If only the same were true for their morale as they drove the remains of their broken rebellion from the city.
Chapter Three
They weren’t pursued.
Reyna couldn’t believe it.
She was sure that someone would look at their vehicle and assume it held rebels. But no, they drove out of the neighborhood and onto the open roads without a hassle. Tye listened to the police scanner and narrowly missed a roadblock or two, but once they got on the interstate, the coast was clear.
Tension hung heavy in the SUV, and it was a silent hour before Washington finally directed them off the main roads and onto a long bumpy drive. Once they moved from under a copse of trees, they came upon a large iron gate.
Reyna’s eyebrows rose and she leaned forward to get a better look at it. The gate was straight out of some Victorian period piece. As if it should be a dark and stormy night with lightning announcing their entrance instead of a bitter cold but sunny New Year’s Day.
Tye punched in a passcode and the gates creaked apart slowly. Very slowly.
They inched forward onto the grounds. Everyone was rubbernecking, trying to figure out where the hell Washington had brought them. They passed what must have once been lush gardens but were now overgrown and ignored. And after a couple more minutes, they got their answer.
A circular drive ended right before a three-story stone mansion.
“What is this place?” Reyna asked as they came to a halt.
“Yeah. I’ve never seen this in any records,” Meghan said.
“It’s not in any records,” Washington said. “It’s my home.”
“Does Harrington know about it?” Reyna asked, terrorsuddenly lancing through her.
“Yes, but he would never in a million years suspect that I would come back here. I haven’t stepped foot in it in fifteen years.”
“Why?”
He glanced back at her. “Because my wife was killed here.”
Then he opened the door and slid out of the SUV. They looked at one another in confusion and sorrow before following him. Reyna’s feet hit the gravel drive, and she stared up at the imposing structure. Vines covered much of the entrance. The stonework, which must have once been beautiful, had deteriorated from the elements. Reyna could see at least one window that was broken, and a tree had fallen into the roof on one corner of the building. Would they have running water? Electricity? The house had clearly been built long before those things existed.
“We left forthis,” Gabe voiced what everyone was thinking. They might have had no choice, but some run-down old mansion didn’t seem like the salvation they’d been looking for.
Tye stretched his lean muscles out. “Looks like a piece of shit.”
“I can hear you,” Washington said. He had ambled up to the entrance and was prying the front door open.
“We know,” Gabe said with a grin. “Doesn’t change the appearance of this place.”
“I’ll have you know that I have had this home since after the turn of the nineteenth century,” Washington said, turning his nose up at them. “It has come a long way since 1805.”
Reyna’s mouth fell open. She sometimes forgot how old vampires could be. Beckham was so young for a vampire and yet he still was sixty-seven. The thought hit her like a sucker punch to the stomach.
Past tense.
He’d been so young. He had been sixty-seven. He was no longer.
She squeezed her eyes shut and rode out the pain until it subsided. It was easier in the moments when she didn’t have to think about the immediate consequences of him being gone. It was hard to wrap her brain around the fact that he wasn’t about to walk up the drive with his usual stoic look and burning broody passion.
“Hey,” Meghan said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
Reyna didn’t want to think or talk about her feelings. “Let’s just get inside.”
She followed Washington into the cavernous interior of his turn-of-the-nineteenth-century mansion. The foyer had vaulted ceilings that reached up to an impossible height. It was dark inside and when Washington reached for the lights, only a few flickered on, casting the entire place with an eerie glow.
