Crimson Death
Page 208

   “Yes,” I said, because she didn’t seem to like silence. “Yeah, we work out.”
   “The tiger that we left wounded in the hotel killed two of my Roanes before he came to help you. My seal folk are not the Harlequin, but they are well trained. The fact that he slew two of them so quickly is testament to the training of your guard.”
   “Ethan killed two of your men. I wondered what kept him out of the fight in the other room so long.”
   She motioned at the two men holding Nathaniel, as if close to two hundred pounds of muscle wasn’t heavy at all. “They wish that my Harlequin had brought your wounded warrior here so they could revenge their brethren on him.”
   I looked at the men more closely. One had black hair with dark brown eyes; the other had paler brown hair with gray eyes. They were handsome in that traditional guy way, but with Nathaniel in the room, they just didn’t look that good to me. I was biased, but they were broad through the shoulders and looked like there was the promise of muscle under their clothes. They didn’t have the black-on-black eyes that Roarke and Riley had had. I’d started thinking I could spot all the Roane, or Selkies, from their eyes, but apparently not. Good to know.
   She came to stand in front of me again. “Do you want to know how we came to have your Mr. Graison in our power?”
   “Sure,” I said, and my voice was almost as uninterested as I was trying for, and I’d almost gotten my pulse under control. The plan hadn’t changed: be nice, be polite, don’t trip her crazy, and make her think she is the most beautiful thing in the room. The only thing that had changed was that the stakes had been raised for the moment when I stopped being nice again. I kept my thoughts from going any farther down that track. One moment at a time, just this moment, deal with this moment. The next moment can go fuck itself until we get to it.
   “You recover yourself very quickly, Anita. It makes you very interesting to me.”
   “Maybe we can go shopping sometime and have girl talk,” I said, and even managed a smile.
   “Are you making fun of me?”
   “No, if you wanted to go out shopping, gossiping, and girl bonding, I’d be totally down with that.”
   She frowned at me. “I do not understand you.”
   “Just offering to be friendly,” I said.
   “You cannot be friends with your food, Anita. You have already fed upon me, and I will return the favor soon.”
   “I’m engaged to be married to a vampire. I can be very friendly to people who feed off of me.”
   “I, too, feed upon my servants,” she said, and motioned at Keegan, “but would never allow them to feed upon me, even were they capable of it.” It was really good to know that he was her human servant. I’d thought probably, but it was nice to have it confirmed. If I got a chance to try to kill anyone, other than her, he’d go to the top of the list, because now I knew that killing him might kill her, too. Yippee.
   “Most servants of vampires can’t feed on their masters,” I said.
   “Not just most, Anita, all, or all save for Jean-Claude and his new bloodline. There seems much confusion in his newfound power on who is master and who is slave.”
   “We understand who wears the pants in the family,” I said. I could be calm as long as I didn’t look at Nathaniel, but just focused on the white bitch in front of me. I was doing my best to sort of pretend he wasn’t here. It helped me think better.
   “You may find that the pants have changed owners,” she said, then called out, “Roarke, bring our other guest.”
   And just like that my heart was racing, and I looked at Nathaniel. His eyes widened as if to tell me something with a look, but for once I couldn’t read his expression. Without our ties open between us, I was head blind and just had to watch as Roarke, King of the Roane, walked down the steps. His dark eyes stared at me as if he’d never begged me to kill him or been anything but tall, imposing, and hers. He came into the room radiating energy much more than he had at the church. He was leading another man by the hand. It took me a second to realize it was Damian. My fear spiked again until I realized Damian wasn’t chained or restrained in any way that I could see. He just walked down the stairs with Roarke like they were buddies. What the fuck was going on?
 
 
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   MOROVEN WENT TO Roarke and greeted him with a kiss. If he didn’t want to kiss her back, it didn’t show. Had he lied in the church, or was her control of him just that good outside of the church? If we all survived long enough, I’d ask.    Damian stood beside them, his face almost blank. His eyes were open, but it was as if he didn’t see anything in the room. I realized that Roarke wasn’t leading him by the hand; he was holding Damian’s wrist. It seemed odd, but then Damian just standing there while the two of them kissed was odd.
   “Damian!” I called his name, and he jumped as if I’d startled him. “Damian!” He blinked and looked at me then; for a second he was in there looking at me. He said, “Anita!”
   Moroven laid her hand beside Roarke’s so they were both touching him at the same time, and his eyes went blank again.
   “What have you done to him?” I asked.
   She looked at me and smiled that unpleasant smile that Keegan shared with her. I wondered if it had started out as his or hers. “Once I separated you from your servants, Damian was mine again, as he has always been. He gave himself and Mr. Graison over to me once your powers were not clouding his mind.”
   “I don’t believe that.”
   “He betrayed your Nathaniel, as soon as I called to him. He came back to me, because you are not vampire enough to hold him.”
   There was no way that Edward would have let them just walk out of the police station. It made me want to ask if anyone besides Nathaniel had been betrayed. But there was nothing for me in that line of questioning. Once we got out of here, then I’d ask Damian and Nathaniel all sorts of questions, but not in front of her, not with her making his eyes go dead. I had to believe we would get out of here, because I had too much at stake to think anything else.
   Moroven leaned in against Damian’s body, raising her face up toward him for a kiss. His eyes were alive again, his again, and he actually flinched away from her. She said, “Kiss me, Damian!” She made it an order, and he bent toward her, but his eyes stayed aware. He did not want to kiss her, and that was enough to bring him partially out of her control, even with her and her animal to call touching him.
   “Damian, don’t kiss her,” I said.
   He stood back up straight and tall, too tall for her to reach him. She turned to me with a hiss; her eyes glowed blue. “He is mine!”
   “You sent him to Jean-Claude. You were done with him once, Moroven. Why do you want him so badly now?”