Tentatively, I initiate a soft kiss, grazing my lips across his. His breath catches a little, like he hadn’t expected me to kiss him first. He holds still and allows me to kiss him for a minute before he leisurely slips his tongue inside my mouth, then retreats and runs it over my lower lip. Colour fills my cheeks and I pull away then.
“I, um, I just need to use the bathroom,” I tell him, and he nods with a self-satisfied expression. He thinks I’m overwhelmed by him. Well, I am just a little bit. That tongue thing he did just now was hot. But I also need to set certain actions in motion. I glance back at him shyly as I leave in the ballroom to find that he’s still watching me, his eyes intense.
“Hurry back,” he calls, and I turn away, blinking back guilt ridden tears.
My conflicting emotions are becoming too much to take. I feel guilty for hiding what I’m up to from Ethan, yet I feel I’m doing the right thing by helping Finn to rescue Pamphrock, the slayers and Rebecca.
I wander down a random hallway, no intention of actually using the facilities. There are servers all about the place, but I keep walking until I get to an empty corridor. Hastily, I dig the dowsing rod from my bag and pull it out. I lean back against the wall where there is a slight corner for me to hide behind.
I pull Pamphrock’s ring off and put it in my bag. I’ll try to find Rebecca first. I close my eyes and envision the girl in my head from the picture I’ve seen of her. It only takes a minute for the branch to begin buzzing in my grasp. It gently tugs me forward, unlike the violently strong pull I’d gotten from the metal rods.
I allow my body to loosen, just letting the branch pull me in the direction that I need to go. It stops working for a minute, so I have to close my eyes and picture Rebecca again. This time the branch pulls me a little more urgently, down the long, pristine hallway. I open my eyes when I stub my foot off something to find that I’m standing at the bottom of a staircase. It’s much more narrow and discreet than the massive marble masterpiece at the front of the house.
Suddenly, my arms shoot up with the force of the branch that has Rebecca’s hair ribbon twisted all around it. I guess this means it wants me to go up the stairs. The high heels I’m wearing are starting to hurt my feet, so I shuffle out of them and shove them in my bag before proceeding to ascend the steps bare foot.
This part of the house is completely empty, it surprises me because Gabriel did mention that Whitfield had doubled his security in order to keep Pamphrock and the slayers subdued. Although perhaps he’s keeping them in an entirely different part of the house. The place is huge. It makes sense that he’d keep Pamphrock away from Rebecca. Whitfield’s one cruel vampire, and not allowing the Governor of the North to see his daughter, even one last time, seems to be something that he would derive pleasure from.
I climb the stairs at a moderate pace, all the while glancing back and forth to make sure nobody’s following me and that nobody comes upon me suddenly from the other direction. My heart is pounding and the branch I’m holding in my hands is buzzing more strongly now. It seems that the closer I get to Rebecca, the more it buzzes.
The stairs end and I find myself on the landing of the very top floor. I hide behind the corner of the wall and peer down the corridor. My gaze lands on a tall, dark haired vampire who is most definitely standing guard in front of a white door. I quickly pull myself back behind the corner, my breathing becoming erratic. Oh God, will the vampire hear my heart as it goes thump, thump, thump in my chest? Or will he smell me before he sees me?
I have no idea what to do now. The fucking dowsing rod is buzzing like a maniac, because Rebecca is quite obviously being kept behind that white door. I should have asked Finn to let me bring a stake with me or something, although I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to use it.
I pull my phone from my bag and text Finn, Rebecca’s being kept in a room on the top floor, but there’s a vamp standing guard.
Less than a minute goes by, but it feels like it takes forever for Finn to reply. Finally my phone lights up with a message. I have the sound and vibrate switched off.
Don’t worry, we’ll get her out of there, just go and find Pamphrock now.
I sigh in relief and begin to twirl Rebecca’s ribbon from the branch before replacing it with Pamphrock’s gold ring. It slips easily over the wood. Just as I’m preparing to centre myself and visualise Pamphrock, something zooms past my eyes. A split second later the vampire who’d been standing guard is looming over me. His eyes are dark brown pools, and I can almost see his nostrils flare as he breathes me in.
