Dark Awakening (12 page)

“Thanks for reminding me.”

He smirked at the testy note in her voice. “You don’t
want the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve saved the oldest vampire dynasty, earning their queen’s eternal gratitude?”

“I would have preferred to have a choice.”

He felt a twinge of sympathy. “Sometimes you just have to accept the hand you’re dealt.”

“And sometimes you get abducted by some vampire bitch’s pet cat.”

Her words were unexpectedly heated, and they sliced through Ty even though he knew she hadn’t intended them to. She was just venting and looked lost in her own thoughts. But she couldn’t know how close her words hit to home. His animal side had condemned him to such remarks for centuries now:
filthy gutter cat, pet of the Ptolemy, worthless stray…

“I’m no pet,” he growled. He was suddenly compelled to make Lily see, make her understand. Why he should give a damn what she thought was beyond him, but being called a pet rankled. Hadn’t Nero and his ilk said the same thing, time and again? He’d forced it to stop mattering to him. He’d thought himself immune.

And yet here he was, defending himself to this slip of a mortal. Ty thought for a moment, about how to explain it all to someone who had never lived in his world. Those who lived in the sun had, by and large, left the ancient caste systems behind. But in the darkness, the ancient world still lived and breathed. And so did their way of life.

“Look. When you’re a lowblood, you either struggle or you work for a dynasty. I’d rather serve, to be valued and rewarded for my talents, than starve and scrape.” He glanced at her. “Tell me you wouldn’t feel the same.”

Lily blew out a breath, shoved her hands into her hair. “I don’t know. I’m not a vampire. But… yeah, maybe.
Maybe.” Then she muttered, “Sorry about the pet thing. Bad joke. I’m just… I’m not okay with this yet. This Arsinöe is screwing with my life, Damien and whoever he’s working for are trying to end it, and none of them even
know
me. Your queen can promise me whatever she wants, but for now, my life back in Tipton is in shambles. Still… I am sorry, for what it’s worth. You’ve been really nice. For a vampire kidnapper.”

It wasn’t complete vindication, Ty thought, but it was something. He relaxed a little. Lily, for her part, seemed to be thinking. She was quiet a moment.

Then she said softly, “So tell me about these Ptolemy. What is that, ancient Greek? It’s familiar.”

This, at least, was more comfortable ground. “Arsinöe is the youngest sister of Cleopatra. The dynasty takes their family name of Ptolemy,” Ty said. “Much of their lineage is Greek, which the average person seems to have forgotten.”

He could feel Lily staring at him again, but not in the way he might have preferred.

“Cleopatra’s sister.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re yanking my chain.”

“No.”

“This is… Look, Tynan, as a dork who doesn’t sleep enough, I admit I watch the History Channel, okay? I remember watching some show about this now. I knew I’d heard Arsinöe’s name before. They did a show on her. Cleopatra took out any threats to her power, including her youngest sister. Woman was way more of a stone bitch than I’d ever realized.”

“Trust me, it’s still a sore subject,” Ty replied, wincing a little as he remembered the last tirade Arsinöe had gone
on about her celebrated, and very dead, elder sister. “And Cleopatra
did
have her assassinated. At least, she thought so. It was very bad form, to have high-value political prisoners of Rome killed. But as we all know now, Cleopatra was quite… persuasive. It’s an ugly story, and one I won’t recount, but as Arsinöe lay dying from her wounds, the gods took pity on her. Sekhmet gave her the dark gift, as the queen tells it. And in return, Arsinöe would keep the glory of Egypt’s gods and goddesses from vanishing into the dust of time.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I wouldn’t say they’d really gotten their money’s worth, then. Ancient Egyptian religion seems pretty dusty to me.”

“Among the Ptolemy, it’s very much alive. And that seems to be enough for the ones who made her.”

Lily’s voice sharpened. “And what about this whole highblood/lowblood thing? Branding servants? Treating people badly based on something they probably had no control over?”

Ty was torn between irritation that she’d decided to seize on that aspect of the situation and pleasure that she would be offended on his behalf.

“What about it?” he asked.

“Do these Egyptian gods and goddesses approve of
that
?”

“They must, I suppose,” Ty said with a shrug. “As far as I know, no one’s heard a peep in over a thousand years. Though even if they had…”

“Yeah, I get it. You’re not in the club, and you wouldn’t know.”

He glanced over at her as they drove down the highway, past an exit where the lights of gas stations and restaurants
glowed cheerily, beckoning as they lit up the night sky. The fury in her expression surprised him, and it suddenly occurred to him how young she was and how old and cynical he had become. He barely remembered what it was like to have the sort of fight in him that Lily had now. Whatever she thought of the way things worked in his world, though, it didn’t matter. Vampire society simply
was
. It was dangerous to question the power structure, to question why one mark should be venerated while another should be spat upon.

Once, long ago, he had tried to rebel against the order of things, but now he recognized his lot could be far worse. He thought of the unlucky Shade whose punishment had been to be starved and then released as bait, and knew he was doing what he had to do.

“I don’t care what you think of the rules, Lily, because I didn’t make them. But there are plenty who enforce them. My options are limited, and I’ve done the best I can with them. Your mark is what matters in my world. And if you fight it, you don’t last long.”

They lapsed into silence, Ty lost in his thought as he drove. He had expected Lily to find his way of life odd, even unpleasant. But he’d been surprised at how outraged she was at what she saw as an injustice. He hadn’t wasted any time wondering what outsiders thought of vampire society in a very long time, likely because the only times he interacted with mortals was when he wanted a drink.

He needed to either get out more or not at all.

