Page 48 of High Stakes

“I thought we were going to tour the castle.”

He smiled. “I need to show you something, first.”

“Pumpkins?”

“These pumpkins,” he started, “are fed and nourished from the vine. It’s like the umbilical cord that stretches between mother and child.”

He turned his cool, green eyes to mine. “Much like the vine, I care for the people who thrive under my care, and I fear what would happen to them if something happened to me. I don’t consider myself higher than any man or woman in the castle, despite what I am, Eve. But I do know that I can protect them, even when they cannot protect themselves. I’ve lived longer than anything else I know. I’ve seen famine, war, pestilence...”

I swallowed thickly, feeling a sense of impending doom at the direction of the conversation.

“Last evening when you were ill, I could have easily invaded your thoughts and taken the information from you, but I respect you more than that. My respect for you does not, however, outweigh the duty I have to every soul taking refuge in my castle. I need to know if they are in danger, and if they are, I need to protect them. Please, Eve. I implore you to tell me what you know about the army that is being dispatched.”

I fought to maintain the cover for my mission, elusive as it was. “The message was vague, Enoch. I don’t know anything more than you.”

He shook his head. “Who is sending an army?”

I glanced toward the castle. Surely, Victor wouldn’t send all the Assets here. He was more of a strategist than that. It was much more likely that he would send them into every century from ours until the year of their births, attempting to rid the world of them.

“You do know something,” he said, his eyes widening.

I closed my eyes, deciding that telling him wouldn’t hurt. Victor wasn’t even alive yet, and he was too much of a narcissist to risk travelling himself. “His name is Victor Dantone, and he’s not sending an army of soldiers like you might think of them. He’s sending an army of people like me.”

Aghast, Enoch asked, “To what end? Why attack my castle and people? How have I wronged him?”

I shook my head. “He won’t hurt humans unless they get in the way.”

“In the way of what?”

I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to be a traitor to everything I’d ever known, to my own mother, but this wasn’t the Enoch who smirked into camera lenses. This was a different man entirely. Victor knew that. He was the one who sent us here unfairly, under false pretenses. He was the one desperate enough to get the ending he desired, despite the means it took to get it. He was willing to make me a murderer, but I wasn’t willing to kill for him anymore.

Not now.

Not in this time.

Not this Enoch.

I closed my eyes. “Humans who get in the way of killing you, Enoch. This isn’t about your people, or your land, or this castle. It’s about you and Terah and Asa.”

I could see the mental calculations taking place behind his eyes. “An army with your abilities is being sent to assassinate us?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?” he asked, brows raised as he clutched the tops of my arms.

“I’m positive. Maru—the man who sent the note—would never lie to me.”

Chapter Nineteen

His eyes drilled into mine. “How have I wronged this Victor Dantone?”

I took a deep, frustrated breath. “You haven’t yet. But in the future, you and your siblings create an entire race that is literally eating their way through our people. Vampires feed from the vein as you do, but they can’t stop at one draw. They drink until they can’t drink anymore; until the person is dead and lying on the floor, nothing but a husk, and...” I looked down, hoping he didn’t see the tears welling in my eyes.

He raised a hand and gently ran his fingers down a strand of my hair. “I am so sorry you’ve seen such things, experienced such horrors.”

“Where I’m from,” I whispered, “it’s everyday life.”

“And you were sent to kill me?” he asked gently.

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