Finding Fire: Paranormal Romance (Bad Boys Of The Underworld Book 1) (19 page)

At the door to the bathroom she’d hid herself in—or rather, where the door hung off its hinges—her dagger lay useless on the floor. She didn’t even remember dropping it.

She walked to it and picked it up. The silver shine was dampened by the blood drying on it. She wanted to tuck it back in her pants, but she didn’t know where the sheath had gone to. It would probably be better if she just held onto it for the time being.

Anna turned around and looked at the different doorways and the staircase that led upstairs. A trail of red led to the stairs. She gripped the blade tighter and followed the drying liquid.

As she slowly ascended the stairs, she listened intently but didn’t hear anyone. It was eerie. She knew monsters lurked in the shadows. She just needed to find them.

The blood trail was long but got fainter as she followed. When she came upon a slightly ajar door that the trail disappeared under, she could hear murmured voices coming from inside the room.

With her foot, she gently pushed the door open.

The room was as decadent as the rest of the mansion. The colors were rich reds and golds. A huge four-poster bed sat in the middle of the room.

The blonde vampire was lying on the bed with another man bending over him, with his back to her. It appeared this man was tending to the blonde’s wounds.

He straightened his back. With their hearing, they probably knew she’d been walking down the hallway. As he turned around, she held her breath.

As his face was revealed, her heart ramped up to a frantic beat. The same man who had haunted her now stared right at her. Again.

It was a bit different this time. His eyes weren’t black. They were a shining gold. The same shiny light brown color as his hair. He was entrancing. But even without the black eyes and blood covering half his face, she would recognize him anywhere.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked in a voice that sounded much calmer than she’d ever thought possible.

“Annabelle,” he said in a deep voice.

He definitely sounded kingly
, thought Anna. She wasn’t sure she expected him to remember her.
How did he know her name?

She took a step toward him and held her blade out in front of her, point aimed right at his heart. Her hand shook, but she had no doubt that she had the will to push the point in if she needed to. Not that she thought she’d get a chance. She wasn’t sure why he was letting her get this close, though.

When the point was just an inch from his chest, she looked back to his sparkling eyes. “I need you to answer some questions.” Her voice managed to be in the same calm tone.

He opened his mouth to respond, but his eyes flashed up and over her shoulder. “No!”

Something slammed into her from behind, and she flew into the far wall with a force she hadn’t imagined possible. Her shoulder took the brunt of the blow on the wall, but when she fell to the ground, her head hit the hardwood floor with a loud thud.

The pain shot all through her body. Darkness threatened to take her under, and her previous blood loss only made matters worse. Anna struggled to lift her head to see through the hair that covered her face and stars that danced in front of her eyes.

A beautiful woman stood over her. She heard a gasp of words come out of her mouth, but couldn’t comprehend what they were.

She must have been delirious, because the second before she sunk into unconsciousness, she could’ve sworn Evie stood over her.

Anna’s eyes didn’t want to open. They felt as if they weighed a hundred pounds. Her head actually hurt so bad she imagined a little person was living inside her and beating her skull for all he was worth.

Her arm came up as she brought her hands to her face to rub her eyes. That caused another ache in her shoulder to make itself known. Anna groaned in pain and frustration as she tried to clear her mind enough to remember what had happened.

Nicolas had snuck into her mind and then run off to lead the vampires away from her. She’d found Aleksander, but he hadn’t killed her. Something had knocked her into a wall. And...had Evie been there?

At the memory of Evie, Anna’s eyes shot open. As bright lights shone into her eyes, more pain racked her head. Both of her hands shot up again to hide her eyes. “Son of a bitch,” she cursed under her breath.

“Bellie,” said a soft voice. “Are you okay?” A female voice. One that sounded a lot like someone who had gone missing fifteen years ago.

Much slower than before, Anna creaked open her eyes. Evie had a chair pulled up next to the bed Anna was on. “Evie?” The room seemed to spin around Anna.
Was she imagining this?
“I don’t understand.”

Evie leaned closer to Anna. “You were knocked up pretty bad last night.”

Anna didn’t even hear what she said. She was too busy staring at this woman in front of her who used to be her best friend.

She was just as beautiful as ever. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and her delicate features were perfectly framed, even though Anna had a feeling her hair naturally fell that way.

Her brows furrowed over bright green eyes framed by thick lashes that even the most expensive mascaras couldn’t imitate. “Bellie?”

“What?”
Was she supposed to be saying something?
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

The worried look intensified on her face. “I asked if you were okay.”

“Okay? Um, yeah, I’m— No. No. I’m not doing too good right now. What the hell are you doing here?”

“I should ask you the same question. Do you have a death wish? You could’ve died last night!”

