Maybe he couldn’t get past the thought that I’d been raped. In the vampire world, it was the ultimate way Szilagyi could humiliate Vlad, and Vlad’s pride was legendary. I’d rather not discuss what had really happened with an audience, but some things couldn’t wait until later.
“What you saw on the second tape . . . I need to explain,” I began, only to have Vlad’s sharp wave cut me off.
“No, you don’t.” Then he moved nearer and squeezed my hand. “None of that was your doing. You have nothing to explain because Maximus was the culprit, and nothing you could have said or done would have changed what happened.”
Instead of comforting me, tears sprang into my eyes as a fresh wave of shame washed over me. I should have known Vlad wouldn’t be so shallow as to feel differently about me over what he thought Maximus had done, and he was right. If Maximus had raped me, it wouldn’t have been my fault. But I had been complicit in what had happened when Maximus gave me blood, and that would change Vlad’s feelings if he found out about it. At the time, I’d rationalized it as necessary, yet now, I cursed myself for not thinking of another way. How was I supposed to tell Vlad the “rape” he’d witnessed wasn’t real, but the other incident he didn’t know about was, and I had allowed it?
I couldn’t. Not now and maybe not ever.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, unable to look him in the eye. “Szilagyi insisted on sending you a rape video, so Maximus had everyone leave, then used duct tape on himself and me so that, ah, nothing penetrated but it looked real. While he was . . . acting, he told me where I was and that he’d had me skinned to remove your aura so I could use my abilities.” My voice caught. “It was the first time I felt like I had a chance.”
Vlad didn’t say anything and his emotions remained locked down. After a moment, I risked a glance at him, then wished I hadn’t. His eyes were lasered onto mine like heat-seeking missiles.
“You don’t have to lie,” he said, that stare compelling me not to look away although I desperately wanted to. “I am the last person to scorn, judge, or revile someone for being raped.”
“I know,” I choked out, another avalanche of guilt making it hard for me to speak. Yes, he’d survived years of real rape while refusing to let the abuse break him, whereas I had sold out after two weeks of far less harsh captivity. “I’m not lying. Maximus didn’t rape me. He risked his life not to, in fact.”
My voice strengthened on that last part. I couldn’t let Vlad blame Maximus for something he hadn’t done. Otherwise, he’d murder him the first chance he got. Then again, as I’d worried, he might anyway.
Maybe he’ll kill you, too, once he learns what you did when Maximus gave you blood, my inner voice whispered, breaking her recent silence.
I couldn’t stand to think about it anymore. With a muttered, “I need a minute,” I got up and went into the bathroom. Then I tried again to scrub away the remains of the past two weeks, but it was useless. I’d hated how my body had felt like a stranger’s after I was skinned. Now, it was covered with taunting essence imprints of what I couldn’t bring myself to admit to.
At last, I shut the water off. From the barely perceptible whispers I caught, I had been the topic of conversation in my absence.
“She doesn’t need an avenging warrior right now,” Cat was saying. “She needs her husband, so save the crushing of your enemies to hear the lamentations of their women for later.”
I sighed as I wiped up the remains of the water I’d spilled in my attempt to wash away more than the tangible results of my captivity. Then, unable to stall anymore, I left the bathroom.
Cat got up, returning to the front of the plane where, yes, the ghost with the long sideburns was hovering near the cockpit. I returned the ghost’s nod, hoping there was no chance that he’d turn into one of the murderous Remnants.
“Leila,” Vlad said in a carefully controlled tone when I sat back down. “I’ve seen enough suffering in my time to know that everyone handles it differently. If you want to talk about what happened, I will listen. If you don’t, I won’t press you. If you need anything, you will have it. Do you understand?”
I swallowed hard and nodded, getting used to the sting of tears in my eyes. How I wished I could ask for forgiveness, but though that was what I needed most, I didn’t have the courage to admit what I’d done. Or worse, how I would have done it again.
