“Let her go—now.” Demyan Greco had finally seen the clock.
“SHE IS MINE. Now get out before I kill you,” Nicholas warned him.
“I thought you might say something like that.” Demyan shot him.
I flinched. When I opened my eyes, I realized a conic dart of some kind protruded from Nicholas’s left shoulder. He looked at it angrily, pulling it out with a beastly growl.
My chest breathed fast and hard. I felt the room swaying, yet all I could think of was I wished I wasn’t still wearing my undies or that I wasn’t still a virgin. My traitorous body wanted him so much it hurt.
Part of his strength left him. He shook his head trying to understand what was happening to him. I wished I knew. He gave me a once-over. His glance sobered up, shifting his expression from blood lust into undone horror.
Nicholas roared like an injured beast, just like I’d heard Marcum do. The sound was the scariest thing anyone could ever hear. It sobered me up. Despite my sudden lack of strength, I wiggled away from under Nicholas’s embrace, afraid he would change his mind and dry me out of blood while he remained petrified in shock.
“Miss Pearson, let me help you,” Demyan Greco pulled me from under a rapidly fading and heavy Nicholas.
My gaze turned to the clock on the wall. Five minutes after eleven.
“You are late,” I accused Demyan, who was standing next to me, horror-stricken at my sight. I covered my chest as an instant reaction to protect some of my minimal modesty. Doing so obliged me to fully look at myself. I was covered in red running lines and blood streaks that looked like dark crimson ink splattered from neck to toes.
What the… I gasped at the sight of my own blood, but that was all my brain could handle. I fainted with the dreadful feeling Nicholas needed my help, and my mind made a great effort to hold onto this thought as total blackness took over.
Chapter 47
I woke up with a dreadful headache, and my stomach was utterly queasy. The room spun endlessly. I closed my eyes to regain some control. Once the awful vertigo had calmed, I took assessment of myself.
I lay on a bed, feeling woozy and confused. There was a wretched longing inside my chest that felt oddly familiar and a feeling that something important had been eviscerated from me. My heartbeats were like a far distant echo that had been disconnected. Little by little, my eyes traveled the room I was in. My surroundings were unrecognizable.
Daylight sifted through the large wall-to-wall window in front of me. For a long, addled moment, I had no idea what had happened or where I was. I made no sense of bits of incomplete images in my head. A half-empty bag of something dark dripped into a small plastic hose and was perched next to my bed. My eyesight followed its final destination. It was attached to my arm with tape.
A loud and obnoxious sound buzzed seven times next to my bed before I figured out what it was. I struggled to reach the phone and picked it up. I felt so nauseated I couldn’t even say a simple hello.
“Miss Pearson, you need you recover your strength, so I ordered food for you,” the familiar voice of Demyan Greco said, as if knowing I wasn’t feeling well.
I rubbed my eyes, still feeling the room spinning.
“Enjoy your food and go back to rest.” Demyan hung up.
A polite knock and a male voice announcing “room service” as he opened the door took my attention away from the phone call. The man was huge, dressed in a tailored, dark blue suit. I didn’t think hotel staff ever dressed like that. I had seen movies, but maybe reality was different from movies. I felt self-conscious and took a quick look at myself. Someone had dressed me with a blue bathrobe. A royal bathrobe. I wore traces of dried blood over my hands and legs. My blood, I realized.
“Welcome to Canada, Miss Gregory.” Muscle Man uncovered the stainless-steel covers, and set up the rolling cart as a table for me.
My brain took a couple long moments to understand why Muscle Man was calling me “Miss Gregory” or what was I doing in Canada. But the enticing aroma of waffles detracted me from asking. My mouth watered at the sight of waffles, omelet, toast, berries, and orange juice. I tried to sit straighter in my bed, but the catheter and needle in my arm made it impossible.
“Can you take this off?” I asked him, lazily swiveling my arm to show him the entangling hose.
He examined the almost empty bag and nodded back at me. I guess he was a man of few words. His eyes never met mine. He was one of those zombie-bots Demyan had brought inside the palace. When he was done, he helped me with pillows to sit against the headboard.
