“Ash,” I said out loud, my eyes meeting Grigori’s. Caleb glanced between the two of us as Grigori nodded. “Our inspectors noticed the same smell, but we’ve been unable to identify the being it belongs to. We were hoping you might know.”
What he was really saying was, We were wondering if the devil’s peeps smelled like this. Some dark beings had that smoky, my-soul’s-been-frying-in-Hell smell to them. But this particular brand of damned? Nope. I hadn’t come across it.
I shook my head. “Sorry, but I don’t recognize it.”
That evening I was rifling through my notes on the case when I felt the first thrum of energy. I glanced up from the desk in my hotel room. A set of headlights flashed across my room as a sleek black car swung into the parking lot.
Andre had found me.
I set my notes aside and left my room, trepidation prickling my skin.
By the time I’d reached the lobby, Andre was already there, chatting with the woman behind the front desk. A lock of hair fell over his eyes, making him look roguish.
Based on the woman’s bubbly laughter and the way she kept touching her hair, my guess was that Andre had done his magic and gotten her to fall in love with him. He had a knack for that.
His gaze slid to me, and though his friendly smile didn’t waver, his eyes got a hungry look to them. He said something to the woman in Romanian and pushed away from the front desk.
The way he walked toward me made me half tempted to make a run for it, but I forced myself to stand my ground and face him.
He closed the distance between us and cupped my jaw. I only had enough time to blink before he took possession of my mouth. He kissed me roughly—angrily—and when he finally pulled away, his jaw clenched and unclenched. “You and I are going to go for a little car ride,” he said. His tone left no room for argument.
So, naturally, I argued. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Soulmate, you do not want to test my mood this evening.”
“Then ask nicely.”
His hand twitched, and I swore he was battling his natural instinct to haul me over his shoulder. Neanderthal.
He lost the battle.
I squeaked as he scooped me up into his arms and crossed the room. The woman at the front desk watched us with wide eyes, especially once I started pounding on Andre’s chest. “Put me down, Andre.”
In response, he kicked the front doors open. I shivered as the cold evening air hit me. Andre’s arms tightened around me and he pulled me closer to his chest.
“Are you really doing this?” I asked.
He ignored me.
I sighed. “Andre, really, it’s called manners. You ask. I answer. We both win.”
He carried me to his car and placed me in the passenger seat. As soon as he closed the door I lunged for it and yanked.
Locked from the outside. “Andre!” I bellowed. “Let me out!”
In the next moment, he was in the driver’s seat, turning over the ignition.
“Andre,” I warned. He wasn’t going to do this, was he? Memories of our first, horrific date surfaced.
Damnit, he was.
He shifted the car into first, and with a squeal of burning rubber, the car peeled out of the parking lot.
“Oh my God,” I said, glancing back at the inn. My mouth was opening and closing. “You can’t just—just abduct me!”
The muscles in his jaw were clenched tightly.
“You know, sometimes you scare the crap out of me,” I said, watching Andre’s expression flicker between fear and anger.
Andre’s hands flexed around the wheel. “You have the same effect on me,” he said. He drove down the city streets, completely at ease here in this strange country.
I rubbed my temples. “So, where are you taking me?”
“The airport.”
The balls of this man. “Andre, I’m not leaving this place in the middle of an investigation.”
“You already know who’s behind it,” Andre said, glancing over at me. “Case closed.”
I swallowed. The devil.
“Andre, my hands are tied,” I said, my voice dropping low. “If I walk away from the investigation, I’ll lose my spot on the Politia.”
“Better than losing your life, soulmate,” Andre said.
It dawned on me, what this was. Panic. Andre was panicking.
“I’m not leaving, and you can’t make me get onto that plane—not if you want to continue dating me.”
Andre looked at me, frowning, and pulled the car to the shoulder of the road.
He shifted the car into Park and bowed his head over the steering wheel. “There’s more than one reason why I want you to leave Romania.”
I stilled at his words and waited for him to continue.
He sighed. “I can’t shield you from the coven’s justice system if you’re here.”
My brows pinched together. He’d been shielding me this whole time? “But I thought that …”
“That the trial was solely against me?” he said. He shook his head. “It is, but you’re a vampire as well, and victim or not, you were involved.”
I bit my lip. I hadn’t thought much of Andre’s trial. If I was being honest with myself, I thought it was a joke. Andre was the king of the vampires; I assumed that gave him complete power over his subjects.
Clearly I was mistaken.
“How did you manage to keep me away from the trial all this time?”
He didn’t say anything, which was answer enough. Bribing and threatening—that was how he did it. That, and making sure I never left the Isle of Man. Between him, Peel Academy, and the Politia, I was almost untouchable. Almost.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I finally said.
Andre reached out to me and ran a thumb over the skin of my cheek. “Because I knew that if I told you, you’d somehow get yourself involved.”
