“If I wanted you dead, you would be,” he told her.
She had no doubt about that, but these bastards hadn’t wanted her dead either—at least not right away—and there were plenty of times since they took her when she wished they’d kill her.
Chapter Six
“Tell me what is going on here,” Saxon said. “And I might be able to help you.”
“No one can help me.”
He followed her back into what he now realized was a living room with a TV on top of a cherrywood stand. A few books sat on one of the end tables with the remote next to them. He imagined the brown, leather couch and wagon wheel coffee table were usually set up in front of the TV, but they were both closer to the door now.
Dark, wooden beams ran across the ceiling toward the paneled walls. His booted feet clicked on the wood, plank floors. Looking around the cabin, he felt like he’d stepped back into the seventies; a time he remembered with fondness. He loathed disco music, but he had a lot of fun in the clubs. Studio 54 was an especially good time, almost as fun as Woodstock.
With his responsibilities, he hadn’t expected to attend either place, but when some Savages decided to crash the party, he’d followed them and attended one day of Woodstock with Killean and Declan.
He’d never seen Declan look as amused as he did while watching the hippies rolling through the mud or Killean look as disgusted. For his part, he’d enjoyed more than a few flower children and the music. And in Studio 54, after killing a Savage, he’d contemplated clawing his eardrums out, but he stayed for the show and the women.
His attention returned to Elyse as she continued to edge away with the chair between them. He was used to charming women with a smile; he didn’t know how to handle one who held a stake to his chest and looked terrified of him. And for some reason, he hated the idea of Elyse being scared of him.
Holding his hands up, he strode over to the couch and sprawled out on it. He crossed his legs at the ankles and folded his hands behind his head as he tried to look as nonthreatening as possible. When he smiled at her, she scowled at him, so he lost the smile.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.
“There are worse things than pain.”
His casual demeanor vanished as he sat up on the couch. “Such as?”
Elyse glanced at the door behind her, but she had no illusions she’d make it outside before he stopped her. And there was nowhere for her to go. She’d freeze to death out there.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.
“I’m going to get you out of here once I have the chance. Have you seen—” He searched his pockets for his phone, but it was gone. “—my phone?”
“No,” Elyse said. “And it wasn’t on the porch.”
He probably lost it during the fight, which meant the snow now covered it. “Well, anyway, I’ll get you out of here. But first, you have to tell me what is going on.”
Elyse studied him as she tried to figure out what to do. He didn’t seem as vicious as the other vampires, and he looked sincere, but she didn’t trust anyone with fangs. Hell, she barely trusted anyone without fangs.
“And how do you plan to get me out of here?” she asked.
“When the snow stops, we’ll take the car—”
“The car is dead.”
“You already tried to escape here.”
“Yes.”
He recalled her battered feet and understood what happened to make them that way. “Did you run outside barefoot?”
Elyse tried to hide her feet behind the chair, but it was pointless. “So what if I did?”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why are you here?” she asked again. She didn’t feel like discussing her feet right now.
Saxon sighed and lowered his feet to the floor. “A friend of mine led me here.”
That wasn’t the answer she’d expected. “How? Why?”
He couldn’t tell her about Kadence’s visions; Ronan would kill him if he revealed anything about his mate. However, Elyse looked like she still intended to bash him over the head with the chair. If he were going to learn anything about her, he would have to give her some answers, and he had to keep his distance.
He didn’t usually cater to someone else, but he would never forget the terror in her scream when he touched her shoulder or the stricken look in her eyes. He never wanted to make her look like that again.
He could take control of her mind and compel the answers from her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. From the looks of her, she’d endured enough. She didn’t need him messing with her head on top of it.
Clasping his hands before him, he gestured to the other end of the couch. “Why don’t you sit? I promise I won’t touch you again.”
“I’m okay where I am,” she said.
“That’s your decision.”
“It is.”
He smiled at her; she was a prickly little thing, but he liked it. “A friend of mine led us to this cabin because they felt there was something here we should see.”
“How did they lead you here?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Elyse bit her bottom lip as she contemplated his words; they weren’t much of an answer. “Who is we?”
“I came to this town with some of my friends. We split up to search for this cabin.”
“Are they vampires like you?”
“Most of them.”
“What are the others?”
“Hunters.”
“What are hunters?”
“Hunters and vampires are the results of when demons once walked the earth and mated with humans. Hunters are the mortal version of vampires, except they don’t drink blood and they’re not immortal. They live longer than humans and are a lot stronger. For millennia, hunters killed any vampire they came across, but they’ve recently learned to be more discriminating about who they stake.”
“Demons once walked the earth!” she gasped.
“Yes. A very long time ago.” Saxon started to rise but decided against it. He was probably less intimidating while sitting. “How much do you know about the vampire world?”
“I know you’re all sadistic bastards.”
His mouth quirked in a sad smile. “Not all of us are like the Savages outside.”
“And what’s the difference?”
“We… I don’t kill innocent people. The vampires out there gave in to their Savage nature and their thirst for blood and death, but I fight that impulse daily.”
“But you could become like one of them?”
He opened his mouth to say no, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her. At one time, Joseph was one of them too. More recently, Killean dipped into becoming a Savage, and sometimes he wondered if Killean had really come back to them. On more than a few nights, Saxon found him pacing the mansion like a caged animal.
On those nights, Saxon would sit and listen if Killean decided to talk, which was rare. Sometimes, he would sit silently while letting his presence show Killean he still had his support. Usually, Simone came to find him, and Killean would retreat with her.
Killean had never been the most relaxed of vamps, but the tension in him since June could make the Dalai Lama lose his mind. Killean’s hallucinations had lessened—so he said—but Saxon wasn’t sure he believed him.