Breathe in.
The scent of bergamot floats on the air. The merest trace—and it reminds me of Kayla.
Without a thought, I spin, following the trail down hallways, pushing past workers who saunter along. Vampires. All of them. Maybe it’s just this floor, maybe it isn’t, but I smell the difference.
Not that I care. If my friend’s here, I’m finding her. The scent gets stronger as I head to a locked door.
I’m so focused I don’t notice someone near me, not until Lucian grabs my arm. “Where are you going?”
I glare at him, trying to tug free. “None of your business.”
He doesn’t release me. “This is my company,” he says. “Everything’s my business.”
“You left the elevator open as, what? A trap?” Anger drips from every word, need does too, and I fight the softness fromearlier on the sofa in his bedroom, the magnetic want my body feels whenever he’s close.
“No. To show I’m beginning to trust you, and I expect the same back, Elliot.”
“I…” I stop. “What is this floor?”
“This is security, and Vittoria’s domain. There’s nothing for you here.”
He starts to pull me with him, but I fight him, digging in my heels. “No. I smelled something. Kayla’s perfume.”
“It isn’t her.”
“No one else I know wears it.”
A muscle twitches in his jaw. “She can’t be the only person in the world who wears it.”
“It’s Kayla. I know it is.”
“It isn’t.”
“How do you know!”
He closes his eyes for a moment. “Because your friend is dead.”
Fury still curls around me. Grief, too. As well as disbelief.
I sit in the limousine opposite of Lucian. I can’t think of anything else but his words, how final they were.
How long has he known?
That doesn’t matter. He knew and he never told me. He made me think there was a chance…
“You lied.”
Lucian sighs, hands on his thighs in his suit that’s the color of blood at midnight, and lifts his eyes to me. “I omitted.”
“Same thing,” I snap. Right when I was trying to trust him. “How did it happen?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.” I push the word through clenched teeth. “It does.”
“It was an accident,” he says. “She got drained. It wasn’t meant to happen.”
“By you?”
