Finding Fire: Paranormal Romance (Bad Boys Of The Underworld Book 1) (23 page)

Five nights later, Anna had hardly seen Nicolas at all. She’d spent about every waking moment with Evie and had only seen him at a glance down a hallway or through a window.

Evie said one of the best things about the multiple floors and wings of the palace was that if she wanted, she could always avoid someone she didn’t want to see. Anna wondered then just how much Evie knew about her relationship with Nicolas.

The nights she and Evie had spent together were amazing. Evie lived such a fascinating life, with a beautiful home and a husband who loved her beyond words. It lifted Anna’s spirits whenever she saw how happy the two of them were together.

Aleksander and Nicolas hadn’t seemed to have any trouble lately, though it wasn’t as though Anna would be around to see any big fights.

News of Nicolas’s homecoming had spread fast, and every day, more guests would arrive. The party was on the next night, and there was still a lot to get done. She’d been kept busy helping Evie plan where to put everyone.

It was amazing to learn about all the powerful vampires of the palace and High Council. The High Council was a board of vampires who ruled along with the king. The court consisted of ten powerful vampires at any given time, though the selection process for the court was a bit murky. The seats were not given up easily because vampires never retired, and they didn’t like to step down from power. They had all been alive for so long that there was an intricate and complex history that had to be learned.

So many of them had had relations with each other, Evie and Anna had to be creative with the sleeping arrangements. Because Anna was with Evie during the entirety of the night, she was also with her when she greeted all the guests as they arrived throughout the week.

Evie and Aleksander hadn’t come up with a good reason for having a human guest who wasn’t under compulsion, so they didn’t explain her presence to anyone, and no one was rude enough to ask the king or queen directly.

As a result, Anna might have been the most popular person in the whole palace. Every second she had away from Evie, someone else would pop out of the woodwork to introduce themselves, even if she’d already met them.

Anna had tried to take the chance to listen carefully to everyone’s voice, hoping for one that sounded like the Mr. X she’d talked to. So far there had been no luck.

As she learned more and more about the history and politics of the individual vampires, she tried to decide who would have the most motive. Everyone was a suspect, because power and wealth was motive for everyone.

She’d also tried to picture which of the people she’d been introduced to seemed capable of killing the king, who she’d grown to like. Anna was really hesitant about Marcus. He was one of the men who had tried to get her to leave him alone with Nicolas in the dungeon.

He could seem so charming when he wanted. She would watch him mingle with other vampires, acting as though he was their best friend, but she would also see his face when he turned away from whomever he’d been talking to. The charm would drop like a mask to the floor, and all that would be there was a cold and emotionless face.

Anna had asked Evie why Marcus might have come to Nicolas on that second night. After asking Aleksander, Evie had told her Marcus had been one of the first people to join the movement to overthrow Kirill and Nicolas, though no one ever knew quite why he felt so strongly about it.

There were not too many guards around for Anna to get a read on. Aleksander had carried on with his plan to pretend they were out of the country. He told his men to go to a small town thirty miles south of here and come back on the night of the party. He hadn’t told them why they were going or that there was a party on the night they were coming back.

Apparently vampires didn’t question their king, because they all went without qualm. A few had stayed behind to help with the day-to-day security. He’d told his guests that there was a worrisome increase of vampire hunters in the south and that was the reason the guards were scarce.

The blonde, Robert, who had attacked her at first, was back on his feet and working. Though, in his version of the story, she was the one who struck first. That was still up for debate. Now that she knew he’d known Nicolas was in the area and working with a human, she could understand him biting her a bit more, but that didn’t mean she liked it. She’d stabbed him in the neck rather brutally. If he could heal faster than her, but she hurt him worse, did that put them on even ground?

Either way, she and Robert kept their distance from each other.

Nicolas spent a lot of his time with the guards still at the palace. One of the guards he spent the most time with was the handsome Fredrick.

Fredrick had been quickly crossed off the likely suspect list. Fredrick had been recovering from a nearly fatal blow to the neck caused a few weeks ago. The mission to retrieve Nicolas was the first he’d been on in two weeks. Evie felt safe with him around, so Anna was comfortable with it as well. It wasn’t likely he could’ve been in New York while recovering from his injury.

She had even seen Nicolas laugh a few times while he walked with Fredrick. She had been happy to know that Nicolas wasn’t completely alone here.

Anna walked over to a window and stared at the gardens from the third-story view. As if she’d conjured him with her thoughts, Nicolas walked below her. She took advantage of her chance to study him while he was unaware.

He was striking against the dark gardens under the moonlight. She remembered standing in the moonlight with him as they kissed. She wished she could run down to him now and relive that moment.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said a feminine voice behind her.

Anna’s head jerked around with surprise at being caught in her fantasies. How did this woman know she was staring at Nicolas? Anna’s fears were lifted when the woman continued, “I’ve always loved the gardens here. It’s so cold here most of the time that I don’t know how they can get anything to survive year to year.”

She was saying the
gardens
were beautiful, not Nicolas. Anna smiled. “Yeah, I could stare at those gardens all day. Or night,” she hastily added.

The woman smiled. Anna knew they’d been introduced and tried to remember her name. It was something that started with an
A
, like hers.
Angela!
“How is your stay so far, Angela?”

Angela was tall and elegantly thin. She looked as though she’d come right off the runway during fashion week. She had deep black hair, and her pale complexion gave her a very ethereal look. To top it off, her eyes were such a light blue that they drew Anna’s gaze.

