9. Illusions
It was my first time in Viggo and Mortimer’s jet cabin since the trip to New York with Evangeline. With four vampires taking turns pacing around in it, three of them beside themselves with grief over the loss of Fiona only hours ago, it didn’t feel quite the same.
Escaping from the Fifth Avenue palace had been easy, but not graceful. Since crashing through an army of witches to escape behind the wheel of a car was too risky, even in the Hum-V, we used the sewer system access from the garage, weaving through muck, rats, and other vileness for a mile or so to resurface in Central Park. From there it was a simple act of grand theft auto and tripling the speed limit to get us to Viggo’s airfield in record time.
We likely could have run to the plane in the same amount of time, had it not been for Bishop. Mage struggled with the broken-hearted vampire every step of the way. All he wanted to do was turn around and dive back into that battleground to avenge Fiona’s death, a reckless move that would mean certain death for him. I even tried a few calming spells on him, but none seemed to work, his anguish overpowering all. I found myself wishing that Mage could compel him to follow peacefully. In the end, Mage kept Bishop alive with brute force, dragging him kicking and screaming through the tunnels, her tiny arm around his broad neck in a headlock. Their difference in size almost made it look comical. I was surprised she bothered, but I felt grateful that she did. Losing one of them would be hard enough for Evangeline. Losing two . . .
Now we flew south toward the remote South American island where Evangeline waited, guarded by a group of demons created in one of my magical blunders. A part of me overflowed with joy that I would finally see my girl again. And when we did meet, it would be without the mask I had so stoically worn to hide my true feelings for her, to alienate myself from her. I would no longer need to lurk within the shadows to be near her. Life would be different now.
I sighed. No, life was not yet different. I needed to be a long way off from joy right now. I had failed to break the deadly curse hanging over her. She was still hunted and now Viggo and Mortimer knew exactly where she hid. I silently admonished myself for not moving the tribe from their original location. It had seemed like too much of a hassle at the time, the island was so isolated, so perfect for concealing that sort of creature. Evangeline was still in great danger, until I figured out how to lift that blasted curse. Then Caden could transform her, something I was sure she wanted, and she would no longer be a fragile human.
Standing at the front of the cabin, I swept my eyes over its occupants, assessing the atmosphere. It was one of complete and utter despair. We had all taken a turn in the jet’s shower, washing the sewers off our bodies. Caden and Mage had pilfered fresh sets of clothes for all of us from the other private planes at the airfield. The physical evidence of the attack was long gone. But all I had to do was glance at Bishop, who sat in a seat off to himself, his forehead pressed up against the window as he stared out at the night sky with empty gray eyes, to see that the witches’ attack had wounded us gravely. My heart ached for the young man. He had just watched his love of seven hundred years burn! The sickness now growing inside him was one to which I could relate. It was dangerous, for him and everyone around him. We’d have to watch him closely.
“Miss Sofie?” The pretty young flight attendant, Jasmine, poked her head into the cabin, pulling me from my dark thoughts.
I turned to smile at her. I had summoned her and the two pilots on our way to the airfield and then compelled them to fly without Viggo’s consent. The three of them were on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with the expectation that they’d be ready to take off within an hour’s notice. It was an unreasonable demand, but they didn’t work much and they were paid handsomely for it, making them willing to cater to Viggo’s eccentricities, taking residences nearby and dropping everything to run at the ring of their phones. Of course, they had no idea what their employers were, other than assuming they were involved in seriously shady business. “Yes, Jasmine?”
“You asked me to tell you when Mr. Viggo arrived at the airfield. The tower called. He just did.”
How predictable. So Viggo and Mortimer had made it to the airfield to take the jet I had already commandeered. They’d be pissed, realizing I had duped them to get a head start to Evangeline. Not that they’d be surprised. I was actually shocked they’d waited in the Warehouse as long as they had. “And?”
“And they tried to take another plane, but all of the cockpits had been vandalized.”
My eyes shifted briefly to Mage, who offered a tiny smile. She and Caden must have busted up the electronics while looking for clothes, to buy us a bigger head start. Smart thinking. Now Viggo and Mortimer would have to find a plane as well as a pilot.
“Thanks for the update, Jasmine.” I smiled warmly. As she was turning away, another thought struck me. “Oh, Jaz?”
“Yes?”
“Have you heard anything over the news about an explosion or terrorist attack in Manhattan . . . anything at all like that?”
Jasmine’s perfectly-sculpted brown eyebrows furrowed as she shook her head. “No, Miss Sofie.”
