Page 67 of Vampire Savage

Ambrose is on my heels as I slide to a stop in the open doorway of the room and I start cursing. The room is empty, but there’s an open safe and a panel in the left wall is gone, revealing a narrow shaft with a steel cable going down. Fresh blood makes my nostrils flare and both of us sweep the room, tracking it like hellhounds. A vicious grin rends my face as I see the blood-covered steak knife.

“Wren’s?” Ambrose asks, and I shake my head once.

“Oberon’s,” I answer, before swiping two fingers through the small pool and tasting it. It confirms my new suspicions and I grin. It’s going to make killing Oberon so much more satisfying. I press my fingers to my coms. “Deidre, see what you can find in Benoit’s records again. We missed something. He’s got supernatural abilities, but he’s human.”

“So one of the sacrifices might not have been,” she muses. “Eloise is on it. Ashe has almost caught up with Oberon.”

No one can shake Ashe, not if they’re trying to outrace him in a car.

I rise up and roll my neck. Ambrose will have heard too. “I know where he’s taking her.”

Ambrose frowns. “The gallery?” At my nod, he smirks. “Race you there?”

My lip curls, and I realize I’ve smiled more since Wren burst into my world than the rest of my life combined. I don’t give him any warning before racing out of there, the world blurring around me.

I’m coming for you, Little Bird. And I’m ending this once and for all.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

WREN

My head feels like someone took a battering ram to it, and I groan as I come to. Blinking, I take in the dim space around me. It’s only a moment before I recognize the main showroom in the gallery, and that I must be propped up against one of the pedestals.

Pressing a hand to my temple, I try to fight through the throbbing pain and make my eyes focus. I must have a concussion from when Oberon backhanded me. My lip is swollen and I taste blood but it’s worth it. The expression on his face when I buried the steak knife in his side just before he knocked me out will remain satisfying each time I remember it for the rest of my life.

Oberon’s voice pulls my focus towards the center of the room, and where the centerpiece of the Demencius Antiquities opening exhibit would be is no longer empty. Using the display behind me, I get up, fighting past the dizziness making the room spin. Definitely a concussion. Just another strike to add to the list of the many my so-called father has made against me.

He’s crouched in the center of the room, chalk in his hands as he draws now-familiar runes on the black marble floor. They’re the same ones I saw in the files we accessed through Lan’s hacking. A question burns through the fog.

“What did you tell my mother the night you sacrificed her?” My voice is raspy, but strong.

Oberon pauses, briefly looking up at me, before returning to his work. “What does it matter?”

The only lights in the gallery are the recessed ones near the back of the showroom, the standard low-energy ones that come on only at night. I glance at the front windows, still covered entirely to keep the exhibit secret until the grand opening. Anyone walking by won’t be able to see inside, not with any clarity. A detached part of me doubts the front door will ever open to the public now.

I look at him, really look at him. He’s shed his coat at some point and his white shirt is dark with blood from where I stabbed him after he dragged me to that damn workroom. Pity I missed anything vital. His usually neat hair is messy, and his expression is strained as he carefully moves around the circle he’s filling with those archaic strange symbols.

Pushing off the display, I force my legs to hold under me. “It matters because I want to know what you said that would convince her to leave her only child for a man.”

Oberon scoffs and looks at me, pausing in his scribblings. His dark eyes glint in the dim light and I don’t recognize the man before me. Had I ever?

“She didn’t even want you.” His words are a blow but I don’t let myself bend under them.

“You’re lying,” I say, touching the earrings I always wear. It was the only thing she left me. He sees me, his mouth twisting in a slimy grin.

“Those aren’t from her,” he says and shakes his head as if disappointed me in. I lower my hand, my blood cooling as he shatters my beliefs even further. “I bought them when you were five and asking about her. I knew if I gave you something to hold on to, I could use her memory whenever I needed to. Do you know how many times she begged me to let her end the pregnancy?” He draws the final two symbols as I reel. He stands, tossing the chalk away and dusting his hands off before looking back at me.

“Saoirse was so damned needy,” he says with disgust. “It was a damn relief to get rid of her. Turns out, she wasn’t as devoted as she claimed. When she realized she’d have to slit her wrists for me, she tried to back out. In the end, she didn’t love me like I’d hoped. She’d loved my money.”

Anger fills me. “I don’t love you, either,” I say and gesture to the circle. The armored box he keeps the obsidian chalice in lies at his feet just outside the circle. “This isn’t going to work. You won’t get immortality by killing me.”

He shakes his head, his face sullen. “No, but I’ll get enough years to try again.” He eyes me speculatively, his gaze dropping to my stomach. I press my hand over my womb, where the tiny life Lan and I unexpectedly created lies. A fierce wave of protectiveness renews my determination to live.

“Don’t even think about taking my child,” I snarl, my other fist clenching.

He eyes me and snorts, shaking his head as if dismissing the idea. “No, that vampire will keep hunting for you if you’re his mate. Better to kill you tonight and twist the knife in him further. He should have died in that fire or stayed dead to me.”

“I won’t let a monster like you win.” I shake my head, stepping back. “He’s coming for me. He’ll save me and then I’ll have a real family.”

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