I attacked my food voraciously. The dizziness faded away. The sound of a chime and doors sliding open called my attention. I raised my gaze as Muscle Man Number Two came inside my door, leaving a small opening for me to see a pair of doors sliding closed, as he slid a card into his suit jacket front pocket. I was inside a building with an elevator that opened with an electronic card.
Number Two put all the dishes back onto the cart and stretched his arm to hand me a phone without making eye contact with me. I could see the key card picking out from the front right pocket of his jacket.
“Mr. Greco requests to call him back when you are done eating and resting,” he said and left with Muscle Man.
“Uh-hum,” I mumbled and nodded with a yawn. Drowsy, too drowsy. I fell asleep in no time.
I had no way of telling how long had I slept when I woke up. I felt disoriented, but my head felt much better. My mind brought me the last memories I had. The masks, the ballroom, the syringe, Gavril, and Nicholas, and then my mind backtracked and crap, crap, crap. I remembered Émil’s crazy clock—my appointment for battle. Ugh. How long had it been since I left the palace?
The smartphone Number Two left for me was suddenly ringing on my night table. I answered the phone call, noticing I had missed five others. I also noticed it was seven o’clock. What I didn’t know was if it was in the morning or in the evening. Outside the large window looked dark.
“Good evening, Miss Pearson,” Demyan Greco greeted me from the other side. His voice wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be after the last Nicholas incident.
Evening. I smiled secretly. “Good evening, Mister Greco,” I said, greeting him back and sitting straighter in the bed.
“Miss Pearson, I cannot find a good sensible reason as to why you didn’t listen to your protector or me, accepting gifts without consulting with Master Francis, engaging into a battle with your grandparents—”
“But they sold me—”
“Miss Pearson, it is a customary tradition in the kingdom to have an engagement formality between parties. Your grandparents have more money than they care what to do with. They were just doing their duty as your family,” he explained. Crap. But in Nicholas’s, mind he had bought me, like a thing.
“I don’t care about those old traditions. Nobody asked me first,” I said.
“Well, no one had to. Particularly after making a public display of extreme and very demonstrative affection, and accepting His Royal Highness’s engagement ring.” He took a pause to inhale calmness after he numbered my bad decisions, almost screaming into my ear. I sighed and waited for more, he wasn’t done yet. “That is without even mentioning the danger you put yourself through in your room with His Royal ar-Highness.”
I could have sworn the last word sounded just like arse-ness. I almost broke into chuckles, but Nicholas’s sharp fangs and the images of blood sobered me up. I had almost died.
All right, I didn’t know that accepting jewelry from Adelaide was bad, but so was accepting chocolates and mysterious invitations. And yes, yes, I accept that declaring my love publicly for Nicholas had been a great tactical mistake, not that I had too much choice in Nicholas’s arms nor for the same reasons that Demyan was citing. I had put Nicholas’s life in terrible peril by doing this. I prayed Ash had overlooked this detail, especially after I had publicly rejected Nicholas.
But trading Gavril’s freedom for what I’d gone through had been worth it. I w
ould do it all over again if I had to.
“Mr. Greco, that is pointless right now. Whether you think I am an idiot or not, I had to save Gavril. And I did just that,” I told him, patting my back.
“I have a feeling that you are a very difficult contender, Miss Pearson, and I would never think of you an idiot—”
“So is this your way to say you are sorry for being late?”
He sighed, creating a long silence in the process. “I let you down. I am so truly sorry, Miss Pearson. However, I expect you to behave civilized and ladylike while you recover,” he said. Why would he warn me? I wasn’t thinking on beating Muscle Man any time soon, and sincerely, I didn’t think Muscle Man cared whether I lifted my pinky or not. We were past that in our tight relationship. He had taken care of my blood transfusion. We were almost like blood friends. Right? Nuh.
“And if I don’t?” I dared him, just for the fun of making him squirm.
