CHAPTER 14
THE SIRENS WERE STILL sounding in the distance when Sera left them outside their apartment, apologizing as she hurried off to answer a medical call. As Evan fumbled with the key, Dani slumped beside the door.
“You okay?” Evan looked up sharply.
“I can’t get my heart to stop racing.” Dani rubbed her chest. “I’ve never liked the feeling of scatter-forming across town. I know vampires do it all the time, but it makes me sick to my stomach.”
“It was a long jump to get all the way to the borderlands. I’m a little queasy, too. Come inside and I’ll make some tea.”
Inside, the kitchen was dark. While Evan put the kettle on, Dani took out the loaf of fresh sourdough bread she’d picked up from the bakery earlier that afternoon and began cutting thick slices.
It was well after midnight, far too late to be gorging themselves on toast with butter and jam, but after the events of the evening, she didn’t care.
They could both do with a bit of comfort food right now.
But as she started to cut the second slice, the knife began wobbling uncontrollably in her hand.
Dani stared down at her shaking wrist.
Surely she just needed to eat something?
Setting the knife down, she rubbed her fingers. They’d just been out in the cold. She needed to get her circulation going. And still, she couldn’t help the knot of worry that formed in her stomach as her hand continued to shake.
“You’re just now getting back?” Nadine appeared in the doorway, arms crossed. “I was expecting you hours ago.”
“Go back to bed, Nadine,” Evan said crossly. “This doesn’t concern you.”
Their stepmother’s eyes zeroed in on Dani’s shaking hand. “How long have you been having the tremors?”
“They’re not tremors.” She dropped her hands into her lap. “And this is none of your concern.”
“Sure looked like it to me.”
“It’s cold out and we just climbed the stairs,” Dani lied. “It’s the adrenaline. That’s all.”
But now Evan, too, was watching her with an expression she didn’t like.
“That’s how it starts, you know.” Nadine looked at her pityingly.
“Tremors that come and go. At first, you dismiss them as being hungry or tired or cold. Then you start getting headaches that become more frequent with time. You’ve probably been letting your vampire feed from you more and more, am I right? ”
“No,” Dani snapped, ready to be done with this conversation.
But of course, Nadine plowed on.
“Because you have those marks on your wrists? What did I tell you about the other girls who thought those mating marks to a vampire meant they were destined for a happily ever after? The mark binds you both. It increases his thirst for you, speeds the rate in which you’ll develop blood addiction because he’ll crave you so much he can never get enough.
Those marks are a death sentence for the human girls because the vampire males never follow through and change them, making them their true mates. ”
“It’s different with us.”
When Evan shot a worried glance her way, their stepmother nodded sagely.
“He’s probably been promising you it won’t matter because he’ll turn you eventually? but keeps making excuses when you press for when.
It isn’t enough when a vampire and a human are mates.
Even with that bond, addiction still eventually forms. From what I’ve seen, it happens even faster.
Your body grows addicted to his venom and suddenly, he needs your blood every day, then twice a day.
The only way to protect you once that happens is to make you into a vampire.
That will sate the urges. But I’m guessing Prince Alexander has his reasons for why that can’t happen. ”
Dani pressed fingers to her temples. Fingers that, yes, were shaking harder than ever. But of course they were. She was upset. And for the love of all that was fanged and holy, where was Evan’s tea?
“He lost his mother,” she said through gritted teeth. “She never fully recovered from being changed. He has a lot of anxiety about putting me through that.”
“Do you want to know how many vampire males promised me they would make our arrangement permanent?” Nadine asked sadly.
“They had all the promises in the world when we were still tangled together in the bedsheets, while their wives were waiting for them at home somewhere across town. In the end, vampire males are all slave to their craving for blood. And they will whisper whatever sweet promises they have to in order to keep drawing from your vein one more time. Don’t kid yourself, Daniela. You’re nothing to him.”
“You’re wrong.” But there were tears in her eyes as she said it.
“It’s late,” Evan said, turning off the range. “I think this discussion can wait for morning.”
Holding up her hands, Nadine retreated back into Ava’s room.
