Bitten to Death

Chapter Twenty-Five

As soon as I hit the bedroom I sent the word out through Pete, Albert, and Cole. Contact your experts. Let me know if there’s a way to kill a bound vampire without also destroying its Maker.

The answers came back depressingly soon. There is no way. When they’re magically entwined, the vultures die with the nestlings. Always have. Always will.

“Goddammit!” The cursing woke up Ziel, who came over to check on me. “Go away. I’m pissed off,” I grumbled.

He laid his head on the bed. When I refused to pet him, he jumped up, clearing me and landing on the other side, where he turned around three times before settling in beside me. “Okay, you can stay, but don’t get used to this. I’m only allowing it because I’m so bummed and for some reason you don’t smell like dog.”

I turned my back to him and instantly fell asleep.

When I opened my eyes they landed on Vayl, standing at the end of the bed, a shadowy figure in the dimness of the room.

I sat up. Slowly. Why is it that you never really feel the effects of a fight until after you stop moving? I groaned, silently cursing Samos’s men as I glanced at the dog they’d tried to retrieve. Ziel lay at my side, gnawing on a bone I hoped hadn’t once been some guy’s leg.

“How long did I sleep?” I asked.

“Hours. Dusk has fallen.”

“Time to call Samos?”

“Nearly so.” Vayl cocked his head to one side. “Pete called while you were asleep. He wanted to know why you were trying to spare vampires. When I did not know what he was talking about, he had to explain.”

I crossed my legs in front of me and swallowed a gasp as I reached for the poker chips that stood like a tower of happy thoughts on the bedside table. When I still didn’t say anything, Vayl went on. “You cannot kill Disa.”

“So I’ve been told.” Click. Clack. Click.

“Even if her death were to have no effect on me, you should still not be pondering this course of action.”

“Okay.”

“That does not sound convincing.”

Clack, click, clackety, clack. “I could swear on my mother’s grave if you want.”

“What good would that do when she is in hell?”

I shrugged. Ow, dammit! He came and sat down in front of me. “Do not cross the line, Jasmine. Not for me. Do the mission, do it well, and go home.”

I met his eyes. “The mission’s changed.”

“According to whom?”

“Me. And you, if you’re thinking straight. Look, Pete can’t call this one. Neither can any of the candidates vying for a seat on the department’s oversight committee. They’re not here. They don’t know.”

“But if they were, their feelings for me would not cloud their decisions.”

“You forget what a valuable asset they see you as. If Disa ties you up for the next fifty years, they’re pretty much screwed, aren’t they?”

His brows arched. “What are you saying?”

“I have a good case, if it comes to that. But I don’t think it will. I think Pete will back me a hundred percent. So the second I figure out how to keep you alive—I’m taking Disa down.”

Actually my biggest concern was Cassandra’s warning about what would happen to Vayl and me if I pulled this off. But I’d detoured her prophecies before. I glanced up from the poker chips. Gave myself just a second to imagine what it would be like to spend the rest of my life with him.

“You cannot look at me that way,” Vayl said.

“Why?”

“Because suddenly it becomes impossible to keep my hands off you.” He reached up and cupped my face in his palms, his fingertips sending spirals of excitement down my neck into my heaving chest. Suddenly nothing hurt at all. Anywhere. As Vayl said, “And then I find I must kiss you,” his lips lowered to mine. Just a brush, a touch of flesh and then the alarm went off again.

I jumped, banging my nose against Vayl’s cheek. “Ow!”

Dave ran into the room, yelling, “Jaz, can’t you control your temper for one—oh.”

Tarasios came stumbling in behind him, holding his hands to his head, mumbling, “Stop the sirens. Please, stop the sirens.” He kept moving straight toward the bathroom, tripping over the doggy-dress-bed by the door. He landed on all fours and crawled toward his target, making it just in time to leave his mess where at least nobody would have to mop it up.

“I’m going to go find out what’s going on,” Dave said. “You two—get your own damn room. God knows what I’m going to walk in on next,” he muttered as he left.

“So, Tarasios,” I called. “Did Dave get a chance to ask you any questions?”

No answer but the sounds of his misery. Ziel took great interest in the entire process. He’d jumped off the bed when the alarm sounded and, after running around tracking everyone’s movements, followed Tarasios into the bathroom. He kept looking from the puking man to us, as if trying to solve a mystery. By the end we were trying not to laugh. It was the sound, I think. Like a bullfrog that’s just coming off a bad cold. Or maybe it was the mutt who