“It is clear to me what Master Francis had to deal with all this time.” His tone was a mixture of amused and upset, like a parent would with a child.
“And what would that be, Mr. Greco?” I prompted him, feeling somewhat offended. It wasn’t like I was a terrible person. Was I?
“You are highly unpredictable, and you lack common sense, Miss Pearson. Therefore, I have the strongest and most trained of my operatives to keep you from trouble. They have orders to tase you, drug you, or even render you unconscious if need be,” he said.
I grunted. It seemed like I was once again a very welcomed guest—code for prisoner. Crap. “Glad to know you have such devoted operatives. I can tell we’ll be best of friends. Are they on Facebook?”
Sarcasm was back at full speed. I didn’t even have a social media account. But I knew I made him smile, even when I couldn’t see him miles away, wherever he was. But instead of having a smart comeback on that, he continued with the parenting speech.
“Miss Pearson, your single way out of a thirtieth-floor penthouse is if you behave accordingly. Then I will personally take you out in my best helicopter. Francis has made it very clear your security is important to him…” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I interrupted his litany.
“There is another matter I must warn you about.” I sighed. He wasn’t going to like this.
“Go on,” he said, instinctively preparing for the bad news.
“Do you remember when Count Rotten-Fish attacked Nicholas with a syringe?”
He muttered another “go on,” so I continued.
“Well, I discovered he did that to someone named Marcum. Except, poor Marcum is further advanced in his vampire stages than Nicholas.” I paused to exhale and swallow hard.
He waited in tense silence.
“Well, I-kind-of-released-poor-Marcum.” I closed my eyes, waiting for his remark
“YOU WHAT?” His voice boomed so loud, I had to pull the smartphone away from my ear as I flinched.
“The royals would have executed him just because his blood isn’t pure anymore. Kind of racist, don’t you think?” I said, since I felt compelled to fill the awkward silence, and also because I was hoping that by appealing to his distaste for the puritan effin law and pushing the pureblood card, he should understand why he must help Marcum. He was a half blood, the last one left in the world after all.
“Francis was right. Your common sense is somewhat amiss. However,” he inhaled. “However, I got Marcum.”
“Please, don’t hurt him. He is a victim of whatever chemicals Count Something-Rabulous gave him.” I could hear his cough-like chuckles on the other side of the line before he cleared his throat and composed himself back to serious.
“Miss Pearson, not only did you give my phone number to him, but I almost lost five of my best men reeling this elder,” he said.
I wondered if he had scared Marcum. Wait, he said elder. Marcum was one of the elders? This was, yet again, one of Ash’s doings.
“I promised him you would help him. Don’t make me regret having thought that you would never turn him down,” I reprehended him. Another long silence prevailed on the line.
“You released a monster, yet he never harmed you. May I ask why?” he asked.
“Uh, because I asked him not to harm me,” I said matter-of-factly and crossed my heart.
Frustration delivered through the phone as I heard a deep long exhale.
“Mr. Greco,” I said to stop him from finishing our conversation. It disturbed me, the degree of feelings I had for him in those silent moments, even when we didn’t speak but were connected in some strange way.
“Yes, Miss Pearson?” He was definitely smiling.
I realized then that even after all that had happened, I still loved and forgave Nicholas. It wasn’t exactly his fault having been converted into a vampire, but I also knew I was irrevocably in love with Demyan Greco too. Ugh, what a mess this was.
“Thank you… for saving my life,” I said.
“It will be well worth it if you follow my instructions for a change, Miss Pearson. Stay safe in the penthouse until everything calms down. Do not tempt me into locking you down on a high-security premises,” he commanded again, before I heard the click sound of our finished conversation.
I sighed, looking at the little round table inside my room with fresh and dried fruit, almonds, and a cup of steaming hot chocolate. My mouth watered at the fragrance. I picked some raisins into my mouth and washed away the sweetness with the hot chocolate.
Just then, I realized I felt grungy, so I looked for a bathroom inside the spacious and posh penthouse. The soft tones of mints, whites, and silver dominated the room while the bathroom was white with little trims of black.
