Eventide

Part One Seized

I can still hear the human screams inside my head. Demented, painful screams of pure torture and desperation. Behind my closed eyes, the slaughter at the Tunnel 9 Club rages red with human blood. It’ll stay with me forever. All of this will.

With my strength weakened—even the tendencies I’ve acquired from being bitten by vampires aren’t enough right now—I can do little more than open my eyes and rest my forehead against the window of Victorian Arcos’s Jag. Pitch blackness stares back at me. We’re on I-16, heading north out of Savannah to Atlanta. A sign that says DUBLIN, NEXT THREE EXITS flashes by, so I know we’ve been on the road for about two hours. Is that all? Seems like a lot longer. There’s nothing to look at except billboards, so I stare blankly into the night. My other tendencies are still present, like my sense of smell, and I can detect the burnt grease from a truck-stop grill permeating the air. The pungent musk of perfume wafts on the wind. And it must have recently rained because the scent of hot wet tar rises to a choking pitch. I concentrate and turn my high sense of smell off. It irritates me. Right now, everything irritates me. Victorian has me under his control. I’ve been taken against my will. So I do nothing but stare mindlessly into oblivion. It seems to help.

Time passes. Everything becomes a blur. I want to throw open the door and jump, but my limbs are numb, limp, lifeless, as if I’ve sat in one position for too long and they’ve fallen asleep. He’s incapacitated me with his freaky vampiric mind control, and it royally pisses me off. There isn’t a damn thing I can do about it, despite my own powers. I still try to move other parts of my body; nothing works except my head, my eyes, and eyelids. Involuntary muscles, like the ones for breathing, work to keep me alive. I am totally paralyzed. And not at all surprised.

Victorian’s knuckles brush my jaw, and his hand lingers against my skin in a caress. I want to slap it away. But strangely, it comforts me. “I’m sorry,” he says, and his voice is so heavy with regret, I almost believe him. “I don’t like holding you against your will, Riley.” I look at him, and he glances at me as the headlights of an oncoming vehicle flash across his beautiful young face. “Truly. Nothing would please me more than for you to come willingly. To trust me. But you’re as predictable as you are beautiful, I’m afraid.” He smiles, and his teeth radiate an inhuman whiteness in the shadows of the Jag. Only the fluorescent glare of the stereo illuminates his features. “Besides. I have to drive.”

Victorian Arcos. Moving my eyes in his direction, I stare at him. Sharp, aristocratic features and long black hair pulled back into a queue remind me of someone who’d once dueled with pistols long ago. I want to hate his guts. A centuries-old Romanian strigoi vampire, he and his brother, Valerian, were once entombed in a grave by my Gullah grandfather’s ancestors. Now they’re free, thanks to my brother, Seth, and his rowdy friends, who inadvertently set loose the dangerous vampire brothers. Valerian is pure evil, and he’s taken Savannah and Charleston by murderous, bloodlust-fueled storm.

Vic, though…He’s a bit different. I don’t particularly trust him, but he’s not a psychotic killer like his brother. And for some reason, even though Victorian has used his strigoi mind powers to force me to leave with him, I can’t hate him. I know that he’s trying to protect me.

I left behind pure carnage at the club. If Victorian hadn’t come for me, I would have stayed and fought. I left behind a lot of loved ones, left them to fight without my help, and I feel like shit about it. I should’ve been there. Period. But Victorian wouldn’t hear of it.

Why would Victorian want to protect me, you ask? I still don’t know the answer. There is a connection between us, live and palpable, and he knows it as much as I do. I think it goes beyond the DNA we share. He and Valerian bit me and injected me with their toxins, connecting me to both of them. It’s what gave me these tendencies. Their rare strigoi vampire bloodline makes me even more unpredictable than your average human with tendencies. Don’t ask me to explain it any more than that. All I know is that I now have crazy superhuman powers, which Preacher, my Gullah surrogate grandfather, says will evolve over time.

“How’d you get a Jag, much less learn to drive?” I ask, curious.

“I taught myself. Not much to it really. As for the car, I obtained it the same way that I got you to sit so polite and still,” he answers. “Power of suggestion.”

I glare at him. “You stole it.”

Victorian sighs and gives a single nod. “I stole it.”

