Page 88 of Fated In Blood

He coughed pitifully when I dragged him from his chair, through the door, to the walk-in cooler. “Forty-five degrees is pretty damn cold. Good thing you have all that hair to keep you warm.”

He mumbled out a sound that definitely could have beenbitchbefore I tossed him gracelessly through the door and locked him in. Fire violation number three—the cooler had no safety release on the inside, because Vincent refused to pay for expensive repairs.

Too bad he’d just become a victim of his own stinginess.

Me? Three minutes later I was tooling out of town in a brand-new Mercedes with all the bells and whistles. A bit flashy for my taste, but the black on black would avoid attention, there was a full tank of gas, and I didn’t have to worry about breaking down.

Fifteen minutes, max, since I’d left Crimson House, I pressed my foot to the pedal and turned left, taking the most direct route out of town, a straight shot on a country road with no lights.

I had to put distance between me and Riordan before he realized I was gone, and when I hit the gas, the chain link fences along the roadside blurred.

Seven hours to Jamestown, but I had to make a few stops along the way.

Nine hourslater I coasted into Freemont, Virginia on a full stomach of hotdogs and microwavable burritos, rocking a sugar buzz from my extra-large cherry slushie and hauling an impressive collection of weaponry.

Swapping the Mercedes out for something more…practicalhad cost me time, but my new ride had generous trunk space.

Freemont was five miles from the Silverwood compound but boasted two seedy one-story motels, three fast food places, and a supercenter, so this was the perfect place for home base. I checked into a room that hadn’t been updated since the 1950s, sprawled out on the bed, and closed my eyes.

Alone in the silence, I took my first free breath in days.

I’d never even considered the Harpe Dagger when I’d formulated my plan to save Angel. I’d forgotten all about the Silverwood secret weapon, shoving that information down into a box in the deepest part of my mind, along with all my other useless baggage.

A bone-deep horror shuddered through me at the thought of setting foot in that house again, where so many atrocities had been committed, leaving behind scars that nobody else would ever see.

But that dagger would kill Tyrell, even if nothing else in this world could.

And I would be the one to wield the blade. I would free my sister and make things right.Me.

This was the first time I had time to think since the night I went to Tyrell’s to free my sister.

Too much had happened since that night at Darkmore Castle, and more would happen before I had Angel safely away from that monster, but I couldn’t say I was totally sad about how things were working out. Being a vampire definitely had its perks, and while I wouldn’t have chosen this life, there was a certain symmetry in the fact that my sister and I were, once again, the same species.

Both of us vampires. Both of us needing blood to survive.

Just the thought of blood had a different kind of hunger scraping at my insides, but so far, I was controlling my urges, hyped up on my upcoming mission. At some point, need would overpower reason, but that was a tomorrow problem. Tonight, I had to get onto the family property and take stock of the security situation.

There would be at least two guards patrolling the perimeter. Dogs. Tripwires, booby traps, and pressure plates hidden in the yard.

They would have changed protocols a hundred times since I’d left, but some things remained the same. Uncle Ezra would still be in charge of security and Old Uncle Ez was as predictable as the sun and moon. A few nights of surveillance and I’d have memorized his new patterns.

Two days, max, and I’d have that dagger.

Getting to Tyrell would be tricky, especially since Riordan and Blake were on the hunt, ready to scoop me up the second I got within ten miles of Thorndale. But I had a plan for that, too, providing my family didn’t kill me first.

One of these days, I’d have to reexamine my somewhat pragmatic attitude toward death, but the surety of a painful, brutal end had hung over me since the first day my father took me under his wing for “training.”

Like anything, I supposed, I’d just gotten used to it.

I used the rest of the day to hydrate, heated up four enchiladas in the microwave—so yummy—took a steaming hot shower that my sensitive vampire skin wasn’t ready for, pulled on brand-new clothes, strapped on my knives and a pair of night goggles, then covered my hair with a black beanie.

I left the car behind and jogged five miles to the compound, cutting across open fields and white picket fences, bucolic forests and shallow streams. When I arrived, I wasn’t even winded, dropping to my stomach in the thick grass at the western edge of our family property, beneath a grove of ancient hickory trees, their rough bark sloughing off like scales from a dying bluegill.

This wasn’t the shortest distance between me and the main house, but I was down wind, and my position offered a perfect line of sight to the stately house with eight pillars holding up the massive Doric roof that sheltered the second-floor balcony.

White Chapel was built over the ruins of one of Virginia’s first churches, coincidentally also named White Chapel—my family had no imagination when it came to naming things—and this entire property was consecrated over three hundred years ago.

An extra layer of safety because, theoretically, vampires couldn’t enter hallowed ground.

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