Page 36 of Imprisoned with the Vampire King

Whenever I was strong enough to manage it.

Which was going to be much sooner than I'd thought, now that I had some power again.

Or maybe it would be much later. Because I also now had a vampire mate who would depend on me for blood (and hopefully nothing else) for the rest of our immortal lives.

There were people at the desk in the lobby, but they recognized me from when I'd gone in. One tossed me my car keys. I didn't manage to catch them, but I picked them up off the floor, suddenly exhausted in every way there was.

"What happened to you?" Dante asked, his voice low.

He didn't need to provide any more context. The question was clearly about me and River.

There was no point in hiding the truth. Not from Dante. Not anymore. Our fucking souls were connected, and River was mated to one of his best friends on top of it. Someone was going to tell him the truth. Might as well be me.

"Our dad abused me my whole life, in pretty much every way. River was older, and didn't live with us. I didn't see him often. Only a few times a year. When I was a teenager and finally got up the nerve to ask him for help, he didn't believe me. The next time I spoke up, it went to an angelic court. They declared me unstable for making the accusation at all."

I gave Dante a small, unamused smile. "They refused to investigate because of his political position, and put me completely under his control due to insanity. Falling was my only way out. I fell, I broke out, and I came to Rumor. It was being built around then, and was all over the news."

"When I got here, I went to Merrily Fall for help. She killed my father for me, after he followed me to the city. I built the prison for him before that, but it wasn't done in time. When River followed my dad here, I threw him in the penitentiary instead. Haven't really done relationships of any kind since then."

Dante stared at me.

Just stared. Like he didn't know what to say.

Considering I was pretty sure he'd grown up at least reasonably content, I wasn't surprised that he didn't know what to say.

I lifted two fingers in a salute. "See you when you're hungry, I guess."

I turned away, and I walked toward the parking lot.

Despite everything that had just happened, every part of me except my chest felt lighter now that I had a little magic.

I felt alive, again.

And finally, I got to be alone.

…At least, I got to be alone for two seconds.

River plunged out of the sky and landed a few feet in front of me, releasing Jazz from his arms.

Dante was at my side almost as fast, though he refrained from touching me for once.

"We need to use your phone to call Grayson," Jazz said. "The mansion is too far for River to fly to after being imprisoned for so long, and we have no money or way to call a car."

Oh.

Fantastic.

"I don't have a phone," I said.

None of them replied immediately.

"You... don't have a phone?" Dante finally asked.

"Nope."

"How do you keep in contact with people?" Jazz countered.

"I don't keep in contact with people."