I stare at the window with uncertainty. It’s getting late, the sky is getting grey as the sun plummets below the tips of the towering buildings. “Can’t we just tell Adessa what we’re doing?”
“Walking downstairs means facing Alex,” he remarks, slanting his head to the side to meet my eyes. “Are you ready to deal with that? Tell him what you want and then fight him until he lets you go?”
“No.”
“Well, then... ”
I sigh, shuffle my way to the window, and sit down on the windowsill. “I really do hate heights.”
He playfully pinches my leg. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
“I believe you,” I say truthfully. “But how are we even supposed to get down there? Do you have some kind of like climbing-down-the-wall superpower or something?” My voice turns mocking. “Or are we just going to scale it with some sheets we’ve tied together.”
“Sheets would tear.” He shakes his head, seeming entertained. “And I’m a Vampire, not Spiderman, so no. I don’t have any climbing down superpowers.” He pauses, blowing out an uneven breath. “You’re going to get on my back, and I’m going to jump out.”
I start to laugh, but the sound quickly dissolves. “Tell me you’re joking. Please.” I stand up from the windowsill, shaking my head as I back away. “No way.”
“We won’t get hurt.” He sits down and swings his long legs out the window. “That far of a fall won’t hurt me at all. It’s a Vampire thing.”
“Yeah, but I’m not a Vampire,” I say. “The fall will hurt me.”
“That’s why you’ll be on my back, so I can break the fall for you.” He winks at me. Even though he’s adorably sexy, I’m still not hopping on board his death plan.
“I hate heights.”
“And I hate biting people, yet I’ve still done it a few times.”
“Laylen…” I’m torn between wanting the truth and dying to get it.
He sighs disappointedly. “Do you want me to go alone? Because I can. I just thought, since you’ve been in the dark for so long, you’d like to be a part of it, however it’s up to you.”
He’s giving me a choice. No one has ever given me a choice. I could seriously kiss him right now because I want to be part of this and help save my mother. “Alright…I’m in.”
He gives me a lopsided smile. “Good. Now hop on.”
I summon a deep breath and do what he says. I slip a leg on each side of his waist, so I have my legs wrapped around his midsection, my chest pressed up to his back, and my ass against the windowsill.
“You good?” Laylen asks as I move around, trying to get situated.
I tighten my arms and legs around him. “I think so.”
“And Gemma?”
“Yeah.”
“I promise to try and not drop you,” he says.
Before I can respond, he dismounts from the windowsill and, the next thing I know, I’m falling.
Chapter 3
It’s over by the time I actually acknowledge we’r falling. Laylen lands with the gracefulness of a cat, his feet delicately touching the asphalt, and I barely feel the impact.
For a moment, neither of us moves nor breathes. Even the air seems to pause, as if we fell so fast we’re waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.
“You alive back there?” Laylen asks from over his shoulder. His arms are wound around my legs, supporting my weight as I clutch onto his shoulders.
I peek open my eyes, crane my neck, and glance up at the window above us. “Yeah, a little bit more of a warning would have been nice, though.”
“Then you would have just anticipated it and psyched yourself out,” he says. “Unexpected is always the best when there’s fear involved.”
I’m not sure if I get his logic, but fear is also very new to my vocabulary. I nod and climb off his back then stretch out my legs and pop my neck, alleviating some of the tension in me.
We walk across the parking lot beneath the shimmering stars dusting the desert sky. The sound of rushing traffic and flashing lights surround us, along with rustic buildings. The entire area is decorated with graffiti, the ground is littered with garbage, and the lack of people around makes the scenario uneasy, yet at the same time calm.
“You said that we are going to a place worse than the Black Dungeon,” I remark as we make a right down a narrower, more secluded street. “So does that mean there’s going to be a bunch of strange creatures with lizard tongues and weird eyes or whatever?”
He glances at me from the corner of his eye as he stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Actually, no. The only things you’re going to find in this place are either human or simply have really sharp, pointy teeth.” He traces his tongue along his teeth. “No weird eyes or lizards tongues.”
“It’s a club for Vampires,” I state the obvious. I scoot in closer to him as a sketchy looking man wearing a black hoodie walks by us. “How high are my chances of being bit, then?”
