Finding Fire: Paranormal Romance (Bad Boys Of The Underworld Book 1) (21 page)

“With all the history between you and Aleksander, I don’t think you would be on friendly terms with his wife’s friend.” She hadn’t realized how upset she would be to lose him until she voiced how likely it was that he would hate her now.

“I don’t think the two of us would be very good as friends,” he said.

Her heart sunk a bit at that.
Was it really so easy for him to brush her off?

“The sex is much too good for us to just be friends.”

Anna smiled in relief. “Chained to a wall and still thinking about sex?”

He shot a wicked grin. “Spend enough time with me, and I will make sure you associate being chained to a wall with fucking me.”

Her heart kicked up at the heat behind his words, and she knew that he heard the frantic beat. She blushed a bright pink as she tried to think of something to say that would change the subject.

She didn’t have to think of anything. From behind her, Aleksander said, “If you two even think about doing that down here, I will have to redesign the whole basement. A dungeon is supposed to scare you, not make you want to play kinky sex games.”

Anna blushed even harder now that she knew Aleksander had heard their banter. Nicolas immediately was on guard. His back straightened, and his arm muscles bulged as he braced himself to fight against the bonds that held him.

For fear that Nicolas would say something that would cause Aleksander to kill him on the spot, Anna jumped in before Nicolas could say anything. “I’m sorry, we didn’t hear you come down.” She turned to face him.

Aleksander cast a speculative glance between the two of them. “Evie was wondering about your relationship with him.”

She might have tried to deny it was anything serious, but she had the distinct impression that Aleksander had formed an opinion about them already, and nothing she said would change his mind. The best course of action was to keep her mouth shut and hope Nicolas wouldn’t do anything stupid.

Aleksander looked at Anna. “I know you’ve been keeping watch over him, but I need to speak with Nicolas alone.”

Anna wanted to protest, but before she could, Nicolas said, “Go, Annabelle. You’ve been keeping me safe all night. You need a break.”

She couldn’t leave Nicolas here unable to defend himself. She played the only ace she had up her sleeve. “Before I go, you should know that someone is trying to kill you, Aleksander.”

Silence hung in the air for a few long seconds. Aleksander then said, “I’m assuming you’re saying someone besides Nicolas is trying to kill me? There’s always someone who wants the king dead.” He brushed off her concerns.

She wouldn’t give up that easily. “This is someone close to you. They knew your men were meeting in Central Park a week ago, and most importantly, they knew I had seen you killing Ray.

“Evie said you’ve been watching over me for the past fifteen years. Someone who knew I was important to Evie led me to Nicolas, and set him up in the park.”

Aleksander thought about her claim for a moment. “What makes you think all of this has to do with someone wanting me dead?”

Nicolas answered for her. “They’re trying to distract you. If you thought I was spying on or attacking your men in New York, how many men do you think you would have sent to contain me? Enough to leave the palace under-protected.”

Anna continued, “It was the same thing Nicolas and I were doing last night. Have someone lead the guards away while the other slips in unnoticed. After you were gone, everyone would assume Nicolas had done it.”

“If that’s the case, then why didn’t anyone ambush last night? There was plenty of opportunity,” said Aleksander.

Anna looked over at Nicolas. “Well, Nicolas kept on telling me I would have to be crazy to attack this place. The traitor probably assumed we would never be stupid enough to come all the way up here. He probably wanted to get your guards out of the country and chasing after Nicolas before he attacked.”

Aleksander nodded his head as he considered the possibility. “I will have to give your theory some consideration. However, for the time being, I must speak with Nicolas alone.”

She was really being dismissed this time. She searched her mind for any reason to not leave the two of them alone together.

Nicolas said to her, “Go upstairs, Annabelle, and take a break.”

Biting her tongue at the need to say more, she turned and walked up the stairs.

Nicolas hated to see her go. Once her footfalls reached the top of the staircase, Aleksander turned to him.

“I know this will be hard for you, but we have to be civilized,” he said to Nicolas.

Nicolas sneered at him. “The night you stole this palace was the worst night of my existence. You had your king murdered by his most trusted soldiers.”

“Maybe if his most trusted soldiers were willing to do that, there was good reason,” Aleksander argued.

Nicolas shook the chains in frustration. “For him to be killed by his own men was a disgrace. Now his murderers are living in the kingdom he built. He united us. Civilized us! And yet you act as though he was the traitor.”

“You didn’t see the beast we saw. He sheltered you from the reality. His appetites were growing massive. He could decimate whole towns in a matter of hours. Women, children, animals—nothing was safe from him. This whole kingdom was about to crumble. I acted to protect the very thing he’d spent his life building.”

“You acted to
take
the very thing he spent his life building,” Nicolas spat at him.

Aleksander’s jaw was clenched tight against the need to say more. He settled on, “Obviously, this is getting us nowhere. Is it true what Anna says? Someone led her to you?”

