Love Me to Death (Underveil) (27 page)

“I can hear you,” Ricardo practically shouted. “If you don’t learn to mask what you’re thinking, they could discover what he means to you. That he’s your weakness and you carry his child.”

“It’s too late,” Stefan said, sliding his phone back in his pocket. He unfastened his seat belt. “They already know she’s here. And they’re waiting for her. She can’t disembark. None of us can. The entire airport is full of Underveilers of all kinds. Someone tipped them off.”

Ricardo shot from his seat, and crouching to not hit his head, stormed toward his sister, whose eyes grew huge. “It’s that asshole weasel you work for. You told him where you were going, didn’t you?” He grabbed her by the throat with one hand.

She appeared calm. “No. I called in sick. He doesn’t know anything.”

“If you have compromised us, I’ll kill you, Margarita. You know I will.” From the rage on his face, Elena knew he was dead serious. “Let down your guard and allow me into your mind, or your life ends right now.”

Elena had never seen anything as terrifying as Ricardo’s eyes. The red from the iris had spread all the way out into the whites. She shrunk back into her chair, praying Margarita was telling the truth. Stefan gestured her to the front of the plane, and she gladly put distance between herself and the enraged vampire.

“Is he going to kill her?” she whispered, sliding into the copilot chair.

“If she lied, yes.” Stefan seemed eerily calm.

She peered out the tiny windscreen of the plane and gasped. It was dark out. The tarmac was covered in beings with torches and…
Holy crap
. Torches, weapons, and big tools, including pitchforks. It was like they’d landed in the middle of a Dracula movie shoot. “Oh my God.”

“The situation is less than optimal,” Stefan said, gaze never leaving the brother and sister locked together in the first row in the plane. Both were stone still with their eyes closed. Then, Ricardo broke away and moved to the seat across from her.

“You didn’t betray us.”

“Of course I didn’t.” Margarita didn’t seem angry, which surprised Elena.

“Oh good. No blood on the carpet,” Stefan said, face expressionless.

There were crazy people waiting outside the plane with torches and deadly farm tools, a vampire was ready to kill his own sister mere feet away, Nik was being tortured in a cell somewhere, and this asshole was worried about blood on the carpet? “I can’t believe you!”

He gave no reaction whatsoever to her outburst.

It felt like her head would explode. “How can you be so cold?”

He shifted only his eyes in her direction. “Actually, that was a clearly unsuccessful attempt at humor. Though I truly am relieved to not have to replace the carpet. It would have been messy.”

Elena clasped her fingers together in an effort to consciously not store a charge in her palms, which happened every time she got angry. “I just don’t get you.”

“When you are several centuries old…no.
If
you live to be several centuries old, you will understand completely. There is nothing I have not seen and very few things I have not done. I try not to get invested or tangled up in other people’s business unless it affects my own.”

“So you don’t really give a shit whether I live or die.”

A smile crossed his lips. “You are absolutely wrong. I care very much about your fate. I will do whatever I can to facilitate your success. Mine depends on it.” He indicated Ricardo and Margarita with a nod of his head. “So does theirs.” Then he gestured with one hand to the crowd that was closing in around the plane. “And ironically, theirs as well. We all need you to succeed.”

“So if Margarita did not tip Fydor off, who did?” Ricardo asked, looking out the tiny, round window next to his seat. “They appear to be primarily shifters.”

Stefan touched Elena’s hand to draw her attention back from Ricardo. “Other than us, who knew Itzov was taken and that you were coming to Romania?”

“Only Aunt Uza.”

“No one overheard your interactions with her? You didn’t tell anyone where you were going?”

“No.”

Stefan ran a hand through his hair. “Odd. Uza would not have sabotaged your success unless it will be better for the outcome. Well, this certainly changes our plans. Angry mobs are historically not my thing, and though they cannot kill me, they can slow me down. We also can’t risk losing Ricardo yet.”

Yet
? Like losing him at all was an option.

“I can hear you,” Ricardo called from behind her. “And, yes, I’m expendable.”

She couldn’t believe it. Anger prickled up her spine. “No one. Absolutely no one is expendable.”

Stefan fired the motors, and they roared, causing the few brave…whatevers that had moved closer to the plane to back up. “The frightening part of this is that you really believe that.”

“Damn right I do.”

