12
WHEN I CAME DOWNSTAIRS AFTER SPENDING THE afternoon sequestered in the bedroom, the ropes that tied Noah to the staircase were loose on the floor and he was gone.
I froze.
“He’s coming with us,” Matthias said. I turned slowly to see him standing between me and the front door. “It’ll be a good test for him. You know how much I like my tests.”
Yes, I did. All too well.
I finally spotted Noah, crouched in the corner, rocking back and forth like a mental patient.
“I don’t know,” Noah mumbled. “Jill’s blood . . . it—it’s too hard for me to resist. I’m not strong enough.”
“You can resist it. It’s mind over matter.”
“Right. If I don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” Noah groaned. “But that’s the problem. I mind. I mind a lot.”
“What the hell are you doing, Matthias?” My voice came out pitchy.
“What you saw last night is typical behavior for a brand-new fledgling. But it’s been nearly twenty-four hours now and his control is improving. His body is adjusting to being a vampire. There have been no accidents so far, which is a good sign.”
“Other than trying to attack me last night.”
“All fledglings within the first day are mindlessly hungry and violent like that. But he was stopped before anything could happen. Although it will take him months to settle in completely, he should be able to function nearly as well as he ever did. Better, even.”
That didn’t really set my mind at ease. “And if he doesn’t function as well?”
Matthias glanced at Noah. “If he bites you, he’ll die. And the problem he presents will be solved. I’m hoping his desire to live will trump his need to taste your blood.”
“Oh, my God,” Noah groaned. “This sucks so bad.”
My hands curled into fists at my sides. “More games.”
Matthias blinked. “No. I’m being practical.”
“You want to take a fledgling vampire to see your daughter. And that’s being practical?”
“If he makes one move to harm Sara, I’ll rip his heart out from his chest. Do you hear me, Noah?”
Noah cleared his throat nervously. “Loud and clear.”
I didn’t feel good about this, but I didn’t have a lot of choice here. I wanted to see Sara, too. I’d been worried about her ever since Declan took her away and refused to tell me where she was. I didn’t miss the diapers, constant feeding, and the throwing up, but I did care about the baby’s well-being. Knowing she was with someone like Emily, even though I’d never met her before, helped ease my mind a lot.
We left the house without another word spoken between the three of us. After what happened earlier between me and Matthias, I felt awkward and embarrassed. What had seemed like the means to help me forget about Declan, now seemed indulgent and irresponsible. To say the least. I didn’t hate the former vampire king—I wasn’t sure now if I ever had—but sleeping with him was not a wise choice, despite my attraction to him. When I was with someone, I wanted it to be because I loved him. My libido had gotten me in trouble a few times in my life, but I was older and wiser now. I learned from my mistakes. Matthias would have been a mistake.
He could have had sex with me anyway, but he didn’t. He’d stopped just in time. I guess I should thank him for that.
Maybe someday.
We headed for Toluca Woods, a middle-class neighborhood in Burbank. It was warm out tonight, but not hot, and there was a nice breeze in the air. Emily’s house was at the end of a cul-de-sac, a redbricked, back split bungalow with a cypress tree out front and a rock garden instead of a grass lawn. Matthias pulled the car alongside the curb and parked there.
Noah sat quietly in the backseat and I was keenly aware of his presence the entire half-hour drive over. He pressed up against the driver’s side door, his arms crossed so tightly over his chest it looked painful.
Entering this neighborhood made a sudden and surprisingly large amount of emotion well inside of me. It reminded me of where my sister and my nieces lived, which wasn’t very far away from here. My throat closed, making it difficult to swallow.
I had to call her. I’d waffled about this so many times that I’d lost count, but I always came back to what felt right to me. A quick phone call wouldn’t put her in jeopardy. It might stress her out, but it would take a weight off her mind that I was still alive. I had to do that. A couple minutes and that was it. Maybe just the sound of her voice would be enough to give me some well-needed strength.
Yes, it felt right to me. The knot of tension I had in my gut loosened a little just thinking about it. I was going to call Cathy. Right now.
“Go on in,” I told Matthias and Noah. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Matthias eyed me. “All right.”
He didn’t grill me about why, which was nice. They got out of the car, Noah a bit reluctantly, and I sat there for a long moment as I tried to gain enough confidence to do what I should have done a week ago.
I had Noah’s cell phone in hand. I slowly keyed in the phone number and held it to my ear.
This might be the last time I ever spoke to Cathy. I’d wanted to see her again, to know at that moment everything was back to normal. But I might not have that chance. If my blood killed me—or, rather, when my blood killed me—at least I’d die knowing I’d said good-bye. Just because I felt good today compared to how I’d felt before didn’t really mean anything in the long run. I knew I was living on borrowed time.
For a moment I thought it would go through to voice mail like last time, but it didn’t.
“Hello?” It was my sister’s voice.
I found I couldn’t speak. The words caught in my throat and I swallowed hard.
“Who’s there?” Cathy asked after a moment of silence.
“It’s . . .” I licked my lips. “It’s me, Cathy.”
“Jill? Oh, my God! Is it really you?”
Tears stung my eyes and I felt a wash of relief at hearing her voice. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“Are you all right?” She sounded surprisingly calm. Eerily so, actually.
I frowned. “I’m fine. Are . . . are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“And the girls? Meg and Julie? How are they?” Cathy’s kids. My nieces—ages eight and six. I wasn’t sure why cold dread began to slide through me.
