Page 66 of Tainted Blood

I quickly entered a random door, finding myself in a broom closet. I waited as his steps continued down the hall until they were gone, then left the closet and went to the sitting room. Sneaking in, I looked around, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. It was a large room, with couches positioned around a fire, a desk, a piano, and a table for drinks game presumably more card games. It was classic, something out of a show or a novel. I looked around until I heard the door.

Looking over my shoulder, Solon was there, his expression blank. He stepped in and closed the door behind him.

“Is there a reason for this?” he asked softly.

“Curiosity. People going off by themselves while Alexius and I are working on something. It needed to be looked at,” I answered, not moving, not trying to make my way to the door he was blocking. I wanted to pretend as though this was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Ah, yes…” Solon didn’t move from the door. He smiled. “I don’t have it, you know.”

Oh shit.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, playing stupid. I channeled every piece of my nervous human life, trying to imagine Edwin where Solon stood. Solon was infinitely more powerful than Edwin, but it was Edwin who had taught me what real fear was. His face would probably always be the face of it for me.

“A pity if you’re that far behind,” he said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, well, I’m trying to catch up, so if you’ll excuse me, I need to report to Isaiah and Alexius now.”

“Youcan’tcheck in with Alexius. You’re going to wait here with me. I can’t chance getting someone’s attention by killing you yet, but in…” He checked his watch. “Probably two or three minutes, no one will even care where you are or hear your screams for that matter.”

I forgot about pretending to be afraid now. I turned my entire body towards Solon, measuring him up as I thought of my options and what I could do to stop something from happening. Pieces were falling into place. I didn’t have all of them, but they were coming together. The missing pieces of this puzzle were ones I could reasonably guess at if I spent enough time on it.

Solon knows about the cambion blood,but he doesn’t have it, and in the next two to three minutes, someone is going to consume it, and a lot of people are going to die again. That’s really all I need to know right now. Are all the Athenians in on this? Did Isaiah misjudge that they were all bark and no bite?

He’s supposed to be smarter than that, though…

I knew I had to get everyone’s attention, and I knew how to sound the alarm. Without looking to see how far I was from it, I ran to the window and tried to pry the metal shutters up, feeling them creak but not budge. I felt Solon grab the back of my shirt and yank me back, fabric tearing in the process. He tossed me to the back corner, sending me into a bookshelf. Books fell, hitting my back and shoulders as I kept my head down. I looked for Solon, seeing him glaring at me.

“What were you just doing? Did you really think I was going to let you leave?” He started stalking towards me, but I knew I now had what I needed. He was closer to the door than me, but I knew I could keep baiting him to me, then, possibly, get around him. Isaiah would now have an alert that the sitting-room window had been tampered with. I just needed to get out of this room alive.

Alexius taught me how to do this.

I faked a struggle to get to my feet, glaring at Solon as he stalked ever closer to me.

“I’m not a fool. I know you won’tletme leave.” I braced a hand on the bookshelf like I needed it. I was certainly sore, but I wasn’t broken. Alexius threw me around the training room like this for a reason.

Solon took another step, bringing him only ten feet from me, but a good twenty to thirty away from the door.

Running as fast as I could go, I didn’t stop to open the door, launching my body at it to knock it off its hinges, sending it into the hallway. It made my shoulder scream in pain, but I didn’t need my shoulder to run. Right at that moment, I felt something try to take hold of my hair, so I made a sharp turn and started running down the hall, taking advantage of the straightaway to pull ahead. His footsteps weren’t nearly as silent as mine. I was staying ahead of him as I flew towards the route to get to the lounge quickly to find Isaiah, who I hoped had seen the alert that someone had tried to force the window open.

I slammed into a brick wall that came out of nowhere right as I reached the door to the basement. The brick wall didn’t budge an inch, holding me in place. The footsteps behind me had stopped the moment I collided with the solid object. I didn’t struggle though, for some reason feeling as if it would be fine.

“Solon, care to explain?” Isaiah called out from directly above me. I looked up and saw Isaiah’s blood-red eyes glaring over my head.

He doesn’t look rattled at all from me running into him…

“He’s helping the human, or the human was helping him,” I started saying quickly. “He knows about the blood. He says something could happen any minute now. He knows what’s about to happen!”

Isaiah’s glare flicked down to me before looking back at Solon. Next to him, Marcus walked forward, his own gaze focused on Solon as well.

“It’s too late,” Solon whispered, words I barely caught. “It should be with the right vampire now.”

“Marcus, take Solon into custody.”

Marcus let out a low whistle. Isaiah turned me around in a sharp twist to see vampires flood the room, grabbing Solon as he grinned.

“Here’s to the fall of Rome!” Solon screamed before someone jabbed his neck with a massive needle. A trickle of blood fell from his nose first, and I watched him pale unnaturally as he realized something was very wrong.

“What’s happening to him?” I was horrified as the blood flowed quickly. The whites of his eyes turned red, then blood began to fall down his cheeks like tears.

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