Obey Me (11 page)

His dark brows jumped high on his forehead in an
Oh, yeah?
expression. “And you’ve chosen to believe his version rather than mine. Interesting. Why is that? What could’ve persuaded you? Hmmm…perhaps it has something to do with that mark on your neck.”

My hand went to the spot despite myself. “If you hadn’t spiked my drink…”

“You know, blood is a lot like virginity. Give it away too easily and the boy will never respect you.”

“Is that how you did those girls?” I asked, ignoring his taunt, my reporter instincts bubbling to the surface. “Did you trick them into ingesting your venom and then used Alex’s ring to make it look like he did it?”

He looked at the ring on his middle finger, the design a match to Alex’s mark on my neck, and then looked at me. “You know about the ring, do you? Of course. Alexander told you. Trying to weasel his way out of his responsibility. Offering up any possible excuse no matter how improbable.”

Offense overcame common sense. I huffed, stepping deeper into my apartment. “He’s not responsible. You are.”

“But you couldn’t know that for sure. As far as you knew, he was just trying to get away with murder, using every outlandish story he could think of.”

I stepped closer poking a finger at my chest. “I’m the one who figured out you’d used his ring. If it weren’t for me, Alex wouldn’t have known you were around back then. He wouldn’t know you were behind any of this now.”

“Indeed.” Octavius dropped his foot to the floor, leaning his forearms on his knees. He was still smiling, but his expression had darkened somehow, seemed more menacing. “You’ve disrupted a very tidy plan, Sophie. A plan that’s been a century in the making. Bad girl.”

I swallowed hard, fighting that
oh-shit
reflex again. “I’m a reporter.” It was like a word puke—panic making my brain back up.

“I know.”

“Don’t…don’t you want to tell your side? Why’d you do it? Revenge, jealousy, in…sanity?” I swallowed in the middle of the word. Probably wasn’t a good idea to call the serial killer sitting on my couch insane.

“Those are my only options? Why don’t I let you decide?” He leaned back again, resuming the relaxed pose, arms out, ankle crossed over his knee. “Like all acts of war and violence committed by man, this is over a woman. Bess and I were happy, and Alex ruined that. She was mine. She was all I had, all I loved, all I lived for, and he took her away.”

“So…jealousy,” I said, but he didn’t seem to hear. He just kept talking, staring in my direction but not at me, staring at nothing.

“I found them. It didn’t take long, less than a month. Bess and I had a special connection Alexander couldn’t understand.”

“Because she’d made you.”

His piercing blue eyes swung to me. “Yes. That’s right. Alexander couldn’t understand that bond. His mother committed suicide to escape him, you see, so he took mine.” His gaze drifted again. “I knew what he was about long before he stole her away. I’d seen them together. I’d seen the liberties he took with her, the things they did together, things that made her weep when I took those same liberties. When I found them I watched in secret for weeks, horrified to see their betrayal was far worse than I imagined. He’d twisted her mind so abhorrently that when I tried to save her from him she…attacked me. I couldn’t allow such treachery to go unanswered. I promised them that much. Twenty years is nothing for an immortal, but the fool never knew it was me, never entertained the possibility. He never knew I’d returned.”

“Revenge then.”

His gaze met mine. “Is it? I don’t think so. I felt sorry for my Bess. Sorry she couldn’t see Alexander for what he was, sorry she couldn’t break free of his mind tricks. It was my fault. I should’ve protected her. I should’ve killed Alexander the moment he stepped into our lives.”

“Ah…I see.” Something told me we’d just hit midnight on the crazy clock. Time for all sane girls and boys to start running. “I’ll be sure to point that out in my story, but I’ve gotta get to the office now and type it up. So…” I edged backwards toward the door.

“Do you think I don’t know?” His powerful voice stopped me in my tracks. “Alexander couldn’t hide the truth from me back then and he can’t now. I’ve waited all this time, waited for him to choose another, to claim another as his. I knew he would. After you’re gone, he’ll do it again. And I’ll be there.”

“Right. Insanity it is.”

He was on me before the breath to speak left my lips. To say vamps are fast is a huge,
huge
understatement. He was just suddenly behind me, his body flush with mine, his hand clamped on my chin, his other hand twisting my arm up my back.

