Meg Cabot - Insatiable

Meena’s heart flew into her throat. The hordes of Dracul crowding around her and Alaric at the bottom of the dais parted a little, and she saw that Leisha had been pulled onto her feet. She stood with her arms being clutched on either side by Gregory Bane and Shoshona. They were both grinning a little maniacally, but Leisha didn’t look too happy.

Maybe that was because Gregory Bane was hissing at her, showing off his fangs.

“Stop it,” Meena said, climbing shakily back to her feet. Her wrist was throbbing, and her head wasn’t feeling too good, either. “I’ll give you what you want.”

She limped to the altar and lifted the pewter bowl, which shone in the candlelight.

“Meena,” Alaric said. His bright blue eyes shot her a warning. He shook his head at her.

No. Don’t do it.

But Meena knew it wasn’t any use. She had failed. Alaric had failed. Lucien obviously wasn’t coming, for whatever reason, or he’d have been there by then.

It was over. It was useless.

It was done.

Her toes were on the precipice.

“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 post-traumatic-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.

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

St. George’s Cathedral

180 East Seventy-eighth Street

New York, New York

Lucien 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.