Venom in the Veins Read online

  Amelia wanting to chew on my bones was bad—very, very bad—but at least she was ordering her men to cut me free. Even better, they were taking me out of the murder room, back upstairs, and outside.

  By now, Fletcher would have realized that things had gone wrong. The old man was probably hiding in the woods, waiting for a chance to storm inside and rescue me. But I was going to meet him halfway. Once I was outside, all I had to do was fight my way through the guards and make it to the woods. Fletcher would be waiting there, and together we could escape.

  So I didn’t protest or struggle as one of the vampires stepped forward, pulled a switchblade out of his pocket, and sliced through my ropes. He grabbed one of my arms, while another vamp latched onto my other one. Together they lifted me up and out of the chair and shepherded me out of the room.

  We walked along the hallway and back up the stairs to the ground floor. It was past midnight now, according to one of the antique clocks on the wall, and the party was obviously over, since I didn’t hear a whisper of sound except for Amelia’s boots stabbing into the floor. The marble let out a small, plaintive wail every time her stilettos slammed into it, as though her boots were a substitute for her fangs, slicing into the stones over and over again. The marble had long ago absorbed the fearful cries and pleas of everyone who had made this same forced walk before me.

  I pushed the stones’ wails out of my mind and peered into every room and looked out every window we passed, searching for any sign of Fletcher. I didn’t see the old man anywhere, but he would never abandon me. No doubt he was watching and waiting for the right moment to help me escape, just like I would have if he’d been captured.

  The vampires forced me out a door and back onto the terrace. Just like I’d thought, the party was long over. Everyone was gone, and all of the food, tables, and champagne towers had been removed. The only things that remained were the white rose petals scattered over the stone.

  My nose twitched, and I had to hold back a sneeze at their stench, which seemed even fouler and more rotten than before. Or perhaps that was just because I knew the grisly death that was lurking here—and that it might claim me as its next victim before the night was through.

  The guards strong-armed me over to the low wall that marked the edge of the terrace. Down below, the man-made lake shimmered like liquid silver, and I could see the reflection of the full moon rippling in the water like a giant eye that kept blinking at me.

  The two vampires released my arms and stepped back so that they were standing in a line with the third man who had been trailing along behind us. The fourth and final vampire stayed inside the mansion for a minute, then pushed a small metal cart out onto the terrace, like the kind you might use at a cocktail party. At first, I thought he was going to make Amelia a drink before she tried to kill me, but then I realized exactly what was on the cart.

  A metal glove.

  Well, calling it a glove was a bit generous, since it didn’t contain any fabric. The metal frame looked more like a brace that you might wear if you’d broken your arm and were waiting for it to heal. I frowned. What was that for? Somehow I didn’t think I wanted to find out.

  Amelia pulled on the metal glove and secured the device to her right arm using a couple of black fabric bands that were attached to it. Then she raised her hand and waggled her fingers at me.

  And that’s when I saw the claws.

  A long, sharp, curved claw tipped each metal finger on the glove. The way the claws glinted in the moonlight told me that they were probably made of silverstone, which meant that they would be tough, durable, and razor-sharp.

  Worry knotted my stomach. Well, now I knew exactly how Amelia butchered her victims. It wasn’t enough that the vampire had fangs. She had to have claws too.

  Amelia circled me, her green gaze slowly moving up and down my body, as though she were in the grocery store, trying to pick out which cut of meat she wanted for dinner. My hands curled into fists. She wasn’t going to snap my neck and suck out all of my blood, and she certainly wasn’t going to cut me to shreds with her claws. No way, no how. Not as long as I still had breath left in my body to fight her.

  After the better part of a minute, Amelia stopped her circling and faced me again. “Who hired you to kill me? Which one of my dear friends was it?”

  Confusion filled me. As far as I knew, Taylor Samson’s grieving mother had asked Fletcher to kill Amelia, so why would she think that one of her friends was behind this? Who else had a reason to want her dead?

