Adrian. What had happened to him? Oh, God—what if I had killed him as I had killed Beth? "Adrian," I said, my voice coming out a panic-filled croak. "Where is Adrian?"
"She's awake? Good. Let me go look up where the nearest lake is."
I turned away from the angry Allie as she slid off Christian's lap, looking at Melissande. She seemed to be the most sympathetic person in the room. "Where is he? Where is Adrian?" I asked.
Melissande's hands fluttered helplessly as she cast a glance at the vampire who approached the bed where I lay covered with an eiderdown. It was Christian who answered. "The Betrayer is in confinement, Charmer."
Confinement. That could be good or bad. If I hadn't killed him with my attempt to charm, his jailers could have. "Did you hurt him?" I asked, my fingers curling as I pictured Adrian lying somewhere hurt or dead.
"He is"—Christian paused, and I knew that whatever he was about to say would be a lie—"unharmed. What we would like to know is, what is the exact nature of your connection to him?"
Unharmed. I didn't believe that for a moment, but at least I was reassured that he wasn't dead. They would have been celebrating had that been the case.
"Nell, what did the Betrayer do to you? How did he turn you?" Melissande sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing a hand over my forehead in a motherly gesture that confused me. She was a vampire… or at least, a female of the species. Christian was a vamp, a powerful one if the aura of menace that cloaked him was anything to go by. Couldn't they tell that I was Adrian's Beloved? Maybe other vamps didn't know.
"Turn me?" Until I knew where he was, and how I could help him, I would play stupid—an act I suspected wouldn't be too hard to pull off.
"He fed off you, didn't he?" Melissande asked, her face filled with sympathy. "Sebastian said you carried the Betrayer's scent. He thought you had somehow joined forces with the Betrayer, but I told him that could not be so. No woman, mortal or Moravian, could bear to be bound to him."
My gaze slid from her to where Christian loomed over the foot of the bed, an angry Allie next to him. She wasn't wearing dark glasses now, but I could see why she had worn them in public—her eyes were the strangest I had ever seen, one a pale, washed-out gray, the other a mottled brown.
"You seem concerned about the Betrayer," Christian said, his dark eyes unreadable. "Did he feed on you?"
I looked them all over as I thought of how to answer the question. If I told them I was Adrian's Beloved, that he wasn't the monster they had all painted him, would they believe me and release him? Or would they confine me, too, their hatred of him spilling over onto me?
Stupidity has its uses, I decided. Despite my reticence to lie to Melissande—whom I truly liked, even though she was all wrong about Adrian—it was clear to me that here was a situation where less than the whole truth would be wise.
"Yes, he fed off me. After some blond bloodsucker named Sebastian gutted him. I'm concerned about where he is because"—my mind, newly awakened from what I guessed had been a protective slumber, reasoned with awkward slowness—"because I seem to be under some compulsion to help him."
There. Let them interpret that as they would.
"You poor dear," Melissande cooed, gently touching my cheek. "I knew he was capable of the most horrific of crimes, but to turn an innocent, to enthrall a mortal, is the worst sort of sin to my people."
"Really?" I asked, not bothering to correct the impression I had hoped she would leap to. "I thought making human slaves was what vamps did best?"
"Only in fiction," Melissande said with a smile, glancing at her cousin. "Moravians do their best to blend into mortal society, not draw attention to themselves."
"There are many questions we must ask you," Christian said smoothly, but I wasn't fooled by the softness of his voice. He was trouble with a capital T.
I closed my eyes as if I was too weary to keep them open, allowing my voice to crack."I will do my best to answer them."
"Later," Melissande said, patting my arm. "She needs rest now. She suffered tremendously in her attempt to banish the Betrayer. She must rest and regain her strength."
Banish the Betrayer? Hmm. What I wanted to know was what happened to Adrian. My brain refused to review in detail the events at the train station, leaving me with no idea if the power I summoned had been enough to expel Sebastian from the train station, and now did not seem a good time to inquire. I opened my eyes halfway, sounding as pathetic as I could when I asked, "Adrian? He is safely confined?"
"For the present," Christian said, his eyes narrowing.
"Have no fears," Melissande soothed. "He is in a secure place and cannot escape."
"I still say we should find a lake," Allie mumbled, giving me a dirty look as Christian escorted her out the door. His dark head tipped toward hers as he murmured in her ear, the door whispering softly as it closed behind them.
Melissande fussed with the eiderdown for a moment, asking me if there was anything I wanted, pointing out the bathroom behind an adjacent door.
"You'll feel better after you… oh, there you are. As you can see, she's recovered from her traumatic experience."
I almost came off the bed with surprise when the last man I expected to see walked through the door. "Adrian!" I shoved the cover back and swung my legs off the bed, about to throw myself protectively across him lest Melissande try to attack him.
"No, Nell, it's not the Betrayer! There is no need to run. This is Saer, my brother." Melissande hurried forward to stop me. "You remember I told you about him? Saer is organizing the rescue of Damian. He was in England, tracking Asmodeus when he received word that I had found you."
"As my darling sister says, there is no need for you to run from me," the Adrian lookalike said, his voice carrying more than an edge of mocking amusement.
"Brother? You're her… her…" My voice crawled to a stop as I stared open-mouthed at him. He was dressed the same way I had seen him in the train station, in a black pullover and pants. His hair was pulled back, but it was Adrian's dark auburn hair, Adrian's nose and jaw and adorable lips. Even his eyes were the same changeable blue, although, on looking closely, I saw a hardness to Saer's eyes that was lacking in Adrian's. Other than that, they were carbon copies of each other. Which meant it was to him I had given Asmodeus's ring in the train station. My heart tightened as I realized that not only did he have the ring I needed to release Adrian and Damian from their captivity, but he knew the truth about my relationship with Adrian.
No wonder he was so amused with Melissande's assumption that I was trying to escape the Betrayer.
"Brother, yes. And Adrian's twin, if you hadn't guessed." Saer finished my sentence, and I shivered at Adrian's voice coming from his mouth. His lips quirked in a catlike smile, his eyes filled with secret laughter. "Identical twins, as you have no doubt noticed."
"Twins." I absorbed that information, turning my gaze to Melissande. "But that means Adrian is your brother."
She looked away. "That is our burden, yes."
"But… but you're trying to kill him! Your own brother?"
"He is the Betrayer," Melissande said, still not meeting my eyes. "He would think nothing of destroying Saer or me. Family bonds mean nothing to him, as he has demonstrated to us over and over."
I didn't believe that. Not for one moment did I believe that. Everyone else might believe that Adrian was a cold-hearted, cruel killer, but I knew the truth. The curse that bound him to the demon lord was responsible for his actions, not his desire to hurt people.