Night Unbound (33 page)

She climaxed instantly, once more clenching and unclenching around him for so long he came again himself.

“What the hell was that?” she panted.

“That,” he said, “is one of the perks of making love with an elder.”

Raising her head, she smiled down at him, her face still flushed with pleasure. “Why
couldn't
you have found me two hundred years ago?”

Zach laughed and hugged her closer, never wanting to let her go.

 

 

Seth teleported to Melanie's lab at network headquarters, his stomach full of dread. She and Bastien were there with Cliff, Stuart, and the five newer vampire recruits. All seemed on edge, and Seth soon ascertained why.

Out of sight, in one of the holding rooms, Aidan hurled constant curses at the top of his lungs and banged the hell out of . . . something.

“Good evening, Melanie,” Seth said.

When the room's occupants turned to face him, every expression screamed,
Finally!

“Hi, Seth,” Melanie greeted him with unconcealed relief. “Umm . . . your prisoner's awake.”

“So I hear.” That had been fast.

Aidan's voice quieted, but the loud clanging noises increased.

“He's been a little loud,” Melanie said, the words carrying an apology. “It's starting to irritate the vampires.”

“We passed irritated half an hour ago,” Cliff said. “Now we're just pissed and want to kick his ass.”

“Yeah,” Stuart added. “Would you please shut that guy up? He's giving me a headache. And I didn't even know vampires could
get
headaches!”

Melanie muttered something indecipherable. “Do you want me to sedate him?”

“I'd be happy to knock the bastard out for you,” Bastien offered courteously. “No drug necessary.”

“Honey, you've said that like ten times since he woke up. You're not helping.”

“I'll take care of him,” Seth assured them.

Melanie smiled. “Thank you.”

Nodding to them, Seth stepped out into the hallway and followed the racket to a holding room several doors down.

No guards stood before it. Instead, they all congregated at the opposite end of the hallway in front of the elevator and the door to the stairwell.

Smart fellows. Mind control tended to require close proximity.

All nodded a greeting to Seth as he approached the holding room door. As promised, Chris had welded it shut.

Seth teleported inside.

He wasn't sure what he had expected to find, but it wasn't Aidan doing his damnedest to free himself.

The immortal appeared to be somewhat groggy. Though the effects of the drug had worn off enough for him to awaken, his telekinesis and other gifts seemed to be hampered.

That didn't, however, dampen his determination to escape.

Zach had shackled each limb twice and bound Aidan to the wall with titanium chains the width of a muscular man's biceps. Even if Aidan were strong enough to teleport, he couldn't do so as long as he was connected to the wall without taking the entire building with him.

So Aidan had opted to remove the shackles.

Lacking the strength needed to break them and robbed of his telekinetic ability, he had instead broken what appeared to be every bone in his hands to force them through the two tight wrist cuffs on each side. Both arms were free, his hands a mangled mess only barely, sluggishly beginning to heal.

Now Aidan sat on a cement floor splattered with his own blood, trying to toe off his boots.

“You should have removed them before you broke your hands,” Seth said.

Aidan's head snapped around. Leaping to his feet, he backed away and eyed Seth warily. Chain links rattled with his every movement. “You had me chained to the wall like a lowly vampire,” he accused.

“Dude,” Stuart said in the lab, “we can hear you.”

Aidan's brow furrowed as he cast a fleeting glance at the door.

Seth studied him and wondered what truths would unfold in the coming minutes. Had loneliness stolen Aidan's sanity despite the companionship of Seconds? Had bitterness driven him mad as Roland had suggested? Or was Aidan simply pissed? Seth didn't recall ever having seen the Celt lose his temper.

“Well?” Seth said when the silence stretched. “Have you nothing to say to me?”

Aidan stiffened. “What are you waiting for? That bastard who captured me said you wished to kill me.”

“I thought I would let you have your say first. So talk while I'm still of a mind to let you.”

A moment passed. “Why didn't you tell me an immortal was plotting against you?” Aidan asked.

Seth arched a brow and crossed his arms over his chest.

Aidan's eyes flickered with something Seth thought might have been hurt. “How could you think it was me? After all the years we've known each other, how could you think I would betray you like that?”

“Are you saying that wasn't you I saw on the network's surveillance footage, wiping the memories of network guards and exerting mind control over them?”

Aidan's lips tightened. “It isn't what you think.”

“You didn't breach network headquarters and violate every protocol put in place to protect the humans who help us?”

“I know it looks bad, but—”

“You didn't fuck with the guards' minds,” Seth continued, anger rising, “possibly giving them brain damage, and roam the compound freely?”

“I—”

“You didn't comb through the records room, then make yourself at home in Chris Reordon's office, searching confidential files for information you could feed the vampire army you've raised as well as the scientists you've commissioned to increase the dosage of the tranquilizer?”

“I didn't—”

“Don't lie to me!”
Seth bellowed.

Everything went quiet.

Aidan.

The vampires in the lab.

Melanie.

Bastien.

Even the guards in the hallway fell into silence, so Seth's voice must have carried through the thick walls.

“It isn't what you think,” Aidan insisted.

“You made the network your playground, endangered all of the humans who work here by compromising the guards and security, and helped yourself to an ass-load of confidential information and research. At the same time, a surprisingly adept army of vampires rose against us and miraculously gained access to the
only
sedative that works against immortals. A sedative that can only be obtained on these premises, along with a detailed compilation of dosages and their effectiveness, culled from the research performed here. Quite a coincidence.”

“Seth—”

“That tranquilizer was used against Lisette,” Seth snapped.

“The French immortal?”

“She nearly died, Aidan! She lay comatose for days! She's a telepath, yet even her mind was quiet.”

Aidan stared at him. “When did this happen?”

