Life Cycle

Page 23

“You don’t think Jack would do the same?”
“I don’t think Jack could do the same. I’ve spent a lot of time with him. He’s too crazy to be that organized. That’s the point. I knew he was a nutter the second I met him. Why do you think it’s taken him so long to take out his coven? Do you really think he’s got the mastermind genius to be a threat over the long haul? Anthony is the real threat. The most important thing is to destabilize his control. Even if the cost is the humans finding out.”
Cain nodded. If Tam wasn’t involved, he might be on Hadrian’s side. But she was involved. “I don’t disagree about Anthony. Unfortunately, you helped take something that belongs to me and I’m very possessive. Demon occupational hazard.”
The vampire rolled his eyes upward. “Oh my God. You think you’re in love with her. That’s what this big torture sequence is all about. It has nothing to do with being on Anthony’s side or stopping a mad man. You just want the girl.”
It was the wrong thing to say. It was too much truth. The demon ripped the fabric covering Hadrian’s torso, tearing away the Roman collar with it. He smiled at the expanse of bare flesh he was about to destroy. He wondered if the vampire would scar. Time for more cutting and less talking.
He turned to his table of blades and clamps and spikes and crosses, trying to decide what to use first. It allowed him a moment turned away from the vampire to reign in his emotions and push the firey glow from his eyes. He had to stay cold for this. If he lost control he’d kill the vampire and never get to Tam in time. Finally, when his breathing was back to normal, he chose a thin, sharp blade. Jagged would hurt more, but he had plenty of time to get to that.
He pressed and dragged the point across Hadrian’s skin, slicing it like a ripened tomato. The skin flayed open, red spilling out. The vampire hissed, but that was far from the worst Cain had.
“Something I’m interested in,” the demon said conversationally, “is what holy water does to a priest turned vampire. I know what it does to a vampire, but perhaps you’re immune. You do still wear your clerics, after all. Surely, living and sleeping in that church, you’ve gotten curious. Maybe dipped a finger in just to see? I know I’m curious, so let’s answer the big question on everybody’s minds.”
Hadrian let out a howl as Cain poured the water into the cut he’d just made. Smoke rose off the vampire, sizzling like an egg frying on pavement.
“One less mystery of life to unravel,” the demon said. “Ready to chat yet?”
“No,” Hadrian said between gritted teeth. “You may as well just kill me.”
The demon laughed. “As if that’s going to happen. I’ll never kill you. I’ll keep you alive and torture you slowly and painfully until you talk. If you never talk and Tam dies, it’ll turn into vengeance, and you don’t want to see that side of me. Trust me.”
If it came to that, he might even lose interest in feeding, only doing it often enough to survive. Hurting the vampire who’d taken Tam away from him would become his new obsession.
“For what it’s worth, I didn’t want to hurt Tam. I just wanted to stop Anthony.”
“It’s worth nothing,” Cain shouted.
Hadrian shuddered and jerked in the chains as the demon pressed a silver cross against his chest. Part of Cain was disturbed his reaction was so strong to the witch being in trouble, but he shoved it down. The witch was his. That alone was enough to torture the filth who’d taken her.
Chapter Fourteen
Tam groaned as she struggled to sit up, her eyes still shut against the light. She felt like she had a hangover. A cup of water was pressed into her hands as another hand stroked through her hair. For the briefest moment, she felt safety as she gulped the water gratefully down—until she heard his voice.
“I thought you might sleep right through the full moon.”
Jack.
She recoiled from his hand, fighting to keep the water down.
“Oh, don’t be that way,” he said. “You loved me once.”
“Before you became a psycho,” Tam said. The power he’d absorbed from murdering the members of his coven was beginning to take a toll on him. You couldn’t make up crazy like this. His eyes were wild and a little unfocused. Unpredictable. While intellectually she knew she had a couple of days before he killed her, maybe time enough to find a way to escape... with Jack, you just couldn’t know.
