Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness) (36 page)

“Money isn’t everything,” he said darkly.

“What then?” Celeste asked impatiently. “Is it
because I intend to kill her?”

My throat got tight and my heart started
drumming. It was the second time they’d talked about killing me and the way
they mentioned it—so casually—made my blood freeze.

“That’s not it,” the warlock returned. “I’ve done
plenty of killing myself—sacrificed the hornless goat more times than I care to
count.”

“The dark nature of the spell then—”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Hardly. I’ve
done so much dark magic my soul is blacker than a bucket of tar. One more spell
won’t make a difference. Let’s just say I have my own reasons for wanting to go
home and leave it at that. Now if you could just drop me at the airport—”

“I will
not
,”
she insisted. “I have paid you a very generous sum and put you up in the finest
hotel in town—I deserve to know why you’re giving me problems now—just when I
am on the eve of my own personal ascent to power.”

“Fine.” He leaned toward her. The fact is, I just
don’t
like
you, Ma’am. Working with
you this past month has been pretty Goddamn unpleasant and I’m ready to see the
end of your pretty little backside.”

Celeste’s eyes grew wide with disbelief. “How
dare
you? Do you have any idea of who I
really am and what I could do to you if I chose?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I know you think you’re hot
shit—a three-star vamp and hotter than a firecracker to look at—but I’ve seen
how you treat your people. Pretty is as pretty does, my nana used to say and
let me tell you, Celeste, you’re one of the ugliest fucking people I’ve ever
met.”

“I…why…you…” I had never seen my old mistress so
flustered before. “You
will
stay with
me,” she said at last, glaring at him. “You
will
see this to the end or…or…”

“Go ahead,” he said coolly. “Tell me how you’re
going to kill me. Then just come on and try it. I may be too much of a
gentleman to hit a lady but somehow I don’t think you fall into that category.”

Celeste’s eyes narrowed. “You will
finish
the job I hired you to do or I
will
ruin
your reputation, Mr.
Shadowlock. No one will ever hire you in Florida again.”

“What a big loss
that
would be,” he said dryly. “You know the problem with this
state? You have all the heat of Texas but none of the good food. I spent an
hour yesterday trying to find some decent Tex-Mex and the best I could come up
with was a choice between Taco Bell and a Cuban sandwich. Which, don’t get me
wrong, Ma’am—a good Cuban is delicious. But not when your mouth is watering for
some really authentic
tacos al carbon
or some
carmarones diablo.”
“Would
you shut up about
food
?” Celeste
hissed. “It’s
revolting.”

He grinned, his teeth gleaming white in the dim
light.

“Well now, I thought that being able to eat again
was one of the reasons you wanted to kill this pretty little girl in the first
place.” He nodded at me. “Or are you going to lie and tell me you haven’t been
dying
to sink your fangs into a slice of
really gooey deep dish pizza for the past three hundred years?”

“I’d sooner eat
dirt,”
Celeste spat. “But once I have the powers within me that Taylor
has gained, I will be
unstoppable."

“Powers?” I said, looking at her doubtfully.
“What
powers?”

She laughed nastily. “Don’t pretend you don’t
know, my dear. I’ve heard the story of how you went out into the noonday sun
and came back with nothing worse than a tan to show for it.”

I shook my head. “I was only out for a
minute—less than a minute. And I don’t even know how I did it.”

“Well,
I
do,”
Celeste said loftily. “Do you know, I
knew
you would make a good vampire when I first saw you at my show—I just didn’t
know
why.
Your abysmal failure to
succeed as one of our kind actually made me question my judgment once or twice.
But now I know why I chose you—even then you had the seeds of greatness within
you, my dear. Seeds that can only sprout when planted in the correct ground—
me.”

I looked at her like she was crazy.

“Are you even
hearing
yourself?” I asked. “None of what you’re saying makes any sense.”

“It will.” Celeste leaned forward and slapped the
silver gag over my mouth again, drawing a muffled cry of pain from my throat. “Oh
believe me, Taylor—it
will.”

Chapter Twenty-five—Victor

When I woke up, my cell phone—which was
miraculously still in my pocket—said it was well past ten o’clock. I shook my
head and then wished I hadn’t. I had a miserable throbbing headache—the worst
I’d ever had—and when I put my fingers to my scalp where it hurt the most, they
came away sticky with drying blood. No doubt the injury I’d sustained would
have killed a human—lucky for me, weres are tough so I just blacked out for a
few minutes.

The ache in my head, though, was nothing to the
cold, empty feeling around my heart. Some tie—some connection to Taylor I’d had
there had been severed. I could feel it like a sucking chest wound—a sense of
loss so great it made me feel sick to my stomach. God, what had she done? Or
worse, what had been done to her?

I had to find out.

I had woken up in the middle of a field and it
took me a little while to get oriented again. I looked around and saw that the
tree I’d smashed into was totaled. Unfortunately, so was my truck. Damn it—I
was going to have to call someone to come get me. Maybe Taylor would answer
this time.

I pulled out my cell phone again to call her and
then did a double take at the screen. It was after ten o’clock at night—about
the time it should have been—but the date was wrong. According to my phone, it
was tomorrow. Had I actually been unconscious almost twenty-four hours? I must
have bumped my head harder than I thought. But why hadn’t anyone seen the wreck
and notified the police and EMTs?

The landscape around me answered my question—my
truck had crashed in a sort of natural valley—unusual in Florida but not
unheard of. Also, the crash site was screened by a stand of straggly pines and
overgrown underbrush. Probably people had been driving by all day and hadn’t
noticed a fucking thing.

The weight of the moon in the sky above me
confirmed what my phone said. She was full—full and calling me to change. But I
couldn’t stop thinking about Taylor. I had to check on her before I let myself
answer the moon’s siren call.

