“Rue, you’ve been doing whatever you like, involving yourself in other people’s messes. I haven’t heard from you except when you had a question regarding the same.”
“I’m sorry. I had the impression the coven was about support and not being alone. I didn’t realize you expected me to be at your beck and call.”
One didn’t have to try too hard to sense his anger. “I’m not asking you to serve me.”
“No, just do whatever you say. Well gosh, what do you know? That’s the same thing.”
He released my hand. “Your friend is as good as dead. Wherever she is, it doesn’t matter. Besides, this fate or something similar was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“How dare you say that about Georgia.”
He moved back behind his desk. “What I spoke is the truth.”
I put my hands on my hips. “You’re insinuating I would have gotten Georgia killed no matter what.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I studied his face. “So, you know her? You know who Georgia is?”
He appeared reluctant to speak. I refused to move from the spot where I stood until he gave me a good explanation. Silvano could have made me leave, even called in a couple men, but he gave over to my persistence.
“She was a donor to my predecessor.”
“A…” The gears clicked into place. I recalled Georgia had told me once that she used to enjoy the benefits of being a donor but that the arrangement ended when a more powerful vampire killed her benefactor. Silvano was the killer. A chill raced down my back. He always offered me a smile—eventually—even when I pushed his patience. Yet, behind the false tranquility and the cultured voice, he was a cold-blooded man. I shouldn’t have been thrown by the knowledge, and really who knew the circumstances behind…
No, Rue, don’t romanticize it. I let the reality of what Silvano was wash over me and then stored it away. The whole time I did, he watched me. Silvano didn’t enter my head at that moment, but he didn’t need to. He was an intelligent man, and he could figure out my thought pattern.
“Have you finished prosecuting me in your head, Rue?” There was the smile.
I rolled my eyes and waved a hand, hoping he bought the act. “The past doesn’t concern me.”
He picked up the pen he had laid down when Francis and I entered his office. Then he slid a sheath of papers closer. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I have no reason to kill you.”
“And if you did?”
“I would.”
The chills surfaced again.
“With regret, of course.”
“Of course.” I strode to the door but gave him one last chance. “So, you’re really not going to help me, Silvano?”
His gaze had already returned to the paperwork. “I’ve said I won’t.”
“Then what use is your coven to me?”
As I stomped down the hall, I felt his gaze and his anger on my back. What he felt and did didn’t matter. At least that’s what I told myself. Truly, I didn’t want Silvano as an enemy. I’d much prefer him as a sometimes ally. He and his people had been a major help with the werewolves, and without them, I couldn’t have accomplished as much. My getting involved with humans and ghouls wouldn’t set Silvano against me, but I liked to keep my options open. In my head, a door was closing. I just hoped another was waiting not far away.
Chapter Thirteen
I woke and promptly leaned over the bed clutching my stomach. The pain was so intense, it made my head spin. This was a vampire’s growl of hunger, debilitating and consuming. I couldn’t think straight. Heck, I wasn’t thinking before either to let myself get to this point. Days passed while I searched for Georgia, not doing much else unless it was pulling a ghoul off a human. Bad mistake. I had reached my limit. No, I was past it.
Staggering to my feet, I scrubbed my eyes, but I was pretty sure they glowed red. My fangs filled my mouth and try as I might, I couldn’t get them to retract. The most I could do was concentrate on putting one foot in front the other as I made my way to the closet to get dressed. Twenty more…ten…I could do this.
A knock on the front door of the apartment halted my progress. Then a heartbeat exploded in ears with its enticing rhythm. Nathan’s bedroom door hung on bent hinges after I ripped through it. The front door, locks and all came off the wall as well, the knob crushing in my palm. I jerked the startled man off his feet and sank my teeth into his neck. Sweet nectar!
Sliding my hands up his back and into his hair, he might as well have been a lover. Except I fully concentrated on draining him. Yes, I said drain. My vampire instincts had kicked in, and rationality did not exist in my narrow world. In my ears, his heartbeat went from thundering to a whisper. I kept drinking. In another instant, my eyes might have rolled except strong hands jerked me backward. I lost my prize, and with the detachment, sanity flooded my mind.
I screamed and covered my mouth. This was the most emotion I had exhibited in forever, but it was warranted. At my feet, Cam lay in a crumpled heap. Yeah, that Cam, Violet’s boyfriend—the man she loved no matter how hard she tried not to. I paced, pushing fingers into my hair.
“He’s dying. He’s dying,” I chanted, as if that would help. “I drained him. I’ve never… I would never…”
At a sound, I turned to find it had been Francis who pulled me off Cam. Francis moved to the door and picked it up. He wedged it hard into the opening separating the hall from Nathan’s apartment. I’d have to use muscle again to get it open. The damage was done, but that wasn’t important. Cam took priority.
I dropped to his side and checked his pulse. There scarcely was one. A hand pressed to my mouth kept another cry from escaping. I paced again.
“I can dump the body for you,” Francis offered. The solemnity on his face should have been comical, but it wasn’t.
“No,” I shouted, and he raised his eyebrows. “It’s Cam. He’s a friend of a friend. I want him to live.”
