“Actually, yes.” The words kind of blurted out without my control. Who was he kidding? Games and power struggles were what he lived for. “Just because you put on trashy clothes doesn’t mean you aren’t up to something. In fact, it makes me that much more suspicious of you. You’re ancient. Where’s all your money and property?”
Lysander smiled at me.
“A pleasure to see you again Alyssa,” Edmond said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I see no good deed goes unpunished with you.”
The nerve of him, accusing me of being ungrateful. It took all my self-control not to smack him. I gritted my teeth and tried to maintain composure. “Each deed has its own worth, Edmond. Saving me earned you my thanks. Starting crap with our clan earned you my contempt. What will you do next?”
“So much spunk. I admire that. I do not, however, understand what it is I am being accused of. What ‘crap,’ as you say, have I started?”
“You know exactly what we’re talking about!” I said, placing my hands on my hips and glaring at him.
Lysander held out his hand to quiet me. “If you are not involved in any wrongdoing, then you won’t have an issue producing my memoirs.”
“I don’t have them, Lysander.”
I had to admit, though I didn’t want to, that Edmond did look thoroughly confused. He was either a really good actor, or we were barking up the wrong tree. Either way we were no closer to an answer.
Lysander continued without missing a beat. “You knew where they were, didn’t you?”
“I knew they were in your old house,” Edmond said, his voice wavering a bit. But I couldn’t tell if it was from frustration or worry. “I told you all of this before. Please, just leave me be.”
“They aren’t there now.” Lysander wasn’t letting up.
“Well, I don’t have them. I don’t have anything anymore.” Edmond threw his hands up in frustration. “Everything is gone.”
Lysander hauled Edmond up by his shirt and pushed him into the thick tree trunk. “Liar,” he growled.
“If you’re going to kill me, then do it!”
I looked around. Edmond and Lysander’s discussion was attracting the interest of a few passersby. “Honey,” I said as sweetly as I could manage. “This is a public park, Lysander. There are people all around. Don’t make a scene.”
It felt strange for me to be the voice of reason for a change. Normally it was Lysander keeping me from flying off the handle.
Lysander growled and turned his piercing gaze to Edmond. “Where are they?”
“I’ve already told you I don’t know what happened to them. This is all I have left. Now, please, either kill me or leave me in peace.”
The two men stared at each other, locking eyes in a silent battle of wills.
The eyes have been called the windows to the soul, which is pretty close to the truth. Where vampires are concerned, though, they are the welcome mat to the mind. Humans are easy to manipulate: a vampire can make a human forget their fear and even beg for death if they wanted too, and the same applies for other vampires. The stronger ones can delve into your mind and pluck out information or make you do things you wouldn’t do normally.
Their silent struggle was only apparent from their facial expressions. At random, their lips curled, eyes squinted, and small wrinkles creased their brows. Between each flash of expression was a period of intense calm. I could only guess at the effort that was necessary for each man, or who was winning. Edmond may have been younger than Lysander by a thousand years, but he’d had the benefit of sharing Kallisto’s blood for longer than Lysander. That made up for a lot of the difference in ages. We gain some additional benefits from sharing blood with other vampires.
Lysander broke eye contact first. He took a minute, as if he were considering his options. “If I find out you are lying to me, I promise you I will hunt you down and bleed you dry.”
With a snarl, Lysander released Edmond. The dirty, sad excuse for a vampire slumped down at the base of the tree.
“Come, Alyssa. Let us hunt.” Lysander said.
The sun had just begun creeping over the horizon as we returned to the hotel. I should’ve been exhausted, but the combination of fresh blood coursing through my system and the excitement of being in a new city had me ready for more. It was times like these that I really hated being a vampire. Sunlight was no fun to deal with, and that’s putting it mildly. Within a few moments, it would be too bright for my photosensitive eyes to handle. I’d be trapped inside for the rest of the day. Like it or not, I had to find a way to settle down and get some rest.
