Delaney whistledthrough her teeth as the blacked-out SUV pulled up in front of the home I’d purchased in Willowhope. “Mini-castle indeed. Ego, this place is even more ostentatious in person than it looked online.”
I flicked an uninterested glance out the window, taking in all the little lights placed sporadically through the yard and the brass sconces next to the large double doors. What did it matter now? I’d thought this would be my home when I wasn’t touring, somewhere I would come to relax and invite my cousin Sky over. After my last visit, I’d left so excited, mentally planning dinners with Sky and his found family, who I’d thought were maybe becoming mine as well.
All of that was over now. This place would be my prison.
The door opened next to me, revealing a scowling Delaney. I hadn’t even realized she’d gotten out of the vehicle. Fuck, I was so out of it all of the time now. If she hadn’t been leading me around by the nose the last six weeks, I’d have missed all of my events and disappointed my fans.
A fresh stab of pain lanced my heart. The fans would be a thing of the past sooner than later, too. They’d forget all about me as I hid away, lost to vampirism.
“Get the fuck out of the car, Ego.”
Heaving a sigh, a totally human act that really didn’t serve a purpose for me in my altered state, I followed her up to my prison. She stood back while I entered the code into the discreet keypad I’d had installed. Delaney rolled her eyes. “Really?’
“What?” I asked. “I didn’t want to keep track of the keys to this place. Not while I was traveling. Plus, it gave Jetty and his crew easy access while I was gone.” Which reminded me. I pulled up the app and changed the code.
“What are you doing?”
“Jetty said they were almost done, and I asked them not to finish up quite yet. I told him I was letting a friend borrow the place for a little R&R, but just in case they forgot something, I don’t want anyone showing up and coming in.”
Walking in to find me wandering the halls in my misery, or…even worse than that, opening my refrigerator to find it stuffed with blood bags.Fuck!This was my worst nightmare.
Delaney clucked her tongue and strode into the great room, her high heels clicking across the hardwood. Not sure what else to do, I followed behind her like a puppy. She was leaving in the morning, and I had no idea what I was going to do with myself. And vampires didn’t die, right? Like, the loneliness already eating away at me was my new lot in life.
Delaney planted herself in a wingback chair and pointed at the spot on the couch across from it. “So tell me about Lysandro,” she said as I settled back.
“Uh.” I thought back to meeting the eccentric man at the boardwalk. “He’s the town’s main librarian, and he’s a vampire.” I shrugged. “That’s all I really know.”
She checked the elegant watch on her slight wrist. “It’s the middle of the night, so I’m sure the library is closed. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to call him. Hopefully, he’ll be able to come by before I leave.”
“Why?” I sat up straighter. I knew we’d tossed around the idea of talking to Lysandro, but I really didn’t want anyone to know about my change.
What if it got back to Sky? Or one of his friends? They’d feel obligated to tell him, no matter how much I begged them to keep it to themselves. Until I figured out how to navigate this new life, all I wanted was to be left alone.
“Because I can’t leave you out here fending for yourself like this.” Leaning forward, she clasped her hands between her knees. “Look, Ego, if I could stay, I would, but I have a lot of work ahead of me. I need to clear your schedule for the foreseeable?—”
“Forever,” I said, cutting her off. “Clear it off forever, Delaney. Do that, help my security find new jobs, and then you should start looking for your next star yourself. I’m?—”
“Holy drama!” she yelled, cutting me off now. “For fuck’s sake, there are vampires all over the world, living their lives. We just have to figure out the best way for you to do that, and it’ll be business as usual. Well, altered a bit, but still. We managed to finish your tour, didn’t we? And that’s with me only knowing a little bit about what your kind needs. Once we talk to this Lysandro, we can make a plan.”
Closing my eyes against the intensity in hers, I shook my head. “You don’t understand. I’m so tired. The blood bags aren’t helping like they did in the beginning. I think something’s wrong, but I’m not sure what.”
But I did know, didn’t I? I thought maybe, perhaps, I needed to feed from a real-live person, and there was just no way I was going to do that. I’d shrivel up and die first.
That was the real reason I didn’t want my cousin to find out what was going on with me. It would break his heart to know that I essentially had come back to this place—that had once held so much hope—to wither away.
My eyelids popped open when I felt Delaney take my hands into hers. She knelt next to me and stroked my hands with her thumbs with that weird tenderness she’d been displaying that I wasn’t really accustomed to from her.
“I know, my friend. I’ve known all along that they would only help for so long. That’s why we need Lysandro. We have to figure out what else we can do.”
The deep tones of the Westminster chimes echoed through the house, startling both of us. “Who the hell could that be?” I asked frantically.
I hadn’t told anyone I was coming, and it was the middle of the damn night. Delaney’s rental was out front, but my driveway was hidden, and the mini-castle was too far back for anyone to see from the main road.
She squeezed my hands once more, then rose smoothly to her feet. “I’ll go check.” She was halfway out of the room before she turned toward me. “You told Jetty that a friend would be using the place, right?”
I nodded, scared to utter a sound, even though there was no way anyone would hear me from the front door unless I was shouting.
She held up a finger. “Wait here.”
