“Stupid and greedy,” I agreed. For Augustine believed the absence of a Blood Queen would weaken us to the point where he could then take power. If he thought Lucian would step aside that easily, he had another thing coming.
“Father was always good at using the weak-minded to do his bidding.” Kristoff’s chuckle lacked humor. “This is exactly the sort of thing he would be involved in. Setting the lycans loose on her. I wonder how much he’s paying.”
“Whatever it is, it’s not enough, I’d wager.” Jessabelle looked up at me. “What do you think? Would she return here?”
“Not if Gabriel has half a brain in his head,” I decided. “You know I don’t think highly of him, but he’s no fool. He would be aware of the danger she’s in and would scent a lycan as easily as any of us can.”
“Why bring her here, then, if he’s aware of the danger?”
I sighed. “Because there’s someone nearby. Someone he would wish to bring her to. And his penthouse, of course. They did need to get away quickly. This was the most logical solution. I doubt anyone could stroll through his building undetected.”
Jessa snickered. “Unlike the building our would-be queen called home.”
“Four walls, a roof, working plumbing. She lived a rather bare-bones existence for a long time.” I couldn’t help but defend her. She deserved it after all she’d been through.
All we’d put her through, whether we’d intended to or not.
“How do you know where she lived?” Kristoff would be the one to finally come up with that question. It had only been a matter of time.
“The one Gabriel wants to introduce to Sophie is the reason I know. She’s been monitoring Sophie’s life for a long time, in the shadows, and she confided a few choice facts to me.”
“Who is it?” Kristoff asked.
Jessabelle knew. I could see it in her eyes. “So this is where she’s been all this time,” she whispered, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “The rascal.”
“Who?” Kristoff looked back and forth between us. “Because I know who you can’t possibly mean, so she’s ruled out.”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t rule Magda out so easily.”
“Just how many secrets were you keeping from us?” he demanded.
“As many as it took to keep you safe from Lucian. It had to be enough that I confided our future connection to Sophie. I couldn’t risk sharing more.”
I might have continued except for the sight of a young woman ducking in through the front door to the dilapidated building. She was dark-haired, of a smaller build than Sophie, so there was no confusing the two of them.
Yet something about her made me watch. Where was she going? From the work I’d done researching the area, I knew the apartment beneath Sophie’s was empty.
When the light in the third floor front room flipped on, I crossed the street with my cousins close behind.
“It might be a trap,” Jessabelle reminded me.
“The lycan scent is faint enough that they’ve left the area for a while. That girl might be a scout sent by them, for all we know. Or she might’ve walked into a trap set by Justin. She deserves to know the possible danger.”
There were no further arguments to be made, which came as a relief. I looked around us before entering through the metal door. The nose-wrinkling stench of old urine and rodent excrement made me grimace.
“Oh, gods,” Jessabelle groaned. “And humans eat in the shop on the first floor?”
I decided against reminding her how we fed and what humans would think of that. Instead I held a finger to my lips, turning my head so she could see.
As it turned out, there was no need to be quiet, for we’d already been noticed.
The door to Sophie’s apartment flew open before I’d even reached the landing, and before me stood a hellion wielding a pistol. “Who the hell are you and why are you here?” she growled, aiming between my eyes.
* * *
JESSABELLE
Wasn’t this something?
I sized the girl up in a single glance. She wore paint-stained overalls, a thin tank top. Her arms were covered in various inked images. A bird in flight, a butterfly, a thorny vine. There wasn’t much rhyme or reason.
And she wielded a gun, aimed between Dominic’s eyes. Not many things could kill a vampire, but a bullet in the head was one of them. Even if he recovered, he would never be the same.
“We’re friends of Sophie’s,” I ventured. Kristoff made a noise behind me, as if he wasn’t sure why I’d chosen to speak or use her name. He wasn’t slow-witted, but it did sometimes take him a beat or two longer than me to pick up the thread.
The girl had to know we knew Sophie. Her name was a passport now.
She scoffed. “I know all of Sophie’s friends. You know how I know that? Because I’m the only one.”
“Right,” Dominic whispered. “The one she came back for.”
The girl blinked rapidly, but I noticed her aim never wavered. “Excuse me?”
“The friend Sophie wanted to assure she was well.” Dominic showed his hands. “We can explain everything, but I would appreciate not having a gun aimed at my forehead. I tend to think more clearly when not in mortal danger.”
So clever. I rolled my eyes for the girl to see. He would botch this up as he’d botched everything. It was time for me to take the reins. “Can we come inside? It reeks in this stairwell.”
The girl snorted. “It doesn’t smell much better inside. I mean, she tried, but…”
“We really are friends,” I assured her. “Granted, it’s sort of a recent friendship. I’m sure she would have told you about us if given the opportunity.”
Her nostrils flared, her cheek twitched. “Is she okay? Tell me the truth.”
“Honestly? We aren’t completely sure.”
“Jessa,” Dominic grunted.
