Nic braced his hands against the shower wall and let the hot water sluice over his back. If only the heat could wash away his fears. Dio. He loved her with every cell in his body. Every thought. Every breath. Every heartbeat. He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost her. Even if he could survive without her blood.
By the time he finished his shower and tugged on his clothes, Evangeline had dressed in a pair of tight black pants, a black sweater that hugged every curve, and a pair of soft black boots. The color accentuated the unnatural paleness of her skin. When he’d fed from her earlier, he’d sensed her weakness. All the blood that stronzo had taken… She needed days to recover. Days they did not have.
“E, eat something, yeah?” Sylvie handed Evangeline a banana and a protein bar, then snagged a bottle of blood from the fridge for herself. “We need to be at our best.”
Lips curved into a frown, Evangeline set the banana back on the counter and tore the wrapper from the protein bar. “I’m not hungry. But…I know you’re right.”
Nic hung back as Sylvie narrowed her eyes at Evangeline. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Leaning against the counter, Evangeline sniffed the protein bar, then tried a tentative bite.
“Does this smell good?” Sylvie thrust the bottle of blood close to Evangeline’s nose. Her nostrils flared, and Nic held his breath. He hadn’t thought… How could he have been so stupid? She had fangs now. Why else other than to drink human blood?
But after a heartbeat, Evangeline retched. “God. No.”
Nic staggered back, relief weakening his knees. He barely made it to the bed before his legs gave out. Despite wishing Evangeline could be as strong and as fast as he was, he hadn’t known just how much he also needed a part of her to remain human. But why? If her blood could still sate him, did it truly matter?
“Nic?” Evangeline hovered in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”
Forcing a smile, he rose and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Nothing, cara. I am fine.”
“No, you’re not. I…” A sad smile touched her lips. “I felt you. Just for a moment. And we’re not supposed to have secrets, remember?”
Their bond was strengthening. Nic said a quick, silent prayer in thanks as he extended his arm. Evangeline stepped into his embrace. Nuzzling her neck, scraping his fangs over the bonding mark, he inhaled her scent. “I worried. When Sylvie offered you blood…”
“I’m still…at least partly human,” she whispered. “I don’t know how long it’ll last, though. I still feel like I’m…changing. Or maybe I just don’t know how to deal with the changes that have already happened.”
“However you change, tesoro, I will still love you.”
They stayed pressed together for several long seconds before Evangeline kissed him. She tasted of honey and coffee, and Nic wanted to shut the bedroom door so he could have all of her.
“Let’s go,” Sylvie called.
When they rejoined the others in the main room, Sylvie had a small black bag slung over her shoulder, and under her jacket, Nic saw the telltale bulges of pistols at her sides.
Bayard opened the door to the bedroom, his eyes dark and his lips pressed into a frown. Behind him, Philipe wavered on his feet.
“No,” Nic said. “Bayard should stay here.”
“Non. Sûrement pas.” Bayard strode towards them, his lips pressed into a thin line. “I am going with you.”
“Not now.” Nic met Sylvie’s gaze, and at her nod, he puffed out his chest and blocked Bayard’s progress. “Your future life mate needs you,” he said quietly. “And you need him. If I did not think Philipe still had vital information about Luigi and his motives, I would tell you to take him and run as far and as fast as you can. I will settle for the two of you staying here, protected, while we go after Luigi.”
“I am a bodyguard, Nicola. Your bodyguard. I will not stay here safe while the rest of you risk your lives.”
Evangeline wrapped her fingers around Nic’s forearm. “Let me,” she mouthed. He took a single step back, and Evangeline motioned Bayard into the kitchen.
Lowering her voice so Nic had to strain to hear, she whispered, “Philipe suffered for three years. Physically, he will heal quickly. You have blood, food, medicine. But emotionally… When I found Nic in my father’s lab, he’d been tortured that day. But his physical pain was nothing compared to eighteen years of loneliness. Philipe does not need you to help him walk. He needs you to reassure him that you’ll be by his side for the rest of his life. That you’ll protect him while he can’t protect himself. He needs you to love him. And you can’t do that if you’re dead.”
