Beauty Bites (17 page)

He smiled. “You’re very welcome. Let’s cuddle.” Without releasing me he turned a chair out and sat us both in it, with me between his thighs. I relaxed into him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

So caring. In a way, he knew me better than I knew myself. It was perfect.

He whispered into my hair, “You deserve happiness, Synnove. The forever kind, with someone special.”

I absolutely glowed.

Until he added, “But not with me. You need to marry someone else.”

Chapter Eleven

Chicago, 1816

Fourteen-year-old Ric’s panting breaths stirred the dust on the sheet-covered couch hiding him. Aiden crouched nearby, prying the top off a crate. To Ric’s hypersensitive ears, the boards’ creaks of protest shrieked, “Here we are!”

The tiny female child huddled in Ric’s arms didn’t seem to hear a thing. But she was human.

Aiden finished prying off the top, revealing a painting. “Damn,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“I told you,” the girl piped, her voice unnaturally loud in the dark storeroom. “I watched from the window the whole time he posed for it. But you didn’t trust me.”

“We trusted you, Pumpkin.” Ric stroked her silky hair.

“But you didn’t believe me.” The little girl’s voice was pouty. “Now maybe you do. He doesn’t want anyone to see that picture until he has the painter paint out the gun. If we take it, it’ll keep him from following us.”

“If we can steal it without his knowing. And if we can get it out of here before he catches us.”

“Lots of ifs.” Aiden replaced the crate’s top. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“You and your bad feelings,” the little girl said. “You’re trying to get out of doing your part. But I did my part and now you two have to do yours. Because that’s how partners work, everybody doing their part.”

“We will.” Ric patted the top of her head. “We’ll protect you.”

“Silly Ric. Partners don’t need protecting. I meant our escape. You take me along. I did my part,” she repeated stubbornly.

“You have indeed.” Aiden left the crate to drop a kiss on her head.

Her face cleared. “So now that you see the picture’s real, when do we leave?”

“Tomorrow.” Ric’s heart beat with fierce excitement. It was finally here. After four years, their vague plans for escape from this hell hole had snapped into place with this last piece. “Tonight Aiden will sneak the painting out and hide it. When he has it secured, we’ll be safe to go—”

Bam
. The storeroom door slammed open. “You!”

At first all Ric could see were the glowing red eyes of a pissed-off vampire. But the dry, raspy voice shot acid arrows into the pit of his stomach.

It was Nosferatu himself.

“What are you trainees doing here?”

“Nothing, sir.” Aiden unfolded to his full height, already tall for sixteen. He edged in front of the painting. “We were practicing our concealment skills.”

“Don’t try to bullshit me.” Nosferatu stalked into the storeroom, face half-plated and fangs protruding from between fleshy lips. “Not with her here. You think you’re the first assholes who’ve tried to escape? You’ll never escape me. I’ll destroy you first.”

Fine hair rose along Ric’s spine. The vampire knew. Their plan was falling apart before it had begun.

But their training had been brutally effective; they had a fallback plan, even for what was only supposed to be a short exploratory trip. He glanced at Aiden. They had one shot to get out of this with their skins whole. He flicked eyes to one side, then to the girl, then to the other side of the room.

Barely, Aiden nodded.

Ric counted a mental one, two, three.

He picked up the girl. At the exact same moment, Aiden snatched up the crate. Aiden ran one way and Ric the other.

“Damn you,” Nosferatu snarled. But giving chase was ingrained for a vampire. He flickered into the center of the room where the boys had been, then paused, head churning between them. Before he could choose, Ric and Aiden both spun for the doorway.

They were lucky. Nosferatu had come alone. The doorway was unblocked.

Aiden reached it first, Ric a split second later. They were through like bullets. Both headed left, into the maze of dimly lit underground passageways below the vampire’s house.

Nosferatu sped out behind them.

“What are you doing?” The girl struggled in Ric’s arms as he ran. “We don’t need to run from him anymore! We have the picture.”

