The Bite That Binds (The Deep In Your Veins #2) (6 page)

I held up a hand, warning the squad not to attack in case whatever was thrown simply rebounded off the bubble and hit one of us. “Care to elaborate?” I snapped. “Care to explain how, and why, there are deformed vampires in those cells?”

The taller and sharper-looking of the two vampires only spared me a glance before his gaze locked on Sam. He seemed surprised and intrigued. “A Sventé with a Pagori power.”

She groaned and rolled her
aquamarine eyes. “I wish people would just get over it.”

His mouth twitched into a smile. “A Feeder in full control of their gift. I cannot say that is something I have witnessed before. Your control…it is astounding. Inspiring, even. I find myself envying you, and that is not an emotion I am prone to experiencing.”

“Well that’s great, but we’d like to know why the bloody hell you hurt those vampires.”

“Neither my brother nor I planned for them to come to any harm,” the podgy vampire replied, looking offended. “Our experiments have simply not yet been fruitful and have caused negative side effects.”

“Negative side effects?” echoed Sam, disbelievingly. “It’s not like they’ve got the shits or something, is it? They’re
deformed
and half out of their minds.”

The podgy one spoke again. “Sometimes, when one is trying to achieve something grand, sacrifices must be made. And we
will
achieve our goal. Our work will be recognised by all of vampirekind.”

Sam scowled. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me just what that goal is.”

“Be assured that we only did to those vampires what they asked us to do. They knew the risks.”

That made little sense to me. “And what, exactly, would make anyone prepared to risk becoming deformed?”

“The feeling of desperation does many things to many people.”

And wasn’t that the vaguest thing I’d ever heard.

Sam must have been just as frustrated, because she growled at them. “Are neither of you capable of answering a question without talking in code?”

The taller brother pursed his lips. “If you want answers, we shall do better than tell you, we shall show you.”

The brothers exchanged a look that I didn’t like, and I was ready to question them when I felt an echo of fatigue and disorientation through my connection to Sam. As she suddenly staggered beside me and lost her hold on her whip, I wrapped an arm around her to steady her. Utter panic overtook me. “What the—” Then something else hit me via our connection; an all-consuming, agonising pain.

Sam cried out and doubled over with the force of it. Feelings of being stabbed, gutted, sliced at, and having her insides torn apart were torturing and weakening her. Fury and fear raced through me as I reflexively struck the bubble with a discharge so high in voltage that the entire building shook. It didn’t burst; only wobbled like jelly, oddly absorbing the electricity. Then, as quickly as it had come, Sam’s pain disappeared.

She double-blinked and took a steadying breath. “Oh, you little fuckers.” Most likely sensing that I was ready to charge at them, protective bubble or no protective bubble, she grabbed my arm. Looking at the brothers through narrowed, accusing eyes, she asked, “What did you do to me?”

The podgy brother cocked his head. “Something that has made every other vampire collapse in agony and froth at the mouth.”

Again I went to charge at them, but again Sam stopped me, worried they would hurt me too. I growled, intent on finding some way to burst that bubble and kill them all.

The tall vampire gave me a cool smile. “Rest assured that we have not harmed her, we would never wish to make her ill. On the contrary, if this works – and I strongly suspect it will as she is so much stronger than any subject we have used before – it will make her beautiful and unique in a way that you could never imagine.”

For a third time I moved toward them, but once again Sam held me back. I growled again. “Know this: I
will
fucking hunt you both down, and I
will
fucking destroy you both.”

“It is understandable that you feel that way now. But I truly believe that this is something you will come to appreciate.” He smiled at Sam. “I shall be seeing you again very soon.”

The vampires had teleported away before anyone could say another word. Well great. Just. Fucking. Great.

Anger surged through me, wanting an outlet,
needing
an outlet. Realising that they had left behind the vampire who had been minutes ago bound by Sam’s whip, I took him out with a lightning bolt. But it didn’t make me feel better. The same feelings of dread and helplessness that I’d felt when she’d once Merged with me were now taunting me again. “See,
this
was why I didn’t want you to come!” Oh yeah, logic told me that it wasn’t her fault, but whenever she got injured, I reflexively took my anger and worry out on her.

Sam’s mouth fell open. Then she punched my shoulder. “I didn’t
want
them to hurt me, you sodding fruitcake.”

“We have no idea what they did to you!” But if it was the same thing they had done to the vampires in those cells…Shit, shit, shit!

Denny swallowed hard, studying her from head to toe. “How do you feel, Coach?”

“Well and truly ticked off.”

(Sam)

The rage and fear riding Jared was beating at me, almost stealing my breath. He was practically vibrating with it. So when he tugged me to him and enclosed me in a hug, I went easily. Ordinarily, I didn’t like having displays of affection in front of the squad. But Jared was close to snapping and, truth be told, I kind of needed him right then. I wasn’t a person who allowed myself to lean on others, but that vampire’s words had spooked the living shit out of me.

“We need to get you to Antonio. Maybe he can do something.” Turning to the squad, he began, “You guys finish up. I want the whole place burned d—”

I tugged on his jacket. “Wait, Jared, the Sventé—”

“Sam, we need to get you back to Antonio.”

“Jared, we came here for her.”

“Exactly. If it wasn’t for her contacting you, those fucking bastards would never have—”

“
Jared
.” I framed his face with my hands, seizing his gaze. “I know you’re worried, and I know you’re pissed, but whatever they did has already been done. That vampire said it wasn’t going to make me ill. We have to cling onto that, because right now there’s a female who
is
ill, and we need to talk with her.”

“She might be able to give us some idea of what those motherfuckers were trying to do,” Max pointed out. “Then maybe we can work out what they did to Coach.”