A few moments pass in silence. I try to move my hand toward the door handle. I summon all of my strength, so much that I shake inside, but it’s no use. Still paralyzed. The thought crosses my mind that Victorian could totally take advantage of me in my motionless state. He could touch me, rape me. No, wait. He possesses the power of suggestion. He could make me want to have crazy nasty sex with him, and I’d do it. He could even drain my blood. Yet, he doesn’t. Why is that? Why is he taking me away? And more to the point—where? I’d asked him earlier, and he’d simply said, “When the time is right, I’ll tell you.” Those questions and more pull at my brain as weariness overcomes me. The world fades away as my lids close over my eyes. For a while, I rest. As I drift off, I feel Victorian smoothing back the hair from my face.

I don’t know how long I sleep before the visions take over, but they, too, trap me just as easily as Victorian’s mind control. Behind my closed lids I lie awake, once again envisioning the macabre bloodbath we’d left behind hours ago at Tunnel 9. With a forceful jab, my senses kick in, and in my dream state I slip under just enough to return to that place of horror. Just outside of my dream state, I can hear “24” by Jem filtering faintly from Victorian’s stereo through my auditory senses. Soon the music shifts within my dream state, my body seems to float, and I know the music now comes from the surround sound at Tunnel 9. It’s sifting through the hazy room filled with humans. They dance, moving to the music, rubbing their bodies seductively against each other. Invisible, I look around. Most are high as a frickin’ kite. Some are just sex-crazed, hormonal twenty-something-year-olds trying to get laid. Others are partying, drinking. All are being hunted. I am nothing more than an invisible bystander. Watching.

The first drop of blood is shed as a newling attacks a human. Newlings are nasty, out of control, brand-new vampires with a voracious appetite. They have no decision-making skills and zero self-control. With an involuntary inhalation, I smell it. Taste it on my tongue. I even lick my lips. A scream breaks through the music, and I turn to see the owner of that first drop of blood. A not-so-young guy, maybe thirty. Pale skin, black eyeliner. That’s as far as I get in my inspection because his head is now literally hanging on by a flap of skin at the side of his neck. He just stands there, teetering, alive but not, his body in shock after a newling chewed through his throat, spinal cord, and bone to get to his artery. That’s the thing about newlings. Inexperienced. Starved. Fucking messy. They haven’t learned yet to go straight for the heart.

All hell breaks loose then; newlings filter through the crowd of partiers. The humans try to fight at first. More blood is shed. Newlings rip into their victims. The heavy metallic scent hangs in the air like fog, thick with fear and hunger. The humans scream, run. There’s so much blood; arterial spray on the walls, on the humans, pooling on the floor. Deep within me, a pang takes me by surprise. I feel all warm inside, then scorching hot. The sensation fires from my core, down both arms to my fingertips, down my torso, legs—to my toes. It claws at me. It is need. It’s so fierce, so vicious, I cry out.

Why am I reacting like this? I’m not a vampire. I’m not a newling. I’m a human with tendencies. I may have taken on some of the traits of vampires when Victorian and Valerian bit me, but I’m not like them. This sensation, or whatever it is, scares the hell out of me. Yet something pulls at me. Unfamiliar. Desperate. Horrifying.

My eyes fix on a human; I don’t see male or female. I smell only the warm blood coursing through their veins. As I breathe in, I can taste it on my tongue. I want it. Need it. Will do anything to get it.

I lunge.

In reality, my body begins seizing. I shake, shudder, convulse. Slowly, the screams fade; the metallic scent weakens. My need is still strong though, and I struggle to bring the scent of blood back. In the darkness, I can no longer see the humans; the club has disappeared. I’m on my back on a firm yet soft surface. I now smell pine, fresh cut grass. Slowly, I open my eyes.

The sounds and smells around me bring me back to the present. I’m no longer in Victorian’s Jag. I’m lying on the ground next to a parking lot; cars and semitrucks whiz by on the highway, unevenly, at various speeds. A can dispenses through a soft-drink machine. Laughter echoes in the distance. A stereo system blasts Twisted Sister, one speaker blown in the back. My vision clears as I fixate on what’s before me. Victorian is straddling me. He has my arms pinned above my head. Holding me still. My eyes scan past him. We’re at an interstate rest stop. Concrete buildings with restrooms and drink machines.

