by Misty Evans
Hone looked pained, though. Toel had something going on inside his brain that troubled the psychic. Something I was sure was going to trouble me too. I leaned against a nearby cabinet that held various clamps, weights, screws and dissection tools, sure I already knew why Hone’s face was pinched. “What I did to you tonight you deserved and was within my rights as the enforcer for the Bridge Council. You harassed and stole from my human assistant. You threatened him and I have no doubt you planned to threaten others in my life to dissuade me from becoming vamp queen. But if you wanna run back to mommy and daddy and tattle, be my guest. You attacked me here tonight and I was defending myself as well as revenging my assistant.”
Toel’s eyes narrowed and once more he kept his mouth shut. Definitely his tell. I spoke the truth and he knew it. He also knew this game of torture was about to end. I couldn’t take it further without becoming the sadistic psycho he wanted me to be.
Toel was good at playing games. But Kalina Dolce had learned from the best at nine years of age.
I set the sword down, took a leather blindfold off a nearby hook. “You know, if you’d just come to me at the start, I might have worked something out with you. I have no desire to be vamp queen. No desire to take any of Nudra’s territory or assets for myself. We could have made some kind of deal that would have benefitted both of us, but messing with my friend and associate was a serious mistake. Now you’re my enemy and I never let my enemies rest.”
“You can’t take personal revenge on me, demon.”
I smiled and tossed the blindfold to Rad, then caught Cole’s eye and tapped my finger against my temple. “I don’t have to.”
In one long stride, Cole stepped up to Toel and slammed the butt of his gun into the vamp’s head. The blow knocked him out and then some. His body slumped, the power he’d been emitting seized and then dissipated. Rad fitted the blindfold over Toel’s eyes, snugged it tight.
“Oh, man,” Maddy said, coming to stand beside me. She beat her dagger against her jean-clad leg. “I didn’t even get to cut him.”
”Next time,” I promised, secretly hoping there wasn’t a next time.
Hone rubbed his fingers across his forehead, jerked the hat off his head. Sweat shone in his close-cropped hair. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly before meeting my eyes.
“What is it, Hone?”
“You ain’t gonna like it.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He pointed his chin at Toel. “He and Nudra had plans. Big plans. They wanted to take out those other two regional managers and control all of North America.”
Since Corina had already told us Nudra had been vying for America’s top vampire, I wasn’t surprised. That he would work with Toel, though, did surprise me. “Guess we put a stop to that.”
Hone’s eyes were anxious and he shook his head. “But there’s another reason Toel didn’t want you at that coronation tomorrow night.”
“What’s that?”
He paused, shook his head again as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Vlad, the Impaler, will be there.”
Again, nothing I didn’t already know. “And?”
“He’s looking for a bride, Kali.” Hone’s face was a mess of distress. “And the Bridge Council has promised him you.”
Chapter Thirty-two
It’s difficult to shock me to the point I’m speechless. Hone’s announcement did just that. I stood there for a second with my mouth hanging open in pure, unadulterated shock. Anger followed.
Half a second after the anger hit, the walls of the room closed in on me, suffocating my lungs and closing off my throat.
I ran.
Out of the torture chamber, through the basement, past the movie room, up more stairs to the first floor, my boots thwacking on the carpet, clicking on tiles. I sped past Corina, who was emerging from the kitchen with a tray of sandwiches, and ran the length of the hall until I hit the main foyer with its double staircase and crystal chandelier. I flung open the front door, startling the guards posted there and bent over at the waist on the porch, sucking in cold night air.
My legs shook and I dropped down onto the top stair. Emotions collided inside me like my body was suddenly a particle accelerator, spinning everything at high speeds, trying to break atoms apart. A sense of irony bubbled up inside me and I laughed out loud.
Me, the bride to the Prince of the Undead? Yeah, right.
Through history, Vlad had always taken human wives, some two hundred in all last I’d heard. He turned each one into a blood slave, produced a kid here and there, and then when the wife died, he’d live like a bachelor for a while until he got the bug to marry again. To think he’d consider marrying a demon was ludicrous.
