Bad Blood

by Everly, Faith

Only Graz was okay as far as I knew. Gabriel called her little sister. That had to mean something. I got the feeling he didn’t run around throwing pet names at everybody he met.

  “And you swear it wasn’t you who tried to kill me with your car?” I had to know before I took one more step with him. I had to hear it from him one more time.

  He lowered his brow.

  His arms shot out.

  He took me by the back of my head and pulled me in for a deep kiss. A fireball exploded between us and engulfed us both. I threaded my fingers through his thick hair and moaned into his mouth while he growled like the animal he was.

  I wasn’t afraid. Not of him, at least.

  The strength of my reaction, on the other hand? It scared me half to death.

  There was absolutely no reason for this to happen right now, right in the middle of the worst night of my life. Yes, even worse than getting hit and being left for dead. Worse than finding my parent’s bodies because oh, God, I hadn’t known then that it was my fault.

  I should’ve been there.

  My body didn’t seem to care much how my mind was feeling, how my heart was breaking. How I was afraid I might shatter into a million pieces.

  He was escape. He was something else to focus on if only for the length of a kiss.

  I fell against him a little when he pulled back, like I couldn’t stand up without him to lean on. No big surprise since I felt like I just went through a spin cycle.

  He held my face in his hands, tilted it up until our eyes met. “I didn’t hit you with the car. I would never, for any reason, endanger your life. For the past ten years I’ve done everything in my power to look after you. To protect you. To keep you in one piece until the Summit. Now that I have you with me, I’m not about to put you at risk.”

  I didn’t know what hit me hardest. What he said or how he said it, with the sort of intensity strong enough to make me forget to breathe. His words sank into my consciousness and I knew they were true.

  “Okay. Let’s get out of here before the big, bad wolf shows up.”

  He grinned. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.”

  “You hoped I’d make a corny joke?”

  “Gods, no. I hoped you would say yes. No one in their right mind would hope for a joke like that.” But he was smiling a little when he took my hand.

  Was I seriously about to put all my trust on a vampire? Not only a vampire, but one who by all accounts was trouble? Guys like him didn’t get around without making enemies.

  And considering a girlfriend of his tried to kill me, his friends weren’t much better.

  What other choice did I have? It was either take his hand and let him lead me where he believed I would be safe, or stay at the cabin and possibly become a meal for a werewolf.

  When I thought about it that way, there wasn’t much of a choice to be made.

  I slid my hand against his, let him wrap his fingers around mine. It wasn’t easy to ignore the electric pulse running from his palm through my hand, up my arm. What was he doing to me?

  He looked down at his ring, closed his eyes.

  I closed mine. Something told me I didn’t want to see the process of blinking out of one reality and into another.

  Good thing the process didn’t last long. When I opened my eyes, I let out a low whistle.

  Gone was the cabin with its rustic charm. In its place was a sleek, modern, luxurious apartment. “So this is your place?”

  “What did you expect? A dungeon?”

  “Uh, no.” Yes. “I didn’t expect a freaking palace.”

  “I told you I had a penthouse. Did you think I was exaggerating?”

  I snickered. “Like that would make you the first guy in the history of the world who ever exaggerated about size.”

  “I don’t need to do that, sweetheart.” He watched as I walked around the place. Even if I hadn’t been able to see him reflected in the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the outer walls—the whole no reflection for a vampire thing was clearly legend and nothing else—I would’ve known from the tingling at the back of my neck.

  That and the sizzle from his touch and God, that kiss, all made me wonder if I wasn’t in bigger trouble with him than I had originally thought. Here I was, in his penthouse where there was presumably a bedroom even if he didn’t sleep…

  I cleared my throat, pushing that thought away with all the strength left in me. “The view is fantastic.” Running my hand over the back of a buttery leather sofa, I sighed. “To think, it goes to waste when you’re not here.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “I crash here when I need to. Not that we sleep, mind you, but there have been times I’ve needed to refresh and strengthen.”

  I decided it was probably for the best I didn’t ask what he needed to strengthen from. The answer could be just about anything. I had already heard enough that night to last me a very long time.

  Though there was still one more thing I need to get out of the way. “Why did you break off from Lucian? Why did you leave them and go to the other side even though you knew how bad Augustine was? From everything I’ve heard, he’s a monster.”

  “He is.” Gabriel flopped into an armchair. “He has no respect for humanity. He treats humans and even other supernaturals like nothing but food, the way you humans tend to see cows and chickens and such. He believes vampires are meant to rule the supernatural world and that he and the vampires he created are the most powerful and untouchable of all. But I had to align myself with someone and there are worse than Augustine. Much worse.”

  “Like who?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Stop stalling and just tell me, for God’s sake.”

  “Lucian, for one.”

  I snorted. “Okay, you won’t get me to believe he’s an awesome guy and a patron saint of the less fortunate, but I’ve met him. He wasn’t all that bad.”

  His full lips stretched in a smile that didn’t meet his smoldering, dangerous eyes. “He was charming and gracious, no doubt.”

  “I don’t know if I would go that far.”

