Cara narrowed her eyes. “What did you do to him the next day?”
“Just some light poking,” Vlad said easily. “Well, it started light. But the little bastard spit on me. And you know my rule about humans who spit on me during torture.”
“He’s just kidding,” I said.
“Oh, no,” Vlad insisted. “It’s a hard and fast rule. ‘You spit, you get lit,’ as the kids say.”
“You get them drunk?” Cara asked.
“Lit doesn’t mean engulfed in flames? Whoops. Vlad has been using that wrong.” He looked deep in thought, then his eyes went a little wide and haunted. For the sake of unknowing humans he’d crossed paths with, I hoped no college kids had ever told Vlad they wanted to get “lit.”
Seraphina and Alaric thankfully arrived, saving us from more of Vlad’s grisly details. Seraphina was wearing a sleek, black, no frills dress and a pissed off expression. Alaric had on some fluffy sleeved nonsense with a high cream-colored collar and a stupid, confused look on his face.
“I see you survived,” I said.
Alaric saluted. “I’ll be pissing out a few new holes tonight, but yes. I do appear to still be here.”
“We’re all thrilled about that,” Seraphina said dryly.
“Thanks for your help, Seraph,” Alaric said, slapping her back. “Really appreciated you coming to our aid in the life or death situation a few hours ago. That was fantastic.”
“I had things to do,” she said.
“We can point fingers later, but here’s our situation.” I spent a few minutes filling them in on Cara’s status as a new vampire, what I suspected about Dominic’s involvement in the evil organization of vampires formerly and ridiculously known as Shadow Force that were trying to overthrow humanity for their own benefit.
When I was finished, Alaric let out a long whistle of appreciation. “Shadow Force?” he said, laughing. “They really went with that as a name? Was their leader a twelve-year-old boy who spends his days playing video games and threatening to sleep with the mothers of his enemies?”
Vlad clapped his hands and let out a victorious sound. “I know! But I told Jewel to tell them that Vlad said their name was shit stupid.” He winked. “They changed it.”
I sighed. “This is the least important detail of everything I just said.”
“The name is stupid,” Seraphina agreed. “But what are we going to do about them?”
“This Ana White person,” Cara said around a mouthful of pizza, which she’d apparently found her appetite for again. “Do you still have a way to get in touch with her, Vlad?”
He looked suddenly smug. “She still keeps me on deck for the occasional booty call. Yes.”
I was skeptical, but then remembered his idea of “smoking hot” was Jewel and her body like an old warship.
“So,” Cara said. “What if you call her? Tell her she doesn’t actually need to do anything. We just need her to say she supports The Order, or whatever? It sounds like all you guys—we—care about is how old and powerful people are, right? It’s not really about actually winning the fight? So if they think this ultra-old, ancient lady is backing us, they’ll have to hold off on making a move. Right?”
I nodded slowly. “It could work. Assuming she agrees.”
“Vlad can be very persuasive.” He emphasized his point by planting his fists on his hips and starting to gyrate his round body in circles like some kind of warm up.
“Then get to persuading,” Seraphina said.
“It will take some time. You four try not to get yourselves killed while Vlad works.”
Cara stuck up a greasy thumb and nodded, polishing off the last of the pizza crust with her free hand. She noticed me looking, then did an exaggerated wink in my direction.
I smiled to myself. Resisting the woman had been foolish. I’d started falling for her from the first moment, and every day had only drawn me deeper into the depths.
41
Cara
It had been two days since Vlad disappeared into God knew where to find this Ana woman. I still hadn’t become used to the daily need to bite a stranger’s neck and drink their blood. But, disturbingly, I’d come to look forward to it for the burst of energy and delicious taste of it. I’d also been troubled to find that I almost couldn’t resist crossing my arms over my chest and lying on my back when I went to sleep.
I’d already felt my cravings for human food dwindling as well, which was bittersweet.
Lucian insisted we needed to lay low as much as we possibly could while we waited for Vlad. That meant his usual house was deemed too conspicuous and we had to move to a house in another part of the city for the time being. I was making him watch Twilight on a small, ancient box of a TV when I started to get restless. “I have to do something about my old life,” I said. It was a conversation we already had the previous day, but I wasn’t satisfied with the conclusion. He wanted me to wait until we settled things, and I didn’t want to risk dying and never getting a chance to tell my parents or roommates where I was.