Page 14 of Filthy Rich Vampires: For Eternity

“We are safe now.”

“Are you sure?” Maybe her abduction fueled my fear. Maybe I just needed to hear her say yes.

And as if fate itself had decided to answer, a loud banging sounded through the room, followed by a demand we heard all the way in the bedroom.

“Open this fucking door right now!”

CHAPTER THREE

JACQUELINE

Willem hadn’t taken a normal residence. He’d moved into a fortress.

The locator spell had worked. I’d taken a small motor boat from the Rio and allowed the spell to lead me out of Venice proper into the open water around it, then finally to a small island that sat only a few thousand feet from the city. I docked the boat on a small pier and climbed out to the craggy shoreline. The island itself was clearly shrouded in some ancient spell to keep it from view, but the magic we’d used had allowed me to see beyond. It was no wonder we hadn’t been able to track Willem in the city. I had no doubt he’d been here all along, right under our noses. Fog hung like smoke on the water surrounding me, and I stared at the stone towering before me, my stomach beginning to churn. I’d promised I would find Thea tonight. I’d sworn I would bring her home to Julian. But I wasn’t sure I was up to scaling some medieval castle to do it—especially not in these shoes.

“Excuses,” I muttered to myself, kicking one heel off.

“You aren’t actually going to do what I think you’re going to do,” Camila said from behind me.

I whipped around, my hair flying across my face, to see her step from the shadows.

“How?” I hadn’t seen or heard her following me in the darkness.

“I followed you.” She shrugged and stepped next to me, her body achingly close.

“I gathered that.” I rolled my eyes. “Why didn’t I hear you?”

“I have tricks of my own.”

Ones she wasn’t going to tell me. Maybe she would if I asked, but after earlier, there was no way I was asking Camila anything. The kiss had been a moment of insanity. So had been admitting that I still loved her. Was that why she was here now? Had she followed me to push things? To mock me for that stolen kiss?

“I don’t have time for your bullshit,” I informed her coolly. “I need to worry about Thea.”

“I’m not here to be in the way.” She spoke with unexpected softness, sounding more like the woman I’d known when we were younger, before everything happened. But I didn’t trust it—kiss or not.

“You thought you’d tag along and watch?” I kicked off my other shoe.

“I’m not completely without skills,” she hissed. She stood back and watched me as I surveyed the stones, looking for a way up. “Seriously, stop.”

I turned on her, frustration rising inside me like the fog on the water. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

She gave me that poison-laced smile, and I tried to ignore the slight tremble I felt.

“How about we go in through the front door?”

I narrowed my gaze, debating the merits of throwing her into the frigid water and letting her swim back to Venice. “Do you have a key?”

It wouldn’t help much since there was no door, just unbroken walls of stone.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that.” She sauntered past me. “I didn’t keep anything from you. I just know Willem. There’s a door here somewhere. We only have to see it.”

“And then? We still need a key.”

“You forget one thing.” She began pacing the length of it, checking for some unseen entrance. “I’m still his wife, and he doesn’t know I’m not dead.”

“So you can theoretically waltz right in?”

“I’m hoping.”

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