“You know damned well when it happened!”

“It isn't what you think,” Aidan repeated.

“Then why don't you tell me what it is?”

The minutes stretched. Every once in a while, Seth heard bone scrape against bone as the virus struggled to heal Aidan's hands, but not a flicker of pain touched the Celt's impassive face.

“Well?” Seth prodded.

“Do you know why poor people play the lotto, Seth?” he asked at length.

“What?”

“Wealthy people on the news are always condemning poor people for playing lotto, saying they should take that one dollar a week and invest it in whatever the hell rich people think will miraculously eradicate poverty. A savings account that will accrue a Lilliputian amount of interest by the end of the year. Four dollars more a month put toward paying down debt. They say lotto players are irrational. They say they're stupid. They think all lotto players mistakenly believe that they have an excellent chance of winning big. They call lotto players sheep and accuse them of playing for no other reason than that everyone else seems to be playing and they want to be part of the “in” crowd. I've even heard them accuse poor people who play lotto of being greedy and self-destructive. And do you know why?”

Before Seth could ask him what the hell he was talking about, Aidan continued.

“Because they don't get it. Because they've never had to struggle. They don't know what it's like to work two jobs you hate just to pay the rent and put food on the family's table. They don't know what it's like to have a car so old and in such poor condition that you say a prayer every time you turn the key, hoping it'll start. They don't know what it's like to not get to attend college because there aren't enough government grants to go around and their parents can't afford tuition. They don't get what it's like to work the same low-paying, dead-end job day after day, having to take shit from a boss who fucks with his employees' lives for no other reason than he's an asshole who likes to fuck with peoples' lives and is in a position to do so, and to know that this is what their lives will always be like because they can't do a damned thing to change it. They don't know what it's like to live without hope.”

That caught Seth's attention.

“They can't comprehend,” Aidan said, his tone almost begging Seth to understand, “the fucking stress and depression a life without hope dumps on a person. They can't understand that for just a few minutes, when that man or woman buys a lotto ticket, the stress that constantly tightens their shoulders eases just a bit. That just
imagining
winning the power-whatever, imagining all of their financial woes disappearing, imagining being able to quit their shit jobs and tell their asshole boss to go fuck himself gives them a desperately needed moment of happiness, of peace, and helps them get through the day. That every time their jackwad boss treats them like shit, they can think of that ticket and of the drawing at the end of the week and how awesome it would be to win, slim though the chances may be, and—again—get a brief mini-vacation from the stress. That
that
one-dollar ticket gives them something nothing else in life has. It gives them hope.”

Seth stared at Aidan in silence.

Aidan raised his arms a few inches, then let them fall back to his sides. “I need my lotto ticket, Seth,” he said with near desperation. “I need hope. I've lived too long without it.”

“And you thought raising a vampire army—”

“I didn't raise a fucking army!” Aidan shouted, features mottling with fury. “I breached network headquarters and violated Reordon's protocols because I was looking for a list of
gifted ones!
”

Seth could detect no deception in his tone and saw none in his posture or expression.

“You wouldn't transfer me,” Aidan said, both his voice and face full of anguish.

“Five
gifted ones
have been transformed in recent years, so we have five new immortals in the area. We don't need—”

“I don't give a flying fuck how many immortals are in the area! If you have more than you need, then send the Brits and their wives elsewhere and transfer
me
here. I
know
the chances of finding a
gifted one
who can love me and who will transform for me are as slim as the chances of winning the lotto, but I need the hope, Seth.” He shook his head, swallowed hard. “I've lived without it for nearly three thousand years. I broke into the damned network and risked your wrath because I can't live without it any longer. If you wouldn't transfer me here, then I wanted to acquire a list of
gifted ones
I could look up myself. I wouldn't hurt them. I wouldn't scare them. I would just . . . bump into them at the grocery store. Help them change a flat tire. Whatever the hell I had to do to just have that chance meeting and see if, by some miracle, a spark might flare between us. If I had to teleport here every night before hunting to manage it, I would do it.”

Shit.

“I didn't raise a vampire army. I just . . . wanted to purchase a lotto ticket.” Aidan held out his bloody hands. “Whatever the cost.”

Seth stared at Aidan, one of the most powerful warriors he knew, and felt his chest tighten when moisture glinted in the other man's eyes. “Lower your barriers,” Seth commanded.

“What?”

“Your mental barriers. Lower them.”

Aidan nodded slowly. “It's done.”

Seth delved into the immortal's mind. Every barrier toppled, letting Seth see the loneliness and desperation that had driven Aidan to rebel. Not by raising a vampire army. But by combing the network's records in search of the names and addresses of female
gifted ones
. Had Aidan tried to hide anything, Seth would've seen it.

There was nothing. Aidan hadn't even known a vampire army had risen against the immortals until he had awoken chained in this holding cell and heard Bastien and Melanie discussing it . . . and naming
him
the betrayer.

Yet again, Seth had misjudged one of his immortals.

Closing his eyes, he bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck.” Would this never end? Would he never discover who was waging war with them?

Aidan released a long sigh. “I'm sorry I defied you.”

Seth shook his head. Opening his eyes, he crossed to Aidan and placed a hand on the younger man's chest. Though Seth was low on energy from healing Ami, he poured what he could into Aidan and healed both of his hands.

While Aidan flexed his fingers, Seth drew back his hand and waved it toward Aidan's feet.

The shackles opened and fell away.

“Thank you.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Seth asked. “When you requested the transfer, why didn't you tell me how bad things were?”

Aidan sank down on the narrow bed behind him. “Too proud, I suppose. Too ashamed. I don't know. Too angry, maybe, that you didn't see it. Hell, Seth, after all these years, you know me better than anyone.”