To Bleed for Him

"Undeniably yours,
I'm forever and more.
Do you buy these lies yourself?
Undeniably yours,
I'm forever and more.
When I caught you in the act."
- Delain (featuring Burton C. Bell)

She couldn't believe she was crying. All of that talk about being stronger, about never needing help; taking out five vampires on her own, fighting through a barrage of pheromones, fighting through the excruciating pain of taking a massive hunting knife to the back. All of that, and she was still crying. And why? Why was she crying? Because an undead vampire had fed from another woman to sate his growing thirst.

God, she was so stupid!

"He was doing what he had to," she reasoned with herself in pitiful sobs. "Half of his own coven wants him dead. He needs his strength." But no matter how many times she said it, no matter how many different ways, no matter how true she secretly knew it was, she couldn't shake it, that disgusting feeling, the lump in her throat and the knot in her heart — betrayal.

We could've done this together. We could've found a way.

She pawed at her eyes, in a hurry to wipe away the tears that skewed her vision, and managed to pull herself together just enough to focus on the reflective green street signs just beyond the window. If she was remembering right, Richland Terrace was somewhere around here. She'd driven by it a ton of times on her way to the mall.

"Cleveland Avenue," she murmured as a sign flew past. "Ballinger Drive. Manger Avenue." She slowed around a curve, and she felt her senses sharpen to an impossible intensity when her gaze lighted upon it suddenly, finally, at long last — Richland Terrace.

Dad.

She whipped the car down the narrow lane, barely paying attention to the traffic that surrounded her as she let her instincts take over. A horn blared, tires shrieked across the pavement, a flash of light darted past her — apparently, her instincts didn't work so well from the inside of a car. But she was unfazed, her eyes drifting intently from one house number to the next as she made her way along the curving street much faster than she should have.

The homes here were large, exceptionally so for the members of a side street in the thick of the city, nearly rivaling Antony's old farm house in size. She felt a pang as she remembered him, as she remembered that house — her home now. At least, her home then.

394. The silver numbers glinted lightly in the day's low, fading light, and even as she came to a stop at the crowded curb in front of the house, she sat fixated upon them. 394 Richland Terrace. Dad.

With an uncomfortable quickness, she shifted the car into park and cut the engine, then threw the door open and slipped into the dimness of the evening. All but one of the windows — a grimly grinning face on the house front — glowed with a warm light. Were all of its occupants home, then? If that vampiric bastard hadn't lied to her, she would find herself face to face with more than a dozen vampires, a rather generous portion of them undead, one even a master. She looked down at herself as she pushed the door shut, only now realizing that she was still covered in blood and reeking of it.

"I might as well just rip my clothes off and lay on the doorstep," she muttered bitterly, but she started around the car, her stride the epitome of calm, cool, and collected. It wasn't until she reached the porch stairs that she noticed the weight in her right hand — the hunting knife she couldn't recall grabbing from the passenger's seat. She paused with a foot on the bottom step and regarded it for a moment, the light of the setting sun bouncing off of it in little sparks of shine as she held it before her face. Blood still tainted the smooth metal, nestled in the crevices of the blade's serrated edge, and for a moment, she wondered just how much of it was her own.

What am I doing here? The urgency of instinct seeped slowly from her jittery limbs, and her eyes on the dagger widened. I almost died today. I may still be dying. What if she was slowly bleeding to death? What if the knife had nicked some vital organ somewhere and she just hadn't noticed it yet? What the fuck am I doing here?

Her eyes jerked from the blade to the front door as it creaked open, light spilling across the porch to leave her feeling oddly cold in her place of shadows. She lowered the knife and looked through the wall of light to the man who stood beyond, smiling at her with an ingratiating slip of long, ivory fang. Was it the deep blue eyes of the Lord she stared into? Or was he merely an undead peon?

God, what was she doing here!

"I thought that was the scent of a pretty treat I smelled," he chuckled lowly, and she felt every muscle in her body tense as his eyes swept down her frame, head to toe, pausing only to linger on her bare neck for the span of a single heartbeat. When he looked back to her face, his lips and eyes tight in some serious emotion, she wished desperately that she could run. "Ripley's girl, come to save your dear old daddy, eh? The Lord will be pleased to know that you've made it."

