Blood Choice (Deathless Night Series Book 6) Read online

  Walking with a confidence she didn’t feel, she followed him to the entryway and into the interior. The first room they arrived in was dark, only the dim light from the torches outside coming through the doorway to give the faintest illumination. Being a vampire, Shea could still see quite well, but there wasn’t much to see. The stone floor and walls were barren, except for a table-like structure toward the back.

  Stopping in the middle of the empty room, Jesse called, “Come out, come out wherever you are!” He repeated the words in Chinese.

  “Maybe no one is here,” Shea said when she heard no sounds of alarm, and no one came running.

  “They’re here.” Walking toward the back of the room, he ran one finger along the top of the table. Holding it up, he showed her the lack of dirt or dust.

  “Mystical cleaning sprites?” she suggested.

  He smiled at her little joke, an honest and open smile that made the skin crinkle around his eyes and laugh lines appear on his cheeks, and Shea couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight. His eyes roved over her face and landed on her parted lips. They stayed there, his amusement fading, replaced with the scent of his lust for her.

  Shea’s breath caught in her lungs and she turned away, uncomfortable with the intensity of his attention.

  “I know you’re here!” Jesse shouted a few seconds later. “Don’t make me come find you.”

  She was just about to suggest that maybe, quite possibly, he had been wrong this time, when a slight movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head, she saw a man. He stood serenely with his hands tucked into his sleeves, and did not seem at all surprised by the sight of unexpected visitors. Wearing not the red and yellow robes she was used to seeing on the monks in town, but dark gray with a white sash, he was nonetheless still an impressive figure. Shea glanced quickly around, wondering how he’d gotten into the room without her seeing him, as there was only the one doorway and he was standing against the far wall.

  “What can I help you with?” he asked in perfect English.

  “Oh, good,” Jesse responded. “You’re here.”

  The monk flicked his eyes over to Shea, then back to Jesse. If he knew that she wasn’t human anymore, he gave no indication of it. “Do you need assistance?”

  Though it was obvious he was asking if they’re car broke down or some such business, Jesse answered with the affirmative.

  “Yes, actually we do. I’m here for the location of the blood. The demon blood,” he clarified.

  A slight pause was the only indication that the monk was surprised by the request. “I’m sure I do not know what you mean.” He didn’t move from his spot by the wall, or show any type of discomfort or panic.

  “I think you do. Also, I promised this stunning female that I would not kill you for it. Please don’t make me rescind that promise.”

  Brown eyes held steady as they met Jesse’s golden gaze. The monk was obviously taking his measure, and his next words confirmed that he had correctly determined the type of male he was dealing with, and that it would do no good to lie. “I cannot tell you the location. I have made a vow that cannot be broken.”

  Jesse sighed, crossed his arms over his chest, and regarded the monk. It didn’t take him long to decide his next move. Turning to Shea, he cocked one eyebrow. “I gave him a chance.”

  Her heart skipped in her chest. “You promised.”

  His features grew softer as he looked at her. “So I did.” Dropping his arms back down to his sides, he stalked the monk with long strides that quickly took him across the stone floor. Leaning down until they were face to face, he said, “Tell me the location of the blood, or I will retrieve it on my own. And being that I’m certain it’s buried deep within the gray matter of your brain behind lock and key, I cannot guarantee the condition you’ll be in when I’m finished.”

  “Jesse.”

  He held up one hand, asking for her silence.

  The monk stared up at him impassively.

  “All right, then,” Jesse told him. He glanced back over his shoulder at Shea. “I’m sorry, love. But we don’t have time for this. I have to do what I have to do. I promise I will try my best to leave him intact.”

  Shea watched as Jesse gave the monk his full attention. She wasn’t overly concerned at first; Jesse read her mind all the time. It didn’t hurt her. However, she soon realized that there were different ways of sucking out one’s thoughts.

