Page 60 of Out of the Darkness

“I don’t know. Something. Just a weird sensation.”

“That’s just your new power. You’ll get used to it. You’re sensing danger and rightly so. We need to hurry.” She turned away and kept moving.

Harlee stood there for a few more seconds, debating whether to head back upstairs or follow Sara. If she went back upstairs, she knew what would happen. She’d run into Adrian who’d call her ten different idiots for not following orders.

Shit. She hated being new at this and not knowing what to do. Why didn’t being a vampire come with some kind of instruction manual? At least when she was a human what she was supposed to do and not do was written down in black and white. Now she had to operate on instinct, and she didn’t know if her instincts were right or wrong right now.

She followed Sara, hoping she hadn’t fucked up and made the wrong choice.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and Sara pulled out keys and approached a thick, ancient door that looked to be made out of solid oak.

“How long has this been here?”

“Too long for me to even remember. The newer part of Dark Moon was built over what had stood for centuries, pre-dating most of our existence. This was a hideaway for the early vampires who had settled here from Europe.” She slipped the huge key in and turned the lock, then yanked on the door. Dust flew out at them and Harlee choked, helping Sara pull back the six-inch thick door. Sara reached in on the floor and felt around, pulling up a lantern and used a match to light it, then led Harlee into a small room filled only with an old oak table and matching set of chairs. Along the wall were old shackles midway and on the floor.

“Looks like an old torture chamber or something,” Harlee remarked.

“No kidding,” Sara said. “I’ve never been down here.” Sara inspected the iron shackles, wrapping one around her wrist. “Get a load of these things. They’re heavy!”

Sara handed off the lantern to Harlee, who lifted it toward the shackles. She let Sara wrap one around her, feeling its weight. “Wow, they are heavy.”

Harlee winced when she heard the click of the shackle, knowing instantly she’d been had. Sara wrenched the lantern from Harlee’s grasp, slammed Harlee’s hand against the wall and fixed the second shackle around her other wrist.

Pain shot up Harlee’s arm as she fought, but Sara was strong and Harlee was nearly doubled over in agony. Fuck! How stupid could she be?

When Sara lit the other lanterns in the room, she didn’t need to see the light shining on Sara’s face to know what she’d see there.

Pure, venomous hatred.

“Too easy,” Sara said, satisfaction on her smiling face. “Such a child, such trusting innocence. You played right into my hand.”

“I can’t believe you tried to kill your own brother!” Harlee spat, kicking Sara’s shins. She knew she couldn’t hurt her, nevertheless it gave her some comfort to cause her a minimal amount of discomfort.

Sara’s eyes narrowed and she stepped back. “You couldn’t possibly hurt me in any way, little girl, so don’t even try. And my brother, along with a lot of other people, stand in the way of what I want most.”

“What’s that? Power?”

“Of course. Power is the most attractive thing. With power I can have anything I want.”

Sara’s eyes had begun to shine in that way Harlee had seen in her patients all too often over the years, when madness took over and sanity disappeared. She had hidden it very well.

“You might think you can have everything you want, honey, but you’ll never have Adrian.” Harlee knew it was a cheap shot, but it was the only weapon she had. And keeping Sara off balance could work to her advantage.

Sara whirled and clutched her by the throat, her fangs emerging. “I can have anything, anything I want, including the man I want, you bitch!” she hissed. She pulled back and slapped Harlee across the face so hard her lip split. Harlee tasted blood and her eye began to swell shut, but she refused to wince in front of the deranged woman.

“He’s mine, Sara. I love him and he loves me, and nothing you do can change that, no power you wield will make him yours.” Though Harlee didn’t know that to be the case, Sara didn’t know that.

“Not true. Once you’re dead he will want me. You won’t matter to him.”

“I will always matter to him. I’m his mate now.” That’s what Annmarie had intimated at. She might not have a vampire owner’s manual, but she could at least put two and two together in that respect.

“You are not!” Sara’s eyes widened and she came at Harlee with a gun drawn, swinging it at Harlee. Harlee kicked at Sara’s arm and the weapon went off as it hit Sara. A burning fire rushed through Harlee’s leg. Harlee gasped but didn’t cry out.

“You did not mate with him,” Sara cried. “Tell me you did not mate with him.”

Harlee’s fangs slid down and she hissed at Sara, fighting the chains that bound her. “Of course I mated with him,” Harlee spat out, wanting to hurt Sara, lashing out at the woman and wanting to feed the madness she saw there. If she could keep Sara off kilter, maybe there was a way to escape. “He doesn’t want you, Sara. He wants me.”

“I knew the vampire side of you would be dominant. I knew it. One more person to stand in my way. First Robert favored Amelia, and then you had to come along, making yet another person I needed to get rid of.” Sara stormed back and forth, muttering to herself as if Harlee wasn’t even there.

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