Ricky just nodded.
My wide eyes bounced between the two of them. Gods save me from testosterone-riddled men and their impatience.
“Or,” I said, dragging the word out, “how about we try a subtler approach? Trystan told me to come back to him, right? So how about letting me go in first? Alone. If he’s lucid, maybe I can talk him down. Get him to cooperate with us.”
“Absolutely not,” Lucien snapped. “You’re not stepping foot in there without me.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and took two deep breaths. “Lucien. If you were the one inside the house, would you know I was out here?”
Annoyance flashed in his eyes, but he bit out a breathy, “Yes.”
“Right. Because we’re all vampires here—sorry, Ricky?—”
“Don’t be sorry. Happy I’m not a bloodsucker.”
I waved his comment away. “Trystan probably heard us the second we arrived. Not to mention, there’s this whole bond thing. He knows I’m here. And he knows you two are here as well. If you bust in, all violent-like, you’ll trigger him. Let me go in and talk to him first.”
“And if he tries to kill you?”
“Then you fall back on Plan B. Kick the door down and light the place on fire, like you so desperately want to do.”
Lucien’s glare could cut glass. But eventually, he nodded. “Fine. But if he so much as lifts a finger in your direction?—”
“Kick, kick, stomp, stomp,” I said, crossing my fingers over my heart.
Lucien’s mouth gave the slightest twitch, one that had me smiling in response. I touched his hand, then smoothed down my hair and faced the house. I couldn’t help that my heart was hammering away at a mile a minute, but I could at least appear like I was calm and collected.
The porch creaked beneath my feet as I stepped up to the door. I didn’t bother knocking since I knew Trystan wouldn’t answer. He might be insane, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew Lucien and Ricky stood out here. Opening the door would be suicide.
So, I reached for the doorknob, turned it, and gave the door a gentle push. It opened with a groan, revealing nothing but darkness inside.
My heart hammered harder.
“Izzy?” Lucien murmured behind me. He could hear my pulse and smell my fear. I couldn’t hide anything from him.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
I pushed the door open a little wider, then crossed the threshold. I’d barely taken two steps when the door swung shut behind me with a definitive click.
I whirled around and stared at it. I hadn’t touched it, yet it’d latched closed all on its own.
“Okay,” I whispered to the darkness. “That’s not unsettling, not at all.”
I turned slowly, taking in the interior. It took a beat for my night vision to adjust, but once it did, everything sharpened into grayscale. The sitting room looked disturbingly normal. A couch, a loveseat, a side table with an old phonograph, a standing lamp.
But when I clicked the switch, no light illuminated the room. Because of course. Trystan must have unplugged the lamp.
I pressed onward, past the kitchen on my right, and into the nearby hallway. The staircase sat at the end of the hall, and I paused, contemplating them. Light glowed from upstairs, which was where I suspected I’d find him.
I took another step, ready to climb those stairs, when Trystan suddenly just appeared. He stood at the base of the stairs, half in shadow, barefoot and silent.
A scream rose in my throat, one I barely managed to choke back before it tore past my lips. If I screamed, Lucien would come running.
“Trystan…” I breathed.
Though hidden in shadow, he looked just as I remembered him. The cut of his jaw. The slope of his shoulders. The curve of his mouth. But then I caught his gaze. And my heart went from a dizzying gallop to a dead stop.
His eyes were wrong. Flat. Dead. And burning with a crimson light I’d never seen before. Selene had explained the disconnect and the madness, but this…this made it all too real. Especially when his lips curled back into a smile and he bared his fangs at me, wet and glistening.