“You can be honest with me. What were you really looking at out that window?” whispered Angela.

Anna blushed at being caught. She tried to cover her tracks by saying, “The garden is really pretty under the moonlight.”

“Come on.” She strode up to the window and looked down at Nicolas. “Hmm,” she said. “I see you have a taste for the dangerous.”

“I don’t have a taste for it. He just....” Anna couldn’t think of a good way to say she wasn’t attracted to a man she’d just been staring at.

“Caught your eye?” supplied Angela. She craned her head as Nicolas walked out of their view from the window. “If it makes you feel any better, he watches you too.”

“How can he watch me? I’ve barely seen him in the past week.”

Angela glanced at her. “I’ve seen him a lot in the past two days, and every time you’re near, he’s completely focused on you. Sometimes, he even goes as far as to hide his presence from you.” Those light blue eyes stayed on Anna, as if to judge her reaction.

Anna had a tough time herself trying to decipher how she felt about Nicolas watching her. Part of her was elated at the thought that it hadn’t been so easy for him to forget her. The other part didn’t want to have any shred of hope they would be good for each other.

A puzzling thought occurred to Anna. “What were you doing watching him?”

“Nicolas and I were once very close,” said Angela. “We almost got married at one time.”

Anna went very still. This was the woman who had turned him over to Aleksander. He hadn’t trusted anyone for years because of what this woman had done. Anna took a step back.

“So you know about me already?” asked Angela.

“I’ve heard stories.” She couldn’t believe that Evie hadn’t told her that Nicolas’s ex-fiancée was sharing this palace with them.

“Don’t be scared of me,” she said. “I’m not an evil vampire just waiting to push suffering on others. It was a different time back then. I was different. Nicolas was different.”

“What do you mean he’s different?”

“His whole demeanor has changed. He was such a cocky prince at one time. He was arrogant, confident, and cold.” Angela looked out the window and stared at the dark night as though her memories played in front of her eyes.

“Is that what you tell yourself to help you sleep during the day? You were supposed to spend the rest of your eternal life with him. Didn’t that mean something to you?”

Angela shrugged. “I don’t know who decided that marriage was a good idea between the two of us. I don’t think we were ever asked. It seemed reasonable enough. I was born a noble and he was a handsome prince. What girl wouldn’t want that?”

“Most girls want love,” pointed out Anna.

“These days. Most of my life, all women wanted stability. Once Kirill started going downhill, things changed. Nicolas took over more and more of his father’s duties, while no one told him of all the trouble brewing just beneath the surface.

“For all his issues, Kirill really loved Nicolas. He would try so hard to not let his son see what he was becoming. I wasn’t as loved by him. There were multiple times he would come stumbling in at dawn, covered in God knows how many humans’ blood. He would threaten to kill anyone who told Nicolas.”

Anna absorbed the new information. “So Nicolas really was unaware of how bad Kirill was?”

“It might have been partly willful ignorance, but he didn’t know the full extent of his father’s madness.”

“How does that make what you did to Nicolas any better?” asked Anna.

“I’m not sure it does. I was afraid of him, though. That night, he seemed so different than I had ever seen him before. More animal than human. I was worried he would follow Kirill’s path. I was alone with him with the sun high in the sky.”

“When did you realize he wasn’t turning into his father?” Anna had always wondered what had separated her from the crazy gene her father had. She had no doubt Nicolas wasn’t anything like Charles, despite his controlling habits.

“I’m still alive, aren’t I? After he escaped, I was convinced he would come for me. It was the worst couple of weeks of my life, just waiting to die. When I realized he wasn’t coming for me, I knew the mistake I had made.”

“He’s never forgotten that night, you know,” said Anna.

Angela rolled her eyes. “Do you think he would be the same today?”

“What do you mean?” asked Anna.

“If I did the same thing today, do you think it would bother him nearly as much?”

Anna thought about that. Nicolas seemed too hard to let much bother him anymore. Maybe because of his past, he expected people to betray him. She remembered his expression when she’d told him to leave her room. There had been some hurt on his face. Had she betrayed him like Angela?

“I don’t think much could really bother him, these days. You’d better be careful with that one, human. He’s much more dangerous now than he ever was when I was with him,” said Angela.

Anna didn’t think she could take any more of this conversation. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She turned away from the window and Angela.

She should go try to find Evie, but she didn’t want to talk to her right now about parties or the crazy guests. She just wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Evie was currently making sure they had enough bottled human blood on hand for the pure vampires. They had both decided it would be best if Anna were absent for that task.

She decided it would be best to pass the time in her room, as to avoid any more disturbing conversations.

She had no such luck. When she walked into the hallway, Marcus stood a few feet outside the doorway. He was dressed in a sharp black suit and gray top, with one too many buttons undone.

Anna frowned at him. “Were you listening to us?”

He shrugged. “Nicolas is one of my favorite subjects to talk about,” he said. “I love hearing about his sordid past.” He certainly didn’t look guilty at being caught.

“I’ve heard your past isn’t exactly in pristine condition,” said Anna.

Marcus did tense up at that. He took a step closer to Anna, and she fought the urge to back up a step. “Tell me, what have you heard about me?”

Anna realized that Evie had never actually told her anything about Marcus’s background. Just that it was violent and he wasn’t safe. She shot back another question. “Why were you coming to see Nicolas in the basement?”

“I came because there is nothing I would like better than to see the prince in chains and at my mercy.”

“You should stay away from him,” said Anna.