I pivoted on one knee and looked back into the hallway. At each doorway stood a vamp wearing nightclothes, looking haggard. I inserted the silver cross inside my leather jacket. Dominique sighed with relief and dropped her head to the floral carpet. “Your human servants aren’t feeding you?” I asked. “Where are the twins? Why don’t they just let you go?”
“Our young blood-servants were bled and taken away. I don’t know if any survive. The ones remaining are old, their parents, or even great-grandparents, unable to fight, unable to help us for fear that their loved ones yet live and will be killed. And we cannot feed while exposed to silver. The poison taints the feeding.” She tilted her head to see the man across the hall from her. “He’s taking so much. There isn’t . . .” She turned back to me, her head moving slowly on the stalk of her neck. An emptiness spread across her features, and I recognized a despondency so heavy it looked like death. A deep, daunting desolation. “There isn’t enough blood in the world for him. Not even Mithran blood. And if he takes more from us, we fear we will rise rogue, that the old tales will be borne out in our flesh.” Her eyes closed and she whispered, “Already each of us takes far too long to find our own sanity at sunset.”
I reached for her shackle. “I can take care of—” Her eyes shot from my face to my neck; my skin went sweat slick. The magic charms instantly grew hot against my stomach, burning in the presence of the danger presented by a hungry vamp. I fought the urge to move away in fear. “If I free you, can you control yourself enough not to drain me dry?”
The man across the hall chuckled. “If you set her free, she will rip out your throat in joy. We all would.” He sniffed the air, raising his head, licking his lips. “I remember your scent from the Pellissier party. Not quite human. Tasty.”
“So much for being kind,” I said. I stood and stepped away from Dominique. “You’ll just have to wait until I kill your blood-master.”
“No!” Dominique said. “Why would you kill Grégoire?”
The vamp across the hall laughed, derision in the tone. “You are a fool, you little ‘not-quite-human.’ Grégoire is not rogue. No! He is prisoner, and has been for these two months and more. He is shackled, as we, with silver. He still lives, though he grows weak. I feel his heartbeat, slow and weak.”
“You should have come when I asked,” Dominique said. “You should have come.”
Understanding slid into place with an almost audible click. The rogue was bleeding Grégoire, which was why Dominique had commanded me to visit, back at Leo’s party. And if she hadn’t felt safe telling me at the party, then the rogue had been there, close by, listening. Could I be any more stupid? I pulled the cross from my shirt. “Where is the rogue keeping your blood-master? And why is he keeping you shackled—other than a blood meal? And most important, who is the rogue?”
The man across the hall laughed. Dominique wept. The vamps in the other two doorways rattled their chains. And Correen moved up the stairs, a butcher knife in her hand.
“Though it surely means the death of my human family, I called Clan Pellissier,” she said to Dominique, as tears rained down her wrinkled face. “The blood-servant of the blood-master of New Orleans is on the way.” Outside, lights drew up in front of the house. An engine died. Doors closed. They must have been close by. I saw my payment for bringing in the rogue’s head flitting away. Correen screamed and raced toward me.
I threw Dominique to the floor of her room, stepped in after her, and slammed the door. Out in the hall, Correen banged the blade into the door, screaming, “Dominique! Dominique!”
I dropped to one knee, so close I was bathed in the sick breath of the vamp. I shoved the cross at her face, blazing a cold, bright light. “Where is the rogue keeping your blood-master? Why is he keeping you shackled? And most important, who is the rogue?”
When she answered, all the breath went out of my body.
By the time the footsteps made the top of the stairs, I was standing in an open window overlooking the back garden. Gathering Beast to me like a cloak, I jumped, hit ground, rolled into a crouch, and took off across the lawn. In a single leap, I took the six-foot-tall back fence and raced to my bike, still hidden in the shadows, three blocks away.
CHAPTER 25
Witchy power
I gunned the engine, crouching over the handlebars. Beast crouched with me, face to the wind, my/our mouth open for scents. I was heading out of town, along the Mississippi River. And I was about to do great damage to the entire vamp council in general, and to Clan Pellissier in particular. When I was done, I figured someone would kill me.