Finding Fire: Paranormal Romance (Bad Boys Of The Underworld Book 1)

by Crowe, Mallory

  “I have to understand? I think I have a pretty good idea. I saw Ray die. Your boy toy bit him, and I’m fairly certain he enjoyed it.”

  Evie pursed her lips and looked down again.

  Realization dawned on Anna. “You knew. Did you and Aleksander plan it?”

  “What if I did? What if you knew I had my own father murdered? You know what he was like. The things he did. Would that make me a bad person?”

  Anna thought about all the times she’d lain in bed and wished Charles was dead. Were they both bad people? “I don’t think I can judge you. I can’t call you a bad person. Just a different person than I thought I knew.”

  “He tried to kill me,” whispered Evie softly. “That night—someone told him I’d been spending time with Aleksander. If it weren’t for Aleksander saving me, I would be dead.”

  “Evie, I’m so sorry.” Anna reached for her hand. As she touched her friend skin to skin for the first time in so long, she was just relieved she was okay.

  “Aleksander was so angry. Ray never stood a chance. I would be dead if I hadn’t been changed that night.”

  “Changed?” Anna’s free hand went to the sore and still slightly fresh bite mark on her neck from her fight the night before.

  “You’re not changing,” reassured Evie. “You need a blood exchange at the brink of death.”

  Anna mulled that over for a moment. “Moment of death? That doesn’t sound safe.”

  Evie nodded her head in agreement. “Very few people survive it. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  “And you stayed with Aleksander after what he did to Ray?”

  Evie looked Anna in the eye. “Bellie, what Aleksander and I have is not merely affection. I mean, it’s been fifteen years and every day is like that first week. Every day is amazing with him.”

  “But, is he a monster?” All Anna had ever known of Aleksander was him standing over Ray. Not exactly a dream date for your best friend.

  Evie’s eyes went down and she said nothing.

  “What’s wrong, Evie?”

  “I’ve done things too,” she said so softly that Anna almost didn’t hear.

  “I don’t believe you’re capable of doing anything evil,” Anna said with complete faith and conviction.

  When Evie looked up again, a tear fell down her cheek. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

  “Evie, I stormed a house full of vampires for you. I can’t imagine what you could’ve done that would ever make me think any less of you.”

  “Your dad, Bellie.”

  “My dad? What?” Anna jaw dropped as comprehension dawned on her. “What did you do to him?”

  Evie reached up to wipe the tear off her face. “I never intended for it to happen, I swear. I promised you I would never leave without you, but after what happened with Ray, I couldn’t put off leaving any longer.

  “When I woke up from transitioning the next night, I told Aleksander I wouldn’t leave without you. With Aleksander by my side, your father couldn’t scare me. I walked right up to your door and rang the doorbell.”

  Evie broke off and seemed to take a moment to collect her thoughts. Anna tried to absorb the fact that Evie had come for her. “What happened when you got there?”

  “I don’t know if you have heard much about newborn vampires, but I was very unstable. I had strength beyond my comprehension, and an indescribable hunger. In addition to that, I had almost been murdered the night before by Ray, and he’d ended up dead. It’s safe to say I wasn’t in my right mind.

  “When Charles opened the door, the first thing that hit me was the smell of blood.” Evie’s eyes met Anna’s.

  “You smelled my blood.”

  Evie nodded. “I snapped. He was standing in front of me, looking as calm as can be, and I knew you were bleeding alone in that house.”

  “They never found any signs of a struggle in the house.”

  “He stepped outside when he came to the door. Maybe he wanted to keep us from going inside.”

  Anna fiddled with the blanket in front of her. “So once he was dead, no one was able to invite you inside. Did you have Aleksander call the police?”

  “We couldn’t just leave you there.”

  “But you did. You could’ve come for me at any time after the police pulled me out. At least you could’ve told me you were alive and okay.”