  I didn’t know, so I kept my mouth shut. That was almost always the best policy when you were stuck in a dangerous situation where you didn’t really know what was going on or who all the players in the game were—

  Amelia must not have liked my silence, because she swiped out at me with her hand, like a cat casually batting at a mouse. I jerked my head back, but her claws still raked across my left cheek, making me hiss with pain.

  Blood trickled down my face and neck, and several drops fell off my chin and spattered onto my bare feet. I flinched at their surprising warmth.

  Amelia held her metal glove out in front of her, studying the scarlet gleam of my blood on her talons. Then she brought her index finger up to her mouth and carefully licked my blood off that claw.

  “Mmm. I sense some elemental magic in you. Tasty.”

  My stomach roiled, but I forced my fear away and focused on the sting of the wounds in my face, using the pain to fuel my own anger and my own will to survive.

  Amelia snapped her fingers, like I was a dog she was ordering to perform a certain trick. The sound of her metal claws clanking together made me shudder.

  “What’s the matter, girl?” she purred. “Cat got your tongue?”

  I shrugged, still not speaking.

  Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Oh, yes. I could see my dear friends hiring some little fresh-faced ingenue like you to take me out. They don’t approve of my activities out here, although that certainly doesn’t stop them from using my services to hide their own dirty laundry. Hypocrites.” She sniffed at the indignity of it all. “As if anyone actually cares about the pool boys and gardeners that my guards and I snack on from time to time.”

  Rage roared through me at her casual dismissal of all the innocent people she’d murdered, just to appease her own sick, twisted appetites. The victims’ families certainly cared about their dead loved ones.

  Fletcher had shown me the crime-scene photos of Taylor Samson’s body. Calling it a bloody, tattered mess was a kindness. The college kid looked like he’d been chewed up and spit out by a wild animal. I’d seen a lot of dead people, and I’d killed my fair share of folks, but what Amelia had done to that young man was one of the most depraved forms of cruelty I’d ever had the misfortune to see.

  She eyed me another moment, then waved her hand when she realized that I wasn’t going to talk. “It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re not going to live long enough to report back to your bosses, whoever they are.”

  I still didn’t say anything, and anger sparked like matches in her eyes. That was all the warning I had before she lashed out at me again. I managed to twist to the side and avoid the full force of the blow, but those talons still sliced across my shoulder, drawing more blood.

  I ground my teeth together to keep from screaming, although I couldn’t stop myself from letting out another loud hiss of pain. Once again, Amelia smirked at me, then raised her hand and slowly, deliberately licked my blood off each and every one of her claws.

  She watched me closely the whole time, and I realized that she didn’t want to kill me. Not yet. No, right now, she was trying to scare me so badly that I would start weeping, spill my guts about who had hired me, throw myself at her feet, and beg her not to kill me. Well, that wasn’t going to happen—not now, not ever—and it was pissing her off. Too damn bad.

  Once she realized that I still wasn’t going to talk, Amelia lapped up a final bit of my blood from her thumb, then stabbed her clawed index finger t
oward the woods in the distance. “I’ll give you a sporting chance, just like I give everyone. Start running. Get away, and you live.”

  She stopped, waiting for me to ask the inevitable question.

  “And if I don’t get away?” I asked, although the answer was painfully obvious.

  She tapped each of her fingers against her thumb, making those horrible metal claws clank-clank-clank-clank together again. “Then I’ll have a nice little midnight snack.”

  It wasn’t much of a chance or a choice, especially since the four vampire guards pulled out their guns, indicating that I could either start running or die right here on the terrace.

  I had opened my mouth to tell Amelia and her henchmen exactly what I thought of them when I spotted a glint of metal in the woods. The glint flashed again and again, like three sly winks, and my heart lifted. It was a signal from Fletcher, letting me know he was here.

  “Well, girl?” Amelia purred. “What do you say? Aren’t I being generous, giving you a chance to get away?”

