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I yanked my hand away, nearly stumbling backward as he let me go.
“Pity you’ll never have any more,” I said, ready to use mind-bending if necessary.
Carmichael cocked his head. “Never without your permission. But I predict a day will come soon where you will be offering yourself to me willingly.”
“Good thing I’m the psychic then, because that fortune is crap.” I refused to call Julian. I could handle this.
“Perhaps.” Carmichael gestured toward the body of his pledge, and I forced myself to look as he led us closer. “By the way, I saw you the other night. I was going to say hello, but you and your sister stepped through her portal too quickly.”
I froze, foot lifted in mid-step, pulse pounding so hard I could hear it in my head. Carmichael grinned again, just outside the circle of blood.
“Everything alright, Doctor? Oh, you must be concerned about someone learning of your sister’s talents. The general would certainly be interested. Of course, I can think of quite a few people not on the island that would love to get their hands on someone like her.”
Fuck.
“You will no—”
Carmichael’s hand was over my mouth so fast I squeaked. “I’ve taken certain precautions in case you use your…gifts on me. I have informed two other individuals who are in my power. They have already been glamoured to reveal the information if my mind is bent. Yes, I can do that.” He let go and stepped back, wiping his hands against each other.
“You can’t,” I said dumbly. Of course, he could.
“I’m sure we can come up with some sort of arrangement,” Carmichael said, pulling me in with an arm so we faced the carnage that had begun to smell.
Pressing a hand to my nose, I turned away from the filmy eyes that swayed just feet away.
“It’s a shame my pledge is dead. I’ll have to find a new one soon.” Carmichael’s fingers dug into my arm, but he let go and was suddenly on the opposite side of the tree and Michelle’s hanging body.
I turned as Julian appeared beside me.
“Charlotte, are you alright?” he asked, seeing my expression, which I could only imagine.
“How could I be with that?” I said, gesturing toward the body.
With a gust of wind, Julian disappeared and reappeared with Michelle’s body in his arms. He lay her on the grass away from the scene and me, running a hand over her eyes to close them.
“Please have the body sent to the lab at the base. With dignity,” he said to Carmichael. “Let’s go.”
I wanted to argue, to go inside and find Lydia. But it was all I could manage to stay upright on the path. I could feel Carmichael’s eyes on me the whole way back to the car, his unspoken threat heavy in the air.
Be his pledge or he’d hand my sister to the highest bidder.
Chapter 9
Fri-yay
My dreams weren’t pleasant ones. In them, Julian found out about Carmichael’s threat and pulled his head off. Then he knelt before me and offered it to me as a pledge of undying love on the steps of the vampire estate.
Clearly, I was worried about sharing the information with him since I had suspicions I’d continued to ignore about the “accidental” deaths of the men he’d had in custody who’d hurt me.
On the ride home, Julian refused to elaborate on whoever it was he’d spoken to inside the estate. Instead, he kept changing the subject back to Lydia, encouraging me to give her space until she contacted me. I didn’t like it, but all I could focus on was the threat Carmichael wielded against my family.
Still shaken by that and the dream, I put on some extra makeup to cover the circles under my eyes and floated through the morning, including the follow-up EEG with Dr. Orpheus. Even as he drew several vials of blood, I remained zombie-like. I didn’t really come out of my stupor until I stepped in the elevator and he spoke up.
“Monday, we will have access to the machine I mentioned. I can’t wait to see what happens.”
The doors closed on Orpheus rubbing his hands together in excitement.
My life was more out of control than usual, and that was saying something since the attack on my lab that started everything.
