A Mermaid's Ransom (9 page)

"I'm sorry. Go in peace." As she murmured the prayer of passage taught to her by King Neptune himself, the heart made its final beat, the woman's eyes now empty glass.

Dante knelt on the other side of her, dipping the cloth in the fresh blood again. With a snarl, Alexis launched herself at him, using the wings to take her up and over the body. Weak as she was, she didn't get the clearance she needed, so she rolled the body like a log against him. But that added to his surprise as she plowed into him.

She'd never been a violent creature. She'd dutifully learned to protect herself through Jonah's teachings and that self-defense course she'd taken with Clara, but she had no killer instinct. No plan propelled her, no thought of escape, just fury at what she'd seen. Self-revulsion galvanized her attack. Goddess, she'd felt bonded to him, connected. She hated this place, she wanted to go home, she never wanted to dream again. She wanted to bathe for days. She wanted to close her eyes, curl in a ball in her bed, surrounded by her stuffed animals, and not think until all the terrible memories of this place went away. And she never,
ever
wanted to smell blood again in her life.

While Dante was much faster and stronger, she had the satisfaction of knocking him on his ass and getting in several swift, if ineffectual, punches in his face, one of which caused his fang to stab his lip and created a flow of blood.

"Why did you kill her?" she wailed at him. "She didn't do anything to you."

In a flash of movement he shoved her off him, lifted and slammed her against the stone wall. Several of the slender bones in her right wing broke, crushed beneath her. She snarled in pain, but the adrenaline carried her through it with barely a blink. She bared her teeth. "You're a monster. Mina shouldn't free you. You should be locked in a cage."

"I am in a cage." He dropped her, so she fell to the stone at his feet, her wings limp around her shoulders like a blanket. Her scales scraped the rough stone. When he stepped back, his crimson eyes were orange and yellow flame, his mouth a hard slash. He pointed at the door. "Those symbols protect you from what's out there. That, and me, are the only things that protect you from what happened to her, and from you dying sooner here than you would otherwise."

"I'm
not
going to thank you when you're the one who pulled me over here in the first place," she retorted, blinking back tears. "I would never want you to kill someone."

"Even to preserve your own life?"

"I don't have that right. No one has that right."

A muscle flexed in his jaw. "That's incorrect, Alexis. In your world, lives are taken every day as a choice. Animals, because they cannot fight you. People, in wars, or in self-defense."

"That's different."

"Yes, it is." He pinned her with that hard glance. "Here you only live if you kill. You only survive if you kill. You only gain something of your own
if you kill
. I won't allow them to harm you."

"What about her?" She looked back at the woman. Because she didn't want to be near him, she dragged herself back across the ground. The woman had blue eyes, like Anna. Like Alexis. "What about her family, where she comes from? Why did you let the Dark Ones hurt her first?"

"Because there is a balance here," he said flatly. "You were awake to see it. I give them as much as necessary in order to maintain control over them. I may be more powerful than they are, more clever, but if they all turn against me at once, there is little I might do against them. Now be still and let me finish this."

He resumed his gruesome task, turning his back on her as if she mattered as little as the cooling corpse. A tool for him. Alexis stroked the woman numbly, studying her hard so she didn't have to look at anything else.
This will be me soon. Painfully and slowly . . .
She didn't know what was more difficult for her mind to process, what he'd just done, or what he knew they'd been doing to her while he'd been caressing and arousing Alexis's flesh.

"Did you think of her at all? Feel any remorse?"

He stopped, his arm poised over his head. The cloth was so wet blood dripped down his forearm, but he didn't appear to notice it. "Remorse, regret, sadness. Mercy and compassion. You want me to feel all these things. Have you ever raped someone to prove you could hold power over them? Killed them in cold blood because they stood between you and survival?"

She swallowed. "No. I can't even imagine such a thing."

He turned then, pinned her with his gaze. "Then you have the answer to your question. You cannot feel what you've never known. Nor can you pass judgment on it."

He returned to the door. Alexis drew a trembling breath, her fingers digging into cold rock as she tried to breathe through her mouth so she wouldn't inhale the blood smell anymore. She should go curl up on those rags, shut down and wait for the resolution of this without speaking to him further. Jonah and Mina, the whole heavenly host, would rescue her, or she'd die, and it would be over.

But she didn't sit around and wait for people to take care of her. Her parents had wanted her to stay in the safety of the Heavens or sea for at least another decade, but she'd chosen to go out on her own, take a human form and live a human life.

