Chapter One
I grippedthe steering wheel of my 1968 Beetle while Liv sobbed in the seat next to me. I had just told her that Sterling was killed and that I’d found his head in a box at Riverfront Park. Now I was following a black stretch limousine which carriedPrinceLuka and his betrothed into Vampire City.
“It’s my fault.” Liv wiped her tears on the back of her hand. “It was my idea to involve him.”
We’d all grown up together. Sterling was like a brother to Liv. This was a pain that would take a while to heal. I was too numb to feel anything right now. I still had to tell her that we had no money and weren’t entirely human. But now didn’t seem like the best time for that.
“No, Liv. We both made the decision to tell Sterling, and he made his own choices too.”
Maybe that wasn’t totally truthful, but it was the only thing getting me through this drive.
“That poisonous bitch!” Liv screamed suddenly. “I loved her!”
Maz.
The numbness fled my body, quickly replaced with a pulse of anger so strong I thought I might snap the steering wheel right off.
“Weallloved her,” I growled. “Believed in her.” I wanted to turn this car right around and drive back to the society so that I could take her head clean off.
Liv chewed on her lip. “I mean, are we sure it was her…?”
I sighed. I guess now was as good a time as any. Reaching into the back seat, I retrieved the manilla envelope Sterling had sent me and handed it to her.
“Start with his letter to me,” I told her.
She frowned, taking the papers out and finding the handwritten letter. Small gasps came from her mouth one after the other and she reached out to squeeze my leg in support. “Our money is gone?” she asked.
“Yes. I checked,” was all I said.
She lifted off the letter and went through the papers. My heart jackknifed in my chest. I should have said something, I should have maybe just verbally told her, but I was too much of a coward. Or maybe I wanted her to find out the same way I did, so I could see what conclusions she came to. So that I could make sure I wasn’t crazy, that I hadn’t jumped to the wrong conclusions.
Gasp after gasp tore from her throat until finally her hand covered her mouth. “I feel sick.”
My heart shattered. Watching someone you love go through a pain and shock you couldn’t take from them, it cut deep. Soul deep.
“Yeah … I had a similar reaction.”
“We’re not … fully human? We were bought likeslaves?” There was disbelief in her voice as she pulled back and looked at her hands as if expecting to see fey magical powers come out of them.
I just nodded, comforted that we’d come to the same conclusions.
“And Maz signed off on it!” she growled, her fists clenching.
I knew there was nothing I could say, so I stayed quiet over the next hour as she ranged between venting and screaming. Finally, she just leaned her head against the glass in a numb catatonic state.
Liv. My sweet sister, best friend. I wanted to console her, but I was in the same depressed and disbelieving state, so all I could do was be there as we both processed this new reality together.
We’d already crossed the border into Idaho, and now made our way past Coeur d’Alene and up the I95 toward Bonners Ferry.
When the limo pulled off at an unmarked exit, I followed. I hadn’t really paid attention the last time I’d been in Magic City. I’d been flown in under sedation and Sage and Walsh had driven me out in a barely conscious state. Now that I was paying attention, I saw that there was a weird shimmer to the air on the far right, like a dome or bubble. We turned off the main road and onto a dirt road in the direction of the shimmering tree line. After a long winding road through the thick forest, we came upon a giant wrought iron gate.
There was a man sitting there, on a chair in the middle of nowhere, reading a book. He looked human, but now I wondered. As Luka’s limo approached, the man put down his book and stepped over to peer inside their car. I looked at the man more closely, the way he walked, the paleness to his skin.
Vampire.
I had that involuntary inward cringe and then chastised myself. It would take a while before the mental conditioning I’d been exposed to all my life wore down. He was a vampire, yes, but that didn’t mean he was evil.
The limo pulled through the gates and then he waved us inside as well without so much as a second glance. Luka must have told him he needed hisfeeder.