I find my voice, and I struggle against him. “What are you doing?”

Victorian studies me. His grip on me tightens and he frowns. “You don’t remember?”

For a second, my brain races. I don’t remember, and I don’t lie still enough to try to make myself remember. I buck—hard. Victorian’s grip breaks, I leap up, and take off. My legs are weak, though, and no sooner do I make it ten feet than I’m down again. Struggling, I manage to find my footing and take off. Slices of light from several tall lamps illuminate the side of the concrete building of the rest area; I avoid it and run straight for the shadows and the trees beyond. My body jerks, and my knees give out. Once more, I force myself up and try to run. Strength floods my body so intensely, I can feel it, as though strength itself is a liquid and someone has poured it straight into me. With arms and legs pumping, I fly through the darkness. Speed is one of my tendencies, and I’m fast as hell. I don’t care who sees me. It’s not like there are a lot of people out at the rest stop at two a.m. In seconds I’m sifting through dense pines, and because I’m still wearing the same gauzy skirt, tank, and Vans I had on at Tunnel 9 hours before, brambles grab my bare legs and scratch the holy hell out of them. I don’t care. I have to get away. Ease the craving now gnawing at my insides—

I jerk to a sudden stop. Confusion webs through my mind, and my memories race wildly. Craving? I crave only Krystal burgers and Krispy Kremes. Sugar. Greasy food. Those are my cravings. So what the hell is—

A body rushes mine and I am once again flung to the ground. Without looking I know it’s Victorian. Sharp pine needles and cones littering the wood dig into my skin as his weight presses against me. My face is smashed into the damp leaves and moss.

Quickly, my hands are tethered together.

“Sorry, love,” Victorian apologizes. He binds my ankles together, too. “You can’t imagine how I hate this, but somehow”—he helps me stand, then looks at me—“you broke free of my suggestion.” His head cocks to the side as he studies me, and the moonlight shooting a slender beam through the trees glances off his face. “Intriguing. I’ve never met another who can break free of my suggestion.”

Rage fills behind my eyes, pounds in my chest. “Well, now you have. So now what? What are you gonna do now, Vic? Throw me over your shoulder like a sack of dog food and haul me to the car?”

The slightest of smiles tips his sensual lips upward. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” In one move, Victorian bends his knees, and in the next instant, over his shoulder I go. He keeps his hands secured around my calves. God only knows my skirt is probably up around my waist, booty to the wind. We move out of the woods and start across the lawn of the rest stop, past the concrete picnic tables and restrooms. No one is around. Only a few semitrucks, their drivers more than likely sleeping. It wouldn’t do any good for me to scream; Victorian would simply suggest to anyone who heard that I was really okay, and they’d believe. So I keep quiet.

Until I hear the lock click and the Jag’s trunk open.

“No way,” I say, my voice only a little uneven, unsure. “Victorian, do not put me in there.”

He puts me in there. Lays me gently on a soft, down comforter. Had he expected to have to use his trunk to contain me? Warm brown eyes look down at me with obvious regret. Almost makes me forget what he is. “I apologize. I truly hate this. But for you to break free from my suggestion?” He shook his head. “You’re stronger than I thought—than you even think you are. You’re a danger to yourself, Riley. I can’t let anything happen to you.” His stare bores into mine. “I couldn’t live with it.” The trunk starts to close.

“Wait!” I say frantically. He waits. “Where are you taking me?”

Lowering his hand, Vic grazes my jaw with his knuckles. “Somewhere safe. Somewhere I can help you.”

Without another word, he closes me in. The moment he does, I hear another voice rise.

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” a deep voice says, full of shock and anger. “I saw you put that woman in there.”

“Perhaps you’d be better off minding your own business,” Victorian warns evenly, gentlemanly.

A heavy thump hits the back of the car. “Perhaps you’d be better off shutting the fuck up and opening the motherfucking trunk,” the stranger says. “Now.”

Silence.

I have a bad feeling. Why isn’t Victorian using his suggestive powers to make the man walk away?

“What the fuck—”

The only noise I hear is a choked gurgle.

