She had been so terrified. So out of control.
Exactly as she had felt at the deaths of her parents. At the death of Rhoger.
“It wasn’t a stroke of luck,” she muttered. “I called you to me. And besides, I don’t have the Book, do I.”
“Mae . . .”
“No.”
She wasn’t even aware of having spoken until Sahvage said, “No, what?”
As Mae remembered feeling trapped and scared, she shook her head in the darkness. Then she turned to him. “I’m not going to let her win. She’s never getting that goddamn Book.”
• • •
Downtown, on the basement level of the old office building, Devina clipped down the corridor to her lair, her stilettos fucking off the concrete. She could have just projected herself home, but she didn’t feel like it. She just didn’t fucking feel like it.
The fact that she was so enraged that concentration was impossible was a reality she refused to acknowledge. She was fine. She was just fucking fine—
The smell registered about thirty, forty feet from her destination, but she was so up in her head, it wasn’t until she got to her door that she realized something was on fire somewhere close. And then, as she stepped into her home, there was smoke in the air. Looking around, she saw that the stupid fucking female vampire was gone—
Devina screamed. “No, no, nonononono!”
Falling to her knees, there was a cracking sound as she hit her polished floor, but she didn’t care about the pain. With trembling hands, she reached out and tenderly cradled the innocent that had been massacred.
Her nearly priceless Birkin.
Her Himalayan Niloticus 35 with the diamond hardware.
Some absolute lunatic had burned the corner of the bag, ruining the crocodile skin, its delicate coloring and pattern of white, buff, gray, and black scales invaded by a cancer of oxidation from a flame.
Ruined. Four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Hermès’s very best efforts, hours of work from a master craftsman, the very rarest and most expensive handbag in the world . . . ruined.
Falling on her ass, one of her ankles cranked at a bad angle, but she didn’t care.
Cradling the desecrated carcass to her chest, she looked across her collection through eyes that watered. The tangled mess of the dog cage in the far corner seemed a rebuke of so much, so she willed it away, disappearing the goddamn symbol of her fucking failure.
What a night.
Everything had gone wrong.
And this was the problem with her life. When things went bad, you wanted to share the nightmare with someone who gave a shit. Somebody who could talk it all through with you, iron out the bumps, help formulate a new plan, a different approach.
A better way of getting to your goal.
Instead she was here, surrounded by beautiful things that could offer no advice or real support.
Closing her eyes, she reminded herself that her therapist, that flabby paper bag of a woman, had told her it was okay to be upset. To be disappointed. She just needed to feel her feelings—and know that, however strong they were, however unbearable they seemed, they would fade. Emotions were never permanent.
Except no, one of them was.
Though hate and anger, happiness and gratitude, jealousy, optimism, paranoia, all of the others were subject to peaks and valleys . . . love was a constant.
True love was immortal.
And when you were a demon, when there was no exit ramp for your existence, you valued things that could keep up with your forever calendar of nights and days.
Infinity was less fun than people thought.
Swamped with sadness, Devina rearranged her legs, extending them out and putting the Birkin casualty on her thighs. Running her fingertips over the matte texture, she remembered buying it at the mother ship. Twenty-four Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. She had her favorite SA there, and after years of supporting the brand, and so many Kellys and Birkins bought and paid for, she had finally been invited to purchase the Holy Grail.
And she had done it the right way. Not on the secondary market, but after climbing the mountain of earning that invitation.
Four hundred thousand was what she could get if she sold it. But it hadn’t cost her that much. When you were welcomed into that hallowed group who got them legitimately? You didn’t pay anywhere near that reseller’s premium.
But now, this symbol of everything she had achieved, of everything that she was, had been violated.
Devina narrowed her eyes at where the busted-up dog cage had been.
Payback was going to be a bitch.
A red hot . . . bitch.
Outside the Brotherhood mansion, Balz lit up another one of Vishous’s hand-rolls and leaned back against the still-winterized fountain. V had taken to supplying the cigs free of charge, no small giftie considering that not only was the prime ingredient very, very fine Turkish tobacco, it took a lot of fine motor skills to roll ’em up right. Lot of time, too.