Til Death (Jane #5) (5 page)

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I thought of
the torture that Victoria had gone through. I was experiencing it
first hand and my heart went out to her.

"Where did Conrad fit into Raymond's
plans?"

Anson laughed. "You did Raymond a favor
there, actually. Conrad was supposed to be his lackey, a figurehead
in Europe while Raymond stayed in the United States. But Conrad
grew too ambitious. He started ignoring Raymond's commands and
began to build up his own empire. If you and your crew had not
killed Conrad when you did, there may have been a war between the
two. I have no idea if the war would have been good for you or
cause more chaos, but you saved Raymond the time and effort by
taking out his only real opposition. Sad, really. I kind of hoped
to see those two go head to head. It would have been an epic
battle."

I frowned. "Shame. I wish we would have
known. We could have held off on our attack and taken them both out
at once."

Anson smiled at me. "You have high hopes. It
is unlikely that you would have been able to take them both on at
the same time, no matter the size of your attack force. Conrad was
a force to be reckoned with, but Raymond is ten times worse. And
they were both smart. If you gave them a reason to work together,
you would have been doomed from the start."

I let Anson work in silence for awhile,
leaning my head back against the bloody chair as I wondered how on
earth I went from being a happy bride on my wedding day to a
mangled mess of tortured flesh. It couldn't have been more than
twenty-four hours since I was kidnapped, but time had become
something immaterial and unimportant. All that mattered was that I
held out until Felipe could arrive. I could not break. I had to
remain strong. I pictured his face and imagined the night he first
kissed me. His lips had felt so wonderful on mine, so sweet, so
strong.

"What're you smiling about?"

I blushed, having momentarily forgotten where
I was. I know, I know. How could I forget that I was sitting in a
torture chamber getting the blood cleaned off my destroyed limbs?
But Felipe's lips are easy to get lost in, even if I was only
imagining them at the time.

"Nothing, I was just thinking."

"About Felipe?"

I cleared my throat and looked at the floor.
Anson took the hint quickly and finished cleaning me off in silence
before offering me the last few sips of blood. When the bottle was
empty, he took the pail of water and bottle back to wherever he
retrieved it from, then went to stand in the corner once more.

"What does he want with me?" I asked after I
grew bored of sitting in the deafening quiet.

My captor frowned. "To make you his queen.
You are strong, much stronger than Victoria, or so he hopes. And
you are talked about in all vampire circles. You have power over
them."

"I do?" That stunned me. I didn't know anyone
knew about me but those I was closest to.

He smiled at me very briefly. "Yes. Many of
the younger and weaker vampires look up to you. You are young
yourself, but have risen to a position of great admiration."

I chewed my lip, trying to comprehend that
piece of information.

"So what happens now?"

Anson shrugged. "When Raymond comes back,
he'll pick a new weapon and continue where he left off."

"Why did he bother to have you go through all
that effort then if he's just going to beat me bloody again?"

The man in front of me bowed his head. "It
may seem stupid now, but it is a tactic of his that is very
powerful. It gives you a reprieve, a chance to hope. You start to
feel normal once more and usually you'll be fully healed within a
couple hours. You feel stronger and think to yourself 'I can do
this. I can resist.' But then he comes back, and he comes back
harder than he did before. You try to fight, but he beats you down
quicker than he did the first time. You lose the hope you had built
up in the intermission. And you start to crack. After each pause,
you'll be less resistant to his abuse, until you finally give in or
give up."

I bit my lip. "I can see how that would be
more effective than a continuous beating. Thinking is a lot worse
than feeling."

"Much worse. Thinking can get you in
trouble." Anson glanced at the door and took a step closer. "Now,
Jane, if you ever start feeling like--"

We heard footsteps outside and he snapped his
mouth closed, scooting quickly back to the corner. The door once
again slammed open and Raymond entered as if he were a lion
returning back to his pride with a huge antelope for dinner. The
man had a way of announcing his presence, I'd give him that.