Despite the moon coming and its ritual significance and the kind of power boost it would give him to drain the blood from the last remaining cycler on that night, he could lose his shit and kill her at any time.
“So this is where it ends?” Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. That was the fear coming out. Yes, she’d wanted out, but not like this, not the way Jack was going to do it. Beyond the coming pain of the experience, it twisted her stomach to think he’d done this to her sister.
She should have known this would be where he’d take her. It was the cavern where the original ritual had been performed. If she’d been hidden anywhere but the demon dimension, Jack would have had to work harder to get her here. Irony was a bitch.
“It seemed poetic,” he said. “What could be more powerful than completing the cycle here? You’ll die in the same place you were reborn. I saved you for last because I thought you’d appreciate that.”
Tam grimaced. “You saved me for last because you’re obsessed with me.”
He chuckled. “Maybe just a little. I’d still give it all up for you. I’m strong enough. When I die, I come back an adult now. With you, I might not be killable at all. Or I might die for only a few minutes at a time. I’m not sure. I’d like to find out, but I’ll keep you around. You just have to say the word. We could rule this place together.”
She sat on a stone altar—a moat had been dug around it in the ground. They were beside the water where they’d found that stupid immortal jellyfish. It had been foolish trying to become gods. They’d thought keeping the same form, remembering everything, would be a blessing, would give them power. But in the end, all it had been was a curse that had slowly eaten away at her sense of what it meant to be human.
She stood and jumped over the moat. Jack didn’t try to stop her. He just backed out of her way, giving her space to wander.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I’ve brought some food for us.”
Tam’s head whipped around, trying to figure out if he was kidding, but he seemed sincere. For the moment, his fantasies of world domination and ultimate power must have taken a backseat to his fantasies of riding off into the sunset. Lucky her.
“I’ll just go get it,” he said.
Jack disappeared down a dark path that she knew led to the entrance of the cavern. No sense in trying to escape, yet. He’d gone toward the only exit.
As she paced, she tried to think of how to play it. Could she stomach seducing him after what he’d done to her sister?
Probably not. But if she could... wouldn’t it buy her an opportunity to get away? He might drop his guard if he was thinking about their future together, instead of eating her internal organs. Such a fine line with him.
Then what? She was back to running, stuck in this form. But she could get back to Cain. It was odd that should be her thought. Shouldn’t she want free of him? She put her hand against the mark he’d left on her throat with his fangs. It tingled when she touched it.
She wanted to believe it was just their blood connection that made her feel this way, but she’d felt it before their blood had exchanged, and she still felt like she had a choice—even now. Being with Cain wasn’t some magical foregone conclusion, and she was sure it was the same from his end. They weren’t drone-like slaves. The mark hadn’t been in effect long enough. And anyway, he’d initiated it.
She wondered if she’d start getting the dreams Anna had gotten with Luc. Seeing into Cain’s past was a prospect that both intrigued and terrified her, but the bond was still so new, and it hadn’t been done like Anna’s had. Perhaps she wouldn’t dream at all.
With regards to the demon, she was torn. At times, Cain seemed oddly normal, but then, she knew how that worked, how one hid their age and tried to pick up on the current trends of the times to blend in. If they both dropped the affectations they’d picked up over the centuries, they’d be like a couple of old fossils. Nobody else would understand them. And wasn’t that what she liked about him? That they were like the last two members of a secret club that had found each other long enough to do the secret handshake?
She was still angry with him for trying to lock her up in the caves. For her protection or not, it was a shitty thing to do. She thought about the tarot spread again. Maybe she was meant for Cain and he for her. It didn’t matter now. It was too late. And no matter what she wanted to be true, she couldn’t decide if he was toying with her or not. As long as he’d been around and resisted settling down, he must have figured out all possible permutations of mind games.