The car door slams, and in seconds, the purr of the Jag’s engine rumbles around me. I know without having seen what just happened. Victorian fed. In his defense, he tried to warn the guy. In the guy’s defense, he was trying to save me. It’s all so messed up. Victorian shifts gears and roars up the interstate. We’re on the move. To where, I have no clue.

The one question I have right now is where the hell did a centuries-old vampire get friggin’ tie-wraps? I jerk my ankles and wrists—no go. That thick, hard plastic won’t budge even a fraction. In fact, they tighten. So I relax and try to forget I’m in the back of a trunk, bound. And that back at the rest stop, a man lay dead in the parking lot, his blood drained. I close my eyes, the sound of the road and the Jag’s engine a respite. Everything seems so messed up now.

I think of the one thing in my life that calms me right now: Eligius Dupré. An ancient vampire from Paris, he and the Dupré family have been Savannah’s guardians since the 1700s. After making a pact with Preacher’s Gullah ancestors, who inhabited the isles off Georgia’s coast, they became the city’s protectors from rogue vampires.

Never did I think I’d fall for a creature of the night. Or that he’d fall for me. I’m not cutting myself down, but seriously. I’m not everyone’s type. I’m taller than most women. My back and arms are covered in wicked dragon tattoos, along with a dark angel wing inked at the corner of my left eye. I have pink highlights. And my past is far from stellar. As a teen, I got into everything a kid could. Drugs. Gangs. Ditching school. Luckily, with the help of Preacher and his wife, Estelle, I cleaned up my act. Went to school, became a successful tattoo artist with a shop in the historic district called Inksomnia. Still, I’m damaged goods. Eli overlooked my past, though, and only sees me now. Shocking, to say the least.

Eli is different. Actually, his whole family is different. They’re…real. They love one another, like humans. I can’t put it any other way. I’ve grown to care for Eli’s papa, Gilles Dupré; his mom, Elise; his brothers, Séraphin and Jean-Luc; and his baby sister, Josephine. In all honesty, they helped save my life.

As I drift between sleep and awareness, a vision of Eli crowds my mind; his face, his jaw, his eyes. Ebony hair against alabaster skin. Blue eyes so clear, it almost hurts to look at them. Protective nearly to a fault, Eli is always conscious of my surroundings and cautious of any outsiders. The way he touches me; his lips against my skin. The sex is incredible. Mind-blowing doesn’t fully describe it. More than the sex, though, is how he makes me feel. If Jerry Maguire hadn’t said it first, I’d tell Eli, “You complete me” and sincerely mean it. Yet I can’t admit even to myself, much less to him, that I love him. How screwed up is that? The last words Eli spoke to me as Victorian drove me away from Tunnel 9 resonate inside my memory.

I will come for you.

I believe Eli. But how will he know where we are headed? The look on his face as I drove off with Victorian had been one of anguish—betrayal—then determination. All in about five seconds. It’s not in Eli’s nature to give up. I think he probably was that way, even as a human. Before vampirism. It’s definitely a quality I like.

Time flies by. I drift in and out of slumber. So much has happened since the night my baby brother, Seth, and his pals inadvertently released Victorian and Valerian Arcos from their entombed graves. It was then that I learned that Preacher and his mystical Gullah ancestry were responsible for putting the Arcos brothers away in the first place. The Gullah are direct descendants of the African slaves brought to the Americas. They grew to be a proud, strong culture as they gained their freedom and claimed the outer islands of Georgia and South Carolina. Preacher’s forefathers had bound their families with the Duprés in an effort to protect Savannah and its surroundings by, well, taking the savagery out of them. The Gullah supplied the blood Eli and his family needed in a humane and safe way. No lives were lost, no newlings created.

The biggest vampiric threat to Savannah and the Gullah had been Victorian and Valerian Arcos. They raided the city and countryside in the eighteenth century. All those who supposedly died from yellow fever in Savannah’s history? It wasn’t the fever that took them all. But you won’t find that in any book.

Vic was more or less forced on this rampage by his overbearing brother. But once they were entombed, the city fell quiet. Peaceful. Until they were released. Seems like a long, long time ago. Now I’m in the middle of it all. The same vampire who ravaged the city centuries ago wants my ass.