After the door clicked shut, Evan poured hot water into two mugs, then slid into the opposite chair at the kitchen table. Her eyes stayed on Dani’s hand as it shook where she gripped the handle of her mug.
“I’m worried about you,” she said at last. “Nadine was trying to be cruel, but I worry she’s not entirely wrong. Not about all of it.”
“Alex loves me.”
“He might care for you,” Evan allowed. This was maybe the most generous thing she’d ever said where Alexander was concerned.
“But you keep getting hurt whenever he’s around.
There was the explosion at the factory. Then earlier today when Lara’s men picked you up.
Now your hands are starting to shake. He has all these promises, but all I see is my sister getting hurt by being close to him. ”
“What are you saying?” Dani whispered, finally managing to still the trembling in her wrist enough to lift the mug of tea.
“That someone can love you and still be toxic for you. You need to figure out which one of those Alexander is to you before it’s too late.”
Alex covertly snuck a glance at his phone under the table to see if Dani had answered his texts. Nothing. They had to finish up with these endless meetings so he could get back to the sector and check on her.
The soft fountains and waterfalls of Thornwood provided a pleasant enough backdrop for their early morning meeting, even if his sister and Finneas had spent most of it fighting.
He had to admit the fae king had provided a lovely meeting space, with an open-air conference area looking out over the mountains, and comfortable chairs crafted of some sort of flexible wood and lined with plush woven cushions.
There was a spread of fruits, flaky croissants, jams and honey butters that he’d been rather enjoying, up until Sera had accidentally flung a small pot of honey butter at their host’s head (missing, fortunately.)
She’d tried to pass it off as an accident, saying she’d been about to butter a croissant when her hand slipped.
Cringing, Alex had barely restrained himself from kicking her beneath the table like they were kids.
His sister had pitched softball for five seasons for her team at their elite private school.
Hand slipped, indeed.
Fortunately, a rather enormous wooly-looking gray dog had leapt off a plush cushion where he had been sprawled by the fire, and trotted over to lick up the fallen pot of butter, tail flagging appreciatively.
He had then come over to sit politely by Sera’s side, blinking hopefully at the croissants, like she might throw something else at the fae king if he just waited patiently enough.
“Your information gives us very little to go on,” Finneas said evenly.
Alex suspected he was regretting having invited them at all.
“Unfortunately, vague rumors of fae being held at an underground research facility that could literally be located anywhere in your sector don’t do us much good.
” When Sera glared, he shrugged. “Throw another pot of butter at my head if you must, Serafina, but you know I’m right.
It’s not exactly actionable intelligence. ”
“We know where she was found,” Alex said. “In her condition, it’s unlikely that she could have walked more than a mile at most.”
“Do your resistance leaders have any suspected locations within that search radius?”
Alex opened a folder and passed across copies of the maps they’d brought to Finneas and his advisors. “I know this doesn’t look like much, but you can see the high-security fencing and number of guards posted don’t make sense for an abandoned warehouse in that part of the sector.”
“You think this building is a front.” Finneas studied the photograph. “Possibly. But they could just as easily be running a drug smuggling operation, or a human trafficking ring.”
“You’re right that we don’t have any definitive data pointing to this location as the research site,” Sera said.
“We’ll have to get confirmation first, but we believe this is the right place.
Since we’ve been watching this location, we’ve been able to note the number of trucks coming in and out every day.
Vampires working within the facility would be able to dematerialize in and out through any wards they had set in order to cut down on traffic and avoid calling attention to their location, but an operation of the scale we suspect we’re looking at would need to be resupplied regularly with food, medical supplies and other equipment. ”
“If the site is warded, and I would assume it is, it wasn’t done by us,” Finneas pointed out. “And that means Cavalieri may be working with one of the older fae with very powerful magic.”
“How many of the fae can set wards?”
“Small wards like the type you’d put around your home to knock back an intruder are something most of the faerie are capable of, to one degree or another.
The magic required to ward something as big as your castle back in Sector Four, or Thornwood,” he waved a hand absently, “which is always a target due to the nature of what it is, takes much more skill and power. Only a few of the high fae can do this. And that narrows down who we need to look at.”