And he was gone.
But not before hurting Rocco and me.
My throat still ached—a deep, bruising pain that made it hard to swallow. Every breath felt like sandpaper scraping against raw flesh. But I couldn’t tell Rocco that. If he knew how much it hurt, he would have lunged at Balthazar. And Balthazar could have killed him. Or worse—taken him somewhere else to torture him.
I’d seen the terror in Rocco’s eyes when the demon appeared. Whatever Balthazar had done to him, it had left scars that ran deeper than skin.
I wouldn’t add to his guilt.
Not now.
Not ever.
Rose grabbed her phone, her fingers trembling slightly as she dialed. “Alice? Are you still in New Orleans?” She closed her eyes and sighed with relief. “Good. I need to meet with you. Can youmeet me at Bayou Jack’s?” A pause. “But don’t tell anyone. This has to stay quiet.”
Bayou Jack’s. I knew the place—a little Cajun restaurant near the water, known for its crawfish and its privacy. It was close to the lodge. Too close.
An uneasiness settled over me like a shroud.
I glanced at Rocco, saw the same worry etched into his features. “Wouldn’t they be able to track us?”
“Maybe,” he said.
Theybeing Angelo and Costin. The vampire mafia king and Dracula himself. Both wanted us dead. Both had resources that stretched across continents. Both would be hyperattentive to anything out of the ordinary—any whisper, any sighting, any hint of where we might be hiding.
The last thing I heard about Alice was that she couldn’t control her powers. How could she even help us?
Rose hung up the phone. “Valentin and I will meet with Alice, but I think you two should stay here.”
“And do what?” Rocco glared. “Wait for Costin and Enzo to track us down. Not happening. I’m not going to be in the dark anymore.”
I could see the gears turning behind his eyes—not surrender, but the frantic calculation of a man running out of moves. Fly to Transylvania, find one of four castles, take on a demon—all before midnight on the Solstice. It was impossible.
But what choice did we have?
I held his hand. “He’s right, Rose. We can’t just sit here and wait for people to make decisions for us.”
“Alice could be followed,” Valentin stated the obvious.
Rocco glared. “I don’t care. We’re coming.”
Valentin shook his head, resignation settling over his face. “It’s your funeral.”
“Maybe.” Rocco clasped my hand, his grip warm and steady despite the chaos swirling around us. “Come on. Let’s go.”
I let him pull me toward the door, my heart pounding against my ribs. I wasn’t sure this was a great idea. Angelo and Costin were ruthless. They didn’t give second chances. They didn’t show mercy.
But I also wasn’t about to let Rocco walk into danger alone. For better or worse, we were in this together.
We were at Bayou Jack’s. It was one of those places that never closed. At three in the morning, it was still half-full—night shift workers, insomniacs, and creatures like us who did their best living in the dark. The neon sign buzzed in the window, casting a red glow across the parking lot.
The smell of crawfish and Cajun spices hung heavy in the air, mixing with the low hum of conversation and the clink of glasses. We got a table in the back, away from curious eyes.
But I felt exposed. Every face in the restaurant seemed to be watching us. Every whisper felt like it was about us. I couldn’t shake the paranoia—the feeling that everybody was about to make a phone call and turn us in to two ruthless killers.
I wrapped my hands around a glass of water I had no intention of drinking, just to have something to hold onto.
The door swung open.
