Page 3 of Fated In Blood (Nocturne Vampire Clan #1)

3

EVANGELINE

S pencer died badly, not that I expected anything different.

Unfortunately, the driving rain put out the fires before his carcass—and Ambrose’s—had a chance to fully burn down to ash, since even rocket fuel was no match for a New York thunderstorm. But there wasn’t enough of their charred faces to readily identify, which was good enough for me.

And their bodies were too damaged to regenerate, which was good for the rest of Thorndale.

I tucked the empty flask deeper into my pocket, then cut across the railroad tracks to my apartment, half tempted to go back and finish the job. I had more rocket fuel at home. But I was soaked to the skin, utterly exhausted, and…still bleeding from my earlier fight.

Besides, I doubted anyone in this shit hole would care about two more bodies showing up, considering this entire town thrived on death.

Most of the world didn’t even realize vampires existed. Humans thought vamps were romantic notions, fodder for books and movies and midnight fantasies.

But I knew better.

I’d been in Thorndale almost six months now, long enough to know that beneath this bucolic college-town surface lurked an underground network of depravity that nurtured that gluttonous species, like a web of veins supplying blood to a beating heart.

Prostitution, blood slaves, cage fighting, drugs, potions and divination, and thralls and dirty secrets all traded hands on a nightly basis in this corrupt town, and everything was funneled through one place.

Valentine’s.

Representing the human species—not well, I should point out—Vincent Valentine offered both species a neutral meeting ground, a sort of slime ball Switzerland, and because information was powerful collateral when you were a species whose very survival meant remaining in the shadows, he’d cornered the market on leverage.

I didn’t know how long ago Vincent went into business with the bloodsuckers.

Only that I—after a lucky tip—walked into his bar, gave him a fake name, and landed a waitressing gig. After a few weeks of schlepping drinks and keeping my eyes open, I’d gathered enough intel to approach Vincent with a picture of Angel and a demand.

“Who in this town is kidnapping girls like her?”

But since Valentine never gave anything away for free, and I refused to sleep with him—dear God, kill me now—we’d come to a different arrangement. The cage fighting.

Here I was still fighting—three months later and counting—while Vincent fed me one measly word at a time.

But after that first night when Vincent gave up the location where Angel was being held—Darkmore Castle—I’d slowly gotten one step closer until he finally gave me the name I'd been waiting for.

Spencer Marcus Tyrell.

Who couldn’t spill his guts fast enough, thinking the truth would save him.

The bastard had told me everything , and he’d still ended up a charred husk.

Now, all I had to do was figure out how to get Angel out of Darkmore Castle without getting killed in the process.

I climbed the steps to my apartment, fished the keys out of my pocket, and pushed through the door. Greeted by stale air ripe with the odor of spoiled food, I headed straight for the shower.

Spencer was lucky number twenty-one, or in his case, unlucky.

I’d killed twenty-one vampires so far in this shit town, if you could even kill something that was already dead, which was a question for the philosophers to ponder, not me.

As far as I was concerned, all these bloodsuckers could bite it, and I finally had my answers.

Ever since the night my sister disappeared, I’d existed in this mangled emotional state, somewhere between utter hopelessness and unhinged violence. Lately my days were spent resting my bruised, battered body, and my nights spent fighting for one more scrap of information.

All the while uncovering more depravity, revealing the rotting underbelly of this sleepy little town.

Even once I had Spencer’s name, I’d never been able to find him. Tonight, he’d come to me. The planets must have aligned or some such shit, but who was I to question the ways of the universe?

Finally, I knew where Angelique was being held prisoner.

As of yesterday, according to Spencer, my sister was still alive.

I paused in my bedroom doorway, the pain in my chest almost too much to bear. This was the first real sliver of hope I’d had in months. Angel was alive . After all this time thinking… No, I wasn’t going down that dark rabbit hole again.

I rubbed the tight knot over my heart, then peeled off my soaking wet clothes stinking of smoke and petroleum and foul, reeking blood.

Part of me had died the night my sister was taken, snatched right under my nose.

Since that night I’d become a hardened shell, little more than skin-covered bone, my heart and soul buried so deep the sun couldn’t ever touch me again.

Angelique, my sweet baby sister, was a prisoner at Darkmore Castle.

I knew the place. Everyone knew that creepy monstrosity looming at the edge of Thorndale. I’d scoped the place out the same night Vincent gave me the name, then spent these past three months observing the guards. The cameras. The twenty-foot-high stone walls.

I stepped under the spray, washed off the last vestiges of Spencer Tyrell, replaying every word the slippery bastard gurgled up until his final breath. But out of his slick, bubbly lies I’d gleaned a few truths.

She belongs to the High Master now.

You’ll never get her out of Darkmore Castle alive.

Even if you kill me, you won’t like what’s become of your sister, little human.

My hand shook when I reached for the shampoo. Angelique was alive. That was all that mattered.

But my little sister was beautiful in that ethereal, once in a lifetime way, a fairy-like elegance that drew people to her like moths to a flame. And vampires loved beautiful things, if only to break them.

What if they…

My hand slapped against the shower’s tile wall like the crack of a gunshot. No. Angelique was a survivor, and I would find my sister, get her out of that godforsaken castle, and we’d go somewhere far away from this place.

Somewhere we could hide, where no one would recognize us. Alone and safe, just the two of us.

Then I would piece Angel back together until Thorndale, New York was a distant nightmare neither of us remembered.