A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(81)

He couldn't blame his master for punishing her. The sorceress had escaped them, knowing many would die if she failed to save V.C. But this was beyond unnecessary. Still, she'd thwarted the most powerful vampire in Vamp City. If she hadn't been needed to renew the magic, Cristoff would have killed her for that offense. If her magic proved useless, he still would.

With a shake of his head, he forced himself to harden his heart as he'd done all too many times over the centuries. How many times had he looked away? How many times had he turned a blind eye or a deaf ear to the torture, to the barbarity? Too many to count, and he would continue to do so because he was a vampire. An Emora. This is what they were.

And he was loyal to his kind, to his kovena. Above all, to his master.

Quinn Lennox, like so many before her, could not be his concern.

But as he turned toward the door, she stirred, the low sound of misery in her throat damning him.

He couldn't help her. She was suffering as Cristoff wanted her to, and he must leave her the way he'd found her.

Golden lashes fluttered up, her brows drawn in terrible pain above green eyes swimming in agony.

Her fear poured forth, sinking into his pores, sliding down his throat, easing his terrible hunger. A fear he both craved and detested. He didn't want her fear. Not hers.

The darkness. He could see perfectly well despite the lack of light, but with her human eyes, she could not. All she knew was that someone was in there with her.

"It is me, cara. Let me find a light." He lit the oil lamp that had been left in the corner for her, a lamp she'd probably not even known was there.

He turned to find her watching him as her fear slowly began to fade. In her eyes, he saw no damnation, no hatred, no bitterness. Nothing but a terrible emptiness. And an unbearable pain that killed something inside of him.

All his reasoning fell away as the sheer need to relieve her suffering slew his better judgment. Kneeling beside her, he gathered her into his arms, aching at the sound of her agony as he moved her that small amount. Dipping his head, he bit into her wound, sucking out the poison, which could not hurt him, as he drank a small amount of her blood. His feeding on her should alleviate some of her pain and promote the healing of her other wounds.

He couldn't think about the anger, the betrayal, he'd see in Cristoff's eyes when his master realized what his loyal one had done. The only thing that mattered at this moment was Quinn.

As the horrible tension in her body slowly eased, he drew back from the sweetness of her blood before he stole too much and found her gazing at him with confused, weary eyes.

"Vampire?"

He brushed her damp hair back from her face. "Sleep, cara. You are safe."

Her eyes softened with a pain of a different kind. "Please don't make me believe in you again. It hurts too much when you betray me."

Her words sliced him open. "I have warned you over and over against trusting me."

"And yet I keep doing it anyway."

"Don't." His muscles bunched to push her away, to rise and leave her there. But before he could lower her back to the stone floor, her eyes drifted closed, and she slept again.

He stared at her throat, at the slowly healing wound. Never had he gone against Cristoff's wishes. Never. His master would not be pleased. But what was done was done.

He settled on the floor, pulling Quinn firmly onto his lap, tucking her head against his neck. For a long, long time, he sat like that, stroking her hair and back, feeling her warm breath against his throat and listening to her heart beat. It would take time for the poison to fully leave her system, but, little by little, she melted against him, and he knew that the worst of the pain was gone.

He pressed his cheek to her sunlit hair and wondered what in the hell he was going to do.

Chapter Eighteen

Quinn woke, blinking her eyes against the soft lamplight. She was alone in the small cell, feeling almost human again. Her neck still burned though nothing like before. She'd dreamed Arturo had come and taken the worst of the pain. Had it been a dream?

She pushed herself up, looking around clearly for the first time. Her cell was small, and bare, the floor and walls stone, the door heavy wood slats. This place made her first cell look like a room at the Ritz. On the floor below one wall lay a smattering of dust and stone fragments. In the wall above was a divot the size of a man's fist.

Shoving her hair off her face, she leaned back against the wall, still hurting, trying to remember . . .

Memory returned like a fist to her heart, and she doubled over against a pain a dozen times worse than what she'd felt before.

Zack.

She didn't cry. She had no tears left, just a cold, dead numbness. For minutes, maybe hours, she sat like that, struggling to breathe through the pain.

A key rattled in the lock, her door swinging open, but she didn't get up. There was nothing they could do to her that would be worse than what they'd already done. Killing her brother.

It was Arturo who came through the door, a tray in his hand, the smell of food wafting in with him. She hadn't thought to see him again. She didn't want to see him now.

Without a word, he placed the tray on the floor, then turned to her, a pensive look on his face. With a frown, he squatted in front of her and reached for her neck.

"Don't." She jerked back.

His fingers stroked her jaw instead. "I'll not hurt you, Quinn. Let me take more of the poison."