His strong jaw tightens, his glare electric.
“This isn’t about what I think, but about what this could mean to all vampires. Your having married a serpent, who’s settled down with his serpent people in this town, without Dracula knowing, do you realize what that can mean for vampires? Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“You exasperate me, Tristan.” It’s hard to keep it low, I want to scream at him so bad. “Understand when I’m telling you, it wasn’t my choice, I had to do it.”
“Why? What forced you?”
I try to hide the way my body tenses, but I can tell Tristan notices every change.
“Don’t dissimulate, Isolde. I’ve been around for two hundred years, I’m not easily fooled.”
“When I met Mark, I was protecting someone, okay? I served as distraction so that someone could escape. He became deeply interested in me, and threatened to kill me if I didn’t comply and become his mate. Are you satisfied now?”
“I see.” Tristan leans back, assessing my face like an inspector. He keeps silent for long moments, and I start fidgeting despite myself, gripping my purse harder.
“If there’s nothing more, I’ll be on my way,” I manage, barely keeping my voice from trembling.
Again I try to leave, and again he grabs my wrist.
“When are you going to use the potion on him?”
My heart beats like crazy already. I’m all too aware how risky this whole thing is. “Mark is having a party tonight at the villa. I’ll slip the potion in their drinks, and Mark will lose interest in me, focusing on the other woman. It’s as simple as that.” Not.
Tristan scrutinizes my eyes with an icy stare.
“You leave too many open questions, Isolde, and your story hangs from a very thin thread. As head of Lord Dracula’s security, I cannot tolerate open questions or thin threads.” He lets go of my wrist, but I have a feeling this isn’t the last I’ve seen of him.
CHAPTER II - Old Enemies
Tristan
ISOLDE SERPAINT LEFT me with too many open questions. Who was she protecting, who was so important to her that she gave herself to Serpaint?—If that person even exists. But by far the most important question is why have the serpents been lurking in this town for over a year, keeping their presence secret from the vampires?
I enter the party at the villa through one of the beautiful doors to the terrace overlooking the Black Sea. It looks like one of those sophisticated parties in Paris or London, only that the attendees are clearly from another social category, displaying an opulence that reminds me of the Russian mafia.
Men wear suits, but tattoos creep up from under their collars. Many sport big stomachs, while others have muscles that make their suits burst at the seams. The women, all extremely well groomed and wearing impressive dresses, walk around on their partners’ arms, displayed as trophy-wives or girlfriends. As expected, I run into a few cheating couples here and there, kissing in dark corners.
Then I spot Isolde standing by a high table, and all my muscles stiffen in alarm—the woman is way too obvious in what she’s doing. In a flash I’m by her side, seizing her trembling hand as she unscrews the golden cap from the small bottle that contains the love potion.
“Watch it,” I say through my teeth, startling her. “You’re gonna spill it all over the table before it makes it into the tumblers. Not to mention someone’s surely gonna spot you do it.”
She whimpers, shaking. I realize just how terrified this woman truly is.
I may have judged Isolde wrong. Despite her husband’s fat bank accounts, she’s one of the least opulent females here, wearing a simple blue dress that fits her body but that also covers most of it. A pity, most men would think. She’s lean and graceful like a swan, with perky breasts and backside—a great bonus in the show-off world her husband lives in. Even though the dress showcases the shape of her body, there’s no cleavage, and she’s wearing very little make-up. Her hair the color of melted chocolate is up in an elegant bun, while her melancholy eyes are puffy and swollen.
“You’ve been crying.”
She shakes her head, hiding her gaze. “I can’t do this by myself, I just can’t do it.”
I sweep the room, observing the attendees and gauging who might become dangerous. I notice how they laugh, how they glance around from the corners of their eyes. Nobody is looking our way at this particular moment, so I unscrew the cap with expert fingers.
“Where’s your husband?” I whisper to Isolde, just to know who to keep my eyes on the split second when I slip the potion into his tumbler, and into the tumbler meant for the other woman.
“There.” Isolde points with a trembling hand to a tall and willowy man in a black suit, his reddish hair curled at the base of his head. Everything seems too long about him, his limbs, his torso, even his head. Even his shoulders seem abnormally slanted. He looks like an alien.
“There’s a woman on his arm. Shouldn’t that be you?”
“I don’t mind Soraya taking my place, really.” There’s indeed no jealousy in the way she looks at the woman, as tall and long-spun as the man, only even leaner. She wears her dyed black hair on top of her head, which doesn’t go very well with her long face—I can see one side of it—but it fits her shiny green dress that resembles scales.
“She looks like Olive from Popeye the Sailor, doesn’t she?” Isolde giggles, subconsciously trying to relieve some tension.
“I don’t know who Popeye the Sailor is.”
“Wow, where did you grow up, a convent? You never watched cartoons as a child?”
“I haven’t been a child for two hundred years. There were no cartoons back then. Now hold out the tumblers, please, under the table.”
She takes the tumblers in her hands, lowers them under the table so no one can see, and I slip a drop of the potion in each. Just as I’ve screwed the cap back on, the man turns, the broad smile he’d been giving his interlocutors still on.
Our eyes meet, and I freeze with the little bottle in my hand. Isolde is too slow to place the tumblers on the high table before he sees her do it, but that’s the least of my concerns right now.
I’ve met this asshole before. The Serpent Henchman.
Mark Serpaint’s slit-like eyes move quickly from Isolde to me, then he places his hand over the other woman’s as she hooks it around his arm. They saunter over through the crowd, a very big, heavy man behind him. He can’t be a serpent, he’s big as an ox.
They finally stop in front of us, and it feels like time stands still. Serpaint and I stare hard into each other’s eyes, while fury boils low in the pit of my stomach.
“My, my, my,” he says in the hissy voice that I remember so well. “Tristan DeKnight in the flesh.” He stresses the s and sh, stirring flashes of his whip in my memory.
“You know each other?” Isolde breathes. She’s gone pale as death.
“Yes. Your husband is the reason why Lord Dracula turned me into a vampire,” I reply without hesitation, keeping my eyes on the bastard’s face.
“How is that possible?” Isolde whispers nervously.
“It just is. Back then, your husband used to pick on human teenagers instead of those his own size. I wonder if he still does that.” My tone is even, my eyes like blades. I’d love to see this bastard snap at me, but I guess he won’t do it, will he? Not now that I’m a vampire, and a strong one at that, whose deeds surely made it to his ears.