Eventide

sounds different than usual. It has more…feeling.

With effort, I turn my head and glance around the room. The walls are stone. I’m in a large bed; a hearth sits on the far wall across from me. There is one window. Dark beamed rafters are overhead. “Where are we?” I say, then reaching up, I touch my neck. It feels stiff, as though I’d been craning, or straining. No, it hurts deeper than muscle. “Damn, my throat hurts.”

Eli reaches, grasps my hand, and laces our fingers together. He leans closer. “Riley,” he says, his expression grave. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

I don’t like his intensity. Not now. Something’s up. “What?”

He shakes his head. “Don’t try to analyze anything right now. Not this time, Riley. Just tell me,” he says again, and squeezes my hand. His lukewarm skin comforts me. “The very last thing you remember.”

Despite my irritation at Eli’s odd demand, I search my brain, and I think really, really hard. What in hell is the last thing I remember? I stare at some random point on the wall across the room. “I remember feeling…angry,” I say. “I don’t know why, but I was. Angry at everyone.” I turn my head to him. “Including you.”

He stares at me. “What else?”

“Why does it matter?”

“What else, Riley?” he insists.

I take a deep breath and think some more. Then I remember. I push myself up by my elbows, fear gripping me. “Oh my God. Bhing, from next door.” I look at Eli. “She was attacked by a vampire, I’m pretty sure. I…fought it. She ran off.”

Eli’s eyes watch me closely. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t move. “Riley,” he says slowly. “That happened weeks ago.”

Ice grips my insides. I look at him like he’s lost his mind. “That’s impossible.”

“You know it’s not.”

My mind rushes in furious circles as I try my best to recall something. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut. Nothing comes. Only that of Bhing in the alley.

“You’ve been experiencing a quickening. You’ve been”—his gaze doesn’t waver—“changing.”

Even opening my eyes and looking into Eli’s doesn’t soothe me. I don’t even have to ask what into. I immediately know.

“My quickening. Was it worse than my cleansing at Da Island?” I ask. That had been pretty intense. I remember most of it, and it included Preacher’s root doctor herb and potions, being tied down, night sweats, and a lot of pain.

“Yes.”

I lie back down and stare at the ceiling. “What the hell?” I ask out loud.

“The strigoi venom—Valerian’s in particular—was taking over you,” Eli explains. “It began…morphing. Changing. I didn’t realize how severe.”

I turn my gaze to him. “How severe?” It now dawns on me, and my insides freeze. “Oh, Christ—did I kill someone? How’s Seth? Nyxinnia? Preacher and Estelle?”

“They’re all fine, Riley.”

I don’t like the unanswered tone in his voice. “Who isn’t fine, Eli?”

He only stares at me.

“Eli!” I yell. “Please!”

“We’re unsure,” he answers, just as calm as I am anxious. “A young Gullah girl was killed. But we’ll worry about that later. We knew we couldn’t risk any more time.”

As his words settle uncomfortably into my brain, my gaze scans the room. Where am I? Old. Stone. Not Inksomnia, not Preacher’s, and not the House of Dupre. I look at him. “What did you do, Eli?”

His hard stare fixes to mine. “The only thing I could do, Riley.” He goes through the motion of taking a deep breath. “We brought you to Castle Arcos. We’re in Kudszir, Romania, Riley, with Victorian’s father, Julian. You’ve been here almost three weeks. My father, myself, Noah, Jake Andorra, and Victorian have been here as well.”

Jake Andorra? Why would he be here? I’ve never even met the guy. I only stayed at his house in Charleston when we fought Valerian’s vampire fight clubs a little while back. I lay my palm against my forehead. “This can’t be happening.”

“There’s more.”

With my hand still fused to my head, I look at him. A bad feeling pits my stomach. “What? What else can there be? Where’s my brother?”

Eli edges closer. “Seth is safe. He’s at home with my mother and sister. Listen, Riley. Look at me.” I do. “In order to balance the strigoi DNA in your system, Julian had to inject his venom. It was the only way to give you control over Valerian’s urges.”

I blink. “How did Julian…inject his venom?”

Rising from the bed, Eli walks to the fireless hearth. He runs his hand over the back of his neck. “The same way I did.”

The moment the words are out of his mouth, I freeze. My insides grow numb, and mindlessly, my hand reaches for my throat. No freaking wonder it’s so sore. “You bit me, Eli?” I ask. Shock beats through me. Confusion makes my head spin.

In the next breath, he stands beside me, and he lifts my chin, forcing me to look at him. His gaze, harsh and desperate at the same time, may have at one time scared me. “It was the only way,” he says, his voice low, unsteady, as though he were about to totally lose it. “I couldn’t stand the thought of all those Arcoses binding with your DNA.” He drops his hands from my face, squeezes his eyes shut, lowers his head, and gathers his control. When he lifts his head, and those blue eyes stare into mine, I can plainly see he has gained it again. “I wanted you to have my DNA, Riley. Dupre. Not just Arcos.” His French accent thickens with his last words.

A mixture of emotions crowd me at once, and I slowly stand. Part of me—a big part—understands Eli’s actions. He didn’t want three powerful and deadly strigois’ DNA binding with mine. I get it. But the other part of me is pissed off. I know I was incapacitated, unable to make rational decisions. I know that. But still. Somehow, I feel…violated. Like I am nothing more than a beat-up doll thrown into the midst of four vampires who all take turns at me. Each trying to claim me. Well, I’m not anyone’s bitch. I’m not available to be claimed. “What part of me left is actually me, Eli?” I ask, and I look at him. “Any of it?” I thump my chest. “Is there anything left of Riley Poe inside? Or am I just some fucked-up mutated human with vampire tendencies?” Anxiety and irritation claw at me. I pace. The need to run takes over. Eli senses it.

“Riley,” he says, stilling me with one hand against my shoulder. “Stop.”

“No!” I reply. I’m angry. Hurt. Confused. “I need to talk to Seth. To Nyx. I…gotta be alone for a while, Eli. Think things through.”

“Non.”

I meet his look with silence. “Don’t follow me. You know I will outrun you.”

Eli’s eyes are hard, face determined. His grip tightens around my forearm. “Don’t do this, Riley. You’re not in Savannah.”

I give Eli one last look that hopefully conveys the message that I need to be alone. After several seconds, his hand drops from me. I turn, search the floor for shoes that look like mine, find a pair of worn brown hikers and pull them onto my bare feet. I head for the door in a house unfamiliar to me, and run.

Far into the wood I go, beneath a misty canopy of tall aged trees and atop thick bracken. Twice I look over my shoulder. Eli hasn’t followed. Finally, I slow to a trot, then, I walk.

For the first time, I notice what I’m wearing: jeans, a tank covered by a long-sleeved button-up shirt. I’m hardly ever cold anymore, but Romania seems a little different from home. I notice a biting cold wind whipping through the trees. It rustles an array of various colors above me. Some fall to the ground. Is it October? November? I don’t even know anymore. So consumed am I with the new knowledge of just what I have become, I barely notice my unique surroundings. The cold. The leaves. I don’t care.

“You’re deep in the Carpathians, love,” Victorian’s voice pushes through my mind. “My home.”