Accidentally Married To...A Vampire? (27 page)

They returned to quietly eating their steak and potatoes, but maintained healthy smirks.

“I suppose you think that vampire mate of yours is an angel. Right?” said Andrus.

Helena grumbled and looked down at her untouched plate. “No. He’s an even bigger ass than you are. If that’s even possible.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Andres replied with a grin. His men chuckled.

She was appalled by their glib dispositions. “You think this is some kind of joke?” She snarled at each of them.

Their smiles melted away.

“Sorry,” Andrus said quietly. "I understand you are upset, that you feel I betrayed you, but that’s no reason to not eat. It’s been two days.”

Helena simply wasn’t hungry. “I know how long it’s been. The question is, when are you going to let me go home?”

Andrus shrugged and picked up his fork to spear a chunk of baked potato soaked in butter. “Not until I know you’re safe from him.”

Helena suddenly noticed how Andrus did the quick blinking thing with his eyes when he said that. If memory served right, he’d done it the day they’d met too.
His poker tell.

“You suck at that, you know,” Helena said.

The men stopped eating again and watched intently for Andrus’ response.

Andrus chewed slowly then swallowed. “At what?”

“Lying. And, you know what kills me? I would have done anything to help you if you’d just had the courtesy to ask. But you decided to pull this. Why?” Helena stood up and pounded her fist on the table, sending her fork flying. “I wanted to stay with him! We could have had a chance if you’d just left us alone! Why? Why Andrus! You made him choose between a war, the life of his men, and me. What did I do to deserve this…from you, of all people?”

Andrus winced. “I—I can’t…”

“Is this some kind of punishment? Because I didn’t give up on Niccolo after one kiss from you?”

His men exchanged astonished glances.

Andrus’ face flushed. He rose from his seat, walked over to Helena, and yanked her hand.

She popped out of her seat and pulled her hand back. “Fine! You wanna talk? Let’s . Because I’ve got plenty to say!” she yelled.

She followed him into the empty kitchen.

Helena was first shocked by his rude behavior and then by how rundown the kitchen looked. Some of the white tiles were missing from the walls, the white ceramic sink and tiled counters were chipped and cracked. An old refrigerator groaned in the corner. In fact, the entire mansion looked like the inside of a forgotten, Victorian-era museum. This was the home of a person, or group of people, who’d clearly given up on life.

Fists clenched tightly, Andrus paced across the kitchen. “No,” he finally said in a hushed voice. “I would never punish you for something like that. But you should be thanking me for showing you what he’s really like. He let you go without batting an eyelash, and you were ready to spend eternity with him. He’s not the one for you.”

“What are you saying? That you are?” she asked bitterly.

He growled. “I am not worthy of anyone, least of all you.”

“
Whatever!
Then why are you doing
this?”
She screamed.

He ran his hands through his short, dark spikes. “You would never understand the truth, but this isn’t about revenge—not against you, anyway.”

Helena’s mind began sliding the pieces into place. Andrus was using her for revenge. Against who? Couldn’t be Niccolo. If that were the case, Andrus would have killed her. Or, killed Niccolo that first night in the hotel. So, if not Niccolo, then who?

Light bulb.
“Dammit, Andrus! This is about
her!
Isn’t it?” Helena gave him an ineffective push.

Andrus’ face went from flushed to pale.

She was right. Helena wondered if maybe he still desired Reyna. Sometimes the lines between love and hate blurred.

“But I’ve never met the woman. What possible use could I be?”

He cleared his throat and stared down at Helena’s feet. “I’ve sent a letter to Niccolo, advising that you will be executed unless he brings Reyna to me tomorrow evening.”

“
What!?”
she screamed.

Andrus sighed. “I will not harm you, I vow it.”

Helena huffed. “Too fricking late.” Then a thought struck her…the queen was extremely powerful and dangerous. And bonkers. “Niccolo will be killed if he tries to take her on.”

Andrus shook his head. “The Execution—”

“Niccolo! His name is Niccolo! And if you knew anything about him, you’d realize he’s no different from you. He didn’t want to become a vampire anymore than you wanted to be a Demilord.”
Why am I defending him? The jerk told me he loved me, tried to sleep with me, then abandoned me.

Andrus cleared his throat and nodded. “Niccolo is quite intelligent; he will bring her to me. I would go after her myself, but she’s impossible to track. This is the best solution.”

Helena hissed. What a total dirt bag! Was there no end to the parade of big, mean, untrustworthy immortal jerks?

“So you planned this all along? How did you even know about me in the first place? What are you going to do once you have the queen? You know I totally hate you, right?”

Andrus frowned. “Yes, this has been my plan all along. The Demilords have been watching Niccolo’s for a while; they found out there’d been a wedding dress maker visiting—a lucky discovery given how powerful of a bargaining chip a vampire’s bride can be. That is between her and me. And…yes. I know you hate me. Although, I hope you will forgive me.”

“Have I told you lately that you are a complete and utter—”

“Ass?” he cut in. “Easy on the compliments. You might over inflate my ego.”

Helena sizzled with anger. He’d never cared about helping her. “It was all a lie, wasn’t it? Everything you told me about yourself was just to get me to feel sorry for you so I’d come quietly, wasn’t it?”

Andrus stepped in closer. “No. Everything I told you was real, except…I do not know if our archives hold the key to breaking the bond with Niccolo.”

Jerk!
How could she have been so stupid to trust this man? “So, you lured me here, intending to do what exactly?”

Andrus sucked in a breath. “Niccolo will bring me Reyna and get you in return.”

“Jeez. Thanks, Andrus. He’s going to come and save me—which I highly doubt, since he made it clear he doesn’t want me—but if he did, then I get to face the man who just broke my heart. Thanks bunches!”