“Tynan?” Lily’s voice breaking through the silence was a balm to his thoughts, soft and sweet. It was the sort of voice that could lull a man and leave him vulnerable. He knew he needed to resist that, to stay on his guard.
He tried to separate himself from the closeness of the car, from the tantalizing scents of the soap and shampoo that overlay her own natural ones. His mouth began to water despite himself, his fangs lengthening in response.

Hungry. She makes me hungry for so many things….

“It’s Ty.”

He didn’t know what had made him say it or why he was encouraging such familiarity with a woman who was a high-value mark, nothing more, nothing less. But the words fell from his lips before he could stop them.

“Ty?”

“It’s what everyone calls me,” he said, fighting not to hunch his shoulders defensively at the confusion in her voice. “It’s, you know, less cumbersome. And doesn’t remind me so much of my mother getting ready to box my ears.”

Lily seemed to consider this a long moment, and Ty cursed himself for showing weakness. What did he know about interacting with humans anymore, much less human women who he had no intention of biting? Now she would ridicule him or simply ignore what he’d said. Yes… maybe that was best.

But her voice was considerably warmer when she spoke again, and Ty felt something, small but incredibly important, shift ever so slightly between them. A mistake, but one that nonetheless thrilled him in some dark and secret corner of himself.

“Ty, then. Has there ever been a regular human who was born with a vampire mark?”

“Not that I’ve ever heard.”

“Can vampires have babies?”

He tried to picture bloodsucking babies. “Fortunately, no.”

“Oh.” Her voice was small and quiet, and Ty felt another
ill-advised tug of sympathy for her. He might not have a lot going for him as a vampire, but at least he knew what he was and where he stood. Lily obviously did not. And he had begun to get the distinct impression that she never had.

“I just wish I knew what this thing meant,” she said, tapping her collarbone and the intricate design that was hidden beneath her shirt.

“Well,” he said as the car rushed deeper into the night, “that’s what we’re going to try and find out.”

H
OURS LATER
, as the sun neared the horizon and the sky went from black to a dull, dishwater gray, Lily sat in a dimly lit room in some mom-and-pop motel in western Ohio. She perched on the edge of the room’s sole, king-size bed, more tired than she’d ever been in her life and yet unable to relax enough to sleep. She ought to, though. She was going to need all the strength she could get.

Instead, she found herself watching Tynan. No,
Ty
, she corrected herself, trying to look like she wasn’t fully absorbed in every graceful feline movement he made, fascinated by both his preternatural beauty and the paradox she was already discovering him to be. Lily had no problem believing Ty was as much a killer as Damien and these Shades who were after her. He was probably all sorts of things, she thought as she watched him in the faint reflection off the television. Probably most of those things were unspeakably awful.

And yet, he had been kind to her when he didn’t have
to be. He had talked to her, really talked, painting her a rudimentary picture of a vampire society that functioned in a way that was utterly alien to her. And despite Ty’s cool veneer, she had seen flashes of humor, of hurt, even of pity that made her want to know more of him.

The two of them had forged the beginnings of a connection. Lily knew she should turn away from it now, before it got any stronger. He was an ancient killer who had ripped her away from her home! And she… she was just Lily. A little strange, a little unfortunate, and yeah, a little telekinetic, but still just Lily Quinn.

She slid her eyes back to Ty’s most excellent backside and sighed. Easier said than done. A
lot
easier.

There was a soft rustle of fabric as Tynan finished preparing the room for daylight. Fortunately, he seemed oblivious to the fact that he had such an attentive audience. He’d been too busy jury-rigging the bed’s comforter over the curtains, ensuring that no light would enter the room. Extra pillows were pushed up against the crack at the bottom of the door, and a
DO NOT DISTURB
sign hung on the doorknob outside.

The light of the single lamp illuminating the grubby little room was already dim, and then vanished altogether when Ty turned the knob on it as he finished making the room into a cave for the day. Lily’s heart tripped in her chest as the room was plunged into blackness, and her eyes, unaccustomed to it, blinked sightlessly. Her breathing grew gratingly loud in her own ears. Ty made no sound at all.

Then the bed dipped beneath his weight.

“Give me your hands,
mo bhilis
.”

His voice scraped deliciously over her nerves, like fingernails over velvet. Against her will, Lily felt her awareness
of him heightening. He smelled of moonlight, and the very nearness of him made her skin tingle in anticipation.

“Why?”

“So I can tie them, of course.”

“You’re going to tie my hands again?” Lily asked, hoping the pang of hurt she felt wasn’t obvious in her voice. How could he tie her now? Yesterday she had hated it, but at least she had understood. Now, though, he had opened up to her, at least a little. He’d made her feel like she was something more than just a pawn in all of this. And her reward for responding to his kindness was to be bound like a prisoner?

“You don’t need to do that this time,” she said firmly. “If I was going to try anything stupid, I would have done it by now.”

“Glad to hear it,” Tynan said, his velvet voice far more soothing than his words. “Still, I’m sure an intelligent woman like yourself would agree that, given the situation, a little insurance is in order. What would I do if, for instance, you decided to get up, have a peek out the window, and wound up incinerating me? Or you could just decide to murder me in my sleep. Stranger things have happened.” His voice was infuriatingly reasonable.

“I’m not like that.”

“I don’t know you,” he replied, his soft purr now edged with warning. It shouldn’t have bothered her. What did she care what this creature thought of her? And yet his casual assertion that she could do something either stupid or homicidal if he left her untied rankled.

“I’m not an idiot,” she said, sounding a little more snappish than she’d intended. “I told you that I want to know what my tattoo means. Besides, didn’t we already establish
that if I run, I’ll still have an assassin after me? And I don’t have any wooden stakes on me. I’m no Buffy. I’d be toast.”

She heard his snort in the darkness and realized she’d managed to amuse him. Knowing he thought she was being funny didn’t exactly make her feel any better.