A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(41)

He released her. "It that clear?"

Quinn stumbled back, coughing, eyes watering, heart pounding like a twenty-person drumline.

"Yes." God help her. She didn't know the first thing about magic, and now her life depended on it? Impossible. She couldn't do this! She didn't know how to do what they wanted. She'd fail, and they'd torture her and kill her, though by then, death would be a blessing.

How could Arturo have done this to her? Damn him to hell. Damn them both. She hoped she didn't succeed in saving their godforsaken city. She hoped the magic did fail, and Cristoff and Arturo both died horrible deaths, then spent the rest of eternity in Hell, writhing in fear and pain.

If not for Zack, she'd be sorely tempted to make certain she did fail. But if her failing might endanger Zack, she had no choice but to fight to save Vamp City. At least until she got him out of there.

Then again, everything Arturo had told her could be a lie. And how in the hell was she supposed to find the truth when she was trapped in the monster's lair?

Quinn paced the tiny room, four steps from one end to the other. Little bigger than a jail cell, the room had bare white walls, a wood floor, a single bed that looked to be little more than a down-filled comforter over a rope-and-wood frame. A small washstand with an oil lamp sat against one wall, a chamber pot on the floor beside it. And there was space for nothing else. The room certainly wouldn't have passed any fire-code inspection. It had no window at all, and the door was firmly locked from the other side and had been from the moment Cristoff deposited her here after showing her his sword.

How long ago had that been? Three hours? Four? She had no idea. She never wore a watch anymore, and her cell phone was tucked into the backpack that had long since disappeared. Not that either of them would have worked in this place. Not that it really mattered. Five minutes or five hours, it would all feel the same.

So she paced, over and over and over, frustration and anger in every stride. And fear. God, she was scared though she'd never admit that to anyone. Though any fear-feeding vampire within feeding distance probably already knew it.

She'd been an idiot to believe that Arturo would help her find Zack after all the times he'd told her to forget him. Not that it would have made much difference if she hadn't believed him. She might have tried to escape last night, but it was doubtful she'd have succeeded. He'd have just caught her and locked her in her room again, then brought her to Cristoff today anyway as he'd clearly meant to do all along. No, it probably didn't matter, but it hurt, as much as she hated to admit it. After he'd rescued her from Francesca, she'd felt a connection with him, as if they were almost starting to become friends.

She was so damned gullible.

She raked one hand through her hair, holding it back from her face as she tried to pull her thoughts away from that bastard. What she needed to do was find a way out of this castle. They called her a sorceress. Was it true? A sorceress? All her life, she'd tried to hide her weirdness. What if she could use it? What if it could help her, for once, instead of ruining her life? She sank down on the side of the bed. And sank until she realized there would be no sitting, so she lay back, propping her hands behind her head, and stared at the lamplight flickering on the ceiling.

If she was really a sorceress, why couldn't she do magic? Only twice had she ever done anything truly extraordinary. The first time was when she was six years old, fighting with her stepmother, mouthing off. Angela had slapped her. Quinn, furious, had pushed Angela back, slamming her against the wall. Without touching her. All she remembered was lifting her hands and wanting Angela to go away. And her stepmother had flown back. She wasn't sure which of them had been more surprised. And she'd never done it again. Not after the spanking her father had given her that night and the threat that if she ever did anything like that again, he'd send her away for good.

At the time, Quinn wasn't sure she cared, except for one thing. Zack. Her baby brother. He'd only been a year old, but from the day her dad and Angela brought him home from the hospital, he'd been hers. And she his. And she'd have done anything to keep from losing him.

Quinn had never pushed anyone like that again even though, as a teenager, she'd tried a couple of times. She'd never understood how she'd done it the first time.

The second time something happened was in high school. Her gut cramped. She'd nearly killed a kid.

Scrubbing her hands over her face, she pushed the memory away before it twisted her up again. She'd never done anything strange . . . magical . . . again.

Maybe it was time she tried.

Struggling out of the rope bed, she stood and looked around the tiny room for something to test her power on. Not the lamp. The chamber pot? She glanced inside, relieved to see it was empty and clean, then picked it up and set it a foot in front of the door.

Backing against the opposite wall, she stared at it. And felt like an idiot. Battling a chamber pot. A new experience, anyway.

So how did this power thing work? Slowly, she lifted hands that felt heavier than they should. As if, on some level, she resisted. It didn't take Freud to figure this one out. For most of her life, she'd denied her power. She'd pushed it down, locked it up, hidden it away. And hated it.

Dropping her hands, she shook them at her sides as she looked at the ceiling. It was time to unlock that door, to let the power out again. If it was still in there. Maybe she'd outgrown it. Maybe she'd never really had it and only thought she had. Angela might have tripped all those years ago. And maybe that kid really had had a heart condition as the adults had claimed.