Jared squeezed his eyes closed as if in pain, and I could feel that he was wrestling with his instinct to whisk me off somewhere safe. I kissed him lightly. “We spend five minutes talking to her, and then we go.”

When he opened his eyes again, they were a little calmer. “
Two
minutes. You’ve got two minutes, and then I’m getting you out of here.”

Any other time, I’d have whipped his ears off for speaking to me like that. “Yes, then we can go.” Sucking energy into my palms, I released it as an air blast that was strong enough to blow her cell door open. As we all stepped inside, she didn’t react other than to slowly turn her head to look at us.

When her eyes met mine, her frown melted away. “You…You c-came.”

I wanted to go to her side and give her some form of comfort, but the eleven males with me were feeling mighty overprotective right then and had planted themselves in front of me. Managing to shove Salem aside just enough to have a clear view of the female, I asked, “What did they do? What’s happening to you?”

She swallowed hard and her eyes drifted shut. “D-d-didn’t work.”

“What didn’t work?”

Her words weren’t audible even to vampire hearing.

“Do you have any idea who they were or where they would have gone?” Jared’s voice was gruff with anger.

Without opening her eyes, she stammered, “O-Orr-in.”

Jared frowned. “Orrin? Is that a name, a place, what?”

She gasped as a spasm hit, making her back bow from the floor. Even through her groans of pain, she heard my wince. Her expression was almost sympathetic when she looked at me. “Y-you c-c-can’t help m-me.”

“What were they trying to do?”

“Make…m-make me—” She was cut off as yet another bad spasm racked her body. It was agonising just to watch. Her eyes shut and she seemed close to drifting off, but then they fluttered opened again. “Kill me,” she croaked out.

I stiffened. “No.”

“Pain. Hurts.” She cried out as a particularly violent spasm shook her body and her back arched so unnaturally that I heard a bone break. There were tears in her eyes when she looked at me again. “Pl-please?”

“I’ll do it, Coach.” Chico squeezed my shoulder.

Salem nodded. “Yeah, you go see Antonio. We’ll take care of everything. We’ll make sure there’s nothing left of the place.”

I might have told them to stop coddling me if I hadn’t sensed that Jared was going to lose his composure any second now. No sooner had I slipped my hand in his than we were back in Antonio’s mansion. We found him in one of his many posh parlours with Luther.

Jared didn’t even give them a chance to speak. “Sam got hurt. I don’t know what the fuck they did, but you need to do something.”

Antonio double-blinked. “Hurt? Hurt how? And who are ‘they’?”

“We have no idea.” He told Antonio about what had happened, giving full details on the condition of the captives, and carefully quoting every word the brothers had said. “All we could really get out of the female Sventé was the word ‘Orrin’. Do you have any idea what she could have meant?”

“I’ll have my researchers look into it.” Antonio studied me intently. “How are you feeling?”

I took stock. “Fine. The pain’s gone. I don’t feel ill. I don’t feel any different at all.”

Releasing a heavy sigh, Antonio shrugged. “I suppose all we can do is watch and wait.”

“Watch and wait?” repeated Jared. “You’ve got to be kidding me. They could have done anything to her!”

“Exactly, it could have been anything. Sam says she feels fine. You say you do not know what their gifts were. I have nothing to go on. Until I know what type of help she needs, I cannot know who I need to summon to help her. I doubt that my own gift will do her much good, no matter the problem.”

Jared scrubbed a hand over his face. “Maybe we should postpone the celebrations.” Well that got my back up, and he obviously felt it because he raised a placatory hand. “I want that Binding ceremony, Sam − you know that. But I don’t trust outsiders around you; not when those vampires said they’d be seeing you again soon.”

I snorted. “They wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to infiltrate The Hollow.”

“Bennington tried it, and he was just as fucking weird as the brothers.”

“They wouldn’t even know where to find me. They don’t know who I am.”

“No,” agreed Antonio. “But they will have known who Jared is. He’s recognised worldwide; he needs to be. However, I do not believe it necessary for the Binding ceremony to be postponed. I appreciate that you are feeling particularly protective at this moment, Jared. I fully understand that, as does Sam. But she is very well protected here, and nothing can get in or out of here without my knowledge or permission. It is also worth noting that having the High Masters here for your ceremony will mean that she is even better protected than usual. And I know that the last thing you really want is to postpone the ceremony.”

It was a few moments before Jared exhaled a heavy sigh and nodded.

Distracting myself from the shard of pain I’d felt at hearing him propose to postpone the ceremony, I asked Antonio, “How could they have mutated those vampires like that?”

“There are vampires who have the gift of genekinesis and similar abilities which allow them to manipulate a person or animal’s DNA. In fact, my Sire’s life-partner – who you will meet at the informal gathering tomorrow evening – has such a gift. But these gifts would not work on vampires. It is a shame that the female Sventé in the cell was not able to tell us more.”

I thought about mentioning Luther’s earlier vision, but there was a good chance that Jared would kill him for not having warned him. Instead, I waited until Jared was in deep conversation with Antonio before approaching Gandalf’s doppelganger. He had remained uncharacteristically mute and made himself busy in the far corner of the room. “What’s going to happen to me, Luther? The vampires tried to change me in some way. What did they do?”

His expression was sad, apologetic, and anxious. “Do you know what one of the hardest things is about having my gift, Sam? That sometimes I can see a very trying time ahead, but I also know that to do something would be to affect the future.”

“There you go again with those sodding riddles. Is it something bad? At least tell me that much.”

“That depends on what way you look at it.”

“Oh for the love of God, Luther, throw me a bone here.”