  “But he was at least polite and made sure to let you know how pleased he was to make your acquaintance and to have you in his home. Right?”

  “Yeah…”

  “He would.” He crossed an ankle over the opposite knee, studying me. “In all honesty, it’s a wonder you made it out of there alive.”

  “What are you saying?”

  He dropped the playful teasing like it was a mask he could strip off at will. “I’m saying he wants to kill you, Sophie. That’s what this is all about for him. What it has always been about since the beginning.”

  He leaned forward, freezing me in place with a hard stare. “That would be what drove a wedge between me and my dear, beloved father.” He spat the word like it was profane, which in a way it was.

  Two

  SOPHIE

  Like I needed another surprise. Like there hadn’t been enough already.

  Did people have limits? Only so much shittiness at a time, thank you very much. If so, maybe I’d reached my limit. Maybe I couldn’t take anymore.

  That was a damn shame, since something told me things weren’t going to get much better anytime soon. “I feel a little dizzy again.”

  He was next to me in the blink of an eye. “You haven’t eaten in far too long, have you? I would imagine they had no food for you at the manse. We only eat your food on rare occasions and don’t keep it on-hand.”

  “Good call.” I let him guide me to the sofa, which was just as soft under my body as it had been under my hand. Sensuous, like so much about him.

  He had a thing for leather. I wondered if I would ever be able to smell leather again without thinking of him.

  I also wondered how much longer my life would be thanks to my new acquaintances and the whole they think I’m one of them problem. Like the world’s most horrifying DNA test results.

  “I can order up something. Whatever you like. You know better t
han I do that it’s possible to have just about anything delivered. It’s not very late.”

  I looked up at him, more than a little confused. “Who are you?”

  “What?”

  “Who are you? One minute you’re scary and threatening and cold. The next you’re hovering over me like a mother hen.”

  “When was I ever threatening to you?”

  “You sure stared holes through me up at Miller’s, in front of the grocery store.”

  “You misunderstood my intentions.” There was a dark laugh in his voice. “Believe me, I wasn’t considering threatening you.”

  “I don’t know if I’m very hungry, honestly. I can’t imagine eating anything.” Lucian wanted me dead. He wanted to kill me. Why?

  “You have to eat something or you’ll waste away.”

  “Like a dead leaf,” I whispered with a snicker.

  “Like what?”

  “You reminded me of something Jessabelle said when I was recovering from getting hit. If I didn’t drink something, I would dry up like a dead leaf.”

  He cracked a grin. “Jessa. She’s something else, isn’t she?”

  “I can tell you like her.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “You sounded almost fond when you said it.”

  “She’s a great lay.”

  “Oh, come on.” I mimed gagging.

  “Since when are you such a prude?” He laughed when my eyes went wide. “Remember. I’ve been watching.”

  I resisted the impulse to cover my important bits with my hands. “Just how much were you watching?”

  “How much do you want me to have watched?”

  I sincerely wished my body wouldn’t flush all over the way it did when he asked that. When he looked at me the way he did. Like he could see under my clothes, like he knew every pore of my skin.

  Like he wanted to taste.

  My breath hitched and his kiss burned its way through my memory. How complete and all-engulfing it was.

  “How much did you watch?” I whispered. “Seriously.”

  “Only the going and… coming.” He snickered. “I couldn’t resist the joke. I would wait outside. Don’t worry. I would never watch you in the act—though considering how your pulse took off like a jackrabbit just now, I wonder whether or not that’s the answer you wanted to hear.”

  “Did it take off?” Yeah, because pretending to be unaware of what he did to me wasn’t a waste of time at all. Not even a little bit. He could hear my pulse for God’s sake. What else did he know about me?

  “You know it did. I told you. You’re no prude.”

  I swallowed hard. “What were we talking about?”

  “Eating. Which you have to do, whether you want to or not. Do you still like Chinese?”

  There was no point in pretending he didn’t know just about everything about me. “No. I stopped liking Chinese in the last few days. I hate it now.”

  “Sarcasm. So charming.” Still, he wore a half-smile. “All right, all right. Order whatever you want. On me.”

  “My hero.” When I slid the phone from my pocket, it wasn’t lo mein or egg rolls on my mind. It was the reason I’d given Graz for why I had to get away. “Shit. I have to call Poppy. I have to tell her.”

  “Tell her what?”

  Good question. “I don’t know. That my next family reunion will be a whole lot more interesting?”

  He went to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. “Do you ever tire of your smartass tendencies?”

  “Noooooo.”

  He handed me the water with a scowl. “I need a drink.”

  “Don’t look at me.”

  “I wasn’t looking at you.” He went to the far wall, where there was a TV mounted—practically a screen, like in a movie theater, it was enormous—and slid a wooden panel to the side. Voila. A hidden bar.

  I sipped my water while ordering food. It was better to focus on the phone and not the liquor Gabriel poured himself. This was not the time for my demons to come knocking, not so soon after finding out somebody had wanted me dead without me knowing about it.

  “Oh. I didn’t think.”

  I glanced up, then straight back down at the ordering app. “Huh?”

  “It was thoughtless to pour a drink in front of you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You aren’t. I sense how troubled you are.”

