Invincible (A Centennial City Novel) (25 page)

“What do you mean?” asked Jason.

Shannon pushed herself away from the wall, arms uncrossing. Her face was hard and yet with a furrow between her eyes. “I didn’t expect this. I don’t think anyone expected this.”

Ryder put a hand a hand on my shoulder and I pulled away from him, unsure and confused. “What have I done?”

Was that sadness in his blue eyes? “Something the vampires have not seen in a very long time.”

“Longer than something like Jason?”

He nodded. “Longer.”

Vincent sighed. “If I’d known you would react in such a manner, perhaps I would have kept you from coming with us.”

I shook my head and tried to look over Jason’s shoulder at those unnerving eyes, still centered on me, as though they tried to look straight through me. “I wouldn’t have allowed it. I am his Ailward. We made a deal. I never go back on a promise.”

Matthias leaned against the wall, one hand on his hip. “Do you know something about a vampire’s aura, hunter?”

It seemed like a silly question to ask. But I couldn’t provoke him, not when I knew just how much power contained in that slim, tall form. “I do.”

“Then you’ll know that it is similar to magnets. When you have lived for as long as we have, we tend to form a certain...barrier.”

I blinked. “You mean, like magnets pushing each other away.”

He nodded. “Just so. After a while, it gets the point where normal humans cannot stand to be around us. Our aura engulfs theirs and they become violently sick to be in our presence. Sometimes they even die.”

“I was sick in the hallway,” I pointed out.

“Once,” he said. “You were sick once. By all rights, you should be bleeding from every orifice, dying from the blood willingly leaving your mortal body. To be standing for so long in the presence of so many of the Elders...do you know what that means for us?”

There was a lump in my throat and I felt the walls begin to close in around me. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

“You are not afraid of us.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It was such a preposterous idea. “Not afraid of you? Are you joking? I’m surprised I haven’t pissed my pants yet.”

His eyes, a light brown that reminded me of coffee narrowed. “That’s not what I meant. You have grown used to us. You have, for the lack of a better word,
evolved
.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“You have adjusted to our presence, and that is worrying,” he continued. “Were your so-called Fellowship to find out, they would not hesitate to...” he paused. “Incidentally, were you given orders to assassinate someone? Is that why you are here?”

Heart in my throat, I could only shake my head. “I couldn’t possibly slay anyone. Not here.”

Fenrir took his feet off the table, one eye speculative. “And yet you are here. Guarding a vampire. Guarding what you have sworn to destroy? Forgive us if we find this situation highly...unusual.”

Jason put a hand around my shoulder and it seemed awkward, to say the least. I was not used to standing this close to someone. “If you know who I am, you will know I have money. Money enough to persuade a hunter to protect me.”

Vincent pulled away from us, face immobile. “And yet, if one were to inquire into her past, it seems as though she is not the type to be persuaded by just money.”

Someone spoke up, a feminine voice not Annabelle. “If not money, then what about sex?”

I wondered if they could see my face burning in the dim candlelight. If my true purpose were to be ascertained now, the chances of me leaving this room alive was worse than zero.

I ran a hand down Jason’s back, trembling badly, and in his dark eyes, I saw a question. “Not just sex.”

My fingers found his mouth, traced the curve of his plump lower lip and when his tongue licked my thumb, I swallowed a painfully dry throat. That I was doing this when I had never once initiated sexual contact with anyone was...strange.

Jason’s hand slid down to my waist and drew me to him, body pressing against his as if our only thoughts were to meld into one. “As you can see, there are a multitude of reasons why she is mine.”

I prayed my smile did not wobble too much, as I smoothed a lock of hair from his face. “And why you are mine.”

That we could fool anyone with our almost childlike romance seemed almost too much to hope for.

But Ryder spoke up then. “Yeah. They could hardly keep their hands off each other in the car.”

I was glad the Committee could not see my face, could not see the surprise flitting through my eyes.

“It was kind of sweet, actually,” he continued and then sighed deeply. “I mean, even for me, it was sweet. I know you don’t really have to take my word for it, but there’s history between these two lovebirds. Serious history.”

Matthias tapped his chin. “Is there? Vincent? Can you collaborate on his story?”

After a moment of silence, a moment spent in which he looked at us, he nodded once. “I knew of their relationship when they came to Centennial. Reiko seemed worried about it.”

Matthias turned to Shannon. “And what of you? You were with them. What do you say of their...relationship?”

She sneered at me, but nodded all the same. “They seemed quite...friendly. I can think of no other reason why she would protect him, if not for love.”

She flung out “love” as though it were an arrow and I felt her hatred as clear as night and day.

“So if you are not against us, and if you are truly his Ailward...” Matthias smiled. “Quite frankly, I find your ability to be quite useful.”

Vincent made a sound deep in his throat. “She is not your Ailward, Matthias.”

The other vampire nodded. “Indeed she is not. But what a shame she is not. Surely, you can see what an asset she can be to you, to me, to all of us.”

Annabelle looked at me with a scrutinizing expression that scared me even more than her attack on Jason. “We have not had someone like her in such a long time, Matthias. Was Betrand our last champion?”

Champion? Over my dead body.

Fenrir clucked his tongue. “What a shameful way for the man to go. I wouldn’t wish his death on anyone, not even an enemy.”

Image after image played through my mind, none of them appealing in the least. “I am no champion. I only want to protect Jason as is my duty. That I have grown used to your auras is a fluke.”

“But ours would be the greater mistake, if we were ignore such, as you said it, fluke.”