In the mirror, I discovered a large gauze taped over my neck. I took it off and took a long, hot shower. Although I was feeling better, my legs felt shaky. I scrubbed off all the crusty blood. Feeling finally clean, I proceeded to look for something to wear. The royal blue robe was too filthy to wear at all. A black bathrobe hung next to the shower. An open door led to a small walk-in closet. Anything compared to the queen’s dressing room was small. It was empty. I wondered if Demyan had done this on purpose. I couldn’t go that far without shoes, half-naked in the middle of a winter blizzard, noting from the high-rise view from my window.
I had been avoiding thinking about Nicholas, but I couldn’t put it aside anymore. He needed my help. I had to do something about Marcum’s and Nicholas’s conditions. Maybe if I could examine the Count Rabelaisian notes…
The notebooks. The backpack. More importantly, Émil’s armor. I had left the leather bag back at the palace. Crap. I would have to call Demyan and tell him my predicament and have to explain the contents of the bag. Crap.
My bed had been refreshed with clean sheets while I had been in the shower fit for four. I made a second assessment of the room. Two comfy chaise lounges faced the fireplace, and a small desk sat in the opposite corner with a boudoir chair. Then I saw it—the black leather bag.
I stopped breathing. I thanked God and Demyan Greco for this little mercy and for thinking of everything. I rushed to it and emptied it upside down on the desk. I had to know if everything I left in it was still inside. Then I saw them, the armor pieces and the notebooks.
I breathed again and put everything back inside one by one, knowing no one had even seen the contents of my bag. Demyan Greco must have just assumed it had been the documents and the money he had given me.
The chiming of a message on the smartphone drew my attention. I walked back to my night table. I had a message from Francis and another from Gavril. I opened Gavril’s message first, smiling.
Then I felt like the earth had opened under my feet. Two images of Gavril’s face in pain while being lashed, shackled to a large stone, literally nauseated me. Whoever was doing this to Gavril had taken these pictures with the phone Francis had given him.
I didn’t know who was doing this to him. The Count had probably been executed while I was here in bed, and that left just two people. Ash or my de
ar prince. Would Nicholas be capable of such cruelty? I prayed not.
I scrolled down but there was no written message or location. Crap. Whoever sent those photos wanted me to come and save him. A trap for sure. I had to help Gavril, and I had to find out how to get out of this place. I checked Francis’s message next. It was a simple “call me.”
I would call him, but first I had something to do. I had to find out where to find Gavril. Then I needed clothing and to make that call. I sat on the closest chaise lounge, made myself comfortable, and closed my eyes.
Zoom…
Chapter 48
“Whoa.” Gavril retracted against the wall. I had startled him. Of course, I had neglected to tell him that my soul could travel sans my body. It was the first time he had ever seen my ghostly body composed of the oddly glimmering greenish-blue light.
“Gavril…” I was horrified to see his battered face as he smiled at me. I approached him. His hands and feet were chained.
“Did you?” He coughed in obvious pain, but his mouth had his usual wicked smirk, despite his dire situation. He could just see what I was thinking in that exact moment. I tried to ignore his dumb question, but the painful memory and wretched longing for Nicholas betrayed me. Sadly, I was still a virgin. He gasped at one image in my mind. The last one of Nicholas in horror at the sight of what he had done to me.
“No, we didn’t. I am sorry.” In my mind, I showed him the syringe that Nicholas had been inoculated with.
“God!” He hit the shackles against the wall and growled. “This changes everything.” He covered his face with despair.
“I’ll find a way to rescue you,” I assured him. My blue hand touched his face. He had been severely beat up. My hands sparkled a deep emerald green, darker and stronger than I’d ever seen it. I was grateful his injuries were external and none of them life threatening… yet.
“NO,” he declared with utter apprehension. I want you out of here. Do not come back. I will be fine, as long as you are untraceable. You hear me? Gavril used his mind connection. I don’t think I have ever seen him so intense.
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