Nightfall (37 page)

Oh Christ.
“She didn’t. She didn’t know.” It might be
futile, but Quinn coughed the words out on an ash dry throat.

“Hmm. I believe you. It didn’t really seem her style. She’s
more cut and run than stand and fight.”

“Maybe she’s just live and let live,” he rasped. He was
going to die of shame and agony together if his cock didn’t stop getting bigger
and stiffer.

“A creed you and I obviously don’t share. Mike was not at
all pleased with being shot by you. He wanted to kill you right then, but he
wouldn’t do so without my say-so, and I need to teach him the pleasures of
waiting. Of feeding on fear and pain as much as blood.”

Fuck this. Quinn met his gaze, spat again. “Yeah. I get it.
You’re going to torture me until I beg for mercy, then kill me. Blah blah blah.
That’s your sick shit deal. Fucking do it, but I’m not going to feed any part
of you, you sick fuck.”

He’d use rage to fight through the pain. Unfortunately, his
response didn’t elicit anything from Laurent but a lifted brow. He glanced at
Claudio, standing silently just behind him. “He actually thinks he has free
will, a choice in all this. That we can’t make him dance like our puppet at any
time. It’s almost charming. Very John Wayne.”

Laurent stepped closer. As he did, Quinn saw a deadness in
those eyes that made Claudio’s lack of emotion seem like Chuckles the clown in
comparison. Truth, what he saw teeming in Laurent’s eyes reminded him of a
writhing bed of hungry snakes. It was the look of a monster, something that fed
on despair, pain, a complete lack of hope.

It made his balls want to shrivel back up into his body.

“While you were out, I should have given Mike something to
do,” he said. “He could have fucked your ass several times. That special
ointment Claudio just inserted wouldn’t be the only reason you’re hurting like
a son of a bitch. But perhaps it will be far better to have him do it while
you’re awake, help you really understand what being a vampire’s servant means.
It seems Selene has romanticized it a little too much.”

At the avaricious light in Laurent’s eyes, the frank hatred
in Mike’s as he stood off to the left, Quinn couldn’t stop the image that went
through his head. Their bodies pushing him down, grunting over him, his legs
spread, a nightmare that wouldn’t be a nightmare. No. He couldn’t lose it like
this. Even though he wanted to recoil in horror, knowing Laurent wasn’t issuing
idle threats, showing weakness wasn’t the best option here. Or at least it was
an option Quinn wasn’t giving himself. Fuck. His Mistress had stood toe to toe
with these three, let them beat her to pieces, knowing she couldn’t stop them.
She’d blocked her mind to spare him from it. He couldn’t do any less than live
up to her example.

Laurent cocked his head toward the impassive Claudio. Quinn
wondered what was going on behind the gold eyes of Laurent’s servant, because
he didn’t so much as twitch a facial muscle. The wind ruffled his thick mane of
hair, taking a few strands across his brow. It was obscene, how handsome he
was, how beautiful Laurent was. Except for the scar on his face, Mike was the
same. Though his fancy dark clothes had a few bloodstained holes in them still,
and that gave Quinn some fierce satisfaction.
Yeah, you can fuck me, but it
doesn’t change the fact I shot you and nearly staked your ass.

“For instance,” Laurent spoke again, “I guess you expected
Claudio was coming from their cabin. But a servant would never feed himself
without checking in on his Master to see if he needed anything. Though it was
past dawn, Mike and Ernesto don’t necessarily sleep as deeply as Selene does at
that time of day. You probably didn’t realize that, did you? The older we are,
the longer past dawn we can stay awake, keep our faculties alert to danger. The
advantage to not being a sixty-year-old fledgling.

“I wanted blood and to have my dick sucked off,” Laurent
continued, “and Claudio took care of both of those things before coming out to
find his bacon and eggs. You had a fifty percent chance of choosing the right
cabin, and unfortunately the gods didn’t favor you. Yes, you cornered Mike, but
Ernesto had enough shadows to take you out from behind. You let your temper
override your good sense, and now both you and your Mistress will pay for it.”

Cold shot through Quinn’s vitals as he lifted his head, met
those dark eyes. Laurent nodded. “When Ernesto gets back with Selene, we’ll see
how tough you are. Whatever I do to you, I will do to her three times over.
That will really destroy you, won’t it? To see your actions taken out on her? I
understand human weaknesses. They’re the easiest to exploit, your sentiment and
care for others.”

