Revelations in Blood

by Patricia D. Eddy

  “So you could betray me again?” Nic stumbled, the exhaustion, hunger, and blood loss a toxic combination. Add in nearly drowning, and he was not certain he could remain upright much longer.

  “No, capo. To try to protect you.” Carlo tried to take Nic’s free arm to help him walk, but after Nic bared his fangs, Carlo dropped his hand. “I do not trust anyone at the Conclave. Not after the disappearances. I hoped working for him would allow me to find out who is behind all of this. But Luigi refused my help and dismissed me.”

  “This does not explain how you knew about the tracker. And where is Evangeline?”

  Sylvie unlocked the car, a sleek Audi with tinted windows, and Bayard helped Nic into the back seat. With Vittoria in front and Carlo wedged next to Bayard, Nic feared he was surrounded by his enemies.

  He leaned his head against the cool glass window and closed his eyes as Carlo continued. “Antonio stopped me before I left. He asked me to recount what happened when Pietro died.”

  Forcing himself to stay awake, Nic dug his fingers into his thigh, needing the pain to help keep himself focused. “And?”

  “He did not tell you who you were accused of murdering?”

  Nic squeezed the door handle so hard, the plastic cracked, and Sylvie muttered something under her breath from the front seat.

  “Vaffanculo. I did not kill Pietro. Evangeline tried to save his life. By offering her blood. I did not fire the shots. Nor coat the bullets with serum.” Anger helped keep him alert, and he stared out the window as they sped to the outskirts of the city.

  “Antonio does not care. He held me overnight, Nicola. Demanded I recount every moment from the time you called me from that dingy gas station until we returned to Italy. I was released a little after eleven this morning.” Carlo leaned forward to meet Nic’s gaze. “When you and Evangeline were captured. I believe he wanted to be certain I would not warn you. As the guards escorted me out of the facility, I heard Antonio say, ‘The fool never knew we could track his every move.’”

  Nic seethed, grinding his teeth together hard enough he feared he would crack a molar. His fangs pressed into his lower lip, and he tasted blood. Blood he could not spare. With a quiet curse, he tried to take a deep breath, but the water still in his lungs made him cough.

  By the time he’d regained control, Sylvie was pulling the car into an underground garage. “Wait here. I need to clear the perimeter,” she said sharply and sprinted for a side door.

  Nic ached for a few hours to lie down, to rest, to…merda. To have Evangeline in his arms. But he could not have any of those things. Not until he found her. “Where is Evangeline, Carlo? I cannot sense her. And if we do not find her soon, I fear neither of us will survive.”

  “I do not know. When Cesare asked about Evangeline, Antonio shut his office door. I could not hear his response.”

  Vittoria twisted in the front seat to meet Nic’s gaze. “Wherever she is, Nicola, I fear you are right about one thing. You will not survive if we cannot find her.”

  28

  Evangeline curled into a ball and wrapped her arms around her knees. How long had she been here? Hunger made her stomach cramp, and her tongue felt too big for her mouth. Tiny sparks of pain raced from her neck to the top of her head, made worse whenever she opened her eyes. As she wiped away more tears her dehydrated body couldn’t spare, she winced.

  Both cheeks felt bruised, swollen. At fourteen, her father had punched her, and she’d ended up with a black eye. She’d never forgotten the hot, puffy skin. The deep, throbbing pain.

  She lay back down and prayed the room would stop spinning. As her hand brushed the wall, she felt tiny grooves in the stone. What the hell?

  Dozens of lines—almost scratches. And…hash marks? Oh God. Someone else had been in this cell before her. For a very long time. A year at least by the number of marks she traced with shaking fingers.

  Philipe slept in the next cell, his soft snores assuring her she wasn’t alone, despite the hole in her heart—in her soul—where her connection with Nic had been ripped away.

  Evangeline touched the bonding mark on her neck, careful to avoid the still tender wounds from Luigi’s assault. A subtle warmth spread over her skin, but she could feel their bond slipping away from her. Hell, she didn’t even know if he was still alive.

