Page 119 of Thirst
He gave me a very Cain half-smile, dangerous, maddeningly sure of himself. “Have some faith. You’ve got four badass vampires backing you up. Get us in there and let us do the rest.”
He didn’t wait for my protest. He kissed me, quick and hard, and turned me toward the Marchand crypt.
“You—” I shot him a narrow-eyed look over my shoulder.
He flashed his fangs, an alpha vampire who’d made up his mind. “Some arguments you’re not going to win, love. Now go. Everyone else is in place by now.”
A gust of wind kicked up, scattering powdery snow across our boots. I took a steadying breath, centering myself, then pictured Jérémie, a QCS soldier and a member of the lair, and began to walk. Within seconds, my body tingled, the glamour settling into place.
Cain followed in the shadows. I crouched to open the trap door camouflaged in the grass, the one leading to a tunnel that bypassed the crypt. The secret entrance that I hoped Nazaire would’ve forgotten I knew about.
That’s when I felt it, a fierce, all-consuming protectiveness that could only be coming from him. Every muscle in my body went tight. I flicked a glance at where I sensed he stood.
This wasn’t good—it was bad. Very, very bad.
33
Cain
Nyx hadn’t lied about how fast she could pull a glamour. From one stride to the next, she morphed from a sexy, long-legged redhead into a lean-hipped man, taking on the look and gait of Jérémie like she’d been born in his skin.
From the shadows, I watched as she pulled up a square of grass under a pine, revealing a heavy iron trap door concealed in the soil. Her fingers flew over the keypad, ten digits in rapid succession, and the door opened on well-oiled hinges.
The rest of us left the shadows one by one as planned—Brien first, then the others, with me bringing up the rear. Nyx waited until we all made it through the trap door, her body angled so that the only person visible on camera was her, then followed.
By the time I dropped into the tunnel, the other five had melted into the gloom. I did the same. Nyx believed Perla was being kept on a level below the main lair, a level accessible by only one staircase near the lair’s great room. Nyx set off into a narrow passage, the rest of us following in the shadows, heading for the great room.
Twice, she was forced to enter the shadows herself when other vampires crossed our path. I watched her closely. Glamouring yourself while dipping in and out of shadows was a brutal drain. If her energy faltered, she was screwed—we all were. But she had to keep it up. If any of the QCS vampires had recently seen Jérémie elsewhere in the lair, the whole plan could collapse.
Several twists and turns later, we reached the great room, a huge, vaulted chamber that could’ve been ripped straight from a German castle. Nazaire was a wealthy sonuvabitch, and his lair had been built to both impress and intimidate. Thick oak arches ribbed the ceiling like exposed bone. A hulking iron beast of a chandelier hung in the center, its squat red candles throwing blood-tinged shadows across the floor, and faded tapestries covered the stone walls.
A long black table stood at one end of the chamber, and at the other, a fire smoldered in a hearth big enough to roast a pig in. In between were a handful of couches and armchairs in rich velvets and silks. Fortunately, only a few members of the lair were present, and they barely glanced up as Nyx headed to the kitchen, still in the form of Jérémie.
In the kitchen, Nyx slapped together a sandwich and tucked it into a cloth bag along with a water bottle. The next stop was a wooden door etched with a bat, wings spread wide. Nyx rapped on the smooth wood and it creaked open. A woman in a QCS uniform stood framed in the doorway, one hand on the dagger at her belt.
Nyx opened the bag, showing her the sandwich and bottle. “Food for the prisoner,” she said in French.
The guard nodded and waved her inside, and I slipped in after them. Brien and Twilight were with me, also in the shadows. Per the plan, Talon would stay at the top of the stairs and James and Adrian would wait by the door at the opposite side of the great room.
We stood on a landing, a staircase descending into darkness below. Leaving the door open, the guard unhooked a kerosene torch from the wall, its flame casting jagged shadows on the limestone walls. She motioned Nyx to follow her. I trailed after.
At the bottom, three tunnels branched out like veins. The guard veered left, stopping at a door built to hold a vampire—two-inch-thick wood reinforced with wide silver bands, crossed in an X. She slid the torch into a bracket and drew an ornate brass key from her pocket. The door unlocked with a rusty groan and she pushed it wide.
Perla sat slumped against a stone wall, arms wrapped around her legs, still in the same torn navy dress. She looked like she hadn’t moved since the photo had been taken. She was barefoot, her right foot swollen, the wounds on her throat crusted with blood.
Her eyes lifted to the guard. She moaned and recoiled, pressing herself against the rough stone like she hoped it would swallow her.
“S’il te plait,” she said in a cracked voice. “No more.”
Something in me clenched. Whatever softness I’d been born with had been beaten out of me before I turned ten. But to brutalize a woman just for befriending Nyx? A woman who’d served Nazaire loyally for years?
This wasn’t discipline. It wasn’t even punishment. It was the kind of cruelty a sadist used to remind everyone who held the leash.
“A meal,” the guard informed Perla in clipped French. “You get ten minutes. So eat fast.”
Perla’s gaze went to the bag in Nyx’s hand. She moistened her lips, then snatched it, her movements jerky and uncoordinated. She unscrewed the water bottle with trembling fingers and gulped some down before tearing into the sandwich.
The guard turned toward the door. That was my cue.
