Silk Over Razor Blades (30 page)

‘Saar’s family were slaves
before his mother enlisted him to the army. I grew up on the
streets as a filthy street-rat, stealing bread and drinking from
gutters to survive. It doesn’t mean anything.’

She backed away, groping the
air behind her until her fingers touched the dining table. Two long
steps put it between herself and Tristen. ‘But you hate Saar. What
does this mean? What are you going to do?’

A smile. ‘Red Fang can’t know
about you. They can’t see you. One look at your face and they’ll
know who you are and everything we’ve built since Saar died will be
torn down.’

Lenina waited, tensing her
muscles.

‘Fortunately, I know exactly
what to do.’ He lifted the dagger.

Jason moved in a blur of grey
streaks. One moment he stood near the door, the next in front of
Tristen. ‘Wait,’ he began. ‘Just think—’

Tristen’s fangs shot down from
his gum line. ‘I
am
thinking.’

‘But Kallisto! She’ll
know.’

‘How? You?’

‘No!’

Despite her shielding, Lenina
felt a quick stab of terror to match the colour draining from
Jason’s face.

‘I won’t tell her. I’ve never
met any vampire more capable of shielding his thoughts than you,
but she’s the First Majestic. If she suspects, she’ll peel your
mind like an onion until she finds the truth.’

‘Why should she suspect? She
loves me.’ Tristen actually smiled. His chest puffed out as he
gestured with the dagger.

‘Please, Tristen. Lenina
is
the Vessel. You can’t kill her.’

‘Shut up. You only care about
saving your own neck.’

Jason’s cheeks reddened.
‘Kallisto won’t hurt me if she knows I found the Vessel. She’ll let
me off, but only if we take Lenina to Red Fang. Right now. Before
she finds out.’

‘She won’t find out.’ Tristen
snarled then touched his mouth, causing his fangs to recede.

Lenina spread her fingers on
the table. The adrenalin flooding her body made her skin tingle,
but she didn’t dare relax. Instead she watched Tristen’s face and
the twitch in his eyebrows as he glared at Jason.

‘I’ll wear make-up,’ she
whispered. ‘Nobody will see the mark. Anyone who does won’t know
what it means.’

‘And Saar?’ His gaze snapped to
her.

‘What about him?’

‘Can you hold him back? Stop
him taking over?’

She hesitated.

‘He’s more than two thousand
years old. The original recipient of the blessing. No matter how
strong you think
I
am, he could swat me like a fly. You
know
that. You think he’ll just sit inside you and never
come out?’

Lenina licked her lips. ‘I’m
learning to control it. I’ll get better.’

As she spoke the scent of
peppermint rolled through the air. It struck her like a physical
blanket and smothered everything until she could barely think for
the surge of lust heating her body. It came with the memory of
Tristen’s hands on her body, his lips on her throat, the tickle of
his hair against her cheeks, the heat of his breath against her
most intimate parts.

Tristen green eyes narrowed.
His lips pursed. ‘You can’t even keep
me
out.’

Her lips trembled. ‘I can. Give
me a chance.’

‘Saar won’t give you a chance.
All those memories and you still don’t get it? He had no mercy or
compassion. He trampled weak things and blamed it on Set, but it
had nothing to do with any god. It was
him
. He was
evil.’

‘He didn’t start that way.’

‘But he
will
come back
that way.’ Tristen side-stepped Jason and leapt over the table.

Lenina darted around it and
sharp pain in her scalp warned her of the near miss. When she
looked back, two braids dangled from Tristen’s fingers.

‘Help me.’ She darted glances
at Jason.

He dry-washed his hands. ‘He’s
my sire. My link to Set.’

‘I don’t know what that
means.’

‘It means he does as he’s
told,’ Tristen snapped. ‘Or I’ll kill him.’

‘Just like that?’ The savagery
of it caught her off guard.

‘It’s what Saar taught us.
After Mosi he didn’t want anybody else thinking they knew better
than him.’

‘Please, Jason. Please.’

The scruffy man hunched his
shoulders. ‘If you really are the Vessel, you can protect me, yeah?
Helping you is like helping Saar.’

Lenina wavered.

Tristen laughed. ‘Yes, admit
you’re the Vessel and I’ll kill you for sure. Deny it and Jason
won’t help.’ More laughter. ‘Spoilt and selfish, that’s what you
are and there’s nobody left to bail you out. What now?’

