“Are you afraid of Lucidia Draxos?” she asked softly.
“I’d be a fool not to be,” he answered.
“What will she do?”
“She’ll come after us,” he said, turning his eyes back to the road. “We won’t see it coming – well, you’re just along for the ride, but I won’t see it coming. She’s too good for that. She’ll try to derail us and take you.”
“Take me?”
He nodded.
“Where will she take me?”
He gave his usual crooked smile. “She wouldn’t be very good if I could guess where she’d take you, now would she?”
Robin laughed softly, despite the outrageous conversation. “I guess not.”
A silence passed between them, as the miles to Grand Junction dropped down and the sunset disappeared entirely.
“Will she take me to her ‘house’? To Darian?”
Reykon shook his head. “She can’t.”
“Why not?”
“She disobeyed orders by not killing you, because you were the illegitimate offspring of a strongblood. The vampires control us in every sense. We’re not allowed to… um, reproduce, without express permission. We actually can’t. So-”
“Can’t?”
Reykon sighed. “After a strongblood goes through puberty, there’s a swearing in ceremony. In order to be sworn in, you have to, well, get your tubes tied by the witch doctors. If your master wants a new strongblood, they reverse the procedure. Your father had been permitted to have a child with a woman from the Hyxos strongbloods, which resulted in your sister’s birth. Then, years later, he had sex with a mortal woman, and you were born. But Master Darian didn’t permit another child, and when a strongblood has a child with a mortal and muddles the bloodline, it results in a fully human ‘weakblood’. They’re supposed to be killed at birth, along with the strongblood responsible. Master Darian charged Lucidia with that assignment, and instead of killing you, she hid you with the Wrights and brought another child back.”
“She killed a baby?” Robin gasped.
He gave her another look of surprise and endearment. “Yes. To protect you.”
“Fat lot of good that did,” Robin muttered dismally. “If she did such a good job of hiding me, how did Magnus find out I was alive?”
Reykon sighed. “I don’t know. It’s not my job to ask questions.”
“You’re not curious?”
“I don’t really get to be curious.”
“So, why doesn’t she just let you take me to Magnus? It seems like I’ll be toast after that.”
“Vampires like to brag,” Reykon said. “If Magnus gets a hold of proof that one of Darian Xander’s most ruthless, fearsome subjects betrayed him, he’ll lord it over the whole House Xander for centuries to come. Everyone will know, and Lucidia will probably be executed. Even if she can evade the slaughter block, she’ll be hunted like an animal for the rest of her life, which’ll be a while.”
“A while?”
“Strongbloods live longer than humans,” he said. “Half vampire juju and all.”
“How long?”
“Normally around six or seven hundred years, some more, some less, if you can stay alive long enough to die of old age. Most get picked off at the five hundred mark.”
Robin’s eyebrows crunched together. “How old are you?”
“One hundred and seventeen.”
Her mouth dropped. “Liar.”
Reykon laughed. “No, I’m serious. Lucidia’s one-twenty-two.”
“You don’t… that’s not possible.”
“Magic,” he said bleakly. “Casters love experimenting with the limits of nature.”
Robin watched the road for a stretch, shifting in the seat and trying to get comfortable. “Do you think Lucidia hates me?”
Reykon glanced to her and gave a reassuring smile. “Don’t take it personally. Lucidia hates everybody.”
Robin chewed on that and turned back to the road, watching as the mile count to their destination dipped into single digits.
Lucidia
She was nearing the southern border of Nebraska now, a desolate wasteland of fifties era ranch houses that had never been maintained. She couldn’t even count how many weathered once-white-but-now-gray picket fences she’d passed.
There’d been a cop patrolling the highway (she didn’t remember which road), but she’d lost him by speeding up to 140 and weaving through two semis, resulting in a momentary thrill that had distracted her just a hair from the otherwise shitty outlook. Between Darian and Magnus, Reykon, and Robin, she had too many potential threats coming from too many directions.
But they could all be solved if Robin never made it to House Demonte.
She’d contemplated killing Robin the second she laid eyes on her. She could even order Clay’s pack to do it for her, but that tug of emotion that had enchanted her, years ago, still hung around, popping up in the most annoying of times. Killing was easy, clean, and quiet. Secrets were messy and blew up in your face.
But it hadn’t stopped her from risking her neck for Robin twenty-five years ago.
Stupid, she thought.
She liked to think that she’d learned from her past mistakes, and most of the time she did, but this seemed to be a stubborn one.
She sped down the road, passing a ‘Welcome to Colorado’ sign. Just ahead, a rusty red pickup sat in the shoulder. As Lucidia neared, the car turned on. At first, she tensed, ready to gun it, but then she saw the bumper sticker. It was simple, easy to miss, featuring a snarling wolf. Halfway down its neck, the fur cut together in a Celtic pattern resembling scales. It was the universal symbol for werewolves.
Lucidia slowed to a stop and veered off, into the shoulder.
After she’d stood her bike up on its kickstand, she took her helmet off and ran a hand through her spiky black hair. The door of the truck opened, and a girl stepped out, which surprised Lucidia.
Girl, as in about fourteen years old.
She had warm brown hair, long and pulled up in a utilitarian ponytail.