To think I’d be crowned queen of the Chicago vamps was just as ludicrous and, as far as I could tell, that had a distinct possibility of coming true.
I fumbled in my cape for my cell phone. The screen was dark, but the face lit once my thumb brushed over it. Toel’s all-star wrestling moves hadn’t broken it.
Cole’s guards watched me surreptitiously, so as I hit the speed dial button for Damon, I walked down the steps and climbed into the Land Rover. The night was black, but Nudra’s mansion had plenty of decorative landscape lights.
I shut the door and listened to Damon’s phone at the Institute ring once, twice, three times. My anger simmered hot, ready to bust out. Where the hell was he?
“Kali,” he answered after the fourth ring. “What’s happening?”
I sat forward, elbows on knees and staring down at my feet. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out what you and the Council were up to?”
There was a long pause. “Please clarify. I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“With the Prince of the Undead, you archdemon ass. The deal you made with him over me.”
In the background, I heard Yasmin asking Damon a question. She wanted to know what I was saying. Damon covered the phone with a hand, said something to her that sounded like, take a seat and I’ll be with you momentarily. Bet she loved that.
Damon’s voice came back on the line, firm. “You were in the conference room when I struck the deal with Juliana, Rafael and Toel. You know the guidelines of that deal. What is the problem?”
“You didn’t make a sideline deal with Vlad to marry me?”
Damon’s voice now boomed in my ear. “What?” Without waiting for my answer, he broke out laughing.
Any other time, I would have enjoyed hearing the Archdemon laugh. It was rich and melodious and reminded me in some ways of my dad’s laughter…full of the elements of a long and mysterious meaningful life.
That night, however, it sounded a touch mocking. As if I’d just claimed to have straightened the tower of Pisa without using magic. It reassured me, though. If Damon was laughing at the prospect, it couldn’t be true.
I waited for his laughter to subside. “Are you done?”
A few more chuckles. Once again in the background, Yasmin questioned him. He ignored her. “Are you serious?”
“I have it from a credible source that the Bridge Council made a deal to marry me off to Vlad at the coronation ceremony tomorrow night.”
“Your source is not as credible as you think. There is no deal of that magnitude between the Bridge Council and the Prince of the Undead, I assure you.”
A new thought dawned. “What about the European Bridge Council? They couldn’t make that kind of deal without getting your okay first, right?”
Damon’s voice lost its humorous edge. “Of course not.”
The driver’s side door opened. Maddy slipped into the seat. Time to wrap up my conversation. “Do me a favor and put out some feelers. I don’t like being blindsided and I want to make sure nothing wonky is going down at the coronation.”
“Wonky?”
Hell’s blood, I really needed to get him out in the real world more. Yasmin spoke in the background, this time closer to the phone. In my mind’s eye, I saw her stand
ing by Damon’s desk, arms crossed and brows knit because he wasn’t sharing. “Whatever you do, do not tell Yasmin about this.”
I snapped the phone shut. “Sorry, I ran out like that. I had to make a call.”
She knew I was lying but nodded her head. “I had no idea about the whole marry the Prince thing. Never heard that on the street before I went to your place. The only thing on the vamp grapevine was about you becoming the Central Region queen and Toel wanting to stop the coronation.”
Her voice was earnest. She played with a ring on her right hand, twisting it in circles until I thought she’d rubbed it raw.
Damon’s laughter and denial seemed genuine. So did Maddy’s declaration. But Hone was never wrong about the thoughts he read, so what was the real truth?
“I believe you.” I pocketed my phone. “Either Toel knows something the rest of us don’t, or he made it up. I’ve got a twenty says he made it up.”
And the only reason he’d do that was to screw me again. Was it possible he realized Hone was a mind reader?