"Jane, my darling," he cooed as he knelt
beside me and stroked my hand. "You are so lovely when you are all
cleaned up."

A manicured fingernail traced along my jaw
and I pulled my head away as well as the clamp around my neck would
allow. I felt saliva pool in the bottom of my mouth and I gathered
it on my tongue. Before Raymond could pull away, I let it fly,
forcing it out through pursed lips with the biggest puff of air I
could master. The loogie landed squarely on his right eye and the
surprise knocked him backward onto his bottom.

I tried to suppress a grin, I really did. But
it was just so funny, I found myself almost bending over with
laughter. Only the chair kept me upright. In the corner, Anson's
eyes were wide and I could see his nostrils flaring. I knew if he
could, he would berate me for doing something so stupid.
Whoops.

Raymond rose, breathing heavily. His face was
beet red and he was visibly trying to control himself. He raised
one finger and pointed it at me. It shook like he was going to
scold me and I smiled sweetly at him until he growled and stalked
off to the corner. I heard him rummaging around in one of the
cabinets for awhile and shot a grin at Anson. No matter how the man
tried to hide it, he could not help but give me a 'you're insane'
smirk.

Finally, Raymond returned. In one hand he
held a long, pointed piece of metal and in the other was a pair of
nasty-looking ginormous pliers.

"I will make you regret that, little girl" he
said, leaning close to me as he tried to look as scary as possible.
"I will hurt you, just a little at first, and in the end, you will
be begging me for release. You will plead with me to stop. You will
do anything I ask."

I nodded. "Oh, I'm sure you will make me
regret it, but no matter what you do to me, no matter what you try,
it won't be enough. You are weak and pathetic, just like your
little minion, Conrad. He wasn't man enough to take over a little
country like Italy. What makes you think you can handle a place as
large and diverse as the United States? No, you may feel big when
you have a woman tied to a chair in a tiny little room, buried far
beneath the surface of the earth, but you don't have the balls to
face her in an even match, do you? You have to abuse her, treat her
like she's less than dirt, tear her down. But you're just a little
boy, scared of not being good enough, scared to face the truth. I
will always be better than you. I will always be smarter than you.
I will always be stronger than you. You may abuse my body, but you
can never break my mind."

The blow from the pliers almost took out my
eye and sent the world spinning into darkness.

Chapter 7

"Do you enjoy antagonizing people into
beating you into a pulp?"

Anson shook his head as he wiped blood from
my drooping chin. The last round of abuse was definitely brutal and
apparently Raymond took great offense at my spitting in his face
more than once. If the neck band hadn't been firmly in place, I'm
pretty sure I would've toppled to the ground. As it was, I couldn't
hold my head up and my jaw was dislocated to the point where I
couldn't pop it back by myself.

"Hold still." Anson took my head in one hand
and my chin in the other. "On three. One... two..."

He snapped it on two. The pain was
excruciating, somehow worse than anything I had endured to that
point, but I could wiggle my jaw once more and it started to heal
instantly.

"Who taught you to count?" I griped as he
lifted my head to wipe at my neck.

"Your mom."

My jaw dropped and I stared at him for a
second before bursting into a giggle. "Well played, good man. Well
played."

He grinned before telling me to shush. The
last thing we needed was Raymond bursting in to figure out why his
punching bag was laughing when she should have been a babbling
mess. I watched him work for awhile, studying his face. He was
fairly pale, like most red-heads are, and he had light freckles on
his cheeks. I had noticed that when he let his guard down, he had a
slight accent.

"Where are you from, Anson?"

He stiffened slightly, but didn't stop
wiping. "I lived in Ireland as a boy, but we moved to the States
when I was twelve. I suppose you want to know how I became a
vampire?"

I shrugged, a movement that I immediately
regretted due to a huge gash in my right shoulder. "If you want.
It's not like I have anything better to do."

He grinned at me and winked. "I love it when
I have a captive audience."

"Ouch."

He stopped wiping, his face concerned. "Did I
hurt you?"