Lenina hesitated. With an angry
vengeful vampire on one side and another confused one on the other,
allies were hard to come by. She closed her eyes and opened her
mind to Jason, breaking down the mental barricade between them. His
thoughts and feelings tumbling across the gap like an avalanche.
She met the rush head on and ushered him through.

Jason gazed at her and visibly
straightened. He pressed his lips into a thin, grim line and gave a
curt nod. Even his shoulders lifted and when he moved, the air felt
thick with his confidence. Without speaking, he grabbed her arm and
shoved her against the wall. Then he turned, put his back to her
and faced Tristen with his arms outstretched. ‘You leave her be.’
His tone resembled steel.

Tristen gave a low,
disbelieving chuckle. ‘Don’t be stupid. You can’t fight me.’

‘I’m not. I’m
protecting
her.’

‘Why? She doesn’t care about
you.’

‘She doesn’t have to. It’s the
right thing, yeah? We promised to look for the Vessel. All of
us.’

‘Don’t do this. You’re still of
my line.’

‘If you believed any of that
you would have let Mosi shiv you. You’re no better than the rest of
us, just looking out for himself. This woman ain’t like that.’

Though the words swelled
Lenina’s chest, they also dropped a lead weight into her belly. His
faith in her was startling, a beacon in her mind as bright as a
lighthouse. Fascinating. Humbling. Terrifying.

‘You know me, Jason.’ Tristen
pointed with the dagger. ‘I won’t hesitate. Last chance. Step
aside.’

Lenina touched Jason’s
shoulder. A familiar static charge leapt off his body and he
reached back to squeeze her fingers. An instant later his scream
splintered the tense silence. Pressing her hands to her ears,
Lenina could only watch as Jason fell to his knees. He clutched his
head. Blood poured from his nose and ears.

‘Stop it!’ She stared at
Tristen’s eerie, glowing eyes. ‘Leave him alone!’

The shrieks stopped.

Lenina risked bending down.
‘Jason?’ He didn’t speak, just whimpered.

‘I Kissed him, Lenina. The
sire-child link is great for keeping people in line. I could do
that all day. It costs nothing. If you care about him at all,
you
leave
him
alone.’

Worm-like, Jason writhed in a
puddle of his own blood. Though he tried to stand, his limbs shook.
His eyes rolled back in his head.

Lenina straightened. ‘Leave
him. He’s only doing it because I asked.’

Tristen snorted. ‘He’s doing it
to save his own skin. You heard him, he wants protection.’

Rolling on the carpet, Jason’s
grey eyes swivelled to meet hers. The touch of his blood-slicked
fingers against her toes made her cringe. ‘Help me,’ he begged.

‘See? It’s all about him.’

She looked down again, inched
away from the hand groping her foot. The crestfallen look on
Jason’s face changed to one of wonderment as she positioned herself
over his body, standing between him and Tristen. Her hands balled
into fists. ‘Then I’ll protect him.’

Lenina hesitated when Tristen’s
laughter cut across her bold statement. A coil of warmth took root
in her belly and spread through her body. It linked to Tristen and
she could smell the mint on his breath, feel the firm pressure of
his hands on her hips, his lips slanting across hers.

The power of the sensory memory
stole her breath. She stumbled.

‘Okay, you made your point.
Stop it.’

More laughter.

Eyes closed, she fought off the
growing need to throw herself at his body. The burning urge to feel
his naked skin beneath her fingers. Gritting her teeth didn’t help.
Neither did tightening her fists until her nails bit into her
palms. Then something hard struck her back. Her eyes flashed open
in time to see Jason spring off the floor and tackle Tristen around
the middle.

The rush of lust died and she
heaved herself to the surface like a drowning man breaching the
waves. Both men rolled together, toppling dining chairs as they
went. Tristen jerked free, ending the one-sided scuffle as quickly
as it began by shoving his dagger into Jason’s chest. He leaned on
the hilt while Jason screamed and drummed his heels against the
floor.

‘I warned you,’ he
muttered.

Jason opened his mouth but no
sound came out, just a small bubble of dark blood that burst and
slid down his chin. One weak hand fluttered near the dagger hilt.
Through the link they shared, Lenina felt it all. Clutching her own
chest, she shouldered Tristen aside and knelt near Jason’s
head.