I smiled again. “Thanks.” That meant the witches were containing the attack, keeping it under wraps. For what reason, I didn’t know. But every day the vampires stayed out of the news kept us away from being exposed, and the fated world war from beginning.
Jasmine pulled her head back into the cockpit, leaving behind a hint of floral-scented shampoo, and closed the door. I heard the lock click and chuckled. If we wanted in, we’d get in, but if a lock made them feel safe, have at it.
“So what does that mean? Will they still come?” Amelie asked, looking up at me with wide emerald eyes from the same seat that Evangeline had occupied on her way to New York.
“Oh, I’m sure they will. We just stalled them slightly. They’ll find a way to get there; we’ll just be there before them and, I hope, be gone by the time they arrive.” That remote island off the southern tip of South America where the tribe lived was the absolute last place on earth Viggo wanted to go. But if that was where Veronique’s pendant was, then as sure as the sun would rise in the morning, that’s where he would go. I just hoped it didn’t require a massacre to get there.
“And what happens when we get there?” Caden asked, his arm wrapped protectively around his sister, worry marring his beautiful face. “Who is this ‘tribe’?”
“Ah, yes. My creation.” I felt my lips curve up in a smile, though nothing about that tribe deserved a smile. I strolled over to take a seat—the same one I had occupied when flying with Evangeline—and asked, “Did Evangeline ever mention the spell I cast that inadvertently cursed her?”
Amelie and Caden’s heads bobbed in assent. “She said something about some . . . fates?” Amelie offered.
I nodded. “Yes, the Fates. They’re basically like the gods of the witches. I liken them to a group of overweight housewives sitting around a table, thinking up ways to twist hopes and dreams into some perversion of a solution,” I explained sardonically. Mage chuckled softly, amused by my interpretation. I turned to give her a flat stare. “But—oh, that’s right. I forgot, Mage. You know all about the Fates, don’t you! That slipped my mind. Much as it slipped yours.”
Mage cocked her head, then dipped it slightly as if to acknowledge my jibe with a silent “nice one.”
I turned back to Caden and Amelie. “Of course, I have no idea what the Fates would look like if they took on physical form. I don’t even know how I managed to call on them the first time. There’s no manual for getting ahold of them. It’s kind of like humans praying to their god. I just sort of stumbled upon them when I was desperate to turn for Nathan . . . ”
I realized I was babbling and quickly regrouped my thoughts. “Anyway, forty years after I cast the first Causal Enchantment—the kind of spell the Fates grant—I began getting impatient. When I get impatient, I start doing . . . reckless things.” Nathan had always been quick to point that out. “I began testing the Fates, casting all kinds of Causal Enchantments, attacking the problem from different angles to see what they would throw back at me. One of these spells was an attempt to erase my original one altogether, as if it never happened—to change fate back. I knew it was a long shot, but what did I have to lose? Well, sure enough, the Fates came back with an ‘idea,’ all right.” I gave them my best sarcastic eye roll. “They turned this remote tribe in the Amazon into the anti-magic of that wielded by vampires and witches.”
“Interesting,” Mage murmured, her expression pensive. “That’s the second of these Causal Enchantments that didn’t exist in our Earth.” I didn’t miss the scowl on Caden’s face when Mage said “our Earth.” They still hadn’t come to terms with her manipulation of their memories. I couldn’t blame them.
“Are you positive?”
Mage nodded adamantly. “And why does the original vampire from your Earth not look identical to me?”
“It doesn’t make sense . . . ” I agreed softly, speaking more to myself. Another piece to this Fates puzzle that didn’t make sense. I hated broken puzzles. “If our worlds are parallel, someone like me should have been in yours, casting the same Causal Enchantments, destroying the vampire venom.” Amelie and Caden nodded in silent agreement, their expressions reflecting their confusion. In my peripheral vision, I noticed that even Bishop had perked up.
“It’s like you didn’t exist in our world,” Mage said. “Like you are unique to your Earth. Perhaps planted here to alter the course of things.”
I mulled over her theory. “Planted by whom?”
“The Fates?” Mage suggested. “I mean, how many parallel worlds do they reign over? Mine, yours, how many others? Maybe they get bored with watching the same thing happen over and over again, seeing the same faces . . . maybe they decided to throw a wrench into the works.”
I had never thought of that. Was I a wrench for the Fates? Was my very existence, my constant drive to test the boundaries of magic, a by-product of these gods’ need to spice things up? Maybe the Fates lounged around in their sweats and rollers, watching, waiting to see what ideas their crazy jester would come up with next. The very idea twisted my stomach into knots and ran my blood icy cold. Was I their entertainment?
