Insatiable

bare feet.

Which of course he didn’t feel at all.

She didn’t even know why she felt so determined to keep the note from him. It was

simply imperative he not see it.

But it was too late. Jon handed the silver envelope over to Alaric, who let go of Meena,

opened the note, and scanned the contents. Meena looked unhappily at her brother.

“It’s just a note, Meen,” Jon said with a shrug. “It doesn’t even have his address on it or

anything. It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t all right.

Especially when Alaric looked up and said, “ Dragon in Romanian is dracul .”

“What?” Meena said. She didn’t understand.

“Dragon,” Alaric said casually. “When he tells you in his note that you slayed the

dragon, he means himself. The Romanian word for dragon is dracul . Dracula.”

Meena inhaled sharply. The room had started to sway a little.

“Wait,” Jon said. “So St. George wasn’t really slaying dragons? He was slaying

vampires ? Are the dragons in all the pictures supposed to be metaphors for vampires or

something?”

But on this day, she remembered Lucien saying in the museum, there is no maiden left in

the village, save the king’s daughter. She’s bravely gone to the water’s edge, despite her

father’s protests, expecting to die. But look who’s appeared …a knight called George who will

slay the dragon….

No wonder Lucien hadn’t looked very happy when she’d steered him toward that

particular picture.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Meena said. Suddenly, her head was pounding. She

thought she might pass out.

“Sit,” Alaric said, pushing her back down onto the couch again. Only this time, even she

had to admit, he did it gently.

“No, really,” she said. The room was tilting in front of her. “I have to—”

“Drink the soda,” he said. “The sugar will help.” His hand on her shoulder was warm. It

reminded her—with another stomach lurch—that Lucien’s hands had never been warm.

They’d always felt cool. Strangely cool.

Even his lips, as they’d slid over her body, had been cool….

“Oh, God,” she said. She gulped some of the soda, then dropped her head between her

knees. If she didn’t get some blood back into her temples, she felt certain she was going to pass

out.

“But there’s no such thing as vampires,” she said to her bare feet.

“There’s no such thing. There’s no such thing ….”

It seemed to Meena as if the more she repeated it, the more likely it was to come true.

But so many things from the night before—including the memory of Lucien’s own

voice—came flooding back to her.

But you believe St. Joan heard voices, he’d said.

How can an educated woman like yourself believe this and not in creatures of the night?

Creatures of the night.

Oh, my God.

It was true. It was true.

“Drink your soda.” She heard Alaric’s voice urging her gently. “In the meantime, I want

to tell you about a man named Vlad Tepes.”

Meena, her head still between her knees, groaned as soon as she heard the name.

“Oh,” Alaric said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “You’ve heard of this man? Well, I

will tell your brother about him, then. Vlad Tepes was a prince from a part of Romania called

Wallachia…what is today better known as Transylvania—”

Meena moaned more loudly. Not Transylvania. Anything but Transylvania.

“He was a brutal and cruel man who ruthlessly employed a method of torture you might

have heard of called impaling—”

“Wait,” Jon said. “Are you talking about Vlad the Impaler ?”

“I am,” Alaric said, brightening some more. “I see you’ve heard of him.”

“Everyone’s heard of Vlad the Impaler,” Jon said. “Impaling was where, as a method of

torture, a long stake, usually not particularly sharp, would be driven through the victim’s

various orifices—”

“I need something stronger than just a Coke,” Meena sat up and said suddenly.

“Whiskey. I need whiskey. Oh, God—”

The room swayed dangerously, and she quickly put her head back down between her

knees.

“No whiskey,” Alaric said firmly.

“Why can’t she have whiskey?” Jon asked.

“Then she will drunk-dial the vampire,” Alaric said. “And warn him about me, and I will

lose the element of surprise. It’s happened before. Vlad the Impaler,” he went on, “ruled what

is now modern Romania from 1456 to 1462. He was known for his exceptionally cruel

punishments, both of his enemies and even his own servants, although it is impossible to say

how many people he actually killed. He may have impaled a hundred thousand people or more,

leaving them to die slowly in excruciating pain, sometimes for days, on long stakes along the

road leading to his palace as a way to intimidate visitors to his native land.”

Meena closed her eyes, wishing she could shut out his words.

But she couldn’t, any more than she could wish herself back in time, to the point where

the doorman had buzzed, saying she had a delivery.

Alaric Wulf was not a delivery anyone could ever have wanted. Now she knew how

everyone must have felt when she’d given them her news about their impending death.

“Vlad himself was said to have been killed in battle against the Turks in 1476. He was

decapitated and his head was taken on a pike to the sultan in Istanbul to prove that he was

dead.”

Jon sounded disappointed. “So. Not a vampire.”

Meena lifted her head hopefully. “Maybe. Or maybe it wasn’t Vlad Tepes. He was

reportedly buried at an island monastery near Bucharest,” Alaric said, continuing, “but when

his tomb was recently excavated, it was…”

“What?” Jon asked eagerly.

“…found to be empty,” Alaric said.

Jon looked confused. “So where is he?”

Alaric regarded him and Meena both patiently.

“Vlad Tepes is more commonly known in his native country by his given name, Vlad the

Dragon, for his service to the Hungarian Order of the Dragon,” he went on. “Or, if you employ

the Romanian for dragon, Vlad Dracul.” He looked at Meena, his blue-eyed gaze unwavering.

“Best known to the English-speaking world as the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula .”

Meena sucked in her breath. She both knew and dreaded what was coming next. Knew it

as well as she’d ever known anything in her life.

She just dreaded it more than she remembered ever dreading any words she’d ever heard.

“Lucien Antonescu,” Alaric said, “is Vlad Dracula’s son.”

Chapter Thirty-eight

9:00 P.M . EST, Friday, April 16

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11B

New York, New York

M eena could only stare wordlessly at Alaric as he went on. “Lucien—that wasn’t his

name back then—and his half brother went into hiding after Vlad, for reasons unknown but

likely related to his ambitions to conquer the world, bragged to Stoker about what he was. That

was how one of our officers managed to track him down and stake him.”

Alaric had settled back into the armchair and was regarding both Meena and Jon, but

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