Кейти Макалистер - Sex, Lies, and Vampires

Could she survive Saer's death ? I asked. I know you claim you can't live without me, but is the same true for Beloveds? Will she go mad or fade away if he was to die ?

An echo of sadness brushed my mind. A Dark One cannot survive the loss of his Beloved, but she can survive his .

I don't care what you say about other women, but I know for a fact that this Beloved couldn't .

He didn't answer that, although I knew he wanted to deny it.

"I have always felt it necessary to remain separated from Saer because of Damian," Belinda said quietly, her voice clogged with unshed tears. Her eyes met mine, and an unspoken promise was asked and granted. "But now Damian has another mother, so perhaps it would be best—"

"Right," I interrupted rudely, holding up my hand to stop her from finishing her sentence. "New house rule. No one gets to sacrifice themselves, OK? Not Adrian, not Belinda, no one. We can do this without anyone having to become a martyr."

Allie smiled at me. "At last, someone with common sense. I forgive you for trying to burn Christian in the sunlight."

"Thank you," I said. "I nominate myself as leader of this shindig. Any objections?"

"Yes!" Adrian and Christian yelled together.

"No!" Allie and Belinda answered.

Melissande remained mute. She was apparently finally coming to grips with the idea that the brother she had long believed to be a traitor wasn't, while the one she loved was. She deserved some time to get it all straight in her head. I looked at the mummies. "What do you guys say?"

"Aeeeeiiiii," they crooned in unison.

"That's five for me and two against. I win. So, let's talk about the power of this ring." I stared for a few seconds at the band of gold and horn on my thumb before turning to Adrian. "Why is it the ring doesn't feel cold to me? Everything else to do with Asmodeus feels cold, frigid really, but this ring is warm. And the sensation of joy when I charmed the curse on Damian—surely a demon lord's ring shouldn't bring people happiness?"

"The ring was stolen by Asmodeus many centuries ago," Adrian answered, his thumb stroking gently over a pulse point behind my jaw. "It was not fashioned for him, but was created by a powerful mage. The ring is made from a unicorn's horn, chased in gold transmuted by one of the greatest alchemists in history."

"Oh, that's right, it's a unicorn's horn," I said, giving him a look that let him know I didn't appreciate having my leg pulled.

He nodded, his face serious. I glanced over to Christian. He nodded as well. "Allegra herself removed the ring from Asmodeus's hand. She would not have been able to do that if the ring had originated with the demon lord. We lost the ring temporarily, but it was found and returned to us by Sebastian. Naturally, he recognized the ring for what it was. We decided that Allegra and I would keep it safe until such time as it could be wielded. When we found out about Melissande's quest to save Damian, I recommended the ring be used. That is what we were doing in Cologne—returning home to collect the ring."

"That's all understandable, everything but the part about the ring being made from the horn of a unicorn. You can't seriously expect me to believe that unicorns…" I stopped. Everyone was looking at me as if I were the crazy one. I decided that I could just let that go without exploring it further, and moved on. "That explains where the ring came from, but what can it do to stop Saer?"

"I will use it against him, Hasi."

I frowned at Adrian. "Wait a sec, you said before that you couldn't use it to rescue Damian."

"That is because Damian was being bound by Asmodeus's curse. The servant of a demon lord cannot harm another servant, or one who is bound to the lord. Thus you were able to free Damian when I could not."

"Thank you," Belinda said softly.

"Any time," I said, a little uncomfortable with her gratitude.

"I will use the ring and confront Saer," Adrian said firmly. "With the ring in my hands, he will not be able to defeat me."

"Mmm. That takes care of the how, but not the when or where." I looked at Belinda. "Do you know where Saer is staying?"

Christian shook his head, answering before Belinda could respond. "It does not matter. He will come to us."

Adrian's eyes narrowed, his irises turning robin's-egg-blue as he pinned back the other vampire with his frown. "You believe he will attack here?"

"We've already been through the lower part of the house, warding everything wardable," Allie said. "Christian expects Saer and his Aryans will track you here before dawn." She glanced at the clock. "That's a little less than three hours away."

"Aryans?" I asked, thinking I must have heard the word incorrectly.

Christian and Allie nodded.

"Aryans as in white supremacist, those sorts of Aryans?"

"Yes," Christian said.

"Neo-Nazis?" My mind was having a hard time grasping the idea of a power-hungry vampire leading an army of Hitler's Youth. "Skinheads and their ilk?"

"Hasi, what is it you find so unbelievable?" Adrian asked, a smile in his voice.

"Oh, I don't know. I guess I just expected that any army Saer raised would be… you know… the evil undead." Everyone just looked at me. "Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. Neo-Nazis are more or less the evil undead. Right. So we have Saer about to attack at any moment with a bunch of goose-stepping Nazis. Great. Anyone here do a really good Winston Churchill impression?"

We discovered that Belinda was missing about five minutes before Saer and his army of Nazis descended upon Christian's house.

"What do you mean, she's gone?" I asked Allie as she hurried past me on the way to the basement. "Gone where?"

"Christian didn't say. Antonio checked the house—he says Belinda is nowhere to be found."

"Oh, great," I moaned, pausing in the middle of drawing a complicated strengthening ward on a window. "Where's Adrian?"

"On the roof with Christian setting traps. I want to ward the basement windows again, just to be sure." The words trailed behind her as she trotted down a flight of stairs to the basement, the dark-eyed ghost I had met in Christian's castle following on her heels. He paused to waggle his eyebrows suggestively at me.

"I'm sorry" I said, waving a hand at the flock that stood hopefully behind me. "I already have mummies."

"Eh," he said with a dismissive shrug, then floated down the stairs after Allie.

I finished the ward on the window, mentally dividing my brain power between it, a review of my checklist of tasks to be accomplished before Hurricane Saer hit us, and trying to think where Belinda might have gone. Surely she knew that Saer was a danger to her? Surely she must know he was going to try to use her? She had to know that the only way both she and Damian would be safe would be to keep as far away from Saer as possible…

"Hell!" I spun around, suddenly sure of where she had gone, and why. I ran straight into the mummies, scattering their emaciated forms throughout the hall. "Sorry! Stay here. I'll be back in a minute."

I raced up the stairs as fast as my weak leg would allow me, sprinting down the hall that ran the length of the house until I reached the end, yelling, "Belinda's missing! I think she went out to try to stop Saer by destroying herself. We have to get to her before she does anything stupid!"

Melissande was on the second floor, carefully scattering bits of broken glass before the windows. There wasn't enough time to ward all the windows in Christian's eleven-bedroom mansion, so Allie and I had concentrated on protecting all the doors and windows on the ground floor and basement, while Melissande was in charge of prohibitive measures for the second floor. She sprinkled broken glass on the floor before the window, pausing to frown over her shoulder at me as she straightened up, absently dusting her glass-encrusted leather gloves together. "What did you say about Belinda? What's the matter with her?"