There is no upside to going after a vampire.
Dix had
tried to warn him.
Oh God, Selene.
Selene, vulnerable in her bed.
Ernesto would drag her out, bring her here, and she’d have to go through it all
over again. He didn’t know enough about this world, Dix was right. He’d acted
according to the rules of his world and without enough information about
vampires. As a result, he’d fucked up beyond all possible reason.

“No. Don’t take this out on her. She wasn’t any part of it.
It was all me.”

Laurent’s expression took on a mocking cast of pity. “He
still doesn’t understand. In our world, you are nothing, human. Less than
nothing. If you belong to a vampire, your sins are hers. You attempted to kill
a vampire, so once she knows that, she’ll know your life is already forfeit. I
will torture her for your crimes, I will torture you for them and then she will
watch you die. Before we take her back home where she belongs.”

He wanted to die right now. If he thought it might ease any
of her suffering, he would. But he knew it wouldn’t. He would have to face
this, face what he’d done. Even though it tore his heart out to think it, he
wished she’d never stopped in Nightfall, never had the misfortune to meet him,
the idiot who’d brought her to this. She’d told him to trust her, and he
hadn’t. He’d had to be the big-ass hero who avenged her, rather than doing what
Dix had told him he should be doing.

Claudio produced an item Quinn recognized all too well. A
single tail, like what Selene had used on him. Laurent threaded it through his
fingers. “Until they arrive, I think we’ll warm you up with this and then
employ the cat, which still has your Mistress’ dried blood on it. A person who
skins with a knife doesn’t know the artistry of doing it with a whip. Before
I’m done, you’ll understand the lovely nuances.” His gaze dropped, lingering
hungrily on Quinn’s cock. “But first, I think you need that lesson about
servants and free will.”

He stepped forward. Though Quinn tried everything he could to
writhe away, his bonds held him fast. Laurent wrapped his hand around the
barbed wire, the flesh beneath. If he’d squeezed, the agony would have been
unimaginable, but he did something Quinn considered far worse. His face so
close to Quinn’s he could have kissed him, Laurent gently stroked, rubbed and
manipulated the sensitive area under the glans. Despite the excruciating fire
in his ass, whatever it was doing that caused his cock to be hard made it
capable of climaxing against the brutal hold of the barbed wire.

No, no,
no
.

“Yes,” Laurent said, a sibilant whisper as he bared a fang,
stroked it along Quinn’s cheek, an obscene caress. They’d bound Quinn’s throat
to the fence as well, so he had no way to jerk away or bite the bastard, but he
couldn’t have summoned the mind to do it anyway. In what he was sure was the
most terrible moment of his life—after finding Selene broken in her bed—his
body bucked and he climaxed under Laurent’s hand.

The vampire stepped to the side, staying clear as Quinn
snarled in horrified frustration, his hips bucking and come spewing out onto
the ground.

Something in his mind broke then. Especially when Laurent
leaned in and spoke against his ear again. “Do you want to know why Selene
runs, human? Because she knows exactly what we are. Perhaps for the short life
you have left, it will sink into your feeble mind. You have no choices. You
willingly signed away your fate to this.” He drew back, met Quinn’s gaze. “I
don’t blame you. She’s quite something. But when you step into our world, you
step into Hell. You either decide to accept all of what that means, or you’re
destroyed by it.”

He loosed the single tail so it snaked out to his side as he
paced backward. He put the cat in his other hand. “Be thinking about that while
I take the skin from your body, one strike at a time. What’s good for the
Mistress is good for the servant, after all.”

The first blow of the single tail sliced down Quinn’s chest.
Unlike the night Selene had touched him with it, there was no attempt to
mitigate pain with the lick of the popper. This was all about dispensing pain.
A scream broke from Quinn’s lips on the third stroke and Mike shoved a shop rag
from his own truck into his mouth, one that stank of oil. It mixed with the
scent of his own blood and sweat, the musk of his semen on the ground. His
heightened third mark senses brought all those scents together in his nose,
made him need to retch.

