“Guys?” I asked.
Vik turned to look at me. “Nothing,” he said. “Just know that we’re here for you. Whatever you need, we’re here.”
I swallowed as a rush of warmth began to rise through me, sending tingles pulsing through my entire body. Did he mean what I thought he meant? Looking at him, Liam, and Raphael now, seeing their eyes on me, each of them withholding… something… excitement, maybe? Or nerves? The line between those emotions was as fine as silk thread, as was the line between anger and lust.
I shook the thought loose and took another sip of my tea. “Anyway,” I said, “does anyone know what happened with Dante down there?”
Raphael shook his head. “I honestly don’t know,” he said, “but I have a hard time penetrating Leo’s mental defenses. Something about him makes it difficult for me to know what he’s thinking or feeling. Maybe it’s something to do with his age and experience.”
“And Dante?”
“Much of the same, only the wall I feel when I try to reach him is one he works hard to keep up. It isn’t natural like Leo’s.”
“But he is hiding something,” I said. “Right? Leo said… he was no different than the vampires that attacked me in the parking lot. I don’t know what he means.”
“I don’t know either, but at this point we shouldn’t speculate,” Vik said. “Assumptions will only pull us all further apart, and in the shadow of what’s happening, we need to stick together now more than ever.”
“I agree,” Liam said. “Even if we don’t understand what’s really going on, you’re all people I can trust. Each of you.”
“Aiden too?” I asked.
“Him too, even if he is a broody bastard.”
Vik smiled, and Raph laughed, and for a moment everything was fine. I had three good looking, well intentioned men in my room who hadn’t thrown any judgment at me for having slept with their friend, and who I thought—although maybe I only wanted to believe—had suggested they would give me whatever it was I needed. meaning their bodies.
Now there was a thought.
“I don’t know what Leo meant down there,” Vik said, “but it was enough to send Dante running, and that’s significant. We can’t ignore it.”
“No, but whatever he’s done, or whatever Leo is trying to make us believe he did, shouldn’t have any bearing on what we think of him. I’ve grown up my entire life being judged. Whatever it is, I’m not about to start judging him now. I just wish he hadn’t made a break for it; then maybe I could have told him that.”
“I doubt it would have helped,” Raphael said. “Dante is… too proud. He was humiliated. Leo’s words hurt him, and rather than stand there and defend himself, he retreated to lick his wounds. I think we know him well enough.”
“Or we don’t know him at all,” Liam put in.
“Do you really believe Dante’s been lying to us about everything?” Vik asked. “Yes, maybe he’s hiding something, but that doesn’t undo all of the work he’s done for each and every one of us. Let’s not forget it was he who picked us all up and brought us here, one by one.”
Raph and Liam nodded, and I sat there, absorbing the information, trying to picture each individual scene in my mind. I had been chased out of my car by vampires. What had happened to Raph? Vik? Liam? How had their first encounters with Dante gone? What had he told them? Had they refused at first like I had?”
A knock at the door made me almost choke on my own thoughts and spill my tea from the way my fingers clamped around the cup in my hands. Vik shot bolt upright and stared at the door, waiting, doing nothing. Then the person on the other side knocked again—harder this time, more forcefully.
He went up to the door, opened it, and Dante walked into the room, his jaw clenched tightly, eyes narrow and thoughtful, decisive. Vik shut the door behind him, but said nothing.
“Dante,” I said, standing now also. “What… what are you doing here?”
“I came to apologize,” he said. “I’m sorry any of you had to see that altercation.”
“You don’t have to apologize for anything. Leo is a dick.”
“Maybe, but still, that entire situation was out of hand, and I wish it could have gone differently.”
My sixth sense honed in on something now, a faint sliver of emotion, enough to make me question whether or not that had been the real reason for his sudden appearance in my room. “What else have you come here for?” I asked.
Dante’ eyes moved from the guys to me. “We’re leaving,” he said. “Tonight.”
“Wait a second, what?” Liam asked.
“You heard me. I want to leave the mansion. Right now, if we can.”
“Leaving the mansion would put us in danger,” Vik said. “Without those protective spells, we’d be exposed.”
“I understand that, but we can’t sit here and do nothing. I have a plan, and that plan involves us leaving, but I don’t have time to explain the how or why.” He turned his gaze on me. “Are you in?”
I thought of Aiden, lying in bed, probably unconscious. Wherever it was we were going, would we be bringing him with us? Would he be in good enough shape to move? He wouldn’t, which meant he would need to stay at the mansion with Leo. The only consolation I had was that for all of Leo’s faults, he seemed genuinely concerned with Aiden’s safety and wellbeing. He wouldn’t hurt him to spite me.
“Alright,” I said. “Yeah, I’m in.”
“Lilith, think about this,” Vik warned. “Think about what happened to you the last time you left the safety of the grounds.”
“I know, but someone went to great lengths to draw me out of this place so they could—I don’t know—capture me, or kill me, or whatever, and they’re still out there somewhere, running free. I don’t want to sit here either.”