  The drugs Luigi had forced on her—along with his blood—made every movement agony. Philipe had warned her that everything she was given to eat would likely be tainted. For hours, he’d told her as much as he knew about this place, but despite being chained in his cell for more than three years, he knew little that would help her—or them—escape.

  With his advanced hearing, he’d learned there were five guards and two researchers—a man and a woman.

  “The woman is here against her will. She is kinder than the others. I have never seen her, but I hear her when Luigi or one of the others shouts at her. She has, more than once, insisted they feed me, despite Luigi’s orders to the contrary. Once, he returned while she was begging the guards to bring me blood, and I heard Luigi beating her. I never asked for food or blood again.”

  The reinforced steel and silver bars were unbreakable, and the chain and manacle securing her to the wall were also laced with silver. The metal burned her skin, and though she’d yanked on the chain as hard as she could when the dizziness abated slightly, she’d done nothing but rub her ankle raw and bruise her palms.

  They couldn’t starve her, though. Not if they wanted her blood. They’d have to feed her. Give her water. She shivered again, the thin material of her sundress and the ripped, gauzy sweater unsuitable for the cold, underground cells. She’d lost her shoes—or someone had taken them—before she’d woken up, and her toes were frozen. She tried to tuck her legs under the hem of her dress, but that only set off another wave of nausea, and she moaned, praying she wouldn’t throw up again.

  Shuffling footsteps approached, and Evangeline tried to force her eyes open. The haze of the drugs made everything look like she was viewing the world through a grimy window, but she made out a thin, feminine form just outside her cell.

  “Oh my God,” the woman said in a distinctly American accent. Keys rattled, and the door swung open with a faint metallic whine.

  “Help me,” Evangeline whispered. “I need…water.”

  Kneeling next to Evangeline, the woman cracked the seal on a plastic bottle. “Drink. It’s not drugged. Not this time.”

  Though she didn’t trust this woman, she would die without water. The first sip tasted like heaven, and Evangeline drained half the bottle before she could stop herself and try to focus on the woman in front of her. “Who…are you?”

  “You don’t recognize me?” Pain infused the woman’s tone, and Evangeline squeezed her eyes shut as more tears slipped down her cheeks.

  “Can’t…see,” she managed. “The drugs…I’m so dizzy.”

  “Fucking monster,” the woman muttered under her breath as she shifted, and Evangeline felt a sharp sting in her hip. With a gasp, she tried to scramble back, but the woman grabbed her arms. “Shhh,” she whispered in Evangeline’s ear. “Just a mild sedative. It’ll help. Breathe. Focus on my voice.”

  The woman’s touch was gentle, comforting, and Evangeline squeezed her eyes shut as a warm sense of peace settled over her, and the nausea faded slightly. When she sighed, the woman pressed the bottle to her lips once more.

  After another few sips, Evangeline sank back against the wall and rubbed her eyes. “Why?”

  “He’ll come for you soon. And he’ll make me take your blood. But if you can sleep for a little while, it’ll be easier for you. But make sure you eat first.” The woman set a plate in her lap and guided her hand to the soft bread.

  “No…no drugs.”

  “Eva…I can’t tell you how important it is that you eat. Please. Look at me. See me.”

  “I need…Nic.” She didn’t care about the sandwich. Or who this woman was. Without her life mate, she wouldn’t survive. “Unlo
ck…the chain. Please,” she said as she fumbled for the thick cuff around her ankle.

  “I wish I could. But I don’t have the key. Sweetheart…open your eyes.” The woman cupped her cheeks and ran her thumb over the bruising under Evangeline’s eyes. “I tried to stop him. For years, I’ve tried, but he’s too strong. I can’t free you. God, I wish I could. But maybe—” she lowered her voice, “—maybe I can save you…stop him from making you his blood slave.”

  Risking the blinding, painful light and another bout of vertigo, Evangeline opened her eyes. Slowly, three different images of the woman in front of her coalesced.

  “Oh my God.” The eyes that looked back at her, the sad smile, the brown hair that fell in gentle waves…she knew them. Years of staring at a faded photograph—the one that even now was tucked in her suitcase back at the hotel—had burned every one of the woman’s features deep in Evangeline’s mind.