Lysander and I tiptoed into the hotel room, trying to be as silent as we could, assuming that Nicholas and Fallon would be sleeping. To my great surprise, they weren’t. In fact, Fallon was nowhere to be seen. Nicholas, however, sat on the edge of one queen-size bed, staring blankly at the muted TV as if he weren’t really seeing the people on the screen.
My heart instantly sped with fear. In Nicholas’s odd state, it might not have been a great idea to leave him alone with Fallon.
“Where is she?” I blurted out, worry notching my voice up an octave.
Nicholas turned his cold eyes on me. “She’s gone.” Blood was at the corner of his mouth.
“Gone” was not what I wanted to hear. “Gone” could mean so many bad things, and where a vampire was concerned, “gone” usually meant “dead.”
“What the hell!” I lunged forward, but Lysander caught me before I could take more than a step.
“Nicholas, are you okay, old friend?” His voice was the picture of calm.
“What did you do with Fallon?” I screamed, and tried to pull out of Lysander’s grip.
“The human girl is fine.” Nicholas’s voice sounded distant, though he was only a few feet from me. “Is that the only person you care about?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.
Was he trying to say I didn’t care about him?
Lysander left my side and joined Nicholas on the bed. “She did not mean any harm. You look as though you went for a hunt. With the girl gone, it looked suspicious.”
Nicholas huffed and wiped the corner of his mouth. “I’m not going to kill another member of the clan just to satisfy my needs. I’m surprised you think so little of me.”
A mix of relief and embarrassment rolled through me. I shouldn’t have suspected Nicholas. He was one of us, and also an elder, someone with much more control over the hunger than I had. Most of all, human or not, he considered Fallon to be part of the clan. I should have known better than to accuse him.
“Sorry, I—”
“Don’t treat me like I’m some broken thing,” Nicholas snapped. “I’m not going to fall apart, and I don’t need your pity.”
“No one’s trying to pity you. We all lost someone special.” Anger began to overtake the embarrassment I’d been feeling. Nicholas was good at riling up that emotion in me, though it seemed now it wasn’t just a game to him. He was thoroughly pissed off at me.
His eyes were angry. “You didn’t lose someone special. You barely knew her. I lost my mate, Alyssa. My mate.”
And just like that, sadness took over as my top emotion. My heart ached for Nicholas. He might be a difficult guy to deal with — most of the time he was an asshole —but he truly loved his mate, and I could see how much her loss was tearing him apart.
“You’re a child, Alyssa. You haven’t lived. You haven’t loved. You haven’t shared hundreds of years with someone. You have no idea what this is like. To lose someone you’ve loved for centuries… it’s like losing part of your soul,” he said, and there was such hollowness in his voice it made me want to cry.
I gulped and frantically searched for something to say to Nicholas to soothe or empathize with him. He was right, though—I had no clue what that kind of a relationship was like. My relationship with Lysander was still new. We’d just passed the honeymoon phase. Even if I lost Fallon, it wouldn’t be the same. She’d been my friend for more than twenty years, but that couldn’t compare to centuries of companionship.
“Nicholas, I—”
“Don’t bother saying anything. If you want to make me feel better, just leave me alone.” He turned away, facing the silent TV.
Fallon walked in through the front door at that moment, flooding the hotel room with morning’s light. The distraction provided a nice change of subject. Angry and hurt feelings were temporarily forgotten as we all crouched and shielded ourselves from the light, screaming, “Close the door!” in unison.
She laughed at us, three tough vampires cowering at a little sunlight, but Fallon didn’t understand how painful it was. Even the dim light of early morning felt like white hot pokers being shoved through my eyes. While being painful, it was blinding too. Light affected my vision like the white-out conditions of a blizzard, making it impossible to see through the haze.
Once Fallon shut the door, I could see and smell that she’d gone out for coffee and bagels. In hindsight, I probably should’ve assumed that rather than the unpleasant alternative I’d jumped to.