Mage’s voice pulled me from my silent brooding. I looked up to see them all watching me. How long had I drifted off in thought? “So then, this tribe—what are they, exactly?” she asked.
Right. The tribe. I pushed a stray lock of hair off my face. “Good question. I’m not quite sure.” I gave them the rundown—the toxic skin, the unsightly appearance, how their own magic counters witches’ magic within a ten-mile radius, the tiger deal I made with them to protect Evangeline. “They worship the god of fire. I don’t know . . . ” I rolled my eyes when Mage looked at me questioningly. “But what exactly their magic can do, I’m not sure. One day, if we survive this coming war, maybe I’ll experiment. That’s why I kept them alive and hidden all this time. For now, I’m happy to stay as far away from those wretched creatures as I can.”
“Why tigers?” Amelie asked suddenly.
I shrugged. “No reason that I can think of except companionship. They’re the only creature that isn’t affected by their touch. They have a slew of the animals in their village and I promised to bring them more as part of my deal to keep Evangeline safe, should she show up there. Whatever the reason, they’re great for negotiating.”
“That’s just the kind of stupid, arbitrary stuff that the Fates come up with,” Mage added, her tone flip.
“So this tribe is dangerous. We want to get in and out as quickly as possible,” Caden acknowledged. “What do we need to do?” “ I noticed the creased picture of Evangeline in his hands then, the one I had secretly passed him weeks ago. Many times, I had caught him off in a corner, gazing at her face. It was an endearing picture. But a picture just didn’t cut it next to the real thing . . . And that reminded me of something I needed to do before I felt completely safe with him around her.
I stood and walked over to the bar fridge. Reaching in, I grabbed several bags of blood that I knew would be there—Viggo had stashed blood everywhere. “We find the tribe.” I began tossing bags out to the group. The one I threw in Bishop’s direction hit his knee and dropped to the floor; he made no move to grab it. “Hope they don’t kill us, and get the hell out of there with Evangeline.” I ended at Caden, who held his hands out in anticipation. “Not you.” He frowned, as did Amelie, her curls bobbing as she turned from Caden to me. “I need to know I can trust you.”
“Haven’t the last twelve hours proven anything?” Caden said.
“Yes, but I’m worried your emotions will get the better of you when you see Evangeline for the first time.” By emotions, I meant lust. Lust was as much a driver as fresh blood and Caden, being in his early twenties, was definitely no shy schoolboy. “I need to test you.”
Caden arched an eyebrow, a worried question in his eyes.
I walked over to the cockpit door and knocked. Jasmine’s head popped out almost immediately. “Would you mind coming out for a moment? Just for a sec.” I reached out to take her hand.
She nodded and stepped into the cabin, scanning the others. I pushed the door closed behind her. “What lovely brown eyes you have,” I cooed, steering her attention back to me with my fingertip on her chin. She smiled shyly, no clue of my real intentions—that I was zoning in on her irises, pulling her eyes in to mine until our focus was locked. In seconds, she was staring vacantly back at me, compelled. “You are going to walk over to Caden and offer him your blood,” I said.
“What?” Caden barked out behind me. “Are you nuts?”
I ignored him. “Ready?”
She nodded dumbly.
Holding her hand, I turned to look at Caden. “I need to know that I can trust you.”
His jade eyes shifted between Jasmine and me, full of doubt. “How is this going to prove anything, Sofie?”
In answer, I plucked a few hundred helix links. With a quick disguising chant—the same kind that Ursula used to turn herself into a sweet old bird-feeding lady for Evangeline—I let my magic loose. It swirled around Jasmine’s body like a tornado, visible only to Mage and I. We all watched as Jasmine’s hair lightened and grew six inches longer, as her eyes lightened to milk-chocolate brown, as her skin paled.
As she turned into Evangeline.
I heard the sharp intakes of breath from the others. It was spine-chilling to see this mirage, even for me, and I was the one who had created it. “Now, if you would please—” I gestured toward Caden.
With slow, catatonic steps, Jasmine walked over and sat down in the free chair beside him, opposite Amelie. Gathering her hair and pulling it back, she leaned away from Caden and arched her back to expose her long, slender neck. “Please. Go ahead,” she offered, her voice identical to Evangeline’s.
