Dancing in the Dark - 7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7.

Viktor doesn’t say it, but I can tell he’s proud of the way I now have Emma cowering and trying to slide down the drain of the tub the whole time we were in the shower. I lean over and remove the ball gag from her mouth and the words spew from her like she can’t control them.

“No more please, no more, don’t do it again I’ll tell you everything, I will, please just let me die now,” she babbles in a hoarse voice and Viktor giggles. Honestly, he giggles like a fourteen year old girl.

“What did you do to her Mark?” He wraps his arms around my waist from behind, and he’s tall enough that he can rest his cheek above my ear. We were dry and dressed now, Viktor looking only slightly ridiculous in my too small clothes. Emma stares up at us in abject terror.

“Flechettes and salt,” I say.

“What are flechettes?” Viktor asks curiously. I look up at him with a frown.

“You don’t know what flechettes are? Seriously what do they teach you kids these days?” I don’t actually know if Viktor is younger than me, but I say it on a hunch and it pans out.

“Hey, I’ll have you know I’m one hundred and sixty three this year,” Viktor says with a pout. Oh, he’s cute when he does that and I stand on my toes to capture his pouting lip in my teeth for a second.

I release him and answer, “Flechettes are very fine blades, so fine that you don’t actually feel them cutting you until after it’s done. I cut her up, then rubbed salt into her wounds until she passed out. I healed her, waited for her to wake up and then did it again. I only had to do it twice before she was ready to talk.”

“How many times did you do it after she broke? And how did you heal her?” he asks, staring down at Emma who is now looking up at as and whimpering.

I shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe five or six times? And I healed her with my blood. Which reminds me, has it had an effect on you?” I ask curiously.

Viktor looks confused by my question, but shakes his head. “You’re my mate, of course your blood is better for me than anyone else’s. Although I did recover from - what did you call it? Revenancy? We just call it the mindless hungry stage, most of us only go through it the first time we wake after the change. Why is your blood different?”

“Because I'm immortal,” I answer. Viktor stares at me with an open mouth and doesn’t say anything.

I shift my attention back to Emma, who is waiting for us and looking like she’s disappointed that she didn’t fall through the plughole while we were distracted. It just takes a raised eyebrow on my part to have her babbling again.

“Oh, oh God, please no, it’s the government, some kind of subsection of the FBI, but they’re in charge of removing supernatural threats and they wanted Sofia gone because she was blackmailing a senator and he’s in charge of the agency and they’ve been planning to get rid of her for a while that’s why we kidnapped Viktor so we could starve him and then we could use him to safely eliminate you─”

“How did you know that I would take Viktor home with me?” I interrupt her babbling. She starts crying.

“We . . . we didn’t,” she sobs, “Pierson was going to make you take him if you didn’t volunteer to.” Viktor is growling softly in the back of his throat, a threatening animal sound. It’s sexy as fuck.

“Are they going to come for us?” Viktor’s question comes out with a snarl of displeasure at the thought. I wonder how he makes those sounds? I'd just sound like I was trying to be a dog if I tried to make those noises, but Viktor sounds more like a pissed off leopard.

“Yes, they’ll give me until sunrise to check in with you, and when I haven’t they’ll come looking,” she answers with a series of frantic nods. She’s getting calmer now, and I can see that change in her that comes over most human’s right before I kill them. I think it’s them accepting their fate and letting go of their life, but I could be wrong. I’m vaguely envious of the death she’s about to embrace, until Viktor presses his lips to the side of my neck and I realize that I have something worth living for now. That thought is followed closely by the thought that he’s a vampire. And vampires, as I know all too well, only think they’re immortal.

Emma has been babbling on while these thoughts run through my head, and in a flash I slip from Viktor’s embrace, grab one of my flechettes that are still by the tub where I left them earlier and slice it across her throat.

She trails off with a confused look on her face and then her head lolls back and she’s dead. The whole thing took about twenty seconds. Viktor stares at me with something like awe on his face, but I’m too enraged to really notice.

“They’re going to try and kill you Viktor,” my voice is flat, emotionless. I haven’t been this angry since that time I got chopped up and buried.

“Hey, hey, it’s ok. I’m a vampire, and you’re immortal,” he grips my face in his hands and forces me to look at him. He appears to have already forgotten that they managed to almost starve him to death.

“Yes, you’re a vampire that they’ve already almost killed. Viktor, I…I just found you. I don’t even really understand this whole mating bond thing, but . . . .” I looked up at him, into his heterochromatic eyes and drew in a deep breath, controlling myself. Viktor looked back at me and I could see him struggling with the idea that he was the one in danger here.

“Mark . . . when you say you’re immortal, exactly how immortal do you mean? I mean, are you like us and you just don’t─”

I cut him off sharply, “No, Viktor I’m immortal in the literal sense of the word. You can chop me up and destroy me, and eventually I’ll pull back together, or be remade new if a part can’t come back to me. You vampires got the better end of the deal if you ask me. The option of death is what makes you want to live I think.” That last bit was me mumbling to myself as I started to think about what we would need to do.

My vampire sat down abruptly, but gracefully on the floor. I don’t know what’s going on in his head, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to be capable of making plans with me anytime soon. Well that’s ok; we have until sunrise to get to one of my safe houses, and it’s not even eleven yet. First things first, we have to get rid of Emma.