CHAPTER 13
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Dani had Alex drop her back at her apartment before dawn so that she could get Ava off to school and he could see to the various press engagements that needed to be attended to following the bombings.
There were the traditional visits the royal family needed to make to the local hospitals and first responder stations where it was customary to show support after any major emergency.
Add on the official statements that Alex might not have to write, but would certainly want to look over before agreeing to issue to the press, and she could see why he was getting anxious every time his phone buzzed.
After kissing him soundly in her kitchen, she started breakfast and went to wake her sister.
“Where’s Evan?” Ava asked over a plate of scrambled eggs and toast.
“I think she was able to pick up an extra shift at the canning plant,” Dani lied, knowing full well Evan had been out the night before close to the borderlands.
She hated the nights when the resistance sent her there, couldn’t help but think every time of the assignment their father had been on when his truck had been bombed and he hadn’t come home.
“Are you going in to work today, or is the shipping center closed?”
Forcing a smile, Dani smoothed her sister’s hair. “It will take them a few days to sort everything out, but don’t worry. That’s the biggest distribution center in the sector. They’ll get it back up and running soon.”
She didn’t know how to tell Ava that it was very likely she no longer had a job and that the factory was shut down for the foreseeable future.
Luciano Cavalieri’s only statement to the press on the subject had been that there would be no talks of reopening as long as there were bombings and civil resistance, putting thousands out of work.
Her phone buzzed. She swiped to read the text.
Evan: The pharmacist on 14th street texted to say they’re supposed to be getting in an order this morning.
Dani: Insulin?
Evan: They can’t confirm anything until they open the crates, but it was on the shipping manifest.
Which meant every other desperate family who’d just gotten the same automated text would be scrambling to be first in line.
“Get your coat,” she said to Ava. “We have to get to school now. There’s an errand I need to run.”
The December morning was crisp and bright as she made the mile walk from Ava’s school towards the pharmacy.
The city trucks had just been through, leaving the roads freshly plowed.
Dani shoved her hands into her coat pockets, walking faster past dilapidated buildings and burned-out cars.
She put the chances that they would actually have insulin in this shipment at about one in five, probably less with the ongoing shortages.
But if they did, and she could buy a vial—
She noticed the vampire following her when she turned a corner.
He was average height and wore a dark jacket and pressed jeans, absolutely out of place in a neighborhood where anyone you encountered was likely either passed out in a doorway, high on something, or skulking in an alley waiting to mug you.
In fact, he looked familiar. Her heart pounded. Had she seen him at the auction house?
She pulled out her phone, starting to text Alex.
At the cross street in front of her, a shiny black SUV pulled up. The door opened. Someone grabbed her arm, knocking the phone from her hand and sending it skidding across the ice.
Dani screamed, clawing and kicking. The person behind her fell to the ground.
She had just enough time to recognize the man in the black jacket before another vampire wrapped her in a viselike grip.
She focused her power, concentrating on wiping his mind blank.
His arms slid from around her and she heard the sickening crack as his head hit the pavement.
A second black SUV screeched up behind the first. Dani frantically searched the filthy, slushy snow for her phone. There was no outrunning vampires. Her only hope was to text Alex, to pray that he could somehow get here in time.
Just as she was thinking this, two more vampires grabbed her. She gritted her teeth, trying to blank out their minds just as she had before. But her hands were shaking from the power she’d used, and they didn’t even twitch.
They carried her, fighting and kicking, to the first car, threw her in the back seat, and slammed the door.
“Well, that was quite a spectacle,” said a bored voice from beside her. Lara Cavalieri wore a pale cream wool coat that had to cost more than she made at the factory in two months. She finished typing something, then pocketed her phone. “I assume that unlike my security detail, you’re not hurt?”
“Let me go.” Dani slid her gaze towards the door, wondering how far she would get if she tried to run. Not far, if the rest of Lara’s team was as well trained as the first wave had been. “You have no right to hold me.”