I swallowed the anxiety in my throat and watched Caden blink several times, awed by the illusion. Please, control yourself. If he didn’t defy the urge that was now electrifying his entire body, there was no way I was bringing him with me to the tribe.
Caden’s jaw tightened. “No,” he growled through clenched teeth.
I allowed myself a small smile. He had passed the first step. But this wasn’t the real test. Sailing over to the illusion’s side with just a thought, I yanked a sharp piece of metal from the underside of her chair. Grabbing her wrist, I slashed the metal across it, opening up a wide gash.
All four vampires hissed. That’s fine. This is as hard as it will get for Caden around Evangeline. If he began feeding on her, he wouldn’t stop until she was dead; I could almost guarantee that. So he needed to fight it.
Jasmine held her wrist up to Caden’s mouth. “Go on,” she offered sweetly.
Caden gritted his teeth tighter. Sickness stirred in my stomach. I knew this was torture. If this were a human version of Nathan sitting in front of me, offering me his wrist, I didn’t know that I could refuse. And that’s why I needed to be sure.
Icy blue-green eyes turned to glare at me. He was fighting the transformation, his whites now tinged with red, his pupils dilated, tiny veins beginning to grow and throb. “This is ridiculous. Get her away before I kill her,” he whispered, his voice agonized now.
My answer came fast and hard. “If you want to see Evangeline again—ever—then you will control yourself. I will sacrifice a thousand Jasmines before I let anything happen to my girl.”
The warning seemed to spark a new level of control in Caden. When he turned back to look at the illusion, it wasn’t with hunger in his eyes. He searched her features, all but ignoring the bleeding wrist under his nose. After a moment, he lifted his hand to run his finger along her chin, down her neck. “She looks so much like her,” he murmured.
Please, control yourself. Please. A metal creak echoed through the cabin. Glancing down, I realized that my fingernails had punctured the ivory leather upholstery and warped the metal frame of the seat. Taking a deep, calming breath, I released my grip and turned back to Caden.
We remained like that for a long time—Caden and Amelie staring at a bleeding replica of Evangeline, Mage watching with interest. Bishop had turned to stare out the window again, back in his own private hell.
Finally, when the pool of blood on the floor by her seat began to worry me, I reached out to her. “Thank you, Jasmine,” I called, lifting the illusion and the compulsion. The fog in Jasmine’s eyes lifted, and they skittered around the cabin in confusion. “You poor thing! That’s a nasty cut on your wrist.” I took her by the hand and helped her up. “You should get that looked at when we land.”
As if my words had permitted her to feel pain, she flinched. She held up her wrist and stared at it with wide, shocked eyes. “How . . . how’d I do that?”
“Glass.” The lie rolled easily off my tongue. Lying had become second-nature to me many years ago.
“Glass?” she repeated, scanning the floor around her for the evidence.
Mage appeared beside me, holding up a broken shard of a wine glass from who knows where. “Yes, see?”
Jasmine stared blankly back at her. I felt a twinge of guilt for putting her through this.
“Here, this should help.” Mage swiftly went to work winding gauze around her wrist—plucked from the never-before-used emergency kit under one of the seats. She handed the woman an ice pack from the freezer. “Press this up against it,” she instructed, offering her a warm smile. “It should help stop the bleeding.”
“Yes, it will be as good as new with that,” I added, placing my hand over the pack and quickly weaving a few threads of magic into her wrist to close up the wound and speed up the healing. We didn’t need her bleeding out in the cockpit.
“Oh, okay. Thanks,” Jasmine murmured, slowly walking back toward the cockpit, glancing over her shoulder at all of us several times.
Not until I heard the door lock click did I smile. “And now we know,” I said. Caden returned a grin of his own, his relief unmistakable. Relief that matched my own. I could trust Caden with Evangeline.
Satisfied, I strolled past him to take a seat in a vacant corner, grabbing a blood bag on my way. I needed time to strategize. How would I get Evangeline out of there? And where in this world could we go to hide from Viggo and Mortimer?
Unfortunately I didn’t get much strategizing time, as Mage slid into the chair across from me. “Well, that must make you happy. One less threat to Evangeline?” she asked almost tentatively, as if testing the waters. Likely wanting to see how I would react to her, now that we were not busy hunting mutants or fighting off witches. Now that I knew what she was, the powers she held, the danger she presented. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what to make of Mage anymore. For someone I openly claimed not to trust, there was a large part of me that felt betrayed when she revealed her secret, as if she should have told me sooner. It was stupid, really . . . and yet it was impossible to ignore. I searched her face for an inkling of what she was thinking. Nothing. Unreadable. “Yes. One less danger.”
