Page 264 of Dragon Slayer

Annabel towed her to the left and whispered, “I’m guessing you didn’t bring a bag with you?”

Anger flared again. “No.” She looked down at her dusty barn outfit of breeches and t-shirt; she’d polished her boots not long ago, but they looked obscenely dirty against the crushed red velvet carpet runner.

“Don’t worry.” Annabel patted the back of her hand in a gesture at once familiar and out of place. It was a grandmotherly gesture; no one in this generation did that sort of thing. “We’ll find you something.”

The top of their climb found them along a gallery with a spectacular view of both the ceiling and the floor far below. And a series of narrow, wood-paneled hallways that Annabel navigated with ease. An outfit of spare workout gear was located in a closet, and then Mia was led to “her” room.

She had to pause in the doorway and take it all in.

There was a theme, and that was burgundy. Heavy velvet drapes, and an elaborate counterpane with matching pillows. Burgundy woven into the rich weave of the rugs, and patterned into soft florals in the wallpaper.

The bed was a monstrous, heavy four-poster thing, with drapes held back by golden cords. Angels were carved into the headboard, the legs, angels reflected in the overwrought lines of the matching dressing table and dresser. Through a half-open door, she caught a glimpse of an adjoining bathroom with a claw-foot tub.

“This is…”

“Yeah.” Annabel urged her to the side with a little shooing motion and shut the door. “The man who commissioned this place hadveryrich tastes. I’m not sure if this is the original stuff, and they just cleaned it up, or if someone spent a shit-ton of money on eBay trying to find furniture out of some old mansion basement somewhere.”

Mia turned to look at the girl beside her, and knew her face was full of questions.

Annabel’s smile was wry. “It’s crazy, I know.”

Mia could tell she wasn’t just talking about the décor. She set the borrowed clothes aside on the dressing table and sat down on its matching stool. “What’s going on here?” An emptiness seemed to swell in the pit of her stomach, a vacuum that was an act of self-preservation, a place to put all the panic, and doubt, and hurt where it couldn’t mess with her head.

Annabel held up a finger, tilted her head. Listening. She sniffed the air, nostrils flaring delicately. Then she nodded and went to sit cross-legged on the end of the bed. She held onto her ankles, young and comfortable in her own skin.

But something…something was just a little bitoffabout her. Nothing wrong, nothing threatening. Somethingother, though.

But Mia wasn’t afraid.

Annabel said, “Did Val tell you what he was?”

“A vampire? Yeah.”

“Do you believe him?”

A loaded question. A heavy gaze leveled at her.

What sort of person admitted to believing such a thing? But she did believe. “Yes.”

Annabel studied her a moment, eerily similar to Vlad in that respect. Then she nodded. Her tone was matter-of-fact. “My husband Fulk is the Baron Strange of Blackmere. He’s a British lord, he’s seven-hundred-and-fifty years old, and he’s a werewolf. So am I.”

Her back was sore and tired from the long flight; she needed to eat; her head spun lazily, a constant dizziness that left her imagining her tumor creeping slowly larger and larger as the minutes ticked past. But she sat up ramrod straight. She was in love with a vampire who could visit her in the form of smoke. And the girl sitting opposite was a werewolf. And she wanted to understand.

“Tell me,” she said, and Annabel did.

She told her in blunt, Southern-accented tones about the Institute, about what it was doing here, and about why it wanted to use her husband’s manor house. About the Romanian vampire brothers her father had been using to conduct experiments on humans like Major Treadwell and Sergeant Ramirez. About meeting Val – “your Val,” she said, smile going soft and affectionate – in the subbasement that was really a dungeon. About taking him a cat that he named Poppy, and Frappuccinos, and giving him someone to talk to. About, briefly, the ways that wolves and vampires had enjoyed symbiotic relationships throughout history, since the founders of Rome had washed up on a reed-choked riverbank and been nursed by a she-wolf.

It was so much. All of it.So much.

But she believed it, somehow. “He’s not evil,” she said, quietly.

Annabel smiled. “No, I don’t think he is, either.” She sat forward. “And this is interesting. Since Vlad woke up, we’ve all assumed he hated his brother. Because, well.” She shrugged. “I mean, look at the guy. But something’s going on. He brought Val up out of the dungeon today. He gave him abath.”

Mia’s pulse kicked at her ribs, high and fast in her temples. “He did?” She kept seeing Val in her mind’s eye as he’d last appeared to her, in tattered clothes, his hair in greasy clumps, gaunt and filthy. He’d been so neglected for so long… “Does that mean–”

“I don’t know.” Excitement sparked in Annabel’s eyes. “But I think it might. Mia.” And here she grew serious. “You’re not the only guest coming to dinner tonight. There’s someone else.” She bit her lip and looked even younger, uncertain for the first time in the past few minutes.

“Who? Frankenstein’s monster?” Mia tried to joke. It fell flat.

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