Innocently Evil (A Kitty Bloom Novel) (35 page)

As a ringing silence engulfed me, I noticed a flash of silver slide through Louis’ chest and I saw his body jolt. The tight hands around my neck suddenly loosened and I hurriedly gasped in precious air. Louis
’ head dropped heavily to his chest from where it had been raised high in sudden shock and a dark scarlet liquid dribbled from his lips. His mouth seemed to form the silent question of
who
and his hands shot to the left side of his upper chest.

Seeing my chance for escape, and as I coughed and gulped in air, I struggled to sit up and pushed Louis
’ heavy, stunned body onto the floor beside me. I scooted further to the side away from him, then stumbled to my feet and turned around.

There, standing courageously with a large sword gripped tightly in his right hand was Max. His
glassy, amber eyes met mine, while his expression appeared decisive but apologetic. Then his eyes dropped from mine and went to the weakening body of his father.

Louis had crawled to his knees, leaving thick, crimson smears of blood in his wake, and then turned to face his injurer. Utter shock covered his pale, bloodied expression and he looked questioningly up at his son.
“Why,” he whispered through a bloody gargle.

Max frowned sorrowfully at his father, then took a steady step towards him and leaned on the handle of his sword as he looked down at Louis.
“Because to kill Kitty is to kill me,” he murmured, softly. Then his eyes glanced up at mine once more and he gave me a half-hearted smile. “And because I owe her one,” he said.

Max’s eyes shot back to his father, then he straightened and lifted the sword in his hands.
“This has been a long time coming, Father,” he said grimly. “I’m sorry.”

Louis’ eyes pleaded with Max, as more vital blood spilled from his lips and dribbled down onto his white, button-up shirt.
“Please,” Louis began. “You’re my son.”

But
with one smooth, steady stroke, Max wielded the sword in a straight line and took off the head of Saint Jean’s king, his father. As Louis’ lifeless body fell slowly forward, his head tumbled in my direction, leaving a spray of blood as it rolled. I stepped back a couple of steps eager to be as far away from its destination as possible, when it finally rolled to a stop a meter or so from my feet. I stared down at it nervously and Louis’ dead, wide-eyed and bloodied mouth expression stared emptily back at me. My body let go of an involuntary shiver and I jumped suddenly as a loud shout erupted across the room.

I hadn’t
realized how silent it had been, until I heard the cheerful voice ring out. The uniformed werewolf-men and the werewolves had stopped beating up Sam and there had been no whispers or side-line comments until the joyous yell.

“He’s dead,” someone in the crowd yelled a
gain. “He’s dead!”

“We’re finally free,”
shouted a female voice from close behind me.

A deafening cheer and applause filled the room and all the citizens and creatures
of Saint Jean celebrated victoriously over a victory that wasn’t exactly theirs. As I looked uncertainly around the rejoicing ruckus of supernatural beings my eyes caught the bright, violet of Sam’s and I grinned, so relieved that he was okay. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at me and then glanced around the room incredulously. As his baby boy eyes came back to mine I gave him a confused shrug. The townspeople of Saint Jean were insane, what could I say, I guess I was wrong.

Stepping around the dead head of Louis I walked towards the direction of Max and Sam, careful no
t to step in any of Louis’ blood, which was smeared across the floor as I did so. Sam moved with me and we both reached Max at the same time.

“Thanks,” I said gratefully, as I p
atted a hand on Max’s right arm. “You saved me.”

Max’s haunted expression met mine for a moment and he gave me a small smile, but it was clear that he was having his regrets. When Max’s eyes left mine and fell to the floor to the
limp body of his father, I glanced worriedly at Sam. Returning my expression, Sam frowned at me, and then reluctantly acknowledged Max.

“You did a good
job,” said Sam, appreciatively. “You saved us all. You should be proud.”

Max sighed and nodded his head in agreement, but wouldn’t lift his eyes to ours.
“He deserved it,” Max said firmly. “But he was still my father. He may not have loved me, but I tried hard to love him. He was all I had.”

I
empathized entirely with Max, even though I still couldn’t wholly forgive what he’d done to me, but I understood his pain. Patting his arm reassuringly, I stepped closer to him. “You’re a vampire,” I said smiling, as I pulled his attention to me. “What happened to the world being your oyster and all that?”

His grieving amber eyes met mine and he smiled a little. “Owning the world all alone for eternity, is nothing when you could share it with someone else,” he sighed.

As I looked up at the sincerity and loneliness in his eyes I wondered whether or not he was actually offering, and then thought better of it. I was pretty certain that no one could possibly deal with me for an eternity, especially a broody vampire. What did I have to offer him anyway? Apart from the demon blood and the incredible power, I was just a boring, uniquely powerful teenage girl, right?

Sam put a firm hand on my right shoulder, which forced me back down to earth. Max’s eyes were still intently focused on mine and I gave him a reassuring smile.

“It can’t be that bad,” I said, cheekily, mimicking his earlier comment back to him.

An honest smile crossed his lips and he raised an eyebrow at me.
“As if you would understand,” he said matter-of-factly back to me.

I grinned and Sam’s hand rubbed my shoulder again.

“We should get going, Kitty,” he said, finally getting my attention back from Max.

I looked over at him and watched as he grimaced and pointed his thumb out into the room behind us. As I looked up at the suddenly less rowdy and more fo
cused citizens of Saint Jean, Max followed my gaze.

“The villagers are gettin
g restless,” Sam said worriedly. “We have to get out of here.”

Although
I was a little uncertain about their intention, the malicious and calculated look that filled the majority of their eyes gave me the creeps. I guess all plans to turn me or whatever hadn’t died with Louis as I’d hoped. I would have thought that the guests of the evening would have been a bit more gracious and grateful than that, but I’d forgotten that like Louis, they too, were evil. And now thanks to Sam, Max and me, they no longer had someone to control their power or desires and they were free to do as they pleased.