“You smell good blue eyes, but what oh what are you doing all the way up here?” he asks, there’s a smile touching his lips, a smile that seems pleased. It isn’t a good sign though, he’s only pleased because he’s happened upon an amusement. Something to drown out the monotony of standing guard.
I plaster on the best dumb girl face I can muster and reply, “Oops, I was searching for the bathroom and got lost. I’ll just head back downstairs.” I turn on my heel, but the vampire grabs me by the elbow, stopping me in my stride.
“Not so fast,” he says, and his face is becoming more intense by the second. Scary intense. His gaze wanders over me, as though trying to figure something out. Then he fixes his eyes on mine, and his voice comes out hard and mechanical when he says, “You want to stay here with me, tilt your head to the side and present your neck for me.”
For a moment I’m confused as to why his voice sounds so strange, but then it hits me. He’s trying to compel me to do as he says. Not good. But I can’t let him find out I’m immune to his skills. His eyes start to turn red just as I slowly tilt my neck back for him, pretending his thrall is working. His red eyes widen and his fangs extend, he’s so focused on my neck that he doesn’t see me drop my hand into my bag which is nestled at the side of my hip.
I immediately touch on the item I’m looking for, one of my sharp, black high heels. I suck in a breath for courage and whack him on the side of the head with it. He falters a little because he hadn’t been expecting it, but he soon recovers.
“You little tramp,” he spits and lunges for me, too quick, using his vampire speed. Milliseconds later his hand is clasping my jaw and I feel like if he applies any more pressure he’ll end up crushing it. I swallow and it hurts. Then my hands start to tingle, in a sensation that is both foreign and familiar. My magic.
“Wait a minute,” the vampire whispers in shock, clearly he’s just figured out that his compulsion didn’t work. Wonderful. His red eyes narrow, and he looks left and right down the corridor, as though making sure we’re alone. Then he drags me by the jaw over to the white door he’d been guarding. He presses a few buttons on the key pad next to it and the door slides open. The vampire hurls me inside, finally letting go of his death grip on me. I rub my jaw to ease the pain.
“I don’t know how you did that,” the vampire grits out harshly, “my best guess is that you’re some kind of witch, which means you’re not here to attend the party.”
My hands continue to tingle. The vampire whips a phone out of his pocket and hits a number that’s on speed dial before raising it to his ear. “The Governor’s going to have a great time taking care of you,” he sneers over at me. After he’s said it my hand shoots out and sparks fly from my skin, knocking the phone from his hand. It drops to the floor, sizzling like it’s just been burned.
“What the hell?” he says, his hulking, muscular form advances on me. My hand flies forward again, this time intentionally. Okay, those sparks are a great defence, if only I could figure out how to summon them on command. They trickle from my palm, spilling onto the floor where they are burning into the wooden boards.
Just as the vampire is about to grab hold of me, I throw both of my arms forward and the sparks fly from them like a luminescent rainbow. They flit through the air, like they had done that night outside Rita’s house. When they hit the vampire’s skin they immediately pop and burn, and great big welting red marks rise on his face and arms. He falls back from shock and lands on his bottom. There are gaping burnt holes in his black t-shirt, where the sparks have melted through the material.
“Fuck!” he gasps and hisses at the pain. “What the hell are you?”
“That’s a question I like to know the answer to myself,” I mumble and look away, confused by what I’ve just done to him. I didn’t want to cause him pain, but I didn’t exactly have a choice. Looking away is a bad move on my part, because I don’t notice the vampire grab my ankle, effectively pulling me to the ground.
“No!” I squeal, my hands fly forward in fright as I fall abruptly on top of him. This time threads of glittering sparks stream from them, as though they have conglomerated to form something solid. The stream makes contact with the vampire’s face and chest and his eyes roll back in his head before he passes out. Shit, what the hell was that?