“I think I’ll move us a bit away. What do you suggest as a new plan, Ricardo?” He made the engines roar again, then turned the plane slightly to the left and drove it forward on the pavement. “Clearly, my flight plan has changed. I need to call it in.” He picked up the intercom mouthpiece and spoke so low Elena could only hear what sounded like the teacher from Peanuts cartoons. Mwa mwa, mwa mwa, mwa mwa.

“How are you feeling, Elena Arcos?” Ricardo asked. “Powerful?”

Scared. She was freaking terrified. “Yes.”

Stefan put the intercom mic back. “Well?”

Ricardo took a deep breath. “I think she needs to go in alone. None of us have been to the fortress, and vampires can’t teleport very far anyway. We had planned to drive, then hike, but we’ll never make it past the mob out there. You’ll have to teleport, Elena, and taking all, or any, of us would drain too much of your power. You’re going to need that energy to fight and get the royal family out, if need be.”

They had planned to come with her. She felt suddenly ashamed of being so rude to Stefan. “I’d never planned on anything but going in alone. I…I appreciate you guys wanting to help.” She grabbed her snow jacket and zipped it on, then strapped the sword they had taken from the wood elf to her leg using a leather sheath Stefan had supplied. The Time Folder had serious organizational and planning skills. She was glad he was on their side, whatever his reasons. “And thanks for getting me this close. I’m sure thousands of miles less teleporting is going to help a lot.” She pulled the hood over her head and drew the cord so that it tightened around her face. She turned her attention to Ricardo. “And thanks for… Well, you know.”

Eyes still full red, he smiled. “You are more than welcome. I wish you good choices.”

Stefan made a disgusted grunt. “They are actually trying to set fire to my tires. Hang on, everyone.” The motors roared, and he turned the plane back in the direction of the runway and taxied to the end of it. “We will fly to Sibiu Airport to refuel.” He turned back and looked at Elena. “This is as close as I can get you, sweet girl. Good luck.” His gaze traveled down to her belly, then back to her eyes. “To both of you.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

N
ikolai remained perfectly still as consciousness returned with more pain than mental clarity. After the previous round, he had jerked awake with a start, alerting the guard, who promptly retrieved his uncle, and the interrogations, or rather beatings, had begun immediately. He needed to buy time. He knew Elena would come, and he needed to be as whole as possible to help her when she did. Broken bones and a fractured skull would not enhance his fighting ability.

He cracked his eyes open fractionally. Night had fallen and his cell was dark. What was taking her so long? He’d expected her to teleport in soon after he arrived. Maybe something had gone wrong or she’d decided not to come. No. She would come. Like a moth to the flame, he knew she’d be drawn to fulfill her destiny. He just hoped her destiny included him.

A loud snort came from the other side of the cell, no doubt his bear shifter guard. Nik held his breath and remained motionless. Another snort, then a regular rhythm of snores followed. He cracked his eyes open a bit more and dared to lift his head. Enough moonlight spilled in through a window high in the wall to reveal the hulk of a bear shifter slumped in his chair, sound asleep. This would be the perfect time for Elena to arrive. Most of the fortress was asleep, and he was as healed as he had been since he first got here. Honestly, he was surprised Fydor hadn’t just used his Slayer sword and killed him outright when he refused to swear allegiance. Obviously, he needed him for something.

His stomach churned at the memory of Elena’s agonized face right before she teleported out. He knew why she’d done it. She didn’t have enough power to take him with her. He just hoped she hadn’t heard what he’d said to the Slayers taking him captive. If she had, then she would think he truly hated her, which would explain why she hadn’t come yet.

A haunted scream sounded from somewhere nearby. Then another. It was Aleksandra. The bastard was torturing his sister. His muscles tightened as his instinct to kill kicked in. He had to lure Fydor away from her, even if it meant suffering more injuries or making promises he would never keep.

He straightened and stretched his aching body. “Where’s my uncle?” he shouted, waking the bear shifter from his sleep with a jolt.

E
lena flattened against the side of the building outside Aleksandra’s bedroom. Trembling, she refused to look down at the moat or snowy forest beyond. Nik had said teleportation wasn’t possible inside the fortress, so she’d followed his example and landed on the wall, just as he had. Another horrifying scream came from inside, followed by pleading.

“Scream again,” the male voice urged. “It’s why I opened the window. Let him hear you. I want him to suffer so that he agrees to publicly swear allegiance to me.”

Elena wiped the snowflakes from her nose and maintained her calm.

