Insatiable

“Take it,” she said, holding out the bowl to Dimitri. “Take it all. I don’t care anymore.

Just let Leisha go.”

“Well, thank you.” Dimitri lifted the bowl from her hands and gave her a courtly bow.

“Aren’t you an accommodating creature?”

Then he extracted from an inside coat pocket a dagger with a gold, elaborately jeweled

hilt. This he pressed to Meena’s throat. She swallowed, her heart hammering.

But all Dimitri did next was look over at Gregory Bane and Shoshona, then nod.

“You can kill the woman now,” he said to them.

“ What? ” Meena twisted around just as Dimitri, still pressing the blade in the direction of

her neck, seized her by the arm and began dragging her toward the altar. “ No! ”

But it was too late. The Dracul surged forward, falling hungrily upon the spot where

Meena had last seen Leisha, even as Alaric leapt toward them, intent on saving her friend.

Except that Leisha wasn’t there anymore. Meena blinked, thinking her eyes must be

playing tricks on her in all the candlelight.

But it was true. The hungry Dracul—Fran, Stan, Shoshona, all of them—were staring at

an empty spot where Leisha had been. Meena, twisting in Dimitri’s grip on the dais by the

altar, caught sight of a flash of movement on the far side of the church.

That’s how she saw that Leisha was already in the back of the church, being rushed out

the doors and into the waiting arms of her husband, Adam, by none other than…

Mary Lou Antonescu?

Meena would have thought that she’d imagined the whole thing in some kind of posttraumatic-stress-induced hallucination if Dimitri hadn’t pointed the dagger after Mary Lou and

screamed, “ Traitor! ”

The Dracul whipped around, almost as one, and launched themselves toward Mary Lou,

as if intent on ripping her apart, as they’d been about to do to Leisha.

That’s when a gust of wind rose up from nowhere and tore through the church. It was so

strong that it blew out every single candle flame, causing everyone to throw an arm up over his

or her eyes in order keep out all the dust it raised from the construction.

Then the wind turned and whipped back through the church again, this time in the

opposite direction.

Now each and every candle wick magically reignited, the flames burning merrily again.

After the final breath of wind died down, and Meena had cautiously lowered the arm

Dimitri wasn’t grasping, shaken by what had just occurred, she—and everyone else in St.

George’s—saw that there was someone else standing on the dais beside Dimitri Antonescu.

Someone who hadn’t been there before that freakish wind had whipped so savagely throughout

the church, dousing and then reigniting all those candles.

It was Dimitri’s brother, Lucien.

The prince of darkness.

Chapter Fifty-six

11:00 P.M . EST, Saturday, April 17

St. George’s Cathedral

180 East Seventy-eighth Street

New York, New York

L ucien didn’t even glance in Meena’s direction. Instead, all his powers of concentration

appeared to be focused on his brother.

“Dimitri,” he said. His voice, as always, was like velvet. “I understand you wanted to see

me about something?”

Dimitri still had hold of Meena’s arm. It was her sore arm, the wrist he’d nearly broken.

Or maybe he had broken it. Meena didn’t know.

He still held the knife, as well.

“Why, yes, Lucien,” he said. His own voice purred like a kitten’s. “What a pleasure it is

to see you tonight. And what an entrance. But then, you always did know how to make those,

didn’t you?”

“Let go of her,” Lucien said. Now the velvet was more like ice.

“But Miss Harper and I were only just getting acquainted,” Dimitri said, casually

running the point of the jeweled dagger down her bare neck. “And I want to be able to read

everyone’s minds and tell the future, too. I don’t think it’s fair that you’re getting to have all

the fun.”

“I think you’ve been having quite enough fun,” Lucien said coldly. “I went to Concubine

earlier today, and I saw what you were keeping in the basement.”

Dimitri looked surprised. He was holding Meena close enough to him that she felt him

go still. Everyone in the church—the Dracul, even Alaric, at the bottom of the dais—seemed to

be watching the brothers’ tense conversation intently.

“Did you?” Dimitri asked. Then he smiled so that his fangs showed again. “So you

happened to stumble across part of my latest financial enterprise—”

“TransCarta,” shouted a male voice from somewhere near the back of the church.

Meena, recognizing that voice, froze.

No. Oh, no.

Every head in the building swiveled to follow the sound of that voice.

Which was how everyone managed to get such a good look at Meena’s brother, Jon,

standing in the entrance of the church, flanked by Sister Gertrude and Abraham Holtzman,

who was holding a stake to Stefan Dominic’s chest. Behind them stood every friar, nun, and

novice from the Shrine of St. Clare.

Meena raised her gaze to the ceiling. As if things hadn’t been going badly enough. Just

how awful was this night going to get?

“Oh, hello,” Abraham called out cheerfully, waving to them. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.

Do go on. As long as no one makes a move to attack us, I’ll let this fellow here live.”

“Let him kill me, Father,” Stefan Dominic cried, struggling in the guard’s arms. “Please!

I’d rather die than dishonor you in this way!”

Neither Dimitri nor Lucien looked particularly impressed by this impassioned speech.

But it was at least clear that Stefan’s theatrical ambitions hadn’t been misdirected.

“Stefan!” Shoshona looked upset. She flung a panicky look up at Lucien and Dimitri.

“Please don’t let them kill him, my lords. You can’t!”

But Dimitri hadn’t taken his gaze off Lucien, who went on. “Yes. TransCarta is the bank

where all the dead men I found in your basement used to work.”

“TransCarta bought the network that owns the show I work for,” Meena said with a gasp

of surprise.

Although she ought, she realized belatedly, to have said used to work for.

“It’s actually the Swiss private equity firm that Dimitri Antonescu formed last year,” Jon

said.

“ Trans for Transylvania, obviously,” Alaric said thoughtfully. “I don’t know what Carta

is for.”

Lucien looked at his half brother with a raised eyebrow. “That would be Carta Abbey, I

presume,” he said. “Where you tried to kill me…what was it? The third time?”

Dimitri shrugged. “I thought it had a nice ring to it. A private equity firm allows one to

conduct business without the usual scrutiny by the federal government or the prying eyes of

other entities.” He gave Alaric a knowing wink.

“Because they aren’t publicly traded on the stock exchange or subject to any other

requisite filings or disclosures,” Alaric said through gritted teeth. He looked as if he couldn’t

believe he hadn’t thought of this before.

“Absolutely.” Dimitri grinned. “They’re a fine way for an individual like myself who

might value his privacy to expand his, er, brand…through, say, a television network.”

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