  Jesse’s head tilted to the side as he focused on the monk, and soon the male’s eyes grew wide, then rolled back in his head. She heard a clacking noise, and realized his teeth were chattering, though there was no chill in the air. His jaw slammed together, and his head fell forward. The entire process took less than a few seconds.

  “Got it,” Jesse announced. Striding back over to Shea, he left the monk standing by the wall, his eyes blank and a trickle of drool running down his chin. When he reached her, he appeared sincerely sorry as he said, “I tried to harm him as little as possible, I swear it. But these men are masters at the art of mind control, and this was a secret he didn’t want anyone to find.”

  Sorrow and anger filled her as she watched the stoic male slide down the wall to the floor. His robe pooled about his shrunken body. “What will become of him?”

  “He may recover somewhat, enough to live a simple life. I don’t believe it’s necessary to remove his memories of us, however. There’s nothing left.”

  He was so matter of fact, so cold about it all. Filled with disgust for what he’d just done, Shea turned away and headed back out to the car.

  Jesse caught up to her quickly. “And there is that look again.”

  She didn’t respond. She had nothing to say to him.

  With a burst of speed, he got in front of her, appearing so fast that Shea had no choice but to stop. She tried to go around him, but he threw out his arms.

  “Get out of my way,” she snarled.

  But though he lowered his arms, his body remained tense and alert, ready to cut off any means of her escape. “Shea, it had to be done. It was necessary.”

  “Not like that,” she gritted out.

  “Yes. Exactly like that. There was no time to try to cajole the location from him. We have no time. The demons have all the clues. This monk is one of the few who are still alive with the knowledge of the location. We’ll be lucky if they haven’t already been here and have gotten to their original blood before we ever make it there. It may already be too late.”

  “Then why are we even here?” She threw up her arms. “Why coerce me into coming on this trip with the false hope of stopping them?”

  His chin rose as his teeth clamped together. “There is still a chance. If we hurry.”

  She stared him down. “Then what are we waiting for? This is why I came with you. The only reason.” Her tone was sarcastic.

  “Shea.”

  This time when she walked around him, he didn’t stop her.

  Chapter 15

  Nikulas was not looking forward to this conversation. Not one fucking bit.

  He and Aiden were supposed to be out searching for pods of demon-possessed vampires running amok. But instead, they were back in Seattle, gearing up to tell Luukas that one of his Hunters was consorting with his biggest enemy behind his back.

  At least he assumed it was behind his back. No, no. There was no fucking way Luukas had given Shea his blessing to go hang out with that fucking warlock. Not after what that son of a bitch had done to him.

  “Stop it, mate. Your face gets all wonky when you do that. I can practically see the smoke coming out of your ears. You’re going to burn out the few brain cells you have left.”

  Nik looked at his best friend in disbelief. “How can you fucking joke around at a time like this?”

  “Who’s joking?” Aiden said, then knocked on Luukas’s apartment door.

  Rolling his eyes, Nik listened for his brother or Keira to come to the door. But the footsteps that sounded were neither o
f them, but rather Emma’s, his mate. And they sounded…off. Something was wrong. Pushing Aiden out of the way, he kicked the door in, busting the lock and crumbling the door jam.

  Emma slid to a stop just out of the way of the door, putting her hands on her hips and scowling at the two males as they burst into the apartment. “Really, Nik. You’ve gotta stop destroying your brother’s doors.”

  But even though she was scolding him with a hint of amusement, he could see the strain around her eyes. He reached her in two long strides. Scooping her up into his arms, he held her tight against his chest, and breathed a sigh of relief when she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ve missed you, sweetheart.”

  “I’ve missed you, too, blood sucker.”

  He laughed at her reference to when they’d first met, but immediately got serious again. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  “And where is Grace?” Aiden squeezed past them until he could see the entire apartment. He lifted his chin and smelled the air. “She’s not here. Where is she?”

  Emma tried to pull away, and Nik released her with more than a little reluctance. “Grace is fine. She went to your place to feed Mojo.”

