He sat up, waiting for the dizziness to pass, and was pleased that it did. He scrambled on the nightstand for his watch. Shit. It was almost noon, and there was no way to reach Aidan or Mirren until dusk. The only good part? Fen Patrick couldn’t be creating havoc during daysleep.
“You okay?” Robin sat up, her hair stuck in about forty directions, her mouth stretched wide in a yawn.
“Thanks for taking care of me last night.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Think you can help me do some sleuthing today, before the vampires wake up?”
“Coffee, shower, coffee, more coffee, then sleuthing.” She crawled off the bed and shuffled toward the door. Nik stood, monitored his balance, and walked to the mirror to check out his face. He’d been covered in blood, that much he did remember. Another nosebleed, plus he’d grasped that knife pretty hard. He held out his hands; shallow cuts made horizontal swaths across both palms where he’d held onto the blade. Nothing serious, but Robin must’ve had a big cleanup job.
Could Britta have lived? Was Fen the source of the rage and the hunger? Who was the coyote, and was Fen working with him?
All he’d done was get more questions and no answers. But at least they had a place to start, and Cage needed to tell Aidan everything he could about Fen Patrick.
CHAPTER 24
Matthias had always prided himself on his appearance. He’d enjoyed the finest things his wealth had afforded him since graduating from being a human attorney serving the privileged class, to one of the vampire elite, heavily involved in the Tribunal’s investments and well-compensated for it, both in what they paid him and what he took.
Tailored suits, silk ties, and Italian leather filled his closets. His salt-and-pepper hair had always been stylishly cut—whatever the style du jour happened to be.
Now, he looked in the mirror at a stranger whose hair fell out in clumps when he tried to comb it. Who found clothing itchy and hot, as if ants crawled across his skin wherever it touched him.
Who was always so very, very hungry.
Wolfgang no longer came to his room but sent a silent guard not unlike the one who’d tended his cell in Virginia. He always brought a bag of blood and a plate of food. Beautifully prepared food. Always a succulent roasted meat with potatoes and vegetables and bread. A dessert—the Austrians knew how to make pastries to make a grown man weep.
Especially a man who was starving but whose body rejected any food he ate.
A man who had to drink blood to stay alive but whose body found it nauseating.
So when the doorknob jangled, the lock turned, and he looked up to see Frank Greisser striding in with his fine jacket and polished shoes and healthy good looks, Matthias knew there was someone on this earth he now hated as much as the Penton Five. And he knew if he got a chance, and if he were as patient and cunning as his captor, he would kill Herr Greisser.
After making sure Matthias had seen the armed guards in the hallway, Frank closed the door and came to a stop before the chair in which Matthias sat, looking him over. “You appear unwell, my friend. But I have news that will make you feel better.”
“If you told me the entire town of Penton and everyone in it were dead, their blood running in the streets and their heads on pikes around the town square, it would not make me feel better.” Matthias rose and was glad to see Frank take a step back. “What the fuck have you been giving me in those injections?”
Frank cocked his head and looked Matthias over again. “How have they made you feel?”
“Like death itself.” Matthias walked to the table and held up his bag of blood. “I need this to live, yet it sickens me.” He lifted the dome of his tray to reveal a beautifully browned duck with a citrus glaze. “I crave this, its aroma taunts me, and yet I can’t eat it.”
He threw the shiny dome at Frank’s smirking face. “So I repeat: what the hell is in those injections?”
Frank looked at the floor, and when his gaze fell on Matthias again, it was . . . excited. The man was mad.
“What if I told you that with one more injection, you will be able to eat again. And more, Matthias. You will be able to walk in sunlight.”
Matthias sat in his chair again, stunned. He’d pinned the hopes for his future on a madman. “We are vampires, Frank. We don’t eat food. We don’t walk in sunlight.”
“But what if after a series of simple injections and some temporary discomfort, we could be more? Have our immortality and strength, and yet be able to live among humans? Get our nourishment in whatever form we like—from the vein or from the plate? No longer worry about vaccinated blood? Aidan Murphy and his soldiers can’t offer our people a way to survive this pandemic vaccine crisis, but with this, the Tribunal can.”