Jason’s arm tightened around my waist, breathing a gasp to my lips. “I will not give her to anyone.”

Noir’s glasses glinted and a strange smile graced his pale lips. “I fail to see how you can stop anyone of us. A Sanguinate you may be, but you are still young.”

“Enough,” said Vincent. “We have come here to discuss their fates. There is little doubt he is a dangerous presence, but surely, we can come to some sort of arrangement.”

Annabelle laughed. “Arrangement? What sort? I thought he was to die. Have we decided otherwise and I am not yet aware of it?”

Fenrir shot a sideways glance at her. “I have yet to see a Sanguinate so...articulate. Weren’t they supposed to be nothing but ghouls? Why does this one looks so normal?”

Noir nodded. “It is interesting, isn’t it?”

“Do you want to study him?” asked Vincent, voice dry.

The object of my most intent attention nudged his glasses up with a slim index finger. “I must admit to a certain curiosity. I have never gotten the chance to observe such a specimen under these circumstances before.”

The breath caught in my throat.

Surely...surely not...

He drew in a quick breath. “Yes, I think I have made up my mind. I will take him under the guidance of my House.”

That my jaw did not bounce on the thin indigo carpet was surprising.

Jason let out a small laugh. “You would be my Dominus? I regret to tell you I already have a Master.”

Noir tilted his head to one side. “Do you know where she is, so that she may vouch for you? Without someone to lay claim to you, you are anyone’s meat. Without someone’s sponsorship, you would not survive a night out there. Not when we have seen your face, not when we know you are the Sanguinate we have been searching for. You would not last another moon.”

And that, regrettably, was the truth, and I did not think I could survive.

After all, I had to protect him every time while his killers only had to succeed once. The odds were not on our side.

Jason’s jaw tightened. “I have one condition.”

Noir nodded magnanimously. “And that is?”

“You are aware of my beginnings,” he said quietly. “I am Jason Eldridge. I had a fiance, a pregnant woman who had turned vampire.”

Not a flicker of emotion ran across Noir’s face. “Go on.”

“The vampire who turned her,” he continued. “I want his head. I don’t care how I get it.”

Shannon froze “Jason. Stop.”

Jason did not stop. “Her name was Shannon.”

Noir raised a brow. “You mean, the female vampire next to you?”

“Jason, please,” whispered Shannon. “Jason, please, don’t. Don’t do this. Please don’t.”

“She was pregnant with my child.” Jason continued as though he couldn’t hear a thing. “She was pregnant with my child and kidnapped one night. I was going to ask her to marry me.”

I watched the tears coarse down her cheeks as she fell to her knees. “No, no, no, no. Please don’t. Please stop. No more, Jason. I’m begging you!”

“Who is the one that took my fiance and turned her into a vampire? Who is the one who killed my child?”

Matthias walked a few feet forward. “Are you looking for the one responsible for taking Shannon?”

“Matthias, no!” screeched Shannon and I could only stand and watch as he wrestled a skinny, dark-haired vampire out of a chair. “Stop!”

The vampire tried to claw his way out of taller man’s grasp. “Let me go!”

Matthias forced him down to his knees. “Sanguinate, when you say you wanted the one who turned your fiance, what exactly did you mean?”

Jason’s hands tightened around my waist and I heard him swallow.

“I want him dead.”

“No!”

It seemed like instinct, as simple as scratching an itch, to pull free out of Jason’s embrace, to place myself in front of my Master’s body, to unsheathe my sword in one fluid movement, to meet Shannon’s rushing form.

Everything seemed to move slow, like flies covered in honey.

I saw her eyes large and black, the amber fading away into monochrome. Saw her hands extended towards us, saw the fangs already sticking out of her mouth.

Surprise raced across her pretty face and I knew she had not expected this, had not expected me to take Jason’s place.

But once you jump, you can’t take it back.

“Ran, stop!” Jason screamed, but it was too late, much too late.

I didn’t even have to use my Sight.

Her body crashed into mine, but my footing was sure, steady. I did not stagger, did not move.

Except to twist the hilt deeper under her rib cage.

I was an expert at piercing vampire hearts and Shannon was no exception.

Her hands scrabbled at my shoulders weakly as she let out a small sound.

Hands wrenched me away from her, but the damage had been done and it only did more harm to her as the full two feet of silver composite metal was pulled free from her torso.

Blood, darker than anything I had ever seen, fell in a pool at my feet, soaking into my boots, the bottoms of my jeans and I flicked the sword once, scattering blood everywhere.

She fell back, fell back into Jason’s arms, eyes already closed, arms cradled over the womb that had once carried their child.

Nothing.

I felt nothing.

While my Master wept over the loss of his lover, I felt nothing but a very distinct chill that seemed to come from the very core of my body.

And when his eyes, wide and frightening, fell on me, I could do nothing.

“Why?” he mouthed, silvery trails of moisture making their way down his lean cheeks. “Why did you kill her?”

“Because you asked this of me,” I said quietly. “Because I am your Ailward and any and all threat must go through me.”

Tears spilled free from those onyx black eyes. “She was not going to kill me!”

I wished I could have felt something, anything, but there were no emotions I could dredge.

“She made herself a threat.”

He threw back his head and howled, his lover already turning into dust in his arms.

I stared at the glint of metal in her right hand, the small dagger that had brought Lazaro into Death’s embrace.

She had meant to kill.

Perhaps not Jason, but someone.

I bent down and took it from the rapidly flaking hand already smelling like acrid smoke and ashes. “You see this?”

For one moment, I thought he would kill me. Ah, and wouldn’t that had been just ironic?