I opened my eyes as my fingers followed the chain out far enough from under my chin that I could see it. A fine silver chain lay in my hands—and once I saw it, I could see that it led to the hands of the version of Stefan I had on my stage.
It looked so fragile—I tried to break it, but it wouldn’t break or bend, not with anything I could bring to bear on it in my mind. I fought and fought, pulling frantically on the necklace collar around my neck until blood stained the chain, running down it from my neck and from my fingers.
Shhh, said a cool voice. Shhh, you’re breaking my heart, cara.
I froze, then looked up from the now-heavy chain to my image of Stefan, which crouched next to me on the stage.
I promised, he told me. I promised not to tug on the leash. I promised. Don’t hurt yourself so. I keep my promises, Mercy.
His voice flowed over me—a friend’s voice. I was so alone. His voice was like a warm blanket over my nakedness. It gave me strength to allow my fingers to release the chain. I sat up.
My intention was to find the bond, I remembered, not to fight it. I took my terror, the atavistic fear of a trapped animal, and stuffed it back so I could think.
I’d been looking for it to make sure that it tied me to the right vampire.
“Who are you?” I asked him. “I need to be certain. The—” I remembered that Adam hadn’t used his name, so I switched it up a little. “Marsilia’s Master took me. I need to make sure that this”—I indicated the leash between us that now resembled a rusty lumber chain instead of fine jewelry—“is between you and me. That he didn’t break this bond and replace it with one of his own.”
Stefan sat back on his heels and tilted his head. “Fair question,” he said. “If he held your bonds, he could . . .” He frowned, then pulled a knife out of a pocket and sliced his palm. He pressed it against the chain he held, and the red drops landed on the metal. There were only five or six drops, but gradually the whole chain turned rust red. When those red links came close to me, I touched them—and the faded, cartoonish figure of Stefan solidified into the vampire himself.
His gaze traveled around at my stage and the fog, at the two cords that disappeared into the mist, and smiled at me. “Good to see you. This won’t last long, but while it does I have some things to tell you. Adam told us that you got away—keep running. Don’t trust anyone. We’ll find you, all right? We’re on our way to Italy. Once we are there, your ties to Adam should start working again, at least well enough for him to find you. He says that without the pack nearby, you should expect your ties to him and to the pack to remain weak until he is quite close. We can beat him, I think, Marsilia’s old Master, but only if you stay free. And don’t contact me this way again. He can’t, probably can’t, listen in, but he might be able to feel our conversation and follow the thread of it to you.”
He was still Bonarata; I knew that without Stefan’s using his name.
Stefan looked at the chain and said, “Really? This looks like something you’d find in a dungeon.”
I opened my mouth to explain about the necklace but changed my mind at the last moment and shrugged instead. “Scooby-Doo would be impressed.”
He smiled—and I was alone again, holding the fine chain that now disappeared into the mists.
I took two deep breaths and returned to the belly of the diesel beast that was carrying me to some unknown destination. We’d been traveling for a while. From the angle of the floor and the swaying as we turned one way, then the other, we were traveling through mountains. It was unlikely that I was going to find myself in Milan when the bus stopped. The farther I could manage to travel, the better off I’d be.
I was still tied to Stefan and not the Lord of Night.
Stefan was a vampire. He killed people to survive. It was true that he tried his best to keep them alive. It was true that he was funny and honorable. It was true that I liked him. But he was a vampire, and he owned me. The thought of that was enough for me to have to open my mouth and pant out my fear.
But at least it was still Stefan and not Bonarata, not the Lord of Night.
Stefan’s bond had saved me again. Had I been free, I would probably belong to the other vampire right now. He could have used me to get whatever it was that he wanted from our pack and Marsilia. I could have been his Trojan horse.
As the bus rattled on, I continued to play with various people’s motivations as best I could. It wasn’t really a waste of time—the exercise made me feel like I was doing something.
Bonarata had taken me because Wulfe told him I was the most powerful person in the TriCities.
Why had Wulfe done that? Maybe as a joke—but I didn’t think so. It was probable, Stefan had told me not too long ago, that Wulfe was in Marsilia’s seethe as a spy.
“But,” he’d told me with a wry smile, “I doubt that Bonarata would approve of Wulfe’s methods. In his own way, Wulfe is more devoted to Marsilia than any of her seethe, more devoted to her than to the Lord of Night. Wulfe is old and strange; who knows how his mind works?”
I had to agree about the strange, but I had some experience dealing with old and strange people. And I thought that Stefan might be well on target about how Wulfe served Marsilia and let Bonarata think Wulfe served him instead.
So Wulfe had thrown me under the bus in order to do what?
The first thing I thought of was that by taking me instead of, say, Stefan or one of Marsilia’s other vampires, all of the werewolves would be fighting to get me back. If Wulfe had given them Adam . . . I thought of Bonarata trying to get Adam and was pretty sure that it would not have gone smoothly. Someone would have died, maybe many someones. But me? Blindsided by a kidnapping done by vampires? I would not stand a chance. Not of avoiding capture—but I was good at surviving, wasn’t I?
And if I’d died—it wouldn’t mean much to Wulfe or Marsilia, either. Not as long as Adam never found out that Wulfe had set me up, anyway. Even so—Adam would take out Bonarata before looking to Wulfe.
That felt right. Felt like a move Wulfe might make. Once he knew that Bonarata was moving against Marsilia at last, he’d want to consolidate her power, to put the werewolves firmly at her back.
Wulfe knew that I was tied to Stefan. Would he know that Bonarata would have trouble breaking that tie? Yes, I thought. James Blackwood, the one the vampires called the Monster, had tried to break our bond and failed. If I came back from visiting Bonarata unharmed, Wulfe could set up some sort of test to discover if I were unwillingly working for Bonarata. Probably would do so if I managed to escape cleanly.
Somehow that made me feel better. Wulfe would have figured out if I had been made Bonarata’s pet.
So Bonarata, operating on Wulfe’s very Wulfe-like information, had found himself holding a weak female instead of Marsilia’s most powerful supporter. My tie to Stefan—that Bonarata thought was to Marsilia—meant he couldn’t use me as a puppet. So Bonarata was left with a useless hostage. If he killed me outright, Bran Cornick, the Marrok, would declare war. To Bran and to the world, I was one of those he’d sworn to protect. If he didn’t avenge me, he’d lose face.
But an accident—that would simplify things greatly. He forgot to lock the door, and his half-crazed werewolf pet had torn me to bits. So sad. Tragic, even. I bet he would look very apologetic.
His story would have worked to keep Bran off his back. Not that Bran would believe him—but without proof, Bran could not attack Bonarata with impunity. Bran couldn’t go after Bonarata without starting a war with the other vampires. Such a war invited complications and disasters that might make World War I look like the “jolly little war” the British thought they were marching to.