CHAPTER 10 #2
Shooting Evan a pleading look that was met with stone-faced silence, Ava stomped off.
“For pity’s sake, Evan.” Nadine rolled her eyes. “When did you get so uptight? It’s one night. She’s been doing so well in school. She deserves a little treat.”
Evan kept her voice low. “Someone has to be the grownup, Nadine, since you chose to check out on your daughter and this family and sell yourself on the streets.”
“Evan, stop it.” Dani shot a look towards Ava’s door. They didn’t need her hearing any of this. No matter what else Nadine had done, she was Ava’s mother.
Nadine’s eyes flashed with anger. Just when Dani was sure she’d have to jump between them, her stepmother instead reached into her drawstring bag for a pack of cigarettes.
“You can’t smoke in here,” Evan snapped.
Ignoring her, she flicked the lighter, then blew a thin line of smoke towards the ceiling.
“I’ve been following the media feeds the past few days.
” She took another drag off her cigarette, and Dani tensed, knowing what was coming.
“So our little Dani is fucking the vampire prince. Is he good in bed?”
Dani felt heat creep up her face.
“I think you should go outside to smoke that,” Evan said. “And take your filthy mouth with you.”
“Oh, relax, Evangeline.” She laughed. “Besides, Daniela has always been the worst liar. The answer is written all over her face.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.” Dani went over to the cupboard, searching for a small dish for the ashes so they didn’t burn the table. Evan cut a look her way as she passed, but she shook her head slightly. “Here. Why don’t you use this?”
But when she pushed the bowl across the counter towards Nadine, her clawlike hand shot out, grasping her wrist. “You have the mark.”
Dani yanked her arm free, pushing her sleeve back down. Inwardly, she cursed the mistake. Somehow, in her haste to change clothes, her lace cuff had gotten pushed up her arm.
“I got a tattoo. It was stupid.”
“You’re lying.” Nadine shook her head. “I saw a tattoo just like that on another girl, another sanguine. She and her vampire both had one. Some like to claim they’re a sign, that if two people have a mark, they’re fated to be together, but I’ve never seen it turn out that way. More like a curse.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sanguine always winds up dead.” Nadine looked at her pointedly.
“When vampires feed from us, both sides start to crave a repeat encounter. If it’s only once, you can still walk away before it’s full-blown addiction.
The problem is that for vampires, after that first taste of blood, drinking from the same human becomes even sweeter.
They want their blood again, time after time.
Addiction forms on the human’s side, too. ”
She reached out to tap Dani’s arm through her sweatshirt.
“One of these marks means your need for him will be ten times worse than what any normal sanguine experiences. And he’s never going to say no to you.
Not with how good your blood tastes to him.
He’ll use you until he’s forced to put a stop to the relationship. ”
“Can it be stopped?” Dani felt her stomach clench. “I’ve heard that if we were to get mated—"
“Oh, Daniela. Vampires don’t get mated to humans.” Nadine shook her head pityingly. “We’re a food source. Disposable. A plaything. Something to be used and tossed away.”
“Please stop.” She looked away, eyes smarting. “Maybe you think this is helping, but it’s not.”
“Oh dear, now I’ve gone and upset you.” Nadine touched her heart. “You actually believed there was a chance Crown Prince Alexander was going to marry some blood whore? Face it, Daniela. You’re a meal to him. A good fuck. Nothing more.”
“You don’t know anything about him.”
“And has he proposed? Put a ring on your finger?” Nadine tilted her head.
“Or does he prefer to fuck you seven ways to Sunday in private, then promise you roses where no one is around to see? Make no mistake, he will move that aristocratic bitch into his castle by the end of the month. She will be his queen. And where will that leave you?”
Dani swiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks.
She could have dealt with Nadine’s unbalanced moods, the instability, her disappearances for months at a time.
What tore at her was how her stepmother had gone from a woman who used to draw Dani into her lap as a girl to cuddle and read, to someone who couldn’t care less how her words hurt her, who almost seemed to relish when they did.
When had it happened? Was it when they were all so lost in grief after her father disappeared and Dani and Evan had lashed out at her?
Was it born of resentment, when money had run out and she’d had no choice but to begin selling her blood to obtain Ava’s medicine, and she and Evan had been back at home, together and safe?
