Dark Needs at Night’s Edge (Immortals After Dark #5)(5)
Author: Kresley Cole

Witches? Oh, come now! Néomi moved to rub her temple, felt nothing, but was somewhat soothed by the familiar act.

In the lull, Murdoch cased the main salon, plucking at cobwebs. "Conrad knew we were going to be at the tavern."

"No doubt of it," Nikolai answered, crossing to a dirt-caked window to glance outside. "He was awaiting us. To kill us."

"Obviously he’s gotten good at it." Sebastian patted his ribs in an assessing manner and winced. Looking more closely, she could see that they all seemed injured in some way. Even Conrad appeared to have been clawed across the chest by some beast. "He likes it."

Likes to kill? A murderer in my home. Again. Was he the same kind of man as Louis – one who would stab a defenseless woman through the heart? Tamp it down, Néomi… . The wind picked up. Control the emotion.

Murdoch said, "I suppose he’d have to, if the word about his occupation is true."

A professional killer?

"Finding him now… it couldn’t come at a worse time," Sebastian said. "How are we going to manage this?"

"We fight a war, deceive our king, try not to worry about our Kaderin and Myst, all the while attempting to salvage Con’s sanity," Nikolai replied evenly.

Murdoch lifted a brow. "And here I thought we would be busy."

The brothers began exploring nearby rooms, testing wood for rot and pulling sheets from furniture, examining their surroundings.

In the past, she’d been fortunate with those who’d occupied Elancourt. Nice families had come and gone, a few harmless vagrants. Nothing about these men said We’re nice and harmless!

Especially not the chained murderer. He lay on the floor, blood collecting at the corner of his parted lips to drip down.

Drip… drip…  A crimson pool was stark against her marble. Just as before. Tamp it down. Control it.

The madman’s eyes flashed open. She couldn’t warn the others! In the space of a bolt of lightning, he somehow shot to his chained feet, hobbling forward with unnatural speed. Before she could even raise her arms to exert pressure against him, he’d stretched the chain taut… the radiator was bending under the pressure.

He couldn’t break it. Imposs –

Like a whip, it snapped free as he charged across the room for the door – the door where she stood. As she stared in disbelief, the radiator trailed in his wake, destroying everything in its wildly sweeping path.

Suddenly, the underfloor web of attached heating pipes burst up through the floor, foot after foot of groaning metal and exploding marble and splinters.

The three men dove for him once more, the pile of them skidding to a stop right at her slippers.

She gaped. Her home, her beloved home. In fifteen minutes, the madman had wrought more destruction to Elancourt than it had sustained in the last eighty years.

Her hands fisted. Control it. But her hair had already begun to swirl about her face, rose petals floating in a tempest around her body. Outside, the wind kicked up, streaming through the holes in the high windows, sweeping the grit and dust until she was able to see all the destruction.

The marble! When her eyes watered with frustration, rain poured outside.

Tamp it down.

Too late. Lightning bombarded the house, illuminating the night like successive bomb blasts. From under the pile of men, Conrad yanked his head up at her.

In a flash, Néomi twisted round, sweeping her hair over her face as she dissipated. Reemerging on the landing, she gazed down at him.

Conrad continued to stare at the spot where she’d stood, blinking and easing his struggles as if dumbfounded.

Had he… had he possibly seen her?

No one ever had before. Ever. She’d been so uniformly ignored for so long that she’d begun to wonder if she truly existed.

Up close, she’d been able to see that the whites of his eyes were… red. She’d thought he’d been injured, with burst blood vessels shooting across, but in fact, they were wholly glazed with red.

What were these beings? Could they truly be… vampires? Even in light of what she’d become, she still struggled to believe in anything supernatural.

With a shake of his head, Conrad frenziedly renewed his flight for the door, gaining inches, even as the three wrestled with him.

"I didn’t want to have to do this, Conrad!" Nikolai said, digging into his jacket pocket. As the others pinned Conrad, he bit the end off what appeared to be a syringe and injected its contents into Conrad’s arm.

Whatever it was slowed him, making him blink his red eyes again and again.

"What did you give him?" Sebastian asked.

"It’s a concoction from the witches – part medical, part mystickal. It should knock him out."

For how long would it knock Conrad out? How long were they expecting him to stay here? To spit across her floor and roar within her halls? She’d be damned if she allowed another of Louis’s ilk to taint her home once more! This Conrad was an animal. He should be put down. Or at the very least, put out.

She’d show these trespassers power like they’d never seen, sweeping them into the yard like trash! She’d toss them by their feet all the way to the bayou! Néomi would demonstrate what happened when a ghost went poltergeist –

"Where… is she?" Conrad grated between heaving breaths.

Néomi froze. He couldn’t be talking about her, couldn’t have seen her.

"Who, Conrad?" Nikolai demanded.

Just before the shot knocked him unconscious, he rasped, "Female… beautiful."

3

Dawn had come and gone, and still Néomi was reeling. Because apparently Elancourt was filled to the rafters with real vampires.

Any lingering doubt had evaporated when she’d seen the brothers vanish and reappear as they’d gone about repairing parts of the house.

And this wasn’t even the most astonishing development of the night. When Conrad had said, "Female… beautiful," had he possibly been talking about her?

Now she could only wait impatiently for him to regain consciousness so she could find out.

He remained as the brothers had left him last night – lying on the new mattress they’d brought in for him, with his wrists chained together behind him, his muddy boots and the ankle restraints removed. His ripped clothing had dried, the material stiff with dirt. The angry red gashes on his chest had healed within mere hours.

She floated in a sitting position above the foot of the bed wondering how much longer he would be out. She’d thought all vampires would be comatose during the day, but his brothers were in and out downstairs, busily teleporting goods into the manor.

This waiting was unbearable. Because he possibly… saw me. Yes, no one ever had before, and, yes, this development was based solely on the idea that he’d deemed her beautiful. Maybe if he wasn’t one to quibble about pink cheeks and the appearance of blooming health… ?