Jess Haines - Enslaved By the Others

I wished I could have said the same for myself.

None of the vampires or magi would abide having Gideon stay near them, and Soo-Jin was still worried Fane would try to make a move even though Iana had cured me. After getting everyone else settled, she led me and Gideon into her bedroom—but she drew the line at letting the big cat padding after us inside. He made a grumbling, growling-type sound of complaint before curling up in the hallway right outside the door. That settled, she made me shower first, then Gideon, lending us both some bathrobes before she took her own turn.

As soon as she stepped out, a big towel wrapped around her slim frame and a smaller one scrubbing the remaining moisture from her hair, she paused in the doorway and her nose wrinkled in disgust.

She made Gideon take a second shower before she’d let him sleep in her room with us. On his way in, I got a good gander at the bottom of his toned, bare ass hanging out of the too-short, fuzzy pink bathrobe Soo-Jin had given him.

Once he came back out, she also made him spritz himself with half a bottle of jasmine-scented perfume. Then she lit some candles and incense. The mixture of cloying scents made it hard to breathe, but it was better than the rot-and-chemical odors still wafting from the necromancer. How he lived with that constant stench was beyond me.

He must have been exhausted, because he didn’t have any snide comments for either of us and seemed perfectly content to curl up on the carpeted floor with nothing but the robe and a pillow.

His green eyes, dull and heavy-lidded, tracked me around the room as I tugged one of the blankets out of the closet for him. He mumbled thanks as I draped it over him, but he didn’t close his eyes until I was in bed and under the covers. Having him staring at me like that was worrisome. He’d proven one too many times how clever and vicious he was capable of being, so I had no interest in letting him trick or use me again. Whatever was on his mind, it meant I would have to be on my toes until he was out of my life.

Once it was clear he was passed out, Soo-Jin pulled out a pair of fuzzy handcuffs from a drawer beside her bed and cuffed one of his hands to the foot of a large teak armoire. Probably a good idea since there was no telling what he might do if he woke up during the day and decided that having the vampires running around uncontrolled wasn’t good for his health. That, or if he got it into his head to take off and maybe bring Sara along for the ride.

No doubt, even if he was (sort of) on our side now, he was going to prove to be a tremendous amount of trouble.

Soo-Jin turned off the lights and crawled into bed next to me, breathing out an exhausted sigh as she sprawled on her stomach. By dim candlelight, I could see she was staring at me with her eyes narrowed to slits. First Gideon, then her. They were both getting on my nerves and making it difficult to relax.

“Something on your mind?” I asked, keeping my voice soft.

A slow, lazy smile curved her lips. She kept her voice down, too, neither of us wanting to wake Gideon. “You didn’t run from me when you saw me feed. You took off on your own to go after Max. You stand up for the necromancer despite who he is and what he’s done. The more I see of you, the more I understand why Rhathos and so many others like him are attracted to you.”

With a huff, I looked away, not wanting to hear it. It was a sentiment I had heard from Others before, if not in the same words.

“I admire your bravery. Take care who you waste it on and how you exercise it, or you may not survive our world.” She paused, then rolled to put her back to me. Something about her tone changed. I wasn’t sure if it was warning or sorrow in her voice. “Your choices have led you to a very hard road. You’ll be tempted upon your return to take a stand against him in a matter that will seem cruel and heartless to you. Don’t. For your sake, and that of everyone involved, accept that there is nothing you can do.”

She didn’t say anything else, and I didn’t ask what she meant.

If I had been any less wiped out and she had been any less cagey, I might have asked for further details. I had the feeling she didn’t want to be the one to tell me what was coming. Prying it out of her would be too much damned work. With all the other crap already heaped on my plate, I had zero fucks left to give. Whatever the problem was, I would deal with it when it came.

Getting back to New York was a freaking nightmare.

First we had to get out of Max’s territory. Due to complications and some kind of bullshit Other protocol that Angus and Soo-Jin didn’t care to explain but insisted we needed to follow, Royce had no way of sending us any more resources. All they would tell me is that they didn’t want to leave Athena any more clues about his involvement.

That meant we had to drive south over three hundred miles through Illinois and Indiana to cross the invisible bully’s line in the sandbox. We couldn’t just drive the half an hour or whatever to O’Hare International. Even if whatever Other-related rules that forbade him from helping us weren’t deterring Angus and Soo-Jin from taking the easy way out, Royce had no way of providing enough fake IDs or buying off security rapidly enough to get us out of town as fast as we needed.

For some reason, he also couldn’t send a plane into Max’s territory without it being tracked back to him. Some combination of Max’s payoffs to the local cops plus the Other-related networks in the area made it too much of a risk for him to leave a tangible trail of his involvement. That explained why I didn’t know any of the vampires he sent along save for Angus. They weren’t part of Royce’s bloodline, so any part of themselves they left behind couldn’t be traced to him by supernatural means.

Knowing that didn’t make the inconvenience of our situation any easier to swallow. Never mind that the guy was dead, Max still managed to be a tremendous pain in my ass. Royce insisted that we had to find a private airport in northern Kentucky with loose enough security to bypass pesky things like TSA searches and passenger manifests required by Homeland Security.

Soo-Jin, who had been thoughtful enough to get up early and buy a bunch of sweats for those of us whose clothes had been mangled beyond repair or had none to speak of, came with us as far as the airport. She wished us all luck, and told me to call her now and then.

She also told me to pay her a visit if I was ever back in the neighborhood. I tried not to let too much hysterical laughter slip at the thought, but it was a losing battle. Thank goodness she thought my reaction was funny instead of taking offense.

There was one other thing. Right before she left, she pulled me aside, keeping her voice low and furtive like she didn’t want anyone to overhear.

“That boy-child you were so concerned about. The one at the store? He’s alive, if a bit more pale than you might remember. He did not recognize me, and had some bandages on one arm. When I asked, he thought he might have slipped on a patch of ice and knocked himself cold when checking on a customer in the parking lot.”

So, Max hadn’t killed Dustin, just taken a bit of blood and removed his memories of our presence with a black enchant. I was ashamed to admit it, but in all the uproar, I had forgotten about the kid at the convenience store. She did not look too pleased to admit that she had checked on him for me, but the gruff face she put on to tell me the news didn’t hide that she was relieved, too.

“Thank you, Soo-Jin.”

She gave me a terse nod, turning away. I put a hand on her arm to keep her from rushing off.

“Really,” I said, repeating myself with a bit more force. “ Thank you. Like I told you before—you’re kinder than you know.”