She glanced toward the door, her expression uncharacteristically pained. “I couldn’t let him know, Trish. He’d go through the fucking roof. I haven’t got anything concrete yet—just images and impressions that have been coming to me in dreams. But I think Vlad is coming for me. He’s pissed that I haven’t come after him in spite of all the stuff I know you and Nate have been hiding from me.”
My eyes widened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Are you serious?” she drawled. “You’re the worst liar in the world, Trish. I’ve never seen anyone with a worse poker face. And Nate evades like nobody’s business when he’s hiding something. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what you two were up to. So I played along to see what would happen—especially after I found out I was pregnant. I might be reckless with my own life, but there’s no way I would put Nate’s child in harm’s way.”
“I’m sorry, Tess,” I said. “We should’ve given you more credit.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll chat more about you and Nate keeping all this from me later on,” she assured me. “But right now, you need to help figure out what Vlad’s up to. This shit’s getting too personal and I can’t take on that sadistic bastard on my own right now.”
I nodded. “I swear to you, I will do everything in my power to keep you and your baby safe.”
Red huffed, then pressed her lips into an angry line. “This is bullshit,” she muttered. “I’m not some goddamn damsel in distress. I should be the one doing the protecting.”
I squeezed her hand. “Tess Little, you have spent almost two hundred years protecting us. It’s time to let some of us return the favor.”
The look of gratitude she gave me was so unexpected, my lips were trembling a little when I locked onto her gaze once more. This time when the connection started, she didn’t fight it.
I plowed through her memories, blushing a little at the glimpses I caught of her most intimate moments with Nate. I was glad to see that her pregnancy hadn’t put a damper on their sex life, though. At all. Damn. I was beginning to wonder if I’d get a glimpse of anything helpful regarding the problems with the pregnancy when I suddenly found myself drifting. No, not drifting . . . floating. My entire body grew warm as love and peacefulness enveloped me. So much love. I’d never felt such contentment. Then I hiccupped.
What the hell?
I peered in deeper. It was only then I realized it was no longer Red’s thoughts I was reading but those of her unborn child. A smile tugged at my lips. He was anxious to come out and greet his parents, whose love he felt so intensely. I shuddered at the force of that love, tears coming to my eyes. He was going to be one very lucky boy.
But then there was a sudden disturbance in that perfect, all-
encompassing cocoon of love. A ripple of hatred, fear, and jealousy hit me so hard, it physically knocked me back, but I didn’t release the connection in spite of Red’s hiss as a contraction hit her hard.
“It’s all right, little one,” I cooed in my thoughts. “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe.”
“Talk to him, Tess,” I said aloud.
“Him?” she echoed. “Him, who? Vlad?”
She started to look away, but I took her face in my hands, keeping her from breaking the eye contact. “Talk to your son, Tess—he needs to hear your voice.”
“Son?” she said, her voice a little tight. “We’re having a boy?”
“You didn’t know?”
She shook her head, looking a little dazed. As she began to rub her tummy and talk to her son—albeit, a little awkwardly at first—I continued searching.
Suddenly a monstrous face, twisted and distorted with fury, loomed before me, making me cry out in surprise. I clamped a hand over my mouth when I felt Tess tense so I wouldn’t alarm her further.
The face smirked and then it was no longer just a face but the whole man, his perfectly sculpted physique at odds with his hideous, batlike visage as he prowled toward me. His lips curled into a grotesque smile. It was only then that I recognized him from our encounter in the alley.
“Vlad,” I breathed. “My God.”
His smirk grew. “Beautiful, aren’t I?” he snarled. “Have you ever seen a face like mine?”
Only in my nightmares.
“What the hell happened to you?” I asked, my heart pounding with fear as he edged closer and began to circle me like a predator coming in for the kill.
“I have become a product of my environment, Beatrice,” he snapped, spreading his arms. “I am a creature of the darkness, a man denied what he needs to survive and left to become a monster!”
I shook my head, not understanding. “You brought this darkness upon yourself. You turned Red’s love into hatred by your actions.”
He snarled, snapping at me like a wild beast and beating at his chest. “My actions,” he hissed. The circle he walked around me was growing smaller with each pass. I turned with him now, careful to keep him before me. “It is not my actions that have brought me to this. I tried to protect her, tried to warn her . . . but she wouldn’t listen. They never listen. I call and no one hears!”
The guy was obviously descending into madness, his rant not making much sense. “Vlad,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “What is it you want from Red? What is it you want from me?”
He rushed me with a roar that sent me stumbling away, but not quickly enough. He grabbed me by the throat and walked me backward until we were standing in what looked like a basement or cellar. It was dark, but I didn’t need light to know we were not alone; there were others lurking in the shadows, their eager, bloodthirsty hisses making my skin prickle with fear.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on the quiet shuffling in the shadows. Vlad’s breath reeked of death when he shoved his face close to mine. “Do you know what it’s like to never have a voice, Beatrice?” He didn’t wait for my response before he barreled on. “I was portrayed as a monster in my story. I never was given a voice to tell my side of the tale. I was portrayed as a villain, a fiend!” His expression twisted with bitterness and disgust. “But who does Stoker let speak? That simpering idiot Harker. Harker! That changed when I came over. The ones who loved me made it so. I was transformed into a man—not just a monster.”
Whoa. Dude was way gone. . . .
“Have you ever loved completely?” he asked, his voice taking on a haunting sorrow at the sudden shift in topic. “To want so desperately to be seen for who and what you truly are, only to be misunderstood?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking of Nicky and his anger over my revelation about Juliet. To him, I had become a monster who had sullied the saintly image of his wife. “Yes, I know what it’s like.”
Something changed in Vlad’s expression then—it was twisted with sorrow and desperation. “Come to me, Beatrice,” he pleaded, repeating the phrase he’d been calling out to me. “You are the one I need. Come to me.”
It was disconcerting to see a man known for his power and prowess reduced to such a pathetic, despondent specimen, but I was feeling a little short on sympathy considering the hell he’d been putting everyone through. “I’m not doing shit for you until you leave Red and the baby alone.”
He roared with rage and shoved me away. “You cannot deny me!” he fumed. “You have tasted the blood; it courses through your veins even now. Tell me, Beatrice, how did Nicky Blue’s blood taste on your tongue when you bit him? How did it make you feel? Did you come for him, little one? How many times?”
I blinked at the surreal Hannibal Lecter moment we seemed to be having. If he so much as hinted at Chianti and fava beans, I was outta there. “How did you know about that?” I asked, my voice hoarse from the fear that was choking me.
He chuckled, a dark, grating sound that made me shudder, and was on me again in an instant. “You are mine, Beatrice. I have tasted you. And you have tasted me. We are one.”
I shook my head. “Bullshit.”
He ran a finger down the length of my jugular, his fetid lips close to my ear. “Come to me, Beatrice. Free me from this prison of darkness, and I will keep the spiders at bay. They will never plague you again.”
Shit. He knew about the spiders, too?
“You know what it’s like to be in a prison of darkness,” he continued. “How long did they lock you away in that room after you saw the spider and lost your little innocent mind?”
