Hupotasso (Vampire Bachelor Games #2)

53

53

The GPS guides me to a large house in the hills overlooking Los Angeles, and I pull into the curved driveway outside the home.

Yin had told me not to get out of the car, and I’m going to follow her directions to the letter. I still can’t believe that I’m actually free. Free of Viper, free of the castle, free of all the monstrous things that come with living with vampires.

I close my eyes as I turn the engine off and sit surrounded by trees and grass and suburban calm. Somewhere in the background someone’s mowing their lawn. The ordinariness of the sound is soothing, but my knees are still trembling, as are my fingers, and my heart is still pounding. It hadn’t stopped from the moment I’d stepped out of that room dressed as a nurse. I feel like I’ve run a marathon.

Subconsciously, I place my hand over my stomach. I know stress isn’t good for babies. I have to try and calm down. Taking a deep breath I try and slow my racing mind and calculate how many weeks pregnant I might be. I can’t remember my last period, which is ridiculous, but I’ve been so stressed lately with Viper and Tatyana and everything that my cycle has been totally disrupted. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might be pregnant because I hadn’t fallen in all the months I’d been sleeping with Falcon.

‘Oh God, could it be Jag’s?’

My heart accelerates to warp speed, but I slowly manage to calm myself again. I know enough about babies to know that I must be three months or more along to have felt the quickening. I’ve only been sleeping with Jag for a matter of weeks.

‘It’s Falcon’s.’

Having convinced myself that I am indeed carrying my husband’s long-awaited heir, my mind then goes off on a million tangents; everything from templates to the three years I’m supposed to breastfeed, to having to stay and produce a boy or being murdered as I give birth. All this while under the influence of Viper.

‘I have to kill Viper. There’s no other way around this. Kill him without getting captured and returned to the castle. Kill him while I’m still pregnant. How? And risk my baby?’

I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose my fucking mind sitting in the car jumping at every little noise and thinking myself into a frenzy, but thankfully right about then another car pulls alongside, and the darkly tinted window rolls down to reveal Yin.

“Angie,” she shouts across to me, “get in.”

Without question I jump from my car to hers, and we pull away again.

“We’ll switch cars several more times,” she murmurs as she accelerates.

I nod. I have so much to tell her I don’t know where to begin, so I attempt to blurt everything all at once.

“Yin, before anything else I need you to know that Viper bit me and had me under his control for the last few months. He made me do unspeakable things. I was like a zombie, totally under his power. He and Giselle’s sister Tatyana tortured me for weeks, and…”

“Her sister?” Yin frowns. “How the hell did she get there? What’s she like?”

“Viper invited her, and let’s just say Giselle was the nice sister,” I mutter.

She rolls her eyes, and I rush on.

“But anyway, then the pregnancy freed me, but I’ll be his again the moment I give birth unless we kill him. I have to kill him.”

She turns and flicks me a quick look as we speed along the winding mountain road heading away from the city.

“Wait, you’re pregnant? Do you want to keep it?”

“I have to,” I shake my head. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m under the control of a vicious psychopathic vampire, but the pregnancy blocks his control. Once I give birth I’ll be a zombie again, and he’ll track me. I’ll say and do everything he says. And if the baby’s a girl they’re going to skin her and use her in their fucked-up vampire rituals as a template.”

She shakes her head and reaches over to place a gloved hand atop my fingers as I wring them in my lap in agitation over everything I have to tell her in case we’re captured.

“Angie, take a deep, deep breath. Not much of what you’re saying makes any sense to me. We’ll be in a safe house in less than an hour and we’ll have time to work through everything before we move again. In the meantime, please calm down. You’re almost manic, and it’s frightening me.”

“Manic,” I laugh quietly, “Oh god, Yin. I’m trying to tell you everything in case they catch us. You’re the only person in the world who has the power to save me. I need you to know why I’ll start saying and doing things that don’t make any sense. And, oh, shit. I need to phone Eleanor so she knows why I’ve run. She needs to warn Falcon about Viper. He’ll listen to her.”

“Angie,” she says quietly, keeping her eyes on the road. “Those who chase two hares won’t even catch one.”

I frown and shake my head.

“It means when your focus is divided you fail to succeed at any of your goals. My focus is not divided. I will not allow anyone to capture you. You’re safe now. You’re with me. Take a long, deep breath and start at the beginning.”

“OK, OK,” I nod, “but the phone. I need to phone…”

“You’ll do no such thing,” she says firmly. “If you need her to know anything you can order flowers online and add a note.”

“But…”

“Angie, I can’t risk your call being traced.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that.”

“You don’t need to. Just listen to everything I tell you and do everything I tell you. I promise I have you.”

I nod as she hands me her phone.

“Book the flowers, then put the phone back in its Faraday case, switched off. It prevents any kind of surveillance. I’m not taking any chances.”

With shaking fingers, I do as instructed. The note on the flowers is simple but to the point.

‘Eleanor, I’ve run because Viper bit me and had me under his control. He’s working to undermine Falcon and take the title. You made a mistake choosing me. Your world is not mine; I want no part of it. Angie.’