I was returned to a room much like the one I been in only a short while before. This one, though, was empty. No sign of James, and I wondered briefly whether he had escaped. It seemed likely. Ethan wouldn't leave his brother in captivity, even though he knew about James's duplicity and betrayal. I had no illusions about his feelings. If he was here trying to save me, then he must already have rescued his black-hearted brother. I knew where Ethan's priorities lay.
I strained to feel Ethan's presence anywhere near me, but I felt no hint of it. Had I only imagined seeing him only moments ago? Or had he given up, left me here to suffer my fate alone, now that his brother was safe?
A blade twisted in my chest at the thought, even though the logical part of my brain told me it was unlikely. Ethan would try to save me. Even though I was here because of my own stubborn insistence on returning to this place. Even though I had brought every bit of my suffering on myself. And even though he might very well die in the effort, he would try to save me. He was too decent a man not to.
That, I told myself, was true. And even if Ethan had freed his miserable brother before he'd come after me, and even if his brother came first with him and always would, that didn't mean Ethan had changed sides. It didn't mean he'd abandoned me.
I bit my lip, willing that belief to overwhelm the doubts that tried to squelch it, and worked to keep my emotions well hidden as the keepers chained me to the wall. Their movements were short and quick, their nervous energy zapping from them like electric sparks. They feared me. They weren't used to working with vampires, only the harmless Chosen Ones, far less able to defend themselves.
I was weak from drugs and hunger, from the pain they'd inflicted, from fear of my impending death and worry for Ethan. I was weak. But I was also wise. Trying to fight them just then would have been a waste of my limited energy. I would wait and bide my time. Ethan was heresomewhere. He would help me, and I would need every bit of strength that remained in me to fight by his side when the time came.
Because he wouldn't just leave me here. He wouldn't save himself and leave me behind. He wouldn't run away for his brother's sake and abandon me to the brutality of the keepers.
Not again.
Finally the nervous mortals exited the building, leaving me alone. I leaned my weary head back against the wall, closed my eyes against the hot tears that burned in them and realized that I could still hear them.
They were talking softly outside my door. They really were unused to working with the Undead, I thought, to speakeven softlyso close to someone with preternaturally enhanced hearing. My head came up, my attention focused to glean whatever information I could from their words.
"What's happening, sir?" one of the younger ones asked. "What was that explosion?"
The leader replied slowly, and with great care. "We believe someone has breeched the perimeter of the compound."
"Someone got out?" the same voice asked, sounding alarmed.
"Someone got in, Jeffries. We believe they're attempting to rescue certain residents. Jamesthe vampire assassin we had chained insideis gone. So are the two teens we had in the punitive programming barracks, and I've heard a handful of others have vanished. Though if they're still inside, we'll find them, and I'd bet my right arm they are still inside. And it's probably this one they're after, her they came for to begin with."
"Is it Ethan?" Jeffries asked.
"Seems a likely bet."
"Then wouldn't it be better to execute her at dawn, as planned, and get it over with?"
"It's not our job to question orders, just to carry them out. Besides, by keeping her alive another day they can use her as bait to get their hands on Ethan and James, and on those they've already rescued."
"I think they should kill her now," Jeffries said. "The sooner the better. Take away Ethan's reason to hang around before some of us end up hurt."
"We're not going to end up hurt, kid."
"Ethan's a vampire," the kid said. "So is James. And so is the one we just chained up. That makes three of them, and I've heard what they can do."
The other man was silent for a moment. When he did reply, fie said nothing to reassure his younger comrade-in-arms, only, "I'm putting you in charge of security for this prisoner. It's your only job tonight. I want two men guarding each side of this building. I want all of you awake and alert. Keep your radios on, and report anything even remotely unusual. Don't hesitate to use the tranquilizer guns you've been issued. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good."
I heard footsteps as the two men dispersed, the elder moving beyond the range of my hearing, while the younger moved only a short distance and spoke to a number of other men. When he returned, there were other sets of feet stomping the earth along with his own. I heard them clearly, splitting into pairs and moving around the small building that housed me to take up their assigned positions. I felt surrounded, closed in.
