I pulled myself up on the wooden walkway and rolled on to my back, trying to catch my breath. Sea salt ate at my still-open wounds. My vigorous movement, mixed with the icy kiss of the water, had caused them to start weeping. My limbs felt heavy and my heart was banging inside my ribcage. Swimming here had been a fucking stupid idea and I had no idea if I had out-swum the boat—which was damn impossible—but I was out of arms’ length of Brendan and Owen and that had to be good enough for now.
The howls of Wolves had made their way on the cool breeze moments after I had jumped into the freezing water of the Venetian Lagoon, indicating that Rocco and his Pack were in Venice and looking for us.
I just needed to get to the nest before the others. I just needed a few minutes to do what I mainly came here to do—question Marie.
Despite the overwhelming need to rest, I pushed myself to my feet and set off at a steady jog, trying hard to ignore the cramp clutching at my joints, or the fact that my legs were so numb it felt as though they were made of rubber.
My gaze tripped over the shadows, half-expecting to find a Leech or a Werewolf hiding there. Adrenalin coursed through my veins as I dodged and weaved down side streets. I was running blind, hoping that if I kept heading for the centre of the island, I would somehow stumble upon the Grand Canal.
I broke out onto a desolate main street. I blinked, my eyes needing a moment to adjust to the illumination of the bright white orbs which hung sporadically along the building fronts. Looking to my right, I realized I had found one end of the Rialto Bridge. Only the grand staircase that Brendan and I had had to weave our way through earlier lay empty.
I picked up pace, ignoring the burn in my limbs or the stab of pins as the breeze slapped into my frozen wet face and hands. I turned left at the base of the stairs, moving down the pathway we had walked along earlier. The large stretch of paving stones stretched before me. I rushed across them, not stopping until I had passed through one of the arches in the stone wall surrounding the nest.
My steps faltered as I turned the corner leading onto the path at the front of the building.
The walkway appeared desolate, though it had also seemed that way when we’d first found ourselves wandering along the enclosed strip. Darkness almost shrouded the passage, but the streetlights of Venice, which stretched across the seemingly black water of the Grand Canal, cast slithers of light through the tall stone arches. A gust of wind ran past me and I shivered, the small tremble causing drops of water to fly from my soaked clothing and stain the grey slabs beneath me.
A howl pierced the night sky, then another and another; a unison of agonizing cries echoing around the maze of buildings that made Central Venice so unique.
To say that Ken doll was going to be pissed that I had took off was an understatement, but I couldn’t lose this chance. I wasn’t going to lose Marie. I wasn’t going to lose the chance to find out where Marko was. Not when I knew I was so close to finding out.
Pulling my sword from its sheath, I made my way towards the intricate iron gates which were open, held in place by chains that locked into two hoops that protruded from the grey bricks.
Moving past the rough metal, I peered into the square, outer foyer to find the main double doors to the nest stood wide open in invitation, giving me the perfect view of the long, quiet hallway. I inhaled deeply. The stench of ancient earth polluted the air.
With a steadying breath, I stepped through the doorway and past the two round pillars. Three large iron lanterns hung from the ceiling. A mosaic of stained glass caging the bulbs inside, casting fragments of multi-coloured light across the cream walls. The glow from them curled around the sculptures lining the walls, the shadows of their perfect forms stretched across the blank canvas, disfiguring as I moved past them. Funny—I didn’t remember all of this being here, but then my attention had been fixated on Mini Vamp when I’d first been escorted through this elaborate hallway.
My heart thundered in my chest, so loud that I was pretty damn sure it was drowning out the squelch of water in my boots as I tread light and swiftly across the coral and ivory diamond tiles. Droplets of water continued to travel down my skin and beneath my clothes, which already clung to me like a second skin. My curls were a drenched mess. Stray strands had escaped the bun I had shoved my hair in earlier, the wet chunks sticking to my face and neck. A sizzle of awareness buzzed beneath my skin, an odd familiarity setting in, but then I had been trapped in this place hours ago.
I walked past the two sets of closed double doors which sat across from each other. My focus strayed to the enclosed, dimly lit stairwell on my right, which I had been taken up earlier. It was now blocked off by an iron gate similar to the one protecting the front entrance. Another set of doors sat closed to my left, but it was the archway at the end of the hallway that I was drawn to—the only other doors that lay wide open in invitation, and despite the light in the chamber being dim, I knew she was in there, waiting for me.
