Chapter 2: Chapter 2
A floorboard creaked beneath his weight when he moved beyond the costume shop. In spite of the life that existed outside the walls, the theater sat in expectation of its next production, holding its breath while it waited for new actors and young blood to return and draw fresh audiences. Mathias stole through the corridors, searching out his favorite place in the venue, and emerged onto the end aisle of the dress circle. His mouth slanted as he glanced downward at the maw of the abandoned stage, and his fingers trailed along the velvet seats he walked past. So much good had come to him because of the theater. Even now, his mind’s eye automatically bathed the stage in light.
He heard the whisk too late.
Pain lanced through his shoulder, and Mathias whipped his head around, his fangs already descended, his eyes gleaming silver in the darkness as he hissed at whatever had plunged the stake into his back. The figure that had struck retreated into the shadows, affording him precious seconds to reach around and grasp the edge of wood protruding between his shoulder blades. It came out with a squelch, but he barely had time to toss the bloody stake away before another shade separated from the darkness.
He blocked this attack, lashing out with his other arm to send his assailant flying over the railing. There was no time to see if the man survived before the first returned, blocking the exit back into the bowels of the theater, and Mathias whirled on his heel to race up the aisle. It wasn’t until he was on the upper balcony that he realized he’d never heard a single heartbeat.
“Shame on you, Mathias…”
The soft soprano was the last thing he expected. Turning toward her voice, something hard caught the side of his face, shattering against his cheekbone. Immediately, his skin began to sizzle, and Mathias clawed at the burn, growling in pain as his fingers came away wet.
Holy water.
Bloody hell.
It was already starting to sear when he wiped his hand off on his jeans.
Though he was still vamped out, his vision was blurred, the pain excruciating. He rubbed as much of the water off his face as possible with his shirt sleeve, but his mind whirled more from fathoming why it was happening than the agony of it.
The sole warning he got of the next attack was the click of a trigger being depressed.
Everything tunneled down to the arrow embedded in his chest. There was no doubt she’d been aiming for his heart; only her consistently bad aim had saved him. But just because he wasn’t incinerating to ash didn’t mean the wound didn’t hurt like hell.
The shaft was sticky with seeping blood as he pulled it out, scraping against his ribs each inch of the way. Though biting the inside of his cheek kept him from screaming in pain, Mathias still backed away when Tatiana appeared out of the darkness, a pale wraith against the rich tapestry of the wall. She carried a crossbow ready in her arms, and her pale blue eyes gleamed even without her vampiric visage.
“You’re so predictable,” she said. Her mouth curled into a sneer, and the icy beauty that he’d loved for the past four years assumed a brittle quality. “I knew you would come here. I just had to get you close enough.”
The railing of the balcony pressed into his thigh. “Very funny, Tati,” he snarled. “Care to tell me what the soddin’ hell you’re doing?”
One thin brow arched upward. “Am I not being obvious enough? My mistake.”
Dodging her second shot would have been a lot easier without two bleeding holes in his upper body, but Mathias managed to twist away anyway, his gaze never leaving Tati’s face. “What’s this about?” he tried again. “If I’m being cuffed for something you think I did, the least you can do is give me a chance to explain.”
Personally, he couldn’t think of a thing that might have driven Tati this far. He’d worshiped her ever since he’d first laid eyes on her, dancing in a forgettable program in a tiny hole-in-the-wall theater in Moscow. He’d followed her from show to show, wined and dined her. He’d turned his life upside down for her, siring her when death threatened to tear her away from him, abandoning everyone and everything he knew in favor of being at her side. He would do anything for her, haddone anything for her. It made little sense for her to turn on him like this.
Tati shrugged, a nonchalant roll of her narrow shoulders that didn’t budge the weapon in her arms. “There’s nothing to explain. Let’s just say…I’m bored.” Reaching for another arrow, she smiled, though it left his heart cold. “Tonight’s been the most fun I’ve had in ages.”
A flicker behind her revealed one of his assailants from the dress circle, and Mathias had little doubt that the humans who’d chased him—and what was Tati doing recruiting humans anyway?—would be waiting nearby. Bleeding as he was, there was no way he would survive a full-on assault.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone