Blood of a Red Rose (6 page)

CHAPTER
TEN

It
wa
s Over

(
Rose
)

I slammed the door to our room so hard I thought it would fly off
its hinges. I couldn't believe
my dad had just been here and they had all kept me from going to him. What harm could it have done if he was alone
?
I h
adn't killed Meredith
,
so it
wasn't like I needed to worry about being chased by the cops any more,
and talking to my dad might have given us a better idea
about
what was happening with
her
.
T
hen again
,
m
aybe Christian was right
. M
aybe she was controlling my dad like she controlled Terrance.
Who kn
e
w
?
And
even if she wasn't controlling him, I'm sure she was probably
keeping tabs
on
him as a way
to
find
and
probably kill
me.

I threw myself onto the bed and buried my face in the pink covered feather pillow.
The familiar scent and texture had my eyes filling with tears.
I
t
was the pillow I'd had in my
old bed
room.
The pillow my mom and I picked out together when we redid my bedr
oom after our painting project all those months
ago.
Months?
It felt like years.

Shortly after Christian and I had gone into hiding, I was so sad about having to leave my home that I longed for something to remind me of my old life. So
,
Christian, without Evie's knowledge, snuck back into my house and grabbed some of my clothes and a few small things that wouldn't be missed from my room
,
including my pillow. He
had
n't run into my dad or anyone else,
and I was so grateful to have some of my things that I
never even consider
ed
the risk.

Yes, we'd thought Meredith was dead at the time, but h
e could have run into
her
and if
he'd
bitten
her,
he would have drifted dark and been under her control
, just like Terrance. Which was the same thing that would happen if
he
bit me. What a nightmare this
had become.

I sat up, resolute
in
my d
ecision. I would put an end to this here and now. I grabbed the box of my things that was stashed under
the bed
and found my special stationary and pen. I would write Christian a letter telling him it was over. I had to get out of this situation while I had a good reason,
and right now, with how mad I was and all the "fighting" we'd been doing,
it
was the perfect time.

I'd just finished my
letter when I heard footsteps outside the door. I watched as the knob slowly turned and Christian called out
,
"Rose, are you in there?"

I quickly crumpled the paper, threw it in
to
the box
, and pushed the whole thing back under the
bed. I simply wasn't ready to give it to him just yet. I
needed
to know what he and Evie
f
ound out from Balam, and
I
figured I could always rewrite it and give it to him later. Or possibly leave it on the bed
during the day while he slept, taking the
c
oward
'
s
way out.

"I'm here."

His head was hanging low as he made his way to
join me on the bed. "I'm sorry" was all he said.

I sat in silence
,
considering
the
best
way
to handle this. I couldn't forgive him like I wanted to, throwing my a
rms around his neck and kissing him
until we
ended up
having make-up sex.
No,
I had to keep
my shields in place. H
e had to believe that I was still mad, or else he'd dig for the real reason I was leaving.
A reason I could never reveal.

"I hate fighting with you
, Rose
. Can we please talk this through? I already explained I didn't tell you about your dad moving because Evie wanted to gather
more information first, but
I admit that was a mistake.
And about what just happened upstairs, I
honestly
just found out
about your dad being here
right before I told you
, I swear.
"

"I believe you. But Christian, the problem is
...
I'm starting to feel like a prisoner here. I should
've
been
happy
to find o
ut
that
I'm not a wanted murderer, but instead, I still have to remain
here,
hidden and scared
,
because the woma
n I
tried
to kill is still alive and wants me dead. I love you
and I appreciate Evie taking me in and everyone accepting me,
but I miss my friends and my dad. This whole situation has been twisted around, and I'm just not sure if staying here is
right for me
anymore."

The shocked look on his face was enough to make me want to take everything back. I hated hurting him. But if things went back to the way there were,
then
he
would think I was still
planning to become his consort, and t
hat was so
mething that c
ould never happen. A
t least this way I was protecting him
from being
truly
hurt.

"Rose, I know you
'
r
e
mad, and I certainly don't
want you to feel like a prisoner
here
, but you have to understand that
you and I
remaining under wraps is for your ow
n safety. I wish I was the new S
ire already so I could just change you into a vampire
,
and then we wouldn't have to worry about this
anymore
. Meredith couldn't hurt you once you were like me."

I pushed off the bed and spun
around
to face him. "How can you say that
?
You
guys
are in more danger from Mered
ith than I am. If you bite her
,
you'
ll become infected and then she'
ll
be able to
control you
. Have you forgotten that? A
t least with me, the
human
,
all she can do is kill me. I'd rather be dead tha
n be
controlled."

"Dammit, Rose!
" Christian f
lew across the room and had me by the
arms in
the next second.
"No, I haven't forgotten any of what's happened
, b
ut don't you dare say stuff like that. Don't you dare say you'd rather be dead
!
I can't bear to hear it."
He released me and ran his hand through his rapidly drifting hair. "I know vampires can't bite her, but soon we'll have the information we need to kill her. If you were a vampire, you'd be strong enough to stand against her. That's
all
I meant."

I hated putting him through this. I almost meant wha
t I'd said. I'd rather be dead, if only to avoid causing him
pain. "Christian, I'm sorry this is hard to hear, but I'm going to reach out to my dad and find out what's going on very soon. There's really nothing you can do to stop me, and it upsets me you'd even want to
try
. Don't you want to know what's up with Meredith?"

Christian was breathing heavy and he hadn't stopped drifting, but I didn't expect the menace in his voice when he said, "Evie already sen
t
Renard and Loni to check things out with your dad and the demon. We should know their whereabouts
by tomorrow.
But Rose...you're wrong if you think there's nothing I can do to stop you."