  I bared my teeth at her. “Nah. You just want to hunt me down like an animal. That’s why you took my sandals away. So you could hobble me and make me easier to run to ground. After all, that’s what you do out here on your fancy, secluded estate. Well, guess what? I’m not going to play your sick little game.”

  An amused smile curved her lips, and she gestured at the four guards with guns. “And what makes you think that you have any choice?”

  Behind her, a shadow moved in the woods, and I saw the dull gleam of a gun barrel at the edge of the trees.

  My smile widened. “Because I brought backup, bitch.”

  She frowned, and then her eyes widened as she realized that I wasn’t bluffing and that I hadn’t come here alone. She opened her mouth to shout a warning to her men, but it was already too late.

  Crack!

  From his vantage point in the woods, Fletcher fired his rifle and took down one of the guards. The other three men ducked for cover behind the stone wall, as did Amelia.

  “Kill them!” she roared. “Kill them all!”

  But apparently, she didn’t want to stick around to actually see me meet my demise, because she turned and sprinted across the terrace, running away from the fight. So she was a coward, in addition to being a cannibal.

  Crack!

  Fletcher fired another shot, and a second vampire toppled to the ground, screaming and clutching at the hole in his shoulder. In the distance, I could hear the old man yelling at me.

  “Go! Go, Gin, go!”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. We wouldn’t get another chance at taking down Amelia, and I wanted to end her for all the innocent people she’d killed and for the way she had wanted to carve me up too. So I whirled around and darted across the terrace after her.

  I’d only taken a few steps when I was suddenly, painfully reminded that I didn’t have any shoes on. Small bits of dirt and grime stabbed into my feet, making curses spew out of my lips. I took another step forward and slipped on those stupid rose petals that still covered the terrace. At the very last second, I managed to windmill my arms and right myself.

  I couldn’t chase after Amelia if I had to stop every other step, so I reached for my Stone magic and sent it down, down, down, until it had covered my feet and ankles, making them as hard and heavy as concrete blocks and impervious to all the debris that littered the terrace. Once that was done, I concentrated on tracking down Amelia.

  The vampire was quick, but that was to be expected, given all the blood she drank. Still, I could hear her clattering down the steps at the far end of the terrace, and I rushed after her.

  The steps wound down the hill to the lake. I leaped off the last step and sprinted forward onto the sandy shore. My head snapped left and right, and I forced myself to stop so that I could figure out which direction she’d gone.

  The hill above me blocked out most of the light from the mansion, and what little illumination there was quickly dissolved into deep, dark shadows. I glanced around again, but nothing moved in the inky pools, and I couldn’t hear anything over my own ragged breathing and the rapid thump of my heart roaring in my ears.

  Where had she gone? If I lost her, we wouldn’t get another chance to get close to her again, which meant that there would be no justice for Taylor Samson and all the other people she’d killed—

  I spotted a glimmer of metal out of the corner of my eye. That was all the warning I had before Amelia leaped out from behind the stone steps and swiped out at me with her claws.

  I jerked back, trying to get out of the way, but the sand sucked at my feet, and I wasn’t quick enough. Her silverstone claws zipped across my left forearm, cutting deep into my muscles. I screamed, staggered away from her, and reached for my Stone magic, using it to harden my skin into an impenetrable shell. Otherwise, she’d cut me to ribbons with those damn claws.

  I whirled back around to find Amelia licking my blood off her talons again.

  “Mmm-mmm-mmm! You have more power than I realized,” she purred. “I’m going to have to savor you for as long as possible.”

  Before I could move out of the way, Amelia lunged forward, slammed her body into mine, and drove me down to the ground.

  We landed on a piece of driftwood, and the log splintered under our bodies. My head hit a rock buried in the sand underneath, and white stars flashed in front of my eyes. I lost my grip on my Stone magic, and my skin reverted back to its normal texture and vulnerability.

