"Maybe," Riggs said slowly.
Felix looked at him. "You're wondering why Lazarus sent such a half-assed attempt to stop us?"
"Yeah," Riggs said.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"It means if Lazarus didn't want us making it to Blackridge, he has the resources to try harder. Whatever that was back there? It makes me wonder if Lazarus has some reason to want us to make it to Blackridge."
"Why would he want that?" I asked.
"Fragile balances," Riggs said with a grimace. "The thing about them is it doesn't take much to send everything to shit."
21
Riggs
We made it to Blackridge in one piece. I'd never personally been to the place, so I spent some time taking in the sights as we pulled through the front gate. Two young men wearing what looked like posh school uniforms let us through the gate. I felt my lip curl at the sight of them.
Fucking vampires playing at running some kind of boarding school. Playing at war and diplomacy. Thanks to my soft spot for a human girl, I was now the lucky asshole who got to dive headfirst into it all, too.
I was still trying to puzzle out why Lazarus had let us make it here. Because I could downplay it to the others all I wanted, but I knew that was exactly what he’d done. He had let this happen. Why, though?
Sylvie was beside me like a dog on the way to the park—her head perked up and on a swivel as she tried to take everything in. "Are those vampires?" she whispered, staring back as we drove past the boys at the gate.
"Probably," I said. "They certainly stink like vampires."
"Do vampires really stink to you?" she asked.
"Not exactly," Felix said. "He just hates them, so the smell pisses him off. To me, they smell like food."
I grunted. Technically, it was true. Vampires smelled like cooking meat to me. But it was like the smell of food that'd given me food poisoning before. My body associated it with vamps, and it meant the scent alone was enough to piss me off and make me feel sick to my stomach at the same time.
"Park it over there," Felix said. "The Prince asked for you and Sylvie to wait out here while I bring Maisey in. He wants to meet you two before he trusts you to come in."
It figured. At least the Prince wasn't a dumbass, I supposed. He was right to worry that I'd rip his head off, and probably wanted to meet me under the most controlled circumstances possible.
Blackridge was a landscaped property surrounded by old trees and well-groomed mazes of bushes and flowers. Once we'd pulled off the main road, we were in a world of its own back here. We passed several secondary buildings, a statue garden, what looked like a greenhouse that was covered in vines, and even an area with sports fields and equipment. Fucking vamps.
The main building was nestled in the middle of it all. It towered at least four stories high with architectural flourishes like buttresses and towers. It looked like a goddamn castle, and I shouldn't have been surprised. Vampires always had a tendency to fancy themselves as medieval lords. It was part of their problem. They’d ruled the aristocracy in the old days, and most of them still saw themselves as better than anyone and everything else. Places like this just stroked their oversized egos even more.
It was nighttime, but that of course meant something different for them. A surprising amount of vampires who looked young—as unreliable as that guesstimation could be with their kind—were moving between buildings with books in their hands. They all wore the same gray uniforms with white and red trim.
I got out of the truck and sat on the hood while Felix helped Maisey toward the building. Sylvie wasn't thrilled about letting her sister go without her, but she seemed to realize putting up a fight would only delay Maisey getting help.
Within a minute of parking, they had taken Maisey inside the main building and I was left with Sylvie, sitting on the front of the truck. It was still warm from the drive. I also noticed several ugly dents and scratches from my battering ram maneuvers on the right side. It looked like I'd need to replace the wheel wells after this was all over. God only knew what I'd probably rattled loose under the hood.
I had more than enough money to buy whatever car I wanted, but that had never appealed to me. I preferred to see how long I could keep the old girl running. We’d been through a lot together and replacing her would’ve felt like a betrayal.
"This place is incredible," Sylvie said.
The way the truck had been dented up forced the both of us into the same dipped and grooved section as we sat on the hood. She made a small effort to scoot and leave a little space between our legs, but the angle of the bent metal kept making her slide back into me so our thighs were pressed against each other.