“It’s…not safe.” He panted it, fear making his lungs into bellows.

“You’re wrong.” She wriggled out of his grasp.

He’d been running fast, fast enough that hitting the ground would hurt her badly. He spun on a dime and caught her by her waist, managing to keep her from completely cratering. But when he tried to lift her again, she shook him off to stand on her own.

Aiden disappeared around the corner. Nosferatu shimmered to a halt a few yards from the girl.

“You can’t stop us,” she flung at him. “We have the painting.”

“
We
do, do we?” The vampire started moving again, stalking them slowly, his red eyes marking his advance along the corridor. Instilling fear. Even though Ric knew the technique, it was working, his heart hammering so hard it nearly cracked his ribs. Nosferatu went on, “Seems to me only one of you has the painting. If that’s actually what was in that crate.”

“You know it is,” the girl said. “Or you wouldn’t have stopped.” Gloating triumph shone on her face. Ric felt slightly sick. The triumph was premature, the gloat ill-advised.

“I haven’t stopped,” Nosferatu said.

“Please. You’re trying to bluff. But we have the power.”

“Are you so sure about that?”

Ric heard the pair of assassin trainees behind him before he saw them. They herded Aiden around the far corner, his friend still grasping the picture crate. Ric didn’t hold out any hope the pair would help him and Aiden. The training program was cruelly adversarial.

They blocked one end of the corridor. Nosferatu blocked the other. His smile wasn’t pretty. “Who has the power now?” he asked the girl.

Aiden and Ric turned back to back, the girl between. So they were to die, Ric thought. But they’d go down fighting.

Aiden, facing the assassin trainees, snarled, “Don’t be fools. Look at him. Nosferatu is scrawny! What kind of leader is that? We can beat him with ease. We can
all
be free.”

“
Do not listen
.” Nosferatu’s voice echoed like thunder in the narrow corridor. “You will remember only that I am tall and strong. Beautiful.”

Behind Ric came two sing-song voices. “You are tall and strong. Beautiful.”

“He’s lying, Ric,” the girl said. “You trust me, you know he’s lying.”

Ric shook his head to clear it. Nosferatu was lying. That was why the picture was so vital. In person, Nosferatu could use vampire compulsion to overwrite reality with his own illusion. The picture, taken out of that sphere of influence, would convince others of his true nature. Ironic that an image was more true than the actual person.

It struck Ric hard—image was a powerful but double-edged sword.

“I have to admit, this was cleverer than most escape attempts,” the master vampire said in a more normal tone. “I might let the pair of you live. You can go—if you leave the girl.”

“Don’t believe him,” Aiden murmured. “He’ll never let us go.”

The girl elbowed out in front of Ric, hands challengingly on hips. “You want me? Why? You don’t care about me.”

“But I do, my dear.” Nosferatu’s smile, resting on the little human, was genuine. “I love you. More than you’ll ever know.”

“Is that why you locked me away? Wouldn’t let me play with my friends?”

“Those scruffy boys? Come, my dear, they’re hardly friends.”

“Then what are they?”

Nosferatu paused. In a low snarl he said, “Tools.”

Ric’s fangs punched out of his gums. Aiden was right. Nosferatu had never cared about them. That tore it. Ric was fighting his way out, now, whether it destroyed him or not.

He reached out for the girl.

She wasn’t there.

She’d run straight at Nosferatu and slammed into him, human fingers clawing at his eyes. “Liar!”

The vampire held her away from himself while she shrieked and clawed.

“No!” Ric launched himself at Nosferatu, knocking the girl from the vampire’s grip. She scrambled to her feet while Ric faced off against his maker.

Though no bigger than fourteen-year-old Ric himself, Nosferatu was far older. He grinned a mouthful of glinting fangs. Ric stared at the horror of those long, dripping monstrosities.

Nosferatu reached over his shoulder and drew a hidden sword.

