After turning off the water, he dried himself. For the first time in perhaps three hundred years, he decided to study his reflection. Stubble, eyes blood red, hair too long and cut unevenly.
His appearance was disturbing even to him. And this was an improvement over the last several days. He bit out a curse. When human, he'd never given his looks more than a rare and passing thought.
But then, he'd never wanted to impress anyone before.
As he changed into the jeans his brothers had left for him - the shirt would be impossible to put on with the cuffs - he considered taking down Nikolai and Sebastian, but he was weakened.
Besides, he had a better idea... .
When Conrad exited the room, Sebastian said, "What made you so riled back there?"
Need to make them think I'm recovering. "Nothing." Am I recovering? He'd go along with his brothers for now, until he could escape them.
When Sebastian held up a roll of bandage gauze with his brows raised, Conrad hesitated, then extended his injured arm.
As Sebastian rebandaged it, Nikolai asked, "How'd you get this?"
Conrad muttered. "Occupational hazard." Courtesy of Tarut, an ancient and powerful dream demon who worked with the Kapsliga.
He and the demon had been trying to kill each other for centuries, but neither could quite manage it. Yet just two weeks ago, Tarut had scored a crucial victory.
He'd marked Conrad with his claws. If the tales about dream demons were true, then whenever he and the demon slumbered at the same time, Tarut could retrieve clues to his whereabouts.
Conrad had believed the curse of the mark was just folklore, the demons using tales of it to their advantage. But the injury refused to mend.
And that was only the first part of the curse. Legend held that Conrad couldn't heal until either the demon had been slain - or Conrad had had both his most fervent dream and most feared nightmare come true.
"You have to have a dream to lose it," Tarut had said at their last clash.
Conrad might actually be closing in on one. He stifled a shudder. His dream... her doom.
"You look a thousand times better after the shower," Sebastian said. "You're definitely getting more focused."
He shrugged. It wouldn't matter. Besides Tarut, Conrad was being hunted by at least half a dozen contingents that wanted him either captured or executed.
The Kapsliga, his former order, sought his death because he was an abomination to them - a vampire who wore their symbol on his back. They'd made him their priority, dispatching Tarut and other assassins after Conrad.
Then there were countless offspring of Conrad's victims, all seeking to avenge their fathers, swords in hand.
And it was only a matter of time before he became the target of Rydstrom Woede, the fallen king of the fierce rage demons, and Cadeon, his heir.
Conrad had come by information that they would kill for.
Dozens of demonarchies held Conrad as enemy number one; he worried about none of them - except for the Woede, as the pair was called.
None of these adversaries would hesitate to destroy anyone who stood in their way. It was possible that Conrad and his brothers could be taken down without his lifting a finger.
"Are you ready to drink?" Nikolai asked.
"The only thing I drink that's not fresh from the vein is whiskey," he lied.
In the past, Conrad had drunk bagged blood, but he refused now. Though he was getting thirstier, he didn't need nourishment as often as other vampires, and he'd be damned if he bent to their will in this.
Murdoch had called him stubborn, and Conrad couldn't deny it. After being captured, chained, and drugged, Conrad wouldn't prove obliging to their futile plans - especially when he wouldn't be here much longer.
He'd noted that each brother had a key to his chains. When the ghost returned, he would get her to steal one. And then he'd be gone.
Nothing could be simpler.
11
Two goddamned days. The female hadn't come back to his room for two days. For that time, Conrad alternated between a burning desire to get free and a need to discover what she was to him.
During the nights, his brothers had returned and tried to reach him, but he had no time for them. Even if he was improving, the part of him that might have responded to his family was dead.
Besides, his mind was consumed with thoughts of Néomi.
Now he gritted his teeth, struggling to remain calm. He was trapped, unable to seek her out. If he went into another rage, his brothers might force him to leave this place, jailing him somewhere else.
And he wasn't through here, not yet, not until he figured out if she was affecting his mind. Though he was still having episodes of uncontrollable violence, his aggression and rage were becoming more manageable. Just the fact that he'd pulled back from the edge in the shower attested to that.
Maybe it's not her - maybe it's something about the house. After all, he was lucid now, and she wasn't here.
No, that didn't matter. He could still sense her constantly. Yesterday, it had drizzled all day, and he could swear he'd felt that she was... sad. He routinely heard her late in the night, roaming the hallways of her home. He could make out the ghostly rustle of her skirts or even an occasional sigh. When she passed his room's door, he perceived the change in the air and had learned to search for that faint scent of roses.
He'd called for her, but it was always Nikolai who'd hastened into the room. "Who are you talking to?" he'd asked in an anxious tone.
Now Conrad felt like he suffered a different kind of madness. Need to find her. Want her here. Questions about her plagued him. She wore jewelry - earrings, a choker, a wide band on her forefinger - but she'd had no wedding ring. If this had been her property, then she'd been wealthy, but apparently she wasn't wed. And he didn't think she'd been born well-off - there was something about her demeanor that spoke of a past with nothing to lose.