Page 15 of Bound in Blood

He offers a nod of farewell and then walks through the gate, the guards standing aside as he passes.

Growling, I watch him go and wish we could walk out of here just as easily. He insists this is for our protection, but Xavier was right before—we’re little more than prisoners here. Every fiber of my being urges me to rail against that. To walk out of here with Ophelia, Xavier, and Malachi and never look back. Only my concern for Ophelia’s safety stops me, and there’s no chance in hell we would leave without her.

Why the fuck did he do that?Xavier asks.

Do what?

Walk outside to transport. Why not do it right here?

Dunno. Something to do with the holy ground thing?

Xavier shakes his head, and we resume our walk around the courtyard.No, I’m pretty sure that’s only for a witch’s or an elementai’s powers. It has no effect on vampire powers.

I stare at the gate, unable to see anything through the thick steel grid and the guards standing in front of it. But Xavier is right, why bother leaving to transport?

You guys find anything yet?Malachi asks through the bond.

No. Not yet, I answer.Either of you?

No. But Giorgios’s library is huge. He was right about it rivaling Thucydides. Ophelia is grabbing books and sorting them into piles like a demon. The quicker we can identify the useful ones, the quicker we can read and find some answers.

I glance back at the gate again. Giorgios has disappeared, and there’s little else to do out here while the guards seem to be watching us so intently.You want us to help out?

Yeah, before our girl works herself into a frenzy. I’ve never seen her so determined.

Necessary determination.Her sweet voice fills our heads now too. Kai should have known that nothing gets by her.

It’s not a criticism, sweet girl. I just don’t want you to strain yourself carrying fifty books while I’m not looking.

Still have my vampire strength. That’s not affected at all, she retorts.

Xavier rolls his eyes at me. “We’d better go and see what she’s doing, yeah? Kai is right—it will go quicker with all of us.” Plus, if Giorgios won’t let us do anything else practical, then at least this is a good use of our time.

When we reach Giorgios’s library, I drag her into my arms and squeeze her tight, feeling immense guilt for what I said to Xavier earlier. The strength of my feelings for Ophelia scares the fuck out of me sometimes, but that’s only further proof of how real they are. I have bitten plenty of people in my long life, and I have never felt the need to see a single one of them ever again. From the moment I tasted her, I have been hers. If I am under some kind of fucking spell, I never want to break it.

“Hi,” she says, her eyes sparkling with determination. It’s a damn sight better than the despair I’ve seen in them recently.

“Hey, Cupcake.” Xavier gives her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Tell me what we can do.”

She gives us both instructions on what kinds of books and topics to look for and points out the various piles she’s beensorting them into. The concentration needed for the task at least gives us all something to focus on other than the obvious.

While we work, Xavier and I explain what we learned while we were in the courtyard. Malachi and Ophelia share our concern, but none of us has the headspace to examine it in great detail right now. By the end of the afternoon, we have eight distinct piles of ledgers and books waiting to be pored over.

With her hands on her hips, Ophelia blows a strand of hair from her eyes and triumphantly declares, “These are some of the oldest and rarest books in here. Some even rarer than the ones back at Montridge. I’m sure we’re going to find the answers we need.”

Her enthusiasm and determination are infectious, and they filter through all of us, reinvigorating and purposeful. And for the first time since we lost him, I feel a genuine spark of hope that we’re going to fix it. If anyone can find a way, it’s our girl. The most powerful creature who ever lived.

Chapter

Six

AXL

Isit on the edge of the bed, holding my head in my hands. It’s been over two hundred years since I felt the adverse morning-after consequences of overindulging in alcohol—a major perk of being a vampire is the lack of hangovers—but I remember it clearly. And it’s the only comparison I have for the way I’m feeling. Is this how the deterioration starts? Does it really start this early?

In the two weeks since our arrival, our first Christmas and New Year’s with our girl came and went without notice, and Ophelia has remained steadfastly dedicated to her ambition of reading every single book in Giorgios’s fortress. After we got through the first lot of piles and found nothing, she simply created a new catalog and sorted out more books and more topics and has been unwavering in her certainty that the answers are in there somewhere. And for the first week and a half, we were equally committed. But with every book we read and discarded came more failure, more hopelessness. And while it seemed to spur her on, the rest of us only grew more miserable and dejected. Or perhaps the misery has more to do with how we all started feeling like crap yesterday.

Giorgios leaves every day, usually returning a few hours later with no news of Lucian’s whereabouts and no answers about any-fucking-thing at all. For a powerful ancient vampire, he seems pretty damn useless to me. I almost told him as much yesterday, but Ophelia persuaded me not to. She’s grateful to him for helping us scour through books and pointing us in directions we wouldn’t have otherwise considered. So I relented after begrudgingly admitting that—other than essentially keeping us prisoner—he’s been a gracious host.

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