Page 69 of As Darkness Fall
The hostility in Aaron’s tone surprised me. There had been none from the other speaker. If anything, they had spoken with respect.
They certainly weren’t getting it in return.
“I cannot do that,” the speaker said.
Eager to get a view, I slapped at Vir’s hand. “Let me down,” I hissed.
Vir’s eyes twinkled with blue fire–I noticed he hadn’t brought out the horns yet. Was that because he didn’t expect a fight? Or what did they signify?
Once I was down, I walked to the front of our group to stand next to Aaron. The vampire addressing him was tall, bald, and wore very ornate robes. Yet, hestillhad no color on him. They were all different shades of cream and ivory, cut thickly and draping his entire form.
“Whoever chose the color pallet of this place must have been colorblind,” I muttered to myself.
The speaker’s gaze fixed on me, his eyes cold and so darkly brown they were practically black. A wave of cold hatred and fear washed over me, strong enough that I knew it couldn’t just be me reacting to it.
My wolf didn’t like that. Hot fury boiled up from within me, burning away the impression. I shook it off, adjusting my feet. If things went sideways, that asshole would be the first one my wolf and I took down.
The vampire must not have expected that reaction, because his eyes widened.
“I wouldn’t mess with her,” Aaron chuckled from my side.
Given that the vampire was male, it meant Aaron was talking about me. He was warning the other vampires from trying anything. Did he truly feel like I was that badass? Or was it just an act?
The cold, hard gaze of the speaker swung back to Aaron. “You must come with us.”
“No,” Aaron said before the speaker could get more out. “I’m not going with you. None of us are. Stop trying. Trust me when I tell you that she doesn’t want to see me anyway.”
I clamped my mouth shut, despite my curiosity going berserk.Whodidn’t want to see him? Who was he talking about? Who were these people? Why weren’t they simply ordering Aaron to go with them? They outnumbered us ten to one easily.
“Come on,” Aaron growled, waving a hand at us. “Let’s go.”
The circle of vampires parted as we walked through them. I watched them all as we passed, ready for anything to happen. It seemed impossible that we would get out of there without a fight. They could have imposed their will on us with ease.
“Why are there so many of them?” I asked Vir under my breath.
He mouthed something back. I only caught one word.
Honor.
I wasn’t sure what that meant, and now didn’t seem the right time to ask.
Then, we were through the group. I glanced back, but they were already gone, having disappeared as quickly as they appeared.
“Why do I get the feeling that we’ve not seen the last of them?” I asked as we walked swiftly through the city streets once more.
“Because,” Vir reminded me, “we have to come back this way.”
Aw, hell.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Our eventful journey through the undead city of Troy–and wasn’t that just a fascinating change to all of human history–came to a stop at the most unlikely of places. A pair of doors.
That in itself was somewhat unusual. All throughout the city,noneof the buildings we’d passed had possessed doors. They had all been open. Not a single scrap of wood had been visible. Not even doors of cloth or fabric. Nothing over the windows either. Nadda.
Yet here we were, stopping before a pair of incongruous wooden doors. Dark brown, which was astonishing on its own in this place of white and off-white. That should have been strange enough, but the colors weren’t the first thing I noticed about the doors.
That detail belonged to them standing out in the middle of a stone courtyard with a surrounding stone garden. Tiny pebbles of varying shades of white had been grouped together to represent what I assumed was dirt. Little spikes of stone emerged in places, branching off very slightly, into what I figured had to be a stone equivalent of flowers.