“No. You don’t speak right now.” I pushed him aside, standing in front of him and my brother. “Men. They ruin everything, don’t they? I’ll tell you what you wish to know, and you can tell us what you’re doing here at this time of the night, and we’ll work out a plan for reuniting you and your friend. Fair?”
She wanted to believe me. I could feel it.
First, she glanced behind her. “Somebody’s been here. Recently. I’ve spent enough time here to know. That’s why I pulled this.” She flipped the safety on before sliding the gun into her pocket.
“We know somebody’s been here, which was why we came up to warn you. They might come back. If they see the light in the window—”
“I know.” She turned, walked into the apartment. “Which is why I turned the light on.”
I reached for the crud-covered railing mounted to the wall. Even touching such filth was preferable to falling down the stairs, utterly stunned.
It took a great deal to stun me the way she had. I’d seen a terrible lot over the course of my life.
“What do you mean, you know?” I followed her with the men behind me. The grim, threadbare surroundings barely made a dent in my consciousness. The girl before me was much more interesting.
“I knew I could attract attention, which was why I turned the light on once I knew somebody was here since Sophie left.” She sank onto a lumpy sofa. “It was only a matter of time before someone showed, though I’m getting the impression you aren’t the people I was waiting for.”
I attempted to look into her mind, to read her human thoughts like a book the way I could any other human’s. Why did the image of a brick wall appear at the forefront of my consciousness?
“Your name is… Poppy?” Dominic ventured.
She nodded. “Right. Poppy Wheeler. Sophie’s one and only friend until she met you guys.”
There was something wrong with her. Something off. I kept my concerns to myself while trying to pry into her mind. How was she keeping me out?
“You came here, knowing there could be intruders?” Kristoff cocked an eyebrow. “You’re either insanely brave or simply insane.
”
I shook my head, still staring at the dark-haired girl. She was tough, yes, but in a different way from Sophie. Sophie’s toughness came in part from not having the slightest idea of our existence. She’d used her regular tough-girl tricks and her self-defense training as armor, almost. Ignorant of how useless her efforts were.
This girl, on the other hand, knew there was danger. Which was why she’d been waiting.
“Who are you, really?” I stood in front of her, hands on my hips. “No lies. No half-truths. There’s a reason I can’t get into your head.”
She didn’t blink. “It’s rude, trying to pry into someone’s head. I would appreciate if you’d stop, so I can focus my energy where it needs to be focused instead of on keeping you out of my brain.”
“Wait. What is this?” Dominic turned away from the window to face us. “How do you know what you know? Why were you here at all?”
So my brother wasn’t the only one slow on the pickup. It pained me.
Poppy took this with a shrug. “I’ve been checking on the apartment since she left for the mountains. I left things a certain way. Very specific. And I set an alarm at the front door which one of them tripped when they came here, looking for her.”
Kristoff fairly sputtered. “How would you know to do that?”
I decided it must have been the struggle between their brains and their cocks for which organ did the thinking. I had only ever thought with my brain, which gave me the advantage.
“Because she isn’t human,” I whispered, gratified to see confirmation flicker behind her dark eyes.
Dominic opened his mouth, prepared to ask questions.
He didn’t get the chance before the pounding of feet on the stairs shook the floor.
Twelve
SOPHIE
I sat bolt upright in Gabriel’s bed, gasping for air. Sweat made the satin sheets stick to my skin. I fought them off, kicking them away, scooting off the bed and landing on my ass with a thud.
The images were still so clear in my mind, behind my eyes. Blood. Dismembered bodies. That innocent girl I had envied—Christ, I had envied her! Too wrapped up in the eroticism around me to think straight.
To see how vulnerable she was. How vulnerable all the humans in the club were. Weak, fragile, completely unaware of how short the rest of their lives were.
The door flew open. A light in the hall turned Gabriel into a silhouette. “What happened?”
I waved him off when he came to me. “Don’t. Don’t touch me right now. I’m…”
He crouched a few feet away. Watching. “Don’t do that, either,” I managed to whisper even with my teeth chattering. “Don’t study me.”
“I only want to be sure you’re well.”
“Do I look well to you?” I hadn’t meant to scream it, but it came out pretty close to that. “I’m on the floor, dripping sweat, I can’t catch my breath. You’re the one who can hear my pulse. Hear it now?”
“Yes.”
“So what do you think?” I curled into a ball, wrapped my arms around my knees. “Jesus Christ, what the hell is happening to me? Do you know how many times I’ve asked myself that question in the past, like, two days?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“That’s right. You can’t.” I lowered my head to my knees and let the tears flow. “I’m so tired.”
I cried until my entire body ached. Until my head felt like it was full of cotton and there were no more tears left in me.
They must’ve been so scared. It must’ve hurt so much.
Gabriel’s voice was soft. “You had a nightmare?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Pretty bad.”
And the memories from the club weren’t the worst of it.
Mom and Dad, flailing around like Felix had. Holding their leaking throats, knowing they were dying and knowing there was nothing to do about it. How much went through their heads?
They couldn’t even comfort each other. They couldn’t have said a word, throats all torn up.
And probably scared of what would happen when I came back from hanging out two cabins over.