I’d be a liar if I said Valerian Arcos didn’t scare me. He does. Truly.

The back of my legs and back are sweaty atop the down comforter, and quills are poking through the material and sticking into my skin. I wish I could get a small breath of fresh air. I don’t know how long we’ve been driving, but I’ve reached my limit. With the flat of my Vans, I start kicking the side of the Jag’s trunk interior. I kick for maybe five minutes before the car comes to a stop. Victorian’s door opens and closes; the trunk pops. The scents of rubber tires and motor oil fill the cool air. I look around. We’re in a large underground area—one that echoes. Concrete walls and pillars fill my vision. Vehicles are sparsely parked. There’s an exit sign with an arrow pointing to the right a few yards away. It hits me. “Why are we in a parking garage?”

“Are you all right?” he asks, ignoring my question and pushing my long choppy bangs from my face. He traces my sooty angel wing ink on my cheek. Concern is etched in his face.

“You mean besides not having any air to breathe and being hot as hell? Not to mention I’ve had to pee for the last hour. Sure. I’m great, Vic.” I glower at him. “Get me out of here.”

The corner of Victorian’s mouth lifts in a slight grin, which quickly disappears. His face hardens; he glances around. “We’ve got to hurry.” Easily, he lifts me from the trunk and sets me on my feet. “Are you going to make me carry you again?” he asks.

“Nope,” I say. “But as soon as we get to where we’re going, you’re telling me everything.”

He nods, and produces a pair of wire cutters from his pocket. In a few quick snaps, my ankles and wrists are free.

“Let’s go,” he says, slamming the trunk and grasping my elbow. He leads me through the parking garage that is slightly lit and mostly empty. A sign catches my eye: WELCOME TO HARTFIELD-JACKSON ATLANTA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. My stomach plummets. “Vic, where are you taking me?” He’s putting me on a plane? To where? I don’t have a good feeling about this. Not at all. And I have to pee. Bad. “Vic. Bathroom?”

Again, he is silent. But we walk toward the stairs, and thankfully, a set of restrooms are there. “Make it fast, Riley,” Vic says. “And please don’t try to run.”

The bathroom is empty. I duck into a stall and make hasty business out of girly business. Flushing the toilet with my foot, because public bathrooms are just the grossest of gross, I step to the sink and turn the water on.

“Riley, come on,” Victorian says. Impatience edges his voice.

“Give me a sec, okay?” I answer. I suds my hands and rinse. The paper towel dispenser is empty, so I dry my hands on my shirt and head out. Victorian is staring at me. “See? No running,” I say. Silently, he takes me by the elbow and leads me onward.

We make it to the elevator, and Victorian pulls me inside. I know he’s using all of his suggestion to keep me restrained because I try to break free. This time, I can’t. He presses the button for the main floor. Just as the doors begin to slide together, I catch a scent. A familiar scent. I can hardly believe it. Eli’s here.

Suddenly a hand appears in the narrow divide between the doors, and with my next breath I am literally snatched out of the elevator by my arm and flung to the ground. I land with a grunt on the concrete floor of the parking garage, ten, twelve feet away, on my side. Eli’s brother, Séraphin—Phin for short—is there when I stand. Confusion and surprise squeeze my insides. He helps me up. Rather, he yanks me up.

“Are you okay?” he asks. His hands are everywhere, checking me for injury. As I knock him away, my eyes search for Eli. The moment I see him, I leap for the elevator.

“Riley, stop!” Phin yells, as he makes a grab for me but misses.

I don’t listen. I can’t listen. Because I know Eli.

He’ll kill Victorian.

Not only does Vic represent a heinous order of vampires from Romania, he is also in love with me, and Eli knows it. Bad combination, despite the fact that he isn’t an evil bloodsucker and I definitely don’t return the passion. Vic and I do share a connection of sorts, but it’s not love on my part. Eli doesn’t care. In his eyes, Victorian needs to die. Especially since Vic’s DNA is now bound with mine. To Eli, Victorian Arcos is a deadly threat, through and through. I don’t blame Eli. But I have to defend Vic.

