Blood Born Read online

  She was scared, as well. Sorin knew she’d been up to something, he just didn’t know what. If he found out she could travel beyond these walls, if he knew she could see her family and actually speak to Emily—if he found out she was capable of spying on them all, she’d be dead before her body hit the floor.

  She was going to die. She’d accepted that long ago. But not until she saw her family free, dammit! And somehow she had to find a way not to let Sorin and Loman and others of their kind loose on the world. Whatever she did, she knew it wouldn’t go over well with her captors. No, she didn’t have much of a chance at all. She might as well not even hope for a happy ending.

  Tired as she was, eyes heavy and scratchy, Nevada lay in the bed unable to sleep. Her heart was beating hard, her mind raced. She’d love to peek in on her family again, or allow her spirit to roam the building, searching, listening for clues as to how she might see her family freed, but she was too tired for magic, too exhausted to do anything except lie in bed, wishing for sleep and blinking tears from her eyes.

  There had been a time when she’d slept in complete darkness, secure in her own room, certain that nothing could touch her. That had been before she’d been taken, before she’d known who she was and what she could do … before she’d known that monsters were real. Now she slept with the bathroom light on and the door wide open, and a table lamp on—two lights shining, in case a lightbulb burned out in the night. She didn’t want to be in the dark ever again, didn’t want the freakily silent vampires to sneak up on her, not even Sorin. Maybe especially not Sorin.

  Not that seeing the vampires coming would change where this was going. The end was coming. She felt it; she even embraced it. But was that end for her alone, or was it also coming for everything and everyone she loved?

  If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he never would’ve believed it. Jimmy followed the sword-toting man up the basement stairs, through the house, out the front door, where the sky was just turning gray with dawn.

  Once outside, the man stopped, lifted his head, took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, as if the air smelled wonderful to him. Then he turned to Jimmy, his expression hard and serious. “We will need an army.”

  “Uh, I don’t exactly have one of those handy. Who the hell are you?” He’d asked that question before, but hadn’t gotten an answer.

  “I am Rurik.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured that out for myself, but that doesn’t really answer the question.” A name didn’t begin to answer all his questions. “I’m Jimmy, by the way. Jimmy Elliott.”

  “I know,” Rurik responded impatiently. “You are my—” He paused, his brow furrowed. “You are mine,” he finished.

  Oookay. Let’s don’t go there. “Why are you here?”

  “To stop the vampires. To turn the tide. Without us, they will win.”

  Jimmy scratched his jaw. He shouldn’t be surprised that Kate had been right. Vampires. He’d really wanted to believe that she was wrong on this one. “Without who?”

  The sky was coming alive, the day beginning. The lightening sky washed across the strong lines of the man’s face as he answered. “The warriors who serve mankind for all eternity.”

  “But …”

  “No more questions.” Rurik turned toward the rising sun. “You must take me to Washington, D.C.”

  “My father’s funeral is—”

  “You will honor your father after the battle is done.” Rurik turned his head and glared at Jimmy. “You will honor his death by defeating those who took his life. Do you have a weapon?”

  “Hell no!” Jimmy responded, glancing at the hilt of the warrior’s sword.

  “You will need one.”

  “I’m not … that’s not … I think there’s been a mistake. I’m not a warrior.”

  Rurik smiled. It was white and wide and terrifying. “You will be before I am finished with you.”

  Melody was lying back on the hard hotel bed, waiting out the daylight hours, waiting for sleep to come, plotting how she might kill Jimmy Elliott the younger, when her cell phone rang. She couldn’t drain him, she reminded herself. There would be no more draining the conduits. She repeated that a couple of times, making it a mantra. From here on out she’d follow the rules. She’d have to, if she wanted to keep her head. She simply wouldn’t drink from the conduits at all, that way she couldn’t get carried away.

  The cell rang again, and she grabbed it from the bedside table, smiled when she saw Sorin’s number. She missed him. Maybe he was a hard man—a hard vampire in the midst of hard vampires—but he was also hot. And great in bed. And powerful. With the coming of a new order, it couldn’t hurt to align herself with someone who was up there from the get-go.

  “Miss me?” she asked as she answered the phone.

  “You’re too late,” Sorin snapped.

  “Too late for what?”

  “The conduit you were sent to kill has brought his warrior through.”

  Melody sat up, no longer at all tired. Daytime or not, she was fully awake. “Well, crapola. What do I do now?”

  “He’ll be coming here,” Sorin said. “He’ll try. It’s your job to make sure he doesn’t make it.”

  The one window in the room was covered with lined curtains, but Melody could see the tiny crack of light that edged the fabric. Daylight had arrived in full force.

  “I’m not strong enough to go out in the daytime.”

  “You’d better get strong enough,” Sorin said, his voice so soft she almost couldn’t hear him. “You can’t let the warrior have a twelve-hour head start.”

  “He can’t fly, either without a plane or on one, not without ID and such. He won’t have time for rounding up a fake ID if he’s already headed your way,” Melody said as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. “He’ll be traveling by car, maybe with his conduit, maybe on his own, if he knows how to drive. Can Jonas still pinpoint him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Melody threw her small suitcase onto the bed and opened it. The clothing she’d packed for this trip wasn’t sufficient for her to go out in the daytime, since most of her outfits were designed to show a lot of skin, but she’d manage. She’d call the front desk. With a decent enough tip or a touch of glamouring, she could get someone to make a trip to WalMart for long pants, a floppy hat, a scarf, and gloves. The sparkly flip-flops she’d packed wouldn’t do, either. She couldn’t let the sun touch her toes. Talk about ruining a pedicure! “I won’t be at my best today, but I can make some headway.” She didn’t have any choice. “I’ll finish the job tonight.”

  “You’d better, or don’t bother coming back.”

  Melody wasn’t smiling, but she tried to put a hint of good humor into her voice. “Come on, sugar, you wouldn’t hurt me. I’m your own child.”

  “You’re right. I couldn’t kill you.”

  Now Melody managed a smile.

  “But neither would I stop Regina from doing it.”

  Sorin ended the call without even a simple “good-bye.” Great. Both as a human and a vampire, Melody had always been on much better terms with males than she had with females. Women never liked her; men always did. Regina wouldn’t hesitate to take Melody out if the warrior she’d been assigned to stop reached D.C.

  Which meant if she didn’t complete her task tonight, she might as well get her ass as far away from Washington as possible. Not that she wasn’t going to try to do as she’d been ordered; the idea of being with Sorin was too attractive to give up without at least trying.

  Melody put her cell on the bedside table, picked up the hotel phone, and dialed the front desk. She wished she had the power of Voice, the way some older vampires did, but she had to be looking into her subject’s eyes when she glamoured them. Luckily, she didn’t need any special powers to get men to do as she asked. All she had to do was get one of them to her door, and then she could do her thing and get what she needed.

  “Hey, honey,” she said in a friendly tone, wonder