Dark Heart of the Sun (Dark Destinies Book 1) (35 page)

“Jack, no,” Garrett yelled. “For the love of God, leave her be. She’s in no danger from him. He needs her alive, don’t you see that?”

The only thing Jackson saw was Cassidy near a demon who could tear her limb from limb even through the bars. Keeping the light trained on her face, he reached out quickly and grabbed the braid hanging across her shoulder. With a shriek, she spun around. The vampire’s skin and bones arm shot out. Jackson felt the impact like a nail going through his hand, and was sure the next—and last—thing he would feel was that jaw closing on his arm. Instead, Cassidy, off-balance, crashed into him and sent them both tumbling to the ground. He heard the flashlight shatter as it hit the ground and didn’t care. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her close. “I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay.”

“You imbecile,” Garrett barked.

“You idiot,” Cassidy said, squirming to get out of his embrace.

Jackson cursed as he released her and searched her arms for bite marks. He found only an impressive bruise. No delicate feeding this time, obviously. It was a miracle she still lived. Come dawn, he would put that bloodsucker down, and to hell with the sire and Garrett, too. Then he’d not let her out of his sight until every molecule of serum had dissipated from her system.

Garrett gripped Jackson’s arm and pulled it up hard, turning the wrist in front of Jackson’s face. Two ugly gashes ran across the back of his hand, oozing blood where the vampire’s nails had raked him. Now that he noticed them, they started burning like a mother. Jackson’s jaw clenched. Garrett dropped his arm, disgusted. He didn’t have to say it. Half an inch closer to the cage and Jackson would have suffered his twin brother’s fate.

At some point during the commotion, Garrett had retrieved the light guns from the office, for he had them both now, raising them up, aiming at the cage. When he pulled the triggers, the interior lit up bright as high noon in the Sahara.

The vampire turned his scorched back to the blast and curled up small. His piercing, inhuman shriek was the stuff of nightmares.

A hard grip closed on Jackson’s arm. He looked down to see Cassidy shake violently, her mouth gaping in a silent scream of her own. Then her eyes rolled up, and she slumped forward into his arms, unconscious.

The back of her shirt was soaked.

With blood.

Chapter 35

Under the Influence

Spiders. Spiders crawling on her shoulders. On scratchy, hairy legs.

Cassidy came to with a start.

“Easy. You’re safe.”

The fact that it was Jackson telling her this made her feel anything but. That she lay naked face-down in a bed—Jackson’s bed at the Striker mansion—further bore this out. His hand on her arm, keeping her there, chilled her with fear.

“Just a minute. I’m almost done.”

She shivered. Jackson dabbed something at her back. The tingling moved along with it.

“What are you doing? What’s happening?”

“I’m healing your wounds. I doubt you’ll be shocked if I tell you I’m using vampire blood on you.”

She pushed herself up. “
Whose
?”

Jackson pressed her back down. “I have no idea. We keep some in storage for testing purposes.”

She waited for him to finish and wipe her back clean, taking the reprieve to try and figure out what the hell had happened to her. That infernal light had lit up Dominic’s back. Too powerful to contain, the fiery agony had flooded through their link. But more than the feeling had reached her. Her skin had burned along with his.

“Garrett wouldn’t let me take you to the ER. So I improvised,” Jackson explained. “All done.”

Cassidy sat up and pulled the red satin sheet up around her. “Your uncle. Of course.”

His eyes slide away from hers as he screwed the top back onto a small, black vile.

“Since you always do everything he says, it’s all his fault then, is it? He’s the reason you trapped Dominic? So Garrett can cook him alive?” Her gorge rose remembering the bones, the charred flesh. The stink of it still clung to her hair.

Jackson gave her a long, hard look. “You do realize he’s not human, right?”

“Garrett’s the one who isn’t human. But Dominic
was
not long ago, and he wants to be again.”

“Right,” he scoffed. “Next you’ll tell me he’s got you believing in Santa Clause.”

“He hasn’t sugar-coated anything for me. I’ve seen the worst of what he is
and
the best. You’ve seen it, too. He wanted to leave and asked you to take care of me, for God’s sake. As if I’d let you.”

“Games, Cass. They play games with people and manipulate them into whatever situation suits them. They can’t be reasoned with, bargained with, or trusted. Ever. And there is no help for them but to put them down like the rabid wolves they are.”

Cassidy narrowed her eyes. “You do realize that’s not what Garrett is doing, right?”

Jackson’s jaw clenched. “We’ve been dealing with them for centuries, ever since the first of us fell for one of their mind games. My ancestor thought they were ‘friends’ and ended up dead when his ‘friend’ got tired of him. His sons read their father’s journals, realized what had happened, and went after it. Once they knew what to look for, they found hordes of vampires—thieving, lying, murdering demons, every one of them—and we’ve been ridding humanity of them ever since. That’s our purpose, Cassidy, our only purpose. How it’s accomplished—” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Wow,” she whispered. How had she almost married this man? How could she not have seen this ruthless, self-righteous alien living inside him?

Jackson’s phone chirped and he answered it. “Yes, she’s conscious.” He studied her. “Go ahead.” Pause. Then, “No, nothing. Okay.”

He slipped the phone back in his pocket and turned away. “Good news. You’re far enough away here to not be affected.”

“Affected,” Cassidy repeated. Realizing what he must mean, she wanted to vomit all over the expensive sheets. Dominic would burn, but his suffering would not reach her. Her throat closed. As if there were smoke choking the air. The room threatened to collapse in on her. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. This was not the time to lose it.

“We’ve never seen that before. His serum is something else if he can telegraph his own reactions to you like that. Can’t wait to see what his sire is like.”

“No, you don’t,” she murmured on a long, slow exhale.

“And what do you know about it?” Jackson continued to rummage in a small bag on the table.

She opened her eyes and stared at the back of his head. No answer here would deter these human monsters from dragging out their brutal torture of a young vampire who never asked for any of this and only wanted it all to end. “Nothing you clearly haven’t figured out already.”

Where the hell were her clothes? Why had he stripped her down to her panties? She had to get out of here.

“I doubt it, but it’s not like I can trust anything coming out of your mouth right now anyway.” He came to sit on the edge of the bed. “Just like I can’t trust you to stay put in here for a while?”

“Not even if I have to leap naked through a second floor window, no,” she promised, every last ounce of the fury she felt dripping from her tongue.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” Suddenly he gripped her forearm and yanked her close.

Cassidy yelped when she felt the piercing stab and burn in her shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Just making sure you don’t do anything stupid, babe. It’s for your own good.”

The room wobbled and spun around her, and her whole body slumped into uncooperative jelly.

Jackson pulled the dropped sheet up under her chin. “Don’t worry. You’re safe here.”

Burn in hell,
she tried to scream or say or even whisper, but her eyes closed and she thought no more.

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m never wrong.”

From the S
UV’s backseat, Cassidy watched Garrett give Jackson a withering look. Even dazed as she was, she recognized the warning. A muscle jumped in Jackson’s jaw but he said nothing else. At least not to his uncle.

“How’re you doing back there, Cass? More coffee?”

“Go to hell.”

Kept unconscious all night, Cassidy had awakened to find herself tied hand and foot. The rage she flew into caused Jackson to dose her again for, he claimed, her own safety. By the time she woke the second time, she was too light-headed with hunger and thirst to put up a struggle. She wolfed down the sandwich, fries, and soda Jackson had waiting for her and now nursed the last of something sickeningly sweet and overly caffeinated. The handcuffs on her wrists forced her to hold the cup in two hands like a child. She toyed with the idea of using her shackles to strangle Garrett, the driver, but thought better of it. She wouldn’t be doing anyone any good injured or dead in a wreck. Keeping on her toes was imperative.

If only her toes weren’t still half-asleep. She wiggled them in her sandals, getting feeling back into them. The rest of her was doing a little better, though a shower would have been nice, and wearing one of Samantha’s long sun dresses—pilfered from the house laundry judging from the delicately sweaty smell of it—only added to her sense of disorientation.

Arriving back at the SCI hangar near sundown felt like déjà vu. Twenty-four hours and a truckload of horrors had passed since her first visit. Jackson took the cuffs off before they let her step out of the car and ushered her inside. In the office, Garrett pulled two light guns off their charging bases and headed for the torture chamber door. Apparently he had big plans for the evening. She almost regretted not having strangled him while she had the chance.

Scanning the room for anything that might gain her an advantage, something familiar caught her eye. Dominic’s dragon scabbards leaned in a far corner, looking a little like lost time travelers among the humming racks of technology.

Cassidy shot Jackson an ugly look. “Like you couldn’t buy your own? You had to steal his?”

He glanced at the swords, his mouth compressing into a white line. Without comment, he took her elbow and propelled her after Garrett through the next door. The first whiff of smoke made her go lightheaded. A swarm of fuzzy black dots threatened to blot out her vision.
Don’t you dare faint,
she admonished herself.

