“Indeed?” Damon said through his teeth. “When did you receive these orders?”
“You question me? ” Lysander asked, his deceptively thin body drawing taut with offense.
“You’re an operative and a Freeblood, not a Bloodmaster.”
Lysander stewed silently for a moment and then seemed to relax. “I told you I had left Erebus soon after you did. The Council reconsidered its original orders and planned to recall you soon after you were gone.”
“Why?” Damon asked.
“Your only duty now is to obey. You are to leave immediately.”
“But I haven’t received any new orders,” Alexia said, moving up beside Damon. “I’m — We’re not going anywhere until we can make a full report to Aegis.”
She could see Lysander assessing her statement, comparing it with her earlier, more cooperative attitude. “That would be most ill-advised,” he said. “The dangers of remaining are too great.”
“I doubt that either Agent Fox or her partner will consider that sufficient reason to abandon their mission,” Damon said.
“That is your problem.” Lysander removed a folded sheet of paper from inside his jacket and offered it to Damon, careful not to touch his fingers.
Damon opened the sheet and read the brief sentences with a frown. Alexia could just make out some of the words of the Nightsider’s script before he folded the paper again.
“Clear?” Lysander asked.
“Very clear.” Damon tucked the orders inside his jacket. “You make an excellent messenger, Lysander.”
The Nightsider smiled tightly. “See that the Half-bloods return safely to their territory.
And you had better move quickly. You will need blood soon, and you would not want to rely on them for nourishment.”
Damon took Alexia’s arm in a firm, possessive grip. “Watch your tongue, Lysander,” he said. “She is not a serf.”
“I take it that you have an attachment to this Half-blood that is not only foolish, but forbidden,” Lysander said. “I would have thought you’d learned your lesson.” He smiled condescendingly at Alexia. “But she is a pretty thing. And spirited. Just like Eirene.”
Damon’s bone-deep trembling passed from his fingers into Alexia’s arm, through flesh and muscle and nerve. Her body shivered in answer. Damon had disregarded Lysander’s previous comment about his former lover, but Alexia knew Eirene was somehow at the heart of Damon’s all-consuming hatred of the Nightsider. Had Lysander had something to do with Eirene’s last mission and eventual death?
“Did you know, Agent Fox,” Lysander said, turning to her with a vicious smile, “before the Armistice your breed were considered the finest prizes an Opir could obtain?
I wonder how much a Bloodlord or Bloodmaster in Erebus would give to own you?”
Before Alexia could ask him what he meant, Damon had released her and thrown himself at Lysander. The Nightsider staggered back, too startled even to put up his hands.
Damon lost no time. Ignoring the knife at his belt and the VS130 at his feet, he slammed his fist into Lysander’s face and pummeled him to the ground, hitting and kicking with a fury meant not to disable, but to kill. Alexia saw just enough of Damon’s face to realize he was no longer in control of his reason.
In a matter of seconds, Damon had reverted back to the volatile creature he’d been before he had left on his mission with Michael. That time he had reacted to her lack of will to survive, but this wasn’t the same. It wasn’t her words that had ignited him. Now that simmering animal rage had become a weapon whose only purpose was to destroy.
“Damon!” she shouted.
He didn’t hear her. He had Lysander on the ground and was locking his hand around the Nightsider’s throat, his incisors exposed in a violent grin.
But Lysander had begun to fight back. He hurled Damon off and leaped after the Daysider before he could regain his footing. Lysander drove Damon down, his greater strength evident in the relative ease with which he held Damon pinned to the earth. The Daysider bucked and twisted, clawing and striking every part of Lysander’s body he could reach. The Nightsider opened his mouth, stretching his jaws so wide that every tooth in his mouth was exposed.
Whatever reason Lysander had had for presenting Damon with the supposed “orders” from the Council, regardless of his original intentions, he was obviously ready to kill Damon without the slightest qualm.
Alexia lunged for the Vampire Slayer and brought it her shoulder. “Stop!” she shouted. “Get off him, or I’ll kill you!”
The Nightsider barely glanced at her. “Remove all your weapons and throw them out of reach,” he said, “or I will drain every drop of blood from the Darketan’s body.”
Chapter 11
With a wordless snarl, Damon worked one arm free and went for his knife. Lysander caught his wrist and bent it back at an unnatural angle. Something cracked under Damon’s skin, but his mask of blind rage never faltered.
“Do it now!” Lysander shouted, sinking his teeth into Damon’s neck.
Alexia almost shot him. Once she wouldn’t have hesitated to sacrifice an enemy agent in order to eliminate a murderous leech. But Damon was no longer just an enemy agent, and the risk to him was too great. She threw the VS as far away as she could, took off her pack and kicked it away, and then removed her knife and pistol and did the same with them.
“Let him go,” she ordered.
Lysander raised his head and laughed, his teeth stained with Damon’s blood. “I never said I would let him go, only that I would not leave him a bloodless husk.” He released Damon’s wrist, grabbed his knife and ripped the sheath from Damon’s belt. “You should run, little Half-blood, before I am tempted to sample the wares that make your kind so valuable to ours.”
Damon howled and heaved under Lysander, gaining just enough space to jam his knee into the Nightsider’s crotch. Lysander reared back and slashed his long fingernails across Damon’s face, incising four deep gashes in Damon’s cheek, jaw and chin. He bent and licked the welling blood from Damon’s face. The Daysider’s body began to jerk as if in a seizure, his eyes rolling back in his skull.
The odds had just gone from bad to worse, and Alexia was responsible. She moved closer to Lysander, spreading her hands as if begging a truce.
“The orders you gave Damon said that he was supposed to escort me back to the Border,” she said. “Are you defying the Council you claim to serve?”
Lysander raised his head, Damon’s blood glistening on his lips. “I have seen his strange affection for you, little Half-blood,” he said. “I will merely be saving the Council the trouble of hunting him down after he turns traitor and defects.”
“Defects?” Alexia laughed derisively. “He hates the Enclave as much as any of you.”
“And he knew when he attacked me that I would kill him. Irrational impulses, remember?”
“If you kill him,” Alexia said, “you’ll have to kill me, too. And if you think Aegis won’t investigate—”
“They will be too busy dealing with more important matters than the loss of one operative.”
She took another step. “I don’t think you work for the Council at all,” she said. “I think you’re the traitor.”
Lysander curled his fingers around Damon’s throat and dug his nails into the skin. The Daysider choked, and fresh blood soaked the collar of his shirt.
“Alexia,” Damon said, his voice a bubbling whisper. “Run. Tell them—” Alexia hurled herself at Lysander, less concerned about doing damage than breaking up the lethal embrace. Without turning, Lysander batted at her as if she were an annoying insect and sent her flying. She rolled to her feet, sucking air into her lungs as she prepared to attack again.