Holy Goddess, it was ridiculous to compare that kind of bravery to this. One moment she was deep inside his soul, touching something indefinable but worth understanding, an elusive knowledge that called to her. The next moment he was a brutal monster she couldn't fathom.

But she'd always trusted her gift. Anna was right. It was far more than a quirky personality trait. It was a blessing of the Goddess, to be used for good.
We don't know the full extent of your abilities . . .

The Goddess might not have an influence in this world, but it didn't mean that this wasn't part of the destiny Alexis was supposed to fulfill. What if
this
was the type of situation in which she was supposed to stretch her abilities to their fullest? What did she have to lose?

The idea of concentrating her light force here the way she did back home was a herculean effort. She was already weak. But hell, if she was going to be dead in a few hours, shorting out her brain from overexertion was a minor issue. She spun the tendrils with painstaking care. When she sent them out, they wove along the ground like the concentrated passage of centipedes, for she couldn't achieve the normal lift for them.

The magic further bogged down in the blood splattered outside the circle. Lex faltered, remembering the frightened eyes of the dying woman, but then gave it another, harder push. When it finally reached Dante's heels, she closed her eyes, shutting out the chamber, every terrible thing she'd experienced here, even the weakness of her own body.

The passive side of her gift and angel light were what drew life unconsciously to her, as Branson had cheerfully observed. Only hours in the past, the memory seemed like a decade gone. She also could offer comfort to a sick soul, light to guide them to a better path. Mina had told her that, in addition to her gift and angel light, Lex had the innate goodness her mother carried. The witch had likened it to a virus that infected all it touched. Since her mother had merely looked amused, Lex assumed it was what passed for a compliment from Mina.

She didn't have to see the light to know where it was. Her subconscious felt it twining around his roped calves, the lean thighs and hard upper body. Did he never relax? How could he? How had a child survived here?

It was a reminder that her empathy not only opened up her target; it also opened up her own heart to a deeper understanding of the soul. The power was in the synergy between the two. Still vibrating with the horror of his crime, she knew she'd never needed the healing touch of that knowledge more, for herself even more than him.

Goddess, give me the courage to open myself to him, when everything in me wants to run.

Eight

DANTE went back to marking the symbols, determined not to look at her. He hadn't intended to hurt her. He knew he'd broken her wing. While she'd attacked him, she wasn't strong enough to do him any harm. His reaction had been too emotional, out of control. The way she looked at him, when he was doing his best to protect her, displeased him. He wanted her to return safely to her world. He didn't want her to die. He'd had no wish to kill the female humanoid. It was simply necessary. That was all there was here.

Alexis's feelings weren't incomprehensible to him. Through his knowledge of her world, he knew what life could be there. While it seemed like a distant dream, so opposite from his existence here, it was her reality. She was not capable of understanding his, though, and that made him feel . . . empty.

No, he hadn't given a thought to the humanoid being brutalized before being brought to him. He'd suffered such brutality for decades before gaining an upper hand. How could he spare sympathy for this creature who'd had to experience it for barely one of Alexis's hours before they delivered her and he quickly and efficiently ended her life? A small exchange for keeping the balance of power in his world.

Alexis's horror, the tears in her eyes, the revulsion when she looked at him . . . What bothered him the most was not knowing why it bothered him. He liked it better when she looked at him with wary interest, or asked him questions. He wanted her to go back to that.

His need for cunning, his mother's memories and the higher echelon Dark Ones had honed his intellect, but there was no one to engage in conversation. For years he'd practiced talking with himself, so he could sound intelligent and precise, like his mother before her mind broke.

But Alexis was real, here, so he could speak with her. He would soon be in a world where he'd have many conversations, but he wanted to talk to her. That disturbing impatience returned, a lack of restraint he knew was dangerous. When it came to her, it was unwilling to be curbed, no matter how he tried. She made him feel connected to another in a way he'd never experienced.

He also liked how she acted when he touched her, aroused her. His hunger to do it over and over was unsettling. But it was not the physical part of the act that held the fascination, though that alone was enough to distract him. The rush of physical sensation became something else as it escalated. Or rather intertwined with something inside of him, a tangle of emotions he didn't understand. As much as he wanted free of this world, he found himself wishing he could spell them permanently in such a moment. Then her world and his world, none of it would matter, because there would be nothing else of importance, nothing to concern himself with ever again. Just as he'd told her in his mind. He hadn't expected to share that with her, either.

