Page 18 of Even Vampires Bleed
If I wasn’t wearing jeans right now, I probably would try hiding my legs.
Shifters are usually in great shape, but I don’t workout, and seeing Angie like this makes me feel a bit self conscious.
No.Stop Cassiopé.
You don’t workout, not because you don’t want to be in great shape. You don’t workout because there is so much better to do than hit dummies for hours—hours that could be spent reading and living in magical words.
This is why you look like that. You’ve got the body of a bookworm. Or a bookdragon. I like the sound of a bookdragon better. I’m in a dragon’s den, after all.
I’m the way I am because I do what I like. Period.
Now that my mind is straight again, I pay attention to what is going on around me.
“I’m glad you’re still yourself,” Angie tells Léandre, “but yes, we need to plan an extraction, and first we need to find where Michaël has the team held. Luc is working on it.”
“I can’t see where your dad…” Léandre starts to say but stops himself and modifies his wording. “Michaël. I can’t see where he would be holding them.Les écurieswould be the most logical, but everyone inside of Versailles knows the official dungeons are down there. So, even if they are well guarded, I doubt he would pick somewhere so obvious to hold them. I know that’s not where he put my dad. I bribed a guard to know that.”
”Where does that leave us?” Elhyor asks.
“Knowing him? He built a dungeon somewhere without telling any of the other archangels because he plans on having them there before he’s forced to step down.” Angie chimes in.
“You really think he wants to take over the whole organization?” Elhyor asks.
“With what happened today, the fact he’s still holding Gabriel, and the fact he wants you dead… Do you really believe it’s not a possibility?” Angie retorts.
They’re all basing that conversation on the fact my dad and his team have been taken prisoner. That’s all nice, and I feel it in my bones. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I’d like to know what makes them think it’s true.
“Are you even sure that my dad is alive?” I ask before anyone else can talk. “None of you seemed to be certain when you came back. Do you have any proof that he is not dead? Because the way I see it—and I hope to hell that I’m wrong—he might very well be dead and we’re going to go on a wild goose hunt all for nothing. I love my dad; I really love him, and I’ll search the earth for any trace of him. I will. Even if it’s just to recover his body. But he’smydad and nothing forces you to do that, too.”
I’m breathless when I finish talking, but I don’t care because I feel lighter for finally saying this. It’s been eating at me since he didn’t drop from the sky on theparvis.
Léandre grabs my hand, and it’s so comforting that I let him do it.
“I won’t let you search alone. We’re in this together,” he says before kissing my knuckles.
“Cassiopé, you know how I feel about Brice. Do you really believe I would let you on your own in this mission?” Elhyor asks me after my eyes leave Léandre’s lips on my hand.
A second weight seems to light at Léandre’s and Elhyor’s words.
I was fully prepared to go after my dad on my own, but it feels good to know I have people around me who are supporting me in this.
I steel myself and look Elhyor right in the eyes.
“What can I do to help, then?
10
Cassiopé
The only thing we can do for now is actually right up my alley.
Not twenty minutes later, I bring Léandre to the archives down under Notre Dame, and after he wipes—or tries, because he’s lamentably failing—the look of awe from his face, we start pouring over every book we have here that could have mentions of places owned by the archangels.
Luc started monitoring Versailles right after we got back, and there were no movements in the sky.
No shifted birds.
No flying cars.
