Noah spoke again. “You don’t have to take my word for it. There’s someone here who knows Cally better than either of us. Ask Eve what she thinks.”
Antoine didn’t need to think too hard to dismiss that idea. After draining Cally to the point of death, Eve was the last person he wanted to face.Better make sure Marcel has all the kerosene locked up.
“Thank you for your suggestions. While I’m busy trying to remember how to take a girl on a date, maybe you could do what I asked. Organize the thralls, and find Nico and Tobias.”
“Sure.” Noah’s chair skidded against the carpet as he rose.
“Cally found me in two hours of googling. Try that approach.”
Noah’s eyebrows rose. “Google, huh?”
“Is my Audi still in the impound?”
“Yes. Sorry, it wasn’t a priority.”
“Get it back. Order a new car for Marcel and some extras for our thralls. Do whatever’s necessary to prepare us.” Antoine watched the maple tree outside stirring gently in the wind, bare but for a few red-and-yellow leaves. Peaceful, yes, but not what he needed after all. “We’re going to war.”
Twenty-One
Cally awoke to find Eve asleep in a chair beside her bed, hugging a pillow like a soft toy.
It wasn’t Antoine’s room, where she’d been sleeping; it was the one she’d had originally—her own, in Antoine’s words.
He’d fed on her, and it hadhurt. So much more than before, and there’d been none of the pleasure that she’d grown used to. Not even the sense of reassurance that Gabe’s bite gave.
But why would it? Different bloodlines.
Then he’d taken so much that she’d passed out. It didn’t make any sense.
She sat up, and her chest complained. She rubbed it. It ached, like it was bruised.
That shouldn’t be a thing, not with my healing.
Another mystery.
And Eve, curled up in her chair, her presence confirming something had happened.
The clock read 9:12 a.m. She couldn’t remember going to bed, let alone putting on the T-shirt she now wore. Where was Antoine? Was he asleep already?
Why was she in this room? It felt like a rejection, like he didn’t want her in his.
“Eve? Are you awake?”Or can you be?
She stirred, opened her eyes, and gave Cally a sleepy smile. “You’re up. How are you feeling?”
“Like an elephant jumped on my chest. What the hell happened?”
“It wasn’t an elephant, it was Zoey.” Eve stretched, yawning wide in a gratuitous display, then caught her pillow as it slipped.
“Do you want to fill in some blanks?”
“Antoine drank your blood until you basically died, then Zoey and I did CPR until you came back.”
Cally stared at her, jaw hanging open.
“Marcel shot you up with some painkillers, and we put you to bed. I put that T-shirt on you and only groped you a bit.”
That explained why she was naked beneath it. Better her than Zoey. “Where’s Antoine now? How’s he doing? Have you seen him?”
