Night Kissed (Chosen Vampire Slayer #1) - Mila Young Page 0,77

at all.

“What do you want? Out with it.” I didn’t bother asking him inside; whatever business he had could be conducted here in the twilight.

He glanced around, shifty eyes darting back and forth. “I’ve been sent to deliver a message on behalf of all my brethren.” The lips pulled back into a sickly grin. “We’ve stumbled upon something of yours. I believe you call him Seth.”

I clenched my jaw hard. “Is he dead? He must be, to have gotten captured by the likes of you.”

The vamp giggled with macabre delight. “Oh, no, no. He is very much alive. And angry.” The grin dropped into a split second of worry. “We’d like to return him to you as soon as possible, frankly.” Regathering his composure, he cleared his throat. “So, your honorable presence is being requested for the purpose of negotiations. You may come alone, or bring your…associate.”

The mention of Logan, however indirect, made him nervous. He took another quick look around and shifted his feet.

“What’s stopping me from rolling up and putting an end to this entire charade?” I asked. My voice stayed calm, but inside I was boiling. I should have known better than to trust that fire-breathing idiot. His anger had compromised us all.

“With all due respect, Clanmaster…” The shit-eating grin was back. “We hardly think you’d keep the devil around if you didn’t need him for something.”

Annoyed by my inability to deny their logic, I capitulated. “Fine. Where is he?” The address was deeper into the city than usual, and I wondered at their brazenness. Hiding in plain sight. “Tell them I won’t be long, and they’d better not waste any more of my time.” Without further ado, I stepped back and slammed the door.

Had Seth been standing in front of me, I might have wrung his neck, snapped it, and throttled him again. This was far from his first blunder, but absolutely his most serious. The repercussions would have to be severe.

After I got him back, of course. I closed my eyes and sent a summons out into the world, intended for Logan.

“Seth got caught. Convene immediately at my location. Recovery operation.”

Typically, it took him no longer than seconds to reply, but Logan wasn’t in the mood to acknowledge me either. From him, a certain measure of aloofness was expected, and yet his coldness only blackened my mood further. Perhaps there was something in the air tonight, some golden, tantalizing whiff of mutiny.

Not that insubordination mattered so much at the moment. I had bigger problems on my hands. If Logan chose not to show up entirely, he’d regret it.

I arrived downtown in record time, brimming with utter dissatisfaction. Everyone I passed on the street gave me a double-wide berth. Haunted whispers followed my every step. This sort of passive intimidation was one of the greatest assets of a vampire’s nature. A weapon I desired Veronica to hone to its sharpest edge.

Seth’s prison turned out to be a semi-derelict warehouse, all but abandoned by its former owners at the edge of the city’s heart. Several of its windows were boarded up or broken; the front doors stood ominously open like the slack mouth of a dead man. I showed no hesitation in striding through them, straight into the pitch dark.

“Bold as usual, I see.” The voice was low and silky, gliding through the air like water. I searched in the shadows for its owner and found the glowing circles of a vampire’s pale irises trained on me, unblinking. He stepped into the weak spill of light from one of the windows, and I saw the contours of a gaunt, cruel face, long and hard like a jackal’s. The pallor of his skin contrasted with the intensity of his gaze.

How old was he? And how long had it been since I’d last encountered a vampire near my age? I held his stare.

“Where is the demon? Show him to me.”

The vampire smiled. “As you wish.” Someone flipped an invisible switch, and a light blazed on in the far back of the room. Seth sat propped against the bare concrete, affixed to the wall by thick iron chains. The cuts and bruises in stark relief on his face and body confirmed that he had not submitted quietly. He squinted at me through the sudden brightness, his expression contorted into a glowering mask.

My stomach turned. He was mine and when we fought that was what we did, but to have anyone else harm him seared through me like hot pokers. Seth