Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang(87)

 

“I have several questions, and I’d like them all answered,” I announced as I finally descended the stairs into the living room. “First of all, where are Magda and Raymond?”

 

Kristoff eyed my unorthodox outfit. That was the best you could find?

 

Don’t be impertinent.

 

“A couple of the reapers were trying to scare them when we arrived. We scared them, instead,” Andreas said with a pointed smile at the woman sitting nearest him.

 

Her eyes narrowed with spite.

 

“Your friends left. We thought it would be best if they were not in the way,” Rowan explained.

 

“OK. They must have gone to find the hotel we were going to head to after this. I’ll call later. Next question-what on earth are you two doing here, evidently rescuing Kristoff, when you were utter and complete bastards, betraying him in Vienna?”

 

“She likes that word ‘bastard,’ doesn’t she?” Rowan asked Andreas.

 

“I suppose it’s understandable, given her point of view,” he answered.

 

“Boo?” I asked, pinning Kristoff with a gimlet eye.

 

He sighed as the two men snickered, gesturing me to a chair. I sat, but crossed my arms.

 

You just had to use that name in front of them, didn’t you? They’ll never let me hear the end of it.

 

You’ll survive. Answer my question .

 

“They didn’t betray me,” he said, jumping to the side when one of the reapers got his legs around a glass coffee table and sent it tumbling toward Kristoff.

 

Andreas and Rowan hauled the reaper up onto the chair opposite me. I singed his toes.

 

“Beloved . . .”

 

“I’m stopping, I’m stopping. Go on.”

 

Kristoff looked helplessly at his brother and the other two vampires. “I could use a little help.”

 

“Oh, no,” Alec said, gesturing toward me. “She’s your Beloved. You can explain the pact to her.”

 

“Pact? What pact would that be?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at the man who filled my every waking thought.

 

Kristoff smiled smugly in my mind.

 

And right now those thoughts lie heavily in the “what’s going to happen if you don’t stop stalling and start spilling” arena .

 

Kristoff glanced at the reapers, then over to Alec. “Do you mind storing them elsewhere?”

 

“Not at all,” Alec answered, making a fancy little bow. “Might I suggest the cellar?”

 

It took them a few minutes to haul all the reapers downstairs. Judging by muffled thumps, I believe a couple of them were dropped on the way, but I didn’t feel too bad on their account. They had come close to killing Kristoff, and probably would have harmed Magda and Raymond if the vampires hadn’t stopped them.

 

“Proceed,” I said when they had all trooped upstairs to where I sat.

 

“It started about fourteen months ago.” Kristoff sat next to me, frowning at the tight T-shirt. “If you recall, I told you that it had become clear someone was passing information to the reapers.”

 

“The mole,” I said, nodding, my hand on his leg. Just feeling him so warm and solid next to me made me relax.

 

“The council tried for several months to pinpoint the leak, but was unable to. The mole knew they were looking for him, and the flow of information was temporarily halted. We eventually decided to take matters into our own hands. We decided that if one of us was marked as the traitor, it would allow the real one to relax his guard and go back to passing information.”

 

“So you set it up to make it look like you were the traitor?” My fingers tightened on his leg. “Why you?”

 

Kristoff shrugged, his fingers absently toying with the tendrils of hair that had escaped from my ponytail. “Luck of the draw. It took some time, but we eventually arranged it so that the council, presented with the evidence, had no choice but to imprison me.”

 

“But one of the charges had to do with Anniki.” A horrible thought occurred to me.

 

“No,” Kristoff said quickly. “We did not kill her. But we incorporated the mystery of her death into our plans, as we did the captive reapers. Alec went to ground, ostensibly a victim of my heinous plan, but actually to mislead the real traitor.”

 

“So all that trying to find Alec was an act?” I asked, prepared to be annoyed by his pretense.

 

Alec made a face as Kristoff answered. “Not all of it. Alec disappeared as planned, but then he went completely out of contact, which was not what we intended. We really were trying to trace him, just not from the time he left Iceland, which you believed.”