And mostly hopeless. I had no reason to be hopeful, after all. Those men outside were more certain Ethan would come for me than I was. And now that I was so well guarded, I wondered if he would be able to get to me even if he tried.
I hung my head, trying to remove my focus from the chafing and pressure in my wrists and ankles, bound too tightly and too long within the metal jaws of my shackles.
But my head came upright when I heard a very soft sound above me. Tipping my chin up, I stared at the ceiling, and the soft sound came again. Someone was moving aroundon the roof.
I closed my eyes, opened my senses.
Are you all right, Lilith?
A sigh of utter relief was wrenched from my chest, and I struggled to blink back a rush of scalding tears.
Ethan.
Are you hurt?
Drugged. Weak. Starving. But unharmed. I wanted to say more but bit it back. This was not the time.
I'm coming in.
Ethan, don't! There are at least eight guards surrounding this building. You'll be captured if you try.
I'm coming in. He repeated the thought with a firmness that brooked no argument, and then I heard the sounds of nails ripping free of the rafters and metal bending. It wasn't loud. It wasn't likely to even be heard by the mortal guards outside my building. But I could hear it.
And it wasn't long before I felt Ethan moving closer as he landed somewhere amid the rafters in the ceiling above me, and a moment later he was on his feet on the floor.
He turned until he faced me and then just looked at me. His face showed a thousand emotions, none of which was clear to me, so fast did they move from one to the next. And then he was rushing toward me, clasping my face in his palms and kissing the dampness from my cheeks.
"Lilith. God, Lilith, I was so afraid I'd be too late."
I tipped my face up to his, hungry for his touch, his kisses, despite my lingering doubts. I wanted this. I wanted to believe. I wanted him.
He covered my mouth with his, giving me what I craved more than blood, or life, or even freedom in that moment. And when he lifted his head again, I held his gaze and whispered, "I didn't think you would come."
"I don't believe that. You had to know I would come for you."
I lowered my eyes. "I hoped you would," I admitted. "But then, when you freed your detestable brother first"
"I came for you, not him. I freed him, yes, but only in hopes he could help us."
"He'll never help us."
Ethan cupped my chin and turned my face to his. "He proved that when he ran off and left me on my own the second he was free. He did tell me where to find you first, though."
"Then let's forgive him for putting me here." If my tone was sarcastic, good. I intended it to be.
"It's you I came for, Lilith."
"And the others I heard you've rescued?"
He slid his hands along my left arm, giving me chills all the way, until he reached the manacle at my wrist and snapped it open. "I found them in the first building where I was searching for you. A pair of teens, Bloodliners, the Chosen. I found them in the torture rooms, and Iwell, I couldn't leave them behind."
I raised my eyebrows, then bit my lip as he slid his talented hands along my other arm, freeing my right wrist as he had the left. "I wonder what crimes they committed."
"They've started a movement, Lilith. Inspired by your constant rebellion and eventual escape, they've begun some kind of resistance movement. They insisted on helping us. One girl is gathering her group together. We're supposed to meet them at the compound fence. I sent the other girl on ahead to wait for us there."
As he spoke, he bent his head to my neck and pressed his mouth to my skin, and I shivered and clasped his head in my newly freed hands.
"Ethan," I whispered.
"I'm here, Lilith. I'm not leaving without you."
"You really did come for me?"
"Only for you. The others were happenstance. I only came for you."
"I want you, Ethan."
"There's no time," he whispered. And yet he kissed a path over my throat and down my breastbone, to my belly, to my thighs. Kneeling, he dropped his hands to my ankles and snapped the shackles free.
I fell quickly to my knees, as well, twisting my arms around his neck. "I need you, Ethan. We might not survive this. This could be our last chance to be together."
"I know, but, Lilith"
"I need you now."
Ignoring my words, he pressed my face to his neck. "Drink," he whispered. "You're weak. You need blood. Drink from me."
