In the Blood (13 page)

“No, please,” he murmured against her lips. “I want to hear you. I want to know all the sounds you make. I want to know if you like to be touched like this…” He slipped that questing finger over the hot, hard little bud she’d stroked beneath the blankets while her sisters all slept, and she sat up in surprise.

“And like this,” he continued, rolling his fingertip over and over it, in tight circles that brought another moan to her throat.

“Yes,” she managed with a shaking voice. “Yes, I like that.”

He bent his head to her breast again, all the while worrying the little nub with his finger. Her body arched and tensed. She panted, her fingers clutching at the bedding, his arms, anything she could reach. His mouth moved, lower and lower, until it rested where his finger had been, and she screamed, clamping her knees to his head as her body spasmed in joy.

Her legs fell open, and Viktor pulled himself up to lie between them. He fumbled with his trousers, cursing, then settled his weight against her. Her breath caught, he pushed forward, and her body opened around him with a stinging burst. He groaned, buried his head against her neck, then mumbled, “Forgive me.”

She shuddered, gritting her teeth against the intrusion of his body. She took a deep breath and willed her body to relax, and it helped some, but it felt so strange. He moved inside of her, only for a moment, and then it was over, so quickly she could barely put her thoughts and feelings together. He withdrew from her body on another tide of wetness, slippery and silky between her thighs, and fell to the bed beside her.

“I am sorry,” he rasped, swallowing hard against his rapid breaths. “I wanted to…ah, I’m a fool.”

She leaned up on one elbow and stared down at him. “You are not a fool.”

“I have never…” His flush was visible even in the dim lamplight. “I didn’t realize how it would feel.”

“How did it feel?” she asked, amazed that he had been as inexperienced as she. A smile slowly widened the corners of his mouth, and she leaned down, tentatively brushing her mouth across his. Then, she laughed. “You’re mine now.”

“As you are mine,” he agreed, reaching up to pull her lips to his once more.

“Go forward now, to the moment of your death,” Maya’s voice intruded. Cassie startled at the realization that she was not Melina in the attic room Viktor’s parents had allowed them to move into. She was Cassandra, on the couch in a psychic’s studio apartment, and she was about to see herself die.

Panic clawed at her, and those metaphorical claws turned into real ones, gripping her skin, clutching at her hair. She tried to brush them away, but they were so real, so painful.

“Viktor!” she screamed for him, saw him, fallen under the hands of those creatures, and thought,
This is my fault
.

If she hadn’t been so angry, if she hadn’t stormed out of the café…if she hadn’t insisted they leave the flat and venture into the forbidding winter night…if they had never come to Prague at all, but stayed in the safety of their little village…

He stretched out his hand, seeking her touch even as another of the creatures landed on his back and tore long gouges across his coat. The snow beneath Viktor’s body turned pink, then scarlet.

She could not reach his hand. She wanted to. She prayed to, but no strength came to her. Her vision darkened. Oh God! Not like this! There was so much they had not done. She cried out for him with the last of her ability, but it made no difference, and the darkness sealed her in, though she could still hear his screams.

Covering her ears, Cassie abruptly sat up. The screaming was long gone, she knew the moment she saw Maya’s surprised face and the interior of the small apartment, but she didn’t trust herself enough to take her hands away. He’d been in so much pain. How had he survived? Not just the attack, but the years, the decades that had followed.

They had loved each other. She had loved him. Their long separation pierced her heart now, a curious echo of a loneliness she’d always felt but never questioned.

“May I get you some water?” Maya asked, reaching a solicitous hand to Cassie’s knee.

Feeling like a fool, Cassie lowered her hands. She swiped at her eyes and scrambled for her purse. “I have to go. You have my credit card information, right? From over the phone?”

“Please don’t leave. You’re very upset. There has to be someone I can call for you.” Maya reached for her phone.

Cassie shook her head. “I just have to get out of here.”

“Wait, please,” Maya called behind her, but Cassie didn’t stop to explain. She wouldn’t have been able to. No words would have adequately described her experience. She pushed her lungs to keep up with her as she burst from the door and onto the street. She’d forgotten her coat. There wasn’t any time or a good enough reason to go back for it. She had to find Viktor.