The psychic in question appeared on the top steps, Cole and Rad beside him. Rad was tallest, all muscle and strong hands and conflicted interests. Hone was the broadest, a bighearted beefcake. Cole, in between, was scarred physically as well as mentally, and exuding more attitude than I was, but his loyalty was so solid, I could cut my teeth on it.
All of them looked as strung out and unhappy as I felt. Their presence, though, was a balm to my raw emotions. The three of them stood tall and unmovable, looking like nothing could topple them.
With everything spinning out of control, it was amazingly nice to have them grounding me. Since the age of seventeen, and even before that in Queen Maria’s court, I’d had to look out for myself. Sitting there in the Land Rover, even Maddy’s presence calmed me. Aphrodite, JR and Neve were my family now, but the group with me that night was a tangled mess of friends and enemies that I trusted even though I shouldn’t have.
As I’d explained to Damon, trust wasn’t something I handed over easily, but each of these people had earned it.
“You gonna stick around and help?” I asked Maddy, looking out at Nudra’s well-manicured lawns. Not Nudra’s. Mine. “I want to look at the rest of the house, see what Nudra’s hiding besides weapons of mass destruction.”
“Can I keep the knife?” She held up the dagger she’d lifted from the weapons room.
“If you agree to let Cole teach you how to use it.”
Her gaze shifted to look at Cole on the front steps. “He’s a demon, isn’t he?”
“One of the best.”
She sighed in a way that reminded me she was a teenage girl. “Can Radison Beaumont show me some moves?”
I surprised myself by laughing. “Take my advice. Stay as far away from Rad as you can.”
Her eyes cut to me, curious and jealous at the same time. “You and him…hooked up?”
I glanced at Rad, who was still zeroed in on me. He didn’t like waiting as evidenced by the way he kept tapping the bamboo stick against his leg, but he was giving me space. Trying not to rush me or push me or be annoying. A first.
Hooked up. The phrase always reminded me of a fish caught on a hook, being dragged out of the water to die and then be eaten. Seemed like a fitting term. “Yeah, we hooked up. Along time ago.”
Maddy tilted her head. “And now?”
“I don’t know what we are. Friends. Enemies. We have a lot of history. None of it good.”
“That sucks. He’s sick.”
She meant sick in the uber cool way. Sick, to me, though, was how I felt when I remembered the Noctifector tattoo between his shoulder blades. I stepped out of the Land Rover, ending the conversation. “Hone?”
He shuffled down the stairs, the white bandage glowing on his dark skull. “You okay?”
I patted his arm to assure him. “Is there any way Toel knew you were a mind reader?”
“Don’t think so. Never seen the dickwad before.”
Rad and Cole came down the stairs and gathered around Hone. The tension leaking off all of them tickled my nose. “Is it possible Nudra told him? You did work for Nudra on occasion.”
“Nudra hired me for security, nothin’ else. He didn’t know about my mad skills.”
Cole leaned a hand on the SUV. “What are you thinking, Kali?”
“That Toel knew Hone reads minds, so he planted false information in his to throw me off. Damon says there’s no deal with the Prince about me being his bride.”
“You trust Damon?” Rad asked. Skepticism tinged his voice.
“With something like this? Yeah. He’s manipulative, but he does what’s best for the Bridge Council, Institute and the supernatural world. He wouldn’t want to lose me or my services to Vlad.”
Maddy got out of the Land Rover and sidled up to Rad. “Who’s Damon?”
“My boss.”
Hone stuck his hat back on his head, snugged it down. “What do you want me to do, Kali? Hang around ’til the vamp regains consciousness? See if I can get any more out of him?”
Checking my watch, I noted it was nearing midnight. “Nah. Go home. Hug Renee. Tell her I’m sorry for dragging you out here tonight, but as always, you were invaluable.”
A jerk of his chin confirmed he appreciated my compliment. “I’m comin’ to that coronation,” he said. “Just in case.”
Having Hone at the coronation afforded me several advantages, the least being his mind reading capabilities. “I don’t know where the ceremony’s being held yet, so I’ll have Damon call you with the details once I get them.”
