Carter pointed out various things inside his building as we made our way for the bus that would take us on a mission through the city. I got to visit the apartment used as a storeroom, and the large area downstairs with a massive projection screen and couches that were used for movie night. He also introduced me to several of the unbelievably fit and trim residents who crossed our path along the way. Aside from brief glances and bobs of the chin in acknowledgement, they didn’t talk to me and I didn’t talk to them.
Truth be told, my mind was elsewhere entirely.
For the umpteenth time, I brought my hand to my chest, patting the amulet hanging from the cord around my neck. It was still there, emitting an odd powerful hum against my skin. Since I’d slipped it on, I’d felt calm yet powerful. It didn’t make a lick of sense.
“Rhiannon.” Carter broke through my haze. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, I am.”
I lowered my hand from the incredibly thin but overly large black turtleneck I’d taken from the satchel and changed in to. The camouflage pants fit a bit better due to the assistance of an old military-style cloth belt with a metal clasp that shone like polished brass. I looked pretty hard core until you got to the immaculate white Nikes with the light pink swooshes on my feet.
“Who are you thinking about?” Carter slowed his pace.
Who wasn’t I thinking about?
I was worried about Disco, without question. My lover had no idea where I’d been for the last century. Which got me to thinking about everyone else. What happened to my old boss, Hector? My coworkers Deena, Cletus and Butch? Did The Black Panther Lounge, where I worked as bartender, still exist? Then there was my vampire family—with Paine and Nala being in the forefront of my mind.
Each time I started this train of thought, I went back to one person in particular.
Ethan McDaniel, aka Goose—my mentor, friend and the only person aside from Disco I trusted completely. He would know what to do and how to get myself out of this situation, but was he even around? Was such a thing possible? Vampire blood extended longevity, but one hundred and one years was a hell of a long face lift.
“Rhiannon,” Carter prodded, “answer me.”
“I’m not thinking about anyone,” I lied, increasing the pace down the narrow hallway. “Isn’t there another room you want me to see?”
A firm hand grasped my shoulder and spun me around, bringing me face-to-face with one furious and very disbelieving man. The rope Carter walked was getting shorter and shorter. His gray irises shone oddly, becoming almost silver again.
“You were romantically involved with one of them, weren’t you?” His voice changed, becoming impossibly deep before my very ears. “That’s why you won’t tell me anything. That’s why you’re playing stupid. You’re protecting your lover.”
If only it was that simple.
Beyond my own threshold of patience, I let him have it. “If vampires are as evil and powerful as you say they are, why would I need to protect any of them? We are the endangered species. Not the other way around.”
“That’s true enough. Your species is endangered,” he agreed, catching me off guard as he brushed his larger body lightly against me. “But mine isn’t. Soon, we will equal them in number, if not exceed them. While they control the night, we control the day. When the time comes, they will all burn.”
Your species? Mine isn’t? What the fuck is he?
“Carter,” a deep voice bellowed from the end of the hall. “We’re ready to go.”
“We’ll be right there,” Carter shouted but kept his powerful gaze homed on me. Moving closer into my personal space, he whispered thickly, “You’re not going anywhere. Your place is here. Your home”—he emphasized the word with purpose, allowing it to hover between us for several seconds—“is here.”
Before I could respond, he released my arms and moved away.
Stepping past me, he strode toward the end of the hall. He glanced at me when he stopped before the men and quickly turned away, absorbed by their conversation.
Something was very, very wrong. Something I didn’t fully understand.
And it was something I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Each new landscape I viewed was a stark contrast to the world I’d left behind.