“She was a scout, searching for your lost scions.”
“Yes.” She lifted an eyebrow. “And she was quite good. Your name passed her lips even before you were turned.” The hairs on my arms rose as she crept closer. “A contact in Denver mentioned that you were sired by the late, great Pablo Zajalvo. Annie had another theory.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
She stopped directly in front of me. I could smell the blood on her breath. Her porcelain skin was flushed from the cold, but she remained unmoved by it, while I shivered uncontrollably, my bones aching and rattling. Whether I had January or Ursula to blame more for that was up for debate.
“Your arrival came about the same time my naughty scions disappeared from St. Louis,” she said, tilting her head to one side. Her glossy doe eyes blinked at me, long lashes sweeping her angular cheekbones. “There were rumors that they might have sired a bastard or two. Their discarded harem made quite the fuss in their quest to exterminate imposters they felt had stolen their imagined birthright and caused their masters to flee the city.”
My breath felt thick in my throat. “There are a lot of rumors regarding your scions, but I wasn’t assigned to their case.”
“Not with Blood Vice anyway.” Ursula rubbed the rim of her glass along her bottom lip. There were so many emotions wrapped up in her delicate features.
I didn’t know what to say. She’d been trying to corral and tame her wayward scions, and I’d used that maternal aspiration against her. She also didn’t seem to suspect that Raphael was dead. Her scrutiny made my heart want to boil in its own blood.
“Ursula,” Dante called from the open door of her bedroom. “Come inside, darling. The sun draws near.” He held out his hand, beckoning her.
Her curious eyes fell on me once more. “Until dusk, vampling.”
I watched her leave and slip past the duke, tucking her shoulders in as he reached for her. The way she rebuffed his care seemed to distress him, but he offered me a gentle smile as he stepped out onto the terrace and closed the door behind him.
“You should be inside, too.” He took in my white robe with a satisfied look, but his expression stalled when his eyes reached my face. “Come,” he said, opening his arm toward the door to my room. “I’ve had blood delivered to your quarters.”
I glanced at the sky lightening beyond the trees. It wouldn’t be long now. I just needed a little more time.
“Jenna.” My name was a warning on the duke’s lips. “A dozen wolves are stationed around the perimeter of my estate. There is nowhere else to go.”
I closed my eyes and leaned against the railing of the terrace, shuddering as the light grew more intense through my eyelids. A shadow fell over me, and then the duke’s iron grasp was around my wrist. He dragged me to the doorway and ushered me inside, completely unaffected by my resistance.
“I have no scion,” he said, closing the door behind us while keeping his grip on me. “So I do not pretend to be an expert at housebreaking one. But, understand, I will fulfill my promise to the queen by any means necessary.” He backed me across the room and pushed me onto the bed, finally releasing my wrist.
The impulse to spill my darkest secrets to him was strong. If I told him who my true sire was, maybe he’d let me roast in the sun like I’d planned. Or maybe he’d take me to the Vampiric High Council and have them coffin-lock me. Or maybe he’d torture Mandy since she’d sealed her fate by agreeing to be a permanent part of my harem.
“You’ve ruined everything,” I said, settling on my current hell instead.
The duke gave me a withering look as he picked up a phone from the bedside table and dialed zero. “Lock the exterior doors of our new guests’ rooms,” he said to whoever answered. “Yes, all three for the time being.”
I wondered if he suspected Ursula had similar plans to mine. She’d been less resistant, but perhaps she’d just been biding her time. She was as miserably trapped here as I was.
Dante hung up the phone and circled the bed. A tray holding a dainty teapot and two espresso cups rested on the opposite table from the phone. He filled one and held it out to me.
“Drink.” When I didn’t move to accept it, he added, “I will call in guards to force-feed you if necessary.”
I swallowed and took the drink from him. He waited until I brought it to my lips before pouring a cup for himself. It was warm—much warmer than I’d expected—almost as if it had been heated to resemble the coffee we were pretending it was.