“And I had no idea you were an aberrant,” Lara mused. “How very interesting. Does Alexander know?”
Dani’s blood ran cold. “Why am I here?”
“Because we need to talk. You purposefully sabotaged my press conference with your little bid to call attention to yourself yesterday at the bombing site. And now that immature attempt to capture Alexander’s attention is proving to be a distraction we don’t need.”
Dani nearly choked.
Was Lara actually serious? She’d fled the scene to rush into hair and makeup while people had been trapped inside the shipping center, a building her father owned.
Although Cavalieri-controlled media had tried to suppress them, there were videos everywhere taken by bystanders of Alex and the volunteers from Lara’s press team (who she’d probably fired on the spot) rescuing survivors from the rubble.
Then there were the videos of Dani helping care for survivors until she fainted and Alexander had to carry her out.
“Your situation is very precarious,” Lara continued. “A younger sister who is very sick. Another sister whose actions could easily get her thrown in jail. Are their safety and security really worth a few nights warming the bed of someone else’s husband?”
“He’s not your husband.” The words left her lips before she could stop them.
“But he will be.” Lara’s expression turned glacial. “Surely you don’t actually think Alex is going to marry you? That the heir to the throne would give everything up for some sanguine he’s been fucking, not just someone of no status, but a human besides?”
Dani felt her face burn. She pressed her lips together, saying nothing.
“So maybe he’s made promises to you as you lay in his arms after he’s done using you, just as he’s made them to me. You think this is the first time he’s taken a blood slave, used her as a whore, and tossed her aside when he’s tired of her?”
“You’re lying.”
She shrugged. “Believe what you like. Our engagement will be announced in a matter of days. I will be his wife. And I will not stand for either of us to be humiliated by some cheap whore he’s been screwing from my father’s factory.”
“I need to pick my sister up from school.” Her voice shook. “She has a doctor’s appointment. If I don’t show up, they’re going to know something is wrong.”
“Think about what I said. This doesn’t have to be difficult.
You could have a monthly stipend, money that would help your sisters.
” Lara shrugged. “But make no mistake, I have a security detail. I will be the one living in his castle. If you refuse, you will be the one living in your run-down apartment with no heat in the dead of winter while the press hounds your little sister every time she tries to leave the house. You’ll be a prisoner in your own home.
” She let the words sink in. “Or you could take the money and move to a comfortable flat, take your sister to better doctors and get her the food that would help her condition improve with a better diet.”
Dani glanced again towards the door.
“If you’re worried I’m going to make you disappear, don’t.
” Lara laughed. “We both know Alex would drive himself crazy if that happened. He would never stop searching for you.” Her eyes narrowed.
“But you have two sisters you need to consider. One of whom is involved in risky rebel activity every night, and the other who could easily experience an insulin overdose. A tragic accident.”
Dani felt her chest constrict until she could barely breathe. “Stay away from my sisters.”
“Then we understand each other. You are going to end things with Alexander. You’ll walk away and make sure he understands that this was all your idea.” Lara tapped something into her phone. “Last warning. I trust we won’t need to repeat this conversation.”
With that, the door opened and she was yanked from the car.
“I don’t think anything’s broken, but you’re going to have an ugly bruise for a few days.” Evan packed snow into a clean cloth, passing the cool compress over to Dani so she could put it on her cheek. “You promise me nothing else happened, right? Those men didn’t touch you?”
“I’m okay.” Gingerly, Dani applied the snow compress to her cheek.
She wasn’t okay. Not really. She hadn’t been able to stop shaking since she’d gotten home.
“Lara knows I’m an aberrant. They could be on their way here right now to pick me up.
” She rose from the kitchen table. “We need to go to Ava’s school. ”
“Sit down.” Evan shoved the mug of herbal tea she’d made across the table. “Take some deep breaths.”
“We have to get her.” She swiped at her eyes. “Fine, if you won’t go, then I will.”
“Get her and go where?” Evan intercepted her halfway to the door.
“I don’t know. A safe house. You know places to hide people.”