The vampire stomped on me again and I fought the urge to giggle madly at the image of Lovely Laura and her “killer” heels. Ugh, death by bad pun, how cliché. Closing my eyes, I waited for the end, but to my surprise I heard a startled shout from the direction of the door. I dragged my eyes open again to see a Harrison-shaped blur streak toward her, grab her and throw her against the nearest wall with a resounding crack of broken drywall.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

“I’m altering your plan.”

“Why, you think you can take her place?”

“She won’t have you,” Laura hissed in reply. “I won’t let her.”

Gee, hell really doth have no fury like a woman scorned. My eyes fluttered shut because I no longer had the strength to keep them open. I would’ve found the exchange much more interesting if I hadn’t been bleeding out.

“Get out! Now!”

“No. I made you. I know what’s best for you. She’s too much like her mother, she won’t be corrupted. That girl will never obey you. It’s best to get rid of her now and make a clean break.” Laura made me sound like some sort of untrainable puppy that needed to be put down, and I really wanted to light her on fire. Repeatedly. Instead I just gurgled piteously from the pain.

Next I heard a slap followed by an outraged gasp. “How dare you interfere,” Harrison growled.

“Someone has to-you don’t have even a fraction of my experience. I’m looking out for your best interests.”

“No, you’re looking out for your best interests.”

“I made you,” she repeated, her voice raising a screeching octave.

“But you can’t control me.”

For a brief moment I thought I caught a whiff of burning flesh through the stench of blood, but I couldn’t be sure if it was my own imagination picturing Lovely Laura wreathed in flames. The smell was followed by a few gasping noises that sounded like they came from a female source. Good for Zach, I hope he snapped her skinny, pale neck.

Footsteps, a door slammed, and then Harrison hovered over me. He looked like hell-he had wounds that mirrored mine, but less severe. Zach murmured reassuringly, and though the words were beginning to sound fuzzy and incoherent I could hear ten shades of worry in his voice. He drew my hands away from my throat and started to heal the slashes with a wave of tingling, stinging magic. Unfortunately the pain didn’t subside one bit, and the relentless press of unconsciousness crowded my thoughts. As my mind began to drift, I realized Zach was right-I really could sense his emotions. Staticky and faint, like being able to hear a distant radio station when the conditions were just right. Despite the angry words he’d exchanged with Laura I knew he was afraid, deeply terribly afraid.

“Catherine, look at me,” he ordered, and I struggled to meet his gaze. Zach looked grim as he stared down at me, and I knew that couldn’t be good. “I need you to drink.” I frowned, confused, and watched in pained silence as he unbuttoned the cuff of his sleeve and rolled it up. The vampire raised his wrist to his mouth and bit through the skin. He moved to hold his wound against my lips and I tried to turn away. “Catherine, you have to drink, you’ll die if you don’t. The blood won’t turn you, it won’t hurt you, it will just help me heal you.”

I had to believe him-I didn’t have a choice. Death wasn’t exactly an option I was open to, especially when I was so close to regaining my freedom, so I drank. The blood burned, feeling as though it seared a path of scar tissue down my throat as I swallowed. I’d never experienced anything like it. The sensation was like trying to describe how a nightmare would taste, or what flavor death might have. My body tried to reject the invader, and my limbs flailed and thrashed as though suffering a seizure. Zach pinned me down and held me still as best he could, continuing to pour the poison into me. I had no idea how it could be helping, it felt as though the blood was killing me faster.

Finally he removed his wrist and smoothed the fingers of his other hand over the torn skin, closing the wound. Then he pressed his hands against each of the puncture wounds caused by Laura’s heel, one after the other. The pain was phenomenal, unimaginable, a spear of agony that sprung from my core out to my skin. I didn’t remember it hurting that badly when she’d caused them in the first place. I screamed loud and long, the sound filling the room until I sank into the blessed oblivion of unconsciousness as my newfound talent for fainting finally resulted in something good.

Chapter Twenty-One

The soft, rapid clicking of a keyboard woke me, and I dragged my eyes open to stare at an unfamiliar ceiling. By now I was getting used to the running theme of fainting and waking up in an unexpected place. I’d gone through most of my life without fainting a single time, and yet somehow during the past few weeks I’d developed the constitution of a Victorian heroine suffering from the consumption. If I survived this whole ordeal, I was joining a gym and toughening myself up. And quitting smoking. Again. For real this time.

Lifting my head, I studied the room. Yup, definitely not my suite, or my apartment, and also not Castle Silverleaf, though the bed was nearly as large. The place was the definition of master bedroom-it was probably larger than my entire apartment. Antique wooden furniture decorated the space, and a familiar vampire hunched over a laptop in an easy chair across the room, a stack of newspapers on the table next to him. Though Zach’s hair was a bit mussed and the top buttons of his dress shirt were undone, it reminded me of when I’d arrived at his office here in the tower because he had the same intent expression as he studied whatever important work was plastered on the screen. The sight was somewhat of a relief. It was less embarrassing to wake up in Zach’s bed when he was fully clothed on the other side of the room, engrossed in some business dealing. Curious, I glanced down at myself, easing the covers aside to discover that I was wearing a set of boring cotton print pajamas I’d ordered from one of the catalogues. While it was a little mortifying that he’d probably dressed me, I was pretty positive he’d behaved himself.

Sensing my movement, Zach looked up from his laptop, seeming surprised. “You’re awake,” he said, setting his work aside. “How do you feel?”

“Like I got stomped on,” I replied, my voice rough and gravelly. Everything ached, thankfully not as terribly as it ought to considering how close to death I’d been. Crossing the room, he picked up a heavy earthenware mug from the bedside table and moved to help me sit up.

“Here, drink this.”

“No more blood,” I protested in a piteous whine.

“No more blood, it’s herbal tea. I added a potion to it that will help ease the pain and regain your strength more quickly.”

I nodded my thanks and took the mug, holding it with both hands as I sipped at it. The liquid was dark and lukewarm, and it smelled faintly of mint. If there was a potion stirred into it I couldn’t smell it, but then again alchemy is the most difficult magic for me to detect. Potions tend to smell like their ingredients, or whatever they’re added to.

“You were an alchemist?” I’d figured him for a sorcerer, since so many necromancers start out that way.

“Yes. I’m the first magician in the Harrison family.” He smiled dryly. “It was a bit of a surprise for my father.”

I looked down at the tea and froze. Zach was an alchemist. “You put potions in my food, didn’t you? To do the spell that bound us together.”

“Part of it,” he admitted. “Your weakness for sweets was very helpful. As was the fact that you’re a heavy sleeper.”

“You son of a-”

“Catherine, if I hadn’t cast the spell, you would be dead right now. I wouldn’t have known Laura attacked you until your body was found in the morning. Would that be better?”