It was dangerous madness. Everything about his world was control, focus, vigilance. Drifting in a confusing, lust-saturated cloud was a sure way to disaster.

Then he felt her touch.

NOT her physical touch. Given her last attack, he was well aware of her proximity to him in the chamber, but he'd stayed out of her head, not wanting to hear further deprecations against him. But this was her gift, her empath's touch. He stiffened, intending to slam a protection over himself, but instead he waited, hovering on indecision, as the warmth of it slid over his skin. It burrowed deep, reaching into cold, dark areas, questing, like her gentle fingertips had sought his face, discovering him.

When he pivoted away from the door to face her, she'd moved back to the bed and was sitting up, the broken wing held at a careful angle, the other folded tight against her body. Her tail was a curve of red and gold, embellished with the gold fins. Her beauty was intensified by the contrast of her filthy surroundings. Something twisted in his chest. He should have done more to prepare the chamber for her.

"I'm trying to understand," she said. He heard the thickness in her voice, saw the effort in her strained face of exercising her magic here, in a place that rejected angels, humans . . . anything, really, except Dark Ones, and one particular vampire Dark Spawn. "I want to understand. Will you take me outside?"

He paused, not sure at first he'd heard her correctly. "No. It's not safe for you out there. There are no protections. You will weaken even faster."

Comprehension dawned in her gaze. Knowing how frightened and fragile she was, he grudgingly admired her ability to hold on to her courage, keep her wits and think. "That's what you meant, wasn't it? I'll die slowly and painfully because I can't live here, not because you're going to torture me, or kill me yourself."

"Of course." He cocked his head. "I have no intention of torturing you."

"Of course," she murmured, and a grim smile tugged at her mouth. "I'll take the risk. I need to see your world. Can you take me out for a while?"

He considered it. "There is a place near this tower I could take you. The path in between is not shielded from the Dark One energy, as this place is, but once we get there, it is. The Dark Ones will be able to see you, however, and you will be able to see them."

She bit her lip. "They won't be able to come near me, will they?"

"I will not allow it." Aggression surged through him at the idea, remembering the one who touched her in the circle. He saw her flinch at his reaction and he uncurled his fingers. "But they may still get close enough to unsettle you."

"Well, that'll be a change. Everything about this roller-coaster ride has been so calming." A strangled chuckle came from her tight throat.

"Roller coaster?"

"It's an amusement park ride." She appeared to seek the right explanation, but he saw the image in her head and straightened, his eyes widening.

"Why do people ride this?"

"An amusement park is a place people go to have fun, play games. Wow, you took that right out of my head." As she made a feeble attempt at another smile, he noted she was fighting not to let her eyes be drawn back toward the circle. He should have gotten rid of the sacrifice. He would send a message to Epherius to do so while they were gone.

"Did you ever have a time, maybe when you were young and your mother was alive, that you created some kind of game?" At his blank look, she pressed on. "A way to pass the time, or to forget for a little while how horrible things were here? I mean, you do think it's horrible here, else you wouldn't be trying so hard to leave, right?"

"Yes, Alexis." He preferred her mind occupied like this, not dwelling on how monstrous she thought he was. "Everything I have done for the past twenty years,
everything
, has been toward that end. There is no game to make one forget he is here."

But he wanted that revolted look in her eyes to go away, so he struggled to think back to those years he'd forgotten. "I think . . . yes, there was something like you describe. I would take sticks and stones and create small shelters from them. They were no bigger than my hand then, because anything the Dark Ones noticed they would destroy. I imagined how I would make those shelters stronger, if I could make them bigger, so no one could reach me. I put marsmas inside the finished ones. They seemed to like them."

"Marsmas?" Her brow rose and he set aside the cloth. Pausing after a moment's thought, he rinsed his hands in the water of his makeshift pond before coming to her, squatting at her side. Reaching out, he touched her scales, felt the odd dominolike give of the layered covering over her hip. She quivered, but her mind was a confused tangle. Her body wanted him to touch her, but her mind rebelled. He decided to focus on the former and figure out how to drive the latter feelings away. She seemed calmer when he talked about things like this, so he continued.

"They are small creatures, so small they can sit in your hand. Their skin is poisonous and they will bite. Teeth almost longer than mine, proportionate to their bodies. But if you do not frighten them, sometimes they won't. They prefer to leap away rather than fight. They have long, powerful bent legs and can jump great distances."

