you remain with him then? Through the night?”
“I’ll stay here until he dies or improves.” Raising her head, Iridea looked around. “Where is our mother?” she asked, not realizing that Sebastien had blacked his Mate out and had her locked in her rooms.
“She’s resting. This has been terrible for her,” he said.
“And the angelic blood? Last night, mother told me it might help Saan.”
“It would kill him. I have no doubt of this. He may yet survive Iridea.”
Iridea shook her head as a tear fell. Her deep red hair rippled like waves as she trembled. “We both know we will never hear the sound of Saan’s voice again father.”
Hours later, when the sun rose, Saan’s life had ended. True to her word, Iridea had remained with him until life had gone from his once beautiful body. Daemon healers had come and gone throughout the night, but Iridea was barely aware of them. One had asked if she wished them to ease Saan’s passing, but she’d shaken her head. After Saan had drawn his last breath, she’d gone to her father, who’d taken the news in his study without words.
“Do you want me to tell mother?” Iridea asked, but Sebastien had shaken his head, before saying that he would see Ilea himself.
In the early hours of the next day, daemon healers carefully washed and wrapped Saan in fine, pale linen, before Sebastien carried his son to a windowless receiving room where old prayers and the sweet white smoke from incense burners hung in the air. Ilea was brought to the receiving room in a dark, simple gown that Iridea had chosen for her. Her lackluster eyes tracked the daemon healers who took her son from the receiving room to an elevated pyre just outside the doorway, where the dawn would destroy what the flames set below the pyre did not. She collapsed as the first tendrils of smoke began to rise through the soft white shrouding. Sebastien carried her back to her rooms and laid her on her bed again.
“You are beyond vile. I will hate you forever,” she’d whispered, before closing her eyes.
As that evening fell, hours later, Ilea woke, wrapped herself in a soft cloak the color of night and ventured from her rooms. She hurried through the halls of the Demesne, her gown and cloak billowing behind her like sails. Rain had fallen during the gray afternoon hours, which might make her work easier. It was a fact that pleased her, as she wished only to complete her task without seeing anyone. Entering the receiving room where she’d said a final goodbye to her Saan, Ilea pressed the heavy wooden doors open, breathing in the clear night. Overhead the moon’s radiance was a gift. The flashlight she’d brought would not be needed. Stepping down onto the ground, her soft leather boots sank into mud and the hems of her gown and cloak soon followed. At times, she envied Iridea’s comfort with jeans. Undaunted, she moved to the plot of earth where Saan’s body had been taken in flames. As she’d expected, his larger bones had not been rendered to dust and ash, as he’d only been half vampire. They met her eye like silvery spokes of a wheel broken in the mud. Bending quickly, she began pulling them free to put them into her sack.
Chapter One
Four years later…
Priana Grey’s hands and feet were freezing. Her arms felt like wood and a thin trail of blood was snaking its way down her palm from the fine wire binding her wrists. She wiggled her fingertips but couldn’t risk moving more. The man with his fist in her hair would only yank her backward again and the gun at the end of his other hand looked as long as a bowling alley. He would use it, she knew, but she tried to stay calm by telling herself that every breath was a blessing to take her closer to surviving. Even though she was only wearing a wine-colored slip and the guy with the gun kept yanking at her head, she struggled to ignore the knot twisting her gut. The fact that she had a fifty / fifty shot at dying in her underwear in front of total strangers meant nothing now.
Less than two hours earlier, Priana had come to the First Bank of Saint Rushton to make a deposit. Her only thought had been to go to the bank before the oppressive heat and humidity that often bakes southwestern Pennsylvania in early September took hold for the day. Five other people had been in the bank, including two tellers. As she had turned away from the tellers’ counter, a young man with unkempt blond hair had entered the bank, shoved a crowbar through the handles of the glass doors and pulled a gun from the back of his jeans, before ordering everyone to stand in front of the tellers’ counter.
In that instant, she had gone from bank customer to hostage. Priana’s heart had begun hammering in her chest. The guy was strung out and rough looking, in ragged jeans and an oversized plaid jacket. The bitter disgust and hatred in his eyes frightened Pria as much as the gun he kept waving around like some kind of baton. She drew a fast, deep breath and did a quick assessment of her companions. There were two older men, both of whom were very pale. The tellers, both middle-aged women, seemed to be holding themselves together, but a pretty, dark haired girl, who couldn’t be out of her teens, had a bad case of the shakes that caught her attention.
Pria turned her options over in her mind. As the child of a pureblood vampire and an angel who’d chosen to fall, she had skills to end the situation, but putting a human life at risk was unacceptable. Unless there was a direct threat to life, she would not take the life of even someone like the man with the gun. She could try to get close enough to the thief to pull a glamour, which wouldn’t kill him, but given his agitated state, it might not work. If she were close enough to even try a glamour, she could do much more, yet she was reluctant to compromise his life if all he wanted was money. Cursing inwardly, she decided to see where the situation went. Hopefully, he’d just take the money and leave.
The robber pulled two heavy laundry sacks from his long jacket, tossing them at the tellers, with orders to empty the bank’s cash into the bags. As the tellers took the sacks and the thief’s attention followed them, Pria grabbed at the man standing next to her and whispered, “Change places with me,” so she would be next to the young girl, who was almost panting. The girl looked at Pria, eyes wide with terror.
“Cooperate,” Pria whispered. “Keep breathing.”
The tellers didn’t speak to each other as they moved from cash drawer to cash drawer, as one held the sack and the other stuffed bills into the opening. Having worked together for many years, they didn’t need to speak as they both depressed small square buttons beneath the counter. After emptying the cash drawer, they took the sacks to the vault at the left of the tellers’ area.
At the Saint Rushton Police Department Dispatch Center, a light began blinking on the black console of a rookie dispatcher, who wasn’t too sure if he was right about what he thought the light meant. Although still learning the ropes, he knew he wasn’t supposed to leave his console unless someone else covered it. Standing, he looked around a bit frantically before his supervisor saw him from her glass-fronted office. He motioned to her with his arm. She had a kid the same age and she’d already taken a liking to him.
“Shit,” she said when she saw the square red light. “How long’s that been blinkin’? That’s the First Bank of Saint Rushton.”
“Just started,” the rookie answered, a little breathless and a little proud of himself for knowing the light meant that serious shit was going down at the First Bank of Saint Rushton.
“Well, let’s wake up SWAT,” she said looking at her watch. “Christ! It’s not even nine in the morning. Today should be a real kick in the ass, kid!”
By the time the tellers were dragging cash-filled sacks across the floor toward the thief, two SWAT teams, three snipers and two paramedic units