“I could’ve died?” Anna asked as loud as she could without aggravating her headache any more than it already was. “Fifteen years! I thought you were dead! No word in all that time just to let me know you were alive?

“And by the way, those fifteen years seem to have been pretty good to you. In fact, I don’t think you’ve aged a
day
,” Anna said accusingly.

Apparently she hit her mark, because Evie looked away, guiltily.

Anna looked around the room she was in. It wasn’t quite as lavish as the rest of this building was. It had nice but modest furniture. The colors were calming blues and purples. She wondered whether it was a coincidence she was in this room or whether Evie had known she wouldn’t feel as comfortable in one of the more lavish rooms she’d seen previously.

However, that didn’t mean anything in the room was cheap. She was fairly certain the sheets she was on probably cost more than one month’s rent on her small apartment.

“So you really did it? You really ran off with Aleksander?”

Evie nodded. “It wasn’t a simple thing to do. You have to understand that a lot of things happened that night.”

“I have to understand? I think I have a pretty good idea. I saw Ray die. Your boy toy
bit
him, and I’m fairly certain he enjoyed it.”

Evie pursed her lips and looked down again.

Realization dawned on Anna. “You knew. Did you and Aleksander plan it?”

“What if I did? What if you knew I had my own father murdered? You know what he was like. The things he did. Would that make me a bad person?”

Anna thought about all the times she’d lain in bed and wished Charles was dead. Were they both bad people? “I don’t think I can judge you. I can’t call you a bad person. Just a different person than I thought I knew.”

“He tried to kill me,” whispered Evie softly. “That night—someone told him I’d been spending time with Aleksander. If it weren’t for Aleksander saving me, I would be dead.”

“Evie, I’m so sorry.” Anna reached for her hand. As she touched her friend skin to skin for the first time in so long, she was just relieved she was okay.

“Aleksander was so angry. Ray never stood a chance. I would be dead if I hadn’t been changed that night.”

“Changed?” Anna’s free hand went to the sore and still slightly fresh bite mark on her neck from her fight the night before.

“You’re not changing,” reassured Evie. “You need a blood exchange at the brink of death.”

Anna mulled that over for a moment. “Moment of death? That doesn’t sound safe.”

Evie nodded her head in agreement. “Very few people survive it. I’m lucky to be alive.”

“And you stayed with Aleksander after what he did to Ray?”

Evie looked Anna in the eye. “Bellie, what Aleksander and I have is not merely affection. I mean, it’s been fifteen years and every day is like that first week. Every day is amazing with him.”

“But, is he a monster?” All Anna had ever known of Aleksander was him standing over Ray. Not exactly a dream date for your best friend.

Evie’s eyes went down and she said nothing.

“What’s wrong, Evie?”

“I’ve done things too,” she said so softly that Anna almost didn’t hear.

“I don’t believe you’re capable of doing anything evil,” Anna said with complete faith and conviction.

When Evie looked up again, a tear fell down her cheek. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

“Evie, I stormed a house full of vampires for you. I can’t imagine what you could’ve done that would ever make me think any less of you.”

“Your dad, Bellie.”

“My dad? What?” Anna jaw dropped as comprehension dawned on her. “What did you do to him?”

Evie reached up to wipe the tear off her face. “I never intended for it to happen, I swear. I promised you I would never leave without you, but after what happened with Ray, I couldn’t put off leaving any longer.

“When I woke up from transitioning the next night, I told Aleksander I wouldn’t leave without you. With Aleksander by my side, your father couldn’t scare me. I walked right up to your door and rang the doorbell.”

Evie broke off and seemed to take a moment to collect her thoughts. Anna tried to absorb the fact that Evie had come for her. “What happened when you got there?”

“I don’t know if you have heard much about newborn vampires, but I was very unstable. I had strength beyond my comprehension, and an indescribable hunger. In addition to that, I had almost been murdered the night before by Ray, and he’d ended up dead. It’s safe to say I wasn’t in my right mind.

“When Charles opened the door, the first thing that hit me was the smell of blood.” Evie’s eyes met Anna’s.

“You smelled my blood.”

Evie nodded. “I snapped. He was standing in front of me, looking as calm as can be, and I knew you were bleeding alone in that house.”

“They never found any signs of a struggle in the house.”

“He stepped outside when he came to the door. Maybe he wanted to keep us from going inside.”

Anna fiddled with the blanket in front of her. “So once he was dead, no one was able to invite you inside. Did you have Aleksander call the police?”

“We couldn’t just leave you there.”

“But you did. You could’ve come for me at any time after the police pulled me out. At least you could’ve told me you were alive and okay.”

