Page 18 of Fangs for the Memories (Budapest Bites #1)
T he Géllert seems more deserted than ever. There isn’t even anyone on reception as I push through the revolving doors, turning to see how Viktor manages.
He manages by not using the doors, instead shoving his huge bulk through a single door to one side. If he’s surprised at the lack of staff in the hotel, he doesn’t show it, instead ushering me to the elevator and pressing the call button.
As we wait, I inhale the scent of the coat I’m wearing.
“You know, Ferenc hasn’t mated,” Viktor rumbles. “His mother wants him to take a mate, but so far he has refused.”
I shake my head. “I’m human. We don’t mate,” I respond. “We just get our hearts trampled into the ground by treacherous men who think they own the world.”
I’m rather surprised to hear Viktor snort with laughter. He shakes his great stone head.
“Men,” he says. “They’re trouble.”
My jaw goes slack at his answer, but then the elevator chimes and the doors open. Viktor’s wings flare briefly. I furrow my brow and get in. He follows, and it creaks more than usual but operates smoothly after I press the button for the top floor.
“What do you know of men?” I ask as the elevator rises.
“They persecuted my kind almost to extinction,” Viktor says. “Until all we had was the high buildings they built and our ability to withstand time.”
I am silent. There is so much I don’t know about monsters, not in the least their history with humans before they revealed themselves.
The elevator doors open at my floor. Viktor steps out ahead of me and hesitates.
“Everything okay?” I ask, as I nearly get slapped in the face by his wings.
Viktor makes a noncommittal sound but moves forward, and I troop after him to my bedroom door.
I slide the key in the lock and turn it.
As I do, there is the most tremendous shriek.
Viktor flings me to one side, using his wings to batter away the grey shapes which burst from the open doorway.
They hit the wall on the opposite side of the corridor as the lights flicker, and I see them attacking Viktor in a series of tableaux framed by the light.
Until one of them is over me. A face, not human, with so many teeth, twisted into a scream which paralyses me completely in horror.
If I thought the vampires were bad, this thing is worse, whatever it is. Foul breath hits me, but there’s no way I can move. It’s as if I’m frozen in position as the thing gets closer and closer.
Until, as if it was nothing, it is ripped in half and disappears. Viktor stands over me, his chest heaving.
“We have to go. There could be more of them,” he says as the lights come back but dimmer than before.
“My stuff?”
“Gone,” Viktor says, heaving me to my feet, my legs not wanting to work. He hurries me towards the stairs and half carries me down to the ground floor.
“Gone?” I force out.
“Those were Darasz. They were wraiths sent to kill you, but they’ll use up anything which has the scent of their mark.”
“Use up?”
“Consume.”
“They ate my clothes? Like moths?” Not for the first time today, a hysterical laugh rises within me.
“Not like moths. Like predators,” Viktor says grimly as he shoves me into the car. It swings away swiftly from the hotel, winding back through the late evening traffic, across the Danube, and back to Ferenc’s place.
I hate he’s right. I hate the fact it wasn’t safe for me to stay in the hotel on my own. All I wanted with this trip was to lick my wounds and spend some time with the one person I thought I could rely on. Me.
Except my heart has other ideas, happily at war with my head once again. Because the treacherous organ is always such a good judge of my life and what I need.
Now look where I am. In the heart of a werewolf mafia boss’s lair with only the clothes I stand up in, with a borrowed coat in an unfamiliar country.
Turns out I really, really can’t rely on myself to make good decisions. Which leaves me at a complete loss.
I don’t even look where Viktor is taking me until I end up back in the bedroom from earlier.
Ferenc’s bedroom.
“Stay here. Ferenc will be back soon,” Viktor says.
“Like I have anywhere else to go,” I spit out in response.
“I am sorry your clothing was destroyed,” Viktor replies. “I’m sure Ferenc will replace what was lost.”
“He should do.” I turn away from the huge gargoyle. “This is all his fault.”
I kick the door shut but guilt hits me instantly. I shouldn’t take it out on the big stone gargoyle, even if he probably has a thick enough skin.
I shouldn’t be mourning the loss of a wardrobe, but when it was the only thing I owned, the only thing I had left, it cuts me to the core.
Even though I don’t want to, I curl up on the huge bed, and the tears leak from my eyes, dripping onto the expensive silk eiderdown. I’m probably ruining it, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do.
My life is a complete mess. Only now there are werewolves.