  Evie shook her head. “You don’t understand. I didn’t know what I was. What I was capable of. I killed Charles, Bellie. I bit him so hard that his neck broke before I ever finished draining him. I didn’t know how I could ever look you in the eyes. Aleksander promised me you would be looked after. Your life sounded good. You were living with your aunt and doing well in school. I saw you one day.”

  “You came and spied on me? That’s kind of weird.”

  Evie sighed. “You looked happy. You looked safe. I didn’t want to take that away from you.”

  Anna didn’t have a response to that, so she changed the subject. “What happened to me last night? Did someone throw me across a room?”

  “I’m sorry about that. I just heard a human woman had caused some ruckus and then I saw you holding a knife to Aleksander.”

  “Wait. You were the one who threw me into a wall?”

  “I didn’t realize it was you.”

  Her best friend had thrown her into a wall, and Nicolas had screwed her over. Apparently calling it a bad night was an understatement. “Have they found the man I came with?” asked Anna.

  “Nicolas? Bellie, how did you ever meet him? That man is dangerous.”

  Anna looked away from her friend. The last thing she needed was to be lectured by Evie about the dangers of running off with dangerous men. “I need to get up.”

  She pushed the covers off her and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. There was a bit of pain when she moved, but nothing unbearable.

  She was still basically dressed. Her jacket and shoes were both missing, and she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t see her dagger anywhere. Her glasses were on a dresser across the room. It looked as if the blood that had splashed on them last night had been washed off. How thoughtful. “So did they find him?”

  Evie stood as well. “They lost his trail last night.” Anna breathed a silent sigh of relief. No matter how mad she was at him, he’d run into the woods to lead the guards away from her. She didn’t want him to die for that.

  However, her relief was dampened when Evie said, “They are reviewing the security footage now and should be able to catch him soon after the sun goes down.”

  “You have security video in the woods?”

  “Nicolas is the main reason for it. If he could hide in those woods for months without being discovered, that means more could do it. As technology has been improving, Aleksander has been beefing up security.”

  “Will they kill him?”

  “He had his chance. The order for his death was lifted. He knew if he ever came back here, he would be killed,” said Evie.

  “This was his home. Of course he wanted to come back.”

  “What exactly did he tell you about his time here?”

  Anna paused at the question. Nicolas hadn’t told her much. He’d implied that Aleksander was an evil vampire who needed to be stopped, but it wasn’t looking that way. Evie seemed happy enough, and she was still alive.

  Evie didn’t wait for her to respond. “Kirill was insane when Aleksander took over. No one was safe, human or vampire. I know he was Nicolas’s father, but he couldn’t stay in power.”

  Anna digested that. Nicolas was Kirill’s son. What else had he left out in his story? Nicolas could’ve lied to her about everything. Still, Anna felt the urge to defend him to Evie. He hadn’t seemed evil in the time they had spent together. An image came to her of the two of them in bed together. He’d been resting on one elbow above her. He had had a grin on his face and looked so happy.

  “I still don’t want him to be killed,” said Anna. “We know better than most about the sins of the fath
er.”

  Evie opened her mouth to protest again, but Aleksander appeared in the doorway. “I cannot guarantee anything, but I can promise we will try our hardest to bring Nicolas back alive.” He was just as striking as he’d been the last time she’d seen him. His longer hair was pulled back, and he wore dark slacks and a dark buttoned-down shirt.

  “Have you been listening this whole time?” asked Anna.

  “You stabbed one of my best guards last night,” he reminded her.

  “He bit me first,” she said defiantly. “And he’s still alive today. I’m sure Nicolas could’ve killed him, but he didn’t. That says something about his character.”

  “I do regret that you were hurt. One of the guards in the woods had been on Nicolas’s trail. Because Robert knew you were with Nicolas, he perceived you as a threat. I’m sure you can understand his reasoning.”

  Anna assumed Robert was the vampire who had bitten her. “I understand. I just hope his neck is hurting more than mine is right now,” said Anna. “So if you don’t kill him, what will you do?”