Nicolas didn’t want Aleksander to know anything about Annabelle. He answered with a question of his own. “Is it true that your men have been watching her for the past fifteen years?”

Aleksander cocked his head at Nicolas. “It’s funny how you keep acting as though you are still in power here, though I’m the one outside of the cage.” He tapped on the bars to prove his point.

“You don’t scare me,” said Nicolas. He was son of Kirill. Second hand and blood of the king. They had ruled for over four centuries. One traitor couldn’t threaten him.

Aleksander raised a skeptical brow. “Is that a fact? I tend to scare most people. What about Anna? Does she scare you?”

Nicolas fought to keep his body language neutral.

“She’s already a big hit here. Word of what she did with Robert spread like wildfire. All the men are trying to get a good look at her. Some of the pure bloods have gone centuries without a human willingly giving them a bite. She will have lots of men following her around for the duration of her stay.”

Nicolas couldn’t help the growl that came from his throat. Aleksander smiled at the reaction he provoked. “You are scared of something,” he muttered.

“Let me out of these chains and I can show you exactly how scared I am,” he threatened.

“Tell me about how Anna found you, and I will see to it that she’s protected,” said Aleksander.

“Your wife loves her. I don’t believe she’s in danger from you as long as your wife is around,” reasoned Nicolas.

“You’re forgetting something. If someone is truly after me, then Evie is in danger as well. If it comes to Evie’s safety or Anna’s, I would snap your girlfriend’s neck like a twig. Don’t doubt it for a second.”

Nicolas couldn’t contain his rage at the threat. His fangs cut into his lip, and his wrists burned where he now strained at the silver.

“How she found you. Tell me now,” Aleksander ordered.

Now that Nicolas had confirmed Annabelle wasn’t safe alone in the palace, he knew he couldn’t take chances with her life. “An anonymous man called her phone while she was jogging by my building. He told her what apartment I was in and that I’m a vampire.”

“Was there any way to contact this man?” asked Aleksander.

“No name or method of contacting him was ever established. He would call her and the number came up as unknown.”

“Do you think he might call here? We could try to trace the call,” said Aleksander.

Nicolas shrugged. “Ever since we left the city, we have not heard from him. That was the night after I was in Central Park with your men. It was meant to look as though I was spying on their meeting.”

Aleksander nodded. “I have to admit that if you told me under any other circumstances you were being framed, I would’ve never believed you.”

“What makes you believe me now?” asked Nicolas.

“You have already admitted to trying to kill me last night. Why start lying now?”

“Whoever was framing me was in New York at the time. They were watching Annabelle as she was jogging by my place. Do you know anyone who had been told about her connection to you who was in the city recently?”

“There are a few I know of. However, if anyone wanted to do me in, they might not have been the one contacting Anna. This traitor could have multiple men working for him.”

“How are you planning on finding them, if it could be anyone?” asked Nicolas.

“I will start with my people in the city. I will look at all of their phone records to see if anyone has called Anna’s phone recently. But I do have a backup plan, but I must warn you that you’re an intricate part of this plan.”

“Then I don’t want any part of it.”

Aleksander removed a key from his front pocket. “That is a shame. You’re going to have a homecoming party.”

With that, Aleksander opened the door to his cell and walked up to the chains that bound Nicolas.