“I have a full schedule tonight,” he said, pausing to sip at his cup of blood. “But Belinda will assign a guard to keep an eye on you.”
“Of course she will.” I cringed and finished off my blood in one swallow before placing the cup back on the tray. I was ready to be rid of him. Dawn couldn’t come soon enough.
“I hope your attitude is much improved when next we meet.” His eyes curiously drank me in as if he couldn’t believe anyone would have the nerve to disrespect him—the Duke of House Lilith. He set his unfinished cup on the tray beside mine. “I’d hate to be forced to resort to unpleasant methods in order to compel your cooperation.”
I was reminded that there were worse things than death and bowed my head. “Yes, Your Grace.”
He hummed to himself and nodded, accepting my strained obedience for now. “We will speak again soon. Rest well.”
He left quickly. A moment later, the sun grazed the horizon. My eyes closed, and I was gone before my head hit the pillow.
Chapter Twenty
I dreamt of Roman and Spero Heights again. It seemed like a million years had passed, but it had only been a couple of days. For a minute there, I’d really thought we had a fighting chance. How had everything gone so wrong so fast?
In the dream, Roman comforted me like he had at the hotel where we’d consummated our affair, breaking skin for the joy of it rather than out of necessity, and needlessly fueling the lifeblood bond that had captivated us both.
We have forever sprawled out before us. We don’t need to have all the answers today.
From within the warm cocoon of his embrace, I would have believed anything he said. The memory soothed and ached at the same time.
There was forever, but there was no us it catered to, and certainly no answers waiting to fix what could never be undone. When the sun set, he would rise as a Sorano. Then, he would drink from someone the way I’d drunk from him. The thought destroyed me.
There was no comfort to be found in that reality.
I woke Thursday night to find Mandy curled against my side. She was in her favorite Metallica shirt and her angry unicorn pajama pants. It made me smile despite the hollow sadness aching in my chest. I tried to extract myself from the bed without waking her, but she jolted awake the second I moved.
“Did you really try to burn yourself up in the sun?” she whispered, tears creeping into her eyes before I had a chance to offer an explanation. “Because that’s a super asshole thing to do after I agreed to stay here with you.”
I sighed and dropped my head back to the pillow. “I’m not really thinking straight. A lot has happened.”
“You’re telling me.” She sat upright and pulled her knees to her chest. “I was given two plastic tubs and told to pack only the things we couldn’t live without. They’re torching the house tonight, so you’d better go through your stuff and make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
The tubs were stacked near the door. I crawled off the bed and went to them, thinking about all the things that I knew I wouldn’t find inside. I grabbed the top box and set it on the floor, kneeling down beside it. My fingers trembled over the lid as I tried to work up the courage to open it.
Mandy folded her arms over her knees. “I shot Laura a text so she won’t freak out when she gets the call early tomorrow morning. She’s an actress, so she should be able to pull off the mourning sister act. Is there anyone else you’d like to reach out to?”
I shook my head. “The duke probably wouldn’t eve
n approve of Laura knowing. Let’s leave it at her for now.”
Mandy cleared her throat, and I could tell she was fighting back tears again. “I don’t know how to tell Serena. This is going to shatter her. I’m supposed to help her mom move to Columbia next weekend, and now I don’t even know if I’ll be allowed to. This whole situation is so fucked up.”
“Yeah.” There was nothing to argue about there. I took a deep breath and opened the first tub.
The velvet box containing my mother’s badge rested on top of a stack of clothes—my favorite jeans and the dress I’d worn to the All Hollow’s Eve ball. The fire hydrant lamp from my bedside table was wrapped in a couple of tee shirts, and a few of my Mark Twain books were tucked in between my mother’s scented candles and the framed picture of her and Maggie that I’d kept on the living room wall. I held it to my chest and sighed.
“I left the answering machine behind, but I grabbed the cassette out of it,” Mandy said.
