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“Take me to her.”
Vera agrees, but she points to Cora and Galina. “But they have to stay here.”
“Done,” he barks, ignoring Cora’s gasp and Galina’s muttering.
* * *
Two hours later,Caleb and Vera speed along the highway in a large SUV, racing toward the place where Maddy has gone. Just as she asked, they’re the only two in the vehicle.
“How far is it?” Caleb asks.
Cora and Galina kept asking to “have a word with him” and “speak with him alone.” But he ignored their obvious worry, loaded into the driver’s seat of a vehicle with Vera, and took off toward Maddy.
“How far is it?” Caleb repeats.
But Vera doesn’t answer. Instead, a light snore comes from the passenger seat, and Caleb swallows back an irritated groan. Odd how this vampire sleeps with her eyes open, at least in the car, so he nudges her. How Vera can sleep while Maddy is in a strange place with strangers…
He nudges the sleeping vampire again, continuing until she snorts and wakes.
Caleb taps the steering wheel repetitively and changes lanes on the northbound highway to pass a slower driver. The drive isn’t going quickly enough, and he should have demanded Vera make a portal of some kind. “Are we still headed in the right direction?”
She tucks her hair behind her ear, peers out the window, and then glances back to Caleb. “You’ll head west toward the next town over in about five exits.”
“Where are we going? To Malcolm’s?”
“No.” She avoids answering Caleb’s most important question, and he smashes the accelerator.
“Are you working for Malcolm?” he demands.
She shakes her head. “No, I don’t work for Malcolm. We want to stop him.”
“Then who are you helping?”
The silence in the vehicle turns oppressive, and he waits for the answer. Finally, Vera’s shoulders droop. “I’m helping the Faeries. They needed the blood of a vampire-warlock hybrid to free themselves. That’s why I turned Maddy and why I needed her blood.”
“So, where’s Maddy?”
“She’s with the Faeries, and they’re hunting for a weapon that could destroy Orion once and for all. That’s why we need your help.” She reads a sign as it passes overhead. “Next left.”
“Got it.” Caleb hits the blinker and eases off the highway to the left. “So, we’re headed to the Faerie lair?”
“Something like that,” Vera answers. “It’s not far now. When we get there, Sylvan will have more knowledge about your powers.”
Caleb wants to demand more information—about the portal, about Maddy, about the weapon, about the plan. He has a thousand questions he doesn’t feel he can ask, but none of it matters. All the answers make no difference to his life. He needs Maddy, and that’s the whole reason he’s in this vehicle, on this highway, with this vampire.
He needs Maddy.
But as his brain churns through none-stop overthinking, he must admit he’s deeply worried. He’s certain Maddy’s being used and manipulated by the Faeries.
And Caleb can’t quite shake the feeling that he’s being manipulated, too.
Chapter7
Madeleine
Maddy sinks her fangs into another blood bag one of the Fae had brought for her after she arrived with Sylvan. She draws on the metallic liquid, simultaneously loving it and hating it. It nourishes her in a way she never would have volunteered for. But it fills in the hollow ache in her middle and centers her mind. She tosses the empty into what she hopes is a wastebasket beneath the circular table in the center of the grand foyer and grabs another from the pile. Thankfully, she had five of them when she started. She peers down the long hallway without slowing her consumption, listening for footfalls.
After she polishes off the last two, she paces in the two-story entrance of the Fae safehouse, smoothing her hands over the dark mahogany paneling and the built-in cabinetry. When a drop of blood smears, she curses and tries to wipe it off. She feels like a two-year-old making a mess with her dinner. She considers the last bag on the small table, trying to decide whether or not to eat it, too. Finally, she scoops it up and drains it. Five pints…maybe half a grown person’s worth. How long will it tide her over? She has so many questions about being a vampire and no one to reliably answer them.