I called her phone—no answer. So I called Corbin’s
club and had to wade through a lot of bullshit in order to convince the bored
sounding barmaid that
no
, I wasn’t
just another drooling fang freak after her Master’s precious four-star ass and
yes
, I had legitimate reason to talk to
him. God, how did he stand this shit? But whatever—you make your living the
best way you can. I just knew I wouldn’t trade with him.

At last he came on the phone.

“Corbin,” I said, skipping the small talk. “I’m
worried about Taylor. Do you know where she is? Is she with Addison? Is she all
right?”

“You mean she is not with you?” He sounded
worried, which put my hackles up at once.

“No, she’s not fucking with me or I wouldn’t be
calling you,” I snapped. “She left last night after we had a…a disagreement.” I
couldn’t bring myself to tell him what had actually happened. “I was coming
after her but I totaled my truck. I need someone to come get me so I can find
out where the hell she went to—I’m afraid something’s wrong.”

I heard a click as someone else picked up on
another line.

“I’ll come,” Addison said. “Where are you,
Victor?”

“You are not going by yourself,” Corbin said
sternly.

“Why not?” Addison asked. “You stay and run the
club—I can pick up Victor.”

“Not by yourself,” Corbin said.

She blew out a breath, sounding irritated.
“Corbin, if this is some kind of weird jealousy thing—”

“It has nothing to do with jealousy, darling—I
trust you as God above,” he murmured. “It has to do with the fact that Victor
is a werewolf and tonight is the full moon. Therefore you will
not
go and get him—
I
will.”

“One of you come get me right fucking
now,”
I growled, losing patience.
“Corbin’s right—the moon’s full but I’m not changing until I find out Taylor’s
okay.”

“I will be right there,” Corbin said smoothly.
“Tell me your location…”

When his sleek Mercedes pulled up, they were both
in it so I guessed Addison had won at least half the battle. Actually, I was
glad to see her. She was Taylor’s best friend—if there was anything to know,
she would know it.

I slid into the backseat and nodded at both of
them.

“Thanks for the ride. What do you know about
Taylor?”

Addison gave me a stony look in the mirror.

“I know she was really upset. She said that the
two of you, um, had sex. But she was afraid—”

I felt sick. “Afraid of what?” Afraid that I’d
raped her probably. And the way I felt about what had happened between us, she
wasn’t far off the mark. That was why Addison’s next words caught me off guard.

She took a deep breath. “Taylor was afraid she’d,
uh,
forced
you, Victor.”

“What?”
I shook my head. “She was
afraid she
what?
But that’s crazy—it
doesn’t make any sense. Why would she think that?”

Addison frowned. “She said she couldn’t actually
remember much of the, um, encounter—only that when she woke up she was on top
of you and you were pretty…” She cleared her throat. “Pretty upset.”

“Hell yes, I was fucking upset,” I growled. “But
not because of
that
. I never thought
she
forced
me.”

“I
knew
it!” She slapped the back of the seat between us triumphantly. “I
knew
it had to be all some kind of
stupid misunderstanding. I tried to tell her that but she wouldn’t listen.”

“Shit.” I put a hand over my eyes. “I had no idea.
”
How could things have gotten so mixed
up between Taylor and me? She thought
she
had hurt and forced
me
instead of
the other way around? Then…was she really not mad at me?
Don’t get too excited,
I told myself grimly.
She probably
will
be angry when she knows how things really
happened.
Which I fully intended to tell her—as soon as I found her and
made sure she was all right. If only we had talked last night—if only I hadn’t
sent her away… “I’m such an
idiot,”
I
groaned, aloud.

“Such idiocy can be remedied,” Corbin said,
meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror. “As soon as we find Taylor.”

“But where did she go?” I demanded, looking again
at Addison. “Where did you take her?”

“To my place,” she said. “She was really tired
after eating so much fast food and—”

“Wait a minute.” I held up a hand. “You said she
ate
something?”

“That’s right—you don’t know.” Addison frowned.
“Yes, she was so upset but then she got a sudden craving for food—real food,
not blood. So we went through the Checker’s drive-thru and she ate like…well,
like she hadn’t tasted real food in years.” She shrugged. “Which she hadn’t so
I guess I thought it was okay. Only Corbin says not.”

“A vampire shouldn’t be able to ingest anything
besides blood and a few other liquids like wine or tea,” he said. “The fact
that Taylor is now able to eat solid foods troubles me greatly.”

“Yeah, almost as troubling as the fact that she
can go out in the noonday sun without burning to ash,” I muttered.

His eyes widened in the rearview mirror. “She
what?”
He looked at Addison. “Why didn’t
you tell me that?”

“I told you everything else,” she protested.
“About the heat and everything—I guess I just forgot about that.”

Corbin shook his head. “All of these strange
things happening to Taylor at once…it is almost like a convergence of some
kind. It troubles me deeply.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “The main thing is
to find her and make sure she’s okay. When did you last see her?” I asked
Addison.

“Last night, about an hour after I picked her up
from your place. She said she was tired and just wanted to go to bed. I tried
to call her a few hours later to check on her but she didn’t answer. I figured
she was just sleeping—you know how soundly vamps sleep.” She nudged Corbin who gave
her an affectionate smirk.

“At least we do not snore like some humans I
could mention.”

Addison poked him again and then looked back at
me.

“Anyway, I went home around noon to see her and
she wasn’t there—neither was my car. Her cell phone was, though, with a missed
call from you. It looked like she went somewhere and just forgot it. So then I
figured she was holed up for the day, somewhere. But when it got dark and she
still didn’t come home…”