“No, you don’t know that,” I said heatedly. “You never gave me the chance to decide for myself what we should do.”
His hand dropped, and it tightened into a fist. “I’m still not giving you the chance.”
I wanted to scream in frustration at him. “I’m not going to the airport.” I’d glamour him before that happened.
“They will learn of your existence here,” he said. “There are eyes and ears everywhere; it’s only a matter of time before someone on the council learns of your arrival in Cluj. And once they do, you will be called in.”
“And what is so wrong with that?”
Andre growled. “You are asking to be subjected to some of the cruelest beings that walk this earth. I can assure you, most of these men and women were not good people in life, and they’ve had centuries to wipe away the last of their humanity. If they learn the truth about what happened that night at Bishopcourt, they will kill you, and not even I will be able to stop them.”
What he wasn’t saying was that he’d been lying to them to protect me. Lying to his coven about what happened that night. Which meant they still didn’t know about the prophecy. Because if they did, he was absolutely right, they’d kill me to save themselves.
I believed him. God help me, I believed every word he said. But it wasn’t enough to make me leave this place, not yet.
“Andre, I’m not leaving Romania tonight.”
“Gabrielle …” His voice was full of dark warning.
My lips spread into an amused smile. “Are you trying to intimidate me with that voice of yours? ’Cause it ain’t gonna work.”
“Don’t make light of the situation,” Andre said.
“I’m not. I’m going to help solve the investigation and get the hell out of here before one of your friends eats me.”
“No one’s going to eat you, Gabrielle.”
/> “Okay, fine—stake me, draw and quarter me, roast me over an open spit, …”
“Leave Romania,” he whispered.
Persistent vampire.
“No.”
“Please, Gabrielle.” This was the closest he ever got to begging.
“Quit and go back to the Isle of Man,” Andre continued. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” Oh, I bet he’d love me quitting. He’d probably throw a party in my honor the day that happened.
“Much as I appreciate the offer, I want to go to school and lead a normal life for as long as possible,” I said.
“You call this a normal life?”
I gave him a look. “You know what I mean.”
Andre closed his eyes. “If you don’t leave here, this place might kill you.” He talked as though Romania itself wanted my blood.
I gave a hollow laugh. “I’m destined to die in about a year anyway, so what’s the difference?”
Andre thumped his palm against the steering wheel. Hard. Metal crunched as it bent under the force of his blow. “Damnit Gabrielle, it makes a difference to me!”
He pushed open his door and got out. I tried my door handle again, intent on following him. Still locked. Damnit.
I crawled over the center consul and exited the car on the driver’s side, barely noticing the light white flakes that drifted down around us.
Andre strode away from me, his coat flapping in the chill breeze, and I could see how tension coiled itself in his muscles.
“Why are you so upset?” I yelled after him. He ignored me, his sinuous form moving further and further away. “This is my fate, not yours!”
Andre stopped. “No, it’s not,” he said.
“What?”
Andre turned around, and even though it was nighttime, even though it was starting to snow, and even though he was some distance away from me, I could clearly see his grief. “It’s not your fate,” he said. “It’s our fate.”
He began walking back to me. “What do you think happens to me once you die?” he said. “I’m not going to just get over you.” His voice broke. “It doesn’t work like that with soulmates.”
My lungs constricted. Of course it didn’t. On an instinctual level I knew that, but consciously I’d never thought it through. If I died, part of Andre would die along with me—maybe all of him if we were indeed physiologically connected.
The thought of hurting this man or of him simply ceasing to exist, that was just as terrifying as what waited for me on the other side of death.
Andre stepped up to me and cupped my face. “If the devil tries to take you again, I don’t know if you’ll come back to me as a vampire. I don’t know if you’ll come back at all.”
His eyes searched mine, and they shined in the dim light.
“I’d come back,” I whispered. “For you, hell couldn’t hold me. I’d come back.”
Chapter 6
I watched the buildings blur by as we drove back to the inn. I’d won the battle of wills tonight, but the discussion wasn’t over.
“So, you have a house here?” I asked, glancing away from the view and down at our entwined hands. I couldn’t remember when our hands found each other, or who initiated the touch. Our connection was growing stronger.
“Yes.” Almost absentmindedly, Andre brought my hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.
“The one you grew up in?”
He smiled. “That’s a cute thought. No, the house I grew up in is long since gone. But my current home is one of the oldest buildings in the city.”
“And this city, Cluj-Napoca,” my tongue stumbled over the name, eliciting another smile from Andre, “is the place you consider home?”
His eyes slid to mine. “I think you and I both know exactly where home is these days.”
Warmth pooled in the pit of my stomach. Within the last four months I’d gone from the girl that couldn’t be loved, to the girl that pushed it away, to the girl who hesitantly embraced it.
