She’d gotten away. She’d survived. There were important things left to accomplish. But right now, all she felt was grief.
Beckham was really gone.
And she had to find a way to live with that.
…
Beep, beep, beep.
Reyna awoke in a burst of fear and desperation. For a second, she didn’t remember where she was. It was as if she was put back into that prison cell beneath Visage, where she lived as a blood bag for that monster Harrington. She could distinctly remember lying there, an IV in her arm and the familiar sound of the heart rate monitor beeping noisily after she had been kidnapped.
Visage had appeared to the outside world as a benevolent company that saved them in the midst of the great recession. Vampires came out of the darkness with the invention of the blood type cure, which was less a cure and more a Band-Aid. Vampires drank from specific humans that matched their blood type, and it curbed their baser tendencies. It created “men” like Harrington and Roland.
Reyna had only recently found out that much of what she had thought she had known was a lie. Some vampires were already predisposed to higher cognitive function. Harringtonand the three vampire lords he’d recruited—Cassandra, Roland, and Beckham—had engineered the recession for the purpose of starting Visage. To take over the world.
And they were winning.
Now only Harrington and Roland remained. Beckham had killed Cassandra. And Beckham…
Reyna opened her eyes to dispel the lingering feeling of unease. She was in a quaint little house on the outskirts of the city. She wasn’t at Visage. She wasn’t still kidnapped. Everything was all right.
Except, it wasn’t.
Beckham was…dead.
“You’re up,” a voice said behind her.
Reyna shot to her feet and whirled around. She was still wrapped in Beckham’s jacket. Roger Washington stood in jeans and a high-neck sweater. She had never seen him look so normal. He was the vampire doctor who had invented the blood type cure in the first place. He’d worked with Harrington for years before turning coat and helping Elle.
He had determined that she and Beckham were a perfect blood match. A once-in-a-lifetime pair whose blood matched the other’s blood composition, the equivalent to a soul mate.
“I’m up,” she said softly.
“I’m so thrilled that you made it out. I was asleep when you came in last night and missed everything,” Washington said.
Reyna sank back into the couch. “Do you have any word on what happened with the bunker?”
Washington shook his head as he poured himself some coffee. He held the pot up to her in offering. She nodded. “Unfortunately, I know no more than you do. Sydney sent me out of the bunker to separate all of Elle’s high command as a precaution, so I was already here when I got word.” He crossed the living room and handed her the coffee. She took a long sip,shuddering against the bitterness. “How did last night go?”
“It was a disaster.”
“I’m sorry for that, Reyna.”
Sorry. He was sorry. Washington couldn’t have changed the outcome, but it still rankled her.
“You don’t understand. Harrington won. Penelope is a vampire.” She hated the taste of Penelope’s name in her mouth after she’d fucking double-crossed them. Penelope’s “love” for Beckham had turned her rotten and in the end, she had doomed them all. “And Beckham…” She couldn’t force the words out. Her heart felt as if it were being ripped from her chest all over again. “He’s…he’s dead. Harrington killed him.”
“I didn’t realize. Is there anything I can do?” he asked cautiously.
“No,” she said, letting her anger extinguish. It wasn’t his fault that Beckham was dead. The only blame belonged to Harrington.
Washington held his hand out as if he was going to try to comfort her, try to say something to make it better. But perhaps his years had shown him what could and could not be fixed. Because he let his hand drop and closed his mouth. He didn’t look at her with pity like the others. Only with deep understanding. And somehow that was worse.
Why did it have to be this way? It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair, and she had never expected it to be. Not when her parents had died when she was eight, or when her alcoholic uncle had abandoned them three years later, or even during the weary years living in the Warehouse District. It had been a tough life, but she had always had highlights. Her brothers and Beckham. Now she was alone.
“Hey, I thought I heard voices out here,” Meghan said, appearing from the hallway. There were hollows under her eyes. She looked bedraggled and defeated. It was not a sight Reynawas used to seeing on her. “Everything okay?”
“Reyna was filling me in on what happened yesterday,” Washington said.
