Through the heavy slits of his weary lids, Bo’s ebony orbs watched me.
From across the room, I saw in them understanding.
I turned my gaze on Sebastian, ready to unleash the wrath that swelled within me. He stood near the stairs, with Heather by his side, but when I saw him, my anger died instantaneously. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him as he was.
He held Lilly in his arms.
I looked at her peaceful, still-sleeping face and then back up to Sebastian’s.
He was wearing a smile that reeked of satisfaction, one that silently proclaimed his victory.
“Bravo,” he said facetiously. “You’ve just proved that you are the one.”
As the anger and the power burned off, my mind reeled with confusion.
“What? I don’t understand.”
“You’ve given me the one true weakness of the boy who can’t be killed: his soul mate.”
Far beneath all the tragedy of what was going on, a bright light of pure pleasure beamed within me, hoping upon hope that he was right, but only about the soul mate part. Then, quickly, I forced my focus back to the present.
“But I’m not his weakness.”
“Oh, but you are. Heather here has made sure that you have enough venom in your blood to turn ten beautiful young girls into monsters, which leaves Bo here with a decision to make.”
My blood ran ice cold and drained away from my face. What had she done?
What had he done?
I felt panic clawing its way up inside me, threatening to have its way, but I tamped it down, knowing it was something I couldn’t afford to worry about right now.
I looked back at Bo. He was glaring murderously at Sebastian from his place against the wooden support beam. Judging by the look in his eye, I was the only one who failed to understand what Sebastian was talking about.
“What decision?”
“You’re soon to be a vampire, sweet Ridley. Bo here is smart enough to know that if he kills me, he will become mortal, and that means that he’d leave the love of his life to walk the earth for eternity…alone. Once he attains mortality, there is no going back. Your misery, your heartache, your loneliness—it would all be his fault.”
My head swam as if it were filled with hazy liquid and nausea sloshed in my stomach at the mere prospect of the future that he described. I shook my head, literally putting my fingertips to my temples in an effort to control what was happening inside it. And then, with a determination I didn’t believe myself capable of, I violently shoved those selfish thoughts aside.
“And what makes you so sure that I won’t kill you? Maybe I’m the weapon that will take your traitorous life.”
“Well, if that’s a theory you wish to test, then I suppose there’s not much I can do about it. But let me warn you of this, Ridley. If you were to try such a thing, I would be forced to take innocent Lilly’s life.”
I gasped.
“You would do that to your own child?”
“You ask that when I just put a dagger through the heart of my beloved son?
But the answer is yes, I would it again, only I wouldn’t have to.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because Lilly isn’t my daughter.”
“Then who’s—”
“Lilly is more closely related to you than she is to me,” Sebastian interrupted gleefully. He was obviously alluding to a secret juicy enough to find great pleasure in revealing.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t suppose it will hurt to tell you that my Iofiel has found out some very interesting, very valuable information in the past few hundred years. For instance, did you know that the blood of a child born a vampire holds unique power?”
I shook my head. “No, but what does this have to do with—”
“With you? Well, I would’ve thought that your niece’s life might mean something to you—the last little piece of your sister—but I guess I could’ve misjudged you.”
“My niece? But I don’t have a- a…”
I trailed off as silver blue eyes floated through my head. A bell-like laugh and gleaming auburn locks, only these didn’t belong to Lilly. They belonged to Izzy.
“But Izzy died. And so did the baby,” I muttered quietly, still befuddled.
“Did Bo happen to mention that his ‘mother’ worked at the hospital?”
My mouth dropped open, working fruitlessly to wrap my lips around words that I couldn’t find.
“You’re lying,” I whispered.
“Heather, let’s give Ridley here a little memento of what she stands to lose…
again.”
From her pocket, Heather pulled out a silver rectangle and tossed it to me. It landed on the floor with a clatter and skidded to a halt in front of me. I looked down and recognized Izzy’s cell phone where it lay at my feet. This was why it had never been recovered. Sebastian had stolen the phone when he’d turned the baby inside her womb.
“Amazing what the blood of an angel, a vampire angel, can do for a fetus, isn’t it?”
I had nothing to say to that. I let the tense silence stretch on as I stared numbly at the phone, searching for some other kind of explanation, but finding none.
Sebastian voice penetrated the quiet like a sharp arrow, finding its target in the center of my chest.
“Know this,” Sebastian said, his tone turning deadly serious. “I am more powerful than you can imagine. I have beings at my disposal that can bring you and Lilly pain that there is no description for, creatures much worse than Lars. This is the only warning you’ll get: don’t try to find me or you’ll spend the rest of eternity regretting it.”
He paused to drive his point home, his eyes boring holes first into Bo and then into me. Then, in a swirl of dust, he disappeared, taking Heather and Lilly with him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A silence fell over the room, a silence filled with fears so loud I could barely hear myself think. The loud patter of Bo’s blood dripping into the puddles on the floor finally roused me from my dumbfounded state.
I hurried to his side, my hands flitting from knife handle to stake and back again. I had no idea how to help him, what to do first.
“The knife. Get the knife out,” he groaned weakly.
Wrapping my trembling fingers around the cool hilt, I pulled as hard as I could, but it didn’t budge. Inhaling, I held my breath and tried again. Nothing.
“Bo, I can’t get it out. What are we going to do?”
His chest heaved with his efforts just to breathe and remain conscious.