Insatiable

“Not at all, darling,” Emil said. He reached out, flipped back the suitcase lid, and began

tucking in all the loose sleeves and fur cuffs that had been sticking out. “I’m just saying,

pleased as the prince is with Miss Harper—and he seems to like her very much—it stands to

reason that with all the attention the dead girls have been getting in the media, the Palatine

would come sniffing around. And of course, that means they’d figure out where we are. And

now…well.”

Mary Lou, sniffling, slumped down onto the bed next to the suitcase, her normally

perfect blond hair limp. Her eye makeup was smeared as well.

“If he’s going to kill us, why doesn’t he just come already, then?” she demanded. “I’d

rather be staked than have to leave Manhattan!”

Emil thought this was a particularly dramatic sentiment but didn’t say anything, since his

wife was already so overwrought with emotion. He himself was feeling somewhat at loose

ends from his very early morning encounter with the prince, who’d appeared unexpectedly on

his terrace, then come strolling into his living room from the balcony doors.

“My lord!” Emil had cried. “Is everything all right?”

“No,” Lucien said. His shirt had been unbuttoned to the waist, showing off his lean

physique. Emil wished he’d been taken when he was in such prime condition and not, as had

been the case, when he’d been so close to middle age. “There’s a Palatine vampire hunter next

door in Miss Harper’s apartment.”

Emil nearly dropped the glass of human blood he’d been drinking for breakfast.

“ What? ”

“Yes,” the prince had replied grimly. “I would suggest you and Mary Lou find alternate

lodgings immediately.”

Emil hadn’t been sure he’d heard the prince correctly.

“Sire? Wouldn’t it…shouldn’t we…” Emil was babbling, but honestly, what else was a

man supposed to do in the face of such a pronouncement? “I mean, shouldn’t we just…kill

him?”

“I’m afraid we can’t,” Lucien said, sinking into one of Mary Lou’s favorite overstuffed

living room chairs. “Meena’s psychic, you know.”

This statement had completely perplexed Emil. “What?” he’d asked again. Rather

stupidly, he supposed. A century younger than the prince—fortunately for him, from what he’d

heard concerning the things Lucien had gone through at the hands of his newly turned father—

he’d never quite gotten used to the fact that he was related to royalty and was never certain

how to act around him.

“She can tell how everyone is going to die,” Lucien explained. “Humans, anyway. And

so can I, when I’ve drunk from her.”

He didn’t look very happy about it.

Suddenly, Emil understood what the prince had been doing all night.

How extraordinary. He’d never heard of a psychic before, not a real one. Not one who

could give consistent predictions.

And for Lucien to be able to make predictions now too…of course it would be better if

he could predict something more interesting than when a human was going to die…such as the

score in sporting events.

The prince went on. “In any event, Meena’s had a vision that I’m going to kill her

brother and the slayer. Obviously, we can’t have that.”

Emil heard this last part with astonishment.

The prince didn’t want to kill a member of the Palatine Guard who was threatening their

well-being?

Emil understood that Lucien wanted to do things differently than his father had when

he’d been the lord of darkness.

And it generally made good business sense, from a publicity standpoint, not to go around

killing people for food—especially women and children—something Lord Dracula had seemed

never to understand.

But when a papal society was intent on wiping out your entire species, it just didn’t seem

like a good idea to let them.

But Emil knew better than to argue with the prince. He valued his neck too much.

“Certainly, my lord,” he said.

“But I can’t have you and Mary Lou being put into danger, either.” Lucien went on. “So

you’ll both need to pack up and go. I wouldn’t suggest going to Sighi oara. I think they’re

probably onto all that by now.”

Emil listened to all of this with growing horror. They were onto Sighi oara? He’d been

living there under the very noses of the Palatine for centuries.

And now, because the prince had fallen for the girl next door—who was some kind of

psychic freak—he had to abandon it forever? Instead of staying and fighting?

“All right, my lord,” was all Emil said, however.

Because that was all he ever said.

But it wasn’t what he wanted to say.

“And what about your brother?” he’d asked.

“What about my brother?” Lucien’s tone had been sharp.

Perhaps, Emil had thought, he’d gone too far.

But Dimitri, surely, would want to stay and fight.

And this was going to cause a problem.

“Well…” Emil knew he was going to have to choose his next words with care. “I just

thought that you might want to warn your brother that the Palatine is in town, so that he and

your nephew can make their escape, as well.”

“And I shall say something to my brother,” the prince said. “When the time is right.”

Emil thought he had seen which way the wind was blowing with that remark.

And that was when he decided that he had best do as the prince said and get Mary Lou

out of town as soon as possible.

And not just because there was a Palatine guard staying next door, or because that

Palatine guard was about to be used as a pawn in the ongoing vampire war between two

brothers…

But because there was a glint in the prince’s eye that Emil had never seen there before.

And Emil had a pretty good idea what—or, more accurately, who—had put that glint

there.

He would never look at Meena Harper in the same way again. If he ever saw her again,

that is.

Now he turned to his wife, who was piling shoes into another suitcase, and said,

“Darling. Enough. They have shoes in Tokyo.”

Mary Lou looked at him with streaming eyes. “But I’ve had some of these for over forty

years! And you know they’re in style again now.”

“We’ll be back for them, darling,” he said, laying a gentle hand on her arm.

“Are you sure?” she asked with a sniffle.

Emil thought back to the steadfast expression he’d seen on the prince’s face. He didn’t

know what Lucien had planned.

But he was certain the prince had a plan of some kind.

And it wasn’t going to be pretty, for anyone who happened to be around, when that plan

got under way.

“I’m quite sure,” he said to his wife. “We have to go. I think there’s a battle brewing.”

“You said that already,” Mary Lou said, sniffling. “The Palatine…”

“No,” Emil said. “Between the prince and his brother.”

“Well, of course there is,” Mary Lou said bitterly. “They’ve hated each other for

centuries. That’s why I thought if the prince met a nice girl, he might mellow out a little. And I

thought Meena would be perfect for him, because of that thing she does.”

Emil stared at her. “What thing is that, dear?” he asked.

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