Evangeline met Nic’s gaze, and their bond flared. In that moment, he knew exactly what she was thinking, and he nodded.
Turning Bayard around so he faced Philipe once more, she pushed him gently. “You helped save Nic’s life. You protected me. But for now…you’re fired.”
Evangeline wanted to hang on to Nic’s arm, but before Sylvie parked the car down the street from a busy cafe in north Rome, she’d warned them to stay alert and watch for anything out of the ordinary. Plastering herself to Nic’s side wouldn’t let either of them fight, and though she still struggled through dizziness and vertigo every time she stood up, the effects were lessening.
What did you do to me, Marie?
Her memories were still fuzzy, but her mother’s words haunted her.
“I have to make you strong enough to fight him.”
“This isn’t what I wanted for you.”
“I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt.”
If her mother was a prisoner, how did she get access to whatever the fuck was in that sedative? If it even was a sedative.
“You are somewhere else, cara,” Nic chided. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Fine.” The lie slipped off her tongue, and he cast a quick, disapproving glance in her direction before adjusting his dark glasses. Sylvie had found a black knit hat to hide his long hair, and Evangeline sported a baseball cap with some Italian saying plastered to the bill.
They looked ridiculous, but if it kept them safe, she’d wear a bright orange clown suit complete with the red nose and oversized shoes.
“Dieter’s batshit,” Sylvie warned in a low hiss. “And Sven is the meanest bloody bastard you’ll ever meet. Let me do most of the talking.”
Evangeline and Nic nodded, and the three of them slipped inside the bustling cafe. She recognized Thom in the middle of two other men seated at a corner table. The others barely reacted to their presence, but when they were less than half a dozen steps away, Evangeline sucked her lip under her teeth as the bulkiest man’s right hand twitched close to his waist.
“These your friends, blondie?”
“Yeah. Push over, tank,” Sylvie replied. After they were seated, and the server had taken their orders—all espressos, Sylvie leaned forward. “What did you find on the hard drive?”
Thom passed Nic his small tablet. “I didn’t read anything. On purpose. But even the folder names are…fucking mental.”
“You have no idea,” Evangeline said under her breath. As she and Nic scanned through the various files and folders on the drive, her stomach twisted into knots. Nic tapped the Lazarus folder, and hundreds of files spread out before them.
“Merda. There is so much here.” Scrolling down the file list, he stopped at a file named “Transformation.”
After three years, I have isolated the differences in Eva’s blood that make her strong and allow her to incubate the serum. Her hemoglobin can bind more oxygen than normal human hemoglobin. Every time I inject her with the catalyst I distill from the vampire’s blood, more of her red blood cells mutate. This is why each treatment causes her more pain than the last. I will start to add a sedative to each dose so she will continue to comply with my orders.
Evangeline gripped Nic’s thigh, her stomach doing somersaults as she continued to read.
I have tried to use several of the other women to incubate t
he serum, but none of them can mutate the catalyst. Eva is the only one. The antibodies she carries to the vampire virus interact with the raw components of the serum. I have no choice but to continue my work. However, I fear Eva will devolve further with each treatment.
“Devolve?” Evangeline choked on her espresso. “And why do I have antibodies to the vampire virus?” She kept her voice low, her lips close to Nic’s ear.
“Based on your father’s opinion of vampires, I believe he considered the development of any vampire-like traits devolving,” Nic said, a harsh edge to his tone as he covered her hand with his.
“There are thousands of files here,” she said. “It’ll take us months to go through all of them.”
Sylvie checked her watch. “We don’t have months. At best, a few hours. I want to hit Luigi no later than 10:00 p.m.”
“What are we looking at?” Sven asked.
Evangeline tried to force some strength into her voice. “I…don’t really know. I was out of it when I escaped. But…once we get inside, there’s a short hallway.” She closed her eyes and tried to remember. “The main lab is big. Maybe as big as this cafe.”
“How many hostiles?”