This seemed like a foreign concept to Francis or I just couldn’t figure him out. I sank to the floor again, and started to bite my wrist as I raised Cam’s head toward it. Francis was across the room in seconds to grab my arm.
“Don’t try to stop me.”
“I’ll do it,” he offered.
“You think I’m going to lose it again.” He might be right, but I didn’t want to admit it. When he raised his own wrist and bit into it, I released Cam into his hold. Clutching my hands together, I willed it to work and for Cam to come back. Then a new thought struck me. “Is he going to turn?”
“Only if he dies.”
I walked the carpet. Surely, I wouldn’t have killed him, right? I couldn’t have because of Ian’s order not to harm humans, to always help them. In fact, I wondered if the order had dissolved because without blood Cam would have died.
“How could I do this?” I muttered, puzzling over the matter.
Francis stood and carried Cam to the couch to lay him there. When he was done, he moved back across the room as if he didn’t like standing too close to a human. Maybe he felt weaker after giving so much of his blood.
“The hunger supersedes all else,” Francis said.
I frowned. “Huh?”
His calm gaze met mine. “You said he was a friend.”
A friend of a friend, but I didn’t correct him.
“Friendship, family, any loyalty, even obedience to a master cannot replace the order of the vampire’s hunger.”
Francis assumed when I spoke I was talking about betraying a friend. While it did bother me, I meant the order from Ian. The rest of Francis’s explanation covered it without him knowing. My hunger took priority above Ian’s command. So, the only way not to obey Ian was to go hungry. Check. I had no plans to do it again—ever.
A moan to my right caught my attention, and I moved to the couch. Cam raised a hand to his head and then to his neck. His eyes popped open and widened in fear when he saw me. He jerked up to a sitting position and scooted back alon
g the couch. By training or instinct, he snatched his gun from the holster and aimed it at me.
“Back up,” he ordered.
I glanced at Francis, who had repositioned himself in front of me and to Cam’s right. My senses told me Francis cloaked himself but not enough that I didn’t see him. Cam had no idea he was there. The other vampire’s expression said, “What does he expect to do with a gun?” I had to agree. Well, sort of. Bullets hurt.
“What are you?” Cam demanded.
“Let’s calm down, Cam,” I encouraged him. “You don’t want the paperwork of having to explain why you shot a tiny unarmed woman.”
“You’re small, but your strength is unbelievable. It’s not human, that’s for sure.” He glanced over at the door where in spots around it, the wood was shattered. Yeah, bad evidence. “There’s no way you could handle those creatures like you did if you were just an ordinary woman. I know it, and so do you.”
“Adrenaline is a funny thing.”
He waved the gun. “Try again.”
“You can just make him forget and get this over with,” Francis said in my head. “If you prefer, I will do it.”
I ignored Francis for the moment. “Cam, there are things in the night you know nothing about, a side of New Orleans and the world a human will never see.”
“A human,” he repeated and shuttered. Panic rolled in his gaze, and his finger twitched on the trigger.
“Calm down,” I ordered in a firmer tone, but he wasn’t looking at me. I spoke his name again, and the tone was like the crack of a whip. Cam’s head popped up. He looked at me, and I spoke the third time. “Calm down. Put away the gun.”
He did so, and I relaxed a little. When he finished tucking his weapon back in its holster, he surged to his feet. “You forced me to do that! You’re…what are you?”
“I’m a vampire.”
“No.” He shook his head so hard, he must have addled his brains. “That’s impossible.”
I flashed fang, and he almost had a heart attack. Another round of calming. I had to give Cam credit. At least he didn’t run out the door. I mean, if he could since it was wedged closed and all.
Now that I knew Cam would live, I could think more about Violet’s situation. “Cam, what do you think of me?”
He wobbled on shaky legs and held onto the edge of the couch. “Why do you care what I think? Wait, does Violet know about you?”
I said nothing. He reached the halfway point between the couch and the door and stopped. The slow rotation looked like it would result in him in a heap, but he managed it.
“She does,” he whispered, obviously pained.
“I made a mistake,” I said. “I’m sorry. We are not monsters, but I can sense by your overwhelming fear, you don’t believe me. Don’t worry. I’ll glamour you, and you won’t have to suffer with the knowledge anymore.”
He threw out his arm as I started toward him. “Wait. Glamour? You mean you’re going to make me forget.”
Cam shook his head, backing up. Then he froze, and horror struck his expression, freezing it in place. “Violet… My Violet isn’t…”
I thought fast. “Why would you come to that conclusion? This conversation is about me and what I am. So, let’s just get this over with. Rue will make it all better.”
My soothing tone sounded false to my own ears, and it did nothing for Cam’s state of mind. I never got to reach him because the door almost flattened him. Francis, still hidden, moved the human aside in a rush. Cam staggered glancing around to see what had pushed him. Still weak under the effects of my attack, it took him a heartbeat to realize Violet stood in the opening, chest heaving with her rage.