  Except…in the photo, her mother’s eyes had been brown. The woman kneeling in front of her now didn’t look a day over thirty, and her eyes…her eyes were purple.

  “M-Mom?”

  Marie smiled, though sadness lingered in her eyes, and she wrapped Evangeline in a gentle hug. “We don’t have much time, sweetheart. What’s coming…Luigi is going to try to force a bond.”

  “He can’t do that. I’m bonded to Nic—” Except, she could feel her connection to her life mate slipping away.

  “He can. But only if you let him. You can fight, baby. I know you’re strong enough. Or…you will be. I put a little something extra in the sandwich. And I’m sorry, but it’s going to hurt. A lot. I have to finish what your father started. If I can activate your dormant DNA—”

  “Marie! Dove sei? Get the fuck back here. You have work to do!” The angry male voice made her mother flinch.

  “I had to wake her up to get her to eat. I’ll be right there!” Marie called, then pressed a kiss to Evangeline’s cheek. “Promise me, sweetheart. You’ll fight him.” Marie’s hands trembled, and as Evangeline focused on their linked fingers, she saw the scars around Marie’s wrists. Nic bore similar scars from years of being chained in silver. Philipe had been right. Her mother was a prisoner too.

  “Marie, do not make me come find you,” the man shouted. “You know he will not be pleased if you are in there for long.”

  With a glance at the hall, Marie shuddered. “I can’t stay with you. I had to beg to be the one to bring you a meal. He’ll be back a little after midnight. Eat, then try to sleep through the worst of the pain. I’m so sorry, Eva. This is the only way.”

  Before Evangeline could ask her mother what she meant and how she was supposed to fight a vampire two millennia old when she was chained to a stone wall in a silver cell, the door slammed shut, leaving her alone.

  Her eyelids drooped, the sedative—or simply exhaustion—pressing down on her. She eyed the sandwich sitting on a paper plate. A sandwich her mother had made for her.

  All those years believing Marie was dead. All those years Henry blamed her. They were all a lie?

  Pinching the bridge of her nose, she tried not to cry out at the sudden searing pain that shot from her teeth to the top of her skull. How could she trust a woman she hadn’t known existed until five minutes ago? But, so weak she didn’t think she could stand, did she have a choice?

  Evangeline gingerly lifted the peanut butter and jelly sandwich to her lips. Her stomach didn’t protest the scent, and as she bit into the soft bread, she prayed for a miracle.

  29

  Hushed voices. Worried tones. “Hold him still.”

  Warm hands grabbed his wrists, and Nic felt the sting of a needle in his arm. Anger gave him the strength to open his eyes and shove his attacker away.

  “Nicola!” A soft oof accompanied a thump across the room, and Nic focused on Bayard’s intense stare only a few inches away. “You passed out. They were trying to help.”

  Carlo got to his feet with a grimace and limped back to the love seats arranged in an L in the safe house living room. Next to him, Vittoria cleared her throat. “I gave you a shot of adrenaline. It should last a few hours. After that…”

  “I will be useless.” Nic flexed his fingers, feeling strength return to his muscles. But the sensation felt wrong. Like he’d had too much caffeine. The crash would be horrible. If he survived it at all.

  “Try this.” Sylvie grabbed a bottle of blood from a fridge in the tiny kitchenette, but Nic shook his head.

  “I need Evangeline. After the doctor bled me, Antonio forced me to feed. I…the pain was like no torture I have ever felt. I do not think I can survive on human blood any longer. Even if I could…I would not be good for anything.”

  Vittoria slid forward on the adjacent couch. “May I see your hand, Nicola? Per favore.”

  Though he trusted Vittoria about as far as he could throw her at the moment, he did not feel he had a choice. The touch of a woman other than his life mate raised the hairs on the back of his neck, but the extreme discomfort he expected did not follow. What the hell?

  She gently turned his hand palm up and moved the ripped shirt cuff away from his wrist. “Merda. It is as I feared.”

  Looking down, Nic’s heart seized. The bonding mark had…faded. Where yesterday it had been a thick, silvery scar, now, he could barely feel the raised skin.