I couldn't stop myself. My lips tasted his skin. My tongue lapped a slow path over it, and I felt the blood rushing in his jugular, felt it pulsing hard against my mouth. Grimacing in torment, I denied my raging hunger. "No. Not until you're inside me." I nipped at his neck. "I'll die without it, Ethan, I will. I need it more than I need blood. Please."
With a low growl, he shoved my jeans down to my ankles and, still kneeling, loosened his own. I sank down onto him and felt such relief that I very nearly cried out. I bit his shoulder to keep myself from moaning in pleasure, and I know I bit hard enough to hurt him, yet he didn't flinch away.
Instead he pulled me down, arching into me, holding my hips captive in his large, powerful hands as he drove himself deeper. I took all of him and loved it.
And as we moved together and I neared climax, I sank my teeth into his neck and drank him into me.
When I came, he did, too, and I suckled and swallowed and tried to be silent as his magnificent body drove mine into spasms of shivering ecstasy. I felt him shudder and clutch me tighter, drive into me harder, and as he held himself there, pulsing into me, it was sheer bliss.
Finally, slowly, our bodies still entwined, our muscles relaxed. .
Lifting my head from his sweat-slick shoulder, I licked my lips and smiled into his eyes. "So good," I whispered.
"So very good," he replied. "Now, if you're feeling stronger ?"
"I'm feeling invincible."
"Then let's get you the hell out of here."
I nodded hard, quickly pulling my clothes back into place, and getting to my feet. He led me to the hole in the ceiling and took me by the hand. With a single push, we both leapt up into the rafters, and in a moment, we were emerging onto the building's roof, the stars twinkling in the fading purple night above.
"We have to leap and clear the guards below without a sound, and land on the far side of the next building," he said, pointing. "Ready?"
I nodded, and we crouched lowonly to go utterly still when a voice from the ground below shouted up at us, "Don't try it. You're completely surrounded, and every gun in this place is aimed right at your heads."
I blinked and peered down at the keepers and guards below, dozens of them. And every one pointing a weapon at us.
"That's what I was afraid of," Marissa said.
She had gone to the farthest end of the compound to meet Ellie and the other members of the unofficial resistance. And now she and Ellie and the other sixteen Chosen were lurking behind one of the nearby buildings, fully aware the entire compound was being searched for them, but also aware that most of the keepers in the immediate vicinity were focused solely on the two vampires trapped on the rooftop.
"How long before sunrise?" Ellie whispered.
Marissa looked at the sky, reading the stars. "Maybe an hour."
"What are we going to do?" Ellie glanced back at her fighters as she spoke, worried, Marissa knew, about every last one of them. There were seven boys, nine girls. She and Ellie were the oldest among them. The youngest was all of eleven.
"We've got to get inside that building," Marissa said.
Ellie shook her head. "We'll end up trapped, just like they are."
"What are our other options? Give up and return to captivity? Or maybe run off and leave them to die, when they came back here, risking their lives, for us?"
"I wasn't suggesting either one of those options," Ellie said. "I was going to say we should get some weapons before we charge in there to join them. It'll at least give us a fighting chance." And as she said it, she nodded toward the building adjacent to the one providing them with cover. "They keep the guns in there."
Marissa smiled slowly. "I like the way you think."
Ellie smiled back, then turned and told her resistance fighters what she wanted them to do.
Ethan caught movement from the corner of his eye and, seeing perfectly despite the darkness, noted the small band of Chosen Ones darting from one building to another. Frowning, he looked quickly back at the guards and keepers surrounding them.
"How did you know I was here?" he called down, because he wanted to keep their attention right where it was: on him. God, why hadn't Marissa and Ellie led their little band to freedom? Why had they brought them back here?
"Someone saw movement on the roof," a keeper said. "It didn't take much to figure out that you had come to try to rescue her. It was a stupid thing to do."