“I think I am tired,” I said, further proving my cowardice. Then I closed my eyes, wishing he’d pull me against him as he usually did, but though his grip on my hand briefly tightened, he stayed exactly where he was.
Chapter 18
Vlad didn’t say where we were headed after we dropped off Cat and the ghost she introduced as Fabian in Munich. I might have faked sleep for a few hours, but I eventually succumbed to the real thing well before dawn hit me with its usual knockout blow. When I awoke to find a crystal chandelier a couple dozen feet above me, I thought that I must be in another of Vlad’s extravagant homes.
I couldn’t ask because I was alone in the four-poster bed. The large, ornate room was decorated in soothing shades of white and cream with soft maroon accents in the carpet. An open arch with marble columns separated this room from another one, so I got out of bed to see if that’s where Vlad was. He wasn’t, but the sight of the large marble tub in the gilded bathroom almost made me abandon my search. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and stopped in disbelief.
My hair was back! I tugged a black handful, expecting to feel the give of a wig, but all I felt was the pull on my own scalp. I even had eyebrows again. I tugged them, too, even yanking out a hair for confirmation. Ouch! Yep, real. A glance inside my sweat pants revealed that my hair wasn’t back everywhere, but the parts that made me feel like me again were. How, I had no idea, and I was too grateful to care.
I happily finger-combed my hair as I went back through the bedroom to another door that opened into a large marble room with dozens of vases. They looked Grecian, as did many of the other decorative touches including more pillars and columns. If not for the floor-to-ceiling windows that allowed me to glimpse a stunning pool area surrounded by what was clearly a hotel, I would have sworn that this was a former Roman ruler’s residence.
“Vlad?” I called out, walking through the vase room into what looked like an elegant pub complete with a lounge, pool table, and a full bar area.
“Here,” he called out, sounding faintly surprised.
He met me halfway through the next extravagant room, an outdoor covered patio that faced the pool area. It even had a sunken hot tub, but since Vlad was fully clothed and dry, he hadn’t been partaking of that amenity.
“I didn’t expect you to be awake yet,” he went on, and though his gaze roved over me, he made no move to touch me.
“I’ve gotten better at waking up earlier,” I said, squinting at the late afternoon sunlight that poured over the patio. Then I fingered a lock of hair. “How did you manage this? It’s even the same length as . . . before.”
I stumbled a little over the last word, not wanting to remember the skinning any more than Vlad probably did.
He looked at my hair from my scalp to where it ended several inches past my shoulders, but once again, only his gaze touched me. His hands stayed almost rigidly at his sides.
“Magic.” At my shocked expression, he shrugged. “I don’t practice it, but before the Law Guardians outlawed it thousands of years ago, Mencheres had already forgotten more of the dark arts than most living sorcerers will ever learn.”
“Mencheres is here?”
A nod. “In the next villa.”
“Won’t he get into trouble if someone finds out that he did this?” I asked, still trying to come to terms with Vlad outsourcing a spell. He hadn’t been a fan of magic before he found out Cynthiana had used it to manipulate him for decades, and he’d really hated it when one of her spells had killed me.
His teeth flashed in the briefest of grins. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
I smiled back a bit tentatively. “Where are we, anyway?”
“Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.”
“Vegas?” Why? He couldn’t have had a sudden, uncontrollable urge to gamble.
Vlad shrugged. “Szilagyi could only hope to defeat me with an ambush more powerful than the one that destroyed my home. If he did that in the heart of the Vegas strip, it would result in mass human casualties and enough international attention to rouse the Law Guardians’ wrath. He can’t afford to fight me as well as them, so even if I announced my presence on a billboard, he couldn’t do anything until after we left.”
I took comfort in him saying “after we left” instead of “after I left.” I wasn’t sure where things stood between Vlad and me, but if he did still regret marrying me, at least it didn’t sound like he had any immediate plans to leave me.
He will when he finds out what you did, my insidious inner voice whispered.
My jaw ground. One day, I promised that voice. Dead!
“I have something for you,” Vlad said, yanking my attention back to him. His mouth twisted as he pulled a rubber-lined glove out of his pocket. “Seems you already have need of it.”