"Yes, with that awful pun."

His glare could have stopped a raging bull,
but it just made me grin.

"Poor Felipe must have his hands full with
you."

I nodded. "You have no idea. So, how did you
become a vampire?"

"I was thirty-six at the time. Working at a
quarry during the late shift. I have no idea why they insisted on
having a late shift there. It was dangerous. More than triple the
accidents of the day shift, but I guess they felt it was worth the
expense. I was standing off by myself having a smoke when this guy
came out of nowhere. Literally, nowhere. One minute I was alone,
the next he was right next to me. Freaked me out. He told me he
could give me a better job, offered me better pay. I was tired of
struggling and pretty stupid. I said okay.

"He took me back to a sanctuary, taught me
the ways of the vampire. I was an enforcer for a year or so before
he procured my turning. He was killed shortly afterward in a raid
on a cave full of goblins. I was kind of left by myself, even
though I had all those other vampires around me. I never really
felt like I fit in."

He kept his head down and focused on my
shredded thighs.

"Is that how you ended up with Raymond?" I
asked, almost in a whisper. Honestly, I was afraid of the answer,
but Anson seemed like a good guy and I had to know what would make
someone like him hook up with someone like Raymond.

"Sort of. Actually, I fell in love." He
laughed at that. "Isn't that always the story, though? Love always
seems to be involved in some way, whether it's true love or
unrequited love."

I laughed, too. "Yeah, I guess so. Love is
how I became a vampire."

He nodded. "I know. Anyway, I fell in love
with this beautiful woman named Ava maybe ten or so years ago. I
didn't know she was sick at first. She didn't tell me. I found out
when she collapsed on the way to the car one day while I was taking
her to the movies. She fell and couldn't get back up. I took her to
the sanctuary, which was the first mistake, and the doctors told me
that she had terminal cancer. Apparently, she had refused all
treatment when she found out three years prior. They told me there
was nothing they could do and that I needed to take her home. So I
did, and then I turned her."

I gaped at him. "Without permission?"

"Yes. What else could I do, Jane? I couldn't
lose her. I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone or anything
in my entire life. She was my world."

I started to berate him for doing something
so stupid until I thought of Stephen. He did the same, and I knew
that if Felipe was human, I would, too. "What happened to her?"

I flinched as he worked vigorously on my
broken foot. The bones were knitting themselves back together, but
his rough hands were not helping the pain. "They found out, of
course. And came after us. We hid for awhile, a few months, but
they hunted us down. They took her while I was out finding blood.
She was destroyed before I could find her and free her."

His head was near my hand and I patted him
with my fingers. He looked up and gave me a faint smile.

"I went on the run alone, never staying in
one place long. I did alright, but it was getting harder and
harder. Eventually, I heard about Raymond and decided to seek him
out. I was still livid at the Council, and it seemed like the smart
choice at the time."

"Not so much, huh?"

Anson stuck his tongue out at me. "No, not so
much. With all his rogues running around, I learned quickly why the
Council makes such a big deal about them. They know nothing and he
has no desire to teach them how to live in peace with the humans.
He wants them to run amuck and do as much damage as possible, but I
think his plan is faulty. He thinks he can control them, but having
hordes of untrained vampires is a lot different than having a few
covens poking at sanctuaries across America."

"So why do you stay, if you don't agree with
him anymore?"

"Where would I go?" he asked. "I'm a rogue
myself. I'm an outcast. I know it's of my own doing, but without
this place, I have nothing. Here, I at least have some semblance of
a home."

I nodded. "I can understand that. One more
question, then I promise I'll stop interrogating you."

He raised his eyebrow at me. "I seriously
doubt that, but go ahead."

It was my turn to stick my tongue out.
Luckily, it had stitched itself back together from the time I
almost bit it in two after Raymond smacked my face with the pliers.
"Why are you being so nice to me? If this is your home, and if
Raymond finds out that you're helping me and giving me advice
behind his back, he'll turn on you. Why risk it?"