"Frogs," she said abruptly, that odd, strained smile returning, making something stir in his chest, such that he wanted her to keep doing it. "You have frogs. Or froglike creatures. Ours don't have fangs, though I think some do secrete poisons in their skin. You were building frog houses. We do that, too, because frogs are good to have in gardens. They eat bugs."

"Garden? I know what that is." He paused, a confused, lighter feeling leaping through his chest like one of the marsmas. "I have one."

WHEN she'd said the word
garden
, he'd flattened his hand, tightening it over her hip. Fortunately, he was so close, he blocked the dead female behind him, so it was easier to focus. Pushing aside guilt at her body's reaction to his touch, knowing survival was most important here, she reminded herself once again the one weapon she had was her mind. Her angelic light was still playing around them like mist, which also helped.

"You have a garden, here?"

"Nothing really grows here, but I made something like it. Like the pond." His face closed down. "But you won't like it."

His disappointment, anticipation of her rejection, swallowed the startling leap of excitement she'd felt from him. It was the widest range of emotions he'd displayed so far.

"Why do you think I wouldn't like it?"

"I created it out of what I had. Out of . . . what the others brought here."

She thought then of his "pond," and the hair he'd shaped into the grass surrounding it. He was right. She didn't want to see it. But she needed to.

"Take me to it. Please."

He met her gaze. "You know I can hear your thoughts. You don't want to see it. You're trying to figure out how to save yourself. Do you think you can trick or trap me? Even if you succeeded, you'd end up dying much more horribly here, without my protection."

"You can hear my thoughts, but my feelings confuse you." She forced her voice to stay steady in reaction to the cruelly impassive accusation. The resulting flicker in his gaze confirmed it: her emotions were a foreign landscape to him. While she couldn't block the thought that his lack of comprehension reassured her, there was more to it than seeking an escape. She could tell he was smart enough to sense that as well. "I'm trying to understand you."

"Why? What advantage does it give you?"

She'd already seen his cunning side. While his bald honesty could be just as unsettling, right now she found it useful. "Understanding you makes me feel more in control of an uncontrollable situation, and that keeps me from going crazy. But I . . . my gift is empathy, Dante. I feel what people feel, I know their moods, their darkness and light. And you have a strange combination. Very little light," she admitted, "but what's there, when it comes forth, it's a flame that burns so hard and strong . . ."
I can't resist it
, she almost said. Then she cursed as she realized she didn't have to, for the look in his eyes changed as soon as she had the thought. "It confuses me, and what confuses me, I want to understand."

"I feel that way about you as well," he said slowly. "You are here because I need you to be free of this place. But in the dreams, and here now . . . The way you make me feel . . . I do not understand it."

Why that should make her breath catch and her heart hurt, she didn't know. Perhaps more of the same confusion. She forced herself to push that aside, knowing they were on a roll, hopefully in a positive direction. Clara would be laughing her ass off right now--Lex, the eternal optimist, even in the bowels of the Dark One planet. "You must think I'm not a threat, if you're telling me that."

"Anyone has the potential to be a threat, Alexis." His answer surprised her. "The one who appears the weakest may be the most dangerous of all. The Dark Ones here learned that about me. I do not underestimate you, but I am in your head, and I sense no duplicity to you. Not yet."

His expression hardened, reflecting how quickly the darkness could swallow that burning point of light inside him again. It was like a beacon on a storm-tossed sea, only visible when the raging of the waves allowed a glimpse of it. The
Beauty and the Beast
fairy tale crossed her mind again. How simple Disney had made it, resolving the Beast's dysfunctions in just over ninety minutes.

"Beauty and the Beast?"
His brow furrowed, which had the despairing effect of making him look even more handsome. He had to be a vampire, to live in a world of such violence and cruelty and not have a mark on him.
Only on the outside
, her mind whispered to her.
You can see the inside.
The inside was battered and torn, crippled and savage. Yet she was as drawn to it as the beauty on his outside.

"It's a fairy tale." There were books in the chamber, heavy tomes that appeared to be the magical grimoires he'd referenced earlier, belonging to the long dead Dark Ones Mina had destroyed. Did the Dark Ones create the books, or were these all stolen, scavenged?

"Stolen," he answered her thought. "The Dark Ones rarely create. They travel into other worlds and take. That is, until the witch made that very difficult for them."