Oxygen burned my lungs. A stitch had claimed my right side, and the scent of blood from my weeping wounds had my senses peaking.
We had found the others. They were safe and they would be on their way home in the next twenty-four hours. Only this task remains.
Tightening my grip on the hilt of my sword, I moved into the large chamber. No furniture filled the space. All the curtains were drawn. The dark, thick material ran the length of the wall, indicating that the windows stood from ceiling to floor. The walls were painted in panels of patterns so fine, but I couldn’t make out the details. Not that the particulars of the interior of a nest ever really mattered. Although, this was by far the fanciest I had been in. My feet faltered as my gaze landed on him.
Mini Vamp stood like a statue in the centre of the room, his unseeing eyes, like white, misted glass, vacant and icy, focused on me. He could see me. He could see right through me...
The air caught in my lungs as pain seared through my lower back. I lurched, a scream lodged in my throat.
“You should have run while you had the chance.”
His voice sent a chill sweeping across my already frozen flesh. A chill I felt all the way to my bones. Had he been lying, after all? Was all of this a trick? But if that was the case, why had he indirectly told me where the others were? Why had he helped me at all?
I spun, sword loose in my grip, swiping at air. A delayed reaction, which only caused pain to ripple up my spine. Heat pulsed at the base of my back, a seeping warmth drawing the material of my damp T-shirt. The scent of my blood hit me once more. Shit.
“Brave of you to come back,” a female chortled.
Wiping the back of my hand across my eyes, I looked round the room. There was nowhere for her to hide but the shadows which claimed the corners. But why was she even hiding? She had successfully already beaten the crap out of me once. Was it because I wasn’t chained up this time, because she had no one else here to help restrain me?
“What’s the matter, Marie? Are you afraid to face me one-on-one?” I straightened, gritting my teeth at the splintering pain stretching from my head to my toes. “I expected more from a first generation Leech, more from Marko’s Bloodling than peak-a-boo attack.”
“You flatter yourself,” he said calmly.
I did. There was no reason for her to hide from me. Perhaps she wasn’t. Perhaps, this was just a game of cat and mouse to her, and she wanted to draw it out for as long as possible. Despite the fact she should be running for her wretched immortal life, despite the fact that she was no longer safe in her own territory, she hadn’t run. She was either egotistical or foolish, or maybe just clueless. One way or another, she was going to die before the sun rose.
“Face me, Marie,” I growled, tightening the grip on my sword. “Your son at least had the balls to—”
The air left my lungs as a weight barrelled into me.
In the back of my mind, I registered my sword slipping from my hand. A fact that was confirmed as the sound of metal clattering against marble echoed throughout the room. My head made impact with the wall. Pain exploded at the back of my skull. Stars burst behind my eyelids in a rush of glittering colours. I crumpled to the floor.
“Never speak of my son, puttana disgustosa.”
The words were snarled, but seemed distant due to the pounding in my ears. My eyes snapped open as blood coated my tongue. I rolled onto my side, gagging, wanting so badly to throw up, and yet, I had the urge to gulp, to swallow; to drink, and it was so damn strong.
“Pathetic.”
The word hammered at my temples, causing the pain that already cradled my head to stab sharper.
Pathetic. Perhaps I was pathetic. Perhaps I had been fooling myself all these years for clinging on to humanity when every primal instinct inside me hungered for blood, even my own. I was sick. I was no better than the monsters I killed, but deep down, I knew that already... Didn’t I?
“...you are not human, Heather. You have been lying to yourself. Thinking you can survive this way, lead a ‘normal life’ when you were born to be so much more...”
His words echoed in my mind, taunting me even though he stood quietly at the centre of the room.
“It is almost laughable, the idea that you thought you could stop us, destroy Marko after all those before you have failed.”
Breathing fast and hard, I twisted onto my knees. My arms trembled as I tried to push myself up.
“Where is he?” I bit the words out.
Marie’s foot connected with my abdomen. A crunch met my ears. Another scream lodged in my throat. Fists clenched, I curled myself into a ball, sucking in sharp breaths through my teeth as I tried to fight past the pain pulsing inside me.
“Where. Is. Marko?” The words were broken and strained as I tried to lift my head to look at her.