"It was the only thing to do," Ethan replied, "I got my brother out. I assumed it would be just as easy to rescue Lilith. You people may be pretty adept at intimidating the Chosen into submission, but you have no clue what you're dealing with now. We're not mortal. We're vampires. And if you don't back off and let us go, I promise you, a lot of you are going to die."
The man on the ground hesitated, and Ethan saw some of the others exchange worried glances. A bit of muttering broke out among them, but the leader held up a hand for silence.
"So what happens now?" Ethan asked, at the same time silently telling Lilith what was happening and asking her to watch the rebels' actions, smiling when she reported that their cohorts had entered the building to the right, and that she'd heard the sound of glass breaking.
The keepers, though, hadn't. At least if they had, they gave no sign of it.
"You two need to jump right back down through the roof, Ethan," one of their captors said from the rear of the building. "Then stay put until we get our orders. Though given this latest attempt, I don't imagine you're going to live past dawn."
The Chosen Ones are coming this way at a dead run, Ethan. And they're armed!
Ethan stiffened at Lilith's mental news bulletin. But the man on the ground, clueless as to what was happening, kept on speaking.
"You two will make fine examples to the youngsters around here," he said. "Some of them have been getting some pretty radical notions since Lilith's escape, and" There was a lot of shouting, followed by a crash, from the front of the small building, and the man's head jerked to one side. "What the hell was that?"
Ethan knew exactly what the hell that had been. It had been Ellie and Marissa cutting through the guards and kicking open the door of their prison. Their little army surged inside, even as the rest of their captors raced to see what was going on.
Ethan grabbed Lilith by the hand and leapt through the hole in the roof, landing just in time to see the tail end of Elite's band dash inside and Marissa slamming the door closed behind them.
"Good God, Marissa, what were you thinking?" Ethan asked.
He couldn't see what was happening outsidethere were no windowsbut he could feel and hear it. The guards were massing just beyond the front door and surging forward. In a moment they would burst through it.
"They're coming in," Ethan warned.
"Not alive, they're not," Marissa said, and she leveled her rifle and blasted a hole through the door with a single shot.
Ethan smelled blood and felt the surge grind to a halt. He sensed the keepers and guards scatteringseeking cover, he was sure.
Sighing, he looked at the newcomers, "You got one of them. But, Marissa, just what is your plan here?"
"We don't really have one. We just thought you'd have a better chance of fighting your way out of here with some help."
"Yeah, and you've got a better chance of dying," Ethan told the girl. But then he turned, sensing something behind him, and saw that the other members of the band were all staring at Lilith, awe and admiration in their young eyes.
Hell, he couldn't really blame them.
"You're the one," Ellie said. "You're the reason we found the strength to stand up for ourselves. We couldn't leave you behind."
"I would have preferred it," Lilith told the girl, and Ethan knew it was nothing but the truth. "At least my death would have served a purpose then."
"We're not dead yet," Ethan told her softly, though he had little hope this could turn out any other way.
A voice from without cut the adoration-fest short, jerking every head toward the door.
"We're going to give you ten seconds to throw out your weapons. All of your weapons."
"Yeah, and what if we don't?" Marissa shouted, defiant and angry.
"Then we're gonna torch the building, kid. You got any other questions you want to ask before we do?"
Ellie's eyes went wide, and she took a step backward. "T-torch the building?" She shot a look at Ethan, then lifted her chin and said, "We've got to make a break for it. We've got no choice."
"They've got weapons, and we're surrounded. Damn it, Ellie, a lot of us will die."
"And maybe, a few of us will live," she said. "It's our only chance. And frankly, I'd rather die free than live in captivity." She turned and eyed the rest of the rebels. "What about you?"
Before any of them could answer, the lights in the building flickered and went dark.
"They've cut the power," Ellie shouted, aiming her rifle at the door. "They're coming in. Get ready!"
There were shouts from outside, but no one stormed the building.
"That makes no sense," Lilith said in a whisper. "Even they must know vampires can see perfectly in darkness."
"You can," Marissa said. "But we can't. Why aren't they coming? What are they waiting for?"
