And now, she sat in the bowels of the creaking ship, banging her head against the wall.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Just letting him wake up next to you naked probably would have been a better idea than new lingerie, Beatrice.
They must have used chloroform or something similar, because she hardly remembered anything besides thick arms and something soft covering her nose and mouth. Then she’d woken in the swaying boat, alone and unharmed, which probably meant she was due for a visitor as soon as the sun set.
She stood up, pacing the room and trying to imagine any form of escape. There had to be something. There had to be someone. Someone she could plead with. Someone she could bribe. Someone who…
Her attention was drawn to the porthole. The sky was deep blue, and the setting sun turned the clouds gold.
In the distance, she could see land, closer than she would have expected for such a large ship, but then, she really didn’t know much about boats. She stopped pacing and started jogging in place, trying to loosen her stiff muscles and think.
Beatrice muttered to herself, “No way in hell am I spending another month of my life under this sick bastard’s control.”
She knew he wouldn’t hurt her, which dispelled some of the fear she’d felt five years before and gave her renewed confidence. No doubt the humans he had guarding her were under orders not to harm her either. She walked to the small bathroom in the corner of the room, relieved herself, and prepared to do everything possible to make keeping her a major annoyance.
She jumped up and down, doing as many of her warm-up exercises as she could in the limited amount of space. She mentally ran through the throws she had learned in her judo class, the hits and kicks she had learned from Gemma, and tried to quiet her mind the way Tenzin had always advised her. She hoped one of the humans had guns; she might be able to steal one.
As the sky darkened, she realized that the possibility of avoiding a vampire was probably non-existent. She sat on the bed, closed her eyes, and listened for the approaching footsteps. In the back of her mind, she realized that Giovanni would be waking soon. He would realize she was gone, but would he have any idea where she had been taken?
Beatrice heard footsteps coming toward her room. She could tell it was more than one person, but she couldn’t tell how many. The door swung open, but she remained on the bed, trying her best to look calm. A young, dark-haired vampire of medium build walked in and looked around, only glancing at her as his eyes swept the room. He was completely unremarkable except for the twin fangs she could see in his mouth. He murmured something over his shoulder in a low voice. She had noticed Giovanni and Carwyn using the same tone when they didn’t want her to hear something.
With some ceremony that was probably meant to frighten her, Lorenzo swept into the room. His blond curls were shorter than she remembered, and his Botticelli face bore the smudges of healing scars around his mouth and left eye. He was still wearing the ridiculous white wardrobe he had favored in Greece, though he was dressed for the colder winter weather of Northern Europe.
“Beatrice, my dear, it has been too long,” he said as he looked down his nose.
“You look like a ski bunny. Nice sweater.”
“Ah!” his face brightened. “You have regained your delightful sense of humor. Excellent. You were so dreadfully dull when we parted in Greece.”
“You mean when your dad came and spanked your ass with his two friends? Yeah, that was awesome. Nice scars. You getting a Phantom of the Opera mask to go with those? They’re white too, if I remember correctly.”
He smiled, his cold blue eyes examining her as he leaned against the open doorway.
“That lovely De Novo sarcasm. I do so miss that about your father. And now that I know how much Giovanni loves you,” he sneered, “I’ll enjoy torturing you as well. As soon as we’ve secured Stephen, of course. You see-” He darted over and leaned down so she could feel his cold breath against her neck when he spoke. “-I’m going to find him first.”
“Good luck with that,” she choked out, disgusted by the chill that seemed to course over her skin at his proximity. “Even Gio-”
“Does not have the resources I do when it comes to finding people,” he said with a condescending smile. “He’s too virtuous. And once you tell me exactly what he knows about your father from his search, the combined information should be enough to put me well ahead in the race.”
“Don’t count on it. What makes you think I’m going to tell you-”
She choked on the words when his cold fingers grasped her neck, and she began to shake when she realized he was right. She would tell him anything.
Anything he wanted.
He knelt before her and let the cruel smile twist his lips as he forced his influence on her.
“No wasting time with friendly banter, Beatrice. I’ve been waiting too long to get what is mine, and I have little faith that our location is a well-kept secret. I need that book your father has. I’ve made promises that some are starting to doubt. And I will not-” She winced when his grip around her neck tightened. “-be denied any longer.”
His touch was not the soft caress of Giovanni or even the sick, teasing touch she remembered from the last time he’d held her. It was the cold burn of ice that gripped her throat; the sensation quickly spread over her skin and nausea turned her stomach.
The ache spread from his fingers, around her neck, and up to the base of her skull as she stared into his frigid, blue eyes. She couldn’t speak, but her teeth began to chatter and the goose bumps spread down her body. It was as if his touch had frozen her and, as the creeping cold slipped into her mind, Beatrice knew she was powerless to stop the invasion.
“Where is your father?”
Her teeth chattered when she answered. “I-I don’t know.”
“Has Giovanni been in contact with him?”
Her mind screamed at her to tell him nothing, but she couldn’t stop the words as they tumbled out of her mouth.
“Postcards.”
“Explain.”
“Dad left clues for Gio, and he sent me…postcards.”
“Who sent you postcards, Beatrice?”
“G-G-io sent me postcards,” she rattled. “From the places he f-found clues.”
Beatrice could feel the tears trickling down her cheeks, and she was surprised that they didn’t freeze against her cold skin. But as she saw the spotted condensation on the porthole, she realized that no one in the room was cold except her. In fact, if someone touched her skin, she imagined it would still be its normal temperature. But Lorenzo told her nerve endings she was freezing, and her body reacted accordingly.
“What kind of clues?”
“He-he wouldn’t tell me.” Beatrice wondered if the knowledge of her vulnerability was what had caused Giovanni to hold back the information, and she was suddenly grateful for his stubborn, determined, forward-thinking ass.
“He sent you the postcards?”
“Yes.”
“From where? I want every location he sent a postcard from. List them all.”
And with trembling lips and tears in her eyes, Beatrice gave Lorenzo the location of every place Giovanni had found a clue left by Stephen De Novo in the previous five years.
Warsaw.
Johannesburg.
Lima.
San Francisco.
Tripoli. Santiago. Shanghai. Stockholm. Budapest. Novosibirsk.
She told him everything she knew.
And as she told him, Lorenzo came to sit next to her on the small bed, putting an arm around her as he played with her hair. He twisted it in his right hand while his left hand played with her fingers.
“Your skin is so lovely, Beatrice. Have I ever told you that?”
“N-no.”
“It is. It’s no wonder he likes you. I can see his bite marks on your neck now.” He bent down to run his lips against her skin, inhaling deeply. “Do you like it? When he bites you?”