Smiling, he drapes his arm around my shoulders. “I wouldn’t let anyone bite you, sweetheart. Seriously.”
“But there will be people getting bit?”
He goes rigid. “Yes.”
I swallow hard. “Will they… will the Vampires be killing them?”
He shakes his head. “This is just a feeding ground, a place to feed on willing humans in a closed space where you don’t have to worry about getting caught.”
I angle my neck back to look at him. “Willing humans?”
He nods once, his eyes focused on the sidewalk ahead. “Vampire bites are intoxicating in ways I can’t even begin to explain. Some humans love it… it’s like a drug for them and so they come to clubs like these to get their next hit.”
I picture teeth sinking into my neck. Pain. Then euphoria? If it’s true, it sounds kind of sexy.
I push the thought from my head. “So who is this all-knowing person that we’re going to see?”
He inches to the left as a sleek, black car rolls up the road, driving close to the curb. “Draven.”
“The guy you were so afraid of back at the Black Dungeon? I thought he was dangerous and the reason why… the reason why Aislin got bit.”
“Aislin got bit because she was a Keeper and most Vampires loathe Keepers.” His jaw goes taut as we round the side of a warehouse. The road reaches a dead-end of dumpsters that line the walls of boarded up, metal buildings. “You’re not a Keeper, so you should be fine, but I’m not going to try and convince you that what we’re doing isn’t dangerous. I think you deserve more than being lied to and walking in blindly.”
“And I appreciate that,” I say. “I’m just a little nervous.”
“That’s perfectly understandable,” Laylen replies as we halt in front of a door on the side a large, rusty looking warehouse. “But Draven should be able to help us.”
“How though?”
“You know how I can control emotions?”
Goosebumps dot my skin, but more from excitement than the cold. “Yeah.”
He glances up at the stars in the sky. “Well, Draven has a different kind of gift—or curse depending on how you want to look at it. He can see what’s going on in different realms.”
“Realms, like The Underworld.” I shiver.
He nods, his attention drifting to the door. “So, if we can get him to agree, he should be able to see if your mom’s still there… it’s going to be hard, though.”
“I figured as much,” I tell him. “Since nothing is ever easy.”
He gives me a partial smile and then removes his arm from my shoulder to rap his hand on the door. The sound echoes from the inside, the only noise that can be heard around us. I’m about to ask him why it’s so quiet when the door swings open and light floods the night.
On the other side of the door is a tall man wearing a hoodie and his dark eyes resemblie coals. His skin is extremely pale like Laylen’s, his lips are a deep red, and he has a sequence of tattoos on his neck.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the cruor fastidio." He leans against the crooked doorframe, assessing Laylen with his dark eyes while I struggle to figure out what a cruor fastidio means.
“You know I’ve drank blood, Kameron” Laylen replies, his blue eyes intense and his voice sinking to a low octave. “I merely choose to do it only when necessary.”
Kameron shakes his head as he runs his tongue along his teeth. “Blood is always necessary in life, but you really don’t have one, do you?”
Laylen glances at me and then to Kameron, remaining nonchalant. “I need inside. Now.”
Kameron’s eyes devour me. “And who’s this lovely creature right here?”
“No one you need to know,” Laylen states, inching in front of me so I’m partially hidden behind him.
Kameron leans to the side to get a better look at me. “She looks like a Black Angel, but the nervousness in her bloodstream suggests otherwise,” he says and then waits for something. Perhaps for Laylen to deny that I am a Black Angel or insist that I do have hidden wings on my back, but Laylen never utters a word. “Fine, remain silent then.” He steps back, getting ready to close the door.
Laylen slams his hand forcefully against it, shoving the door back open. “I said I need in.” His blue eyes blaze and his voice is low, sultry, dangerous.
It’s giving me the chills and adrenaline crashes through my body. I’m scared, yet excited for things I’m not sure I should be excited for. I inch back, but only because my mind and body are becoming so perplexed. I wonder if it’s because Laylen is getting pissed and his emotion gift—or curse—is no longer under his control.
“You know the rules.” Kameron draws the hoodie off his head. His hair is black like the night sky and there’s a scar running diagonally on the side of it. “I can’t let a Black Angel in here. Only Vampires and humans.”