Insatiable

“What?” She shook her head, perplexed. Her throat throbbed, both with emotion and the

smoke she’d inhaled back in the kitchen. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Alaric.

Why would we be working together in the future? I’m trying to tell you that if you do this, you

won’t have a future. But since you won’t listen to me…let me go with you.”

“Oh, no,” he said with a humorless bark of laughter.

“But it’s my dog you’re risking your life to—”

“No.” He wagged one of his massive fingers in her face. “And if I catch you following

me, I’ll handcuff you to something to keep you safe. Don’t think I won’t.”

She believed him. “I know you will,” she said. “But at least let me…here.”

Impulsively, she loosened the scarf she’d been wearing around her throat.

Alaric looked down as she began tying the delicate strip of red material around his wrist,

the one that she’d been holding.

“What is this?” he asked, his voice sounding…well, strange.

A token, she thought. From milady, for St. George, about to do battle with the dragon for

her.

She knew she was losing what frail grip she’d once had on her sanity.

There was no chance she was going to say that milady stuff out loud to Alaric Wulf,

however.

“I don’t know,” she said, trying not to let him see the tears that were still in her eyes.

“For luck, I guess. If you really are going and really won’t let me come with you.”

“Oh, I’m going,” he said with assurance as Meena pulled his sleeve back down over the

scarf. “And alone. The Palatine leave no one behind. This includes dogs.”

“This is for luck then, too,” she said in a tear-clogged voice.

She rose onto her tiptoes and placed a kiss on one of Alaric’s cheeks.

One dark blond eyebrow raised, his small mouth pressed even smaller than usual

in…surprise? Disapproval?

She couldn’t tell.

“Meena Harper,” he said, looking down at her very intently.

“Yes?” she asked.

“This is for you,” he said, and slipped something long and hard into her fingers. “Don’t

be afraid to use it.”

Then he opened the front door to the rectory, looked around outside, and stepped through

it, shutting it firmly behind him.

He was gone.

Meena examined what Alaric Wulf had placed into her hand.

It was a pointed wooden stake.

She couldn’t help smiling to herself.

He was just so… annoying.

So why was she standing there crying?

“There you are.”

Her brother, Jon, had come out into the hallway. He was holding several empty plastic

milk jugs.

“They want someone to fill these with holy water,” he explained. “I volunteered you for

the job. So can you go scoop some out of the font in the baptistery?”

Meena, reaching up hastily to wipe the tears from her cheeks, slipped the stake into the

back pocket of her jeans and said, “Sure.”

She knew what she had to do. What she should have done long ago.

Tremulously, she asked, “Jon?”

He’d already started down the hall. At the sound of his name, he turned back. “Yeah,

Meen? What?”

“Nothing. Just…” She shuffled toward him, letting her head hang and dragging her feet.

“I’m kind of scared. Can I have a hug from my big brother?”

“Aw, of course,” he said, holding his arms open wide.

Once he’d enveloped her in his embrace, he asked, over the top of her head, “Is this

crazy or what? I always thought your psychic thing was weird. But vampires ?”

“Gee, thanks, Jon,” Meena said drily, her ear over his heart. “You always know just the

right thing to say to make a girl feel better.”

“Well,” Jon said with brotherly awkwardness. “Yeah. Sorry about that. You know what I

mean.”

“Yeah,” Meena said. She pulled away from him and gave him a tearful smile. “I do. And

thanks. Sorry about getting our lives destroyed.”

“No big deal.” Jon ruffled her hair. “And don’t worry. I’m sure Alaric will be back with

Jack soon, and both of ’em will be just fine. Now go fill these up.” He practically threw the

milk jugs at her. “I have to go; Abraham is going to teach me the best way to cut off a

vampire’s head.” He hurried back into the kitchen.

Meena watched him go. Then she lifted her hand. In it was her cell phone, which she’d

managed to pick from the pocket of his jean jacket while he’d been hugging her.

She checked to make sure the battery was still charged. The cell phone thrummed to life.

Perfect.

She had an important call to make.

Chapter Fifty

8:30 P.M . EST, Saturday, April 17

Concubine Lounge

125 East Eleventh Street

New York, New York

L ucien Antonescu had listened as calmly as possible to the information from his cousin

Emil that his wife, Mary Lou, had known all along about Meena Harper’s ability to predict

death—had known it well before ever setting up the two of them. That it was, in fact, the

reason she’d set them up.

That Mary Lou should have chosen for him a young woman of her acquaintance who

was in possession of such an… unusual talent was flattering, to say the least.

But the fact that Mary Lou had told everyone she knew about Meena’s talent, putting

Meena in a position of such danger?

That Lucien couldn’t accept calmly.

Lucien had already come to several decisions in the wee hours of the morning as he’d

watched Meena sleep, before ever speaking to his cousin Emil.

The first was that he would not, of course, be able to return to his teaching position in

Romania or to any of his homes there.

Not now that the Palatine knew who he really was.

Obviously, he was going to have to change his name.

Again.

Surprisingly, he was not as irritated by these things as he might have been had he not

met Meena. The fact that she was in his life now made everything that would have once

seemed unbearable a mere annoyance.

Of course, the Palatine was no longer an organization that merely hunted its prey on foot,

satisfied with an old-fashioned stake to the heart, and then left it at that.

Oh, no. Not anymore.

They now used sophisticated technology to track their quarry’s financial and real estate

assets as well, monitoring bank accounts even in countries that criminalized the violation of

their banking privacy laws, such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. If the Palatine could

not snare the monster, they would find ways to seize his money. And they did so with a

ruthlessness that would make the CIA green with envy…were the Palatine not such a highly

secretive organization that even the CIA knew nothing of its existence.

The money, more than anything, was an issue. Starting over without any money would

have been fine, had it just been himself.

But he couldn’t ask it of Meena. That would be impossible.

And he wasn’t going anywhere without Meena…despite her insistence that they no

longer see each other.

She would never be safe now. Every vampire in the world would want a taste of her.

Any chance to be able to experience what Lucien had—the ability to foretell the death of a

human, and not by vampiric hands—would be irresistible to them. It wouldn’t be irresistible

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