“Genius,” he said, “is often mistaken for insanity.”

“Yeah. By crazy people.”
Crap
. I gave myself a mental slap for not keeping my stupid mouth shut a half second before he jerked my chin back, stretching my neck, yanking my arm impossibly high behind me. I tried not to cry out, but I couldn’t help it.

“You’re probably right about that.” His lips brushed my ear, his breath washing over my cheek and neck. A shiver shook across my shoulders at the feel of it. “The insane think themselves geniuses and geniuses often question their sanity. Funny thing. I don’t care either way.”

His inhale cooled over my skin before pinpricks jabbed my neck. I’d have gasped, complained about the pinch, except it was gone too quickly and what replaced it was too delicious to interrupt with words. I don’t remember seeing fangs, just sharp canines maybe a little longer than normal but not enough to pick out of a crowd. Still I felt it when they pulled back out of my flesh, when the suction of his mouth drew my blood through the holes they’d left. But I didn’t care.

Heat rippled through my body, loosening muscle, stirring desire. My mind swam with a confusing mix of thoughts—escape, sweet sensation, death, sex…Alex. It was only a flash, the barest whisper of his name but it was enough to gather my will despite the liquid need coursing through my veins.

I called my power. The fine hairs at the back of my neck tingled, power rushing over me like a summer breeze. The drawn energy hummed through my head, shaking loose the venom’s tempting hold. I still wanted Octavius. I wanted him sucking on my neck. I wanted him touching my body. I wanted him between my legs pounding into me. But I also wanted the crazy asswipe the hell off me.

My brain gave my body a command—move, squirm, break free. Problem. My body wasn’t responding. Even as realization crystallized in my head, my knees buckled.
Shoot
. I’d already lost too much blood or had too much venom. Maybe a combo of both.

Octavius broke the vacuum seal he had on my neck, gasping. He let me go and I slid down his body to my knees. My head wobbled on my neck and I managed to let it fall forward, chin to my chest, without falling over. Damn, I was whipped. My mind hummed with power, energy zinging along my skin, but my body felt like I’d swum a thousand miles and then been dipped in tar, clothes and all. Everything about me was tired and heavy. Even speaking took effort, but it was my only chance.

I pushed all my power into my voice, willing Octavius to obey me. “You should let me go. Leave now before someone comes and discovers you. You want to leave me here…now.”

The sound of Octavius stumbling backward was the only way I knew my power had some kind of affect. I couldn’t lift my head, couldn’t turn to see. Not that it mattered. It didn’t last.

“What is that?” he said. “Is that you? Are you trying to…trying to mind fuck me…like a human?”

I wouldn’t have used those words, but they worked for me. Power still swirled through my head behind the dull throb at my temple. “Maybe you should leave before my power overcomes you, Octavius. Maybe you should get away while you still can.”

“Nonsensical female.” He jerked me to my feet by my shoulders, held my back against his chest and spoke close to my ear. “You tried that the other night at my restaurant, didn’t you? You may have pushed the minds of a few fledglings, Sophie, but I’m more than two hundred years old. You’re nothing more than a buzzing at my ear. Like a firefly I’ll squash when I have a mind to.”

I tried to stand on my own, to lock my knees but my legs just wouldn’t obey. Maddening sensation, having the presence of mind but lacking the strength of body to enact the thought. He spun me around, his strong fingers bruising my arms, then flung me over his shoulder, fireman style.

I watched my apartment floor pass beneath us as he carried me to the kitchen, to the window that led to the fire escape, helpless. A moment later we were airborne.

“Where are you taking me?” Visions of dark alleys, and bus stops and cars parked in lonely parking lots flashed through my head. Would I be the next victim the police would find? Would he pose me in some bizarre macabre scene?

And then it hit me. I already was the next victim, the rest was just for show.

The upside to being carried across town slung over the shoulder of a crazy vampire is the blood—what’s left—goes to your brain. By the time we landed on the roof of Sinners restaurant, I was perfectly clear headed. And in my clear headedness I realized Alex had been right. Octavius couldn’t drain me by himself. Not that I could do anything about it. My body was still limp as a wet noodle. Well not really that bad, but close. I could walk, mostly, with Octavius’s help.

