Bitten to Death

Chapter Twenty-Five

As soon as I hit the bedroom I sent the word out through Pete, Albert, and Cole. Contact your experts. Let me know if there’s a way to kill a bound vampire without also destroying its Maker.

The answers came back depressingly soon. There is no way. When they’re magically entwined, the vultures die with the nestlings. Always have. Always will.

“Goddammit!” The cursing woke up Ziel, who came over to check on me. “Go away. I’m pissed off,” I grumbled.

He laid his head on the bed. When I refused to pet him, he jumped up, clearing me and landing on the other side, where he turned around three times before settling in beside me. “Okay, you can stay, but don’t get used to this. I’m only allowing it because I’m so bummed and for some reason you don’t smell like dog.”

I turned my back to him and instantly fell asleep.

When I opened my eyes they landed on Vayl, standing at the end of the bed, a shadowy figure in the dimness of the room.

I sat up. Slowly. Why is it that you never really feel the effects of a fight until after you stop moving? I groaned, silently cursing Samos’s men as I glanced at the dog they’d tried to retrieve. Ziel lay at my side, gnawing on a bone I hoped hadn’t once been some guy’s leg.

“How long did I sleep?” I asked.

“Hours. Dusk has fallen.”

“Time to call Samos?”

“Nearly so.” Vayl cocked his head to one side. “Pete called while you were asleep. He wanted to know why you were trying to spare vampires. When I did not know what he was talking about, he had to explain.”

I crossed my legs in front of me and swallowed a gasp as I reached for the poker chips that stood like a tower of happy thoughts on the bedside table. When I still didn’t say anything, Vayl went on. “You cannot kill Disa.”

“So I’ve been told.” Click. Clack. Click.

“Even if her death were to have no effect on me, you should still not be pondering this course of action.”

“Okay.”

“That does not sound convincing.”

Clack, click, clackety, clack. “I could swear on my mother’s grave if you want.”

“What good would that do when she is in hell?”

I shrugged. Ow, dammit! He came and sat down in front of me. “Do not cross the line, Jasmine. Not for me. Do the mission, do it well, and go home.”

I met his eyes. “The mission’s changed.”

“According to whom?”

“Me. And you, if you’re thinking straight. Look, Pete can’t call this one. Neither can any of the candidates vying for a seat on the department’s oversight committee. They’re not here. They don’t know.”

“But if they were, their feelings for me would not cloud their decisions.”

“You forget what a valuable asset they see you as. If Disa ties you up for the next fifty years, they’re pretty much screwed, aren’t they?”

His brows arched. “What are you saying?”

“I have a good case, if it comes to that. But I don’t think it will. I think Pete will back me a hundred percent. So the second I figure out how to keep you alive—I’m taking Disa down.”

Actually my biggest concern was Cassandra’s warning about what would happen to Vayl and me if I pulled this off. But I’d detoured her prophecies before. I glanced up from the poker chips. Gave myself just a second to imagine what it would be like to spend the rest of my life with him.

“You cannot look at me that way,” Vayl said.

“Why?”

“Because suddenly it becomes impossible to keep my hands off you.” He reached up and cupped my face in his palms, his fingertips sending spirals of excitement down my neck into my heaving chest. Suddenly nothing hurt at all. Anywhere. As Vayl said, “And then I find I must kiss you,” his lips lowered to mine. Just a brush, a touch of flesh and then the alarm went off again.

I jumped, banging my nose against Vayl’s cheek. “Ow!”

Dave ran into the room, yelling, “Jaz, can’t you control your temper for one—oh.”

Tarasios came stumbling in behind him, holding his hands to his head, mumbling, “Stop the sirens. Please, stop the sirens.” He kept moving straight toward the bathroom, tripping over the doggy-dress-bed by the door. He landed on all fours and crawled toward his target, making it just in time to leave his mess where at least nobody would have to mop it up.

“I’m going to go find out what’s going on,” Dave said. “You two—get your own damn room. God knows what I’m going to walk in on next,” he muttered as he left.

“So, Tarasios,” I called. “Did Dave get a chance to ask you any questions?”

No answer but the sounds of his misery. Ziel took great interest in the entire process. He’d jumped off the bed when the alarm sounded and, after running around tracking everyone’s movements, followed Tarasios into the bathroom. He kept looking from the puking man to us, as if trying to solve a mystery. By the end we were trying not to laugh. It was the sound, I think. Like a bullfrog that’s just coming off a bad cold. Or maybe it was the mutt who decided it was a game, and began poking his nose in Tarasios’s butt every time he ralfed, which made him jump and squeak a little too.

“Dogs are disgusting,” I finally told Vayl.

“Yes, but high in entertainment value.”

We heard the hall door open.

“It’s not Dave,” I whispered.

“Disa’s lot?”

I nodded. “More than one, for sure.” As we moved into the sitting room I said, “Nobody knocks anymore, Vayl. Have you noticed that?”

Vayl arched his eyebrow at me. “You know, they say the first sign of a community’s downfall is when they scrap their good manners.”

