Page 56 of Tainted Blood

“You would accuse me of this?” Theron hissed.

“As my protégé and assistant has said… I call it like I see it,” Alexius said.

I could hear the smile as that odd modern saying rolled off his tongue in the most awkward way. I would have laughed if I didn’t have Eumelia glaring daggers at me.

“Let him in. Watch him closely. You’re only to take any blood, correct? I brought a decanter of werecat. What did any of you bring?” He looked at the other Athenians expectantly.

“I brought fae blood,” Eumelia answered, the words certainly bitter on her tongue as she made a face. “Expensive fae blood. I hope Isaiah compensates us for this.”

“Why should he? It’s illegal for you to own,” Alexius countered before filling up the space in the doorway, making her move out of his way. He used his body to block the others so I could get in as well.

We searched the room for any blood they hasn't told us about but found nothing. Eumelia and Theron both had their decanters of illegal blood ready for us as we went to search the second suite.

“I’ll be telling others about this gross breach of privacy,” Theron said as if Alexius and I cared.

“I’m certain you will. When you ask yourself why Jacob decided to leave our homeland to see Rome, perhaps you should consider which vampires Jacob had been associating with at the time. You might find the answers you so desperately seek on that front.” Alexius walked away, tucking the decanters into a bag he had brought after I labeled them with the sticky notes. The Athenians slammed their doors shut, leaving us in the empty hall again.

“Seriously?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted softly. “Jacob came home one day from seeing someone and asked if I wanted to see Rome. I said yes,” Alexius explained, shrugging a shoulder. “In the end, he wanted to see Rome, and that was enough for me. I would have followed him to Tartarus if he so desired to see it and wanted me to join him.”

For a moment, I wished someone in my life had been so dedicated to me.

“You just implied it was because of Theron or someone else there.”

“Theron effectively ruled Athens before nests formed properly. Isaiah had to remind me of that…” Alexius shook his head, not caring how long Theron had ruled Athens or anything else about it.

I kind of loved his dismissal of the power these vampires had amassed and how long they had held it. He respected and remembered the other ancients like him, but these political players? He couldn’t care less. For a long time, it had worked for him, and I almost wanted it to keep working for him. I didn’t want to care, either. I only cared at that moment because of our situation, but I didn’t really want to give a shit about these people.

“Well, we should keep going,” I said. “Before someone decides to kill someone else or drink that blood without thinking and kills a lot of people.”

25

No one gave us as much fight after that.

He reached out and knocked on the next door. Tareq didn’t even question our purpose, letting us search as he talked on the phone. I didn’t need to think for long about what he was doing. The Master of Rabat was dead, and Tareq had been his right hand. He was now the man in charge of the city’s nest and had to quickly shore up his power. He was talking in a language I didn’t understand, but I could hear the frustration and sadness as he spoke.

Sucaria and Dago weren’t in the same suite, so Alexius had us knock at the same time to get them at the same time. We were using what Isaiah said and playing them against each other. Both let us do what we needed to do, with Sucaria demanding that her room be searched first to prove her own innocence before Dago had the chance to offer the same thing.

Gisela and her group from Vienna were less exuberant but still cooperative. Conall had nothing to say, but he followed us, closing his laptop before I reached it, and flipped his phone over.

“I’m not a fool,” he said to me with a smile. “I know what you can do. You told everyone in the room on our first night here.”

I could only nod, knowing when to admit defeat and stop being too nosy.

Slowly getting through the rooms, we ended up with bottles from fewer vampires than I thought we would. Seven in total, with fae blood being the most popular by far. I made sure each was properly labeled before we went to Isaiah’s office again. Frustratingly, none of them was the blood Ramman and Samas had brought. Not a single one. I noticed Alexius was frustrated as well when he opened each bottle to verify none of them smelled human. Our biggest hope, and the most likely situation, was Marcus would find it in the lounge. Each time we passed through it, more debris had been cleared. There had even been some humans fixing the drywall the last time we had passed through. That group had been moving fast.

When we walked into his office, there were five humans there, three vampires I didn’t recognize, and Marcus, all standing around Isaiah at his desk. Smelling the humans, hearing their heartbeats, my thirst hit me. It wasn’t the hardest I’d ever been hit by the sudden burn, but it was there, reminding me that I hadn’t fed since I woke up. We were approaching dawn, and I was thirsty.

“And here they are,” Isaiah said, waving us to come closer. “Who gave you trouble?”

“The Athenians, but they relented, and we ended up with both pieces of contraband from them,” Alexius explained. I took the bottles out of the bag, lining them up for Isaiah, who read each label.

“The Athenians…” Isaiah didn’t seem happy with the news. “They enjoy being a pain, but they’ve never made a play for my power in all these years. They’re the sort of rivals who talk a lot but have no stomach for action. However, maybe they have finally gotten the courage.”

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Marcus added. “None of these are the blood that Isaiah told me about?” He leaned in to read the bottles as well. “That’s a problem.”

“Really? You didn’t find it in the wreckage?” I felt a sudden rush of fear.

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