Sex, Lies, and Vampires

Both the power and pain faded as I fell forward onto the street, sobbing with frustration and anger. Without the ring to guard my brain, I could wield no powers. I was helpless, useless to Adrian, just one more responsibility for him, one more reason for him to sacrifice himself.

And I had been about to destroy someone I had thought was my friend.

"Nell, what's wrong? Are you all right? You seemed to have some sort of fit. Are you epileptic? Should I get a doctor?" I sensed her hovering near me, but I couldn't bring myself to face her. I was shaken by the extent of my reaction to Adrian's fury. It was as if it had possessed me, consumed me. I lay on the street and thanked God that my brain had stopped me from killing a second time. "I'll get Adrian," Belinda said.

"No!" I yelled, prying myself off the wet street. She was there immediately, helping me up with solicitation and concern. The remnants of Adrian's anger fought with my own disbelief that she would turn on us. I struggled with the conflicting desires, but his emotions were still pouring into me. The anger won.

"Nell—"

I grabbed her arms, shaking her a little as I fought to regain control over myself. "Did you betray us?"

"What?" We stood in the blue-white pool of light from the now steady streetlight. The light washed all the color out of the surroundings, leaving Belinda's gray eyes black, her skin a deathless white. "Did I what?"

"Betray us? Did you lure me away from the house, separating me from Adrian so he'd be weaker? Did you do that? Did you betray us to your Dark One?"

"No!" she gasped, her teeth chattering in response to the shaking. "I swear to you, I haven't done anything like that! I would never endanger Damian that way!"

I dropped my hands, the exhaustion that always followed one of my brain fits crashing over me like a fifty-ton weight, mingling with my regret that I had put Adrian's anger into words against Belinda. Sanity prevailed once again, and I believed her. Everything about her, everything in her eyes and voice, protested her innocence. She loved Damian—I knew that without a doubt, just as I knew she realized that to Saer, the boy was nothing more than a prize to be offered to any demon lord who would favor him. As much as it tore her up to leave Saer, she would not risk Damian's life by rejoining Saer.

"Come on," I said, turning wearily and starting toward the street where Christian's house was. "Saer managed to find a way into the house through our defenses. Christian has taken Damian off somewhere safe, but we have to help Adrian. I have a feeling that even with the ring, he's going to need us. I don't trust Saer any further than I can long jump, and if Sebastian is helping him, that makes it two against one."

"More, with the Aryans."

We ran around the corner to Christian's street, and stopped, shocked for a moment by what we saw. The house was crawling with Nazis, at least twenty cars parked haphazardly up and down the street, acting as barricades to keep anyone from traversing the street. Every car bore red banners with the white and black Wolfsangel symbol the white supremacists favored. On the car nearest us, a hand-painted sign hung in the back, declaring "WAR—WHITE ARMY REVOLUTION—HAS BEEN DECLARED!" Beyond the cars, a handful of guys wandered around in front of the house, some holding baseball bats and other large, hard objects. Lights blazed from the house, and in the gap in one of the ground-floor curtains, I could see figures moving around inside.

From a distance, the wail of a police siren cut through the night; apparently, someone in the neighborhood had seen Saer's army descend upon Christian's house.

"Aren't they a happy little army?" I asked under my breath as we started toward them, my fingers itching to draw all sorts of horrible things upon them.

"Nell, wait!" Belinda cried, grabbing my arm and stopping me before I made it more than a few steps toward the Nazis.

I shook off her hand. "Wait? I don't think so. That's my vamp in there going up against those guys all by his onesie. He needs me. I'm going."

She grabbed my arm again, this time shoving me into the darkened doorway of a nearby house. The Nazis hadn't seen us, but I didn't really mind if they were alerted to our presence. They were road hash as far as I cared. "We can't just walk up to the house!" Belinda said. "We have to have a plan. We have to figure out some way to distract those men so we can sneak inside and do what we can to defeat Saer and Sebastian."

"Plan schman," I sneered, my lip curling with scorn as I pulled away from her and started toward Christian's house. "We're immortal now, remember? They can't kill us. You can stay here if you want, but I'm going in to kick some serious Nazi butt. And then it's Saer's turn."

"Nell—"