Jess Haines - Enslaved By the Others

“No, I can’t. Not that I have any desire to do such a thing. But you did agree to be bound.”

The necromancer took an involuntary step back, hunching his shoulders and bowing his head. It was odd, but just then it struck me how very young he looked, like a scared and lonely teenager. I had thought he must have been ageless, like the vampires, but maybe he was younger than I thought and hid his lack of experience behind bravado. Whatever pangs of concern I might have had for him didn’t matter. I didn’t trust him to behave himself without someone making him do it, so I wasn’t about to interfere. The bond and Royce’s influence were probably the only reason he was going to let Sara go.

“When the bond is set, it will free you from your ties to Fabian. As long as you uphold your end of the bargain, you have my word I will keep you safe.”

Gideon took a shaky breath to steady himself, then lifted his gaze. With a visible effort, he lowered his arms to his side and squared his shoulders, nodding as he forced himself to put on a brave face. He chose his fate. Circumstances might have brought him to a terrible place, but he was strong—stronger than I had been when in his shoes—and Royce would never be so cruel to him as he had been to Sara.

Remembering what he had done to her made it a lot easier to ignore any lingering apprehension I might have harbored for his safety and well-being.

Royce lifted his free hand to his mouth, using a fang to slash a crimson streak on his thumb. He then held the small wound out to Gideon.

The necromancer leaned in to lick the thin line of blood, doing his best not to touch any more of Royce than he had to. He grimaced as he swallowed, then made a gagging noise, swiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I’ll never get used to that.”

Royce chuckled in a way that made my skin crawl. “Give it time. You’ll develop a taste for it soon enough.”

Already the blood was visibly at work in Gideon, his eyes taking on a feverish glow that had nothing to do with his inner spark. He sidled closer, studying the vampire with the kind of lustful, appraising gaze that made my muscles twitch with the desire to put myself between them.

Jealous? Me? Perish the thought.

Royce laughed again, a bit more heartily this time, before turning to scoop me up into his arms. Though Gideon hardly seemed to notice that the vampire wasn’t paying him any mind, still staring fixedly at Royce’s face like he could will the vampire’s attention on himself, I gave a little shriek at the unexpectedness of being picked up. He buried his nose against my throat, breathing deep, making me squirm and pull at his hair to make him stop.

He did pull back, though his puzzled expression threw me for a loop. Whatever might have been bothering him, he didn’t say anything about it, instead returning his attention to the necromancer eagerly awaiting a command.

“It would please me greatly for you to take on the task of guarding Ms. Waynest when I am unavailable to do it myself. Will you do that for me?”

Gideon nodded, still staring at Royce without blinking. It was reaching the point of creepy with a side of stalkerish. I vividly remembered how that blood-fueled obsession felt, so I didn’t hold it against him, but it still made me feel better to slide a possessive arm around Royce’s neck. Ken, on the other hand, was watching all this with some trepidation. He was probably wondering if Royce’s blood would keep the necromancer from doing anything rash, like turning the younger vampire into a puppet at some inopportune moment.

“Good. Ken will get you a meal and direct you to a place to sleep. Let him know what supplies you’ll need to remove the familiar bond from Ms. Halloway tomorrow, and get some rest.”

Though Gideon made no effort to hide his disappointment, he did as he was told. Shoulders slumped, he kept half an eye on Royce as Ken led him to the door that everyone else had left out of earlier. And walked into the frame.

I flinched on Gideon’s behalf, even though he barely seemed to notice, adjusting his course and slinking out of the room in Ken’s wake. Poor bastard. For the couple of days that followed, he’d be pining for Royce’s next command something awful, finding as many excuses as he could to put himself in the presence of the vampire. Hoping for a look, a touch, a word of praise—anything that acknowledged his existence and gave him a reason for living.

He may not have deserved it, but in that moment, he had my pity.

Royce’s lips grazed my temple, a cold breath raising the tiny hairs on the back of my neck. “Now that we’re alone, care to explain how you managed to cure the infection in your blood?”

I frowned up at him. “Really? That’s the first thing you want to ask me about?”

“Far from it, but at the moment I consider it the most pressing issue.”

He grinned, wide and deliberate, so there was no way I could miss the extended fangs inches from my neck. Suppressing a shiver, I huffed and poked his chest. “Mister, you are about two seconds away from being banished to the couch. Or me banishing myself there, since this is your house,” I amended. “Or where you’re staying. Whatever.”

“Really? You don’t want to spend a single night with me to catch up for all that time we were apart?”

“Well, when you put it that way . . .”

With another laugh, he started walking toward a hallway I hadn’t noticed at the far end of the room, carrying me with him. “I thought so. Now, care to answer my question? You smell ... different. Like you did when I first met you. It’s been teasing at me all night but I didn’t want to bring it up in front of the others. Tell me—what happened?”

That sobered me. I bowed my head, not wanting to look at him while I talked about this. “You remember the Other I told you about? The collared one? She healed me. In exchange, I made a promise to return something of hers to someone she called the Sleeper.”

“The Sleeper? Did she give it any other name?”

I shook my head. “No. I know it’s a woman. Or female, whatever it is. If you don’t know where I can find her, maybe Arnold will.”

Royce said nothing, considering this for a time as he navigated the twists and turns of the hallway. At the end of it, he typed a code into a keypad, and a heavy oak door swung open, revealing a stairwell going down. It gave me a bit of vertigo as he carried me down the stairs, so I shut my eyes, suppressing what I knew was a completely irrational worry about being dropped, and a deeper anxiety about being trapped.

Once we reached the bottom, I cracked open an eye, then both, taking in the splendor. It was like a hotel suite. A really posh, nicely appointed, underground hotel suite. There were no windows, but the huge TV hanging on one wall and artwork strategically placed elsewhere made it easy to forget. Unlike upstairs, the furniture here was overstuffed, plush and inviting. Still tasteful, still expensive, but more for everyday use than simple looks.

Being underground again sent a fearful pang through me, but these circumstances were different. So very different. If only my screaming instincts believed that.

Perhaps sensing my growing apprehension, Royce stopped, waiting until I looked up at him to speak. His voice was low, soothing, and he must have been messing with my head because the urge to fight my way out of his arms to flee faded far too quickly. “You are safe. No one can reach you here.”

“You really need to stop that,” I scolded, though there wasn’t any heat to it.

He nodded, but it didn’t stop him from exerting enough control over me to keep me from giving in to the looming panic attack. The worry was still there, but it had lost its substance, like I was separated from it by a great distance. Once he reached his bedroom, he set me down, hands settling on my waist as he leaned in to press a light kiss to my forehead.