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“Madrigal,” Venom said. “I’m truly sorry for your loss, but Griffin was killed during time of war. Revenge for his death won’t be sanctioned, no matter your position.”
“I am Leonardo now, young Venom.”
I long ago learned that the vampires who’re so old they make your bones hurt have a habit of disregarding a mere shapeshifter who couldn’t possibly pose a threat.
And so, while he was talking to Venom, I rushed in from just behind his peripheral vision, pulling my Emerson Wave knife from my pocket and sinking it into his back. I left it in, pulled my pistol from the waist holster as I rotated around, and was about to shoot him in the chest with silver bullets when he was just suddenly gone.
“I put silver in his heart. He shouldn’t have been able to move that fast.” But he had, so we needed to focus on the original problem — finding and retrieving Madeline.
“Can you track Madeline?” I asked Holly.
She pulled a phone from her pocket, opened an app, and turned it so I could see the phone.
“Nice. Okay, let’s go retrieve your girl.”
We took off at a run, and at around a dozen steps, Marco was suddenly back in my head. I breathed out in relief while I telepathed, They have Madeline. I put a knife into the back of a really old vampire. Venom called him Madrigal, but he called himself Leonardo. He’s gone. We’re tracking Madeline with an app on Holly’s phone.
Marco flew in and landed in front of us, noted I still had my gun in my hand, and focused on each of us, one at a time, before saying, “We want to avoid pissing Leonardo off, if possible. Etta says no one is watching Madeline while they prepare to pull the knife from Leonardo’s back. I’ll go help Etta get the girl back. All of you head back to our suite. I’ll meet you there.”
“Any chance I can get my knife back?” I asked.
He took off, and he was gone so fast, it probably looked to most people as if he disappeared, but I could sense his movement.
And then he telepathed the answer to my question. I’ll buy you a hundred knives if you’ll forget the one you lost.
* * * *
Marco
Cora had buried a knife into the heart of one of the strongest vampires on the planet, if not the strongest vampire on the planet, and now I was obligated to retrieve a human from him.
While I flew, I sent a quick telepath to Bran. Leonardo took Madeline, and Cora sank a knife into his heart from the back. He left with the knife still embedded. The damned thing is fucking silver.
He’ll survive a single puncture, no problem. Where is he?
Holly has Madeline’s location on her phone.
I telepathed him an image of what the phone had shown, and then let him see what I was looking at — Leonardo drinking from Madeline, shirtless, his back completely healed.
In for a penny, in for a pound. I wasn’t going to fight this vampire and win, so I’d try talking to him.
I came to light on the ground about ten yards away and said, “I apologize for my wolf’s reflexes. She’s a warrior, and she fights anyone who challenges her, or anyone who takes people she’s responsible for.”
Leonardo pulled his fangs from Madeline’s neck, licked the wound, and met my gaze.
“What made her feel responsible for a vampire’s food?”
“Madeline’s owner, Bran, asked my people to keep her safe while he attended the meeting.”
“And where is her owner?”
“He’s on his way. Lugat can’t travel as fast as Strigorii.”
“I’m here,” Bran said from the doorway as he stepped into the courtyard. “Madeline is mine, Leonardo. I understand you became attached to her on her last visit, but she wishes to live in America, and my promise to her was that I’d bring her home after her time here was up. She is an indentured servant and not a slave, so she isn’t mine to give permanently. I have several slaves I own outright, and I’d be happy to sell you any of them.”
Alaric flew into the courtyard and landed beside Bran, but I didn’t know if this would help things or make them worse.
“I know you grew fond of the human while she was here,” Alaric told Leonardo, “but she was on loan, and she’s no longer available to either of us. We have too much happening for you to cause problems with our allies over a human.”