Ric fell back a step. His heart was hammering and he knew he couldn’t win, not with Nosferatu wielding sharp steel. But maybe his death could give Aiden time to grab the girl and escape.

Ric leaped for Nosferatu, brandishing a fledgling’s fangs and claws.

The sword swung up, poised to impale him. Ric knew he was dead.

A hand seized him by the waist and hauled him back. The blade whistled inches from his nose.

“Time to go.” Aiden shoved the picture into Ric’s hands and pulled him in the other direction.

“We can’t abandon her!”

“He won’t let her go. Look.”

Aiden was right. Nosferatu held the struggling girl securely under one arm, sword at a low angle in the other.

“There’s no other way. I’m sorry, Ric. We’ll return for her. Watch my back while I take care of these punks.”

The trainees leaped.

Lunging forward on one leg, the black-haired sixteen-year-old dodged trainee blows, sweeping their knives out of their hands as they tried to stab him. Sliding back gracefully, he crossed the blades at one vampire trainee’s neck; a muscular scissor action left the vampire without his head. A quick repeat took care of the other.

Then he seized Ric’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“But what about Eloise?” Anguish tore Ric’s throat as he looked back at the tiny girl.

“Assassins, attend me!” Nosferatu bellowed.

Aiden pulled Ric close and whispered fiercely in his ear, “I’m good, but even I can’t stand against all Nosferatu’s trainees, much less the trainers. We could die here and it still wouldn’t win Eloise her freedom. We have to go.”

“She’s my partner!”

“I’m your partner too. We’ll come back for her, I promise. But now we must hide. Grow in stealth and strength so we can rescue her.
Or her sacrifice will be for nothing
.”

Ric, eyes red with unshed tears, ran.

But by the time they were strong and smart enough to breach Nosferatu’s lair again, Eloise was gone.

Chapter Twelve

“Marry someone else?” My heart dropped into my gut. I twisted in Ric’s arms. My first reaction was:
totally out of the question.

The problem wasn’t the idea of traipsing down that lifelong aisle. The problem was that, standing at the end of my dream aisle, waiting to take my hand, was Ric Holiday.

My head spun like I’d sniffed ether. I wanted to marry Ric Holiday? No, no, no. We were total opposites. Image/substance, vampire/human, male/female… No future in it. He lived in Minneapolis and I…could live anywhere I wanted. But my family was in Meiers Corners, seven hours away…far enough for them not to show up daily yet conveniently close for the holidays.

Donate my brain to science because obviously I was done with it. What I wanted out of a marriage were not things Ric could give me. Honesty. Equality. Aging together. How could an ad man, a vampire, a creature of image in both aspects, give me those things?

I jumped to my feet, wrangling my bunched skirt into place. All my thoughts collided in my head. What came out was, “I’m not…we can’t—”

“I hear running.” Ric stood and deftly put himself away and zipped up. He was helping me recombobulate when the frantic pounding on the door began.

“Mr. Holiday, please, come quick!” The high, tight voice was barely recognizable as Rosie, the Holiday Buzz employee at the reception desk. “The men say they won’t hurt anyone, but only if you come right away.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” Ric reached for the door, stopped and glanced at me with a raised brow. I checked out my skirt and nodded. He unlocked the door and opened it to Rosie’s white face.

“You have to come.” She swallowed hard. “And you have to bring Dr. Byornsson.”

“I like the sound of that even less. What’s going on?”

“They’re holding the employees hostage. They say they’ll kill somebody unless you both come upstairs
right now
.”

A muscle worked in Ric’s jaw. “No. She’s not—”

“I’ll come.” I started toward the door.

“Like hell.” Barring the doorway with one arm, Ric switched his glare to me. “You will stay here until I figure out what’s happening.” He slipped out and shut the door in my face.

“Unless that door locks from the outside, you can’t stop me.” I didn’t raise my voice but I didn’t have to. V-guy. He’d hear.