Page 90 of Fated In Blood

EVANGELINE

Iput another quarter in the ancient bed, debating my options as the mattress began vibrating.

Four enchiladas plus two more cherry slushies, and my stomach was still a hollowed-out mess.

I dug my nails into the undulating mattress, trying to use the shaking sensation to take my mind off the fact I was starving. Starving in a way I’d only read about, but never experienced, not even as a child.

Vampire hunger was different than human hunger.

There was a razor-sharp edge to this bone-deep craving, carving away all the logical, rational parts of myself until I couldn’t think.

Maybe without such deeply ingrained training and self-control, I would be in worse shape than I already was, but I refused to give my father a single bit of credit. Still, I was in trouble.

I’d nearly gone over the fucking counter at the Easy Mart after the clerk, barely managing to make it back here without bitingsomeone. I convinced myself I could out-willpower twomillennia of vampire instincts, but I had to finally admit Riordan was right.

I couldn’t, not even with a wicked sugar buzz.

But even more pressing than my need to feed was the impossible choice before me.

I had a very narrow window of time to succeed, and a far larger window to fail. Today was Monday. After tonight, Silas, Dante, Virgil, and their team would return and my chances of securing that dagger were pretty much fucked.

But I only had one night of intel and Uncle Ezra always followed a three-day pattern before his carefully planned routines repeated themselves. I’d be flying blind if I went after that dagger tonight, but I’d be dead if I waited.

And I could barely even think around this hunger, could barely keep track of my thoughts since they kept slipping back to how fucking good Riordan tasted, my poor fangs aching at the roots.

In the end, I jogged the five miles between the motel and White Chapel, cursing my hunger, cursing Riordan and Blake, but mostly cursing my utter lack of options.

“I must be insane,” I muttered to myself after my second circuit around the perimeter, carefully staying downwind from the dogs, who were far better at picking out prey in the dark than any of my cousins, and certainly the mercs, who relied on night goggles and heat sensors.

As far as those mercenaries who’d joined the Silverwood ranks, they were wild cards, but after an hour, when the patrols finally changed and they took the dogs inside to be fed, I fit my own night goggles to my face, figuring my chances wouldn’t get any better.

Between the human tech and my vampire vision, I could make out the finest details—the moonlight glinting off every blade of grass, the trip wires and pressure plates strewnthroughout the lawn. Remarkable, these newly honed senses, though some jaded part of me wondered if I’d need every one of them to survive tonight.

I paused at the edge of the property, some strange, unnamed fear shivering through me.

Consecrated ground.

Bullshit. I’d played on that lawn. Had the shit kicked out of me on that lawn. But I’d never experienced anything like the instinctual fear coursing through me right now.

I gingerly stepped out of the trees, setting my foot onto Silverwood property. A tremor rocked through me, pressure squeezing me tight as I stepped fully onto the grass. I couldn’t breathe, feeling like I was underwater, drowning, drowning beneath heavy waves, and then…it passed.

I stood stock-still, positive guards would rush me from every direction, but…nothing.

Nothing except a prickling in the soles of my feet, leaching up through my bones, followed by a strange, odd sensation, almost like I was being sapped of my strength.

But it was child’s play to race across the lawn, avoiding the traps.

Harder to dodge the random piles of dogshit.

Seriously, they needed to take the mutts over to the tree line or something.

I hadn’t set foot in White Chapel in over ten years, but every inch was familiar, right down to the unsecured basement window on the southern side. Over the years, water leaked around the frame, rotting the latch right off, and the azalea bushes were so thick, I doubted even Silas took the time to check this side of the house.

Virgil, of all people, had discovered this rare chink in the Silverwoods’ armor and said nothing to his father, and from that moment on, this tiny hole had become our only path to freedom.

I was bigger than I’d been ten years ago, but I managed to wiggle through headfirst, landing on the damp stone floor that still stank of damp and petroleum.

The moment my feet hit the floor, a wave of weakness swept through me, my head swimming for a moment until I got my bearings.

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