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  Three

  DOMINIC

  “What do you mean, she’s gone?”

  I stood before my father. Head held high, spine straight. The only way to do it. He would sniff out weakness and doubt with no trouble, so all the more reason to stand tall.

  He hated weakness nearly as much as he hated his brother, Augustine.

  “Precisely what I said. She is no longer in the manse. We’ve searched every corner. I can’t smell her. Can you?”

  He threw a crystal goblet against the wall of his study. Blood splattered in all directions before slowly running down the silk paper, while shards of crystal were almost musical as they hit the floor. “Useless! All of you! How many years has it been? First you bungled the situation with her parents and made a hopeless mess of things, and now this? What am I to do with you?”

  He appeared before me in an instant, his eyes red as the blood now seeping into the wallpaper behind him. “Tell me. What would you do if you were in my position?” His upper lip lifted in a snarl, revealing glistening fangs.

  I was far too old for such threats to cower me, though there was no denying the jangling of my nerves. That wasn’t entirely his doing, though.

  How had I lost her? How would I get her back?

  “How did she escape?” he growled.

  “We have yet to discover how she managed it.”

  “No doubt she convinced someone to offer her their ring as a means of transport.” He backed away, still holding my gaze. Still wearing an expression of utter disgust. “Gather everyone in the great hall. They ought to have arrived by now. I want to see every member of our tribe. I want to see their rings.”

  “And if one of them is missing?” A stupid question, and pointless. No doubt he would collect the head of whoever had betrayed him.

  I knew who’d done it. I’d known it from the first. The fact that he hadn’t instantly put it together spoke to his lack of insight, to say nothing of his disregard for that which he believed beneath him.

  He turned his back to me, which after centuries together I knew meant I’d been dismissed. Turning on my heel, I marched from the cavernous room which he used as a private sanctuary—two stories, with a raised walkway lining three walls and a spiral staircase for access—and did not breathe a proper sigh of relief until I was well away from the room.

  The manse was in a state of chaos. Our tribe had been called together to celebrate the discovery and rescue—my father’s words—of our Blood Queen. The ruler foretold to bring peace and balance to vampires the world over, to unite the tribes, to end the ceaseless fighting between us and the rest of the supernatural world.

  Word had gotten out of Sophie’s disappearance. The tension was palpable. I could almost taste it as I rapped on the door to Graziella’s bedchamber. “Graz? It’s Dominic. May I come in?”

  A moment of silence. “Yes.” She sounded as uncertain as I’d expected.

  She sat on the edge of her unused bed, holding a porcelain doll in her lap. Whatever had been done to poor Graz before Augustine turned her—and perhaps after that—had halted her mental and emotional development. The rest of us appeared to be the same age as we’d been when we were turned, but our awareness had expanded with the passage of time.

  If she’d lived as a human, she would be nearly a century old. Yet there she sat, eternally a child both in body and emotional maturity.

  “Everyone is terribly upset,” she whispered, stroking the golden curls of the doll she held. Curls which reminded me too much of Sophie’s.

  “They are,” I managed after swallowing back the lump in my throat. Damn her, why had Sophie run? Why had she left me—us, rather?

  Me. She left me. I did all I could, and still she fled.

  “What will Lucian do?” Graz asked in a small voice.

  “For now, he wishes to gather the entire tribe in the great hall and examine everyone to see whether they’re wearing their ring.”

  “I have mine!” She thrust her hand into the air for my inspection.

  “I see that.” I also saw how desperate she was for me to think it was anyone but she who’d allowed Sophie to escape. “I wonder what will happen if Lucian finds everyone wearing their ring. Where will his suspicion fall then?”

  Her lower lip quivered. She lowered her head, studying her doll as if she’d never seen it and the dozens like it lying on the bed. The part in her hair was glaringly white against her black tresses.

  “Graz.” I went to her, knelt before her. “I know it was you. I won’t breathe a word of it to Lucian or any of the others. But I would appreciate a little honesty. I’ve always been honest with you, haven’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you allow Sophie to escape the manse?”

  “She had to go!” The doll fell to the floor when she grasped my hands.

  “Oh, Graz…”

  “She did! She had to tell her friend not to look for her. And her uncle, who she says is a policeman. He would have looked for her. They both would have. And you know what would have happened to them.”

  This brought me up short. I hadn’t expected it. I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to the people Sophie left behind. There weren’t many of them.

  That was easy for me, however. I didn’t have to think about them. She did.

  I deflated under this news. “I see.”

  “Don’t be angry with me.” Unshed tears sparkled in Graz’s dark eyes. “Please.”

  “I’m not angry with you.” It wasn’t a lie. Perturbed? Yes. Put out by? Certainly. But not angry, for I was dealing with a child.

  A child eager to be of help.

  A grown woman who knew she could take advantage of that. I gritted my teeth against the rising tide of anger at the woman who’d managed to destroy my plans yet again. Why had I assured my father I would be successful where he hadn’t? Was I that determined to make my existence more difficult?