Just as I hurl myself at the elevator, Eli and Victorian fall out of it. In a mass of growls, grunts, Eli’s French expletives, and Victorian’s Romanian curses, we all hit the ground. Eli morphs into his vampiric state—fangs dropped, face contorted, eyes white with a pinpoint scarlet pupil. It’s a frightening sight. Victorian’s appearance also changes; even now, it’s unlike anything I’ve seen. His skin is ashen, almost…dead looking. Not just white. His eyes are bloodred, his fangs long and jagged. With one hand, Eli shoves me away and I hit the ground again. With a violent curse, I jump up, but Eli and Victorian are already thirty feet away. They’re tangled, snarling, throwing one another to the ground. I run as Phin tries to grab me. Just as I reach them, I stop. With one hand around Victorian’s throat, Eli takes his other hand and tries to fling me again. I slap his hand away.

“Eli! Stop it!” I yell, and throw myself between them. It’s like being in the middle of a pair of fighting pit bulls. “Now!”

“Move, Riley,” Eli growls, his voice inhuman, nearly inaudible. He once more tries to hurl me.

I cling to Victorian, but my eyes are fastened onto Eli’s. “No, damn it! Stop and listen to me!”

“Phin!” Eli shouts. “Get her the fuck out of here!”

With as much emotion as I can summon, I hold Eli’s gaze. “Please, Eli. Don’t kill him.” I’m not used to begging, and it doesn’t sit well with me. As a matter of fact, it sort of sounds stupid. But in this, I have no choice. “Please.”

Phin’s hand is on my shoulder, and he pulls. I resist.

Eli’s inhuman white glare freezes onto mine. “Why?” he asks, his voice deadly smooth, even, quiet. I can tell he is confused—hurt. Angry is a given. I don’t blame him.

Behind me, Victorian’s body shudders, but I keep my eyes trained on Eli’s. “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “It…just doesn’t feel right.”

Eli’s sharp gaze flicks to Victorian. It’s filled with hate. “Doesn’t feel right, Riley? He abducted you.” His grip tightens on Victorian’s throat. “He almost killed you.”

Yeah, I already know all that. It doesn’t matter. “He isn’t the monster his brother is,” I say. “Please. Trust me.”

Eli literally shakes with rage. The scarlet pupils widen, like a cat’s eyes adjusting to darkness. He knows Victorian’s brother wants me dead. Valerian is, in every sense of the word, a monster. There’s no telling how many he has either killed or turned. He’s the most feared of predators. A serial killer who cannot die. At least, not easily. And he’s got a personal grudge against me. Why, I don’t know. Maybe because I’m the one who got away. I beat him, and he hates that. Maybe because his own brother cares for me. But I know Victorian isn’t like Valerian. And I don’t want him dead.

“Eligius,” I say calmly, and he looks at me. “Move.”

Pure white eyes stare at me in silent debate for what seems forever. Without looking at Victorian, he manages to say, “Not until he tells me what the fuck is going on.”

Moving from between them, I turn to Victorian. Bloodred eyes seek mine. I keep my hand on Eli’s arm for support and give Victorian a nod. My stomach churns with anticipation.

Victorian simply breathes for several seconds, head bowed, collecting himself. His shoulders, broad but slim, rise and fall with air I’m certain does not circulate within his lungs. When he lifts his head, the only remnants of his vampiric morphing are his eyes. They remain crimson and fixed on me. “Riley has too much of my brother’s strigoi DNA. It’s…changing her.” He glances at Eli. “Changing her in ways even her dark brethren cannot cure.” His Romanian accent is heavier at times, like now. “She is beginning to crave. I’ve seen it.” His voice lowers. “She will kill.”

“I will what?” I ask, shocked, staring back at Vic. “Are you friggin’ crazy?”

“Bullshit,” Phin says, and his angry voice echoes off the concrete walls of the parking garage. “She went through weeks of cleansing.”

“You underestimate the power of a strigoi,” Victorian replies.

“Fuck you,” Phin returns.

“We underestimate nothing,” Eli says quietly, deadly. Threatening. “You’re wrong, Arcos.”

“She broke my power of suggestion,” Victorian argues, flashing me a glimpse. “Started growling, convulsing.” He glances at me, then to Eli. “Nearly jumped from my car going eighty-five. I had to pull over and restrain her physically, and even then she briefly overpowered me. I had to chase her down as she tried to escape.”