“So what are we going to do now?”
“We?” Such a small, unassuming word, and yet it weighed so heavily, coming from her. It implied we were a team.
“Yes, I thought . . . ” Mage stumbled over her words, an odd thing to witness the five thousand-year-old vampire doing. And then it happened. As she looked down at her hands folded in her lap, I saw the mask drop. It was fleeting, but I saw underneath—saw grief; loss. It was a long moment before she looked up again. “There’s nothing I can say to make you trust me, is there?”
I felt my jaw set. “No. I don’t believe there is.”
She nodded, and determination flashed in her eyes. “Fine. Read me.”
“What?” I blurted.
“Read me,” she repeated.
But I was already shaking my head, feeling my forehead furrow deeply. “I heard you, but . . . what?”
Mage heaved a loud sigh. “Back on Ratheus, when I first found out about you—about a witch who was also a vampire—I had to admit that I was intrigued. And impressed. Then, when I met you . . . when I got to know you, I realized how alike the two of us are.”
“We are nothing alike!” I snapped.
“No?” The tiniest smile crooked her mouth. “Powerful women, witch heritage . . . Of course, I’m not a witch anymore, but I still remember those days. We both want to save this world. And neither of us enjoy killing innocent people.” The smile slid of her face. “We’ve both suffered terrible loss. We’re both lonely.”
“I’m not . . . ” My words drifted away, unable to form that one lie.
“Really? And where is your family? Your friends?”
I paused, the mention of friends reminding me of Leo. Pain ripped through me as I thought of my old companion for the first time since the witch attack, of the delivery of his message, of how the connection cut off so abruptly, so completely. There was only one way that could happen. Death.
“I have no one,” Mage offered when I didn’t speak. “Not one friend. Except you.”
I opened my mouth to deny her claim to this supposed “friendship,” but she was already talking again. “I should have told you. I should have trusted you.” She looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Well . . . like you said. There are no words left to make me trust you.”
“I did say that.” That steady, confident “Mage voice” was back again. “So read me. You will know everything about me in thirty seconds.” She crooked her head, smiling. “Maybe a minute. Five thousand years is a lot of memory to rifle through. You will see that my intentions are genuine. You will see that I don’t have some grand scheme. I am here to help you protect Evangeline and this world.”
I wanted so much to believe her, I realized as I gazed at that tiny, pale, Asian face. At my . . . friend. I never would, though. Not until I uncovered what she could not hide.
Without another moment’s hesitation, before she could renege on her offer, I sank a dozen magical tendrils into her body. They sailed in as if invited through a wide-open door, snaking into Mage’s memories and thoughts as they had done with Caden. Only here, there was more—so much more. The moment five thousand years ago, when she realized what that Fates had turned her into; her first human kill and her horror as she gazed down on her victim. Regret tainted her every thought. Regret for testing the Fates with such a superficial request. Regret as her own family of sorcerers shunned her with disgusted sneers and ghastly screams.
I wove in and out of years, jumping from decade to decade, one century to the next; through the common stages of denial and then acceptance, of eccentricity and then a craving for normality; through the overwhelming boredom, the recurring urges to end her eternal life. So many years, besieged with melancholy and distrust as her strength grew to undefeatable heights. Cycling through one male companion to the next, with no desire to stay; guarding her back as those around her plotted to usurp her from her invisible throne. And then suddenly . . . a face. A woman’s face. Young, beautiful, vampire. Just like that, it was as if the sun rose over a horizon, and warmth blossomed within my heart. Yolanda. That was her name. A sister. A friend. Mage’s best friend.
From that point on, Mage’s memories took a turn toward a blissful place, the days filled with laughter and peace. Mage now had an ally, someone to watch her back, someone to trust wholeheartedly. There were no more thoughts of death. Not for six hundred years.
Until suddenly, that security was yanked out from under Mage, vanishing in a haze of darkness and fire delivered by witches and baited by the Sentinel. I watched as Mage stepped through carnage to find Yolanda’s dead eyes staring up from where she had fallen. Like a twig snapping in half, something broke in Mage then. I felt her tumbling backward, back into darkness, only it was so much bleaker this time.
In the next memory flash, I was peering out over a sea of heads in a football stadium. Cameras were everywhere, aimed to capture any angle. It was a really big game. Mage’s attention was on the football team in the green and white uniforms. She had previously traced two of them as Sentinel spies. In their football gear, she wasn’t sure which ones they were. She decided it didn’t matter. She’d just kill them all.
