"Bitten and unbound," the undead vampire said, and a shudder rippled through me. "Free for the taking. I sense two demon marks on you. I feel two bites, but only one reached your soul, and so carefully - so careful she was, a kiss so soft, but a whisper. And someone...someone has put their mark in your very...cells. Claimed by many, belonging to none. Who would look to me to get you back?"
"No one," I rasped, and his eyes fixed on mine, stilling my next word. I stood upright under his control and would have fallen if his will wasn't propping me up.
"Please," Ivy whispered, standing beside Jenks slumped on the floor. "I beg favor."
With a light interest, DeLavine touched the unscared side of my neck. "What?" he said.
"Leave her as mine." Ivy's pale face made her eyes look even blacker. "I ask this as a thank-you for helping Peter." She licked her lips and held her arms down. "Please."
DeLavine lifted his eyes from me, and I blinked, finding a thread of will returned to me. "This," the vampire said, lifting my chin with a finger, "should belong to a master, not you. Piscary has indulged you beyond reason. You're a spoiled child, Ivy, and you should be punished for stepping out of your master's influence. Taking her as mine will bother Kalamack and put me in good with Piscary."
Ivy's eyes flicked to me and away. I could almost feel her thoughts realign themselves, and my pulse hammered when her posture melted from tense to seductive.
God save us. She was going to give him what he wanted so he would leave me alone. I couldn't let her do this. I couldn't let her turn herself into filth for me. But as tingles raced through me to set my mind confused, I could only watch.
"Such a sweet sip," DeLavine said, his back to Ivy. A new glint was in his eyes, making me unsure if he was talking about Ivy or me. "A wolf in sheep's clothing, stinking of Brimstone, but still very weak," he said. "I might kill you by mistake, witch. But you'd enjoy it." He inhaled, taking my volition. Exhaling, his breath under my ear sent a jolt of desire right to my core. "Do you want this?" he breathed.
"No," I whispered. It was easy. Ivy had given me the fear to find the strength to say it.
But DeLavine was delighted. "No!" he exclaimed, his pupils wide and dilated, his lust-reddened lips curling upward. "Curiouser and curiouser." His fingers traced the line along my shoulder that I knew he wanted to send his nails, digging to cause pain and a delicious path of blood to my neck that his mouth could follow.
Eyes on mine, he smiled to show his long canines. The thought of them sinking into me pulled a shiver from the depths of my soul. I knew how it would feel, and the fear of my blood being raped from me mixed with the memory of how good it could be. I closed my eyes, starting to hyperventilate, fighting him, losing to him. DeLavine eased closer, almost touching. I could sense his need to crush my will rise higher. He didn't care about Peter. Not anymore. I was too damn interesting.
"So strong a will," he said. "I could flake your consciousness from your soul like stone."
He moved, and behind him I saw Ivy gather her resolve. No, I pleaded silently, but her fear for me was stronger than her fear for herself. Guilt, shame, and relief kept me silent when, shifting forward with a sigh to tell him where she was, she touched DeLavine's shoulder.
I watched in horror and fascination as Ivy's long leg slipped between his from behind. She curved a sinuous arm around his chest so that her fingertips played with the base of his neck. Tilting her head, she sent her lips to mouth his ear. And while DeLavine looked at me with Ivy bringing his hunger fully awake, she whispered, "Please?"
My blood pounded as she put her teeth on his ear and tugged. "I'm fond of her...." she added. "I want to keep her the way she is."
DeLavine took his eyes from me, and I felt the tears start, even as the vampire pheromones and watching them play whipped my libido high. This was so wrong.
Ivy flowed around him to get between us. Standing with her legs wide, she ran her hands over him between his suit coat and shirt. She threw her head back, and a laugh of delight came from her, shocking me. "I can feel your scars!" she giggled, turning it into a soft, desire-filled sound of deviltry at the end. She was Ivy, but she wasn't. Playful, sensual, and domineering, this was a side of her she hadn't wanted to show me. This was Ivy doing what she did best.
Both captivated and repulsed, I couldn't look away as she bent her lips to his neck and his eyes closed. He exhaled, his hands trembling as he grasped her wrists and held them down.
"Tonight?" Ivy whispered, loud enough for me to hear. And DeLavine opened his eyes, smiling wickedly as he met my gaze.
"Bring her."
"Alone," she countered, pulling her hands from his grip to explore his inner thigh. "What I want to do would kill her." She laughed, ending with an eager moan. The playful sound of desire turned my stomach. This was probably what she had been in those years she wouldn't talk about, and she was returning to it to keep me safe.
God, how did I get to this place where my friends sell themselves to keep me alive?
Ivy shifted, doing something I couldn't see to make DeLavine's eyes widen. Peter hissed, and I wasn't surprised to find a jealous, sullen expression on his face. The woman behind him was running her fingers over him in distraction, but it didn't appear to be helping.
"Innocence can be exhilarating," Ivy murmured. "But experience? There's a reason Piscary indulges me," she said, the syllables as certain and warm as summer rain to make my pulse quicken. "Would you like to know...why? Not many do."
DeLavine smiled. "Piscary will not be pleased."
"Piscary is in prison," she said, pouting. "And I'm lonely."
The pheromones they were kicking out had tingles of passion pulsing through me. I was either going to climax where I stood or vomit. Ivy had left Skimmer and followed me here to escape her past, and now she was returning to it to save my life. I was going to unwittingly kill her. I made her bite me, and now she was whoring herself to keep me safe. She thought I was going to save her, but I was going to kill her.
