Page 46 of Tainted Blood

“Do you truly care?” Isaiah asked, frowning.

“Yes, I do! People they cared about are dead!”

“Be careful. There are people who will use your kindness against you,” he said, his expression flat. “If you must know, Maxwell saw his brother die, but I believe his dedication to Aelia will carry him through it. As for Ramman, I don’t know. He wasn’t severely wounded, but his blood lover became a beast, then was killed. He would have felt that through their shared blood, and it made him catatonic. It’s not an entirely unheard-of response. We’ll see how he’s doing once he’s awake again, but it will probably be at the next sunset.”

“Catatonic responses are better than the alternative,” Alexius said softly. “Most lose control of themselves, and one has to hope no one is caught in the crossfire. Blood lovers, offspring, and sire… The closer or longer a relationship, the more dangerous the outburst after one of those vampires has died.”

You’re talking from experience, aren’t you?

“Yes, all of that is true. Now, if you’re done, why don’t the two of you get to work to see if Everly can be a good bloodhound and find the shit Ramman brought into my house. I need to see if Maria is available to talk to me and send word to…” Isaiah took a deep breath. “I need to send word to the fucking Queen of the Nagas.” Isaiah opened the door and walked out without saying anything else, leaving me in shock at what he had just said.

“The what and the who?” I said, confused.

“I don’t know what he thinks she’ll know, but we’ll have to trust his instincts with that. He knows a lot more about other supernaturals and their connections than we do.”

“Have you met her?” As I talked, I put the computer in sleep mode, closed my laptop, and grabbed my notes, ready to be the bloodhound they needed.

“I have, a couple of times.” Alexius helped me, taking my laptop from me and putting it back in my bag. He carried it out, his expression thoughtful. “She wasn’t always the queen of her people, but one of two rulers the Tribunal worked with. She was also a Tribunal Executioner, which is where my experience with her comes from. There have been a handful of occasions when I’ve met some of the Tribunal’s killers, and she’s one of them. They do exactly as their title implies. They kill those sentenced to death by the Tribunal. They are brutally efficient killers, often working as assassins to track down the wanted criminals and get rid of them.”

“Oh…”

“She’s dangerous. I don’t know how well Isaiah knows her, but I can guarantee that, at least. Don’t worry about her right now. Let’s see if you can find the blood Ramman and Samas brought.”

When we got to the lounge, I inhaled and immediately wanted to gag as the smell assaulted me.

“Oh God,” I groaned.

“It’s because Maxwell burned the head in the fireplace,” he explained. “If you can’t get past it, that’s okay. Someone will find it.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, doubling over, one hand on my knee and the other over my mouth and nose, trying not to lose the nonexistent contents of my stomach.

“Absolutely. Isaiah and I are used to the smell and couldn’t find the decanter. It might have been destroyed or kicked under rubble. It was closed when the fight began, right?”

“Yeah, and Samas finished his glass,” I said, already trying to get out of the lounge. It was too much for me.

“Therefore, none spilled, making this more difficult.” Alexius didn’t even try to keep me in the room, but he had already told me I could leave, so I kept moving, getting around the new vampires who must have been brought by Marcus.

“His private office is down here near his suite,” Alexius said softly, leading me into the family wing again.

I followed without question, looking back at the lounge once more before the door closed.

“What if the blood wasn’t supernatural but poisoned or something?”

“Then we have bigger problems because some things can affect us when added to our blood, but we can normally tell that blood was… altered,” Alexius answered. “Samas was old enough to notice if blood was tampered with. If he couldn’t taste something off immediately, it’s unlikely anyone else could. We’re also still left with the issue that we have no idea what could have caused his reaction to whatever substance he ingested.”

“And what Isaiah said? Maybe this was caused by his age?” I hated asking and immediately regretted it as I witnessed the complete shutdown of Alexius’s emotions.

“Then other discussions need to be had,” he said softly.

21

Iwasn’t sure why the immortal community was obsessed with video calls, but they certainly were. It was easier to think about that than the dead, the blood, and the smell of burning flesh. It came to mind as I walked into Isaiah’s office, seeing him sitting in a recliner in a special area of his office, a monitor mounted to the wall with a webcam underneath it directed at him. I could make some reasonable guesses, like the ability to read the body language of the other person on the call, but it still struck me as strange. I had set it up for Alexius’s home when Isaiah asked, and I liked having it, buteveryoneused it.

“Did you find anything?” Isaiah asked us, glass in hand. It wasn’t blood but an amber alcohol, like scotch or whiskey. I couldn’t tell which, but I wasn’t much of an alcohol drinker as a human, and that wasn’t changing as a vampire.

“No.” I stopped away from where the camera could see me while Alexius grabbed two chairs from Isaiah’s desk and brought them over. Neither were his luxurious-looking executive chair, but the simple wood ones that guests were forced to sit in. I shook my head when Alexius gestured for me to sit down. I didn’t want to sit, and I really wasn’t in the mood to be on camera. He sat down, and Isaiah looked at me, frowning.

“Maria will want to know everyone in the room. Sit down,” Isaiah said, looking tired as he pulled out his phone. “She’ll be uncomfortable if people speak out of her view, and right now, I need to be on the same page, which means you can’t hide out of sight.”

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