above her, Niles froze. He bent closer toward her, sniffing audibly. When Felicia felt the moist warmth of his tongue licking at her lips, her eyes popped open and she tried to struggle once more. She flinched in fear, at least her insides did, when she saw the demonic look that had entered Niles’s ruby red eyes.

“She’s got pure blood.”

“What?” Lesander’s full attention suddenly became focused on Felicia’s mouth or, more specifically, the blood that had pooled there.

“You’re crazy,” she breathed. “I took the vaccine. My blood was tested—” Automatically, she choked back her words. Her blood had been tested over a month ago, by Dr. Neil Barker himself. He’d taken her blood, tested it on-site, and assured her that the vaccine was still working. He’d also told her, however, that her iron levels were low and that she was bordering on anemia. Before she knew it, he’d given her several “vitamin” shots. What if he’d actually given her the antidote instead ? After all, she’d volunteered to be one of his first subjects as soon as Mahone approved human testing for the antidote. If he’d felt he needed results sooner than later, would he—

With economical movements, Lesander rapped Zeph’s head against the wall behind him, effectively knocking him unconscious. Before Zeph’s body hit the ground, Lesander was kneeling beside her and Niles.

He would, Felicia realized. Barker had given her the antidote. It was the only explanation and it was the reason that these two vamps were ready to rip her apart to drink her blood. Felicia’s mind urged her body to move, to flee, to run, but once more, nothing happened. She simply lay there like a rock, helpless.

“Move out of the way,” Lesander growled at his brother. “I want to see for myself.”

Niles shoved at him with his shoulder. “Back off. I’m not an idiot. I know what pure blood smells like. What it
tastes
like.” He swiped his tongue across his lips. “Hers is yummy.”

Lesander shoved Niles back, hard enough to almost dislodge him from his position over Felicia. “Move, I said. I want to taste.”

With an expression Felicia had rarely seen so close-up, Niles’s face transformed into one of pure, primal rage. Baring his fangs and hissing, his eyes flashing like the siren on a police car, Niles wrapped his hands around Lesander’s throat. Lesander’s hands followed suit.

Although she felt the persuasion completely lift and the newfound freedom in her arms and limbs, she was still pinned in place by Niles’s body. A quick glance at Zeph confirmed he remained prone on the ground, but a faint lifting of his eyelids revealed he was awake. Imperceptibly, he inched closer to her.

A howl of pain snapped her attention back toward Zeph’s cousins. Niles had shifted almost completely off her now. Lesander had sunk his fangs into his brother’s neck and Niles was frantically trying to throw him off.

Abandoning stealth for swiftness, Felicia yanked herself from under Niles and belly-crawled toward Zeph, who was moving even swifter toward her. Their arms extended to reach for one another and they managed to grab hold of one another’s wrists. Zeph dragged her closer, a question in his eyes.

She nodded. “Do it,” she whispered. “I don’t know if it’s true, but if it is . . .”

She winced when Zeph sank his fangs into her wrist and began to drink from her in strong, swift pulls. He moaned and cupped her wrist in his hands, as if to keep her from pulling her wrist away. She felt none of the pleasure that she’d felt with Knox. Instead, she felt a mounting panic. She grew slightly dizzy and feebly tried to pull her wrist away. Zeph continued to drink from her, his voracious sucks intent on draining every last drop of her blood.

She pulled harder, trying to escape him, but he growled and latched on tighter, making her moan in pain.

“Zeph . . .” she whispered, trying to get through to him. He was going to kill her, she thought. In his hunger for blood, he was going to suck her dry.

Blackness started to close in on her. She heard movement behind her. Thuds and shouts. A howl of pain.

“Zeph, no!”

Felicia’s waning senses jolted to life at the sound of Knox’s voice.

This time, a different pain shot through her, so sharp in its intensity that it almost drowned out everything else. Knox was in Korea. Was her mind conjuring his voice to ease her into death? Not fair, she thought. She hadn’t gotten enough of him.

Then she felt Zeph’s bite ease. She felt her blood circulating inside her body rather than leaving it. Forcing her eyes open, she saw the red flare of Zeph’s gaze locked on something just behind her. He growled, but an answering growl—louder and much more vicious—drowned him out. Weakly, Felicia lifted her head and gasped.

I’m dreaming, she thought. Either that or I’m dead. Do the dead dream? she wondered. They must. Because standing above and slightly in front of her, his breaths billowing out of him, his muscles bulging and his eyes flaring just as they had when Hunt had challenged him, was Knox.

“Knox.”

His eyes shifted to hers when she whispered his name, but almost immediately they returned to Zeph.

Knox said two words then, two words that, despite her disorientation and weakness, Felicia instantly knew were directed at his brother.

“You’re dead.”

W
hen Knox materialized, the first thing he saw were his cousins Lesander and Niles, going at each other so viciously it was obvious their tussle was no mere spat between siblings. Their blood was flowing and spilling on the stone tiles, and by the look in their eyes they were bent on ripping out each other’s hearts.