He closed the gap between them and looked down at her, his golden eyes filled with powerful emotion. “I, too, was surprised. If you were mine, I would not have let go so easily. But, it was the best outcome—better than we hoped for. He was weakened from being out during the daytime, and with you in the room, we suspected he would not risk a fight. He had no way of winning.”

“Oh,” Helena responded. Was that why he let her go so easily? No. If that were the case, she would have expected Niccolo to say something like, “This isn’t over; I’ll get you back.” But no. He told her to go. She’d been dumped cold.

Andrus gripped her shoulders, “I’m sorry.”

Helena jerked away and stepped aside. “I don’t want to hear it. Just tell me what to do so we can get this over with. Then I never have to see you or him again.”

He looked away. Was that regret in his eyes?

Oh, for heaven’s sake! Did he expect her to feel sorry for him? “Just tell me the truth, is there any chance I might be able to break the bond?” She watched closely to see if he’d do the blinking thing.

“I do not know.” He did not blink.
Truth.

“If Niccolo doesn’t come for me, will you let me go?” she asked.

Andrus nodded. “Sure.” Blink, blink.
Lie.

But what purpose could there be for him in keeping her. She would never trust him. There could never be anything between them.
Oh, no!
“Are you going to kill me?”

His head snapped up, his eyes wide. “Gods no! How could you speak such words?” No blinks.

Relieved, Helena mentally sighed. “Show me where the archive is.”

Step one: find a way to break the bond. Two: find a way to escape before Niccolo showed up with Reyna.
She was done with them all!

***

Andrus silently led Helena back through the now empty dining room, through a large formal sitting room, to a hidden staircase behind the bookshelf. It was all just too Scooby Doo for her liking.

Andrus swiped the cobwebs from the doorway and hit the switch at the top of the stairs. An old, dusty bulb flickered on. Was the key to her freedom really down there? She sucked in a lung full of air over her shoulder, reacting to the stale, dank odor wafting up from the stairwell.

Unaffected, Andrus descended quickly. Helena, not wanting to be left alone, scurried close behind down the creaking stairs. They reached another doorway at the bottom where Andrus hit another light switch.

A long string of bulbs, which ran the length of the ceiling, illuminating the room. “It’s the size of an airplane hangar,” Helena mumbled under her breath.

Shelves, which covered every square inch of the brick walls, ran the length of the room. Freestanding wooden shelves, which nearly touched the ceiling, ran down the center of the cavernous room like stacked dominoes, leaving passages on either side.

“There must be hundreds of thousands of books,” Helena said, still unable to believe all this space was hidden beneath the Demilord mansion.

Andrus charged on, not bothering to look at Helena. About fifty yards later, toward the center of the library, the room opened up. Andrus stopped. “I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours. I’m locking the door so you don’t get any ideas.”

“Can you at least point me to the right shelf, for crying out loud?” she asked.

Andrus’ cold expression didn’t change. Was he upset because Helena had told him to pound sand? Wasn’t she the injured party?

He replied, “That wall contains records of vampires and other creatures we've extinguished. That wall”—he pointed behind him—“has all vampires we've been watching with the potential to turn Obscuro.” He pivoted on his heel and walked toward the nearest freestanding shelf. “The rows here hold the records on the queen's guards.”

Helena's curiosity piqued. What information would be there about Niccolo? “And the DIY section?”

Andrus looked confused.

She elaborated, “Do It Yourself? As in, divorce.”

He looked around the room and pointed to a shelf with twelve-inch thick books. “Those are the legends of the Ancient Ones. Start there.” He turned away coldly and left.

Bastard.
For as long as she’d live, she’d never forgive him. His plan was to swap her for the queen or keep her. Helena didn’t like either of those lame plans.

She turned toward the shelves that held the information on the queen’s guards and stared at the books, thinking.

She stepped closer to the shelf and cocked her head to one side to read the bindings. They were organized by dates.
2,000 B.C. to 1000 B.C.?

“Christ—oops—before Christ! How old are these books?” she mumbled to herself.
If Niccolo was really thirteen-hundred years old, it would mean he was born in
…she counted backwards in her mind.
The seven hundreds?
No wonder he didn’t know who Tina Turner was. To him, Bach and Mozart were
wild
pop stars.

She reached for the book marked
1
^st
Century ~ 1,000 A.D.
and eagerly carried it back to the desk. She flipped open the pages. It contained page after page of names in alphabetical order. She flipped until she reached
DiConti, Niccolo.
Her eyes locked on the page with his name in bold print at the header and began absorbing the words. Part of her felt like she was spying; the other part hoped she’d find something that would magically make her hate him; loving him wasn’t working out so well.

The first few pages detailed his hometown, near Genoa, Italy. Like Niccolo had told her, he’d left home at a young age to fight in the north with his brothers. At the age of thirty-two, he’d disappeared from the human world, but reemerged by the ninth century. Niccolo’s reputation in the vampire world was well established as a brutal, savage, unbeatable warrior.

The thousands of accounts of his battles and extermination of rogue vampires were legendary. In one particular battle, during the 1200s, Niccolo had been taken by surprise when he and his men arrived in the Amazons expecting to find a group of thirty Obscuros who’d been snacking on the local population. Sadly, communication in those days was slow and word had not reached Niccolo until twelve months after the outbreak. When they arrived, he and his men found that the Obscuros had been busy creating an army. They were confronted by over three-hundred, vicious vampires. They were outnumbered with reinforcements months away. He instructed his men to retreat into the jungle. There, they would regroup. But Obscuros seized two of his men before they could get away.