Page 218 of Golden Eagle

“At first, yes. He wouldn’t have been the first. Countless others – mortal and immortal – had gone questing for him. But you’d hidden him well.”

Val snorted.

“I admit to being curious: seeing a legend like your brother in the flesh? A notch on any historian’s belt. But I had, like you said, managed to sever a previous binding. The last thing I wanted was to go digging up and waking an even stronger vampire. I told the other mage that we would need to bow out of the hunt. Wished him luck and packed our bags.

“He…he didn’t like that. He wanted to know why. When I explained about Vlad, he said that Vlad wasn’t his target; that he was looking for, in his words, ‘the godly uncle of Vlad the Traitor.’” He met Val’s gaze, his own haunted. “I knew then who he was after, and then Ireallywanted nothing to do with his search.

“We tried to leave, and he attacked me.”

“How did you get away?”

Liam turned then to his wife, and for a moment, his face was suffused with the kind of love that made onlookers blush and look away. “Lily.”

“He told us from the beginning that he was from old Rome, and he proved it when he doubted me,” Lily said. “Because I was a woman, he didn’t think I was powerful enough to worry about.”

“You killed him?” Val asked.

“No.” Her face was all regret. “But I wounded him, and we fled. That was when we finally answered one of the Institute’s requests for aid.”

“I showed him a tracking spell,” Liam said, head bowing with shame, a long red curl falling across his forehead. “I didn’t know, when I did what he would – that he – and I do love to show off…” He lifted his face again. “He will have used it to find Romulus,” he told Val. “And if the bastard isn’t awake yet, it’ll only be because the mage hasn’t found a wolf to do the waking.”

Val’s memories of his uncle Romulus were the fuzzy-edged recollections of early boyhood. Revisiting those few meetings with Vlad on their dream-walk had sharpened them, some. But, though he knew Romulus to be horrible, though he’d seen Vlad duel with him, cleave his head from his shoulders, Romulus was Father’s twin, after all, and he had Father’s face. It was hard to think of him without superimposing Remus over him; without remembering Father’s soft voice, and softer smiles, his beaky Roman nose limned in the golden light that filtered through his study windows, his dark curls unruly on his brow. Father had been a kind man.

And a man who hadn’t risked his principality for the sake of his sons.

Val feared Romulus – a bone-deep chill that he shied away from in his mind, not wanting to think about his own vulnerability, not wanting to remember the putrid taste of Mehmet’s blood on his tongue – but, sometimes…he thought the one he hated might be Father. Just a little.

He shook his head to clear it. His chest was tight again. “So what you’re saying is that this war isyourfault.”

“No!” Liam drew up, affronted. “No, it isn’t, I’m–” His strength failed him again, and his eyes glittered before he blinked them clear. “It’s no one’s fault but Romulus’s. And his Familiar’s.” He reached as if to tug at his collar, but it was already open and loose. He curled his hand lightly around the base of his throat instead. “Will you tell Vlad?”

Val stood. “No. I’ll leave that to you.”

His eyes flew wide.

“If I tell him,” Val explained, “then he’ll assume you never meant to tell him. That you’re toying with him. And trust me when I say that you don’t want to think about the ways he’ll punish you.” His own shoulder throbbed, a phantom pain along the scar that Vlad had left him. “Go to him, get on your knees, grovel and apologize, and tell him everything you’ve told me. Leave nothing out.

“My brother means to destroy Romulus, no matter the cost. If you learn nothing else about him, learn this: Vlad will never stop.Never.”

Liam nodded. “I understand.”

“And, Mr. Price.” Val offered him another wicked smile. “If you fail to serve him properly – honestly – he isn’t the only Dracula coming to take a pound of your flesh.”

Liam’s brows climbed to his hairline.

“Don’t forget: Mars is my grandfather, too.” He turned away from his stunned expression and offered another bow to Lily. “My lady.” Then he turned loose of the projection and went hurtling back to his body.

He opened his eyes with a start, and found that he was on his side. He’d slipped down so that he was lying on the bench, his head and shoulders in Mia’s lap, her hand cupping his cheek.

Annabel sat on his feet, and Fulk stood in front of the bench, facing them; all of them held umbrellas, light drops pattering over the nylon, keeping all of them dry.

He twisted his head, even that motion leaving him dizzy, and blinked up at Mia’s concerned expression.

He unglued his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “How long was I gone?”

“Half an hour,” Anna said. When he glanced toward her, she smiled, close-lipped, her gaze worried.

“You were really still at first,” Mia said. “But then you – were upset.”

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