“Why do I smell Cam’s blood?” she growled. Her attention slipped from me to Cam, and I imagine she noticed the trembling and the paleness. Crap, I was caught before I could fix everything. I looked to Francis, but he had gone deeper into his cloak. Since I could no longer sense him, I wasn’t sure if he was still around. He left me on my own in the face of dealing with Violet, and I imagined it had to do with her being a cop as much as being a werewolf.
Violet started for me, but Cam’s voice cut her off. “Why didn’t you tell me, Violet?”
She stopped cold, and the blood drained from her face. “Tell you what?”
He seemed to struggle with voicing what he now accepted as the truth. “Are you a vampire, too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
He refused to accept her indignation as an explanation. She took a step toward him, but he staggered again away from her. I sensed her pain when she must have known it was on purpose and not that he was just fighting to remain standing.
“I can glamour him,” I offered, low but not so low he couldn’t hear me.
Cam snarled. “Is that what you all do, make everyone forget what’s really going on? What do you have to do with the creatures attacking humans? Is it your people?”
“Now, you’re just being mean. Ghouls are not related to vampires.”
He didn’t appear to believe me.
“We don’t have anything to do with the ghoul problem,” Violet said. “We’re doing all we can to stop them.”
This was the first time she had aligned herself with me, sort of. I wished it were in better circumstances. Her gaze on the floor, she heaved a sigh and walked back to the door. I called after her.
“The glamour, Vie?”
“No, he and I need to talk. Come on, Cam.”
I thought he would deny the both of us, but he looked after Violet. The poor man couldn’t hide what he felt for her. Knowing she wasn’t human, he had to hear her out. His love would either die after learning the truth or hold because it was that strong. Then there was the baby to consider.
After they were gone, once again, I raised the door but leaned it in the opening rather than force it in a hole that no longer fit.
Chapter Fourteen
After Violet and Cam left, Francis reappeared. I frowned at him. “I don’t like when you do that. I can’t tell where you are. You could be in my apartment at any time, and I wouldn’t know it.”
“I advise you not to repeat that to anyone.”
Great, he told me after I had admitted it, and I realized it was true. How many vampires or other creatures with the cloaking ability could hide in my presence? Of course I expected most of the older ones in New Orleans were aware they could keep themselves out of my senses. After all, I had passed by them on the streets often in the early days. I knew this because they were creatures of habit. After I began to develop my senses and abilities, I noticed them more. Various ones frequented certain routes, and I had moseyed by all ignorant and happy on a number of nights.
The difference I hoped for was that often we are more sensitive to the vibes in our own homes. I liked to think no one would come to Nathan’s apartment without me knowing because they would assume I could tell. Of course the real protection would be if we got a human roommate, but that was just asking for trouble. You don’t keep snacks in the house to ruin your diet. In case, you’re wondering, yes, I was being obtuse in my own head to alleviate some of my earlier stress. In other words, my usual.
“Rue.” Francis stood before me, and I wondered why he lingered.
“Was there something you stopped by to tell me, Francis? I just realized you caught me when I wasn’t at my best.” As if he had come for tea. Then again, I could offer him wine. Francis didn’t appear to be the wine type. Vampires drinking wine had come across to me as us still trying to look human. Francis probably didn’t care about displaying anything other than his normal sharp movements. I kind of liked him for that, too. Everyone was different.
“I wanted to inform you,” he said. “There’s a way you can save your friend.”
“Who? Which friend?” I suddenly recalled, and all the worry returned. “Georgia?”
He nodded, and I knew Francis had remained nearby when I spoke with Silvano. I wondered if Silvano could always detect his presence.
�
��How can I save Georgia? If you mean by making her a vampire, I already asked Silvano about that, and he said no. Another friend of mine confirmed it.”
“Not a vampire. A ghoul.”
I blinked at him.
“Your friend is already a ghoul from the first bite. She just needs the transformation. You don’t have to kill her. She can live.”
“And feed off people to make new ghouls? I love her, but that’s just wrong.”
I wasn’t sure, but Francis seemed to start at my casual use of the word love. He didn’t comment on it though. “When she rises as a full ghoul, you can give her your blood. She will become your vassal.”
“I haven’t been undead so long I need a slave, Francis. I appreciate the offer, but really. In the end, my problems wouldn’t be resolved.”
“Even if you can order her not to feed from living humans?”
I froze. “What?”
“You can order her as her master not to feed from living humans.”
I considered his words. My first reaction was revulsion. Me a master of another person? The idea was wicked on too many levels. My second thought was ghouls truly were like us, having a hierarchy system built in. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the same species. At least, I assumed no ghoul could master another. Maybe I was jumping to conclusions. Still, vampires could master them? Then there was the matter of giving an order contrary to their instinct. I wanted to dismiss the notion altogether, but curiosity got the better of me.
“Okay, so you said earlier our hunger supersedes even our sire’s orders. Is it different for ghouls? Can a ghoul be ordered not to eat?”
He patiently explained. “You wouldn’t order her not to eat, but not to eat from living humans.”
My stomach roiled. “I have a feeling, Francis, you’re going somewhere with this I don’t want to go. The ghouls’ feeding habits are already putting me off my meals.”
His expression said he noticed, but he apparently didn’t condemn me for it. “Humans are what they need to survive. The person doesn’t have to be alive.”
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