“Damn it!” I heard Viggo mutter, voice low. I whipped my head around in time to see him tucking his cell phone into his Armani suit pocket, his jaw clenched. Bad news? I felt a small smile curl the corners of my mouth. I knew exactly what that message was about. One of his compelled minions had informed him that their search for Evangeline had come back empty. No doubt there were a hundred such packs running loose around the world at this very moment, the brutes storming every location tied to my past. Both Viggo and Mortimer had been glued to their text pads, sending directives out to their vultures. I had expected as much.
His steely blue eyes locked on mine when Viggo realized I was watching. The hard look of frustration instantly vanished, replaced by his typical smug grin. “So Evangeline’s little ‘friends’ refuse to pry themselves from our blood reservoir.” He sauntered over to stand beside me, a smile of satisfaction tugging at his lips. It was just like him to find that amusing. But he didn’t wait for me to answer, instead changing the topic completely. “Do you really believe we’ll see Ursula again?” He added with thick sarcasm, “Assuming you were telling me the truth before.”
I realized we were standing in the exact spot in the atrium where my nemesis had fallen to her death—or her host body’s death. Good question. One I didn’t have an honest answer to, other than what I had already told them—the death was too clean, too calm, to be permanent. I had no idea how that jealous witch had reincarnated herself once, let alone over and over again to stalk me through the years. She had no doubt made her own deal with the Fates. Of course, telling Viggo any of that was useless. He wouldn’t believe me. So I simply shrugged. Ursula was the least of our worries.
The sound of a lock clicking set the tiny hairs on the back of my neck on end, erasing all worries. The exterior door release. Someone was entering. My shoulders tensed. I had sent every staff member away from here, with no hope of finding their way back! So who could . . . My nostrils caught a whiff of human blood. “Mortimer!” I hissed, my eyes glued to the gaping hole where the first security door had once existed.
“It’s Monday. The gardener,” Mortimer whispered in response. Not that there was any point to secrecy. The twenty Ratheus vampires in the atrium were well aware of the small Portuguese man entering to prune and weed the urban jungle as he did every Monday and Thursday. By now his blood was tantalizing their nostrils.
“What do we do?” I asked, hearing the panic in my voice. The words sounded foreign, coming from me. I wasn’t used to asking Mortimer—or anyone—for advice.
But it was too late. Like a pack of super-speed bees—Rachel in the lead—twenty vampires swarmed toward the door to ambush the quiet, polite gardener the second he stepped through the gaping hole, the horror of the atrium’s present ruin distracting him from his impending doom. He didn’t even have time to scream.
I averted my eyes, unable to watch the massacre of the gentle, innocent man with whom I had shared a laugh on several occasions. How could I have forgotten about him?
“That’s too bad . . . He knew how to prune Veronique’s azaleas in just the right way,” Viggo murmured with the empathy of Hannibal Lecter. I turned to see the hunger in his eyes, an arrogant smile of satisfaction on his lips as he witnessed the innocent man’s death eating away at my core.
I dug my red-painted fingernails into my thighs as I fought the urge to gouge Viggo’s eyes out, my promise to my baby sister becoming harder to keep by the second. I needed to distance myself. Spinning on my heels, I stormed toward my haven, throwing back over my shoulder with spiteful satisfaction, “The only way you’ll find Evangeline is if you pry it out of my head.” And that will never happen.
Evangeline’s delicate human scent lingered everywhere. The same delicate human scent that had enticed me for eighteen years, since the day I’d first laid eyes on her tiny pink form, swaddled and asleep in a bassinet. She had barely lived in this hideous blood-red room—the décor a twisted joke of Viggo’s—and yet I could find traces of her on every surface. On the crimson silk bedding of the four-poster king-sized bed; on the taffeta drapery; clinging to the crystals of her nightstand lamp where her wrist had grazed them while switching on the light. Everywhere. It was why I had spent most of my time here, since the Ratheus vampires’ arrival. It was why I warned everyone to stay out or suffer my wrath, truce be damned. So far, no one had tested me.
I wandered around the room now, clutching Evangeline’s pink sweatshirt to my chest. She’d been wearing it the night of Ursula’s attack. I shuddered, thinking back to that night, the raw pain visible in her eyes when she first learned the truth behind her mother’s death. I’d wanted to run to her, to hug her, to protect her. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t allow Viggo and Mortimer to comprehend the depth of my love for that sweet girl. They would have used it against me. In the end, Ursula’s attack was a blessing. Evangeline finally saw Viggo for what he really was: a conniving monster.