Adriadne is the only human Vittoria ever changed, and she has been working as her personal assistant ever since, meant to do the mundane things like water the plants when needed or alphabetize paperwork.
“What, Lucian?”
The shortness of her tone tells me everything I want to know.
“Why did she at first reject and then finally approve an internship for Kayla Evans? And why is that the end of her paper trail?”
She stares at me, this time with a serving of loathing.
“I’ll call Adriadne up here and ask her myself?—”
“Dead,” Vittoria snaps, crossing her arms. “That’s because Kayla is dead.”
I close my eyes for a moment. “Fuck, Vittoria. Are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure. She’s dead.”
“How?” I clench my jaw.
She just smiles. “Because I ate her.”
Chapter
Nine
Elliot
I’m furious.
At being locked up in his palace in the sky, at the computer now not working. Lucian’s locked it all down.
Yeah, sure. He isn’t keeping anything from me.
My stomach twists.
Maybe if Lucian didn’t starve me, I wouldn’t be chasing down every human that passes me. He’s making this worse, setting me up for failure.
Ugh.
There’s the bullshit blood in the fridge and the protein bars in the fruit bowl on the counter.
I snatch one up and with a growl rip it open with my teeth.
Fuck this. Fuck being his prisoner.
Taking a bite, I pick up a priceless-looking statuette and smash it against the wall. Then I take another mouthful.
I only become aware of the tremors when they stop and go away. The lust for blood is receding, and while I know I’ll need todrink the real stuff eventually, right now the protein bars do the trick.
I hate that Lucian was right.
Finally, I come back to my own mind, and while I’m still angry, I can think. I take a breath. These mood swings are getting a little easier to deal with, and the urge for blood something I’m slowly learning to control, but I need to do something that’s away from the computer, just for a few minutes, so I go back into the vast main bedroom and rip off the clothes I chose.
Vittoria didn’t bring up just the pants and top. There are jeans, business clothes, dresses. I choose one of those, something so unlike what I normally wear, and it pleases me.
When I feel normal enough—or as close to normal as someone might feel under the circumstances—I make my way back to the study.
Even though I already checked, I pull open the drawers of his desk again, looking for anything that might look like a code for the elevator or a map for the emergency stairs.
