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“We thought he was an anomaly.”
Abaddon shrugs. “Everyone comes from somewhere.”
“You dance around my question.”
“I was informed my family and I might have sanctuary here.” Abaddon’s voice and stance becomes harder. “Is that the truth, or should we leave now?”
“Of course, we’ll provide sanctuary,” Phoenix says, butting into the conversation, her grandfather shooting her a look that would shrivel the soul of most. Phoenix ignores it—fascinating. Even more fascinating, her grandfather allows the interruption. He seems like the beheading rather than the benevolent kind.
“We appreciate powerful allies in these tumultuous times,” Phoenix says smoothly. “And we don’t have to tell all of our secrets. We barely know each other.” She shoots her grandfather a significant look. He glares back silently for so long I don’t think he ever will.
Finally, though, he turns back toward us, putting on a clearly disingenuous smile. “I am Vlad Dracul. Welcome to our home. We are glad to offer sanctuary to your family. One of my sons will show you to your rooms.” He makes a quick gesture, and a man from behind him scurries forward.
“I’m happy to take them,” Phoenix gestures her arm towards the building behind her.
“You will stay here,” Vlad says, voice gruff but clearly authoritative. I don’t miss the twitch of Phoenix’s mouth at being ordered around, but she nods, tilting her face toward the ground. There’s some sort of fascinating play for power between these two. Usually, it would be the sort of thing that would fascinate, nay even delight me.
Right now, though, I only frown seeing it, because I don’t like my consort and I being caught in the middle of a vampire family power struggle.
My family is usually raucous and loud no matter where we are, but we’re all quiet and on guard as we follow Vlad’s ‘son’ out of the courtyard and into a corridor that finally leads into the wood and stone fortress. Are all the other twenty or so men in the courtyard really his sons? I can tell they’re vampires, but we have so little information on the creatures, we do not even know how they are created.
“We will send someone to the local town for food,” says the man leading us. A chilling reminder that our hosts don’t need to eat. Which makes me curious about how they meet the needs of their peculiar dietary requirements.
“Here is our guest wing,” the man says once we get to an inner corridor, gesturing ahead. “You have your pick of five guest suites. Father suggests you rest for the evening. He and Phoenix will meet you, Layden, to discuss security concerns in an hour.”
“And me,” Abaddon adds. “I am the patriarch of this family.”
The man looks like he wants to argue but finally nods. “And you, then. But the rest of you,” he looks us all over briefly, “can rest until we meet again in the morning to talk over more details of your stay.”
Kharon nods, putting a large glamoured arm around Ksenia and heading toward the closest room, obviously only wanting to get his wife and daughter to a place to rest. It’s understandable, considering the woman just gave birth. I don’t know much about human females, but I understand that birthing another being is generally quite an ordeal.
Normally, I would be feeling a flutter inside to get up to some mischief or other considering all the possibilities of this place. . . but I find myself also experiencing some strangely mundane protective feelings. I decide to be annoyed about that another time. At the moment, all I want is to put a thick door between Lo-Ren and anything with fangs.
I put an arm around her shoulder and start to direct her to the door beside Kharon’s, at the last moment detouring one room further down. Babies cry, and I don’t want us to be disturbed tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Four
LAUREN
As soon as Remus closes the door behind us, I grab his arm. “Oh my gosh, this is officially the creepiest place I’ve ever been,” I whisper, looking around a room that looks like a fine hotel suite, if the interior decorator had a fetish for black. At least it wasn’t black and red—that would have been a little too on the nose.
Instead, there’s a black accent wall behind the large king-sized bed, with textured wallpaper on the other three walls. There are no windows. Naturally, I think, a moment later. Is this where visiting vampires sleep? Just how many of them were out there, anyway? How has a whole world been hiding right within the one I knew?
Then again, from what Remus said, he’d only seen one vampire before, and he and his brothers have been around forever. But I shudder as I remember the other things the head honcho guy had talked about. “And what the hell is a dybbuk?”
Remus just waves a hand. “I wouldn’t worry about that. They’re probably just a myth.”
“Like vampires?” I ask with a hand on my hip. “And the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”
He shrugs and comes closer. “All that matters now is that we’re safe.”
“For the moment.”
With another shrug, he wraps his arms around my waist and draws me close. “This moment is all we need.”
I let out a little huff, staring up at his strange, glamoured face. “It’s weird not being able to see you.”
“I’m still here. And what, I thought you’d like this more handsome me?”