  Aleksander shrugged one big shoulder. “He will have to stay in the basement until I can figure out a viable solution.”

  “What’s in the basement? Please tell me that you don’t have a dungeon down there,” said Anna with a horrified voice.

  “Though we occupy the same world as mortals, it’s a very different life. Especially here, where traditions are kept and broken. We live dangerous lives.”

  Aleksander was giving her a warning. He would try to make her happy for Evie’s sake, but he let her know that she wasn’t safe and should be leaving.

  “If I weren’t here, Nicolas would be dead on the spot, wouldn’t he?”

  With a poker face perfected over centuries, Aleksander said, “It’s best not to think of hypothetical situations.”

  Anna raised a brow but didn’t push him for an actual answer. Instead, she looked to Evie. “Your boyfriend gives me the creeps. Why don’t you give me a tour of this massive place, and make sure to introduce me to anything that might want to eat me and let them know I’m off-limits.”

  “He’s my husband,” corrected Evie with a smile.

  Anna looked down and saw a massive ring on Evie’s left hand. “Oh! Husband!” Anna turned to the intimidating man she had just insulted. He grinned back at her. She put on a fake smile. “Great!”

  ~~~~~

  The mansion ended up being larger than Anna had initially realized. She could actually fit over twenty of her apartment in this massive place, and that wasn’t including the basement, which Evie notably left out of the tour.

  It was nice to talk to her friend. As much as Aleksander scared her, Evie had nothing but nice things to say about him. It had been exactly like she had said that first night in the woods: love at first sight.

  Since then, she’d traveled all around the world with him. She would go into detail about the adventures they had in Europe, Asia, Africa, and other places Anna had only dreamed of going.

  Anna filled Evie in on her life with Abigail and the many dogs she’d grown up with. She also went into the crazy city culture and academic life. She told Evie about all of the books she’d fallen in love with while studying literature and her struggles to get students to love them too.

  Because it was still light out, none of the guards were able to go to the car and get Anna’s extra clothes, so she borrowed some sweatpants and a shirt from Evie. After getting the new clothes and taking a nice warm shower, she felt a lot better than she had when she’d gotten up.

  A lot of vampires were staying at the mansion. She’d only met a fraction of them because of the size of the place. At any given time, there were at least twenty guards, and usually twenty more guests in the house.

  Though it didn’t look like any castle she’d ever seen in pictures, it was commonly referred to as the palace. Anna guessed that if the king lived there, that could make it a palace. Lord knew it was big enough to qualify.

  A palace her friend was now queen of. That was something to get used to. Evie said it wasn’t as intimidating as it sounded. There had been no queen for almost a century, so when she and Aleksander first found each other, there hadn’t been much to do.

  As the years went on, she took on more and more responsibilities. However, in the vampire culture, age was power, and she held relatively none if measured on that scale.

  As much as Aleksander could order the other vampires to obey her, it would still take time for her to gain queenly respect.

  Later that evening, they sat in a ridiculously formal dining room while Anna ate a small meal when the news she’d been dreading reached her. They found Nicolas and were bringing him in.

  Anna ran to the front of the palace to watch for them. Aleksander assured her they wouldn’t kill him, but she knew Nicolas would put up a fight. For them to bring him in alive, he would’ve had to have taken a beating.

  When she finally saw him, he was worse than she thought. He had silver chains locked around his body to restrain him, and his head was covered by a black bag.

  She started to walk to him, but Evie reached a hand out to stop her. She tried to pull out of the grip, but Evie was much stronger than her now.

  The overpowering scent of burning flesh reached her nose, and Anna tried not to think about how much the silver was hurting him. “What are they doing? Why are there so many of them?”

  “He is old and powerful,” cautioned Evie. “Anything we put on him, he would be able to break out of. For our own safety, we have to make sure he’s restrained.”

  “How about the bag over his head? Is that also for your safety? What are you trying to keep him from seeing?” she accused.