And that’s exactly what she did. On live national television, in front of millions of spectators, a vampire slaughtered an entire football team to avenge her best friend’s murder.
Filtering through the rest of Mage’s memories, I watched the war unfold through her eyes, the eyes of the catalyst who brought about the end of the world. Through the moment when she realized the grave impact of her rampage, however noble the intentions may have been; through her desperate attempts to stop the devastation; through to the migration to the South American continent that she would rename New Shore; through her order to exterminate three-quarters of the vampires because there were simply too many to keep the peace. The aftermath was a long, endless stretch of regret during which guilt ate away at her dark soul. So many times, Mage held flint and stone in her hand, ready to step into a blazing inferno. Only the seer’s words stayed her desire, burning into her mind as surely as if they were on fire. A parallel world. A second chance, perhaps. A chance to do right. If only she could get a second chance . . .
The last images that flashed through Mage’s mind were of Evangeline’s friends being dragged, bound by Merth; of Evangeline’s terrified face, and Mage’s urge to come forward and comfort her, knowing there was no point, that her reputation as an evil tyrant was all that had kept the masses from turning on her. And then my own face appeared in her memory, my red hair framing my face like a lion’s mane, my eyes set with crazed determination as I wielded fire balls, leveling dozens of Ratheus vampires. Mage had an opening. I saw it now. She had regained her senses quickly—unlike the others—and she could have killed me. She thought about it. But there was something about me that intrigued her. An instant kinship that stayed her lethal hands. She let me live.
By the time my magical threads released Mage, I was leaning so far forward in my chair that I was surprised I didn’t fall out. Dazed, I slid back, my eyes wide with shock as I stared openly at her, not because she was so horrific, not because the span of her lifetime was overwhelming, but because so many of her own memories and emotions reminded me of . . . my own. I swallowed several times before opening my mouth to speak, only nothing came out. I was utterly speechless. Drained of all suspicion in less than a minute.
Mage smiled sadly at me. “So you see, you and I are not all that different.”
With a small nod, I whispered, “I guess not,” and left it at that. There was nothing else to say. Just like that, seeing her for what she was, all of my apprehension vanished, all doubt of her intentions slid away. I now had a true ally in this war. I now had a real friend. It was . . . comforting.
I glanced over to see Caden, Amelie, and Bishop watching us intently, no doubt eavesdropping on the conversation. By the relieved looks on their faces, they’d figured out what had happened and they were pleased with the outcome. It meant Mage was genuinely on our side. Against Viggo, against the witches and the Sentinel, against all threats. We needed her.
Mage cleared her throat. “So after we get Evangeline, then what?”
Back to the plans. “I guess we could always go back to the cabin in the mountains, if it’s still there. Whatever happened between Leo and Ursula may have burnt the thing to the ground. I won’t know until I make a few phone calls.”
“And who is this Ursula?”
I rolled my eyes. “Long story. Psycho jealous witch. I’ll explain later.”
“Speaking of jealous psychos,” Amelie piped up. “What do you think happened to Rachel?”
Mage and I groaned in unison. “I hope the witches finish her off,” Mage muttered.
“Yeah.” Though doubtful. That would be too easy for all of us.
“Now, will we be taking this plane the entire way? You said it was an island?”
“No. We have another three or four hours, then we’ll need to stop over and get a smaller plane, but one big enough to carry seven of us, plus Max,” I answered.
“You mean six,” Bishop growled from his corner, thinking I had accidentally and cold-heartedly counted Fiona.
“No, Bishop,” I answered as gently as I could. “There will likely be seven. I don’t imagine Leo sent the entire staff with Evangeline, given the tribe would not handle that well. But I’m thinking he might have sent Julian.”
“Julian?” Caden asked.
“Camila’s son—the woman you all killed on the first night? I sent him with Evangeline to the mountains at her request.”
Caden’s eyes narrowed. “And what’s this son, like . . . ten? Twelve years old?”
Oh-oh. I know where this is going. I hadn’t thought of this. “In his early twenties.”
“No need to worry,” Mage added, chuckling.
“I’m not worried,” Caden quickly threw back. He stood and began pacing. “So she’s been in these mountains with this twenty-something-year-old guy for the past month. After I tried to kill her.”
“Caden . . . ” Amelie said, rolling her eyes. “She’s madly in love with you.”
Caden scowled at his sister and marched off into the opposite corner. He was worried. And now so was I. A jealous vampire was an irrational one. Which made for a lethal one.