Bitten to Death

move had scared the crap out of me. But because he’d known it would.

Suddenly the room smelled too much of him. I strode into the sitting area and slumped into a chair. Studied the floor. Interesting pattern in the growth of the wood that had gone into its making. Lovely lines and whorls all combining to form a nice hard place to rest my feet. Which were tapping like mini machine guns. That would be a satisfying way to take Disa out. Just shoot her in the head until it disintegrates. I jumped up and began to pace.

Each step seemed to click off the names of the people thrashing through my mind. Disa. Vayl. Dave. Trayton. Samos. Images of me pulling that trigger. Vayl, running his fingers through his hair, his eyes dark and fathomless. Dave looking horrified and slightly hungover. The blood vision. Trayton’s trusting gaze. Over and over again my mind ran that loop until I clenched my teeth, pissed that my brain had fallen right back into the torturous track it had built sixteen months before when I’d lost my love—my friends—and yeah, maybe a little bit of my sanity.

My phone rang. I looked at it. Not Vayl. Or Dave. Okay, I could talk to anyone else. “Yeah?”

“Jasmine.” Cassandra’s soft, low voice made me stop. One of the few Trayton had sensed on the inside of my heart, Cassandra had wanted to accompany me on this mission just like she had on the last two. But I’d reminded her and Bergman both that they had businesses to run and they’d better, by damn, pay some attention to them for a while. Thank God they’d listened to me. To have them here in the middle of all this—unbearable.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re barking.”

Instant guilt. Goddamn that Were. “I’m sorry, I just—you wouldn’t believe what I just did.” I paused. “Actually, you probably would.”

“I wonder if it was related to the vision I just had?”

“What did you See?”

“This is a pivotal time for you. If you kill anyone for the wrong reason, someone close to you will die as well. I didn’t see his face. Just yours, covered in tears, dark with despair.”

“Well, that’s pretty straightforward. Any more great advice before I pack Grief in mothballs?”

She ignored my sarcasm. “Only this. The woman I Saw must not die by your hand, or you will never be joined to Vayl.”

“I don’t . . . That is, Vayl and I . . .” Okay, why am I trying to BS a psychic? “What’s she look like?”

Cassandra described Disa in minute detail. Shit. Of course, we can still take her out. Maybe when Cole gets finished . . .

“Stop, Jasmine. Think what you’re plotting.”

I realized I’d walked all the way to the door. I bowed my head against it. Son of a bitch. Fifty years? What the hell did she think—and then it hit me. I turned around.

“Cassandra, I have just tried to kill the one person who can lead us to Edward Samos. Because of Vayl. And because I’m so torn up about Dave. You should see him; he’s never been this close to the edge. Which is making me absolutely crazy. But that’s beside the point. No, that is the point. This fucking Trust is turning us all into something we’re not.”

“Jasmine, I am so worried about you,” Cassandra said. “I can hear the strain in your voice from all these thousands of miles away.”

I looked up at the ceiling, and suddenly the cracks seemed to converge into a form. One so gigantic my brain could only capture it for a millisecond. “It’s like this entire villa is at our throats, sucking out the logic, the sense. Holy Christ, it’s like the Trust itself is a vampire. And as long as we stay under its roof, we’re going to be locked in some sort of battle with it.”

I began to pace the room as realizations hit me, one after another. “Everything. Dave shooting the Weres. The binding. Me trying to kill Disa. They were all symptoms of the fact that we were under attack.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure. Vayl warned me about the power of this place. But at the moment, all I really know is that I’ve totally jeopardized the mission. And my job.” I locked eyes with the fountain statue, who stared back at me without pity as I whispered, “So what am I gonna do now?”

Chapter Eleven

I lay back on the bed, trying to ignore the freaky painting, pouring my poker chips from one hand to another. One of Dave’s men had given them to me when we’d worked together on our last mission. I could’ve used that guy’s help right now. Cam’s scars, a combination of killer acne and a close escape from a grenade, were visible proof of how good he was at surviving sticky situations.

“Obviously my perspective is trashed. Maybe . . . Should I quit?” I asked the round clay tiles clacking their soothing music against my fingers. I imagined writing out a letter of resignation. Watching that paper flutter onto Pete’s desk with the same death knell they used to toll the loss of sailors at sea.

Gut churning. But not as bad as letting Samos walk. I really have to consider this. But not lying down. I jumped up. Sitting around here is driving me crazy. Plus, I’m so not ready to talk to Vayl and Dave. What would I tell them? The big bad house made me do it? Yeah, that’ll go over like a lead balloon. Especially considering the Trust is in their heads too. And they’re pissed at me.

Maybe if I had some proof. Hamon’s room. That’s it! Try to find something from his stash to back up my theory.

I left a note for Dave to call Cassandra, her last request before we’d broken our connection, and headed out the door. Moving toward the apartments that had once housed the king of these vampires, I tried to imagine what Vayl and the rest of the group were discussing right now. Spaz Jaz, the renegade assassin, no doubt. Was Vayl trying to talk Disa out of flaying me alive? Had Dave told any embarrassing stories of my high school flip-outs? Forget that