Love Like Blood: (Royal Blood #5) (4 page)

Only time would tell.

T
he first thing
I remembered was darkness.

Total, consuming darkness.

A darkness so complete I thought that I stood on the precipice of what was beyond the universe.

The unknown. The final frontier.

The dawning of a new age.

When I opened my eyes, it was like I’d just blinked. I knew I’d slept, but it had passed in uneventful silence. I was really hoping I’d dream so I’d learn something about my impending fate, but there was nothing. I’d never cared about much, but now I wanted control over the one thing that was common to all humans. My mind.

Sitting up, I glanced at Vaughn. He was beginning to stir, my movement disturbing his sleep. His face had a different light to it when he wasn’t aware. Awake, he had a dangerous flare to him as if his corners were sharp yet soft at the same time. He knew how to control his compulsions for murder. Vaughn was his own master, that much was clear.

I’d never been free. Never been left to make my own decisions outside of a hit. I was always waiting for my next command like a perfect, obedient soldier in Royal Blood’s secret army—so secret their other assassins never knew of my existence. The ultimate specter of death.

Was I looking for my next master?

Vaughn’s eyes cracked open, and he stared at me as his body shook off the last of the sleep that had taken it last night.

His lips curled into a slight smile.
A smile
. Idiot.

He dragged himself to a seated position, grimacing at the pain his body was still recovering from.

“What’s the plan?” he asked like he was trying to poke holes in everything I did.

I hesitated. Last night I’d been so determined to leave this place, but this morning, I didn’t know where we were going.

“What do you know about Greggor’s dealings with Lafayette?” he asked.

“Dealings?” I replied, scowling. “He had no dealings.”

Vaughn narrowed his eyes, signaling that he didn’t believe me.

“I was privy to a great deal of things that Royal Blood were involved in,” I said.

“Never said you weren’t,” he retorted. “But The Hangman knew Jacques Lafayette.”

“So you said, but you didn’t mention why…and how.”

“I knew him in passing,” he went on. “Human trafficking wasn’t the only pie he had fingers in, and those pies were also some of mine. Sykes wanted an in with him, and I could get a meeting,” he explained impassively. “Considering I thought you were dead all these years, I never knew of his continued involvement with Sykes. Not until X and Mercy came to me for assistance in tracking down her families murderer.”

I wasn’t sure what was bothering me about the scenario. “Why did Sykes want in with Lafayette?”

“Around a year ago, I became aware of his attempts at breaking into the human trafficking market. I always thought Sykes was a loose cannon, a crazy fucker who was nothing more than a thug trying to worm his way into the big leagues. When I first dealt with him, I intended to use him to further my own aspirations. Turned out, he was a businessman with a fucked-up start-up that needed an investor. Lafayette was that investor.”

“I was Sykes’s gift,” I said, the pieces starting to fall together. “His test of loyalty.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Vaughn countered, but I wasn’t listening to reason.

There was no proof that I was even sold to Lafayette, only words from my father’s mouth, but in my mind, the connection was clear. They must’ve known who I was. They must’ve known who I was. Not just that I was Vaughn’s, but that I was Greggor’s daughter, too The ultimate prize.

I rose from the bed, pulling the gun out from underneath the pillow. I was going to torture a confession out of the sick fucker, and then I was going to kill him. I was going to kill Jacques Lafayette.

Between the time I was taken from Vaughn and the time I woke up as I was now, there were weeks or even months that were left unaccounted for. I always believed that the marks on my body were all from The Watchman’s training. What if they weren’t? What if they were from the sadistic brutality of my captors? What if there were even more horrors locked away inside of my mind? Those numbers scarred on my wrist…

“Lorelei,” Vaughn said as I began gathering my things.

“Get your stuff,” I snapped. “We’ve got to go.”

“We need a plan,” he countered. “We can’t just go out there blind. We need to contact Hawkes and—”

“We need to go,” I interrupted. “We need to go and find Lafayette. I need to know what he did to me.”

Vaughn circled around the bed and grabbed my shoulders, jerking me around to face him. My hands shot up and grasped his wrists, but he held firm, his blue eyes meeting mine. There was something unknown in the air that stopped me from incapacitating him. Something in his eyes that told me to stop.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “You know this is suicide.”

“What if we miss our chance?” I asked.

“We won’t,” he said. “Think about it. Royal Blood is disintegrating, and word is only just beginning to spread. If what Greggor said was true, then Lafayette is sitting pretty thinking he’s the luckiest son of a bitch in the world. His biggest enemy is dead. He thinks he’s untouchable. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon, and that gives us time to plan. One shot, Lorelei.”

