“Melinda. Melinda, look at me.” Cupping her chin, he forced her to meet his gaze. “I want you to relax.”
She blinked, struggling against the compulsion in his voice.
“Please . . . I . . .”
“You’re tired.”
Her face went slack. “Tired.”
“You need to sleep.”
“I’m so scared.”
“Close your eyes, Melinda.” His voice hardened to a direct command. “You’re safe.”
“Yes.” Her lashes lowered.
“Now sleep, mija,” he whispered next to her ear. “Sleep.”
Waiting until her body was limp and her breathing was steady, Santiago laid her on the floor. Then, grabbing the sword he’d set aside when he’d found the girl hiding in the corner, he rose to his feet.
With a nod of his head toward the door, he led Nefri out of the classroom into the narrow hall.
“Talented, indeed,” Nefri murmured. “How long will she be out?”
“Long enough,” he said, annoyed by his flare of pleasure at her words of admiration. Dammit, he was still sulking. “I’ll call Styx to have the local clan chief take her to a safe house until one of the Ravens can collect her.”
She arched a dark brow. “The Oracles might want to have the first right to question her.”
“I’ll let Styx and the Commission hash out jurisdiction.” He slid the sword into the scabbard angled across his back. “I have no interest in politics.”
Some elusive emotion flickered through her eyes.
Relief?
But why?
Because he had no political ambition?
Yeah, right.
“I’ll ask Levet to keep watch on her until the clan chief arrives,” she offered before glancing around the rapidly decaying building. “Not that anyone would willingly come here. Even the animals have fled.”
“Yes. Fear.” He grimaced at the thick emotion that poured off poor Melinda and filled the air. “It’s as potent as the violence was in the swamps. And no doubt as potent as the lust that swayed Melinda and her friends into their first orgy. Do you see a pattern?”
“Emotions,” she readily admitted.
Of course she would have connected the dots, he wryly acknowledged.
Her intelligence was as lethal as her powers.
“Strong, primitive emotions.” He narrowed his gaze. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mierda.” He rammed his hand into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out his cell phone. “Why do I bother?”
“Santiago.” Her fingers landed lightly on his arm. “Wait.”
“What is it now?” he growled, not giving a damn how rude he sounded. She’d slammed the door in his face for the last time. She wanted all business between them? Fine. They would be all business.
“I’ll tell you what I do know,” she said softly.
He froze, frowning at her with open suspicion. “Why?”
She blinked, clearly having expected him to jump for joy at her grudging offer. “I beg your pardon?”
“Why are you suddenly willing to share?”
She hesitated, then, stepping back, she wrapped her arms around her waist in an oddly protective gesture.
As if she was feeling . . . vulnerable.
“Because you were right.”
He was right?
Was the sky falling?
“I need you to say that again,” he said slowly.
“You were right,” she repeated. “It’s not fair to ask you to assist me in hunting Gaius without fully understanding the danger.”
Hmmm. He wasn’t sure he trusted her abrupt change of heart, but he’d never been a vampire to look a gift epiphany in the mouth. “I’m listening.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard rumors about the creation of the Veil?”
Santiago snorted at the ridiculous question. Like every vampire, he’d heard the fairy tales surrounding the Veil.
“The one where it’s a rift in time and space that sucked you and your people through?” he asked. “Or the one where you ascended godlike to a higher plane of existence?”
She grimaced. “The Commission circulated a dozen different stories after they created the Veil.”
So the Oracles had been responsible for the wild tales. Interesting. “Why?”
“So no one would guess their true purpose.”
“And that was?”
“To trap a creature on the other side.”
Santiago took a minute to consider her startling confession. Of all the stories that had circulated over the centuries, he’d never heard even a whisper that the Veil was some sort of cosmic prison.
“What creature?”
“I’m not entirely sure.”
He snorted. Did she think he was stupid?
“How can you not know?”
She paused—not like she was going to refuse to answer, but as if she was carefully considering her words. “From what I was told, it’s more a spirit than an actual creature.”
He frowned. Spirit was a broad term. It could mean anything from a genuine ghost to a hundred different species that had no corporeal form in this dimension.
“So what made this spirit so dangerous that they would cage it behind a magical curtain?”
“They didn’t share that information with me.”