I glanced down to see two tiny sparks emanating from my right hand. Nothing compared to what I used to manifest, but seeing them made me almost as happy as my new head of hair.
“Thanks,” I said, sliding the glove onto my hand.
What I really wanted to do was stick my fingers in the nearest light socket. I never again wanted to feel as helpless as I did when I thought that my best means of defense had been literally ripped out of me. Maybe, in order to manifest the deadly voltage that I used to, I’d need to manually recharge now. Or would my electrical abilities, much like the rest of me, just need time to return to the way they were?
Vlad watched me, his humorless half smile telling me nothing of what he was thinking. As for what he was feeling, well, he had that under tighter security than Fort Knox. I wanted to ask him, but since I wasn’t able to give him honesty yet, it didn’t seem fair to expect the same from him.
“So, I’ll, ahem, get cleaned up and see you later,” I said, almost tripping over my words at the invisible wall between us.
His look said he knew I was hiding something, but he replied, “Later, then,” in a light tone and returned to where he’d been sitting on the patio.
I walked away, guilt making me feel like I carried a huge boulder on my back. I had never been good at lying, nor had I ever wanted to be the type of person who was. Now, I was clinging to a huge lie of omission. Though I was terrified at the thought of losing Vlad, I couldn’t keep this up much longer. Plus, he deserved to know everything that had happened during my captivity, even the parts that might change his feelings for me.
I’ll tell him later tonight, I decided, trying to ignore how my stomach twisted at the thought. In the meantime, I really did want to scrub myself until I’d gotten every last vestige of my former experience off of me, and that would take a while.
Chapter 19
Vlad stayed out of the bedroom and bathroom the entire time I was in there, which turned out to be over an hour. Despite scouring my flesh, I still didn’t feel clean once I emerged from the shower, though I doubted a team of forensic experts could find a single particle on me from my old cell. It must be guilt that made me feel like I was covered with invisible stains.
After my extensive shower, I dressed in a long caftan that I found in the closet, not surprised to see that Vlad had stocked this room with clothes. All new, of course, since everything I owned had burned to the ground along with the rest of Vlad’s castle. The long-sleeved ankle-length dress had pretty shell buttons down the front and its pale cream color matched the villa’s décor. I left my hair loose after I blew it dry. Feeling it brush my shoulders was a comforting, tangible reminder that I really had it back again.
Vlad wasn’t on the patio when I went to look for him. He wasn’t in the vase room or the plush pub, either. I was surprised to find that the villa had two more bedrooms, an indoor movie theater, a library, formal dining room, exercise room, living room, and a grand entryway with a separate elegant lounge. Each room seemed to come with its own guard, too, and I was relieved to see familiar faces like Samir and Petre. I surprised them—and myself—by hugging them. I didn’t see Dorian or Alexandru, however, and I was afraid to ask if that was because they’d stayed behind in Romania, or because they hadn’t survived the castle attack. To keep from dwelling on that grim thought, I marveled at the villa. It was so large; I couldn’t believe we were in a hotel. This could have been one of the wings in Vlad’s former castle.
I followed the throb of power in the air to finally find Vlad in a fancy version of a family room. Several people were sitting on couches near him, but they all had their backs to me. Mencheres was easy to pick out, his black hair being as long and straight as mine. Next to him was a blonde, who must have been his wife, Kira. Then a girl with bobbed black hair and a bald man who was so short, all I saw was the top of his head . . .
“Gretchen, Marty,” I said in delighted surprise. “I didn’t know you were in Vegas, too!”
Marty made it to me first, vaulting over the couch to envelop me in a bear hug. My tears hit the top of his newly bald head as I hugged him back, so happy to see him that I barely noticed the sharp look Vlad gave me.
“The Strip is a constant dull roar, no wonder you didn’t hear us slip in,” Marty said, letting me go at last. Then he swiped at the front of my dress. “Aw, hell,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “Got stains on you.”