  “I’m troubled, but I’m fine.” I set the phone down and faced him head-on. “Okay? I can’t dictate what other people do. Please, drink up. Especially if I’m the reason you want to do it.”

  He grinned before taking a sip. Bourbon. I could smell it. My mouth watered.

  Changing the subject… “The food will be here in half an hour.” I left the phone in my lap and wondered if I should call Poppy now or later. Randomly calling her to tell her I was okay didn’t seem like the best idea now that I’d had a little time to mull it over. It would only make her determined to find out what was wrong.

  No way was I about to let her do that. It was better for her to be in the dark for now.

  He stripped off his jacket and tossed it onto a chair. Without it, I had a clear view of his biceps, his shoulders, thanks to the skintight black t-shirt he wore. My mouth went dry. I sipped more water. “So tell me more. Tell me everything. I want to know everything about this world.”

  “We would need a lot more than half an hour, and I doubt you would want to hear it all at once.”

  “I don’t have anywhere else to be right now.” I leaned back against the sofa and oh, God, it felt good. I was so tired. My racing thoughts wouldn’t have let me sleep even if I’d wanted to, but my body sure enjoyed the rest. “Besides, don’t pretend you haven’t been trying to distract me ever since you dropped that bomb about Lucian wanting me dead. You’re the one wasting time, so if you’d stop stalling and get to it…”

  “I’ll hit the high points, then.” He walked around the room as he spoke. Touching things. Picking up books, putting them back down. Either he was reacquainting himself or he couldn’t sit still. Afraid to look at me?

  No. He was a damn vampire. He didn’t have to be afraid of anything.

  “Lucian and Augustine are two of the three remaining vampires turned by Vlad the Impaler. They were both young, relatively speaking, when Aurelia’s crime was discovered. Falling in love with a human man. Bearing his child. Lucian saw this as his golden opportunity to seize power. He spearheaded the movement to bring her to justice.”

  I could imagine that. He seemed like he could be sort of a dick when he put his mind to it.

  “There was one problem, however.” Gabriel’s smile was grim. “Once Aurelia was gone, the mages to whom Lucian announced his position as Blood King rejected him. They told him he was not the true ruler and would never be until the last of Aurelia’s bloodline was killed. Wiped off the face of the earth.”

  I snickered. “Good. Douchebag.”

  He coughed a little around a mouthful of bourbon. “Agreed. So, in the centuries since, it’s been Lucian’s one and only purpose to destroy the last of Aurelia’s bloodline that he might take power. That was what caused the split between him and his brother, the obsession with finding the heir to the throne. Augustine is a lot of things, but he’s not stupid. He knew there had to be a deeper reason for the obsession, and he figured it out after sending a few willing spies to consult with the mages. It turns out Lucian never spoke to his brother of his attempt at claiming the throne after Aurelia was executed. He probably knew what a fool it made him, how obvious his treachery was.“

  The more I heard about this guy, the more I hated him. “What a piece of shit.”

  “You have such a way with words.” Gabriel’s smirk faded before he continued. “Mind you, Lucian couldn’t come out and announce his intentions. In his version of the story, he searched the world over for Aurelia’s child, then grandchild and so on, for the purpose of raising that descendant to their proper place at the head of our
species. To solidify power, to smooth over any infighting between tribes.”

  He heaved a heavy sigh, staring down at the tumbler he held. “And for centuries, I believed him.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “An old friend showed me the light after that night at the cabin.” He polished off his drink as the doorbell rang. “I’ll take care of your order.”

  “It’s twenty-three with the delivery fee, plus tip,” I offered as he strode to the door.

  He only chuckled. “As if I need to pay.”

  “I’m not gonna bother asking exactly what that means.” Though I had a clear enough idea. He had already done his vampire mumbo-jumbo to my brain and scrambled me up, and I was supposed to be special somehow.

  An average, human delivery person didn’t stand a chance. Still, better to focus on what mattered in the present moment.

  Lucian wanted me dead so he could take power.

  Did Dominic and Kristoff know that? What about Jessabelle and Graz?

  How could at least Dominic not know? I’d gotten the impression he was the big guy’s right-hand man, or that he wanted to be. He wanted to be so bad, he could taste it.

  And I had been the big prize. I knew it in my bones. His way of showing Daddy what a good boy he was. Imagine the size of the cookie he’d get as a reward.

  What did vampires give out as rewards? Bags of blood?

  I doubted in a big way that Graz knew anything. Jessabelle? Something told me an old-school douchebag like Lucian didn’t give her much credit for having a brain. He wouldn’t bring her into his inner thoughts.

  Would he bring anybody? Would somebody his age, as evil as he clearly was, confide in anybody? Who could possibly be as brilliant as him?

  And even if they were, would that lead them to hold this little bit of information over his head someday? Wouldn’t he rather avoid blackmail?

  So maybe, just maybe, Dominic didn’t know about Lucian’s true plans for me.

  He had still killed my parents, so he was as good as dead in my eyes.

  Did they know I was gone yet? What were they doing just then?

  And why the hell was I even thinking of them?