My ring caught the light of a streetlamp. “You’re wearing my gift,” Andre said, surprised.
“Of course. I haven’t taken it off.”
He took his gaze off the road to look at me, his eyes filled with longing and something deeper. Love. We hadn’t ever said those three important words, but lately I’d see it in his expression, or the way he touched me—I’d find it in the details.
I cleared my throat. “I am not going to get to see your home, am I?” I said, getting back on topic.
Andre’s expression looked agonized. “If I’m to keep you away from this trial, then no. Vampires visit my place on a regular basis.”
I made a face. My experience with the vampire community wasn’t great. Other than the bossy one sitting next to me, the only other vampire I’d gotten to know had tried to kill me.
I rubbed away the condensation on my window and glanced outside. The weather here was different from the Isle of Man. Here the chill had nothing to do with rain and ocean mist. It seemed to emanate from the very earth itself.
“If you’re not going to change your mind about leaving, then at least promise me one thing,” he said.
I worked my jaw, then nodded. “What is it?”
“Don’t tell anyone we’re soulmates.”
“Who would I tell?” I asked, glancing at him.
“Well the coven, for one.”
That shouldn’t be too difficult, considering I was supposed to avoid them at all costs anyway.
Andre took his eyes off of the road to meet my gaze. “More importantly, you can’t tell Caleb.”
I peered at him curiously. “Why shouldn’t he know?” I already had my own reasons for not telling Caleb about Andre and me, but I was interested to know his.
“Caleb’s in the Politia’s pocket. They would eventually learn about us through him.”
I furrowed my brows. “I’m still not seeing what’s so bad about that. They already know we’re dating.”
Andre squeezed my hand. “Having a soulmate is one of the most revered bonds in the supernatural world. It’s unbreakable.”
I smiled a little when he said that.
“Unfortunately,” he continued, his face darkening, “because of the bond’s very nature, it can be exploited. For seven hundred years I’ve been the thing supernaturals fear. I wielded too much power, and I couldn’t be controlled. But now I can.” His gaze landed meaningfully on me.
I realized what he wasn’t saying. The ruthless vampire king had a soulmate. For someone like Andre, someone who lived by the sword, love was a weakness, a devastating one.
“Anyone could use me to get to you,” I said, my eyes wide.
Andre grimaced. “And they would. Especially the Politia and the coven. They wouldn’t hesitate.”
“Come to me.”
Sonja Antonescu slid out from under her sheets and left her room. She wiped the sleep from her eyes as she left the luxury suite she shared with her roommate. Her bare feet padded down the five flights of stairs standing between her and the ground floor of her apartment complex.
She needed to find that voice.
Sonja crossed the lobby and opened the front door. Outside the winter storm had already rolled in, though the weather report had insisted it wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow evening. She stepped out into the storm, her flannel pants slapping against her legs.
“Please, find me.”
She rubbed her arms and followed the voice down the street, and then down the next and the next, until she reached the edge of her town. In front of her the Romanian wilderness dared her to enter.
“Come closer.”
Sonja took a deep breath and pushed forward into the inky blackness of the forest. It had been awhile since her feet had fallen numb, but the vo
ice sounded closer than it had before. She was almost there.
Her feet pressed into the thin layer of powdery snow beneath her, and she wandered through the snow-covered woods.
“Follow my voice.”
Torchight flickered in the distance; it seemed to be where the voice came from. Sonja stepped through the trees and the forest opened up.
A group of cloaked figures stood in the small clearing. A few carried torches, the source of the light. Goosebumps broke out along her skin as the firelight made their cloaks flare scarlet, the same shade as spilled blood.
Sonja blinked several times; she felt like she was surfacing from a terrible, terrible dream. “What’s going on?” she asked.
She took a step back and several heads turned, tracking her movement.
“Come closer,” said a feminine voice.
And just like that, Sonja was dragged back under. She walked over to the cloaked woman, all the while her muscles twitched, as though they knew on some instinctual level that she shouldn’t be here. She couldn’t see the woman’s eyes, but she saw her luscious smile.
The woman handed her a folded dress. “Put this on.”
Sonja took the bundle she was handed and began to strip in front of the crowd. Her stomach felt sick, like she shouldn’t be doing this, but she couldn’t stop herself from removing her clothes and pulling the thin linen gown over her head. Her body trembled from the cold and her numb hands fumbled, but eventually she managed to get the dress on.
“Lay down your tired body,” the strange woman said, gesturing to a wooden altar behind her.
Now that she had mentioned it, Sonja was tired. So, so tired.
Sonja passed the woman and approached the altar, ignoring the stares that seemed to bore into her skin. She paused, for the briefest of seconds, murmuring a prayer under her breath, and then hoisted her body onto the raised platform.
The cloaked figures fanned out around her, their presence making her breath hitch.
The Cursed (The Unearthly) Page 5