Page 42 of Vampire Bachelor Games

Clenching my fists, I turn and leave the room before I say something I’ll regret.

I hadn’t told Sophie that Angie hadn’t conceived. In all our conversations I’d assured her our plan was progressing and she should simply concentrate on her own pregnancy.

Somewhere in my house someone is talking.

Someone is intimating I can’t father a child.

Taking my phone from my pocket as I stalk the corridor towards my study, I dial my head guard.

“Yes, My Lord?”

“Kill all the staff.”

33

“I thought I told you never to darken my doorstep again?”

I shrug as I cross the kitchen floor towards Asumpta and head to the sweets cabinet.

It was either here or Falcon’s mother, and although I was becoming more honest with Eleanor, I felt strangely much more liberated to say anything I liked to Asumpta. Also, I’d discovered the cat and kittens have been installed down here, and I wanted to pet them.

“I figure I have nothing to lose,” I murmur, as I reach for some cookies and turn back to her, holding the plate out for her to take one, “either you kill me, or Falcon does. Either way, win-win.”

“You seek death now? Last time we spoke you were hopeful of either escape or a reconciliation with your husband.”

“I don’t think there will be a reconciliation,” I sigh. “I just wanted to come down and talk.”

“Talk?”

I try to look nonchalant, leaning down to stroke one of the kittens as it winds itself around my legs. I’d take it to my rooms, but they’re so cold and forbidding. Down here in the kitchen is the nicest place to be for a cat; it’s warm and there’s endless food and a constant stream of servants for company. I’d move down here too if I could. Except Asumpta would probably drain me.

“I’m merely trying to understand the family, the castle, and its workings,” I murmur. “You’ve been here so long. You must know it better than anyone. You must know who comes and goes, all the wings and what they hold…”

I don’t say what I’m really thinking. I’ve been going over my last conversation with Falcon, and as far as I can see there’s only one woman he’d said he ever wanted to marry, and that was Sophie. I know she’s still hiding from Spider. I’d gleaned that much during family dinners from bits and pieces of conversation between Viper and Falcon. Thinking it through, I’m damn sure Falcon has her squirrelled away somewhere until she gives birth. The most logical place, the most secure place, would be here.

But drawing information out of the woman before me is like drawing blood from an anaemic.

“Perhaps you should concentrate more on your own predicament and less on what others are doing or where they are going. Perhaps you should also stay in your own wing,” she mutters.

“The kitchen is technically part of my wing,” I shrug.

“I’ve told you I don’t want you here.”

“Then how about answering my question.”

“Which question, you ask so many. You’re like a babbling five-year-old.”

“Thanks.”

“Here.”

She hands me a set of keys, chunky, heavy. Some are bigger than my hand.

“Take these. You didn’t get them from me. You may find answers to your questions. Although sometimes what you don’t know can’t hurt you. If I were you, I’d stay away from the North Wing.”

I smile widely.

The North Wing will be my first port of call.