Holding my arm looped around his shoulder and his other hand braced around my back, he led me through a rooftop door, down a small flight of steps through another door and into an office. He made like he’d drop me onto the leather couch next to the door, but something outside the office, in the restaurant below, caught his attention. It was past three in the morning. The place should’ve been closed. But when he opened his fancy wooden office door, I heard it too.

We stepped into the short hallway just as a man dressed in a white tux shirt and bowtie, black cummerbund and slacks—no jacket—stepped around the corner. I knew him, but from where—the spiky platinum blond hair, the tiny brown eyes, little head, broad shoulders, small waist.

“Master, there you are. Thank God,” the man said.

“Hey. You’re Todd.” My voice was raw, too soft. It felt like I had sandpaper caught in my throat. I swallowed. It didn’t help. “You were at Il Piccolo Morso.”

Todd glanced at me for a half second. But for the most part they both ignored me. That’s how Octavius knew what was going on at Alex’s place. That’s how he knew about me.

“What’s going on?” Octavius asked.

We rounded the end of the hall and stepped out onto a landing that overlooked the restaurant below. The place was trashed, tables overturned, broken dishes, silverware all over the place.

“He just showed up and started yellin’ about wanting to see you. He was smashing tables and slicing up some of the art. And when Jim tried to stop him, he…he cut off his head.”

Octavius snapped his gaze to Todd and Todd stared at the floor. “Jim’s…Jim’s dead,” Todd said.

My belly tightened. Who was Jim? Was he a vampire or a human servant? Or a human servant turned vampire? Did it matter? The poor guy was dead. What kind of crazy man goes around cutting off people’s heads?

“Where is he?” Octavius asked.

“In the kitchen.”

Just as he said it a loud clatter echoed through the room from the double swinging doors to the kitchen. We turned and Octavius half led, half carried me down the steps to the main floor of the restaurant. He took me to the bar and kind of leaned me against a stool.

He looked to Todd who’d followed close at our heels. “Drain her,” he said then walked away.

The speed at which Todd moved to catch me before I melted to the floor told me he was definitely a vamp. I saw the mark on his wrist and caught a glimpse of one beneath the stiff collar of his shirt. He was still a fledging. Did he know that mark on his wrist would never go away? Who cared? He was going to kill me.

Lucky for me, Todd couldn’t seem to tear himself from the distraction in the kitchen and rather than follow his
master’s
orders immediately, he turned us both to watch.

The right side door swung open with Octavius only two steps away. He flinched back a step, eyes wide as Alex stormed through the doorway toward him. I blinked, not sure I was seeing things right. Alex’s right hand clutched the hilt of a long sword and his other fisted a hairy bowling ball at his thigh. No. It wasn’t a bowling ball. It was a head.
Jim?

Alex’s gaze met Octavius almost instantly, and he dropped the head. The wet
thunk
when it hit the floor and subsequent
thwap
,
thwap
,
thwap
as it rolled under a table nearly made me puke.

Alex double-fisted his sword, holding it at the ready. “So it is you.”

Octavius swallowed his surprise quickly. “You had doubt?”

“You killed those women, risked exposing all of us…why?”

“Why?” Octavius seemed to fight a laugh but ultimately failed, the sound of it pinged through the room. It wasn’t a happy sound. “You think I care about our kind? You think I care about those women? There was only one woman, Alexander. One woman, you and your selfish arrogance destroyed.”

He lowered his sword, affected by the anguish etched on Octavius’s face. “Elizabeth.”

“Yes.” The word slithered past his lips like a hiss. “You should’ve suffered for her death.”

“I did. I do still.”

“Not enough.” Anger raised his voice. “Never enough for taking her from me. For killing her.”

Alex blinked at that, confusion pulling his brows tight. “I didn’t kill Elizabeth, Octavius. I could never…even seeing how she suffered, how little of the vibrant woman we once knew was left filling the shell of her body… Even then I could never harm her, couldn’t bring myself to end her misery.”

“Your actions killed her. Your lies, your seductions,” Octavius said. “You set her against me. Made her…made her…mutilate me.”

Alex’s brow tightened, a darkness filling his blue eyes. “No, Octavius. What Elizabeth did to you had nothing to do with me. As much as I despised you for the damage you caused her, I wouldn’t have wished that on you, on any man. Death would’ve been punishment enough.”