  “It’s to keep him from seeing where he could strike out at one of the guards. I assure you this isn’t fun for us either.”

  “Us?” asked Anna.

  “Aleksander and I.”

  Anna supposed fifteen years together would upgrade them to being an “us.” Anna kept thinking back to Nicolas telling her about being turned over to guards all those decades ago. How much they enjoyed beating him.

  Anna bet that there would be some guards or guests who would like nothing better than to have ten minutes alone with a helpless Nicolas. No matter what he’d done to her, he had ordered her to get to the car last night. He could’ve gotten to the car easily by himself and been out of here before ever having to hide in those woods again. He could’ve saved himself, but he tried to save her instead. She just couldn’t abandon him.

  Anna turned to Evie. “I need a good book and you need to take me to the basement.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  When the silver chains were finally unlocked from around his burned and bloodied body, Nicolas was too sore to put up much of a fight. He still struggled, but it was to give the guards handling him a hard time.

  His hands were quickly put into manacles on either side of him. The metal didn’t burn immediately, but when he pulled, the fabric separating his skin from the silver stretched, and the burning came back to him. He was positioned so that he sat on the floor with his arms chained to his sides.

  The footsteps grew fainter as the men who locked him up retreated, but he knew at least one guard was still in the room with him. His hood was pulled off him. He looked up at the man who stood over him. “Fredrick,” he rasped out.

  When Nicolas had still been in power, Fredrick and he had been close. He’d been one of Nicolas’s most trusted men.

  Fredrick knelt next to him. “Hello, old friend.”

  Nicolas didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say.

  Fredrick continued, “I understand you don’t want to talk. I wanted you to know that Aleksander hasn’t planned what he’s doing with you yet. He’s reasonable. Don’t give him any more reason to kill you.”

  Nicolas stared straight at the bars in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fredrick stand. He watched him leave and lock the cell door behind him as he walked out of
Nicolas’s vision.

  He sat alone with his own thoughts. By now, he hoped Annabelle would be in the States, or at least getting close. If he could actually manage his way out of this situation, he would meet her back in the city.

  He’d eluded the guards all night and found a cave that he knew well from his time in power here and then his time hiding in the woods. He’d even left a bit before sunset. He had no idea how he’d been found so quickly. It was as though the guards had already known where he would be.

  He was curious as to why he wasn’t killed right away. Fredrick said Aleksander didn’t plan to kill him, but he didn’t believe that for a second. He might have told his men that, but it was a lie. Aleksander was looking for a good time to kill him. It would appear to be self-defense, and he would come out looking good in front of all of his people.

  There would be no more living blood relatives left to try to take the throne. It would be Aleksander’s free and clear and would be passed on to the child of his new bride.

  Nicolas wondered how many women had to die for Aleksander to turn a mortal. Nicolas had heard countless stories of failed transitions. He felt bad for the woman who had to live with a husband who would take those chances with her life.

  Soon he heard someone approach and something metal scrape across the floor. A couple more strange noises, and then it was quieter. Just the gentle scraping of paper against paper. Then another. Was it pages of a book turning?

  He concentrated harder, and what he heard was even more surprising. A heartbeat. A human heartbeat. A mortal sat right outside his cell. “Annabelle?” he called out. There was no answer.

  He sniffed the air, and sure enough, he caught her scent. “Annabelle, what the fuck are you doing here?”

  He was comforted by the fact that she was safe, but why the hell was she still here when he’d ordered her to go? Why didn’t she run when he told her to? Then it hit him. The only reason she wouldn’t run was if she could resist his compulsion. Which meant she knew what he had tried to do with her mind. She was definitely pissed.

  How had she resisted? She’d had a lot of blood on her, but he’d assumed it was all her own. Obviously it wasn’t all human blood. Damn it! He’d only been trying to keep her alive, couldn’t she understand that?