Insatiable

he wasn’t married, but I assure you, no one is in any danger from—”

“He isn’t married,” Alaric said. “He has never been married. No one knows why. Some

say it is because he witnessed his own mother’s suicide and never got over it. Others say it is

because he has never met his soul mate. I have the feeling that might have changed recently.”

He threw Meena a piercing glance, then went on. “That’s why it is vital for your survival that

you tell me where he is. Also, you need to stop talking, because I find your voice very

annoying.”

“Uh”—Jon raised his hand—“sorry. I know I came in late, but no one’s answered my

question. What the hell is going on here?”

“It is simple, really,” Alaric Wulf said. “Lucien Antonescu is the prince of darkness.”

Jon nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We know. He’s got a castle and stuff.”

“No,” Alaric said again, shaking his head. “The prince of darkness .”

Jon glanced at Meena, then back at Alaric, then back at Meena again. “The prince

of…did he say what I think he said?”

Meena rolled her eyes. “Sorry to be annoying ,” she said, as sweetly as possible, to

Alaric. “But Lucien’s not the devil.”

“I did not say he was the devil,” Alaric said. He shrugged out of his trench coat, then

brushed it carefully with his hand before going to hang it neatly on one of the decorative hooks

by the door. Then he unbuckled his sword and leaned that, too, by the door. Then, after

stepping over the scattered roses and pieces of BlackBerry, not to mention the Chinese food

containers, leaned down to pat an appreciative Jack Bauer on the head, before saying, “He is

the dark prince. The all-powerful one. The leader of the creatures of the night.”

Meena and Jon exchanged glances. Then Meena said, again trying to keep her tone

devoid of waspishness—since he apparently found her voice so annoying—“I’m confused

then. I thought the prince of darkness was the devil.”

“The devil is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind,” Alaric

said. He crossed the room and sat in the armchair Meena had spent an hour or so not writing

in, after first giving it a disparaging glance—he didn’t seem to much appreciate Meena’s taste

in home furnishings. “The prince of darkness is the anointed one, who performs the devil’s

work on this, the mortal side of hell.”

“Wait,” Meena said, blinking. “Are you saying…”

“Yes,” Alaric said. “That is exactly what I’m saying.”

Jon looked blank. “I don’t understand. Is he the devil or not?”

“Lucien Antonescu,” Alaric said, “is a vampire. Not just any vampire, but ruler of all the

vampires.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

8:00 P.M . EST, Friday, April 16

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11B

New York, New York

A laric Wulf was staring at her. His eyes really were very blue. Alarmingly blue. If he’d

been anybody else—if Meena had met him anywhere else—she’d have said, “What a nicelooking man.”

But since he’d attacked her in her own apartment with a sword and was now accusing

her boyfriend of being a vampire, she was just going to have to say it was a shame such good

looks were wasted on someone so…whatever he was.

“Brother Jon,” he said. His gaze was so intense, it seemed to pierce her to the couch,

much in the way his body weight had pierced her to the floor. “Get your sister something to

drink now. Something sugary. She doesn’t know it yet. But she’s going to need it in a few

minutes.”

“Uh,” Jon said, “okay.” And he got up to go to the kitchen.

“Excuse me,” Meena said. What was wrong with this guy? “But I can actually get my

own drinks.”

“No,” Alaric said. “You stay where you are. You are not to be trusted.”

Meena held up both palms in protest. “What?” she said. She couldn’t help bursting out

laughing, even though it was all so…sad. “Why? Because I date an alleged vampire?”

“He is not alleged,” Alaric said. “And, yes. You are his minion now.”

“A minion!” Now Meena had heard everything. “What? I’m infected because I went out

with Lucien?”

“You can put it like that, yes,” Alaric said. “It is certainly a form of infection. Are you

getting that soda or not, Brother Jon?”

“Soda on its way,” he called from the kitchen.

“Jon,” Meena called from the sofa. “While you’re in there, put a little—”

“Do not listen to her,” Alaric said. “She is going to tell you in some kind of code only

the two of you will understand, because you are siblings, to call the police on your cell phone.

But if you do that, I will kill you and dispose of your body in a place where no one will find it.

The river, I think. Your doorman is so stupid, he won’t notice if I leave this building carrying a

body in a rolled-up carpet.”

Jon poked his head out of the pass-through to look at Meena.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m just going to get a couple of Cokes and avoid the whole beingrolled-up-in-a-carpet thing, ’kay, Meen?”

She glared at him. “Yeah, real great, Jon.” She looked at Alaric. She could handle this. It

was no different than one of Taylor’s I’m-so-fat tantrums. Well, maybe a little different.

“Look, Mr., uh, Wulf. I appreciate your trying to warn me about this. I really do. But there’s

no such thing as vampires. They’re made-up. We writers made them up. I’m sorry we did such

a good job that we made the whole world paranoid, but it’s true. They’re fictional. Blame

Bram Stoker. He started it.”

“No, he did not, actually,” Alaric said. “They existed long before Stoker was ever even

born, in almost every culture and on almost every continent on this planet. They are like

mosquitoes…they feed off the blood of others. They cannot exist without a host.”

“And how do you,” Meena asked, playing along, “know so much about them?”

“I battle vampires almost daily in my profession,” he said in a bored voice. “They are

loathsome and brutal creatures. A group of them almost killed my partner some months ago.”

“Oh, really,” Meena said. She’d crossed her legs and was now jiggling one bare foot up

and down. Vampires! Seriously?

Get over it, Harper, Shoshona had said. They’re everywhere. You can’t escape them.

It wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t she escape stupid vampires? Work, TV, Leisha’s salon, and

now here, at home.

They really were everywhere. Even handsome—but obviously deranged—strangers who

broke into her apartment, trying to kill her, were raving about them.

“They cornered us in a warehouse outside of Berlin,” he went on, looking far away. “It

was partly my fault. I got cocky. I thought there were not so many of them and that we could

take them. But there were more than I thought, and they caught us by surprise. Here.” He

reached into the inside pocket of the dark, close-fitting sports coat he wore. “This is a picture

of how my partner looks now. His name is Martin.”

What Meena saw when he handed her the photo sent a physical shock wave through her.

She wasn’t expecting… that . It was a picture of a man with half a face. Where his features

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