What a fool.
“Did you confront her?” Christian asked.
“Yes.”
“What did she say?” Rhys asked.
“She denied it all. She claimed that she’d said those things to protect me.”
Both brothers stared at him for a moment.
“And why didn’t you believe that?” Rhys finally asked.
“I don’t need protecting from those idiots.”
“But maybe Mina didn’t believe that. Maybe she thinks they are a bigger threat than you do. And she should know. She was a member, after all,” Rhys said reasonably.
“Apparently she’s still a member,” Sebastian said bitterly. “A very active member.”
“Sebastian, why is it so impossible that she was honestly just trying to protect you?” Rhys asked.
“I don’t need her protection,” he said again. “I’m very capable of protecting myself. She should have defended me. She should have told that guy that she knew I wasn’t a threat to anyone. And that Carfax Abbey wasn’t a threat. And that she was in love with me. Period.”
Understanding lit both his brothers’ eyes, and Sebastian wished he’d just remained silent.
“Sebastian, you are a friggin’ bonehead, you know that,” Christian said with a shake of his head. “That’s exactly what she was saying by trying to protect you.”
Sebastian opened his mouth to argue, but he saw his brothers’ expressions. They believed Mina. And his brothers were not quick to believe in anyone. Lilah, the evil vampiress who’d crossed them over, had seen to that. Yet, they trusted Mina.
Suddenly, Sebastian knew they were right. Mina had been trying to protect him. But he’d refused to listen. He’d been too worried that she was going to hurt him. That he’d finally fallen in love, and she’d just been pretending. But that wasn’t Mina. And he should have known that. He should have trusted her, as she’d trusted him.
Rhys clapped Sebastian on the back. “Don’t worry about it. The Young Brothers are notoriously slow on the uptake when it comes to love. Just go find her and apologize.”
Sebastian nodded, praying that his mistrust and, he cringed, his threatening behavior hadn’t ruined his chance with her, with the woman he did want to spend eternity with.
He waited for that idea to scare him senseless, but now he was far more scared that she wouldn’t want him back.
He started to slide from the booth, when he suddenly heard Mina in his head. Her voice clear—and terrified. He fell back against the seat, overwhelmed by the intensity of the echo in his head.
“Sebastian?”
He could hear Rhys, although it sounded as if Rhys was far, far away. Sebastian blinked, trying to clear his mind, to calm her voice in his head.
He turned to his brothers, trying to tell them what was happening, but before he could speak, he heard her again. Scared, desperate. And this time he could see an image. A room. A face. A face he didn’t know, but that had been described to him.
“It’s Mina,” he managed to tell them. “She’s in danger.”
He was barely aware of Rhys and Christian helping him from the booth and leading him to the club’s exit. All he could do was center on Mina, calling to him.
“D—Donatello,” Mina heard herself say as if her voice was very far away from her.
“In the flesh.” He smiled, strolling toward her.
She backed away, bumping into one of the lined-up chairs, stumbling.
“Really, Wilhelmina, you were ungainly when you were alive, didn’t undeath help at all?”
She didn’t answer, she just kept moving away. Terror making her movements jerky.
“Have you been following me all this time?”
He laughed at that, his dark eyes dancing. “Hardly.”
“But—but you disguised yourself as Daniel. Went to the Society meetings. Always spoke to me.”
“Actually,” he stopped stalking her, “this is my disguise. Much more effective with the ladies, as you can attest to. As for seeing you again at the Society meeting, that was sheer coincidence. But I did enjoy speaking to you, making you uncomfortable even though you didn’t understand why. Until now. Sadly for you.”
“Why did you ask me here tonight?” Mina asked. She glanced at the door, realizing that in her fear she’d backed away from it, rather than toward it.
Donatello, or rather Daniel, followed her gaze, then smiled complacently. “Well to finally finish you off, of course. After all, I left you to die the first time, but somehow you didn’t.”
Her fear threatened to overwhelm her, render her unconscious, but she knew she couldn’t allow that to happen. If she did, she was as good as dead. Truly dead.