  “I won’t tell anyone.” I stood and put on as placid an expression as I was capable of. I knew it had been a mistake to allow Graz alone time with our guest. It was Jessabelle who’d convinced me otherwise—she’d always had a soft spot for the child. We all did.

  “The little human will feel less threatened once she meets Graziella,” she’d assured me. Look where we were. I walked to the door, intent on giving my cousin Jessa a piece of my mind.

  “He’ll take good care of her,” Graz assured me a moment before I would’ve been out of the room.

  My hand tightened around the doorknob. Metal squealed somewhere in the knob’s mechanism. “Who will take good care of her?” I asked, careful and measured.

  I could hear her gulp from across the room. “Don’t be angry, please.”

  “You cannot be serious!” I whirled on her, no longer bothering to pretend. Let her scream if she wished.

  “He was already there!” She jumped up from the bed, eyes flashing, and not for the first time did I wonder whether she put on the little girl act when it suited her. For now she was incandescent with rage. “You have always thought the worst of him! He wishes to protect her just as you do.”

  “You don’t know that. Augustine wants anything but to protect Sophie.”

  “He won’t take her to Augustine. He will hide her. I could feel it in him, his plans. I know him. I always have.”

  True, it seemed the two of them shared a connection. She’d always gravitated to him, and he to her.

  That changed none of the facts. “He tried to kill her, Graz. When he struck her with that ridiculous car of his.”

  Her braids swung back and forth from the force of her wagging head. “No, that wasn’t him. I know it. Someone else struck her. He would never harm Sophie. She is too important to him.”

  My breath caught. “What do you mean?” Dread quieted my voice, turning it to a choked whisper.

  “I felt it in him.” She crossed her hands over her heart. “Here. He looks at her with softness in his eyes.”

  That pleased me less than anything
I’d heard up to that point. It would be one thing to protect Sophie from my estranged brother and his adopted father if they only viewed her through a mercenary gaze. If they only wished to use her as a weapon, something they could gain from.

  Softness in his eyes. Wonderful. Now he would be less inclined to release her to us than I had imagined.

  “Say nothing of this to anyone,” I urged her before hurrying out of the room, intent on finding Kristoff before we convened in the hall.

  It was too late. Already a sea of vampires flooded the corridor, all of them on their way to the massive hall at the center of the manse.

  I could only hope to find my cousins there without attracting attention.

  Sophie, my queen. I love you with all of myself and would kill all who’d dare touch you.

  But you will be the death of me.

  Four

  SOPHIE

  “I thought you said you were taking me to someone who could help.”

  “I did. I am.” Gabriel moved like a hot knife through butter, cutting his way through the crowds around us. It was Friday night—funny how I had lost track of the days—so the sidewalks of Center City were packed with people coming out of and going into bars, clubs, pizza joints, cheesesteak shops.

  And all of them noticed him. The whole vampire thing gave him an aura people tuned into without knowing why. He moved like a cat, smooth and sensual, almost gliding down the sidewalk.

  Meanwhile, here I was, wondering what these men and women would think if they knew who caught their interest. How easy it would be for him to end them.

  “Where are we going, though?” I almost had to run to keep up with him, which wasn’t a lot of fun in the humid night air. I usually enjoyed running, but at my own pace and without the threat of losing my life hanging over my head.

  “You’ll see. Could you stop asking so many questions?”

  “Oh, excuse me. Maybe I’ll go to my apartment, then, and forget all of this.”

  “Say hello to the lycans for me. Tell them I said Justin can go fuck himself.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’ve mentioned him before. Not a fan, I guess?”

  “He wants you dead.” He looked down at me, trotting by his side. “No. I am not a fan.”

  Ouch. Okay, then. It would be so much easier to be mad at him without the constant reminders of how many people wanted me dead, and how he might be my only hope of survival.

  “Can I ask another question?”

  “Certainly. Will I answer, though?”

  I made a face at him, not that he could see it a few feet ahead of me. “God, slow down.”

  “That wasn’t a question.” Though he did pull back just a hair, enough for me to fall in step with him again.

  “Why didn’t the police think there was anything weird about the way my parents were killed? They blamed it on animals from the woods. I’ve read the report, even though my uncle tried to keep it from me.” That had been a waste of time. What I’d learned about lock picking was all due to trying to break into his filing cabinet, which I had finally been able to do.

  “Why do you think?” He cast a narrow-eyed look my way. “Stop doubting what you know. If you have any hope of ruling as you’re meant to, you must allow your deeper wisdom to take hold. You aren’t an average human and you never were.”

  Then, he snickered. “Or else you wouldn’t have suspected there was anything strange about your parents’ death, and wouldn’t have gone so far out of your way to find answers.”

  Damn him. I never did like being challenged this way when I was in no mood.

  “You were there when the cops showed up,” I theorized. “You messed with their heads.”

  “Persuaded them to believe a safer truth.”

  “Wow. Is that what you call it?”

  “Would you rather the police suspect vampires? Who they don’t believe exist in the first place? Would that have brought your parents back?”