“Thank you. You’re the best.” I choked back a sob. “I’m so sorry I got us into this mess. I don’t know how yet, but I swear, I’m going to make this right.”
Her eyes dropped to the bedspread as if she didn’t believe me. There was a disappointed sadness there that I couldn’t ignore, but it was deserved. “They put the Bronco in the garage,” she said, directing the conversation back to reality. “They’re going to torch it, too.”
At least I still had the keys with the foam shark Maggie had mangled and the ceramic badge I’d made my mother in grade school. But other than those bittersweet mementos, and the few things in these boxes, I would have nothing to my name after tonight. My life insurance would pay out to Laura, and my checking and savings accounts were payable to her upon my death also.
I’d meant to change the POD to Mandy, but even with the extended winter daylight hours, getting into the bank before they closed was almost impossible. The task had been pushed farther and farther down my to-do list. I hadn’t considered it a priority, seeing as how I planned to live forever.
“You had a few thousand dollars in the safe, too,” Mandy said. “But the assholes who were sent with me took it. They said they’d turn it over to the duke for safekeeping. They let me pack your range Glock and the .380 you kept in the breadbox, but they made me empty the bullets out of them.”
“Fair enough.” I put the picture frame of Mom and Maggie back into the box and dug out a pair of jeans and a sweater before closing the lid. Even if we were supposed to be here for five months, this would never be home. I wasn’t about to unpack my things. Not here.
“What are we going to do, Jenna?” Mandy hugged her legs and stared out the windows. Dusk was fading quickly.
“You didn’t understand what was going on when you agreed to this,” I said. “I’ll talk to the duke. Maybe he’ll reconsider—”
Mandy’s head snapped up, and she glared at me. “I could have shifted and bailed at the house if that’s what I wanted to do, but it’s not.”
“Sorry.” I propped my elbows on the plastic tub and rubbed my eyes with both hands. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. The queen is supposed to announce my new sire in five months. Until then, the duke is determined to fill the role.”
“So what?” Mandy shrugged. “We’re under house arrest until then? Are we fired from Blood Vice?”
My eyes watered, and I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”
Mandy sucked in her bottom lip and dropped her legs off the side of the bed. Her brows knit together as she struggled to look at me. “I saw Roman this morning—when they carried him out. He was… Is he gonna be…?”
I sniffled and blinked back a tear. Something stirred in my chest—a panic and sadness and hunger that weren’t wholly mine. “He’s a vampire now. He and Vanessa will be in Denver before sunrise.”
She nodded slowly. “I’d thought maybe someone told the captain about him feeding you last summer after you jumped off that roof and tried to wrestle Scarlett’s pet wolves out of a moving vehicle…but then someone mentioned a bite not healing, like it was a recent fuck-up.”
My face warmed, and I looked away from her. I couldn’t bring myself to go through the painful details again.
“I heard you took a bite out of Arnie Moreau, too.” She sounded less broken up about that one.
“He looked at me the wrong way.” I hitched a defiant eyebrow. “I’m not even a little sorry about that.” She whispered out an amused laugh, but then her face turned serious again.
“You need more donors. Things like that don’t happen if you’re feeding regularly.”
“I’ll have access to the household harem while I’m here.” I stood and put the plastic tub on top of the one I hadn’t checked yet.
Mandy knew me well. I didn’t doubt she’d saved the things that meant the most to me. She’d even been considerate when choosing the clothing. The sweater I hugged to my chest was the one Laura had gifted me for Christmas.
“I should take a shower,” I said. If nothing else, it would help wash the sleep from my eyes and the gritty salt from my skin. Yesterday stuck to me like a bad habit.
I licked the corner of my chapped lips and tasted traces of stale blood from my three meals. Despite the excess, I swayed on my feet.
“Sit down,” Mandy demanded, pointing at the bed as she hopped up. “You need blood first. I think I saw a cup in the bathroom.”
