Broken (7 page)

As the emergence of hair tickled Della’s skin, she felt Noreen’s fingernails pinch into the back of her arm, and her shift came to an immediate halt.

Noreen was right, Della thought. They still had power over Wolfie. She should hold to that.

The three of them approached the bed while their master shifted back into his humanlike form, his dark hair hanging over his shoulders while he leaned forward, anticipating them. A few Queenshill girls moved aside to make room for the newcomers while Della, Polly, and Noreen arrived at the edge of the mattress.

But, as Della looked into his famished, golden gaze, she saw that this wasn’t the Wolfie she had always loved. He was . . . devilish.

That was the term. He was
different
, and the nakedness of his need made her believe that he indeed knew what Mrs. Jones had been doing to their missing classmates.

When he reached out a hand to her, she stepped back, her heart sore. She had been trying so diligently not to believe it.

He seemed raddled. “What is it, Della?”

She could feel Polly and Noreen stiffen beside her. They must be careful, keep him occupied. . . .

But Della had hesitated in answering too long, and now, Wolfie grasped her wrist. She had never seen him like this—so frustrated by his cravings. He had been primed by the other girls, and he was clearly expecting to be brought to greater heights with new blood.

“Wolfie . . .” Della said, uncertainty making her voice shake.

He was beyond chatter, and before she knew it, he plunged into her mind, as if he had been waiting to go there after the sexual haze from the other girls had worn off.

Out of pure impulse, Della took control, just as she had learned these last several nights: she mentally pushed false images to the front of her mind, lying to him.

She showed him how Mrs. Jones had supposedly attacked Noreen out of jealousy for Wolfie’s affections. How the rest of the Queenshill girls had protected one of their own and chased Mrs. Jones out.

When Della was done, Wolfie tilted his head, and she could tell that he had taken this sharing to be a moment of guilt tumbling out of her. In the past, she often became so anxious around him that she made embarrassing errors in judgment, just as he apparently thought she was doing now.

He interpreted what she had shown him to be the truth. She could see it.

What he didn’t know was that Della had depended upon this: that a girl who doesn’t lie much would be taken at face value when she
did
choose to do so, for when a girl was good, she could get away with quite a bit when she decided to be bad.

He loosened his grip on her, and Della could feel him slipping away, for seeing Mrs. Jones in her mind had reminded him of his companion.

All the other girls glared at her, encouraging her to give Wolfie everything else he wanted. Yet he had already lain back on his pillows, his hair spread, a look of great sadness consuming him.

“Claudia,” he said on a sigh.

And that was, as they say, the last straw.

She imagined Wolfie kissing Mrs. Jones so passionately that it made Della feel like nothing in comparison. Then she imagined killing Mrs. Jones, although terminating one half of Della’s creators would make her lose half her powers. A termination wouldn’t even cause Della to regain her humanity, since Wolfie and Mrs. Jones had both contributed their blood to the exchange and he would have to die, as well.

But it would be worth losing Mrs. Jones’s powers—even the ability to drink through skin—just to have Wolfie to themselves.

A sorrowful heaviness rested on Wolfie’s mouth as he continued staring at the rock ceiling. “I’m not certain
what
to do with you girls anymore.”

Della could feel Stacy still glaring at her.

“Wolfie,” Polly said, her voice higher than usual. She was more afraid than any of them, and that surprised Della, especially when the other girl took a deep breath and then coasted a finger over their master’s bare forearm. She was obviously game to be the first to sacrifice her blood.

He placed a hand over Polly’s fingers, and the very air in the room stilled.

He was not appeased by Polly’s willingness. It was too late.

“I realize,” he said, growling, “that you lot merely overreacted when you chased Claudia out, but it was still a sin.”

Noreen’s mind-link came to Della like a whisper.
Of course he would want her back. We were foolish to think we could take her place. . . .

His eyes narrowed, almost as if he’d overheard Noreen. “I ought to send all of you above to find her.”

Although none of the girls showed a change of expression, Della could sense the waver of trepidation in the room.

“Wolfie,” Stacy said, placing a hand on his thigh. “I hardly think—”

“None of you were thinking,” he said, finally sounding like a master vampire and not the smitten rogue they’d been wrapping around their fingers. “You had no business banishing her.”

“But should she return,” Stacy said, “she would punish us, even over a misunderstanding.”

“Let me handle her.” Wolfie sat up, pressing an ireful look on each one of them. He had passed the point of toying with the idea of getting Mrs. Jones back Underground, clearly having embraced it. “You will track her, since she no doubt spilled enough blood to leave a trail. You will bring her back down here, and then we will talk about misunderstandings.”

When he looked at Della, she clutched the silken sheets, more angry than afraid of Mrs. Jones’s return. But there was no argument against him—they were in deep trouble. They would have to obey his wishes and endure the consequences.

Unless there was some way out of this.

As Wolfie carried on with looking at the other girls, Della glanced up and made eye contact with Stacy. In the older female’s eyes, Della could see a reflection of her own wild jealousy, the hatred of Mrs. Jones as well as Wolfie’s abiding affection for the murderer.

If we find the cat . . .
Della thought to Stacy.

Without Della even having to finish, the other schoolgirl smiled in understanding. Despising Mrs. Jones trumped even the frustration the other girls were feeling for Della at the moment.

If we find the cat,
Stacy thought back,
we
find
the cat
.

Now Della smiled, too, knowing that none of the girls would allow Mrs. Jones back down here. They would undertake this task of Wolfie’s because he had commanded it, yet they would make this task their own, too.

Polly had been watching Della and Stacy communicate, and without having to be told, she slid closer to Wolfie while nailing open a slice of skin on her neck.