That alone shook her to the very core of her being. The old Cassie would have turned back, used any excuse to keep from confronting the possibility before her. That wasn’t an option anymore, not after what she had seen. When Viktor had looked at Melina, it had been with the same tenderness as Cassie had seen in his face as he’d held her. He loved her then. He could love her now. Maybe he already did.

As she ran, she ignored the feeling she was being watched, and wrote off the shapes in the corners of her vision as figments of her imagination.

Chapter Nine

“When did they say they would call?” Viktor tilted his head to try to catch a glimpse of the rooftops as they passed, but the windows of the car limited his vision.

“When they had more information on the movement patterns of the Minions.” Anthony swerved, deftly avoiding a car parallel parking on the street. “I shouldn’t be doing this for you, you know that, right?”

“I know.” Viktor knew all too well that Anthony should be hunting and destroying Minions with the other Conclave members who had descended upon New York. The highest concentration of Minions in an urban area in almost a hundred years was considered a full-blown emergency by Conclave standards. Though Viktor didn’t care for the Conclave on most days, he didn’t mind them wiping the scum from the city. He shrank from the sunlight that pierced the clouds and grazed his skin. “You should have warned me. At the first sign that things were getting out of hand, you should have let me know. I could have helped you.”

“Helped me how?” Anthony blared the horn and zoomed through a red light. “Every time you kill, you get worse. Your days are numbered, buddy. Look in a mirror.”

Viktor didn’t need the reminder. “How far are we?”

“About five minutes.” Anthony steered the car down a narrow alley. “No matter what we find, you need to stay in control. Don’t make yourself a part of the problem.”

“Just make sure Cassandra is safe.” If there was a fight, Viktor wouldn’t walk away and leave her vulnerable. He wouldn’t be able to. Even if he lost the battle for his humanity in the process, he would not abandon Cassandra to the same fate Melina had suffered.

When they pulled up in front of the building, something seemed…odd. Viktor had expected to see signs of Minions everywhere, but there were none.

“We’re too late.” He turned to Anthony, whose face twisted in disbelief. “We’re too late.”

“Maybe not.” Anthony pulled his phone from his pocket and punched a few keys. “I’ve got some on the map. They seem to be congregating around midtown.”

Covering his head with his jacket to protect himself from any sunlight that might break the cloud cover, Viktor exited the car and leapt to the second-story ledge, only belatedly considering the consequences if someone had seen him. Damn the Conclave’s protocol. His only concern was for Cassandra.

“I had a key,” Anthony called from the street. “Shall I join you?”

Peering through the dark glass, Viktor shook his head. “No. She’s not here. We have to find her.”

He pushed off from the building and connected with something in midair. The impact shot him back, through the windows, spraying glass over the small apartment. He hit the bed and tumbled to the floor, locked in the rubbery grip of a Minion. The horrible thing dug its claws into his shoulders and its jaws snapped mere inches from his face. He pushed with all of his might and dislodged it, springing to his feet only to be struck down again. A second Minion perched on his back and bit into his neck. He roared in pain and shoved himself backward, smashing the creature into the wall hard enough to crumble plaster around them.

They fought hard, hungry. Viktor knew they must have been waiting a long time for Cassandra. They wouldn’t have her. Let them tear him apart. They wouldn’t have her.

Cassie turned the corner, not running, but walking fast enough that she had to dodge the quick-moving crowd. The doorman at Viktor’s building admitted her without question and indicated that instructions had been left to let her into the apartment. But when the elevator doors opened and she was confronted with the sleek black foyer, no one was there to meet her.

“Viktor?” She hurried down the terrifying staircase, ignoring the windows that seemed poised to swallow her whole. The horrible feeling of falling, falling endlessly, gripped her, and she clung to the railing for support, breaking from the stairs and hurrying to the well-disguised door by the fireplace. She opened it to find the hallway dark, no sign of any occupants.

