Relief washed through me, relief of the doubts I’d secretly been harboring about being the one fated for Bo. But as I watched Bo careful y trace each shape with the tip of his finger, those doubts melted away like ice on hot pavement. I was made for Bo, made by God Himself to be his mate. I was the one person on earth who could help him fulfil his destiny and, even though his destiny would likely rip from our grasp an eternity together, I could live forever knowing that we’d had this perfect love for just a little while.
“What does it mean?” I final y asked.
“It must be part of the letter. It’s like a laundry list of people
—The Corrupted Child, born into evil; The Reluctant Vampire, fol owed by death and yet refusing to succumb; The Bereaved Child, grief-stricken and betrayed; The First Fal en One, the only blood given wil ingly; The One Not Chosen, turned bitter with envy; and The Doomed Key.”
“But what does it al mean?”
“Wel , if it is part of the letter, which according to Cade it is, then maybe these are people Sebastian needs in order to be able to kil me. Maybe he needs the blood of these people—or their lives—as a sacrifice. I just don’t know.”
“How are we ever supposed to make sense of anything like this? How are we supposed to know what to do with the information I’m learning?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it wil appear soon.”
“Do you think this has anything to do with Devon since it was him that they took?”
“I think we have to assume that it does.”
“Could he be one of the people listed?”
Bo looked thoughtful y at the things only he could decipher from the beautiful markings on my skin.
“I guess he could be the Reluctant Vampire. He refuses to feed, which means that it should only be a matter of time before he dies. I guess you could say that death fol ows him.”
“How could Sebastian have known that he’d find just such a person here, in this town where both of us live? Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?”
Bo straightened, his eyes burning into mine.
“It’s no coincidence. This is fate,” he said intensely.
“None of this is an accident.”
“So what do we do now?”
Bo took the tee shirt that dangled from my fingers, turned it right-side out and held it out to me.
“After you get dressed, we’l go get Lucius and see if we can find Devon before morning.”
“But what if they come looking for him?”
“There’s no reason for them to go back there again, unless they have to keep another prisoner down there.
Besides, he’s invisible. Maybe they won’t know he’s gone if I put al the stakes back where they were.”
Although I worried about Sebastian coming after Devon, I had to trust Bo. This was his God-given job to do, his birthright and sole purpose for existence. He had to have a wisdom that no one else could understand.
So, after slipping my shirt back over my head, Bo and I headed back through the house toward the door. Annika emerged from the den just as we were passing.
“I see Cade must’ve gotten a little taste of our fair Ridley, or rather she got a taste of him,” she said smugly. “Looks like he’l be sleeping it off for a while. Did you find out anything useful?”
“Ridley saw that they were keeping a friend of ours in a mine shaft.”
“Where is it?”
“We don’t know the exact location, but we know someone who can probably help us. We’re going to go start looking now.”
“Mind if I come? I’m going to need to feed before too long and I can help you search. You might need an extra hand.”
She couldn’t have been more casual, but I could see intent in her eyes that was anything but. As usual, though, Bo was oblivious to what I believed were Annika’s conniving ways.
“That would be great. We can use al the help we can get.”
“It’l be just like the night we had to go find Scabs when he tried to run away.”
Bo looked confused for a few seconds before his faulty memory gave way to a clear recol ection.
“Yeah, I remember that. Poor kid didn’t expect it to snow so much, did he?”
Annika laughed. It was a dainty, feminine sound that set my teeth on edge. Her eyes twinkled merrily as she watched Bo.
“Poor Scabs was almost frozen solid so we had to stop at that old cabin and spend the night. He slept on the floor in front of the fire and we had to share that rickety bed.”
Although Bo continued to smile in reminiscence, I saw his eyes dart nervously toward me and then back to Annika. He looked guilty in a way that left me wondering how he and Annika had spent the night.
He cleared his throat and tugged my hand.
“We’d better get going then. Are you ready?”
Annika’s smile was vaguely predatory.
“Very.”
The three of us made our way through the cooling night toward woods that seemed to hold a lifetime of memories already. I ran on one side of Bo, Annika on the other.
Repeatedly, she tried to engage him in conversation, bringing up tantalizing tidbits of their history, tidbits that seemed designed to make him remember her in a more romantic light. I had no idea how wel it was working, but if his evasiveness was any indication, I thought pretty wel .
When we arrived at Lucius’s cabin, the three of us mounted the steps. Before Bo’s knuckles could even make contact with the door, it swung open to reveal a smiling Lucius standing on the other side, wearing nothing but blue jeans and a big smile.
“Wel , wel , wel . To what do I owe this glorious pleasure?”
he teased in his thick brogue. His jewel-like eyes flitted from me to Bo and on to Annika who stood at Bo’s other side.
There, they stopped and immediately began to sparkle with masculine appreciation. “Sweet Lord, lad, where do you find
‘em?”
Bo smoothly ignored Lucius’s question, choosing instead to state the reason for our visit.
“We need your help to find an abandoned mine shaft.”
“Don’t be rude. Introductions are in order first.”
Lucius stepped toward Annika and reached for her hand, bringing it to his lips. His eyes never left hers and I could tel by Annika’s expression that she was far from immune to Lucius’s considerable charm.
“Lucius, Annika. Annika, Lucius,” Bo obliged sharply.
“Annika. What a beautiful name. Swedish?”
Annika beamed at him.
“Yes.”