“He’ll never join you. Let him go,” Aleksi sobbed.

“He will join me to save you and his mother.”

“He’s too strong to give in to you.” She screamed in pain again and Elena cringed. Whatever he was doing must have been terrible. Her palms itched with current. She needed to conserve energy, so she consciously willed the charge to recede.

The screaming subsided and he practically growled. “I will bring him to you, and you will convince him. You will either convince him or kill him.”

“He’s done you no wrong, Fydo—” The thud of something solid hitting flesh cut her off, and she groaned.

Elena exhaled in a white cloud, hands buzzing with renewed current. She wanted to go in and just zap the sorry bastard. There were too many variables, though. He could have others in there with him. He could have an order to kill Nik if he doesn’t return. She blinked against her tears.

“If you do as I ask,” Fydor said in a sickening sweet voice, “the pain will stop, love. Convince him or kill him, and you will be free.”

“It will never work.” Her voice was weak.

A knock sounded on the door, cutting Aleksandra’s next scream short as he abandoned her to answer it. There was the murmur of male voices, and then a heavy door slammed shut, causing Elena to flinch. She pressed her back harder against the outer wall of Aleksi’s bedroom. Through the lead mullioned windows to her right, she saw the man from her visions, club in hand, and another giant man storming through a hallway toward a round turret section jutting from the other end of the wall she was standing on. It had only one window up high. Perhaps that was where Nik was being held.

No sound came from inside Aleksi’s room. Surely he hadn’t killed her. Nik had said Slayers could only be killed with one of those special elf-forged swords, and he didn’t appear to be carrying one. She patted the one strapped to her thigh, then gingerly swung the window several inches wider so that she could peek inside. No one was in the room except Aleksi, who was on the bed, motionless. The coppery smell of blood was powerful, but didn’t affect her like it had when Nik was injured.

Just as she had with Nik the first time she was here, she silently entered the room, pulling the window shut behind her. Willing her heart to stop hammering, she leaned against the sill and took in the scene. Aleksi was bound to the bed with metal chains. Why hadn’t she simply teleported out?

“Aleksandra?” she whispered, sneaking closer. Feet from the bed, she stopped short and covered her mouth to trap the scream threatening to erupt. What she had thought was a dark sheet thrown over her was actually blood. Her entire body and bed were covered with it. The aborted scream turned in to the urge to vomit. She’d been tortured for a long time. Maybe being immortal wasn’t a good thing in some cases.

Calm down
, Elena told herself.
Nik needs you
.

Staring down at Aleksandra, she remembered Nik’s broken body from her visions, and then his angry words wishing her to hell ran through her head. She couldn’t blame him really. He thought she’d turned him over and abandoned him.

“Who’s there?” Aleksi asked.

Elena wanted to touch her for encouragement, but was worried about shocking her because of the residual current still buzzing in her hands. “Hey, it’s Elena. It’s okay, Aleksandra. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“Niki,” she whispered.

“Yeah, him too. Where is the key for these chains? Please don’t tell me Fydor has it.”

Her voice was raspy and weak. “No. He likes to keep it where I can see it. It makes it worse to see freedom and not have it. It’s hanging on my dresser.”

Sure enough, a skeleton key hung from a big round ring looped over her drawer knob. She grabbed it and made quick work of the cuffs holding her ankles and wrists. “Why didn’t you teleport to safety?”

“I couldn’t. Can’t teleport in fortress. Plus, backup: elven-forged chains.”

Like the cuffs Margarita had used to keep Ricardo from teleporting. Maybe it was a good thing this Aksel guy was locked away so he couldn’t make stuff anymore. So far, she’d seen nothing good come of his handiwork, from these chains, to the sword that had beheaded the old man in New York, to the cord that had bound her to Nik.

Aleksi groaned as she sat up. “Shit, it hurts. I think he broke everything this time. Lock the door. It won’t keep him out, but we’ll hear him coming at least.”

“You need to get out of here.” Elena locked the door, then pulled the key off the huge ring and slipped it in her sports bra. She didn’t want that asshole to be able to lock anyone else up in those cuffs and chains, and it took the key to close them as well as open them.

“I can’t teleport yet. Too weak. Besides, I need to help Niki.”

Elena went to the washstand and poured water into the bowl next to it, just as Aleksi had done to clean up Nik’s blood. She dipped the washcloth in it and handed it to her. “I’d help, but I might shock you accidentally.”

