“Because then we would have caught them,” Alaric said. “Exactly the way we’re going to catch whoever did this to these girls. Since your boyfriend has become prince, vampires have been under orders to go underground, taking care not to draw attention to themselves by murdering their victims. Instead, they just find weak-willed ‘donors’ they can use as human feed bags, draining them slowly, a little bit at a time. Only instead of the word donor, try using the word slave.”
Meena let out a bitter laugh. “And you think Lucien is using me as one of these slaves? Well, think again, Mr. Wulf.”
“Yeah,” Jon said, looking skeptical. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s nothing really weak-willed about my sister. I don’t think anyone could make her their slave. Except a love slave, maybe.”
The minute Jon said the words love slave, Alaric got a strange look on his face.
He rose to his feet.
“Lift up your skirt,” he said to Meena.
She craned her neck to look up at him from where she sat on the couch. “I beg your pardon?” she said with a disbelieving laugh.
“Lift up your skirt,” he said again in a commanding voice.
So she hadn’t misheard him. “Uh,” she said. She glanced over at Jon, who gave her an uncomprehending shrug. “No. I’m not going to do that.”
Then, more suddenly than she would have thought possible, he’d grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to her feet. Jack Bauer, woken by the shriek she let out, looked up at this sudden burst of violence. Jon jumped to his own feet, his expression alarmed.
“Hey, now!” he cried.
“Stop that!” Meena yelled as Alaric Wulf reached down and began tugging up the skirt of her slip. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“The femoral artery,” Alaric was saying. He was practically dangling her in the air by one arm as he pulled up her slip with the other. “I forgot. The sexual ones always go for the femoral artery.”
“Hey,” Jon said, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t think my sister likes you doing that-”
“I’m not doing this because I like it, you fool. I have to see if she’s been bitten.” Alaric threw Meena back down on the couch, where she landed with her legs spread slightly apart, the slip hiked up so high above midthigh that he was able to point and say triumphantly, “There!” while holding her down with his free hand.
Meena, furious, looked down her torso to see what he was raving about. At the most, she expected to see a love bite. She was willing to admit that, if she considered it objectively, things might have gotten a little out of hand with Lucien last night, it was true. A lot of what had happened in his bed, if she was completely truthful, was a blur.
But she never expected to see that.
It was a bite. There was no denying it. It wasn’t at all unlike the ones she’d seen on the dead girls in the photos Alaric had left on the coffee table. In fact, it was exactly like those. Except not as big or as bruised.
“Oh, my God,” Meena said with a gasp.
Meena quickly closed her legs, mortified, pulling down the skirt to her slip. Now both her brother and this rude stranger had seen her in her sexiest black panties.
“No wonder he sent you a tote,” Jon said in a stunned voice.
“The inside of the upper thigh,” Alaric said. He’d let go of her. “I should have looked there from the start. The femoral artery is often used for catheters and stents in hospitals, due to its easy access to the heart. But bites there generally go undetected.” The look Alaric gave her was inscrutable, halfway between curiosity and disbelief. “Don’t you remember him biting you?”
“I…I…,” Meena stammered. “I remember him saying he’d only bite me if I gave him permission,” she said, feeling confused. And very cold.
“And?” Jon was still on his feet, towering over both Meena and the man who’d lowered himself onto the cushions beside her. “Did you?”
Meena blinked up at him. This couldn’t be happening to her. Lucien had bitten her? The man who’d protected her from the bats outside St. George’s Cathedral? The man who’d given her his coat at Mary Lou’s? He’d bitten her?
And what’s more…she was under the distinct impression she’d liked it.
“I said yes,” she murmured to her lap. She could feel her cheeks turning scarlet. “Oh, my God. I think I said yes.”
In the silence that followed, Jack Bauer gave a sneeze. He jumped to his feet, yawned, then stretched delicately. Then he walked over to the couch, leapt up onto it, gave Alaric Wulf a cursory sniff, then curled up into Meena’s lap, rolling over onto his back to have his belly scratched.
“I don’t understand this,” Jon said, beginning to pace the room. “If these…these vampires are roaming around all over the place, just hiding in the general populace, feeding off innocent women like my sister, why do people like you keep it such a big secret? Shouldn’t there be public service announcements so girls like Meena don’t get themselves into this situation? Huh?”
Meena stared at her brother. Jon had always been slow to anger.
But once he got there, he was almost impossible to calm again.
“You think it would be better if things were like they were back in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds,” Alaric Wulf asked mildly, “when thousands of innocent human beings were falsely accused of vampirism and murdered by their neighbors because people like you, who were upset because their sister had been bitten, pointed fingers at the wrong people? No. I don’t think so. Better for them to think such things don’t exist and for professionals like myself quietly to take care of the problem.”
“Okay,” Jon said, still pacing. “Fine. Then how do we do this? Holy water? Wooden stakes? You got any extra? Because I am totally coming with you. I want to pound a stake into this guy’s chest. Let’s go. I’m ready. Come on.”
Alaric stayed where he was, sitting beside Meena. “No,” he said calmly.
“I mean it,” Jon said. “I’m not scared. Prince of darkness? Doesn’t scare me. Nobody bites my sister and then sends her a tote and gets away with it. Come on. Let’s go. Meena, tell us where the guy is staying. We’re wasting time here.”
Meena, rubbing Jack’s stomach, glanced from Jon to Alaric and back again. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do. There was a sudden roaring sound in her ears. It felt as if the bottom of her stomach had dropped out.
No. Not her stomach.
Her soul.
“He already said you’re not going, Jon,” she said, reminding her brother.
“I’m totally going,” Jon said. “Just tell us where he is.”
“No,” Meena said, her fingers tightening on Jack Bauer’s silky fur.
Alaric, taking up so much space on her couch, turned toward her. “Meena,” he said. “I know that this man, the prince, told you things that maybe made you feel…things for him. Feelings of love or even pity. But despite what he might have told you, he’s a bad man who does bad things.”
“I don’t believe that,” Meena said. “You just told me yourself Lucien didn’t murder those girls.”
A muscle in Alaric’s jaw twitched. His already small mouth seemed to shrink even smaller in frustration.
“What is he even doing here if he didn’t kill them?” she demanded. “Tell me. He’s here to find the person who did it, isn’t he?”
“Ye-es,” Alaric said slowly. “But that doesn’t make him a good man. He’s not even a man. He’s a monster. Look what he did to you. And you did not even know it. What he is…it’s a dead thing. It’s not natural. And he’s created others like himself…That’s what the Dracul are. His minions. And they’ve gone on to create their own minions. You see how it never ends? And it is one of those others that’s killing those girls. That’s why my colleagues and I have to stop him. Before things get even worse. So, please, just tell me where he is, and I will leave here. You will never have to see me again.”