“Can you dance right now?”
He blinked at her. “You want to save your little friends, Ipresume. They are the reason that you’re in my office. Your little rebellion has failed. TheLon your shirt means nothing. You have accomplished nothing. Except to kill everyone that you care about. Is that what you want? To be the last of your kind?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” Harrington leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of him. “You are as self-sacrificing as you have ever been. You would do anything to save your friends and your precious Beckham.”
“God, you really love to hear yourself talk, don’t you? Couldn’t you have curbed that desire since we last met?” Reyna cursed and crossed her arms. “You’re right. Okay? I would do anything to save them, but I’m not here to be self-sacrificing. I’m here to kill you.”
Harrington laughed and Roland joined in along with him. Apparently, she was a fucking riot.
“Kill me,” Harrington said, patting his chest. “Oh Reyna, you always do surprise me.”
“You couldn’t lay a hand on him before he’d snap your neck,” Roland threatened.
“Except he needs me. So, we both know he’s not going to kill me.”
“Ah, but you are easily incapacitated,” Harrington said. “You’re a human.”
Reyna held her breath. She needed to stay in control. She needed to get this over with. She didn’t want to stand here and give him more time to figure out a different way to stop her. Her eyes flitted to Roland’s. He was another complication she’d have to figure out.
“Come quietly, Reyna, and I can make this all stop,” Harrington offered, holding his hands wide.
He believed that he was being benevolent. That was the real kicker. He was so past recognizing his own evil that he believedthat the ends always justified the means. And in this case, he would doanythingto get Reyna. He would do anything to take Visage to the next level, and if that meant subjugating every human in the entire world, he wouldn’t even think twice.
“I won’t lose,” Reyna told him, lifting her chin. “I won’t surrender.”
At some point, the scales had tipped. His ego had gotten in the way. He’d won so many times that he didn’t believe himself capable of losing. So when he looked down with a little huff of laughter she wasn’t surprised that all he said was, “Such a disappointment.”
Reyna rolled her eyes. Same old, same old. “I think I finally understand you.” She dropped her hands at her sides and took a step forward. “All this time I spent trying to anticipate your next move, all I did was learn your board. I see past the big bad monster to the man beyond the mask.”
“Go on,” Harrington said. He waved his hand in front of him and then leaned forward earnestly as if he were placating a child.
“You were Washington’s best friend. You nurtured your friendship until you could use him. He created your blood type cure and asked for nothing in return. You rewarded him with a bomb on his house. You had his Elisa murdered in cold blood for being a visionary and then stole her ideas for your own aims. You were a thoughtful, intelligent man. Yet you discarded everyone you deemed unimportant. You treated Beckham like a prodigal son and yet you had his sister chained up for more than a decade to use against him. You held me against my will. I bet you even have someone that Roland cares about locked away somewhere.”
Roland narrowed his eyes at the insinuation but didn’t press the issue. It was good enough that she had him thinking.
“Brava,”Harrington said. “You have a warped view of my history.”
“I’m not finished.” He arched an eyebrow. “You are manipulative, destructive, highly intelligent, and most of all, single-minded.”
“Single-minded?” Harrington laughed. “Shall I bring out my chessboard for you, my little queen? I can assure you I have many aims.”
Reyna shook her head. “No. This is where you are different. This is where you fail time and time again. The only thing you have ever cared about in all of your days as a vampire is your own blood.”
Reyna held up the cut that Bronwyn had given her and dug in until it flowed freely again. “Myblood.”
“Hardly.”
Roland hissed behind Harrington as he drew in a deep breath, but it was Harrington whose eyes were glued to her arm. To the blood he so craved.
“Which makes it a weakness. One you have attempted to cover the severity of for centuries.”
Harrington scoffed as if what she said had no merit. But it was his reaction that proved it did.
“Your very rare blood type coupled with a blood disease is a weakness.” Reyna took a step to the side, slowly circling him in the way she had witnessed Beckham do to unnerve others. She’d had long conversations with Genevieve about Harrington, listening carefully to everything she knew about the man. Taking it in and absorbing it for this moment. “You were a sickly child.”
“You know nothing of my childhood,” Harrington quipped.