“At least three guards. M-maybe a researcher? And one prisoner. M-my mother.” Evangeline tried to draw strength from Nic’s hand on hers, but she didn’t think anything would make her strong enough to face going back there. No matter how much she wanted to free her mother.
“Do you know how often Luigi’s there?” Sylvie asked. “He’s stronger than any of us. Especially if he’s on your—I mean, if he’s fed.”
“No. He…uh…came for me…three times.” She fiddled with the hem of her sweater, trying to answer Sylvie’s questions about the layout of the underground cells, the guards, and the lab, but having precious little to offer.
Dieter polished off his second espresso. “We have six hours. We should surveil the location. Have you been able to find out where Luigi is now?”
“Bayard’s watching his home. Online,” Sylvie clarified when Evangeline arched a brow. “And he called our contact in the Conclave. No one’s seen Luigi since yesterday.”
The German spy Sylvie had called “batshit” frowned. “So he could be there.”
Sven glanced at the rough sketch Sylvie had made of the underground lab. “Six of us against four of them, with a hostage rescue thrown in for good measure. Not counting the oldest vampire in the world who, on his worst day, could take us all at the same time.” With a shake of his head, he grinned. “Sounds like fun. Shall we go?”
41
Huddled against the wind, Nic relished Evangeline’s scent as she pressed against him. Their connection—tenuous as it was—helped calm him as they kept watch for anyone going into or out of the darkened building on the corner of an old industrial district.
On the rooftop of an adjoining warehouse, Thom stretched out on his stomach with a sniper rifle pointed at the door Evangeline thought they might have escaped through.
Nic felt her uncertainty whenever she intertwined their fingers. Their bond was strengthening slowly, and though he ached to be able to hear her thoughts and sense her every emotion, he no longer felt so utterly alone.
A hiss of static in his ear startled him, followed by Sylvie’s voice. “I’m bloody tired of waiting, mate. I think we should go now.”
“We agreed to breach at 10:00 p.m.,” Nic said quietly.
“I know. But Bayard and Philipe haven’t found evidence of Luigi anywhere. I have a bad feeling about this.” She grunted, then landed in a crouch across the street from Nic and Evangeline, having jumped from the roof. In the darkness, he could just make out her movements as she pulled a gun from her shoulder holster. “The longer we wait, the more exposed I feel.”
Nic tightened his fingers on Evangeline’s. He needed to be able to sense her. “Are you ready, cara?”
“I’ll never be ready.” Her fear seeped over their weak bond, and she took a deep breath. “But I want to get this over with.” Shifting slightly, Evangeline brushed her free hand over the pistol strapped to her hip. “I don’t even know if this is the place. But if it is…my mother could be down there. Hurt. And I need to know what she did to me.”
“You heard Evangeline,” Nic said over his comms. “Dieter. Sven. As soon as you are in position, we go.”
Within ten seconds, both males confirmed that they were ready. “We are at the south side of the building. Count us down,” Sven said.
Sylvie raced across the street, a black-clad blur at top speed. When she reached the door, she waited for Nic and Evangeline to jog down the block. Nic couldn’t be certain, but he thought Evangeline moved quicker than he’d ever seen her. Was this another side effect of what her mother had done to her?
Nic wrapped his fingers around the door knob. They’d all agreed—Sylvie would breach first, followed by Evangeline. Nic would not leave her unprotected. Ever again.
“Three. Two. One,” Sylvie whispered. Nic snapped the knob off the door as he sheared the lock with a hard tug. Pistol drawn, Sylvie darted a glance down the dimly lit stairway, nodded, and then crept down the metal steps as quietly as possible. Evangeline followed, with Nic at the rear.
An electronic lock secured a door at the bottom of the stairs, and Sylvie withdrew a handheld jammer. Holding it up to the keypad, she pressed a series of buttons, and the jammer glowed red, then a second later, green as the lock clicked open.
“Blood,” Sylvie hissed as she reached the bottom. A dried crimson stain—large enough Nic had a hard time believing anyone could have survived, marred the floor between two lab tables.
Evangeline sniffed the air and shuddered. “I can still smell her.” At Nic’s confusion, she added, “My mother.”