Marie grabbed me by my hair. A strangled cry burst from my lips as she dragged me up, sliding me against the wall. Nausea exploded in my stomach. Numbness claimed my cheeks and neck. I kicked helplessly. My legs were dead weight, but pins and needles shot through my calves each time my boots scuffed against the brick. I couldn’t feel my fingertips as I wrapped my hands round her wrist, feebly trying to break her iron grip.
She grabbed me by the throat with her free hand and pinned me high above her head. My hands dropped to the arm now holding me against the cold wall. My eyes widened as she stepped closer, into the soft stream of light coming through the doorway. If I could have breathed, I would have stopped at the sight of her angular, almost amphibian features.
Sweet Jesus, so this is what a first generation Vampire in full form looks like?
Like all transformed Vampires, her head was void of hair, but the bones beneath her face were moving. Her skin looked pasty and brittle as it stretched across the sharp and unnatural angles of her jaw and cheek bones. Her nose had caved into her skull, but her nostrils were large and wide, bat-like. And her eyes—deep crimson, so fucking inhuman, so lifeless I might have shivered if I’d had the strength to. The skin wriggled across her face... She was still shifting?
How much uglier could she get?
I jolted as something razor-sharp punched into my gut. Blood flooded my mouth, leaking from the corners as I fought to breathe. Tears filled my eyes as I glanced down, noting her free hand had pushed against my abdomen, her fingers embedded deep inside me.
“In the last place you, or any of your pathetic family, would ever think to look for him.”
Reality slowed down, or perhaps it was my heartbeat. Perhaps I was blacking out, but despite the pins and needles that tingled from my fingers straight down to my toes, the numbness that claimed every part of my body, despite the only feelings I had left being pain as she squeezed every breath of air from me, despite that, at this very moment, the only thing I should have been thinking about was that I was about to die, that I had failed my family, my grandmother...Brendan...a bulb pinged in my mind, and I had never seen the light so fucking clearly.
Her tongue slithered towards me, flicking across the blood staining my lips. She shuddered. “You should not have murdered my son.”
A howl echoed throughout the building. Hope fluttered in my struggling heart.
“It is time to leave.”
His voice jolted me, so innocent and calm, completely un-fazed by the scene playing out before him.
I lurched as she pulled her hand from inside me. Through my blurred gaze, I caught sight of the length of her now blood-stained talons as she brought her fingers to my face.
“Die knowing that you have failed, like the rest of your feeble family.”
Bones cracked and her jaw dislocated, her mouth widened, as her fangs extended—
A mountain of black fur barrelled into her.
I landed on the floor. My body screamed in protest, but no sound left me. I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes. Hell, I couldn’t feel my body. Just the pulsating pain that resided in every point she had struck.
Dark shadows moved around the room, accompanied by growls and ear-splintering wails. Angling my head, my misty gaze fixed on Mini Vamp who remained in the centre of the room despite the fact that his nest was filling with Werewolves.
Had he tricked me? Did he really want Marko dead, or had it all been a lie to lure me here? But if that was the case, why did he indirectly help me escape, tell me where to find Brendan and the others? None of this made any sense.
Another thundering howl rang through the building. I moved my focus to the doorway and found a copper-blond Werewolf standing in the frame. His golden gaze landed on me, widening.
My eyes fluttered and the next thing I knew, he was beside me.
“I know where he is,” I rasped as Brendan’s flushed, sweat-slicked face filled my vision.
I’m sure I heard someone once say that things become crystal clear when you are faced with the end of your mortality...or something whimsical and wise of the sort. All I knew was that I’d had an epiphany and I couldn’t help wonder why the fuck I hadn’t seen it all before—it was so damn obvious.
“Shit. Heather?” Brendan’s hands fell to my stomach.
Searing pain exploded outward, stretching to my head and toes. An inhuman cry gurgled in my throat, the action causing more blood to ooze from my mouth.
“Christ.” Tears threatened to emerge in his emerald gaze. His hands moved to my face. “Why—What?” His jaw was tense. A growl vibrated in his throat. “God damn it, Heather. Why couldn’t you have fucking waited?”
A smile touched my lips. “Because, silly Wolf—” I closed my eyes. My brain felt as though it were churning in my skull, “—I now know where Marko is.”
Darkness took me.