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Make This Work

(
Meredith
)

After spending a perfe
ct evening with
Jeremy
, eating pizza, drinking wine, and
making love,
I took the next day off from work, fa
king
a cold. I had too much to do to prepare for the next
demon
meeting
.

Damien and I were going to meet in an hour to check out the prospects for tonight's bloodletting. He'd been disappointed when I
told him
we wouldn't be able to continue
drinking
and drain
ing
our victims to death
. N
o, we had to
start d
rain
ing
and stor
ing
it so it could be
introduced to the
other demons
at the meetings
as p
lanned, though killing
the
donors
was still the ultimate end
to the process.

"I'll be there in a
n
hour
. Are the workers still in the area?"
I asked.

"
Yes
. The
y're
taking a lunch break now, but once the horn sounds, they branch off again and head to their designated areas. There's one section way in the back and only two workers are assigned there. It's perfect."

"I'll decide if it's perfect once I'm there. I'm leaving now."

Damien had found what he thought was the perfect place to
obtain
some of our victims. There was a logging facility outside of town that
had
recently hired a
large crew o
f Labor Ready employees
. H
e
figured it would be the ideal situation sin
ce there were so many new faces;
it was likely that
no one would miss the men we took.

Honestly,
I didn't care if they were missed or not, as long as I got what I needed and we didn't leave any e
vidence behind. I wasn't stupid
and had
recently bought a bundle of gloves so our
fingerprints w
ouldn't be
found in th
e area. We'd
have
to
knock the
se
men out and transport them to a secur
e
location before draining them.

When Damien first told me his plan,
I looked up the area on the computer and found there was an abandon
ed
hunting
shack
just
a quarter mile from the
location. I figured wi
th my demon speed, it wouldn't take me long to transport the men there to meet their death.
I had everything we needed to make it
look
like they wa
ndered off to get
high
and met their end by way of
a
wild animal. I
was sure we
could make
this
work.

As I gathered the last of my supplies and stuffed them in my oversize
d
purse, I glanced out the kitchen window and noticed a blue S
UV parked across the street. I couldn't recall if it had
been there last night,
but
I'd lived here long enough to notice a strange car in the vicinity.
I looked closer
but
didn't see anyone in the vehicle so I made a mental note to check
and
see if it was still there when I came home tonight.

I eased into my BMW, e
xcited about starting this next phase of my plan
and sped towards my meeting with Damien.

* * * * *

(Renard
)

I
t
didn't take long for Jeremy to notice that he was being tailed
,
so
I
backed off and let him think he lost us. Evie had been very specific with her instructions.
We were to f
ollow him and find out where he and Meredith lived, but
were not to
engage either of them.

After tailing him
to some pizza joint and the liquor store
,
where he purchased a bottle of wine,
we
finally
watched him pull his Lexus into the garage of
an old brownstone off of 29th S
treet. It was a nice neighborhood
;
the streets were lined with tall trees and the lawns were manicured to a perfect green. We parked across the street and flew from the car to the shadowed area
within the park that
sat
slight
ly
to the east of their residence.

After
feeding from
a
couple
who'd been
strolling in the park, I made
sure
the street was clear before
Loni and I
crept towards the house
. We took care to remain
as
stealthy as possible, since we were still unsure of the extent of
Meredith's demons power
s.
There was no
need
for us
to worry though,
as
we found them very occupied and distracted. From what we were seeing, it looked like Rose's father was enjoying being with the demon
very
much.

We spen
t
the night watching the house from the car. After their lovemaking
ended
,
they went to bed like any normal
couple would do.
We used our enhanced hearing to listen
as
Meredith washed her face
while Jeremy brushed his teeth, then they slid into bed and slept until their alarm woke the
m. We were still up at
5 a.m. a
s
the sun had yet to rise.
But kno
wing it would happen soon
, we had to decide where we were going to hid
e
for the day, because after
we called
Evie to report their inactivity, she asked that we stay for another night to see if we could catch a break of any kind.

"What about the
hotel
we saw
j
ust a
round the
block? We wouldn't even have to move the car, we could just run there
and check in
,
" Loni
suggested. She
h
ated being in
the
car.

We'd recently returned from our
honeymoon in Europe,
where
we
'd
trekked across the region during the night, hiding and sleeping in hotel rooms with
"Do Not Disturb" signs
hung from the doors during the day.
It had
apparently
become our
"thing."

"Sure
thing
,
crumpet
. T
hat sounds like a good idea. We'll leave the car here so we don't lose our spot.
Let
me just grab our things out of the boot and we'll
knock
off.
" We climbed out of the car and I took note of how soon the sun would be up. It was something that was built-in to our va
mpire DNA. We had less than two hours before the sun rendered us comatose, so we started walking down the sidewalk towards the hotel.
After a few steps, I took one last look back at the brownstone and saw Jeremy looking out their bedroom window from the second story.
Blood hell.
We w
ere b
usted.

My gut
instinct
was to grab Loni
,
and with our
vampire speed, get the hell out of dodge.
But I didn't want to give Jeremy any more
fodder
to fuel his assumptions. So
instead,
I reached out for Loni's hand and hoped it looked like we were just a young couple out for a stroll.
At five in the morning...yeah right.

I didn't risk turning around again, and in just a few minutes we reached the hotel, checked in
,
and hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door. With the locks in place
,
Loni headed f
or the loo to take a bath and I
dialed
Evie
to check in
one last time before
nodding
off.

"I think Jeremy saw us
."

"Don't worry. Y
our recent absence is something that will work in our favor. Neither Jeremy or Meredith have seen you
or Loni
here
before
.
Get some rest, but as soon as you
wake,
head back to the car and see if you can find out anything that could be of help to us."

"Roger that,
Evie. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Renard."