The scent of her previously forbidden blood made him shiver. His eyes went hazy once again as he sank to the pillows, taking Polly with him as Della and Stacy arose from the bed to prepare the other schoolgirls to go aboveground, where they were not only going to track the cat.

They were going to kill it.

DAWN
was tangled in Costin’s arms, his lips working at her neck, his fangs piercing her. She was dizzy from the small amount of blood Costin had already sucked out of her, and he was taking even more. Not enough to disable her though. Just enough to pump him up, to give him the power that the supplemental bags that he quietly procured from a blood bank didn’t.

Since she was his mainstay—the “key” to his quest—her blood had this effect on him. At least, that was what Kiko kept telling her, based on a vision he’d had, the one that’d caused Costin to lure her, an out-of-work stuntwoman, to L.A. in the first place so she could join the team. Kiko even thought she’d be the hunter who was going to destroy the dragon in the end.

But how was she going to do that while Costin waged his
own
attack on this Underground?

With a semipainful slide, he withdrew his fangs from her vein, then pressed his fingers to the small wound to heal it.

She was high, her knees almost giving out like she didn’t have any steel to keep her standing. But Costin’s strong hold helped, one of his arms supporting her, bringing her close to his body, making her heart feel like it was being dunked underwater and held there, thudding, thudding, expanding all through her. She could feel his cock, hard against the center of her legs, and she arched against him, giving in to the stirrings of a wildness that marked their feedings.

Then he said something that ruined it all.

“What is this?” The fingertips of his other hand brushed her jaw, near her ear. Her skin burned at the contact, even though his skin was cool.

She’d detected some concern in the question, even while Costin kept his tone steady and low, and it made her remember that she’d felt a sting on her skin in this same exact place earlier.

She reached up to push his hand away, but Costin ignored her, gently tilting her head so he had an even better look. His breath smoothed over her neck, and it didn’t do anything to ease the sharp cravings that were tearing her from belly to clit.

“Dawn?” he said.

She moved away from him. His tone scared her.

After trying to read his face—no dice there, because it was as
un
readable as ever—she tried for his mind. She was his master, after all. But he was closed off, even though he’d just been feeding off her blood and they were usually connected during the flow of the act.

Then she thought she saw something like worry pass through his eyes, which were just turning from the silver of his vampire excitement back to his calmer topaz, pacing the retraction of his fangs.

Even more afraid now, Dawn all but stumbled from the main bedroom and into the marbled bathroom, where she flicked on the light and peered into the mirror.

As she saw the second beauty mark stamped on her jaw, her pulse crept up to choke her. It wound itself into the fresh bite on her neck, pounding like a creature caught and unable to escape.

A second mark—a jagged little circle without much of a shape. A small sign on her skin that was just beginning to form into something new and unpredictable.

It took a few seconds for her to really get it—that this was
her
she was looking at in the mirror. That this was her skin, her face, not some stranger’s. But then the fear and panic caught up to her, and she headed for the toilet, her stomach roiling.

As she got to her knees, Costin put his palm on her back. His touch singed into her, even through her shirt. The braid she wore flopped down to smack her bite wound, and Costin pulled the hair back again, pressing his fingers to the injury, seeing to the last of the healing.

Minutes passed and she didn’t get sick, so she kneeled back from the porcelain god. Costin took a washcloth out of a drawer, wet it, then offered it to her. When she wiped it over her face, it was cold.

Why wasn’t he saying anything? Didn’t he know that some comment, any comment, would do wonders right about now?

“No feedback?” Dawn sounded like she was gagging on her words. “Haven’t you ever seen a hunter mutate before your eyes?”

They’d had discussions about why he’d always switched out his teams with every new Underground hunt. He said it was basically because a few “employees” had learned too much information and used it to pursue their own agendas with the vampires, thus, ignoring his orders, so he’d taken great caution to see that this would never happen again. But Dawn had also found out that he was trying to prevent his hunters from going insane, as the humans he recruited had the habit of doing after too much mind-boggling stress.

He’d only kept Dawn’s team intact because of what
he’d
become: something other than a Soul Traveler. A weaker creature next to what he used to be. A desperate leader in need of all the trusted backup he could get so he could hit the ground running with this new Underground.

He’d probably been right to dismantle his previous teams before they became walking disasters like Dawn. Maybe he was always right about the precautions he took, the moves he made, the secrets he kept.

“I have never seen the likes of this before,” he finally said. “These marks, coming out on the skin.”

“During all your years of fighting Undergrounds, you never noticed any of the other vampires-turned-humans react like this after their maker was terminated?”

“No.”

So she was something brand spankin’ new. A real trailblazer.

“However,” he added, “until now, I have never kept in contact with reformed vampires. After being freed from their master and receiving their souls again, they have always tended to react just as the Hollywood crowd did, committing suicide or running away, never to be heard from again. When some are turned human, they even die an accelerated death because of returning to their true age.”

When Dawn had gotten her soul back after becoming one of “them” for a few minutes, she’d felt something different, just like her mom had. But as far as Dawn could see, Eva hadn’t exhibited any outer changes.

Dawn got to her feet, her legs still shaking, then met her own gaze in the mirror. She had her mom’s eyes.

But the thought died right there as she angled her head, looking at the new beauty mark again. It was barely there, but screamingly obvious just the same.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “When I got the first one, it was when I was raging at Claudius. But I thought I felt
this
spot pop out when . . .” She swallowed, reaching for the spigot, twisting it on, and running some more cold water over her hands, then her face. As she shut the faucet off, the droplets plunked into the sink. “I thought the first one was a mark against me, like a scarlet letter or whatever. But today, I held back with Claudius. I didn’t Hulk out. So how did this new one get here?”

“I am not certain. However, there are those who believe that our cells react to our thoughts and emotions. Our bodies change when the mind affects them, and perhaps the marks are a more intense result of what is happening inside of you.”