There was a pause. “Don’t you know already?”
My grip tightened on the small phone. “Know what?”
“He was very nice, Jill. Such beautiful eyes. I think I could have stared into them forever.”
Even though the car window was open, I felt the hot air closing in around me. “Who are you talking about?”
“He was here a little while ago with some of his friends. He said everything would be all right, and I believe him. He told me that you were alive, but you hadn’t been feeling very well, and that you were looking forward to seeing Meg and Julie again. I’ve been so worried about you for the last two weeks, but I’m so relieved everything’s going to turn out okay after all.”
I could barely breathe. Fear ate at the edges of my mind. “Who was he, Cathy? Please, please try to concentrate. Tell me.”
She was quiet for a moment. “He didn’t introduce himself formally, but one of his friends called him Chris—Chris something.”
“Kristoff?” The name caught in my throat.
“Yes, that was it.”
Kristoff had gone to my sister’s home and taken my nieces. I didn’t know how he’d even known they existed. I’d never met him.
“They’re going to be fine.” I forced the words out.
“Of course they will be.”
Cathy had been mentally influenced. There was no way she would normally be acting like this, so calm and undisturbed by the fact her children had been taken away from her. One look in Kristoff’s eyes and he’d made her believe that everything was okay. It was the only reason she wouldn’t have phoned the police already and had an Amber alert spreading across the state.
I felt physically ill. “I need to go. It’s going to be okay, Cathy. I swear it will. I—I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”
I ended the call. My hands were shaking so hard I had a difficult time finding the disconnect button.
Kristoff kidnapped my sister’s children and said that he knew about me. I didn’t know how that was possible.
There was a rumor about me that a lot of vampires seemed to know about—the woman with the poisoned blood. My reputation preceded me. But I didn’t think they knew my name. Most of them wouldn’t know my face. Kristoff had only been awakened yesterday. This didn’t make any damn sense.
Matthias.
I covered my mouth with my hand. Matthias was psychically connected to his brother—they had a bond, that was what Matthias had called it. I remembered Matthias reacting with intense pain when Kristoff was awakened. He said he could see into his mind, know everything he was thinking, feel everything that he was feeling. And that Kristoff could do the same with him.
He said it had shut off soon after and he hadn’t made any other mention of it. Matthias didn’t know where Kristoff was. He was waiting for his brother to make the first move once he’d regained his strength. To find Matthias so he could extract his revenge on him for locking Kristoff away for three decades.
In that moment both of their minds were open to each other, Kristoff must have seen everything about me. Who I was. What threat I posed to him. My name. And he’d used that to hunt down my only living relatives. And he’d taken my nieces to use them against me. Matthias knew about my sister from the newspaper article. He’d found out about my nieces easily. They were my family, the people I cared about. The thought made me feel even sicker and fear raced through me.
If he’d gone after my nieces, there was no way Sara would be safe.
My eyes widened. If Kristoff had found out about my family through peering into Matthias’s head, then he’d know all about her, too. And considering how much he would hate his brother right now, that was dangerous information.
A baby. A girl. A dhampyr. The daughter of the brother who’d stolen his throne.
I scrambled for the car door and got out so fast I nearly went over on my ankle. I ran to the house to find the front door ajar. The house was dark and quiet.
“Matthias?” I whispered, afraid to shout. “Noah? Where are you?”
I reached the end of the front hallway. As I edged around the corner into the kitchen I stifled a gasp of horror.
A gray-haired woman in her midsixties lay on the ceramic tiled floor in a large puddle of blood coming from her slit throat. Her lifeless eyes were open and glassy as she stared at the ceiling.
“Emily.” Fear and pain sliced through me at the sight of the dead woman.
Declan wanted to keep this location a secret from Matthias, thinking that he would be the one we’d have to worry about. I knew Matthias wouldn’t hurt Sara and it was my opinion that helped Declan decide to tell Matthias where she was staying.
He couldn’t have known this was how it would turn out. That the woman who’d helped to raise him would lie dead in her kitchen now for what she’d agreed to do out of the goodness of her heart.
Grief for a woman I’d never met slid though me, but there was no time to stop.
I made it to the stairs and went up, clutching tightly at the banister. The house was so quiet. The nursery was at the end of the hallway on the second floor.
A little relief spread through me when I saw Matthias standing there, holding the side of the crib, his shoulders tense. It was so dark in the nursery, the only light was coming through the window from the moon. I walked quickly to his side and looked with dread down at the blankets and stuffed toys.
Sara wasn’t there.
A sob caught in my throat. “He was here, wasn’t he? He killed Emily downstairs.”
“This is all my brother’s fault.”
I tried to think, tried to figure out what to do next. “My sister—I spoke to her on the phone just now. She says he was there, too. He took my nieces and mentally influenced her not to panic—to think everything’s okay when it’s anything but. And now he’s taken Sara.” My hands were shaking. “It’s because he could see into your mind. That’s where he got the information. Everything that you know—everything—he could see it and he wants to use it against us.”
He pulled me against him tightly. I didn’t resist. I felt numb. His daughter whom he’d sworn to protect had been taken before he’d even had a chance to see her face. I couldn’t help but felt his pain. I felt it, too.
“We have to find him, Matthias. There’s no time to waste.”
He pulled back a little from me, stroking the black hair off my face and tucking it behind my ears. “There’s only one problem with that plan, Jillian.”
I looked up at him. “What is it?”
He cupped my face in his hands. “I’m not Matthias.”