Laurent switched sides after a dozen lashes. The fresh area
he chose on Quinn’s back doubled the pain. Ten strikes later, he started to
alternate, use the cat. The blood was already flowing, and Quinn felt pieces of
his flesh being ripped away with every contact. Everything was pain, inside and
out. Only one thought held on in the boiling storm of his brain, and hearing
its howl was even more agonizing than what was being done to his body.

I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. God, I’m sorry…

Did the mantra help? He didn’t know. All he knew was he
passed the point where he thought he couldn’t take any more. Knowing that
mattered not at all to Laurent broke his mind even further. He was being
destroyed, reduced to nothingness. He could hear the distant scream of his
soul, about to be lost to him, but then something changed.

He was moving away, burrowing into himself. Squatting down
in some deep place in his mind where he was aware of pain, but somehow removed
from it as well. In some weird way, it was like those nights at Sam’s campfire
as a teenager, aware of the noise and chaos that awaited him at home, but
finding a quiet center as long as he stayed within the touch of the fire’s
light.

Was this what they called a psychotic break? He didn’t know,
but whatever it was, something inside him started to spin. Slow, like a cap
coming unscrewed, lifting him out of that deep place, but still away from what
was happening to his body, enough distance to handle it. Maybe it was his soul,
staring down at himself, splitting away from the horror of what he’d done.

But what he thought was illusion apparently was affecting
Laurent as well, because the vampire came to a stop, staring at Quinn. Moving a
couple steps forward, he lifted a hand, as if touching something in the air in
front of Quinn. Quinn, in his body but not, blinked at Laurent through sweat,
shameful tears. Blood. Laurent had struck his face, maybe a couple times. The
guy had good aim, because his eyes were still intact and he was pretty sure if
Laurent had intended to blind him, he would have. Would a third mark heal from
that?

He heard chanting. Chanting in his mind. Closing his eyes,
he immersed himself in the smell of Sam’s fire, the sage he threw into it with
some other things. That familiar smell, the rhythmic crackling, a soothing
center to an unhappy teenager’s heart, replaced the stench of oil, blood.

Feel the quiet, Quinn. Embrace what’s there. Just
breathe.

Sam, I fucked up so bad. I’ve gone so wrong.

No, Quinn. You’re learning. Life is all about learning.
And love. Hold on to that love. And breathe…

He was breathing. The pain was easing off, everywhere. When
he opened his eyes, wishing it was all a nightmare and he’d wake in the cellar
with Selene, he didn’t get that wish. He saw Selene, yes, but since he was
still in this clearing, all he could think was
no, no, no
. But then he
focused on a key fact. Ernesto wasn’t with her.

Butch was.

A half dozen SUVs had pulled up to the cabin, the waning
moon reflecting off their rooftops. Twenty ranch hands had stepped out of them,
every one of them armed. Dix had opened the door of one SUV to hand out Selene,
Butch emerging from the passenger front seat, taking position at the head of
the phalanx.

Laurent coiled up the whip, handed it to Claudio, though he
gave one more searching look at Quinn as if there was something off kilter.
Quinn dropped his head back on his shoulders. He felt dizzy, disoriented.
Everything hurt, but the pain was this big wave behind a door. He could feel it
pushing on him. When it burst open, it would probably just carry him away, but
he also still heard that chanting in his head. His throat seemed to be vibrating,
and he realized he was humming along with it. But his eyes clung to Selene.

Her blue eyes had gone right to him as well and stayed
there. Her face was pale but unmarked now, though her features were strained.
All the trouble he’d caused her…

Yes, Quinn. I’ll punish you for it later. For now, hold
on, my love. My dear, stubborn, stupid man. Hold fast.

She’d called him “my love”.

“Take care of her, Butch.” He could barely speak, but
vampires had supersonic hearing, right? Butch’s gaze flicked toward him, a
possible acknowledgement, but otherwise the vampire looked cold as stone as he
and Laurent squared off.

“Butch Dorn.” Laurent spoke, his gaze sweeping the Texas
overlord. “I only met you at a Gathering once, but you had a somewhat
unforgettable presence.” His tone made it clear it wasn’t a compliment. For his
part, Butch gave him a look equally full of contempt.

“That makes one of us. We keep trying to close the borders
to riffraff like you, but unfortunately they won’t do that unless Texas
secedes. A move I completely support.”