"Where is he?" she asked shakily, then cleared her throat and said again, stronger now, a scowl on her face, "Where is my father?"

Again, that ingratiating slip of teeth. "In time, treat. All in due time." His hand still resting on the knob, he threw the door wide and swept to one side with a broad gesture to the house's glowing interior, and not knowing what else to do, she skulked her way up the remaining steps and into the warm light.

-?-

"Not so friendly, is she?" The door shut with a sharp click, and Antony blinked rapidly in the fresh darkness, his eyes darting to the girl who leaned heavily against the door frame. Alexis? How long had he been staring at that door? How long had Torryn been gone? "Not so friendly, is she?" the girl repeated grimly as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"You don't know her," he murmured darkly, unable to stop his brow from shifting into a heavy glare over his eyes. "She's usually a lot nicer. You know, when strange women don't come giggling their way down from my bedroom."

She scowled right back at him. "It's not my fault you didn't tell her sooner. She would've found out, anyway. What's the big deal?"

"She didn't deserve to find out that way!" he roared, throwing his arms wide in frustration, but he quickly checked himself, dropping his arms to his side and clenching his fists tightly. She was right. It wasn't her fault. Mostly. "Just forget about it, okay? Don't you have somewhere to be?"

Her expression lightened, and she pushed herself away from the door as she teased, "You'd send your injured concubine away so soon?"

"You're not my concubine," he said, entirely vacant of emotion now — on the outside. "And you don't seem so injured anymore."

She shrugged and took a slow step toward him. "I could go for a lot more bed rest." She smiled sweetly, and he wondered how she could look so nonchalant in the face of his own personal tragedy. "If that's okay with you, I mean."

He turned from her, his distant gaze lighting on the kitchen counter. "Yeah, sure. Whatever you need." How would he find her? How would he get her back? How would he keep her safe? He had no idea where she was, and the sun wasn't going to be completely gone for another ten minutes, minimum.

And in these situations, ten minutes could mean everything.

He tensed when a hand found his shoulder, Alexis' low voice washing over him. "Hey, don't worry about her. She seems perfectly capable of handling herself. And even if she isn't, she's not much of a loss, is she? She brought it all on herself."

He whirled to face her, knocking her fingers from his shoulder with a well-placed blow to the wrist. "I might be an undead," he hissed, "but unlike the others, I still have a soul." He pushed past her and started up the stairs — Caleb. Caleb would be able to tell him the locations of the other vampire nests in the city. Hopefully he knew of one that would be holding a few Progeny.

"Liar!" she cried, and the raw emotion to her voice drew him to a stop halfway up the staircase. Tears glistened in her eyes, and he could've sworn that he detected the slightest tremor to her hands. "You have no soul! You just think you do! Now shut up and take my advice, you prick!"

"If I didn't have a soul, I wouldn't love her like this, now, would I?" he retorted, the picture of total calm. "Now calm down before you hurt yourself."

"Antony, please!"

But he resumed his ascent, his expression still perfectly empty though his insides rattled at the truth he knew lingered beneath her words. "I don't have time for this. Please rest."

Caleb had to know where to find Torryn. And whether he knew or not, Antony knew who else he'd have to call.

God, if anything happened to Torryn, Skylar would end him. And he'd hand him the knife.

"Are you gonna go after her?" came a voice from his right, and he nearly started at the unfamiliar sound. Torryn's mother peered at him from a doorway toward the end of the hall, her expression grim enough to rival the way he felt. "If you are — and you'd better be, boy — I can tell you where she went."

-?-

Torryn's grip on the knife's hilt tightened as she followed the giant of a man deeper into the house. It was the picture of Victorian elegance — just what you'd expect for a vampire's lair, if you bought into the cliches. Except for the scent. It reeked of floral decay, like they'd tried to cover the smell of their own rotting corpses with the most heinous lavender-scented air freshener they could find, and she thought she'd much prefer spending a night in the coffin of a recently deceased gentleman.

"Will you just tell me where he is?" she asked as they started up a dark, creaky back staircase. They'd passed two already. Why this one? She didn't like this. Any of it. "I'm leaving here with him whether I meet your precious Lord or not."