One shot. Planning was ninety-nine percent of the hit. If I missed…

“One day,” I said, letting Vaughn go. One day to obtain a starting point, and then we would go. Staying at this motel for as long as we had was risky in itself, and that had only heightened with the stolen car out front and the boot full of contraband.

Vaughn’s hands tightened on my shoulders. Not in a threatening way but in an attempt to reassure me. “Let me contact Hawkes. We can’t afford to show our faces just yet, but he’s out there and can do some digging while we regroup.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, composing my thoughts. Opening them, I moved away from him and took my burner phone out of the duffle. Vaughn was right about a lot of things, the main one being that we couldn’t show our faces just yet. If I were made as still being alive, we’d have every bounty hunter and assassin on our tails before we could even leave the county…and that was just from Royal Blood’s splintered factions that were scrambling for power.

Handing the phone to Vaughn, I said, “Don’t disclose our location.”

“It will be okay, Lorelei,” he said, closing his hand around mine. “We’ll figure this out.”

I nodded, but it was only to satisfy his annoying need to reassure me. Faith wasn’t something I understood. Faith was a fool’s attempt to hold onto something that was slipping away.

I could feel the changes happening in my mind, and they were coming on fast. It had been two days since we left Bristol, and in that short amount of time I’d plummeted. I’d begun to feel things that confused me, and I’d considered approaches that were risky and impractical. Logic told me I was going to break very soon, and who knew what would be left once the pieces shattered. I thrived on control, but now I was losing my grip on everything.

As Vaughn pressed in a number on the mobile, I wondered if he was ready for the moment the monster inside me was unleashed. Even I didn’t know my full potential for chaos.

I was a disaster waiting to happen, and there was nothing I or anyone else could do to stop it..

W
e were meant
to leave the motel yesterday.

We were still here, and time was running out.

I leaned against the wall by the window, peering out through a crack in the curtains. Traffic rumbled past on the motorway that ran by the motel, but nothing else moved. That didn’t mean we weren’t being watched, though.

There was a musical beeping from behind me, and I glanced back at Vaughn.

“It’s Hawkes,” he explained, reading the text message that had just arrived on the burner phone I’d given him that morning. “He seems to think—”

“No,” I snapped. No, not yet. No, no,
no
.

“We decided yesterday—”

“No.” No Lafayette. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to face it. Too long idling had sent my enthusiasm levels plummeting.

“We need to do something,” he said. “You said it yourself. We can’t stay here forever.”

I began grinding my teeth, The Hangman’s pressure tactics starting to really get underneath my skin.

“If we go after Lafayette, we have a chance to find out what happened to you, and we can tear apart his trafficking ring.”

“Yeah?” I asked, spinning on my heel to face him. “Then what? We kill him, and what happens then? Where do we go after that? Find another sick fuck to kill?”

He opened his mouth but shut it quickly. He didn’t have any answers.

“I still have a chance at taking Royal Blood,” I declared. “That’s a life with purpose.”

“What? Killing just for the sake of it?”

“What’s the problem?” I asked, throwing my hands in the air. “
It’s what you do
.”

“I became The Hangman to avenge you, Lorelei. It wasn’t just for cheap thrills,” he spat. “If you manage to take Royal Blood, then what? You’ll sit on your throne and feel complete?
It’s empty
.”

I scoffed, really starting to feel the burn of rage searing my nerve endings.

“To what end do you want it?” he asked. “For power? For money? Meaning? What do you want it for?”

He didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t know what I wanted it for. “What’s your perfect life, Hangman?”

“My name is Vaughn,” he murmured, his eyes softening.

“Once a monster, always a monster?” I exclaimed. “Is that what I’m meant to be?
Is that what I am to you?
”

“Lorelei, you need to calm down.” He held his hands up like he was trying to hypnotize me into complacency.

“I don’t need to do anything you want me to,” I hissed at him.

“You need to understand that you’re going through something neither of us know the extent of yet,” he said. “Your conditioning is eroding…”

I stared at him, letting the notion sink in. I knew I was being irrational. I knew I was starting to experience things I’d never felt before.
Felt
. That was the word that was throwing me for a loop.

Emotions were trickling in. I understood what they were and what context to use them in, but
feeling
them was another thing entirely. I’d been feeling excruciating
rage
ever since I’d left the compound with Vaughn. Sure, things had annoyed me over the years—an unpredictable mark or a kink in one of my carefully laid plans—but never to the point I cared about them for a second after they happened.

I was feeling things
.