“So where were you taking her?” Phin asks. His voice does not sound like his own; he is getting impatient. Out of character for Séraphin Dupré.

Then again, the flashes I’d had while running through the woods behind the rest stop had been out of character for me. Those weird cravings. What the hell was that? I convince myself it was nothing more than a residual effect from the trauma at Tunnel 9.

“Where?” Eli states. His patience is going fast, too.

Victorian’s unholy gaze settles on mine. “To my family home in Kudzsir in Romania. To my father.”

I blink, and Eli’s body flies in front of me. By the time my vision finds them, Eli has Victorian crushed against a wall. “So you can turn her? Have her for yourself?”

“Eli!” I yell.

With his face close to Victorian’s, Eli growls, “I’ll fucking tear your limbs from your body and burn them myself before I let that happen. And I’ll start with your goddamn head.”

“No!” I run now, because Eli’s looking like he’s about to dismember Victorian right where they stand. Someone grabs my arm and I jerk to a jolting halt. I turn and glare at Phin. “You’d better turn me loose.”

Phin just looks at me. Tightens his grip.

Just then, a beam of light arcs over the gray concrete walls of the garage; an SUV pulls in.

“Eli, let’s go,” I plead. “Now. Just forget about this. I’m all right. I’m with you.”

At first, he ignores me—nothing new there. Then he flings Victorian across the parking lot, storms toward me and grabs my hand without breaking stride. He doesn’t say a word. Electricity seems to sizzle around him. If anger causes that, he’s got an aura of it.

Victorian has more balls than I credit him for. In the blink of an eye, he is standing directly in Eli’s path. “Know this, Eligius Dupré. Only a powerful strigoi like my father can cast out the evil growing inside Riley. And you will soon see—it is definitely there. You’ll not like it, I promise you that.”

Eli stares at Victorian for a split second, then takes his hand and shoves him out of the way. We continue on through the parking garage. I turn and watch Victorian.

“You will soon see,” he says, standing in place. He speaks to Eli, but his eyes are on me. “You’ll bring her back to me. I will be here, waiting.”

We round a corner, and Victorian is no longer in sight. I find it strange to think of how Victorian, a vampire himself, considers vampirism evil. Maybe he dislikes what he is as much as the Duprés do. He has a good heart, despite the fact that it no longer resides in his body.

We reach Phin’s black Ford F-150 in tense silence. In the distance, I hear a door slam and an engine start up. I guess it’s Victorian’s Jag. Phin hits the lock release button on his keychain and Eli opens my door. As I put my foot on the side step to climb in, he stops me.

With both hands on my face, he kisses me—long, ungentle, desperate. I breathe in his scent and return the kiss. Unlike most members of the undead, Eli’s lips aren’t icy cold, but lukewarm, full and sensual as they devour mine. Then, he pulls back. With startling blue eyes, he inspects me from head to toe. At my exposed thigh he lingers, lowers his hand, and grazes a large scrape.

“Must’ve gotten that at the rest area,” I say, and although his features are cast in shadow, I know he studies me with ferocious intensity.

“Let’s go home,” he says, and climbs in beside me. No smile. Eli is still angry.

Phin starts up the truck and exits the parking garage. It’s not until we hit Peachtree Street that I realize Victorian and I had made it all the way to Atlanta.

According to the digital clock in Phin’s truck, it’s close to four a.m. Traffic is nonexistent as we weave through the tall buildings and intertwining interstate dissections of downtown and make our way back to Savannah. Before we hit the interstate, Phin pulls into a BP and fuels up. I run inside and grab some drinks and a bag of Chic-O-Stix. Eli’s gaze is locked onto me the entire time. We settle in for the drive home.

Even with Eli’s body crowding mine in the cab of Phin’s truck, his hand protectively on my thigh, one thought pounds through my brain; one thing needles me and doesn’t let go.

Am I truly turning evil? Am I going to kill?

Will I crave blood?

Goddamn, I hope to hell not.

I’m sleepy again—why, I don’t know, but I feel like I haven’t slept in days. I close my eyes, and slumber soon takes over.