Evie shook her head. “You don’t understand. I didn’t know what I was. What I was capable of. I killed Charles, Bellie. I bit him so hard that his neck broke before I ever finished draining him. I didn’t know how I could ever look you in the eyes. Aleksander promised me you would be looked after. Your life sounded good. You were living with your aunt and doing well in school. I saw you one day.”

“You came and spied on me? That’s kind of weird.”

Evie sighed. “You looked happy. You looked safe. I didn’t want to take that away from you.”

Anna didn’t have a response to that, so she changed the subject. “What happened to me last night? Did someone throw me across a room?”

“I’m sorry about that. I just heard a human woman had caused some ruckus and then I saw you holding a knife to Aleksander.”

“Wait.
You
were the one who threw me into a wall?”

“I didn’t realize it was you.”

Her best friend had thrown her into a wall, and Nicolas had screwed her over. Apparently calling it a bad night was an understatement. “Have they found the man I came with?” asked Anna.

“Nicolas? Bellie, how did you ever meet him? That man is dangerous.”

Anna looked away from her friend. The last thing she needed was to be lectured by Evie about the dangers of running off with dangerous men. “I need to get up.”

She pushed the covers off her and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. There was a bit of pain when she moved, but nothing unbearable.

She was still basically dressed. Her jacket and shoes were both missing, and she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t see her dagger anywhere. Her glasses were on a dresser across the room. It looked as if the blood that had splashed on them last night had been washed off.
How thoughtful.
“So did they find him?”

Evie stood as well. “They lost his trail last night.” Anna breathed a silent sigh of relief. No matter how mad she was at him, he’d run into the woods to lead the guards away from her. She didn’t want him to die for that.

However, her relief was dampened when Evie said, “They are reviewing the security footage now and should be able to catch him soon after the sun goes down.”

“You have security video in the woods?”

“Nicolas is the main reason for it. If he could hide in those woods for months without being discovered, that means more could do it. As technology has been improving, Aleksander has been beefing up security.”

“Will they kill him?”

“He had his chance. The order for his death was lifted. He knew if he ever came back here, he would be killed,” said Evie.

“This was his home. Of course he wanted to come back.”

“What exactly did he tell you about his time here?”

Anna paused at the question. Nicolas hadn’t told her much. He’d implied that Aleksander was an evil vampire who needed to be stopped, but it wasn’t looking that way. Evie seemed happy enough, and she was still alive.

Evie didn’t wait for her to respond. “Kirill was insane when Aleksander took over. No one was safe, human or vampire. I know he was Nicolas’s father, but he couldn’t stay in power.”

Anna digested that. Nicolas was Kirill’s son. What else had he left out in his story? Nicolas could’ve lied to her about everything. Still, Anna felt the urge to defend him to Evie. He hadn’t seemed evil in the time they had spent together. An image came to her of the two of them in bed together. He’d been resting on one elbow above her. He had had a grin on his face and looked so happy.

“I still don’t want him to be killed,” said Anna. “We know better than most about the sins of the father.”

Evie opened her mouth to protest again, but Aleksander appeared in the doorway. “I cannot guarantee anything, but I can promise we will try our hardest to bring Nicolas back alive.” He was just as striking as he’d been the last time she’d seen him. His longer hair was pulled back, and he wore dark slacks and a dark buttoned-down shirt.

“Have you been listening this whole time?” asked Anna.

“You stabbed one of my best guards last night,” he reminded her.

“He bit me first,” she said defiantly. “
And
he’s still alive today. I’m sure Nicolas could’ve killed him, but he didn’t. That says something about his character.”

“I do regret that you were hurt. One of the guards in the woods had been on Nicolas’s trail. Because Robert knew you were with Nicolas, he perceived you as a threat. I’m sure you can understand his reasoning.”

Anna assumed Robert was the vampire who had bitten her. “I understand. I just hope his neck is hurting more than mine is right now,” said Anna. “So if you don’t kill him, what will you do?”

Aleksander shrugged one big shoulder. “He will have to stay in the basement until I can figure out a viable solution.”

“What’s in the basement? Please tell me that you don’t have a dungeon down there,” said Anna with a horrified voice.

“Though we occupy the same world as mortals, it’s a very different life. Especially here, where traditions are kept and broken. We live dangerous lives.”

Aleksander was giving her a warning. He would try to make her happy for Evie’s sake, but he let her know that she wasn’t safe and should be leaving.

“If I weren’t here, Nicolas would be dead on the spot, wouldn’t he?”

With a poker face perfected over centuries, Aleksander said, “It’s best not to think of hypothetical situations.”

Anna raised a brow but didn’t push him for an actual answer. Instead, she looked to Evie. “Your boyfriend gives me the creeps. Why don’t you give me a tour of this massive place, and make sure to introduce me to anything that might want to eat me and let them know I’m off-limits.”