She called Viktor’s name as she looked into the rooms she passed. The sound of a television, muffled by a closed door, drew her to Viktor’s office. The flat-screen television on the wall broadcasted a local channel, and the computer on the desk glowed with a map of Manhattan and the outlying boroughs. Red dots flashed and swarmed over the streets, moving like a sinister pox over the city.

Leaning in closer, she scanned the map. There was her street. Four red dots seemed concentrated on her block.

That was where Viktor was. She knew it without any doubt. He’d gone to rescue her. Just like before, her impulsive behavior had led him into danger. Just like before, it would be her fault if he were attacked. This time, though, he had so much more to lose.

Her gaze fell on the little gold circle that lay on the desk. Her wedding ring. No, Melina’s wedding ring. She slipped it onto her finger and fled the apartment, then the building, out into streets swarming with monsters. She only prayed she wasn’t too late.

Another Minion came at him, fangs bared. Viktor lifted himself as best he could and struck out at the creature. In the corner, Anthony’s body lay limp and skewed like a child’s toy thrown during a temper tantrum. He had done his best to fight off the Minions, using the skills and weapons the Conclave had provided him. It had been an impressive but ultimately futile display. When the Conclave members Anthony had called for help arrived, they would find their comrade dead, his charge the same. Viktor cried out pathetically as a Minion gripped his arm and pulled, hard enough that bone and sinew separated. He would be torn apart. Such an undignified end.

But an end at last. The pieces of his kills—and the pieces of Cassandra’s destroyed apartment—lay in piles around him. His own skin resembled the chunks of flesh lying on the floor, rubbery and white. His memory slipped away from him like water through a sieve, and the hunger…he nearly sobbed with the force of it. He reached out for the Minion who’d caught him. He would pull the creature apart, feast on its blood. He would drink until his thirst was quenched, drink until the dead heart that beat within him burst from the pressure. He was a creature driven totally by hunger.

A familiar scent wafted to him above the smell of his own blood. Ah, desperation. Guilt. He knew her, but all that registered now was the hunger. He needed to consume her.

The door opened, and she stopped in her tracks. Her gaze remained fixed on the ruin and death around her.

It was time to strike.

One of the creatures stood over what Cassie thought was Viktor. But it couldn’t be. Though the monster wore the tatters of Viktor’s clothing, it seemed shapeless and unformed. The suggestion of a human body with the rubbery skin and shapeless features of a Minion.

The creature that held down not-Viktor sprang toward her, and she rushed forward, purely on instinct, driving her shoulder into the creature hard, setting it off balance. In that moment, she grabbed the object nearest to her—an umbrella leaning behind the door—lifted it over her head and pummeled the creature again, screaming with every smack of the weapon. Blood, thick and black, sprayed over her, but she didn’t stop, squeezing her eyes shut tight to protect them from the spray. Only when a hand caught her ankle did she open her eyes again. The thing that should have been Viktor held her in his grasp.

She couldn’t harm him. Tears spilled from her eyes as she stared down into the formless face. “Viktor, it’s me. Please!”

He pulled her down, mouth unusually wide, teeth at strange angles in his horrible mouth.

“It’s Cassandra. Melina. I love you. Please don’t do this!” She didn’t fight him. He covered her body, his rubbery white limbs so different from the sturdy arms that had held her the night before. She closed her eyes and sobbed. If this was how she would die, she would. She only hoped that Viktor’s soul, or whatever part of him could be called a soul, had moved on before he became this monstrosity. They had found each other in this lifetime. She wouldn’t rest until she found him in the next.

His fangs sank into her neck, and she screamed, but she didn’t push him away. She didn’t want to struggle, didn’t want him to hurt her more than he had to. There was no chance of escape now, anyway. She clung to his shoulders, wiry and round now from his transformation into Minion, and whispered that she loved him over and over while her blood flowed from the wound in her neck. What he did not drink puddled beneath her head, wetting her hair. Tears rolled from her eyes to join the sticky wetness on the floor. It hadn’t been long ago that she’d collapsed on this floor and Viktor had come to her aid. She forced herself to focus on the short time they’d spent together. When she died, which wouldn’t be long now, she wanted to die remembering what he had been, not fearing the monster he had become.