‘You can heal it.’ She tried to
make the words an order rather than a desperate plea. ‘Heal
it!’

‘He can’t. Not the heart. Not
after what Mosi did to Saar. That wound weakened every single one
of us. Where do you think the stake “through the heart” myth came
from?’

Jason gave a wet gurgle, his
last attempts to speak. From one trembling hand Lenina saw sand
pour from his fingertips. No . . . the sand came from the fingers
themselves, and as more hit the floor, she realised his hands were
crumbling away.

Her gut twisted like a giant
fist had plunged inside to grab a handful of intestines. Liquid
fire burned through her veins and every scrap of pain she felt
doubled. Tripled. The space Jason inhabited ripped free of her mind
with a sound like the wet tearing of flesh from flesh.

‘Not again, please!’ The voice
from her mouth sounded nothing like her own.

Saar’s anguish, Saar’s fear,
Saar’s remembered agony rolled through Lenina’s head until she
could no longer separate them from hers. He watched and felt Kiya
die and she joined him.

Jason’s presence vanished from
her head. As if death had flicked a switch.

Lenina sprawled on the carpet
gasping, watching the last ravages of vampire death turn Jason into
a pile of sand, packaged in dirty, smelly clothes.

The pain stopped.

Tristen crouched and touched
the golden sand. For a moment, Lenina thought that he might feel a
hint of remorse, but he simply stood and wiped his hands against
his jeans.

‘I didn’t think it would hurt
so much.’ He might have meant a paper cut.

‘You felt it?’

‘He was part of me. His death
takes something from me, same as you. But I can handle it.’

His blasé attitude made her
want to punch him. ‘How? There’s a hole where he used to be, like
an open wound. Was it like this when Mosi died?’

He stiffened. ‘Worse. Then Saar
died. I felt that too.’

‘How?’

‘He was the conduit between Set
and the rest of us. Those he made directly got the worst of it.
That’s why Majestics like Kallisto need him; they think he’ll bring
back the power they lost.’

‘Will it?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t care. I
choose weaker, alive and free, over stronger and living in fear.
You wouldn’t understand.’

But she did. She knew it keenly
in that moment because she then felt Tristen’s mind touch hers.
Like water filling an empty cup, awareness and knowledge of him
flooded her mind and filled the space left by Jason.

He gasped.

She shivered. ‘What’s
happening?’

A smile grew on his lips as he
gazed at her face. ‘Your link is mine now. I didn’t know that could
happen. Incredible.’

Panic seized her. ‘Why? No,
please. I don’t want you in my head.’

He inhaled, deep and slow, as
if consuming her thoughts through his nose. ‘You’ve been holding
out on me.’

‘What?’

‘You know more than you think
about Saar. You found a book,’ he frowned. ‘By Xerxes? I don’t know
that one, but there’s a few. Stupid humans trying to get rich by
selling our story. We kill them, obviously.’

Lenina turned her attention to
the mental wall, rebuilding it with the same concrete slabs she’d
once used with Jason. She’d barely lain the first blocks before
Tristen swatted them away, a minor flex of his will.

‘Stop. You don’t know what
you’re doing. It’s embarrassing.’

‘Get out of my head!’

‘But I like it here. I can see
everything you’ve been trying to hide. You really did love Nick.’
The grin widened. ‘But you’ve got a thing for long hair and green
eyes, rather like Saar. Pity . . . for you. No wonder it was so
easy. You barely put up a fight.’

Remembering her almost instant
attraction to Tristen only made Lenina feel worse. Guilt wormed
through her until she saw and felt nothing but her own terrible
choices. ‘Please don’t.’

‘Nick suffered by the way. You
drained his blood without any hold on his mind. He definitely
suffered. It was the perfect tribute.’

Tears burned in Lenina’s eyes.
‘Stop it!’

Tristen’s presence was a
physical weight against her skull as he riffled through the storage
boxes of her life.

‘Your mother looks good for her
age. Grace, is it? I can see where you get your looks, certainly
not from your father.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Your brother looks more like
Ray. I still say he’s familiar. Remind me what he does?’

‘None of your business.’
Hopping from subject to subject was too difficult to keep track of.
With each new fact Tristen discovered, Lenina felt him worm a
little deeper into her head. His mental probing dug deep, like
super-fine needles piercing the very heart of her memories.