House of Royals(37)

Everyone is quiet for a moment. What I’ve just said, it means something. Something heavy and future-altering.

“Thank you for the warning, Alivia,” Jasmine says quietly. “I think you should go home now. We will talk more later.”

And just like that, I am released.

Without a word, I turn and walk out of the library. It’s quiet in the entryway. Only a few bloody footprints lead back into the mansion. But everything else looks in place and natural. I put my hand on the rusty doorknob and pull it open.

Outside, there is one limo left, as if it’s been waiting for me this whole time.

Just as I’m about to climb inside, I see one figure racing back toward the house. Anna slows yards from me, heat and anger bright in her red eyes.

“Did you catch him?” I manage to ask.

She shakes her head as the glow starts to fade away. “I’ve never seen anyone be able to disappear like that. No smell, no traces. Just gone.” Her nostrils flare, her eyes wild. Anna isn’t one to be bested often. “Micah is insistent he’ll find him, but…” She shakes her head. “He’s gone.”

“I’m sorry for what Trinity and Christian are going through,” I say, and I mean it. It’s not a deep sympathy because well, Trinity would have probably gladly drained me earlier, but that toxin can’t be pleasant.

Anna nods her head. “You should go home now.”

I nod as well. And without another word, I climb into the limo. The driver doesn’t even look back at me as he pulls around in the driveway and heads out to the main road.

I’m numb and empty as we drive home.

I thought Ian had trained me enough, prepared me. All I was expecting was manipulation and forceful persuasion. I didn’t expect this. Attacks and death and so, so much blood. This is so much more.

We roll up the driveway to the Conrath Estate. And I’m not surprised one bit when I see the figure sitting on the top step.

I climb out and close the door behind me. The limo takes off without hesitation.

In a movie, Ian would probably launch himself off the steps, gather me in his arms, and we’d look beautiful and lovely clinging to each other in this gown and that tux. We’d be so happy and relieved that the other is safe that words wouldn’t be needed to fix the choices that have been made.

But he just sits there. With anger and fear in his eyes. And I simply, numbly walk up the stairs and sit next to him.

“You’re alive,” he observes.

“I’m alive.”

“You got blood all over your dress,” he says without looking at me.

I look down. There is blood coating the bottom of the dress, swept up from the library floor. There are also splatters of it here and there all over me. Markov is messy and crazy.

“Shit,” Ian hisses, life sparking back inside of him. “Is that one of Elle’s needles?” And he plucks one from my skirt. I didn’t even notice it there, embedded into the folds of my dress. “Liv, what happened?”

So I tell him. All of it. The story they told me, what would happen if the King came to Silent Bend. How I warned them all. And the attack.

“I’ve never heard of the snake symbol,” Ian says, shaking his head. “Some families adopt symbols. Family crests. Yours is the raven. But I’ve never heard of the snake.”

“That boy,” I say when something tickles the back of my brain. “The football player you said went missing. What did he look like?”

Ian digs into his pocket and brings out his cell phone. He takes a few seconds and then hands it to me.

“It’s him,” I immediately say. The dark, teenager-pocked skin. The almond shaped eyes. The full lips. “He’s one of the two that broke into the House.”

Ian nods. Like it’s not a surprise at all that a missing football star turns up as a Bitten vampire. “Something’s happening. Three Bitten not under control of the House. Four if you count the one who killed Henry. A very specific attack on the House. You know what that attack was?”

I shake my head. “What?”

“A declaration of war,” Ian says ominously.

“By who?”

“Don’t know yet.”

The crickets chirp, and off in the distance, I see lightning bugs dancing through the trees. The scent of the magnolias and the wisteria floats through the air.

Mississippi is beautiful. It’s old and charming and deep as it is South. But it has opened my eyes in ways I wish they could have stayed shut.

“I don’t want to be afraid of all of this,” I breathe quietly. I’m not sure Ian can hear it, and the statement was meant for me more than him.

“You should be afraid of this,” he admits. And in a surprising show of understanding, he reaches over and puts a hand on my knee.