Though most food now turned my stomach, coffee still had a pleasant aroma. That might have something to do with the love I had for my old mortal hang out, Café Copioh. Until a few months ago, it had been my old home away from home. Now it was nothing more than a pile of ashes, since Santino burned it to the ground. The rich aroma of coffee brought back so many great memories. I slowly inhaled and savored its smell.
“So, did you get the memoirs? Are we heading back to Vegas?” Fallon asked cheerfully.
Not being a vampire, she couldn’t sense the mood in the room like I could. I still felt the utter sadness and desperation of Nicholas. Mixed in there somewhere was a tinge of contempt, directed straight at me. We’d have to deal with that later, though.
“Nope, no memoirs,” I sighed. “And doesn’t look like were heading back to Vegas anytime soon. Didn’t Nicholas tell you that?”
I glanced back just in time to see Nicholas turn and flop back down on the bed, facing the wall.
“Uh, no. He didn’t talk to me much.” Fallon’s face flushed for a moment, and she quickly set down her bag and began rummaging around in it.
Still being a young vampire, I had yet to develop the ability to read minds. What I wouldn’t give at that moment to be able to read Fallon’s. I had a sneaking suspicion she was hiding something. Lysander could read minds, but if he’d gleaned anything from hers, he wasn’t showing any signs of it. He looked at Nicholas with a mix of concern and sadness.
“So what’s plan B then?” Fallon asked, as she glopped a dollop of what looked like strawberry cream cheese onto a huge blueberry bagel.
My nose crinkled at the sour smell of the dairy-based spread. Even when I was human, I wasn’t fond of the stuff. “Well, for starters, you can inhale that food. It stinks.”
Fallon took an exaggeratedly large bite of her bagel and made a snarky face at me. If her mouth hadn’t been full, I know she would’ve stuck her tongue out.
“I need you to research any legends related to a Pandora’s box,” Lysander said, sounding
all business
. “Also, look into any werewolf legends.”
“You’re serious? More research? Do you know how much Halloween garbage I’m going to have to wade through on werewolves?”
“We need to know more about them before we meet with their leader again. He seemed very interested when I mentioned the box, and based on his thoughts, there is a connection there.”
“You didn’t mention that you read his thoughts.” I gave Lysander a curious glance.
“Wait a sec…you met real werewolves?” Fallon chimed in, between bites of her bagel. “Real, live, fuzzy werewolves? I should have gone with you.”
“Boy, were they fuzzy too,” I said playfully mocking her.
“Yes, we met the pack Alpha last night.” Lysander stood up from the bed and walked over to me. “I am sorry, Alyssa, I often forget that you have not yet developed that talent.”
“How many centuries will that take?” I asked sarcastically. Vampires don’t just instantly develop our fun little talents, it takes time. I could read emotions, but rarely ever picked up an actual human thought. Being surrounded by ancient vampires who could all do that as easily as blinking was a little off-putting, to say the least. At times it made me feel handicapped. Not only did they use the skill to read thoughts, but sometimes it worked as a way of silently communicating.
“Your abilities will develop when it is time.” He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “As for what you will find in a wolf’s mind, well, they are harder to read than a human’s or a vampire’s.” He took a seat with Fallon and me at the table. “You will not get actual words or clear pictures from them, but you can gain some information on how interested they are in a particular topic, if you listen hard enough.”
“So you caught something in his head when we talked about the Pandora’s box? It wasn’t just all body language?”
“Yes. He knows something, but doesn’t want to tell us.” Lysander’s eyebrows pulled together in concentration.
“Why wouldn’t he help us if he knows something?’ I asked. “He seemed pretty adamant about us leaving. Wouldn’t that speed us on our way?”
“That’s your problem, Alyssa.” Nicholas grumbled from the bed. “You think everything should just be given to you. Life doesn’t work that way.”