They had died afraid. “It’s like it felt when I lost them,” I breathed over the crushing pain in my chest. “It hurts so much. And now I’m mostly pissed at myself for not having, you know, processed things before now. How was I supposed to know this would happen someday? I have to deal with their deaths all over, while figuring out how to feel about who I’m supposed to be.”
“You did what you could to protect yourself from the worst of it.”
“I threw a cup of coffee in my first therapist’s face.”
“I know.” When I looked up, he was smirking. “And your uncle dragged you out while you used every word in the book against that doctor.”
“Poor guy.” I could still remember how exasperated he was and now, as an adult, my heart ached for what I’d put him through.
I was so angry. Confused. The rug had been pulled out from under me with no warning.
I shouldn’t have taken it out on him. Or on the doctors who had only tried to help me get rid of the anger, to move through the pain.
If there was a way to screw things up any worse, I shuddered to imagine it.
“I’ve lost in my life,” Gabriel murmured while sitting against the bed. “Quite a lot. Living as long as I have, you become used to loss. It’s part of life.”
“Don’t give me that shit.” I lifted my head far enough to give him a nasty look. “You don’t know what this feels like. Did you ever get your parents killed? Did they die horribly while you were getting high? Could you have prevented it if you had only stuck around?”
“My parents died horribly, yes. Unlike you, I had the dubious honor of listening to them rasp their last.”
I took a peek at him from over my arm.
“Yellow Fever,” he explained. “It was a nightmarish time. Bodies were left to rot inside homes, as there was no one alive inside to carry them out. Babies wailed beside the corpses of their mothers, their siblings. The stench was unbearable.”
His gaze drifted to the window. “I watched them die. There was nothing I could do for them. I had barely recovered, myself, and was still weak enough to swoon like a woman at the slightest thing. I remember lying on my back at the foot of their bed, having tried to sponge them off. Anything I could do to make them more comfortable. I know now they were delirious, unaware of what went on around them, but at the time it seemed I had to do something. Only I didn’t have the strength to go on. I had to rest. So there I was, lying there, staring up at the ceiling. Wishing it could be over for all of us. How could we live? I couldn’t find food.”
After a few long, shaky breaths, he continued. “Then, it grew quieter. I fought to sit up. The light on the ceiling was different from before, telling me hours had passed. I looked over the edge of the bed. My mother was dead. Only my father was still struggling to hold onto life. He didn’t last much longer. They rarely spent time apart, so I suppose it made sense for one of them to follow the other so closely.”
“I’m sorry that happened.”
“So am I.” He looked at me. The thin pre-dawn light flooding through the windows turned his eyes into blue crystal. I could’ve drowned in them. “I know it isn’t the same as your loved ones dying violently, but I watched my parents die over the course of days. Struggling to breathe. Seeing people who weren’t there, losing control of their bowels in bed. With no one but me to watch them fall apart. With nothing I could do, as I was barely able to walk. I’m not trying to paint your grief as unimportant. Grief is always important. But you can’t blame yourself any more than I can. We didn’t kill our parents. And you can’t go through your life carrying that grief. The blame.”
“Maybe once I actually process it, I’ll start feeling a little less shitty.”
“True. I’ve had a lot more time.” He stood in one easy, fluid movement. “You should get more sleep.”
“I can’t sleep.” He helped me up. I didn’t eve
n want to look at the bed for fear of going back to that damn nightmare.
“You have to try. We’ll go out to visit my friend later.”
“Can’t we go sooner rather than later?” When he scowled, I scowled back. “Listen. Doesn’t it make more sense to move around in the daytime? Wouldn’t there be more chance of running into scary dudes at night? They wouldn’t expect you to have me out on a Saturday morning, would they?”
“You talk about them like you’ve ever met them.” He blew out a long sigh, shaking his head. “Fine. We’ll go to see her. She isn’t far.”
“Wait a second.” He stopped on his way out to the hall. “I didn’t necessarily mean we had to go this very minute. What if she’s sleeping?”
His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “She’ll be expecting us.”
* * *
GABRIEL
I would probably come to regret allowing Sophie to call the shots.
Were she anybody else in the world, there would’ve been no hope of her winning me over. But she was Sophie. She was mine, even if she didn’t know it.
There was no avoiding the doubt plaguing me whenever she gave me one of her withering, dismissive looks. Was Magda wrong in her visions? She was never wrong.
Still, nobody was perfect.
I certainly wasn’t. I couldn’t bear to deny the beautiful, infuriating creature who’d held me in her thrall for years.
What would Sophie say if she knew?
Perhaps I would have my answer once we arrived at Magda’s. There was no telling what would come out of her mouth sometimes. She might reveal the future of our relationship as casually as she would comment on the weather.
Sophie joined me in the living room, washed up, dressed in her jeans and one of my t-shirts. It would’ve fluttered around her like a sail if she hadn’t knotted it at her waist.
“Here.” I opened a water bottle and tipped the brown vial of scent blocker over the mouth. “Three drops should be more than enough. You’ll want the water to dilute the taste. Trust me.”
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