Garrett pulled up a plastic chair in front of the cage. “Sit, Miss Chandler. You might as well be comfortable.”

Cassidy plopped onto the chair with more relief than she cared to admit.

In the shadowed rafters above, switches tripped, and the sun lamps buzzed and hummed like a swarm of hornets as they warmed up. Adrenalin seeped into her system, kicking at her heart.

“Here we go,” Garrett said as he checked the light guns.

The vampire’s reaction was much less violent tonight. No sound, no movement. Despair engulfed her. He no longer thought in words, only raw emotion, and she realized that it was more the beast in that cage now than Dominic. Moaning, she reached out to whatever was left of him.
I’m here. Don’t leave me now.

Slowly he turned to face the front of the cage. Nothing human looked out of that skull face. But in her mind she could still feel his heart.

“Good evening,” Garrett said. “Tonight we have a special treat for you.” He gestured at Cassidy. “Someone to share your . . . experiences with.”

Dominic propped himself up. Apprehension shuddered in the connection between them.

“If you’re going to be the martyr and let me kill you before you summon your sire, she is going to die with you.”

Beside her, Jackson cursed under his breath.

“She is nothing to me,” rasped the beast on a faltering growl that barely rose above the hiss of the white noise generators.

“Let’s put that to the test, shall we?” Garrett raised the light gun and lit up the cage.

It lasted only a few seconds, but they were the longest seconds of Cassidy’s life. Fire licked at her bones. Her throat turned inside-out with the scream.

When it was over, her arms glowed bright pink under the glaring light and her face felt too small for her skull. She gasped and panted and might well have tumbled out of the chair if not for Jackson holding her there.

Dominic’s unblinking stare fixed on Garrett with palpable hate. Cassidy felt it vibrate through her. And with it an inhuman desire to feel Garrett’s blood sliding down her throat.

Garrett dropped into a crouch at a safe distance in front of the cage. “Now I know you can sit there all night with me. And if I find it in my heart to throw you a rabbit or two every now and then, a hell of a lot longer. Weeks at the least. Months maybe. Or even years?” He pointed the light gun at Cassidy and activated it. She flinched and turned her face away from the brightness. “How long do you think she’ll last? I’m guessing if she makes it longer than an hour, it’ll be a miracle.”

Cassidy bolted out of the chair with every intention of charging at Garrett Striker and kicking that glorified flashlight out of his hand, and if she broke his wrist in the process, so much the better. She didn’t even make it one step before Jackson had her by the shoulders and pushed her back into the seat.

“You will not let her die,” Dominic said. There may have been an edge of compulsion in the words, but it was weak and flattened by the hissing white noise.

Unfettered malice lit Garrett’s face. “You’ve got that backwards, my blood-drinking friend. As contaminated as you’ve left her, what I will not do is let her live.”

Cassidy tried not to react. Not that she hadn’t suspected this, but hearing it out loud made the prospect real and immediate. Or was this some game Garrett played to coerce the vampire to do his bidding? She glanced at Jackson who stared straight ahead with his hands on his hips. She looked back to Garrett and the gun he kept holstered in easy reach. No, what Jackson believed didn’t matter. He wasn’t the one armed to the teeth. If Garrett wanted to, he could kill all three of them.

Dominic reached a similar conclusion. His fury dissipated in a cold blast of shock.

Garrett rose to his feet and moved a dial on the light gun. Its subtle whine pitched higher. “So, you see, I’m giving you a choice. I can arrange for something quick and painless for her later or . . . she can die here with you. Like this.”

Cassidy saw him raise the gun and pull the trigger as if in a slow motion nightmare. Once it burst to life and found Dominic, a blast furnace formed around her, an entire universe carved of agony.

“
Arrêtez!”

The assault stopped, but even the marrow of her bones now radiated blistering heat. Blood trickled down her arms, dripped from her chin. She could taste it in the back of her throat.

Cassidy!

She looked up to meet Dominic’s eyes at the back of the cage where he had collapsed into a smoke-shrouded heap. The beast had released him. Cold, hard terror ruled him now.

I’m here.

“I’m all ears,” Garrett drawled.

Dominic’s voice was soft with defeat. “I will summon him. I will summon my sire.”

“Now, was that so hard?” Garrett said, spreading his arms wide.

“He is not near. It will take a while for him to find me.”

“That’s alright. He can have all night to get his ass here. And if he doesn’t make it, well, we’ll just have to do this again tomorrow, won’t we?”

Dominic, what are you doing?
Cassidy thought at him, bewildered.

There was no response.