Perhaps Nadine had simply grown bitter and twisted by being forced to live with so much pain, every moment of every day, that she had decided if she couldn’t be saved, she wanted them all to suffer.
“That’s enough, Nadine,” Evan said sharply.
“I’m only looking out for you,” Nadine said as Ava returned. “You have to think about how this ends. We both know it won’t be with you in that castle, seated on the throne at his side.”
Fresh tears blurred Dani’s eyes. She quickly looked away.
“So can I go?” Ava demanded.
Evan dug in a cannister, extracting a few silvers. “Be back in one hour. She needs to go to bed. And don’t let her—”
“I’m her mother, not you, Evangeline.”
With one last glare from Ava, the door slammed behind them. Evan promptly threw an oven mitt at the wall.
“Well, that went about like it always does.” Dani rubbed her temples, laughing humorlessly.
“Don’t start with me.”
“You can’t let her wind you up. She thrives off it.” Dani retrieved the oven mitt.
“You’ve been off at the palace,” Evan snapped. “I’ve been trying to coordinate opposing factions who apparently would rather live under another three decades of vampire oppression than compromise on anything.”
“I’m sorry.” Dani wrapped her in a hug.
Evan pulled out her phone. “Let’s get the others here.”
Sera and Alex materialized less than a minute later.
“We don’t have long,” Alex said by way of greeting. “The king is suspicious. He’s going over all the security footage, trying to figure out how Giselle was able to bypass palace security protocols and get into the castle. That was an incredibly reckless thing you did, Evan.”
“Is she someplace safe?” Dani asked, looking away when Alex made a careful study of her tear-stained face and frowned. Nadine’s words stung like a raw wound across her heart, made all the more terrible because cruel as they were, she knew on some level they were true.
“She’s in a secure location,” Evan confirmed. “And for her safety, that’s all I’m going to say for now.”
“I’m assuming Dante wasn’t able to get her out of the city, not in the timeframe he had,” Sera said. “We need to think about moving her.”
Evan shook her head. “Moving her is the riskiest option.”
“There’s going to be a massive manhunt,” Dani pointed out. “She tried to poison the king.”
“Trust me, my father will break down every door, and burn every apartment block to the ground in the dead of winter if that’s what it takes to send a message to the resistance.
” Sera ran a gloved hand over her hair. “You really believe some starving family hiding her in the back of their closet won’t give her up? ”
“She has a son,” Dani said quietly. “Or at least, she told me that she did.”
“Could they be moved across the border?” Alex asked. “Taken to the wolves?”
Sera leaned against the counter. Cinder hopped up beside her, mewing hopefully for food.
“That’s a big risk. Some of the wolf factions cooperate with us when the price is right and our interests align.
But they’re very mercenary, and it’s hard to blame them after thirty years of war and failed peace treaties.
They trust us no more than we trust them and I can’t fault them for that.
Would they be helping us because they want to liberate the sector, or because their long-term goal is a wolf Alpha ruling over our territory? ”
“It gets very cold being cast out into the bleakest parts of the forests and mountains that not even the fae and vampires want,” Alex said. “The wolves are survivors. We shouldn’t underestimate them.”
“Giselle is an asset,” Evan said quietly.
“I agree that the child needs to be moved to someplace secure. But there are very few aberrants capable of taking out Judas or Luciano Cavalieri. We have to consider the long-term ramifications of moving her out of the sector. How many more people will die under their reign of terror while we wait to act?”
“They know her face now.” Alex shook his head. “They’ll have captured her image on all the palace security feeds. She’s been burned as an undercover operative. Judas and Cavalieri will have already doubled their personal security details. It won’t be easy getting another shot at either of them.”
“Your father harvests power from anyone he touches,” Dani said. “Anyone who tries to get close to him will have their power drained. That’s why Giselle’s attempt very nearly worked. It was subtle.”
“A physical assault, then,” Evan said. “Could a vampire materialize into the room, execute him, and then ghost out?”
“The castle is heavily warded.” Alex sounded tired.
“That’s the reason Sera and I, along with every other person with a security clearance, are currently under such heavy scrutiny.
They’re questioning how Giselle could have gotten in.
Only approved people can materialize on or off the palace grounds. ”