I glanced at the pink smudges his tears had made and froze. For a moment, all I could see were the stains on my thighs from Maximus, and the memory almost knocked me off my feet. My sister didn’t notice my reaction. She gave me a hug next, and if I responded far more woodenly, she didn’t comment.
“Aren’t these villas the shit?” Gretchen said in glee. “Finally, your husband locks us up somewhere awesome!”
Her reference to being locked up also made me flinch, which was ridiculous. So was my reaction to the pink smears on my dress, yet I couldn’t shake the overwhelming sense of suffocation and guilt that suddenly came over me.
“Leila,” Vlad said, his low voice cutting through Gretchen’s continued, excited comments. “Are you all right?”
Gretchen didn’t seem to hear him. Marty did, and he gave me an appraising look as my sister went on about how amazing Vegas was and did I know that Vlad had given her a gambling allowance?
“She doesn’t know, does she?” I rasped.
Vlad rose, his stare never wavering. “No. I leave it to you to decide if she can handle it.”
“Handle what?” Gretchen said, still not catching on. “My gambling allowance? Hell, yes, I can handle it!”
I looked at my little sister, who hid so much of the pain she’d been through since our mother’s death behind a wall of flippancy and sarcasm. She looked happy now, so I’d be damned if I was going to be the one who ruined that.
“Good,” I said, trying to pull myself together. “Space out your gambling allowance. Don’t blow it all in one day.”
“Sure, sis,” she said, giving me a quick kiss.
I wanted to touch the spot on my cheek to hold her kiss there. Vlad hadn’t been the only person I’d feared I would never see again when Szilagyi had captured me.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked, sounding almost normal now.
Gretchen made a disgusted noise. “In the next villa, refusing to come out of his room. He’s still pouting about being in hiding, not to mention still pissed that you became a vampire against his wishes.”
I shouldn’t have expected anything different. Especially if, like Gretchen, Hugh Dalton had no idea of what I’d just been through, but my raw emotional wounds made this more than I could fake nonchalance over. It was foolish for me, a grown woman, to let my father’s continued rejection make me feel like a hurt little girl, yet that’s exactly how his actions hit me.
“Oh,” I said, and though I meant it to sound noncommittal, the single word came out as more of a stifled sob.
“I have had enough,” Vlad said in a barely restrained growl, then he thundered, “Hugh!” loud enough for the nearby window panes to tremble. Without waiting for a response, he strode out of the room.
“Vlad, don’t,” I said, starting after him. He didn’t slow and Marty grabbed me, preventing me from going after him.
“Don’t, kid,” Marty said, something dark lurking in his tone. “Hugh’s your dad so Vlad won’t kill him, but whatever he does do, that man has coming.”
Gretchen glanced between me and the open door that Vlad had almost flown through in his anger. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Marty replied, his gaze pure emerald green as he stared at her.
Gretchen nodded with a new, glazed complacency. I stared at Marty, as shocked by him mesmerizing my sister as I was by the iciness in his expression. He must have been harboring a lot of resentment against my father, and I’d had no idea.
I didn’t have to strain my hearing to know when Vlad reached my father. His command of “Sit down, shut up, and don’t move” rang out over the other background noise. Then I shuddered when, moments later, I heard my own screams and the far softer sounds of Szilagyi’s taunting laughter.
“Don’t you dare look away,” Vlad said, each word sharper than the lash of a whip. “This is what your seclusion protects you and Gretchen from because this is what happened when Leila fell into my enemy’s hands a fortnight ago.”
More bloodcurdling screams cut off whatever Vlad said next, followed by my shouted vow that all of them would pay. I clenched my fists as my mind replayed an image of Szilagyi’s expression as his fresh burst of laughter echoed from the video.
“At any moment, they could have killed her,” Vlad said during a pause in my screams, which would have been when Harold repositioned me to better remove the skin on my back. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose a child, but I do. When they’re gone, every cold word you uttered is a scar on your soul, every missed opportunity with them a pain that will never heal.”
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