As the eager crowd around us started to close in, Sam dropped his arm from my shoulder and gripped my
right hand. His frantic eyes met mine and he waited patiently for me to give the okay.

I looked back at Max, whose understanding amber eyes were securely focused on mine, and I frowned.
“Where’s the quickest way out,” I whispered.

Max sighed and pointed the little finger on his right hand subtly in the direction of a
thin, purple door in the right-hand corner of the room behind us.

I nodded appreciative
ly at him. “Okay, let’s go,” I said as I moved to turn around and leave.

A cold
hand wrapped gently around my left arm and pulled me back. “I’m not going,” Max said firmly.

“You have to,” I said anxiously.
“I’m not leaving you here to be torn apart and killed.”

Max smiled down at me and Sam cleared his throat unhappily.

“We should go,” Sam said. “Now, or it will be too late.”

My eyes widened and I opened my mouth to plead with Max to come with us again, but he quickly cut me off.

“I’ll be fine, Kitty,” he said. “I promise to find you again one day. One day soon. Now, go.”

Max’s eyes seem
ed to smile at me as he thrust me towards Sam, who in turn took that as a decision to leave. His hand gripped mine tightly and he pulled me through the last few free spaces between guests, dragging me towards the purple door in the corner. Snarling creatures lunged at us, but still seemed wary enough to leave us be once we passed. They probably weren’t eager to end up like their master, separated from their heads.

“People
of Saint Jean,” I heard Max announce from somewhere behind me. “It’s me you hate, as you hated my father, so why not settle the score now. You finally have the chance.”

The people and creatures around us listened intently to Max as he spoke, which served as a decent distraction for Sam and me to make a last dive for the purple door. When we’d reached our escape route, Sam grabbed the doorknob and yanked the door open. He ducked inside, into the shadows of a small dimly lit corridor, and as he pulled me inside after him, I had to glance back out into the ballroom.

By now the majority of the supernatural guests had formed a close-knit circle around Max and I could only see the very top of the black hair
on his head and shiny tip of his sword. My heartbeat thundered in my chest at the thought of how much danger he was in and I was sure that I’d never forgive myself if I let him get killed.

“What are you waiting for,”
I heard Max yell challengingly to cruel crowd surrounding him. “Kill me or deal with the consequences.”

A chorus of
threatening growls and snarls broke out within the circle around Max, as Sam pulled me into the tiny corridor. With a sudden push of his hand, Sam closed the narrow door behind me and began dragging me further into the endless shadows.

Then, in the eerie silence of the room, a
deep blood-curdling scream sounded muffled through the door behind us and my blood turned cold. It couldn’t be. It was all my fault. I’d abandoned him. Max was dead.

Twenty-Five:
The End of the Beginning

A blood-curdling scream from somewhere deep in the dark chilled me. Then a loud rattling noise and a forceful shaking jolted me awake. As I glanced around through blurry, sleep drained eyes, I saw a rail hostess pushing a small trolley filled with tinkling drinks and crinkling snacks along the bright, tiny corridor outside our travel compartment. The train wobbled uneasily on its tracks again, shaking my body violently and rattling the hostess’ trolley as she tried to push it in a careful straight line.

As I looked at her, her light blue eyes connected with mine through the window and she gave me a pleasant rosy grin. I smiled half-heartedly and then dropped my eyes from hers. The clattering trolley continued on
its path past our room and I looked over at Sam who was sitting peacefully opposite me.

He smoothed his hands over the crinkles of his blue jeans in a catlike stretch and then pulled the open sides of his black leather jacket closer to the centre over his clean, black t-shirt.
“How are you doing,” he asked kindly with a supportive smile.

I sighed, giving him the same half-hearted smile that I’d shone at the hostess, and then rested my head back against the cushioned chair behind me.
“Been better,” I said glumly.

I rolled my head to the side and stared out the window for a moment to watch the passing green fields and pastures of Italy, and then I settled my eyes back on Sam’s. He looked
at me sympathetically, his violet eyes turning warm with care and compassion.

“I’ll be okay,” I said, trying to sound more cheery.

Sam sat up a little straighter in his chair and gave me a raised eyebrow of disbelief. “You had the dream again didn’t you,” he said disappointedly.

I sighed more deeply and shrugged. What could I say? I did have the dream again. The same continuous nightmare I’d had for the past two days. Every time I closed my eyes I saw him, Max, and I saw me leaving him to die. I couldn’t stop hating myself for leaving him all alone, for abandoning him
. I would never forgive myself for getting him killed. He’d deserved better than that after risking so much to save me.

At my unhappy frown, Sam rose to his feet and then dropped himself on the seat close beside me. He wrapped a strong, sympathetic
arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer. I pulled the long sleeves of my crimson v-neck shirt down over my fingers habitually and shuffled my black, jean covered legs closer to Sam. I snuggled in to him, absorbing the warm comfort of his body into the cool, guilty weakness of my own.

Sam and I had left Saint Jean the very same night we’d left Max. After discovering that the tiny, dark
corridor led us outside near the front of the Tiennan’s mansion, we escaped the castle’s confines and hurried back down into the city. On the way, Sam had finally filled me in about how he’d discovered my father’s existence. Apparently, on the night we were attacked by Max’s werewolves at Sam’s house, he’d wounded my father, who’d been in wolf form, and had recognized him. When I’d been taken hostage by the Tiennans, Sam had no option other than to seek out Marcus and he ended up finding him quite supportive with his plan to infiltrate the ceremony. The rest, as they say, was history.