He threw his beefy arms around me in an unexpected hug. “You take care, here? I’ll see you at the coronation.”
The sensation of being squeezed in a warm, nonsexual, non-fighting way took me off guard. It was a rare day when someone hugged me with plain old affection and nothing else. “Thank you, Hone.”
I wasn’t sure if I was thanking him for helping me out there at Nudra’s, for hugging me, or for promising to show up at the coronation ceremony. Didn’t matter, I guess. Hone seemed satisfied. He smiled big and took off for his car.
What a teddy bear.
“What now?” Cole asked.
I skimmed the mansion. I wanted to see the rest of the weapons rooms and have a gander at the other rooms as well, even though it would take hours to go through them all. Lilith’s job weighed heavy on my mind, but there was nothing I could do about her witch until daylight. Once morning came, I’d be in Eden to follow the witch, do some recon, and determine the best place to cause her problems before exacting revenge for Lilith. And while doing that, I’d try to figure out a way to send the queen back to hell in case she decided not to return on her own.
Stomach growling, I started up the steps. “I say we eat, check out the remaining two weapons rooms and have a look at Nudra’s office. I bet he has at least one safe, and from the intel JR gave me, he’s got a harem of pretty cars we should inventory.”
Silence behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw Rad and Cole exchange a guy look. Cars. The magic word.
“We could do that,” Rad said, shifting the bamboo stick to rest on his shoulder as he lightly shuffled up the stairs next to me.
Maddy snagged the insulated case with her bottled blood from the back of the Land Rover. “Can I have a car?”
“No,” we all responded.
She stuck out her tongue, pointed at Cole and Rad. “Why do they get to have all the fun?”
“Rule four.” I held up four fingers and grinned. “Demons always get the spoils.”
“Yeah, well demons suck ass and so do your rules.”
She jogged up the stairs past us and we all chuckled. Entering the house, Rad held the door for me and Cole. As we passed the threshold, I lowered my voice for Cole’s ears only. “Satan screw me, but if I end up Vlad’s bride, I’ll slit my wrists with a butter knife.”
Cole patted my back. “I’ll kill you before he can lay his hands—or his teeth—on
you.”
He said it in a kidding manner, but I wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t actually take me out if I asked him. “Promise?”
He winked at me. “Promise.”
Chapter Thirty-three
By three a.m., we were all tired. We’d scoured the house from top to bottom, found six safes and a bunch more over-the-top weaponry in the second floor and basement weapons rooms. I’d been through hundreds of paper and computer files in Nudra’s office. The best thing I’d gotten my hands on the whole night was Corina’s superb chicken salad sandwiches on sour dough bread.
While I logged time with Nudra’s files, accounting records and notes on various Undead in his organization, Cole and Rad took turns test driving the vamp king’s cars. Toel regained consciousness sometime before two, but I only heard his yelling if I ventured down to the basement. Which I didn’t. Being alone and wearing a blindfold in a torture chamber that reeked of death and blood seemed like a fitting punishment. I toyed with the idea of embarking on another session of questions and answers, but doubted I’d get much valuable info out of him and I wasn’t interested in any of his threats.
My neck cramped from leaning over Nudra’s desk and my ass ached from sitting in his leather chair. And I still had over a two-hour drive to Eden staring me in the face.
I’d culled over the info, sorting the paperwork into three piles. The first pile had to do with Nudra’s actual job at the Madhouse and didn’t interest me, although I bet it would interest the management team to find out Nudra’d been skimming money and taking bribes from various bands for favors. The second pile contained his personal information. Other houses he owned, his net worth, which was hefty even for a vamp king, and various other important documents. All of it would be transferred to my name.
The third and final pile I gathered neatly and shoved into a bag. His vamp business papers. Lists of his blood slave constituents he worked with all throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada. His contacts, his minions and their job duties, and his dealings with the other vamp royalty. I’d copied numerous files from his computer to a USB and tossed that in the bag too.