Now Ismerelda is gone.
With a snarl, I phased back into the hallway, my nostrils flaring as I hunted for any familiar scents. But all I could smell was Ismerelda’s blood.
And Keys’s blood, too.
I knelt beside him, his pulse nearly nonexistent. Whoever had bitten him had done so haphazardly, the wound more lycan-like than vampire-like. Yet the two pinpricks at his vein were definitely the latter.
An inexperienced vampire,I deduced.Young. Unpracticed. Impatient.
There was a certain finesse when it came to killing a human. And whoever had done this to Keys had lacked the art of a clean bite.
I sank my fangs into my wrist and held it to his mouth. “Drink,” I demanded, that single word underlined in compulsion. It was necessary, his mind and body too far gone to willingly follow my command.
I grabbed a fistful of his dark hair and pulled his head back, his lips against my bleeding wound. He didn’t suckle or try to pull my essence into his mouth, but this angle would allow a few drops to fall over his tongue.
With my age and power, that was all he’d need.
His throat eventually worked, my compulsion forcing him to swallow. Unfortunately, though, it would take a while for him to recover. And I didn’t have time to waste.
I glanced around the hall, searching for any signs of cameras or security surveillance. Keys may or may not be able to tell me who had tried to kill him when he woke up. Hopefully, he could. But in the interim, I needed to pursue other avenues for information.
On his fifth swallow, I cut off the persuasion and slowly lowered him to the ground. He’d eventually wake up with a headache, but he’d be alive.
Leaving him to heal, I phased to the reception area. “Are there security cameras in the ballroom area?” I demanded, not bothering with formalities.
Three vampires gaped back at me, none of them speaking.
“Do not make me repeat myself,” I warned them. “I am not known for my patience.”
“What’s going on, Cam?” The female voice came from overhead, drawing my gaze upward to a speaker.
One of these vampires must have hit a button of some kind to notify Hazel of my appearance.
I would be irritated if it hadn’t been so efficient. Because if anyone could get me what I needed, it was the royal of this region.
“Ismerelda has been taken,” I gritted out. “I want all the video surveillance you have available of Deirdre City, and I want it right fucking now.”
Silence fell across the room, the lack of immediate movement grating on my nerves.
“I’m coming down,” Hazel announced into the quiet, her words momentarily placating me.
I paced the tiled reception area floors as I waited, my mind desperately trying to connect to Ismerelda’s thoughts. But her psyche remained mute, her unconscious state creating an eerie stillness I didn’t like.
Is this how you felt for over a hundred years?I wondered.Lost and alone in this disconnected abyss?
Just thinking about it made me that much angrier at my former self.
But I was equally furious with my current self for letting her down.
Where are you?I thought at her.Who took you?
“What happened?” Hazel asked the moment her elevator opened. Then she stiffened, her gaze going to the ballroom hallway.
And she vanished.
Frowning, I phased after her and found her crouching over Keys, her wrist pressed against his mouth. “I already did that,” I told her. “He’ll be fine.”
Her brown eyes blazed with furious power as she looked up at me. “Who did this?”