She disappeared into the en-suite, and I reclined back against the pillows, waiting for the room to stop spinning. Even with as hard as I’d pushed myself yesterday, this was unusual.
Roman.
He was up now. I could feel him stirring in my blood. His death hadn’t severed that bond, but from what I’d learned at the bat cave, it was supposed to speed the process along. For now, I was still bound to him.
A flood of his emotions spilled over to me, and I struggled just to breathe through the disorder and confusion. I wanted to go to him, but it was Vanessa who had claimed that right long ago. Where the hell was she? Why wasn’t she fixing this agony?
A proper sire would have a donor prepared for their scion’s first feeding. His turn had been unexpected, so maybe she was rushing to pull things together at the last minute. Or maybe she was punishing him for his insubordination and her resulting demotion.
My cell phone buzzed, vibrating against the surface of the bedside table. A scrap of duct tape lay across the battery cover. I blinked at it, wondering how much trouble Mandy had had with the removal. Then it buzzed again, and I realized it was ringing.
“Roman?” His name whispered past my lips as I answered the call.
“Are you safe?” he asked in a guarded voice.
“I’m at the duke’s manor. He’s keeping me here until Midsummer. Are you safe?”
“I am.” His breath was even, but it sure seemed like he was struggling to keep it that way.
I slipped off the bed and stood by the window, watching the night finish blotting out the sky.
“Are you…sure?” I asked again.
“I’m just calling to say goodbye before we leave for Denver.”
“You haven’t fed yet,” I said, as if that were a good enough reason to stall his exodus.
“How do you…?” He cleared his throat. “I don’t have much time. You won’t hear from me again, and you shouldn’t try to call. I won’t have cell service at the bat cave.”
“So that’s it? This is just…over?” I held my breath, longing to hear his on the other end of the line.
“This is how things are meant to be, Jenna.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“We both know it’s true,” he said. “I can feel the lifeblood bond releasing already.”
“Liar.” My breath rushed out with a sob. I pressed a hand over my mouth to muffle it. A long pause stretched.
“I’m so sorry.” Roman’s voice was barely a whisper. I wondered if Vanessa were hovering nearby, urging him to hurry along his mutilation of m
y heart.
“If you feel nothing, then why do I still feel like I’m dying?” I demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” My voice trembled with the question.
“We have forever sprawled out before us. We don’t need to have all the answers today.”
“Roman…please…”
“Goodbye, Jenna.”
The line clicked dead before I could say anything else. I stood at the window with the phone pressed painfully to my ear, trying my damnedest to reverse time. That seemed infinitely more useful than the Eye of Blood right now.
I picked apart every mistake I’d made, wishing like hell I could take them back. But I knew I’d do it all again. I couldn’t even say that I’d be more careful or less likely to get caught. If anything, I would have been recklessly passionate and caved to Roman immediately after my return from Denver.
If I’d known how little time we would have before it was all ripped away, I wouldn’t have wasted a single second of it on doubt or guilt. I might have even suggested running away, even knowing that he’d refuse. Even knowing how much this would hurt in the end.
I wanted to tell him all that and more. But none of it mattered now.
Roman was gone. Dead. The version of him that had been mine no longer existed. I blamed myself as much as I blamed Vanessa.
But above all, I blamed Dante Lilosa.
How stupid I’d been to think he was any different than the rest of his kin—our kin. The murderous heathens. Scarlett, Raphael, Ursula, Kassandra—I somehow doubted the queen’s and prince’s hands were any cleaner.
Last fall, I’d craved a vampire family to call my own. Now, I wanted to watch House Lilith burn. I wanted to light the match. Scarlett was still out there, and I’d find her eventually. For now, I had a new mark in mind.
If you can’t beat them, join them…and destroy them from the inside.
House Lilith was doing a fair job of that on their own. Maybe one more murderous heathen in the mix could speed things along.
Blood Dolls (Blood Vice 4) Page 17