A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(74)

"Do you have your bearings?" she asked Marcus, who'd waited for her.

Delilah touched her arm. "I know exactly where we are. Where do you want to go?"

"The gladiator camp."

Delilah lifted a brow, but asked no questions. "I can take you there."

"Lead the way."

Jeff scowled, but Quinn ignored him.

They walked through the empty streets as they had before, disappearing into the shadows and the old buildings whenever the sound of a carriage or automobile sounded nearby. Quinn thought she heard Arturo's Jeep, but only in the distance. He couldn't find her. She wouldn't allow that to happen.

"How long have you been a Slava?" Quinn asked the woman, as they walked past a block that consisted now of little more than rubble.

"Oh, I don't know. Close to seventy years, I imagine. I was captured only a few months after the stock market crash of '29."

"A little over eighty, then."

"Is it? It makes so little difference here. Nothing ever changes."

"Do you have someplace to go, Delilah?" Marcus asked. "Where we're going . . ."

The woman waved a hand absently. "You're trying to get home, I know. And, yes, I have someplace. My sister is married and free. If I can find her, she'll take me in."

Quinn frowned. "Is she in a hidden enclave, too?"

"Yes. In a way."

Clearly, she didn't intend to say more, and Quinn couldn't blame her. She'd already run afoul of one enclave. The less anyone knew where she was going, probably the better.

They continued on in silence down a couple of blocks of run-down buildings before once more crossing the street. A movement ahead caught Quinn's attention. All their attentions, it seemed, for they stopped as one.

A vampire?

"Wolves," one of the women whispered, the word radiating fear.

Quinn glanced at Marcus. "I thought the wolves lived in the Crux."

"They do," Delilah replied, "but they often hunt in the Nod - the unclaimed boundary lands."

"What do they eat?" The moment the question was out of her mouth, Quinn wanted to take it back. "Do I want to know?"

"Meat," Delilah said simply. "Human or vampire."

Lovely. Vamp City was definitely not a people-friendly place.

In front of her, two of the slaves pulled switchblades out of their pockets. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Marcus pull one, too.

"One wolf isn't going to take on this many of us," he murmured. "Not when it's obvious we're prepared to fight."

From the building across the street ran another, and another, and still another, until there were ten in all.

"Too bad it's not just one," Quinn muttered.

As the wolves began to circle them, their lips pulled back in hungry snarls, Delilah stepped away from Quinn, into the street, her arms up as if in surrender. None of them called her back. Quinn had a feeling that none of them knew what she was doing.

"I am Delilah," the woman called. "Sister to Nirina, the wife of the alpha of the Herewood pack. I ask that you deliver me to my sister. And I request safe passage for my friends."

One of the wolves, a large gray one, broke from the others and walked to Delilah, sniffing her thoroughly, before backing up several steps. As Quinn watched in amazement, the wolf shifted into a man in a process that was neither fast nor slow, and appeared to cause him little pain. He stood naked, a large man with a hard-boned face and a dark braid that hung halfway down his back.

"You are who you say." He looked at the humans with dispassion. "We'll not take them all, but the price of your passing is two. You may choose which two, if you like."

Delilah shook her head. "They are new to V.C., with wives and husbands and children mourning them in the outside world."

"There is no escape for them."

"There may be. Several of the new ones have managed to escape through the sunbeams." Which was false as far as Quinn knew, but she wasn't about to correct her. "Let these people go, I beg of you. Let them escape this place as we cannot."

The werewolf frowned, eyeing the group of them, then turned back to Delilah. "You will owe me a boon, sister of Nirina." His gaze skimmed the woman's body before slowly, hungrily, returning to her face. "And I will collect."

To Quinn's surprise, Delilah smiled. "Thank you." She turned and ran back to Quinn, throwing her arms around her neck before releasing her. "Godspeed."

"You're going to be okay?" The werewolf was huge. In every way.

A hint of mischief lit Delilah's eyes through the sadness that would remain for some time, Quinn suspected. "I need to forget. And to kick up my heels a bit. He's just what the doctor ordered."

Quinn snorted, then laughed. "Good luck, Delilah."

By the time Delilah turned away, the werewolf had returned to wolf form. He waited for Delilah to join him, brushing against her leg as she ran her hand through his fur. The other wolves followed, and the pack disappeared behind the buildings across the street.

Quinn had been watching for street markings and had seen enough to know they were on G Street, only about five blocks from her rough understanding of the gladiator camp's location. Finally.