House of Royals(55)

“He told me,” she says in that gentle voice of hers. I’ve never noticed the necklace Elle wears until now. It’s a long silver cord and on the end of it is a simple narrow shaft. And suddenly, I have no doubt it’s really a needle with the toxin inside of it. “But he said he didn’t know how to fix it.”

I swear under my breath. “I think I know where he’s planning to go. You’re blocking me in, so you drive.”

Elle doesn’t ask questions as I direct her. She stares straight out the window, fingers gripped white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Her jaw is clenched tightly. But she’s calm and quiet. It’s kind of disturbing how collected she always is.

“Park here,” I say as we get within a mile. “Pull into the trees so no one can see the car. We’ll walk in from here.”

The underbrush is thick, and the ground is wet and smelly. It’s half swamp from here to the House.

“I wanted to talk to the House about the attacks,” I explain as we carefully work our way through the brush and muck. “Ian was too scared to let me go, but they’re the only ones who might know something. And Ian knows that.”

“But they hate my brother,” Elle says, fear showing in her voice.

I nod.

It was bad when I walked into the House the first time. They could have killed me right then. But I would have resurrected.

Ian won’t resurrect. If they kill him, he’ll die. And while the House had no hard feelings toward me other than the choices of my father, they have every reason to hate Ian.

I start walking faster.

The House comes into view, and my heart breaks into a sprint when I see Ian’s van parked right in front.

“What’s the plan?” Elle whispers as we get closer. “They can’t know you two are together. I only brought three doses and my blowgun. We can’t take them all down to get him out of there.”

I don’t really have a plan. I didn’t think. I have nothing. No stakes, no crossbow, nothing. I just rushed out. Pure protective instinct.

“Let’s just get close and see if we can hear or see anything,” I whisper.

We creep up onto the back veranda. It’s going to be difficult to see anything since they’ve covered all the windows. But this house is falling apart.

We find a board that had been nailed over a hole and is now peeling away.

I can just see into the foyer through the great room.

There’s Jasmine, Markov, Anna, and Micah. Ian stands before them. With a crossbow hanging in one hand. To the untrained eye, it would look relaxed, unready. But I see the muscles in his arm strained, his finger hovering near the trigger.

“You do realize who that woman is, right?” Ian says. There’s annoyance heavy in his voice. He extends a hand out back toward town. “She is Mayor Jackson’s wife. People are going to start asking questions and you’re who they are all going to turn on. Do you not remember what happened to Elijah Conrath? To half of his House members?”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here,” Micah hisses. “Acting like we’ve been sitting on our asses, doing nothing about this.”

“It sure doesn’t seem like you have,” Ian accuses.

Markov hisses. He’s angled toward me, and even from here, I see his fangs extend.

I’m about to spring from our hiding spot and start pounding on the doors when Cameron wanders by. He’s holding a bowl of chips. “Y’all just need to chill out. Here,” he extends his snack out to them all. “Maybe everyone’s just hangry. You want some?”

“Cameron, get the hell out of here,” Anna hisses with annoyance. “And quit trying to get high. It obviously doesn’t work anymore.”

“The worst tragedy in the world,” he mutters regretfully as he shuffles to the stairs.

“Jaz,” Micah growls. “Why don’t you just let me kill him now? You’re just letting him stand there, armed, in your house.”

“Down, boy,” Jasmine says coldly and with the hint of annoyance in her voice.

“I just don’t understand how you could have nine of you here and not know anything,” Ian continues. “You all got attacked, and you’ve found nothing.”

“Looks like you’re slacking on your job, vamp slayer,” Micah growls back.

“Well, like I said, there’s only one of me and nine of you,” Ian says in a low voice as he takes a step toward him. His grip on the crossbow tightens.

“Enough,” Jasmine says. I just about lose it when she places her hand on Ian’s chest and shoves him away from Micah. “I will admit, we’ve not been paying enough attention to this problem. We’ve had other issues to handle.”