"Sometimes, I wish my food didn't speak," he retorted, tossing a distasteful cringe her way, but said nothing more. She clenched her teeth and pressed the knife's blade flat against the back of her thigh. She could kill him right now if she wanted to…

They entered a dimly lit hall and quickly turned a corner, and the scent of corpses clad in lavender grew stronger. Her nose wrinkled. Well, if the vampires don't kill me, their Martha-Stewart-meets-Dracula stench certainly will.

Seconds later, the man came to an abrupt stop in front of a closed door, and before he even raised a hand to knock, a deep voice rumbled from within, "Come in. And let that tasty morsel you're leading along go first." The man pushed the door open and promptly shoved her through ahead of him, and she staggered in.

The stereotypes flooded her as she looked around the broad room, with its vaulted ceiling and crimson-red area rugs. Mahogany bookshelves lined every inch of the walls, packed full of books without even the slightest hint of wear, and a fire crackled dully in the fireplace at the center of the left-side wall, casting flickering shadows across the knees of a man she couldn't see in a tall, wing-backed chair. Edgar Allan Poe? Is that you? Where's your bust of Pallas, bro? She pressed the hidden knife harder against her leg, her cold certainty waning more and more by the second. Oh my God, I'm an idiot. I'm going to die here.

"I said, come in, girl," the man rumbled, and she heard the gentle shnick of a page turning as his knees shifted in her line of sight. "We have a few important matters to discuss, and it'll be much easier to do that if you're actually in the room." A white hand ghosted out from behind the chair's back, gesturing to an identical chair beside his. "Please, sit."

She crept slowly forward, each step a light creak of the old floorboards, and he went on. "First off, I'd like to ask you about the living vampires I sent after you." Another shnick of the page, and she wondered if he was even actually reading anything. The carefully combed hair on the top of his head, a surprising shade of platinum blond, slowly came into view, then his large-nosed profile and sunken cheeks. His pale eyes that reflected the dancing flames skimmed the pages before him with unnerving quickness, and she concluded that, yes, he was actually reading. She pressed the knife deeper, and she felt the sharp edge through the thick denim of her jeans. "Where are they? I'm almost entirely certain that you've sent them on some wild goose chase, searching for you so that you might sneak in here while they're occupied elsewhere." His eyes flicked to her face as she drew up beside him, and he lowered his book. "Secondly, I was wondering just what you might be willing to trade for your father. And thirdly, of course, I would like to know just who might come after you if I decide to skip bartering and just keep you as my own."

She shifted the knife at her thigh, slipping it into a more useful grip for when this madman finally attacked, but his gaze snapped to the tip of the hilt that peeked out from behind her, and his very person seemed to darken as he took in the sight. "Show me that dagger," he commanded in a powerful whisper, and before she'd even fully revealed its blade, he lurched to his feet and cried, his gaze never leaving the weapon, "Is that hers? Is that my Clara's dagger?" His book crashed to the floor, and a cacophony of crashes sounded as picture frames and undoubtedly priceless knickknacks went tumbling from the fireplace's mantle, her shoulder blades digging mercilessly into the marble as he pinned her wrists to either side of her shoulders. The heat of the flames licked at the back of her calves, and the odd, damp chill of his breath wafted over her face as he bellowed, "What have you done to them?!" She cringed, drawing away from him as best she could, and he slammed her right wrist against the mantle until the knife went tumbling from her numbed fingers. "Tell me what you've done to my darlings!"

For a moment, she could only gawk at the man, shocked. He was an undead vampire, a master, someone whose entire being was supposed to have degenerated long ago into an unfeeling mass of blood lust and power play, yet here he was, snarling in her face like a rabid dog, on the brink of tears, because she'd killed his…darlings? She really had a lot to learn about vampires.

"I did what I had to do to protect my mother and myself," she finally said, scrambling to get a hold of her own emotions. She couldn't afford to be confused or frightened, and she willed her Progeny blood to take hold. "I'm sure you knew when you sent them after me that there was no 100% guarantee that they would be returning."

"No!" he cried, jerking her forward by her wrists and slamming her back against the mantle again. Her breath rushed from her lungs, and she winced, dangling helplessly in his hold. "There was a guarantee. Six living vampires against one half-Progeny. How could they lose?" he hissed, and the fire suddenly felt hotter behind her legs.

