Fade Into Black - Shadows of the Night 5

Chapter 27

Hi,

I did my best to make the chapter a little longer than the last one. ;-) There's so much going on, and oh ... What can I say, I loved writing this one. Maybe because of a certain blue eyed someone, maybe because of something else. Enough said - read, vote, comment!

I hope you like it :-)

Lara

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Chapter 27

The room felt smaller than it actually was, walls closing in with the claustrophobic slowness of a nightmare. Where the door, the only exit, had gaped open seconds before, all I could see now was a blank, black panel that in fact looked like a silk-draped wall.

Neutral ground I demanded. Neutral Ground the vampire promised. What I got was something else altogether. We were in what he referred to as an exclusive country club, less than ten minutes by car from Marrok's city of wolves. The row of bling-bling cars I'd glimpsed outside was the first of many indicators that it was more than a country club.

If it wasn't the architecture that walked a thin line between neoclassicism and tasteless neo-kitsch, it was the particular atmosphere the room gave off – the dimmed, dirty yellow light, the lush red silk sheets that covered the king-sized bed, the black and white study of male pecs like a blackboard on the wall above it. I was pretty sure we were in what in truth was a brothel for well-heeled vamps. For all I knew the whole brothel belonged to Alexander himself.

So, no, to me the room didn't have the feel, wasn't even coming close to the definition of "neutral ground." Then again, Alexander's presence ate up any neutral, impartial atmosphere the establishment might have granted. The fact that we were in a room with a bed was unsettling enough and most certainly an effect he'd added with the cool calculation of a war-strategist.

No portals. No way out. No escape routes. Alexander made me leave my mother's pendant at the entrance with the promise of returning it by the end of the hour – as the binding spell dictated. I don't know how, but somehow he must have realized it was the device I used for portalling.

Maybe Sonya Bernards enlightened him about more than I thought. Then again, he saw me with the pendant at Red Night's Eve in Italy – the first time I portalled out under his nose. Maybe he just put two and two together.

No one bothered to search the pockets of my leather jacket. Luckily Alexander had no idea what else I had with me. If he knew, he wouldn't let me within a hundred mile radius of his territory. Least of all him.

We both agreed with our blood to the binding spell. I couldn't leave via magic within the hour, couldn't use magic to leave, as little as he could make use of his vampiric powers to coerce me into anything. Still, my neck felt naked and exposed.

It wasn't that I doubted the binding spell. I knew it worked. I simply didn't trust Alexander. He'd proven many times that he was apt in adjusting rules and twisting facts to his own advantage.

"I guess the walls are soundproof?" I said, staring at the wall.

The question hung in the air like a wasted byproduct. Sounded awkward even to my ears. I didn't care. Anything to fill the tension-spiced air, get rid of the feeling I was heading head-first into chaos.

"They are," he said.

My back was to him. When he spoke, his voice seemed to come out of nowhere and everywhere, making it impossible to determine if he was behind me or in the middle of the room, less pinpoint his exact location.