“Now remember, Nicolas. If you so much as scratch me, there are ten guards just waiting to bite into your Anna.” Aleksander freed Nicolas.

~~~~~

Anna was right at the top of the stairs that led up from the basement when Nicolas burst up the stairs in a blur of motion. He actually overshot her by about twenty feet before he stopped and turned.

“What are you doing there?” he asked.

“Me? What are you doing free? You didn’t kill him, did you?” Evie would never forgive her if her Aleksander died because of a man she’d begged to be kept alive.

Her fears were lifted when Aleksander calmly walked up the stairs. Anna breathed a sigh of relief. Neither of the two men looked as though they’d been fighting. This was promising.

Not as promising half a second later when Nicolas ran so fast she didn’t realize he’d moved until he had pushed her back behind him so she couldn’t even see Aleksander past his big frame.

It looked even worse when Aleksander let out a deep growl at Nicolas. Nicolas responded by baring his fangs. His eyes were jet black now, while Aleksander still managed to keep some of his composure.

Anna tried to squeeze between the two men to relieve some of the tension, but Nicolas kept her from getting past him.

Soon enough, the whole ordeal was over. Aleksander took a step back. “Remember what I said, Nicolas. Try to be on your best behavior, or I will give you reason to be scared.” Without another word, he turned and walked away.

“What did he mean by that?” she asked.

“He means he’s a dick,” was the curt answer Nicolas gave her. Before she could pester him for a better response, he said, “I’m the bait. He’s pretending to welcome me back to the palace and throwing a gathering of vampires most likely to want me dead. No one will believe that I have given up my need for revenge. If someone was trying to frame me, now that I will be living at the palace, they’ll have the perfect opportunity.”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her along one of the long hallways of the palace.

“What are you doing?” She tugged at her arm.

“I’m trying to find my old room,” he said. “They’ve changed everything in here.”

She abruptly refused to move any farther, but his momentum had her tripping over her feet and she fell right into his side.

“What the hell?” he muttered under his breath.

“No. What are you doing, dragging me anywhere you feel like it?”

“It’s not safe here. We need to find my room as soon as possible.”

“I’ve been fine for almost a whole day. I don’t think I’m in immediate danger,” she reasoned. He did make her a bit paranoid, the way he kept looking behind him and over her shoulder, as if to make sure no one followed them.

“What even makes you think your old room is still free?” Surely after sixty years, someone would have taken up residence there.

“This is my palace,” he reminded her. “I don’t care who is in it. I’m sleeping there while I’m here.”

Anna rolled her eyes at his arrogance. “Anyways, you can’t just do things like this. You can’t tie me down when it suits you, or control me when you want me to see things your way, or drag me down a hallway.”

She ripped her arm out of his grasp but knew he was strong enough to have held on if he’d meant to. “You go find your room. This place is huge, and I plan on exploring every square inch of it.”

She turned and walked away, but after only a few steps, he was next to her. “I thought you were looking for your room.”

“I wasn’t joking. It’s not safe for you here. Many vampires have never fed from a human who willingly gave their blood. There are probably about twenty males here right now who cannot wait to get a moment alone with you.”

She shot a surprised glance his way. “You’re serious? Is that why you wanted me?” she asked, but immediately regretted it. She didn’t want to talk about anything remotely sexual with Nicolas. The two of them were too volatile. It almost felt as though sparks flew between them every time they touched, even if they weren’t talking about sex. When they did venture onto that dangerous topic, those sparks turned into flames.

While they walked, he said, “It’s one of the
many
reasons I still want you.”

She was flattered at the idea that there were multiple reasons he wanted her. Then she was mad at herself for getting happy about it. She tried desperately not to want this man and failed horribly.

She asked, “So how do the vampires get food all the way out here, anyway?”

“I mentioned that any vampires who are turned must feed off other vampires. These days, the majority of vampires are transitioned ones, so not many of them need to feed from humans.

“For the pure born, at the speed we run, it’s not too hard to get to the nearest town. We can also bottle excess blood supply now. Sometimes, humans will vacation nearby, and with compulsion, they never know their blood was taken.”

“Where is this bottled blood coming from?” asked Anna, skeptically.

“We set up blood banks in large city centers. We offer money for blood, and lots of people volunteer. Any clean blood we do donate to hospitals, but any with low iron or diseases is fine for us to drink.”

“That’s a relief. I thought you were stealing it from unwilling people or hospitals. So Evie can’t feed off of people? Does she feed from multiple vampires?” Anna had so many questions, and every answer she got opened up a lot more questions.

They turned into a hallway that led into the east wing of the house as Nicolas said, “I doubt it. Aleksander would get much too jealous to let his wife feed from anyone else.”

“Are all vampire men so possessive?”

“No,” he answered. “
Any
vampire is possessive of their mate, male or female. I have a feeling Aleksander is on a strictly male diet, and has been for the last fifteen years.”

“Vampires are monogamous? That’s interesting. I would think since you lived for so long, you would get bored of one person.”

“Maybe,” said Nicolas. “But when you live as long as we can, you have to find something to live for.”

They turned the corner, and Anna’s breath caught in her throat. “Oh my gosh,” she whispered. They were inside the largest ballroom she’d ever seen—or rather, the only ballroom she’d ever seen. She took off her glasses and put them back on again just to make sure she was seeing clearly.

The ceiling had to be at least one hundred feet up in the air. Massive chandeliers hung down in the center and each end of the room. Each seemed to have thousands of crystals hanging and dispersing the light.

The room was bordered with large white columns, and the floor was a white marble with contrasting streaks of black. “What is this place?”

Anna looked up to see Nicolas stare at her. “You can’t be a king without throwing lots and lots of parties,” he said with a grin.

“So you have actually had parties in here? Dining, dancing, and the whole nine yards?” She walked over to one of the large columns to get a better look at some of the intricate designs carved into them.

“To stay in power, you have to keep your powerful friends happy. Powerful people love to party. No matter how rich someone is, they will always love the chance to drink for free.”

Anna smiled. “So is this what you lived for? The politics and parties?”

“It’s not as much fun when it’s something you have to do. I was helping people. Kirill and I led our people from hiding in caves and sewers to a place like this. That was what I lived for.”

Anna noticed that even the walls had delicate gold paintings all along the perimeter. She crossed the room to study them closer.

Nicolas walked up behind her. “I wish I had appreciated it as much at the time as you are now,” he said.

“Tell me about Kirill,” said Anna. “I’m hearing such different things from Evie and you about him. What happened?”