"Sir?" the man asked softly from where he still stood in the doorway, and her eyes darted to him, taking in his slightly puzzled expression. The Lord didn't react like this often, she guessed. The Lord was just full of surprises for a master vampire, wasn't he?

"Go," the Lord ordered in a low, growling whisper. "Go to this devil woman's house and find their remains. It's impossible that she's killed them. Simply impossible."

"Yes, sir," the man murmured, then bowed and slipped into the hall, closing the door softly behind him.

Wouldn't want the others seeing your loss of control, would we? she thought bitterly, her body relaxing as instinct gradually began to take hold. It was just her and one overly emotional master, and honestly, at this point, she wasn't sure which of them had more of a lust for the other's blood.

His tight grip on her wrists eased suddenly, and he dropped her arms and took a slow step back, his appraising gaze sliding along her bloodied frame. The light to his eyes had gone out, leaving only the dull, listless orbs of the undead, but she wasn't worried. Why should she be? She'd taken down six of his own, and she was sure a single master wouldn't be anywhere near as hard, not now that she could fight off the pheromones.

Her eyes dropped to the knife that lay at her feet, the silver blade flickering orange and red in the light of the fire. The victory would be that much sweeter if she killed him with his precious Clara's blade.

"I think a meeting with her own darling is in order," he called to someone who lingered on the other side of the door, and her eyes jerked to his. "Bring Ripley to us." Shit. Just what was he planning?

Dad…

-?-

How could he have forgotten about such a valuable asset? How could it have slipped his mind that he had an entire font of knowledge right here, at his very fingertips?

"Richland Terrace?" he asked for the fourth time, even as he passed through the doorway and into his bedroom. "You can't remember the exact address, though?" He snatched the cell phone from his nightstand and glanced at the woman, shaking her head from the hallway beyond.

"I already told you, no, I can't remember anything but that." She shrugged, and he turned his gaze back to his phone as he scrolled through it in search of Skylar's name and number. He never thought he'd be glad to have that boy in his contacts. "I was a bit busy watching my daughter turn into the Terminator."

"Understandable," he murmured as he hit send and pressed the phone to his ear. "She's been committing some surprising acts of violence lately."

"What did you do this time, jackass?" came Skylar's voice in a pant, and Antony quickly put his back to Torryn's mother.

"I didn't do anything," he answered defensively, "but she ran off, and I think she's about to get herself killed." Worry seeped into his very core at the words, and he inwardly cursed his undead nature. If only he were still alive… "I need you to get to Richland Terrace. She's—"

"Whoa, whoa," Skylar nearly shouted through the receiver, and Antony cringed, pulling the phone a few inches from his ear. "You mean she went into the Lord's domain?"

Shock lanced through him. "H…how did you know…?"

"Everyone knows," the boy answered, and there was a brief pause in which Antony could hear him swallowing — drinking something, most likely. There was the crack of a water bottle, and his voice returned. "He runs a tight ship, and he never messes with other vampires, but he's been known to take more than his fair share of humans. Keeps them as pets. Not a very nice guy."

Shame replaced Antony's surprise, and he hunched his shoulders as if he could hide himself from it. He was in charge of an entire coven now. How had he not known about this guy? "Do you know if he keeps Progeny?"

Another pause, a harsh exhale. "I don't think we have time to talk about that right now," he said evasively. "Richland Terrace, you said?" The zipping of a bag filtered through, then the creaking of a door, and voices began.

"Ah, yeah," Antony answered, turning to look at Torryn's mother. She still watched patiently from the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. "We don't know the exact address, but it shouldn't be hard to find Torryn's car."

"I don't know if I'll be of much help," he said, then let out a soft groan of pain, "but I'll do what I can." Where was he? The Arena? "Can you meet me—" He caught himself, and Antony felt a pang of guilt. "How long ago did she leave?"

"A few minutes," he answered in a murmur, and an engine roared to life through the phone.

"And you're only just now calling me?" he snapped. "She could be half dead by now, you idiot. What the hell were you doing?" Squealing tires; the growl of a shifting engine.

"Look, dick," Antony snarled, "there was a reason she ran out in a hurry without backup. I was taking care of it."

"What the fuck did you do to her now, bloodsucker?"

Antony hesitated, his gaze lingering on the curious brown depths of Torryn's mother's eyes. "Someone sent me a gift, a girl…"

Yes, he would hand him the knife.