All but forgotten, Peter stirred. "Please, DeLavine," he said sullenly, and I despaired at the filth I was wallowing in, the system that Ivy had worked within her entire life. "She knows the spells," Peter continued. "I hurt so badly."
DeLavine let go of my will. My pulse beat wildly, and with his support ripped away, my muscles gave a massive spasm and went limp. Barely conscious, I crumpled.
"For you, Peter," I heard from above me as I worked my arms under me so I could push my face off the floor. Dizzy, I wedged myself into a seated position. The undead vampire was ignoring me, his gaze tracking the perimeter of the room. Ivy had unwrapped herself from him and was standing at the curtained window, her head bowed as she tried to bring herself down. Guilt hit me, and I took a breath that was almost a cry.
"There are a few things I want from this," DeLavine was saying, having apparently forgotten me lying on the floor. "Peter wants his last sight to be of the setting sun."
"That can be accommodated," Ivy said softly. Her voice was still husky, and I ignored the memory of hearing it whisper in my ear. Head down, I crawled to Jenks, checking his pulse and pulling back his eyelids to see if his eyes dilated. He was okay, and I slumped against the front of the couch, content to stay on the floor. Ivy wouldn't look at me, and quite frankly, I didn't want her to. How could...How could I ever repay her for this?
"Accommodated?" DeLavine scooped up Rex and looked into her green eyes. The cat looked away first. "There is no accommodate. Do it."
"Yes, DeLavine." Ivy turned, and I stifled a shudder at the thinnest brown rim to her eyes. They were almost fully dilated, and just standing there breathing, she looked like she wanted to pin someone to the floor and have at it.
Peter looked ticked that Ivy was taking something from his mentor that he wanted, and Peter's future scion was frightened as she saw her future, turned into nothing more than a source of blood and memory. When Peter died, she would have a shell of the man she fell in love with. She knew it, but she wanted it all the same.
"I'm concerned about possible damage to his facial structure," DeLavine said, gently setting Rex down and going to Peter. Not a hint of his blood lust showed, but I could feel it, shimmering under his voice. "Auto crashes can be extremely disfiguring, and Peter has suffered so many indignities already."
From the floor, I watched DeLavine run a finger down Peter's jawline, the touch both possessive and distant. It was nauseating. Peter's temper eased, his manner softening.
"Yes, DeLavine," Ivy said. "The charms will minimize that."
Oh, yeah. That's why they had come to the motel. "I, uh - " I jerked when everyone's eyes fell on me. "I need a swab of Peter's mouth so I can sensitize the disguise charm to him."
Ivy's hunger was chilling. Recognizing my fear, she pushed herself into motion, going into the kitchen and my spelling supplies strewn all over creation. Nick backpedaled out of her way. Head down, she shuffled about, striding back to Peter with a cellophane-wrapped cotton swab. I would have at least watched to be sure Peter gave a gloppy enough sample, but DeLavine was moving again.
I pulled myself into a ball as he headed for me. Fingers grasping, I fumbled for Ivy's sword, pulling it awkwardly out from where Jenks had let it fall. This was wrong, so wrong.
DeLavine gave me a raised eyebrow glance, then dismissed me as he picked up the artifact, sitting alone and vulnerable on the bedside table. He had looked at me, but it had been different. He had seen me, calculated the risk, and dismissed me, but this time he'd looked at me as a possible threat and not just a walking sack of blood. I wondered what had changed.
"This is it?" he murmured, casually moving out of the sword's easy reach.
My fingers tightened on the hilt, but I didn't think it was the blade that had him watching me while seeming not to.
Ivy came closer, the open cellophane-wrapped swab in her grip. She seemed to have regained control, only a remnant of her runaway hunger perceptible in her subtlest movements. "It will be destroyed with Peter," she said, but DeLavine wasn't listening, focused entirely on the ugly statue perched on the tips of his fingers.
"Such a wonder," he mused aloud. "So many lives ended forever because of it. It should have been destroyed when it was unearthed, but someone got greedy - and now they're dead. I am...wiser than that. If I can't have it, no one will." DeLavine took the thumb of his free hand and pierced the tip of his index finger. "Peter?"
"Yes, DeLavine?"
I held my breath as a drop of blood welled. With a careful attention, the undead vampire smeared it onto the statue. A shudder passed over me as it soaked in to leave a dark stain.
"Make sure," DeLavine said softly, "that this gets destroyed." He looked at me and smiled to show his long canines.
"Yes, DeLavine."
With a confident satisfaction, DeLavine set the marked statue down. My lips curled as it seemed to me that the pain etched in the figure's face was deeper. Turning with an exaggerated slowness, the undead vampire sent his gaze across the room, landing on Nick scrunched in the corner of the kitchen. "This is repulsive," he said, and suddenly the room was. "A dirty little hole stinking of emotion. We'll stay somewhere else. Peter, we are leaving. Audrey will make the arrangements to get you where you need to be come sunset."
Audrey, I thought, glancing at the woman. So she had a name. I shifted my feet so he wouldn't step on them, and he made his casual way to the door, snagging his coat on the way. Peter slowly rose, Audrey helping him with a professional grip that wouldn't hurt her back. The ailing vampire met my eyes, clearly wanting to talk to me, but DeLavine took his other arm in a show of concern born from memory, not love, and escorted him to the door.
Ivy opened it for them, and DeLavine hesitated while Peter and Audrey continued out.
My grip tightened on the hilt, but I could do nothing when the vampire bent to whisper in Ivy's ear, his hand curving about her waist possessively. My pulse pounded as she looked at the floor. Damn it, this wasn't right. She nodded, and I felt as if I had sold her to him.
The door shut behind him, and her shoulders slumped.