“Yeah, been there. Done that. No thanks. Keep that to yourself, girl.” Her voice was a little stronger already. She wiped the blood off of her face and wrinkled her nose as she examined it. “He usually doesn’t touch my face.”

“Usually? He’s done this before?”

A half laugh, half gasp escaped, and she grabbed her ribs. “Uh, yeah. He’s not one of the good guys, sweetie.”

Shit. What had she gotten into? How on earth could she face a monster like that alone? “Is there anyone here who
is
a good guy?”

She winced as she shook her head. “He exterminated those who he couldn’t threaten or blackmail to join his side.” Taking a deep breath, she stretched as if working out a cramp. “Mother, Nik, and I are the only ones he doesn’t own. And the only reason we are still alive is because he needs the royal family alive to give the appearance of being respectable and the rightful king. It almost killed my mother to marry him, but she did it to protect Niki and give him time to get his revenge on Arcos’s offspring, find the Uniter, and return to the throne.” She rinsed the rag and rubbed it over her neck. “Fydor would have killed him years ago if she hadn’t married him. We kept hoping Niki would change his mind and step into the place of king while he searched, but he was so crazy with grief over Father’s death and completely consumed with revenge, he didn’t see what Fydor was doing.” She wiped the blood on her forearms and rinsed the rag in the now red water. “I didn’t either, at first. Not until I heard Mother screaming at night. Then I figured it out. That’s when I started…” She covered her face. “Doing my part to distract him. To relieve Mother and give Niki time to find and kill you. But then you turned out to be the Uniter as well, and things got complicated.”

Elena was horrified.

She took a ragged breath. “Well, now you’ve been found.” She dipped the rag in the water again. “And Niki’s time is running out. What do you plan to do? You’re supposed to be the answer to the problem. The cure. The miracle. The
Uniter
.”

Elena’s chest felt like it was being squeezed, and she couldn’t get a breath. She had no idea what she was going to do. Hell, she didn’t even know what she
could
do. This family had suffered so much. And Nik was probably suffering right now. She had to stop it. “How many men does he have?”

Aleksi pulled a bathrobe out of her wardrobe. “Thousands. Tens of thousands. He commands my father’s army and the Slayer Elite Forces in addition to the armies of other species he has blackmailed and bribed into submission.”

“No. I mean how many people here, right now in the castle that would defend him.”

“Most are only loyal out of fear. If he’s on the losing side of a battle, they will follow the winner. If Nik took the throne, most would fall away from Fydor immediately to follow him. My uncle only holds them through ill-gotten power. And I know he’s behind the death of my father. I just can’t prove it. If I could, this would all be over.”

“How many?”

“Thirty tops. Maybe ten at this time of night.”

Elena thought about Uza’s cat shifters and how she had fended at least thirty off. How her body had sensed where they were and when they would strike. Right now, her best hope was that she could do that again with tougher opponents and much higher stakes. And she felt strong, too. Nik’s and Ricardo’s blood had made her powerful. She could do this.

“Is Nik in the tower opposite this one?”

“Probably. The dungeon is under the building, but the tower is where Fydor likes to work. He calls it his rec room.”

A plan began to formulate. “Who is in the dungeon?”

Aleksandra took a large towel and wiped off her chest and abdomen. “Fydor’s enemies. Well, the ones that he hasn’t killed yet because they might become useful. Ow. Shit.” She patted at a nasty-looking gash over her ribs.

“How many guards?”

She leaned down to wipe her legs. “At this time of night, two in the front hall, one will be in the rec room if that’s where he’s holding Niki, one outside my mother’s room, and two in the dungeon.”

“Do people know about the prophecy of the Uniter?”

“Everyone does. Everyone is waiting. If you reveal yourself as the Uniter, some will fall away from Fydor’s hold just because of the prophecy.”

Perfect.
“Will they recognize the symbol of the Uniter?”

She smiled. “Of course. Nik bears the whole prophesy, but every Slayer bears the symbol. They appeared on our skin at the moment of the kings’ deaths. Fydor says it is black magic. A curse. Probably because he doesn’t bear the mark.”

“Awesome. Are you feeling up to a fight tonight?”

Aleksandra’s smile was huge. “I will be. Just need some more time to recoup.”

She smiled back. “I have a plan, but first I need to borrow some clothes, and I want you to tell me everything you know about your uncle.”