Vlad's mouth curled sardonically as he cast a look up at Shrapnel. "Then you would be more faithful than two of my closest friends turned out to be."
At those words, a stinging mixture of anger and pain threaded into my emotions. I winced, reminded that Shrapnel's actions were more than a vampire going against his sire. A knife in the back hurt so much worse when it came from a friend.
Sandra rose and brushed her hair aside. "Las?-m? s?-?i dovedesc, prin?ul meu!"
Vlad grasped her neck and lowered his mouth. As he bit her, something rose in me I didn't expect. Not hunger, though the fresh scent of blood made my own fangs spring out. Not concern for Sandra losing more blood since she was already in rough shape. Instead, I had an overwhelming urge to rip her out of Vlad's arms and then lash her with a sizzling electrical whip until nothing remained but ragged pieces.
I was jealous. How absurd. He was a vampire, she was a human who'd had her mind altered, and the best way to get around that was to take her blood before mesmerizing her. I knew that, but it didn't stop the surge of emotions that made sparks fall from my hand.
His mouth on her. Her head falling back in a way that didn't denote pain. The line of his throat as he swallowed . . .
A bolt torpedoed into the rock floor beneath my hand. Turning into a vampire hadn't dulled my inner electricity a bit. At once, I covered the crack with my foot, as if that would stop anyone from noticing.
Vlad lifted his head, his gaze going unerringly to the spot before he looked at me. I expected an eye roll for my display of irrational jealousy, but instead, he looked thoughtful.
Then he released Sandra, dabbing the puncture wounds in her neck with his thumb after he pierced it with a fang. I tried to rein in my emotions - and the currents that kept my hand sparking - while mentally singing Sting's "Every Breath You Take." Life-and-death stakes going on, Leila. Get your priorities straight.
"He came into her room to mesmerize her," I said, in case that detail helped.
Vlad's eyes turned green as he stared at Sandra like she was the only person in the room.
"Shrapnel came into your room," he repeated, his voice resonant. "He wanted you to pass along a message. What was it?"
"I don't know," she whispered.
"Yes you do."
The air crackled, causing the hairs on my arms to stand on end. An invisible wave seemed to roll off Vlad, filling the room with enough energy to make my skin crawl. What was he doing?
"You can see him in your room," Vlad continued in that same vibrating tone. "Hear his voice even now. What is he saying?"
"He says" - her face tightened as if straining to hear a far-off whisper - "tell her that her powers are back. She almost died using them, but Vlad revived her and now he won't leave her side. I will attempt tainting her food if she wakes up."
I swung an accusing look Shrapnel's way. While I was in a coma, he was planning to poison me?
Rage brushed my emotions but Vlad said nothing and he didn't glance away from Sandra.
"That wasn't his only message. What else?"
In the monotone I'd come to associate with people under a vampire's influence, Sandra recounted Shrapnel telling his accomplice all the details of my abilities, my location at the carnival, and my location at the hotel with Maximus. He even stated that Maximus would need to be neutralized by extreme measures. The liquid silver bullets flashed across my mind. It didn't get much more extreme than that.
When Vlad ordered Sandra to repeat the woman's messages, they started off as benign inquiries about me that seemed more curious than threatening. That changed after the carnival bombing. Once her real intentions were exposed, it wasn't a surprise that subsequent messages consisted of variations of Kill Leila. Kill her now. While my anger grew, most of this we already knew, and I didn't need to feel Vlad's emotions to know he was frustrated by that, too.
"Where do you meet her to relay these messages?" he asked.
Sandra frowned. "I've never met her, but every two days, I go into town to the bookstore. I write the messages down and put them in The Odyssey by Homer. If The Odyssey has a new message waiting from her, I memorize it, throw it away, and then repeat it to Shrapnel, but only if he asks me to. Otherwise, I never mention it. I don't even remember the messages."
Sandra said the last part like she was repeating a set of instructions. No doubt she was, and they'd been given to her under the same mind-controlling circumstances she was in now.
"Get to the bookstore," Vlad said without looking away from Sandra. One of his guards bowed smartly and then left.
"You've never met her, but did he tell you her name?"
More of that hair-raising energy rolled out of Vlad, until I was rubbing my arms to chase the tingling sensations away. Was this what Marty meant when he told me vampires could measure each others' strength by feeling their auras? If so, then Vlad's had Badass: Do Not Engage written all over it.
"I don't think I'm supposed to know it." Sandra sounded bemused. "But once, Shrapnel called her Cynthiana."
Vlad's features hardened as though his face had been transformed into stone. Clearly he recognized the name. It sounded familiar to me, too, but I couldn't place where I'd heard it. Shrapnel closed his eyes, his expression showing more pain than when Vlad rammed a long wooden pole through his torso. Despite everything, Shrapnel still loved her, and his worst fear was now realized because she'd just landed herself at the top of Vlad's most wanted list.
My gaze swung back to Vlad as memory clicked. "Cynthiana. Isn't that the name of the woman you dated before me?"
"It is," Vlad said, still staring at Shrapnel.
I wracked my brain to recall what else Maximus had said. She'd been with Vlad for a ridiculously long time - that I remembered - and when he dumped her, she did something. What was it? Right, she dated one of his friends trying to make him jealous. Oldest trick in the book, but it hadn't worked . . .
And that friend had been Shrapnel. I goggled at him.
"Did Cynthiana think if I were dead, she'd have another chance at Vlad? If so, why would you go along with that? You love her; I felt it when I linked to you."
Shrapnel said nothing. His silence was further proof of his feelings, but if she wasn't motivated by jealousy, why would Cynthiana risk her own life by repeatedly trying to end mine?
Whatever her reasons, she'd murdered a bunch of innocent people before her linking booby trap had finally killed me - temporarily. Dawn's face flashed in my mind. She hadn't deserved to die before she could find her way in life. Neither had anyone else at the carnival, and Vlad's guards hadn't deserved getting blown up because Shrapnel was making a last-ditch effort to cover his tracks. Finally, I hadn't deserved any of the crap I'd endured because of Cynthiana's murderous intentions.