Raph walked over to where I stood and positioned himself behind me like a bodyguard. “I think this is a good idea,” he said. “The longer we wait, the colder the trail will get.”
Vik turned to Dante. “You say you have a plan,” he said. “What exactly is this plan?”
“It isn’t one I can explain right now, but you’re just going to have to trust me when I tell you that I wouldn’t have made this decision lightly. Do you trust me?”
Vik sighed. “You found me that night, bloodied and dying on the floor of my university. You saved my life and brought me here. I don’t think you would intentionally put my life in danger.”
“You will be in danger,” Dante said, “but I know you can handle it, and it is going to beat being here and listening to Leo.”
Liam nodded. “Yeah, alright, I’m in. How can I help?”
Dante turned to him. “I’m going to take Raphael, Vik, and Lilith into town under the cover of darkness. Aiden is too weak to move, and your mentor is here, so I’m going to need you to stay behind and cover us.”
“Cover you? Oh… I see what you’re saying.”
“Understand now?”
“I do… and I have an idea.” A playful smirk appeared on his face.
“Good. You work on that. Meanwhile, the three of you, grab a backpack and fill it with essentials. We leave in ten minutes. Meet me in the foyer.”
“Ten minutes,” I said, nodding. I walked up to him. “Dante… are you okay?”
He fixed his deep, brown eyes on me and nodded. “I’ve never felt better,” he said.
“Good. Because I need you to be thinking straight.”
“I swear to you that I am. Now, grab your things and meet me downstairs in ten.”
The room emptied quickly, and I didn’t waste time in doing what Dante had asked. I grabbed my backpack, stuffed it with a change of clothes, my wallet, and anything else I thought was necessary. Then I quietly—but quickly—made my way down to the foyer. Exactly ten minutes later, Dante arrived to lead Vik, Raph, and myself to the garage where a black Audi was waiting for us.
He started the car without saying a word, then pulled out of the garage and onto the small stretch of road lead
ing away from the mansion, away from the safety of its powerful, protective magic. A shiver crawled up my spine as I stared at its darkened façade. An instant later, several of the mansion’s lights turned on. They flickered, shut off, then others came on in other parts of the house. As we drove away, it looked as if the mansion had turned into a Christmas tree, lights flickering about it like stars in the night, but something about the scene felt wrong, morbid, and left me wondering what it was Liam had done to cover our nighttime escape.
CHAPTER TEN
Spiderwebs
Dante drove like a demon away from the mansion, but slowed to a cruising speed once we hit the open road and was satisfied we weren’t going to be followed. I couldn’t say I wasn’t feeling a little apprehensive of what we had just done—we had just left the safety of the mansion’s protective magic, and we were exposed. Anyone could have been out here, waiting to attack, but as the minutes rolled on and we went undisturbed, the threat began to sink further into the back of my mind.
“Where is it we’re going?” Vik asked from the backseat.
“We’re going back to the market where Lilith was sold the jewelry that enabled someone to lure her out of the mansion.”
“What do you think we’ll find there?”
“With any luck, we’ll find the people who made those things.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then we keep looking. I don’t want you to have any illusions of what it is we’re doing here; we’re going to figure out who is doing this, or we aren’t going back to the mansion. The last thing any of us wants right now is to come back empty-handed; that would just entitle Leo to countless lectures about how he was right, at best.”
“And at worst?” I asked, but he said nothing. I looked over at him. “Why does he hate you so much?”
Dante gripped the steering wheel tighter, the leather squeaking beneath his fingers. “I don’t think now is the time to talk about this,” he said. “Leo and I just have… history… and our history has turned him into a dick.”
“I don’t think history did that. I think he just is a dick. I can’t believe I’m being made to train with that.”
“That’s beside the point right now. We need to focus on what it is we’re trying to do, and that’s find the people who planted the jewelry in that stall.”
I nodded and settled back into the seat. On the horizon in front of us, the near-black sky began to lighten, first going royal blue, then pale blue, until finally the sun’s first rays appeared, arching over the mountain peaks. The drive back into the city took longer than I remembered, maybe because on the way here I had the excitement of an unknown destination occupying my mind. Now there was only the brightening sky and the dread of what we were potentially going to run into today.
Or worse, the idea that we’d find nothing and have to return to the mansion having failed in our mission.
By the time we entered the small city, the one I had arrived in by train, the hustle and bustle of early morning workers was already in full swing. There were trucks driving around, delivering supplies to waiting stores. Bakeries were starting to open their doors to allow office workers a chance at that croissant or strudel to go with their coffees. Meanwhile, the sidewalks were starting to fill with bleary-eyed pedestrians heading to their places of work, many of them checking their phones as they walked, no doubt reading emails and catching up on what they missed overnight.
I hadn’t realized it until then, but I missed that—the mundaneness of going online to catch up with what friends were doing, or to give the world some random factoid about what I was doing. I had barely gone online since I had gotten to the mansion, probably because so much had happened since the moment I walked through those doors. It was hard to think that hadn’t even been a week ago.