Merda. She was becoming more vampire every hour.
“Come on. We need to clear the whole space,” Sylvie said quietly.
“The cells are that way.” Gesturing with her free hand, Evangeline took a step closer to Nic. He slid his fingers along the small of her back for just a moment, unwilling to let his guard down, but needing to offer comfort.
Sylvie cleared each turn with military precision, and when they found the cells, Nic swore under his breath. His Evangeline’s blood spattered the floor of one, the other bearing the stench of long-term fear and despair—Philipe. Two silver chains, both broken, ran from the walls, and Nic dropped to a knee, his hand hovering an inch above the metal. “The manacle burned you,” he said, glancing up at Evangeline, who stood at the open cell door. “You were never sensitive to silver before.”
“I know. When I woke up here, it was just uncomfortable. But after Marie dosed me with whatever the fuck she was working on, it started to really hurt. Like my skin was on fire. And I…my legs wouldn’t support me.” A tear glistened in the corner of her left eye, and she turned away with a sniffle. “I want to find my mother’s…room.”
“This whole place feels abandoned,” Sylvie said. “I don’t hear anything or anyone. Sven, head into the lab and grab anything that might tell us what they were up to. Dieter, guard the door. Thom, don’t move from your position. This feels…too easy.”
Sylvie’s concerns echoed Nic’s. He sniffed the remnants of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Vaffanculo. This smells…like some of the components of the serum,” he managed before his stomach turned. “This was in everything you ate?”
Evangeline nodded. “And Marie injected me with a ‘sedative’ at least twice. But it didn’t feel like the sedatives Henry used to give me. My temperature spiked, then crashed, and breathing hurt. Everything hurt.”
Hearing Evangeline’s pain laid bare twisted his heart into a knot. He crossed to her, drew her against him, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I am sorry, cara. Come. Let us see if we can find the living quarters.”
Down another hall, they found two tiny rooms, barely the size of closets. One was empty, but the other held a small cot and three folded sets of scrubs. Evangeline broke away from
him and dropped to her knees in front of the cot. Laying her head on the mattress, she inhaled deeply. “This was hers.”
Nic scanned the room, lifting the small stack of scrubs, examining the door. No knob on the inside, meaning Marie could have been locked in at any time. He ran his fingers over the door. “There is silver underneath the steel,” he said. “And look. Scratches.” At the hinges and the door jamb, hundreds of small fingernail grooves marred the metal.
“She tried to get out.” Evangeline’s sadness bled through her tone, and Nic wanted to take her somewhere she could process her mother’s captivity in safety. But as they turned to go, he caught sight of an odd mark in the corner behind the cot.
Sliding the small bed out of the way, he swore. “Evangeline.”
Hundreds of hashmarks…counting days, perhaps, were hidden behind the cot. “Years. At least…four.”
“There were more scratches in the cell,” Evangeline said as she wiped away another tear. I think…a hundred or so.”
“In here!” Sven called, and Nic grabbed Evangeline’s hand and pulled her down the hall. She hesitated for only a moment before leaving all she had of her mother behind.
Sven stood over a file cabinet with a freshly broken lock. “They left a computer behind,” he said as he reached into the drawer.
“No!” Sylvie barreled towards him, but as he hefted the laptop, a fine mist sprayed from the cabinet, and Sven started to cough. Skidding to a halt, Sylvie slapped her hand over her mouth and nose. The tall, blond male clawed at his face, wheezing, and veins darkened along his cheeks and neck.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Sylvie shouted as she whirled and shoved Nic and Evangeline ahead of her. “Run. Don’t stop.”
The scent of burning skin reached Nic’s nose as they hit the stairs, along with the telltale metallic scent of phosphorus. “Bomb,” he snapped, and grabbed Evangeline around the waist, hauling her into his arms as he took the steps two at a time.
As soon as they passed Dieter, the vampire grabbed the door and started to slam it shut, but the explosion rocked the entire block, sending the door flying off the hinges, taking Dieter with it.
Revelations in Blood Page 23