  Turning on his heel and telling them, “I’ll be back,” Aiden stepped over the broken door and headed to the stairs, bypassing the elevator.

  Once he was gone, Nik turned back to the love of his life. Taking her small face in his hands, he pressed a kiss to the freckles on her nose. “Now, please tell me what’s going on, Em, before I imagine the worst and lose my fucking mind.”

  She gave him a sad smile. “It’s Luukas.”

  His breath froze in his lungs. “What’s happened?”

  Emma shook her head, her eyes filling with worried tears. “We’re not really sure. But something’s wrong with him. He’s been getting weaker and weaker since you’ve been gone. Keira has given him as much blood as she dares, sometimes forcing it upon him, and making sure he gets enough rest, but nothing is helping. It’s like he’s”—she gave a little shrug—“fading away.”

  Nik pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes. “It’s the fucking demons.”

  “The demons?”

  He dropped his arms back down to his sides. “Well, not the demons, but the bodies they’re possessing. The bodies are rotting, slowly.”

  Comprehension lit her hazel eyes. “And they’re the bodies of vampires that Luuk created. Oh, my God.” She stared up at Nik in horror. “He’s weakening because his creations are dying.”

  “Yeah.” Nik turned away, fists clenched at his sides. “Losing one or two here and there he can take. It would only set him back a day or so. Losing fifty at once—” He couldn’t imagine any kind of life without his overbearing older brother. “Fuck.”

  “What do we do?” Emma wrapped her arms around her middle. “Nik? What do we do?”

  Wandering over to the window, Nikulas stared out at the lights of downtown Seattle. But he wasn’t really seeing the beauty of the city that had been their home for many years now. His jaw ached, and he realized he was grinding his teeth. He knew what they needed to do. If they didn’t stop those motherfuckers, he was going to lose his brother…and his best friend. Aiden was old and strong, and perhaps his body was lasting longer because his demon preferred to stay dormant, but soon, even he would be a walking, rotting corpse. “We have to send them back to hell. And we need to do it five fucking minutes ago. We’re running out of time.”

  He felt Emma’s hand on his back, and her touch gave him strength, as it always did. Reaching back, he caught her hand in his and pulled it around to kiss the pulse on her inner wrist, breathing in the sweet scent of her.

  “Go see your brother,” she told him. Then her forehead wrinkled up in that adorable way it did. “Wait. Why are you even here? I thought you and Aiden were going to be gone another three days, at least.”

  Shit. He’d nearly forgotten. “Shea is hanging out with that bastard warlock. We came home to tell Luukas.” It took him a minute to notice that his female wasn’t showing the sufficient amount of surprise he would expect from such a pronouncement. Suddenly, she had his full attention. “Emma? Do you know something that I don’t?”

  “No. Well, not really. Just that that explains why we saw Shea ducking down into the passenger seat of an SUV the other day. Grace and I didn’t recognize the guy who was driving.”

  “And you didn’t bother to tell anyone?”

  She gave that little shrug again. “We just figured she didn’t want us giving her the third degree when she got home.”

  He stared at the woman he loved more than anything in this world or the next, and wondered if he’d ever understand the female mind.

  “Nikulas? What are you doing here? Did you find something?”

  Nik’s eyes locked with Emma’s before he turned to find his brother leaning against the doorjamb of his bedroom. He looked tired and thin, but his grey eyes were still as sharp as ever. And as they spotted the damage to the front door, Nik almost wished they weren’t.

  “What the fuck is it with you and my doors?”

  Nik ran a hand through his blond hair. “Yeah, sorry about that.” He didn’t bother telling his brother that he’d done it because he knew something was wrong. It wouldn’t make anyone feel better to point out the obvious. “I’ll have it fixed first thing.”

  “You’d better.” Luukas made his way over to one of the overstuffed chairs and sat down. “Now tell me what’s going on. Why are you back? And where’s Aiden?”

