A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(40)

Twenty more feet. Fifteen. Ten.

Finally, he reached the steps to the back door and stumbled inside without losing hold of his load, miracle of miracles.

A woman grabbed the top crate, swinging it away as if it weighed nothing, heating his face even more. She was probably a vampire. Except she was dressed like a slave.

He set down the second crate beside the others, his muscles burning. He turned to go back outside, and that was when he saw her, walking past the doorway, a mop in one hand, a heavy bucket in the other.

"Lily."

At his call, she slowed and turned. Their gazes met, and she paled, her eyes dark with exhaustion, filling with tears. But she didn't stop, and, a moment later, she was past the door and gone again.

"Lily!"

A hand clamped his shoulder. "Shut up, you moron." Reggie, one of the other slaves, leaned in close to his ear. "You have no idea the sadistic games they'll play if they discover two slaves care for one another. Ignore her. Forget her."

Zack paled, his breathing ragged, his emotions soaring and crashing all at once as he looked around the kitchen. No vampires had witnessed his outburst. Not that he knew of.

But Lily was here, just like he'd thought. And she was okay . . . maybe. Kind of.

God help him if the vampires came after them both.

Cristoff gripped Quinn's arm hard enough to cause bruises as he led her past the dais, through a doorway at the back of the throne room, and into a narrow passage lined with manacles chained to the walls. Walls badly stained with . . . blood?

She was shaking with fury, gritting her teeth to hide it. Damn Arturo. Damn him! She'd believed him. She'd liked him. Worse, far worse, she'd begun to almost trust him. Not that she'd had a lot of choice. But she knew better! People couldn't be trusted and, clearly, definitely not vampires.

But she'd trusted him anyway because she'd so badly wanted what he'd offered. To free Zack. Now he'd given her to this pain-feeder, this monster, without a second thought. She hated him! Hated them both.

But it was more than anger that had her body quaking. Fear crawled through her, rank and terrible.

At the end of the hall, Cristoff ushered her into another room, one far smaller than the throne room. A room that seemed wholly out of place in this house of horrors.

If the room had been anywhere else, she might have called it warm, inviting, with its walls lined with bookshelves and the glass cases displaying all manner of intriguing artifacts - vases, ivory statues, a jewel-hilted sword. On a thick-piled Persian rug, before the wide, welcoming hearth, sat a worn brown leather recliner.

"You're a reader?" she asked her captor with disbelief.

"All great men are readers," he replied coolly.

She wouldn't exactly lump powerful, sadistic vampires with great men, but she wasn't fool enough to offer that opinion out loud. Not to a man who fed on pain. She tried to envision this cruel creature stretched out in his La-Z-Boy, A Tale of Two Cities in his hands, and failed completely.

Behind her, he closed the door and threw the bolt. Her racing heart missed a beat.

A sorceress, he'd claimed. He and Arturo both. A sorceress.

She wasn't. She was just Quinn. Just . . . weird.

Except, she knew better. As badly as she wanted to deny the claim, part of her knew it to be truth. People . . . humans . . . who were simply weird didn't see shimmers in the air and didn't watch their clothes spontaneously change color every time they passed through one.

Was Zach a sorcerer, too? Had she hidden her strangeness from him all these years for nothing?

No. How many times had Angela called Quinn's real mother the witch? Goose bumps rose on her arms. The witch. For the first time, she realized the term had been literal. Angela must have known. Quinn's father must have told her. Yet he'd never told Quinn. He'd let her believe the weirdness was hers alone. Something to be ashamed of. Something to hide. Something evil.

Cristoff gripped her arm. "Now we'll discover the depth of your power, my dear." He looked too young to be using the term my dear. An illusion.

She eyed him warily, trying to remember to breathe through the block of fear that was attempting to wedge itself in her throat. "How are we going to do that?"

Without replying, he steered her to the back wall, to the clear box in which the jeweled sword hung as if suspended on air. He lifted his hand, pressed his palm against the glass, and the top sprung open. As she watched, he lifted the sword as if it really had been floating within that case. How was that possible?

To her surprise, he handed it to her. "Hold it."

She held out her hands, her muscles bunching at the unexpected weight as she took the sword. She considered trying to stab Cristoff with it, but knew she'd never get it lifted before he stopped her. And the thought of what this creature might do in retaliation turned her knees to rubber.

Instead, she studied the beautiful weapon. The steel was etched in intricate vines, the hilt solid gold, inlaid with a row of dime-sized sapphires.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It is the sword Escalla. An old wizard's sword that recognizes great power." His tone turned flat. "Power you do not possess." He took the sword from her hands and replaced it in the case.

"So I'm not going to be of any use to you?" She wasn't sure if that was good news or bad.

He turned so fast that she gasped. Gripping her around the throat, he lifted her off her feet, all but choking her. "A sorcerer's power comes in many forms. You will renew the magic of this city. And whatever else I wish of you." Those black brows, so startling when framed by such white hair, drew together, cruelty leaping into his pale blue eyes. "If you fail, sorceress, I will kill you. Slowly. And very, very painfully."