  In a panic, he leapt up, glanced around the apartment to get his bearings, and strode into the bathroom. Buttons popped off his shirt as he tore the still-damp and stained silk blend apart to confirm his worst fears. The mark over his heart and the ones on either side of his neck had faded as well.

  The brush of his fingers over the curved scar brought only a subtle warmth bursting over his skin, and he sank to his knees on the tile floor. “Is she dead?”

  Sylvie approached, on edge and ready to spring, followed by Vittoria, who wrung her hands in front of her. “I do not know, Nicola. But drinking another’s blood…I believe you shattered the bond.”

  “How is that possible?” He made no move to rise, unsure his legs would even hold him. “It is a life bond. No vampire has ever…”

  “Legends tell of one.” At Carlo’s quiet words, everyone turned to stare at him as he leaned against the door jamb with his hands in his pockets.

  “My Seretta told me the story.” With a heavy sigh, Carlo gestured back to the small living area. “Nicola should sit. Do you have any grappa, Sylvie?”

  “I have scotch.”

  “Good enough. May I?” At Sylvie’s nod, Carlo helped her arrange the glasses on the coffee table and waited to continue until everyone had a drink in hand. Frowning after his first sip, he stared into the amber liquid. “Seretta was four hundred years older than I was when we met. I loved her. We petitioned the Conclave and were granted permission for her to turn me so we could begin the bonding process. But I had so many questions. Still human, I could not fathom the strength of the bond. We talked about the process for hours each night, and she told me this story.”

  Nic knocked back his scotch in a single swallow. He hated sitting here, being unable to look for Evangeline, but where would he even begin?

  “Though we have always been stronger than humans, on rare occasions, we have been bested,” Carlo continued. “Centuries ago, a female vampire was kidnapped by a clan in Scotland. She was bonded. They held her for five months before she broke free and killed them all. When she rejoined her life mate, though, he sent her away. The bond was gone, and he had decided he no longer wanted to be with her. She did not understand how this could happen, but her sire explained. The male was what we would now call a sex addict. A week after she disappeared, he could not help himself and started having sex with other females. He drank from them. Repeatedly. Though the pain was terrible the first few times, his need for sex was too strong. He shattered the bond within a week.”

  “But I saw the bottle of blood. It was human,” Nic said.

  Vittoria swirled the scotch in her glass. “So is Evangeline. Or she was. Once. Even now, as st
rong as she is with the changes to her DNA, she retains a part of her humanity. Your bond with her is based on blood. Not only did you seal the bond with the ceremony, but I believe the very reason you could bond is because of what Longo did to you. Why else would both of you share the same genetic mutations that lead to immortality? Longo dosed Evangeline with your blood every few weeks. And he used her blood to manufacture the serum, which he gave you regularly. He may have even used it to feed you. You bonded by taking in Evangeline’s blood, so it stands to reason the bond could be shattered by taking another’s blood.”

  Nic ran a hand through his hair, tugging on the strands to send pinpricks of pain along his scalp. He needed to focus. “When Antonio forced me to drink, I felt no burst of strength. The blood tasted…wrong. But it was not tainted. I watched him crack the seal on the bottle.”

  Vittoria’s eyes darkened, sadness churning in their depths. “The mutations in your DNA…I feared this. Nicola, without Evangeline, you will starve to death in a matter of days.”

  30

  Evangeline couldn’t move. Her sobs—when she couldn’t hold them in—had faded to hoarse whimpers, and every part of her ached. Each breath tore at her skin, her muscles, her nerves, until she knew nothing but the agony of whatever the drugs were doing to her battered body.

  “Evangeline. Mon ami, talk to me,” Philipe said, and Evangeline pleaded with him through watery eyes, though she didn’t have the strength to form words.

  Pressing his body to the silver bars, Philipe groaned. “Take my hand.”

  Too exhausted and weak to figure out if he wanted her blood or to offer her comfort, she curled her body inward and shut her eyes again.

  Long minutes passed with only her ragged breathing to keep her company, but then a loud bang and raised voices from down the hall made Philipe swear under his breath. “He comes, Evangeline.”