  “I’ll just go hang out with Keira,” Emma told him, rising on her tiptoes to give him a quick kiss on his jaw. “Come get me when you’re done.”

  He promised her he would, and then he joined his brother, taking the chair on the opposite side of the coffee table. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his thighs and laced his fingers together. How to tell Luuk what was going on….

  “Shea is with that fucking warlock.” There. That was subtle.

  The temperature in the room suddenly dropped at least fifteen degrees, yet Luukas’s expression didn’t change one iota. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you correctly. Would you please repeat that?”

  “You heard correctly,” Nik assured him. “Aiden and I just saw them at the airport in Vancouver, getting onto a private jet.”

  Luukas sat back in his chair. Other than the white-knuckled grip he had on the armrests, no one would be able to tell how upset he was if they didn’t know him. But Nik knew him almost as well as he knew himself, and he knew his brother was hanging on by a thread. “He found her somehow, and is forcing her to go with him.”

  Nik was shaking his head before Luuk finished the sentence. “No, Luuk. She was there of her own free will.”

  “But how can you be sure of this?”

  “Because we spoke to her. I tried to get her to come with us, and she wouldn’t. We watched her get onto the plane without any coercion.”

  Luuk burst up from his chair with a show of speed that was surprising, considering his appearance. He started pacing back and forth in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, moving so fast a human wouldn’t be able to track him. “He must be blackmailing her. Forcing her to go with him. Shea would not betray me so readily.”

  “I don’t think so, bro.”

  “But you don’t know for certain.”

  “No, but I know what I saw. And I’m telling you she was not being forced onto that plane. No one can force Shea to do anything she doesn’t want to do, not without going to extreme lengths.”

  “But you don’t know that for certain,” Luukas insisted.

  “No, but—”

  “You don’t know,” he emphasized.

  Nikulas took a deep breath and gave in. “No. I don’t know for sure.”

  Luukas stopped pacing. With his back to the room, he stared out the window much as Nik had done just moments before. “I’m not going to condemn her without proof.”

  “I understand.” Nik rose to go. “I just wanted to l
et you know what was going on.”

  “Thank you,” his brother told him.

  But Nik could already tell he was losing him. Fuck. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything, and just handled it himself. He thought Luukas was getting better after the years of hell he’d been through, but maybe this reminder was too much for him.

  “I’m gonna get Em and go.”

  There was no response.

  He’d better get Keira out here. She was the only one who could pull Luukas from the depths of his own hell once the terrors engulfed him.

  Chapter 16

  Jesse gripped the steering wheel of the rental car, trying to think of something he could say to bridge this gap between him and Shea. But nothing came immediately to mind.

  Dammit! He needed more time. More time to bond her to him. More time to make her understand what it was he had to do, and why.

  But they were out of time.

  “Where are we going?” Her tense voice broke through the silence. It was the first time she’d spoken since they’d left the temple.

  “To the airport. We’re flying to Shaolin Temple, or more specifically, to the Forest of the Dagobas.”

  “Is that where the blood is hidden?”

  “Yes. The clues show different dagobas throughout the Forest. We must find them, and where the path to each connects. Where they come together. That’s where the blood is buried.”

  “And what are we going to do with it once we find it?”

  How to answer that without giving it away too soon? “What we have to do.”

  She fell back into her brooding silence, but not for long. “What about Cruthú?”

  Jesse fought back a smile. Much as Shea denied it, she was as fond of the raven as the bird was of her. “She’ll be fine. I paid the hotel an obscene amount of money to take good care of her until we get back.”

  He felt Shea’s eyes on him, but she said nothing else, eventually turning away and gazing out the window again for the remainder of the trip.

  Leaving the car at the rental place at the airport, he got them both through security without any issues and then left Shea seated in a waiting area while he confirmed the jet would be ready. While the pilot ensured all checks were done, he turned around and leaned back against the counter, ignoring the looks he received from both females and males as they rushed to their gates. His attention was completely taken by the female waiting for him in a seat overlooking the concourse.