All these unknown emotions were rushing into my mind, confusing and blinding my decisions. Making me erratic and unpredictable. I couldn’t settle on a course of action because I was confused. Something had to change. Something had to happen to let out some of this building pressure. I had to find some kind of relief.

“Lorelei,” Vaughn murmured. “Use me. Tell me. Don’t shut down.”

“It’s either kill or be killed,” I said, trying to hold onto my programming as hard as I could. “If you keep pushing me, you’ll be first on the list.”

Grabbing the gun from the table, I shoved it into the back of my jeans and shrugged into my coat.

“Where are you going?” Vaughn asked, his gaze darting to the gun and back up.

“Don’t leave,” I spat, wrenching open the door. “I expect to find you here when I return, or I’ll
come for you
.” If Vaughn abandoned me after all he’d promised, I’d kill him myself.

“Lorelei—”

I slammed the door closed behind me, the winter air biting at my flushed cheeks.

I couldn’t be in there with him a moment longer. I couldn’t be in there and
feel
.

I
walked
the streets of Luton, my mind swirling.

I was waiting for an order that was never coming. Everything I’d ever been and everything I’d ever known was dead. I was a ghost, a nobody. A nameless fool.

The gun pressed against the small of my back, hidden underneath my jacket. Nobody was looking for me here, but it always paid to be prepared for a fight. How many souls had I taken since I was born into this life? Too many.

Staring across the road, I saw my reflection in a shop window.
A backdrop of blue and green, splashes of color against clinical white
. I blinked hard. Was that a memory?

A woman with blonde hair. A woman who turned the world red
.

Turning away from the window sharply, I breathed hard, my head spinning. Then I began walking again, the air feeling close, the world bearing down on me, and when I could bare the desolate air no more, I returned to him.

I strode into the motel room, ignoring Vaughn who rose at my entrance, and went straight to the bathroom and slammed the door closed.

I was hot, then I was cold, like my body was trying to fight off a fever. I let my coat fall to the floor, pulled my trademark long-sleeved shirt over my head, and tossed it onto the basin, my hair spilling around my shoulders. Kicking off my boots, I let my feet cool on the tiled floor, the chill seeping into my bones. Standing there in nothing but my bra and jeans, I stared at my skin. The skin that had been marked in more ways than one.

I bore the scars of The Watchman as all his students did, and like most, I’d had them covered once my training was complete. Geometric shapes, words, symbols, and doctrines I could scarcely comprehend covered my torso and arms. Black ink told a story I didn’t know all the words to, but they were not the only tales my skin told. There were marks that persons unknown had inflicted on me. Marks I’d always believed had stamped and catalogued me as a commodity.

That’s why I always wore clothing that covered my skin. They were my stories.
Mine
.

Running my fingertip over my right wrist, I felt the raised skin that marked the location of the crude tattoo. It hadn’t healed properly, and whoever wielded the needle, dragged it deeper than they should have. I was cut to the point where I’d scarred.

Was my father right? Had he saved me from slavery at the hands of Jacques Lafayette? I’d seen women with marks like these before. Marks that identified them as nothing more than a product to be sold to the highest bidder. A vessel of flesh to be fucked, beaten, and tortured…whatever their owner saw fit. Had that been my life after Vaughn and before this?

Staring at my reflection, all I could see were sunken eyes full of poisonous darkness.

Grabbing the hunting knife from where it’d fallen onto the floor when I’d pulled off my boots, I started hacking at my hair, my long locks falling to the floor around me. I didn’t want to be Lorelei anymore. If I was going to be made anew again, then I needed to change.

A knocking sound broke through my furious sawing, and I realized that tears had started to fall from my eyes.
Tears
.

And still the knocking.

“
Fuck off!
” I screeched.

“Lorelei?” Vaughn’s voice was muffled through the door.

“I said,
fuck off!
”

Grabbing the last piece of hair that hung down my back, I sawed it off just as he opened the door and came rushing in.

He stared at me in horror, his gaze dropping to my hair on the floor, then back up to the knife in my hand.

“Lorelei,” Vaughn whispered.

I stepped back, but the bathroom was too small, and I hit the wall. I held up the knife, pointing the tip right at him, and my hand began to shake. “
Stop
.”

“I love you,” he said firmly. He declared it out of nowhere like the word was magic and would bring this all to an end. “I never stopped loving you.”

My palm flattened against the wall, and I began trembling, my thoughts scattering. I was so confused. I burned from the inside out.

“
Don’t
,” I pleaded.
Something was wrong
.

Vaughn stepped forward, and I scrambled along the wall, trying to get away from him. My feet were cold against the tiled floor, the chill spreading through my body. Blinking furiously, I glanced around the room. I was trapped in a corner. Caged in. There was no way out except through Vaughn.

