Page 58 of The Duke’s Bloody Bargain

That bloody hurt. Deservedly so.

She was about to say something else when loud voices came from downstairs.

“What now?” I gritted my teeth and headed for the stairs.

Irene followed me. Her hair fell to her waist, and I wanted to stroke it and run my fingers through it.

In the entrance hall, Darius was holding a crying Myrtha and patting her back, which was another shock. The queen of the wilis, who hated all men on Earth, was letting Darius hold her.

“What happened?” Irene touched her shoulder.

“Lucy is dead.” Myrtha wiped her cheeks, putting some distance between herself and Darius.

Irene clamped a hand over her mouth. “What?”

“Why? What happened?” I couldn’t remove the quiver from my voice. “Lucy was improving.”

Myrtha shook her head. “Her disease took a turn for the worse quickly. She started to convulse and shiver. Her temperature rose in a moment. She said that she was thirsty. Knight’s men were convinced she was turning into a vampire.”

“How is that possible?” Irene asked Darius. “The symptoms of a vampire bite don’t get better. Why did her condition worsen so quickly? The transformation doesn’t work like that, does it?”

Darius chewed his lower lip. “No, it doesn’t.”

Myrtha wrung her handkerchief. “One of Knight’s werewolves came and stabbed Lucy with a blessed stake. He said that if she died, it would be proof she was a vampire, and I told that oaf that a stake through the heart would kill anyone. I tried to turn her into a wili, but it didn’t work. She wasn’t betrayed and killed by a man she trusted.”

Or Myrtha’s power wasn’t strong enough. But that wasn’t the moment to say it.

“Did Knight agree to the killing?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so, but Lucy’s worsening condition started a hysteria in Whitechapel. The werewolves who visited her regularly panicked. They didn’t listen to anything I said. I sent a footman to Raven Hall to search for you, and he returned to inform me you were here. He looked terrified.”

Glittering lights flickered around Darius, a sign that his magic was slowly returning. “I would agree with the werewolves.”

“What?” Myrtha glowered.

He held up a hand. “The return of Lucy’s fever and shivers might be the sign of the beginning of the transformation. One thing I know.” He didn’t sound pleased. “Stabbing Lucy is going to be pointless if she’s supposed to rise as a vampire.”

“Really?” Myrtha brightened. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s say that poor Lucy was truly going to turn into a vampire. Killing her with a stake through the heart before her transformation, when she was still human, wouldn’t kill the vampire inside her. It would kill only her human part.”

I frowned. “How is that possible? A blessed stake through the heart is the most effective weapon to kill a vampire.”

More light glowed around him. “Before you turned, you had to die. Usually, it’s the transformation that kills you the moment it begins, but vampirism isn’t finicky. If a human destined to turn dies of other causes, vampirism will simply take that to its advantage and proceed with the transformation. Had the werewolf waited for Lucy to become a vampire, if that were the case, the stake would have truly killed her.”

“Can she rise again?” Irene asked.

He seemed happy to finally know something and have everyone’s attention. “Yes, if she is meant to, if Bethlen bit her three times and she drank his blood.”

“I should have asked Bethlen if he’d meant to turn Lucy,” I said. “He said he fed from her.”

I’d been too focused on the thirst to think clearly.

“When is she going to rise if she’s meant to?” Myrtha fixed her gaze on him.

He opened a notebook and flipped through the pages. His notes made no sense. Too many arrows and doodles.

“It’s difficult to say. Everyone is different. Vampirism is like a disease. Some people succumb to it quickly. Others are more resistant. In your case, Alex, the transformation was quick, exacerbated by Rothbart beating you. You died, you turned. There are cases of people who turned after hours, weeks, or even months after they died. Sometimes they have to claw their way out of a coffin and six feet of soil. And Lucy’s parents were werewolves. Even if she’d never shown any signs of shape shifting, she wasn’t human, which explains her strange improvement. She might turn even without the three bites. Who knows? But…” He lifted a finger. “If you kill your sire now, Lucy won’t rise, no matter what. She’ll remain dead.”