  Amelia snarled and dug her claws into my hair, opening up several stinging wounds in my scalp, but she wasn’t trying to cut me this time. Instead, she yanked my head up and tilted it to the side. I realized what she was up to, and I barely managed to send my Stone magic rushing out into my neck, hardening the skin there, before her fangs snapped against my throat.

  Thunk.

  Thunk-thunk.

  Thunk-thunk-thunk.

  Her fangs might be razor-sharp, but they couldn’t do any real damage against my magic-hardened skin. It was like she was trying to use a couple of dull nails to chip into a solid block of concrete. She growled and tried again but with the same useless result as before.

  “You think that a little bit of Stone magic is going to protect you from me?” Amelia snarled. “Think again.”

  She let go of my hair and positioned herself on top of me. This time, instead of trying to drive her fangs into my neck, she wrapped her hands around my throat.

  And then she started squeezing.

  Amelia and I were about the same size, but drinking blood gave many vampires enhanced strength, which meant that she was far stronger than I was.

  Desperate, I pounded at her with my fists and even tried to buck her off, but Amelia just grinned and tightened her grip on my neck, cutting off my oxygen. White stars began to flash in front of my eyes again. My skin might be hard as a rock, but I still needed air, and she was taking that away from me one slow, agonizing breath at a time…

  I woke up with a snarl, my body tense, my legs twitching, and my hands fisted in the sheets, as though I were still fighting Amelia. My chest felt tight, and my breath came in short, ragged gasps.

  Beside me, Owen murmured something incoherent into his pillow, reminding me when and where I was. The weight on my chest was his arm, which he had protectively curled around me, almost as if he were trying to shield me from my memories. If only it was that easy.

  I lay still and silent until the last, lingering traces of my nightmare slowly vanished. Owen murmured something else, then rolled away from me, flung his arm up over his head, and started snoring, almost as if he knew that his job protecting me was done for the night. I let out a long, slow breath. At least I hadn’t woken him up with my nightmare this time.

  But I couldn’t go back to sleep, not with my mind still churning, so I slipped out of bed, threw on a fleece robe, and left the bedroom.

  Eva, Violet, Catalina, and Elissa were still in the downstairs living room, but they were sprawled across the s
ofas, fast asleep, with books and highlighters strewn all around them. I quietly moved around the room, turning off the TV and laying blankets across the girls to keep them warm. None of them stirred, so I flipped off the lights and tiptoed out of the room.

  I spent the next hour doing circuit after circuit of the mansion, moving from window to window and peering out into the dark night beyond. A beautiful silver frost crusted the landscape, and the grass and trees glinted with sharp needles of ice. It was too cold to snow tonight—but it was never too cold for potential assassins to strike.

  And I had a feeling that Alanna Eaton was coming for me.

  As I did my laps around the mansion, I thought about everything that had happened at the auction, but I didn’t come up with any new answers or insights about what Alanna wanted from Mosley or how Tucker, Mason, and the Circle fit into everything.

  Once again, I wondered if Alanna knew that I was the one who’d killed her mother or if she hated me simply because I’d kept her from getting her hands on Mosley during that attempted mugging. No way to know for sure.

  She should hate me. I hated myself for what I’d done to her, and I hated myself even more for trying so hard to forget about it, and mostly succeeding, until tonight.

  I stared out the window again, but the night was as cold and still as before, so I let the curtain drop back into place and returned to Owen’s bedroom. He was still snoring softly, so I slipped into bed and curled up against him, trying to let the warmth of his body drive away the chill that had sunk into my bones and the cold sting of the past that continually throbbed in my heart.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It took a while, but I finally managed to go back to sleep. I woke up the next morning, got dressed, took a shower, and kissed Owen good-bye before we both went our separate ways for the day.

  I made it to the Pork Pit a little before ten o’clock. After checking to make sure that no one had booby-trapped the restaurant overnight, I went inside and got started on the day’s cooking, including making a vat of Fletcher’s secret barbecue sauce. I didn’t measure the ingredients, but it turned out perfect, just like always. Take that, Sophia.