Disa, Sibley, Marcon, Rastus, and Niall had all crowded into the open space between the door and the fountain. “Vayl,” Disa said, relief flitting across her face as she saw him, “come with us.” When he stared at her impassively she added, “Please.”

“Why?” I demanded.

She gave me a get-off-my-lawn-peasant stare. “It is none of your concern.”

“I disagree.” Vayl slipped his hand under mine, raised it so she could see Cirilai glittering on my ring finger. “My avhar is always welcome to join me.”

Disa didn’t seem to appreciate the reminder. She threw her head back and I saw her neck begin to bulge. All right, if that’s how you want it, I thought. But I couldn’t erase the chill that iced my blood when I thought of those tentacles leaping out to slash my face away. I’d never be fast enough. But I reached into my jacket anyway.

Niall stepped forward. “We are under attack. The wagon house is afire. Rastus believes the werewolves we sensed earlier have returned in force. Surely this is not the time for squabbles amongst ourselves?”

Disa snapped her eyes to him and Sibley swayed in his direction. It was like she wanted to jump in front of him but couldn’t muster the courage. In the end there was no need. Disa acknowledged his argument’s logic and backed off.

“I don’t believe the Weres have the strength or the will to attack us, but someone has breached our defenses,” she said. You have no idea, I thought, glancing at the spot on the floor where blood had been pooling only hours before. She looked into Vayl’s eyes, her own a midnight blue. “We need you, Vayl.”

Only because I was watching him closely did the slight arching of his eyebrows tell me he’d realized something key. He looked down at me. And we had one of our silent conversations.

All right, I shall play on her affections. Her vulnerability may lead us out of this mess after all.

Are you sure? She seems awful strong to me.

I sense desperation. We may be able to get the upper hand.

Okay. But I have my limits.

So I have seen. He gave me such a look of tenderness I nearly jumped him right there. Oh boy, this was not going to be easy. I lowered my eyes, where they came to rest on Ziel, who had somehow managed to open the armoire and pull out one of my favorite dress shoes. A black suede pump with a kitten heel, it was now covered in teeth marks and dog slobber.

“Do you have a death wish?” I asked the malamute, who gazed up at me with the same look of innocence con men give their marks just before making off with their life’s savings.

“All right,” said Vayl, stepping forward to join them. “I will help if I can.”

I started to follow them out the door. But Disa stopped. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Niall said you were under attack,” I replied.

“You are not welcome.”

“I wasn’t asking permission.” I tried to keep my voice level, but it began to tilt anyway. Ziel stuck his nose in my hand. I glanced down. He moved forward until his head slid under my fingertips.

What, after you’ve eaten my best shoe?

He wagged his tail. So I scratched his head and immediately felt the tightening in my chest loosen. Good thing too, or we’d have been hearing more alarms.

When Disa realized I didn’t mean to back down she said, “Fine, you may join your man on the border. I sent him to patrol with Admes when I found him scampering through the halls like—”

And that’s when I went temporarily deaf. My temper’s kind of like dynamite with the fuse snipped to half. Considering that Disa had lit it the moment she’d breezed into my life, we were overdue for a really big bang. My first clue that the time had come? Heat like laser beams around my ears, lancing in toward my face until my entire head felt like I’d laid it under a broiler. “You what?”

Vayl might’ve said my name, but if he had the sound fell like a pebble into a canyon. I realized I’d raised my hands. Did I mean to strangle her? And was that really such a bad idea?

Disa saw something in my face that made her fold her arms across her chest, as if to shield herself. “Well, he wasn’t doing me any good inside.”

“He’s not yours!” I roared. “He’s ours! Where do you get off telling complete strangers to fight your battles for you?”

“I am the Deyrar!”

“You’re a fucking loon!”

I suddenly became aware of several things. Disa’s throat was starting to split and I had moved to within striking distance. Niall was having a hard time keeping a straight face. Sibley’s eyes were round as saucers. Marcon looked like he wanted to applaud, and Rastus had raised a rusty sword, which he shook at me in a manner that he thought was menacing.

“Put that down before you poke somebody’s eye out!” I snarled at him.

“Disa,” Vayl said. “You have once again acted against the terms of our contract.”

She turned to him, her hand flying to her throat as if to hide the changes trying to take place there. “How?” she asked, trying for an innocent expression and succeeding only in giving him the same old plastic stare.

“You have deliberately put my people in harm’s way.”

“We are your people.”

I opened my mouth, one of my taunts just seconds from flying through the air to slap her frozen face, when Vayl made a small motion with his hand. Wait, that gesture said. I have her right where I want her.

“You have wronged me and mine,” Vayl said in a soft, deadly voice. “We will speak of this again. But perhaps now is not the time? Not when the Trust is burning?”

Disa’s hand dropped. The skin of her throat had mended. Her eyes faded to brown. “Of course. The Trust is what matters. Even you can see that. Come, we must see to the breach.”

Vayl gave me a moment’s glance. I nodded. We both knew what to do.

I gave them sixty seconds to go their way. Then I launched.