Page 155 of Red Rooster

He shook his head. “No.”

~*~

“My hubby’s got no love for mages,” Annabel said. She sat on the end of Sasha’s bed while he paced back and forth alongside it, brimming with nervous energy despite the blood that had been drawn.

“Me neither,” he said. He didn’t know if he could still smell the distinctive charred scent of the mage, or if he was remembering it. Her scent had been dampened, though: that of a forest fire after it had been put out for a week. Something wrong about it.

“No,” Annabel said, and a little shiver in her voice brought Sasha up short; he glanced over at her. She was studying the floor, the cheap white tiles laid over the stone for the sake of sterility. “I mean, he hates them. Distrusts them. It’sdeeplypersonal for him.” She lifted her gaze then, asking Sasha to understand without being told.

Sasha stared back. “Monsieur Philippe turned me, and tricked me, and killed all my friends.” All but Nikita.Oh, Nik. “I understand.”

She nodded and took a breath. “Them bringing that girl here…you know about Familiars, right?”

“Vampires have a left and a right hand. A mage and a wolf.”

“Yeah. I’ve thought since the beginning that they want Fulk to be Vlad’s wolf. And now I think they’ve gone and found him his mage.”

He thought about that for a moment. “Then what do they need with me?”

She snorted. “That’s selfish.”

“It’s the truth. Why do they need me?”

She shrugged. “Maybe…”

They both went stiff at the same time.

“Your friends are coming to get you,” she said.

Sasha’s lungs squeezed. “I’m bait.”

“They want to build an army,” she murmured. “And they’ll start with everyone we know.”

~*~

Val had decided to call his little cat Poppy, because her color reminded him of the first blush of orange on the tender insides of poppy petals. She seemed to like it; then again, she seemed to like everything, including ear scratches, which he administered now to the sound of deep, blissful purring.

“It’s nice to be petted, isn’t it?” he said, and she purred some more, leaning into the delicate movements of his fingertips. “I wouldn’t know. No one’s ever petted me.” Not in a kind way, at least.

“You’re slipping,” Annabel said, sitting down cross-legged in front of the bars.

“No, I heard you coming.” He stroked his hand down Poppy’s back and she lifted into the movement.

“You two are getting along.” The baroness sounded fond.

Val finally lifted his gaze and saw the lines of strain lurking in Annabel’s smile, beneath the warm fondness she bore for the cat, and the picture he made with her. “You didn’t come here for small talk.”

“Idolike to talk to you, but you’re right. I didn’t.” She blew out a breath. “They brought in a mage.”

“Ah. The little red-headed girl.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t care to speak with her, if that’s what you’re after.”

“No. Sasha and I were just putting together a theory.”

“Should be cutting edge.”

“Shut up. Listen: we think they’re…collecting people. Immortals. We think Sasha’s friends are driving right into a trap.”

“It’s a possibility.”

She sighed. “Jackass. Will you help?”

Poppy climbed up into his lap and kneaded his leg through the thin, threadbare layer of his pants. He settled a hand on her back, felt the vibration of her purr. “Oh, fine.”

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