  “Even my uncle? Did you mess with him, too?”

  “Do you think it would’ve been easier for him to live in doubt?”

  “He already did. He’s not an idiot. And he knew his brother, and my mom. They weren’t in the habit of leaving the door open for random animals to come in and tear them up. He’s questioned it ever since—he doesn’t have to tell me so. I know.”

  “What mattered was keeping him away from us.” He shot me another look. “For his sake. Not ours.”

  Just like I had come back so he wouldn’t search for me and get tangled up with vampires. I wasn’t the only one Gabriel had protected all these years.

  We walked on, and before long the crowds thinned out. We were in a more residential area several blocks from the commercial district, with both sides of the street lined by old brownstones. It was almost eerily quiet, especially compared to what we’d just left behind.

  At the corner was an old church built back when this area was all there was to Philadelphia and North Broad Street was considered the countryside, where the very wealthy built lavish mansions to get away from the city during the summer. It had always struck me as funny that anybody had ever considered that section a getaway, but a lot of water had passed under the bridge since then.

  “How long have you lurked around the city?” I asked.

  “For as long as it’s been a city.”

  The history nerd deep in my heart sighed a happy sigh. I had so many questions. One of the things I’d left behind after That Night: history, which had always fascinated me. I was starting to reintroduce it into my life and in fact had planned on digging into a book about the Civil War before everything went to hell.

  I almost laughed when I realized I had better than a book with me. I had a walking, talking history lesson.

  A walking, talking history lesson who opened the wrought iron gate in front of the church and walked on through into a brick courtyard.

  My gasp echoed off the brick pavement. “What are you doing? Isn’t that holy ground?”

  He snickered. “You sound like a horrified nun, clutching her beads. It was at one time, but it was desanctified years ago. Not many are aware of that, nor of what the structure is currently used for.”

  Something told me I didn’t want to know what it was currently used for.

  Something else told me I didn’t exactly have a choice.

  Besides… I did sort of want to know. It was a twisted aspect of my personality, my curiosity in the face of certain doom. One reason I had taken so many chances in recent years. I couldn’t help myself once curiosity got its hooks in me.

  I followed him closely. The back of my neck went wild, all tingly and bumpy. Where were we going? I told myself the sweat on my palms was thanks to the muggy night, but that was bullshit.

  There was a red door at the back of the stone building. We stopped in front of it. I tried not to look too nervous when I turned to my vampire guide. “So? Are we going in or what?”

  He tipped his head to the side. “You don’t always have to do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend to be braver than you are. I know you’re brave. Tough. You’ve suffered inexplicably and it strengthened you. But there are situations beyond your ken, beautiful little human girl, and this is one of them. I won’t blame you for being frightened.”

  He tapped a finger to his throat, right over the carotid artery. “Your pulse.”

  “We’ve practically been jogging for ten blocks,” I reminded him.

  “And you run regularly, so you’re accustomed to the exertion. That’s neither here nor there.” He looked at the door and blew out a long sigh. “I neglected to mention something earlier, before we started out.”

  “This doesn’t make me feel good…”

  He ignored me. “I need you to pretend to be my blood bag once we’re inside.”

  My eyelids fluttered. “Excuse you? Your what and why and how?”

  “Shh.” He glanced at the door again. “Remember. Sharp hearing.”

  “Righ
t, okay.” So there were supernaturals inside. Not that I hadn’t guessed that, but the confirmation still made my insides all loose and watery. That shrimp lo mein didn’t seem like it was such a good idea anymore and it might’ve been planning to revisit me—and my shoes if I didn’t manage to keep it down.

  I might’ve shared their blood, but I wasn’t one of them. If a whole bunch of vampires decided they were thirsty for me, there wouldn’t be a chance of holding them off. Who wouldn’t be nervous?

  “They won’t know who you are. It’s the reason you’ve been able to fly under the radar all this time. Our bloodline can scent that very faint strain of our blood in you. No others can. And during those years when you were regularly under the influence, the chemicals in your blood made it possible to avoid detection even from Dominic and those fools. It dulled your scent.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  “And it’s the reason we weren’t able to scent you the night… that night.” A brief look of pain washed over his face, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

  I closed my eyes. “We were smoking up two cabins away. The pot masked my scent.”

  “Precisely.”

  If it hadn’t been for that. If it hadn’t been for so many things.

  “I don’t get why that means I have to pretend—”

  “You aren’t one of us. Not a vampire, not truly. You share our blood but not our status. They’ll know that right off, the moment you cross the threshold. Since we can’t exactly announce who you are, the only other option is pretending you belong to me.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, grunting. “I should have explained it before we started out, but I knew you would balk. Getting you here was most important. No offense, but I don’t trust you enough to leave you alone just now.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Widen your eyes. Look dazed. Gaze at me in adoration.”

  “Get real.”

  “I mean it.” He looked like it, too, brows drawn together over eyes that looked suspiciously redder than they were a second ago. “I would have you in my thrall if this were real. Do you understand?”