What he said and what he meant could be opposite things. Even what he did and the intention behind it could be that way. Her experience with Jack had killed her optimism for men. She just didn’t want to be some stupid girl waiting for Cain to ride up full of self-righteous vengeance to sweep her away like a fairy tale. It wasn’t like they had the big epic love. Ninety percent of their time together had been a grudge fuck—or a power struggle, using sex as the weapon they had both learned to wield.
“What are you thinking about?”
Tam jumped, too lost inside her head to hear Jack’s return. His voice came out soft and needy, like he was still planning a white picket fence and evil babies. Even the idea of seducing him—even if it would take her back to Cain, and even if Cain wanted her back—made her skin crawl like little ants.
“Nothing,” she replied. My demon lover seemed like the kind of answer that would get her spleen ripped out in short order. Because no matter how sane and puppy-like he seemed this second, things could shift at any time.
“No, it’s something.” He moved toward her and put a hand on her arm, closing his eyes.
She tried to pull away, not sure what he was doing, but then she remembered one of the coven’s witches had seen visions when they touched things or people. But it was too late for Tam to stop her thought train or get away from him.
His expression was closed and cold when he opened his eyes. “I see.” The jealousy over no doubt seeing her in the demon’s arms was only barely concealed beneath the surface. “Well, I guess you’ve made your choice. You’ve ripped out my heart, Tam. Do you know that? So I think I’ll eat yours when the moon is right.”
“It meant nothing,” Tam said, taking an instinctive step back. The moment she said it, she knew how deep the lie ran. And so did Jack.
“Save it, you little whore. I knew you’d been with others, but this... a demon? And you think to judge me? At least I’m still human.”
Jack hadn’t been human for a long time.
She wanted to throw an energy ball at him so badly she could barely contain it, but escalating to that kind of violence with a sorcerer much stronger was too foolish even for her short temper. Instead, she used words.
“Please tell me you’re kidding. You’ve violently murdered all our friends, the only people who understood who and what we are because they were the same, and you think I’m the bad one for having a little sex, no matter who the partner was?”
Even if she’d thought to play the role of seductress to get out of this mess, and even if Jack wouldn’t be onto her game, she’d lost her stomach for it.
She didn’t know why she defended her actions. He was treating her like she’d betrayed him, like she’d cheated on him. Apparently her leaving him hadn’t been a strong enough indicator that they’d broken up.
“You know we’re not a couple,” she said.
“Not now, we aren’t. Until about three minutes ago, I still thought it could work.”
“Then you’re delusional. You killed my sister! You killed nearly all my friends. You thought I was going to roll over and cuddle with you after that?”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Your lover is a killer, too. He’s killed more women than you could count.” There was still the note of jealousy in his voice, like he wanted to play some martyr role. Like he was the victim in all this and somehow the good guy.
“You chose power over me, Jack. You think I don’t know Cain has killed? You think I’m stupid enough to whitewash it? I know what he is, but I also know he’s not human. It’s what he has to do to avoid suffering.” The demon couldn’t really die, after all, just starve and suffer indefinitely if he went on a hunger strike. “You had a choice. Besides, Cain hasn’t killed anybody I love.”
She didn’t feel like getting into the grayness of the Anna situation. Since Anna had come back as Luc’s mate, and Tam hadn’t really lost her, and Cain hadn’t had completely evil motivations, she tried to just skirt right around that issue. Either way, it wasn’t like what Jack had done to her sister, or the rest of their coven for that matter.
Part of her wished Jack would just go ahead and kill her to spare her and get it over with so they wouldn’t have this stupid argument like an old married couple for the next two days. That might be even more painful and annoying than the ritual.
***
Cain stepped out of the caves, wiping Hadrian’s blood off his hands. The vampire had lasted longer than he’d expected, nearly a human day. He hadn’t killed him, even though Hadrian had finally given up the information he needed. He wanted to leave him to suffer more. And if Tam didn’t survive, he wanted to start on him again. He tried to shut out that possibility.