Page 126 of Blood as Sweet as Roses

“I understand, my king,” I whisper.

She bends down to kiss me.

And then, like a shadow disappearing into the night, she’s gone.

The holding floor is stark and dimly lit, a hallway of bare concrete. The moment we step off the elevator, Alin quickly exits and types in a code to the panel on the wall.

“Who is it?” shouts a voice from down the hallway.

“Alin and Paige, from the Night clan!” I answer, looking nervously down the hallway.

“You go ahead,” Alin says, nodding toward the door at the far end. “You’ll be safe there. I’ll guard the elevators.”

“Ok,” I reply, nervously.

I hurry down the hallway and through the open door.

It looks like a security guard’s office. There’s a desk at the center, surrounded by computers and monitors displaying different areas of the hotel. There’s a rug at the center of the room where a little boy sits, drawing in a colouring book. He looks up at me as I enter.

“Hi, I’m Eli!” he tells me with a big, lop-sided grin.

“Eli, this is my friend Paige,” says a familiar voice.

It’s the woman I met earlier today, Lily Harper. Although she looks a lot more anxious than she did in the lounge. She’s sitting at the desk, a headset over her ash-blond hair, a strained smile across her face.

“Lily,” I sigh. “It’s good to see you again.”

“I’m glad you got up here safe,” she answers. She pats the desk chair beside her. “Settle in, I don’t know how long we’ll be here.”

I take the seat beside her, looking around at the many monitors.

Lily’s fingers move swiftly over the keyboard in front of her. She speaks into her headset.

“Lexi, can you and Kate check the courtyard? The wall should be high enough to stop younger vampires, but it wouldn’t be able to stop any witches or vamps that can fly…”

I shiver, and pull my thin robe around me tightly. Anxiety pulses through me as I scan the monitors. One of them shows a narrow alleyway full of shadowy figures moving with supernatural speed. Their forms blur together, and it’s hard to make anything out.

“I think the front entrance is covered…” Lily says. She presses a button, and the main monitor displays the front of the hotel. Crimson is there, and Celine, along with most of the other vampires. They hold stakes and daggers in their fists as they stand off against a wave of intruders. Their movements are impossibly quick, and my heart skips a beat as I watch Crimson take on a trio of attacking vampires. But her and the others seem to be holding them back. The intruders haven’t made it into the hotel yet.

“Can I help?” I ask Lily, desperate to do something.

She nods, and hands me a headset. “Keep an eye on the cameras,” she instructs. She shows me how to navigate between the different views. “Most of the vampires have smartwatches, so you can call them and tell them where they need to go.”

“Got it,” I answer, putting the headset on and adjusting it. I feel much better having something to do.

“Keep an eye on the front cameras,” Lily tells me. “If you see another wave coming, we can call in some of the shifters and witches who are covering the rest of the perimeter. I’ll watch the alley and the courtyard, in case they strike from the back or the sides.”

“What’s goingon?” I ask. “Is it Oana and Cedric?”

“I think so,” Lily sighs, grimly. “They must have been biding their time until they could strike.”

“Mama?” Eli asks, poking his head out from around the desk. “What’sbiding?”

“It’s like waiting, honey,” Lily responds.

“That’s a funny way to say ‘waiting,’” Eli comments.

“The vocab you pick up when you’re married to a vampire,” Lily says with a shrug.