Dante pulled the car up to the edge of the block where the train station was, its ancient architecture gloomily standing against the dawning morning. I unlatched my seatbelt, then waited for the others to do the same. No one had spoken much during the ride, but we needed to formulate a plan, and I had an idea.
“I want to go in on my own,” I said.
“On your own?” Vik asked. “Without backup?”
“No, I want you all to be around, but I want to approach the stall alone.”
Dante’s eyes registered what I was thinking. “You want to be the bait,” he said. “Wouldn’t that be playing into their trap?”
“Maybe, but I have a wild card. I have you guys.”
“You don’t think they would anticipate all of us being here?”
I shook my head. “Assuming they know who I am, who you are, who the mentors are, they’re probably expecting us to sit back and wait this out. I don’t think they anticipate any of us to break out of the mansion and come looking for them. I think I’m the last person they’d expect to see at this market.”
“She’s right,” Vik said. “I think we should all hang back and watch for anyone suspicious coming or going.”
Dante nodded. “Alright. Lilith goes in first, the rest of us will find an exit to block, making sure we can see her at all times.”
“I’ll be close behind,” Raph said. “They won’t know who I am.”
“You think so?” I asked. “I’m assuming these people know everything about us, including what we look like.”
“I can make them believe I’m someone else.”
“Okay,” Dante said. “If you think you can do that, then hang around Lilith; if anything goes wrong, you’ll be the first one there.”
With the plan set, we all stepped out of the car and approached the train station from different angles. Inside, the press of commuters was thick, but not suffocating; this wasn’t Grand Central Station, after all. The air inside was already warm with the scent of freshly cooked breakfast rolls, pastries, and coffee. My stomach rumbled as I went past a stand where someone was cooking slices of sizzling bacon on a stove, but I couldn’t stop and eat now. The stall I wanted to go to was in sight, and the matronly, slightly heavyset woman who had given me the jewelry was there, setting clothes out on racks.
I honed in on my target and approached, keeping an eye out for Dante, Vik, and Raph—as well as any potential threats. The only problem was, I didn’t know what potentially threatening people looked like. It wasn’t like they’d be wearing uniforms, or that they carried symbols I would be able to identify. I had no idea who the hell I was looking out for, and that was making me nervous. The only consolation was the presence of the other guys, watching over me even if I couldn’t see them.
“Excuse me,” I said to the woman.
She turned to look at me, and almost immediately, her eyes lit up as the realization of who I was struck. “The American woman,” she said. “It’s so good to see you again.”
“You remember me?”
“It isn’t often that we get Americans in Teisendorf, especially Americans with such recognizable faces.”
I smiled at her kindly, trying to make sure my paranoia remained in place, deep beneath the surface. “I’m glad you remember me. That actually makes my reason for coming back easier to explain.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, you see, you gave me a few items of jewelry, and I was wondering if… you said you made them yourself, right?”
Her expression darkened, and her eyebrows met in the middle. “Did I?”
“I’m… almost sure you did.”
“Remind me, which items of jewelry were these?”
“You gave me a ring, a silver bracelet, and a serpent necklace—the one with two heads that met in the middle.”
I could see her mind working, trying to pull files from the vaults of her memory and coming up blank. More than that, I was starting to sense her fear bubbling just beneath her skin. Fear. What was she afraid of?
“You know, I have to say I don’t remember that.”
My heartrate started to rise. I specifically remembered her telling me she had made them herself, that it was a passion of
hers. Was she lying to me? “Do you mind if I look at your other pieces of jewelry? Maybe you’ve made more of the same ones you gave me.”
“The trinkets I make are unique, I’m afraid—I’m also deathly afraid of snakes, and don’t incorporate them into my designs. Do you have the jewelry on you now? If I could see it, maybe I would remember if I made them. Sometimes others ask to sell their jewelry at my stand, so I may have been mistaken.”
“I don’t have them on me, I just—” there was that whiff of fear again. I was spooking her, and that was making me nervous. I moved in a little closer, looking around me for any sign of suspicious activity. The woman shied away from me, grabbing her counter for support—or maybe groping for a weapon—and her fear flared up like a hot, indigo mist so clearly visible around her head and shoulders, it caught me entirely by surprise and caused me to pause. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to sound comforting and non-threatening. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just really need to know where that jewelry came from.”
The woman’s eyes darted around me, searching the commotion unfolding around us. The hustle and bustle grew like a rising crescendo as rush hour fast approached. “I was told to give them to you,” she said, in a low voice. The mist around her had disappeared, but the worry was in her eyes now, melted into her face.
“Told?” I asked. “By who?”
“I didn’t know their names. An hour before you arrived, two men came to my stall and gave me the pieces you took. They told me to give them to you. They paid me.”
“They… paid you.” My heart picked up again, pumping hard inside of my chest. “Did they say anything else? Did they threaten you?”
She shook her head. “No, they didn’t. They told me that an American girl with black hair would be visiting my stall and that I was to her the jewelry, and then they left.”
Serpent's Desire: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (The Last Serpent Book 2) Page 6