I could try to incapacitate him. I could stab him in the stomach and slice his throat open, but my thoughts were scattered, and I felt like a child. Everything I knew and everything I was had dissolved in a haze of confusion. My mind was breaking down. Its fragile programming was eroding, and I was becoming this wild, uncontrollable element. I was either going to explode or cease to be.

Is this what Xavier Blood had warned me about?

Vaughn darted forward while I was dazed and grasped my wrist, prying the knife from my fingers. He let it drop into the rubbish bin under the sink before winding his arm around my waist and pulling me away from the wall.

“Don’t touch me!” I cried, my desperate tears beginning to blind me.

“
Shh
,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”

I thrashed against him, but his arm held firm. The sound of water filled the room, steam beginning to drift from the shower.
Why was I so weak? Why couldn’t I fight?

I wanted to fall to the floor and curl into a tight ball. I wanted to fold into myself and float away, but Vaughn wouldn’t let me.
He wouldn’t let me go
. His arms held me tight against his chest, trying to tame me like the wild creature I was becoming.

“
Let me go!
” I screeched, beating my fists against his chest.

He hauled me backward through the room until I was in the shower. Water soaked through my clothes, sticking them to my skin, making me feel heavy…listless. He’d doused my panic like a flame. It still ebbed underneath the surface, having retreated into the darkness inside of me.

I blinked furiously as water cascaded down my forehead and into my eyes. Trying to shrink away, I sank into the corner of the tiled cubicle, but he pulled me back against his wet body and cupped my face, forcing my gaze to his. Forcing me to acknowledge that I was losing the battle with my own mind.

“Use me,” he murmured. “Let me be your constant, Lorelei.”

My constant? He was offering so much…
so much
. He was sacrificing everything for a psychopathic killer who was losing her mind.

“I love you, Lorelei,” he murmured. “
Forever
.”

His eyes were blue like the ocean…no they were gray like steel. Or were they blue? Both colors weaved through his irises like he had some kind of genetic mutation. First, he was one thing, and then he was another. A trickster.

“You’re lying,” I moaned, the world beginning to tilt on its axis.

Tilting his head to the side, he lowered his face toward mine. Hypnotizing. Charming. Luring…

Finally, his lips brushed against mine, water beading across his skin, and I ached. From my fingertips through my heart and into my most private parts…
I ached
.

“I need you,” he whispered. “Something inside of you remembers what we had… What was stolen from us… We hardly had a chance to be together, but I knew.
I knew
.”

A sob burst from between my lips, and I was someplace else. White pinpricks of light against a darkened backdrop of masonry and the chill of a soft breeze against my skin. A slash of red…blood? No, not blood. Something else.

“I remember…” I swallowed hard, trying to make sense of it.

Vaughn waited, his gaze never leaving mine.

“White lights.” I sighed. “Red…”

Vaughn cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs stroking my skin. “The night we first kissed,” he murmured. “You wore this stunning red dress… The balustrade on the balcony was decorated with hundreds of tiny lights…”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned forward, closing the last inch of space that separated us, and I pressed my lips against his. The moment we touched, I ignited a flame so hot I could hardly contain it.

He opened up to me without hesitation, his tongue meeting mine, his hands holding me against his bruised body. His kiss was like a wildfire against my lips, burning brightly despite the cascade of water we stood underneath.

I pulled at his wet T-shirt, searching for skin as I devoured him, my breathing beginning to quicken. I needed more of him. I needed to feel him against me. His skin, his touch, his all… I needed it.

Use me
, he’d said.
Let me be your constant
.

I tore at his T-shirt, and he allowed me to peel it up and over his head. Running my hands over his chest, he moaned against my lips—this feral wail that was a mix of pleasure and pain and everything in-between. Vaughn was a coiled spring, his desire just within his control.

As I undid my bra and let it fall away, his gaze dropped to my bare skin, and something shifted between us. He pulled away with a frustrated sigh, but I clutched him so tight he couldn’t move far.

“Don’t,” I pleaded. “I’m…”
I’m slipping away
.

“I need you,” he panted. “But I don’t have anything… I don’t want…” He didn’t want to take me without protection. The Hangman was worried about my nonexistent virtue?

I took his hand in mine and ran his fingers across my lower stomach. When he found the place I was guiding him to, his gaze met mine, his brow furrowing as he tried to understand.

“I can’t,” I whispered, my tears mingling with the water from the shower. “They took it away from me.”

I let my hand fall away but his lingered, feeling the scar their crude surgery had left behind.