Three more figures emerged from the third vehicle. Tess recognized one of them as well, the beautiful redhead who had kept her female attendant on a leash at the Vampyre’s Ball.
“And there’s Justine,” said Marc.
The redheaded woman spun in a slow circle, looking around the property. As she turned toward the attendants’ house, Marc snapped the blinds closed.
“Show’s over. The blinds and curtains stay shut now, until we get the all clear.” Marc looked at Tess. “You know, you might as well go to bed. As far as we’re concerned, nothing else is going to happen tonight.”
Bristling at the thought of being sent to bed like a child, Tess lingered downstairs for close to an hour, but the others settled down to watch TV or open their laptops again. The only difference from earlier was that they did so with weapons close to hand.
Eventually inactivity allowed for exhaustion to creep back in. It weighed down her limbs and eyelids, until she muttered a good night to the others and went up to her room.
Troubled, she put on a nightshirt that came to the top of her thighs, brushed her teeth, poured a glass of water and climbed into bed.
All of her instincts felt askew.
Who was the monster now? Justine, Xavier, or both?
Certainly they were both old, dangerous and incomprehensible to her, but while they might be enemies, that didn’t make one of them good and the other one evil. It was possible, even likely, that they were simply two different kinds of evil.
While she tried to puzzle it out, a black tide crept over her and washed it all away, and for a few hours she forgot all her fears and uncertainties.
Then her nightmares returned. First one of her foster fathers, the one who had loved to swing his belt, chased her around a huge, shadowy house. Then Malphas appeared to greet her with an angelic smile.
“Tess.” He strolled toward her. “You know how this story ends.”
“No,” she said.
“Oh, yes.”
She tried to run, but her feet sank into a deep mud, and then he caught her and set her world on fire.
SIX
Drenched in sweat, she plunged awake, surrounded by darkness in a strange room.
No. Her chest heaved. Malphas couldn’t have caught her so soon.
As she looked around wildly, reality asserted itself. The red illuminated numbers on the bedside clock read 3:16 A.M. She was in her new room at Xavier’s estate, her sheets damp with sweat. The room felt airless and hot as an oven.
Kicking off the covers, she climbed out of bed and felt for one of the vents close to the floor. Hot air blew out of it. She was going to cook if she didn’t get the heat turned down.
She slipped on her robe, left the room and searched for a thermostat. Lights shone from another part of the house. Very dimly, she could hear sound, perhaps music, either coming from another area in the house or perhaps from one of the other buildings, while the area around her bedroom was shadowed and quiet.
When she found the thermostat, the temperature had been set for seventy-two degrees, which was far too hot for her at night. After only a brief hesitation, she thumbed it down to sixty-five then reluctantly went back to her small, closed-in room.
She didn’t have to stay in the bedroom. No doubt the basement would be much cooler, but she knew if she went downstairs, she would run into someone again. She was tired of dealing with so many strangers and all the odd tensions from the day and evening, and she needed privacy badly.
Reluctantly, she closed the door, but that made the heat even worse.
Now that she was fully awake, she could hear the sounds more clearly. Music played from the direction of the main house. She walked over to the small sink to splash cold water on her face and arms as she fought an almost overwhelming desire to peek through her curtains.
That was against The Protocol.
But why was that The Protocol? Was it to keep hostile Vampyres from mesmerizing anyone inside the attendants’ house? If so, why couldn’t they open the windows and doors at daybreak, when all the Vampyres would be cloistered from the sun?
Raoul had been so urgent about getting her back to the house, and Marc had been very clear. They were to remain in seclusion and not show their faces outside until they were told otherwise.
Was that to keep them safe, or to keep others from seeing them? But why keep them hidden from view, even in the daytime? It wasn’t as if keeping a household of attendants was a secret practice.
Earlier she had felt like something was slightly off at the estate, and that feeling washed over her again. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. She didn’t know enough yet, but something didn’t add up, and wasn’t that typical—she had gone looking for a safe shelter and ended up in a place that felt full of hidden pitfalls and unexpected dangers.