“Well, I think that’s why he came to us, right?” Sebastian asked.
Luis sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s just…if I was out hunting a bear or something, and I spent hours and hours tracking him down, searching until I found his cave and everything, then while I’m in the woods he strolls up to the porch of my buddy’s house…it’s disheartening. That’s all.”
I giggled at him. He was so dejected that his quarry had sensed him on his tail and one-upped him. It didn’t make things any better that Luis was always so serious. Nico went over all the information Kenneth had given us, including the secret vault where the vial of blood was supposedly hidden.
“Well, there’s my next job. Figuring out where that blood is. Once we find it, we will have major fucking leverage against the royals,” Luis said once Nico finished talking.
The idea of finding the blood had me stiffening. Nico had his arm around me and felt my reaction. He leaned over and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Do we really want to find it?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Felipe asked.
“It’s too dangerous. If it can really do what they think it can, wouldn’t it be dangerous? Creating a whole new line of these god-like werewolves?”
Nico shook his head. “No, that’s not what we want. We need to find it so we can destroy it. Once that blood is found, we can get rid of it. If there’s no chance of Edemas’s bloodline returning to power, the royals won’t have any reason to go after Maddy or any other descendants.”
It was a good plan, but I wasn’t sure it would be that simple. This royal family had guarded the secret for hundreds of years for good reason. If one drop could reawaken a dormant wolf, what would happen if someone drank the entire thing? It would be like Edemas himself was reborn.
I mentioned my fears and Nico nodded. “True, it will be hard to convince the royals we have no intention of using the blood as a weapon, but I don’t know what else we can do.”
My hatred toward the royals seemed to build each day. After hearing Kenneth’s story, the rage inside me slowly built until it was basically boiling within me. Knowing that they’d sent agents out to murder innocent children, all because they might one day find some hidden blood somewhere on earth, was too much to even fathom.
One night, while working a slow evening at the bar, I was staring into space, and for a moment my thoughts turned dark. I started to imagine taking the blood, just a single drop. I could almost taste the mineral, coppery taste. Once I did that, they’d be sorry. I’d lay waste to the entire royal line. How would they like it if I did to them what they’d done to me and mine? I would take the blood, then spill every drop of theirs.
The dark fantasy broke at the sound of a wine glass shattering. I jumped in surprise and saw a customer had dropped her glass. Abi was running over with a towel and a fresh glass for the woman. I didn’t help because I was too shaken up about the thoughts that had been circulating inside my head. Had I really been contemplating taking Edemas’s blood? The thought made me shudder.
Mateo had been my guard that night, and he came over. I must have looked like I’d seen a ghost. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. The glass breaking startled me. No big deal.”
He’d gone away, buying the story.
Nico hadn’t been as easy to fool. The next day, his whole family was getting ready to come over, and he pulled me aside while we were cooking. “Something’s wrong, Maddy. I can tell. What’s up?”
“Nervous is all. No big deal.”
“Nervous? About what?”
“Everything, I guess,” I said, hiding my dark thoughts away inside my own mind.
Nico had looked at me skeptically before reluctantly going back to cutting lettuce for salad. The family started trickling in a little while later. First Nico’s brothers, then an aunt and uncle and a few cousins. His parents arrived last. I forced myself to mingle and chat, but my heart wasn’t in it. In fact, it was painful. Trying to keep a fake smile on my face and laugh at jokes and tell stories was worse than anything. I wasn’t a fake person by nature. I was usually a social butterfly, hence why I’d opened a bar. But this was all too much.
After dinner was over and everyone had gone outside to enjoy the Florida fall evening, I made my way downstairs into Nico’s man cave. There was a pool table, dart board, a videogame cabinet that seemed to play half the old arcade games from the eighties, and a massive TV with theater-style seating in front of it. The room was blessedly quiet, and I sat in one of the thick leather chairs in front of the TV. The silence was like cool water on a wound, and it was exactly what I needed.
The respite didn’t last long. After five minutes, I heard the shush sound of feet on the carpeted stairs. A glance over my shoulder showed me it was Julia. I gritted my teeth, wishing for just a few more minutes of peace. I quickly plastered the false smile on my face and stood.
“Hey, Julia. Did you need something?”
She waved at me. “Sit back down, dear. No need to get up on my account.”
I sat and Julia walked over to join me. She took the seat next to me and chuckled. “You could almost drown in these things. They’re so big.”
“Yep,” I said, hoping she’d get the point from one-word answers.
She didn’t. Instead, she put her hands on her lap and seemed to be thinking of something to say. Finally, she sat forward, put a hand on my knee, and said, “Can I ask you a question?”
I sighed in exhaustion, failing to hide my weariness. “Sure.” His mother was nice, but she could be pushy. No need to try to get out of the inevitable. If she was going to ask me a question, she was going to ask it. Whether I wanted her to or not.
“What are your intentions with my Nico?”
“I don’t think I understand what you mean,” I said, truly not understanding.
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