Blood Cure (Blood Type 3)

No, she couldn’t think about that. Beckham could handle himself.

Reyna didn’t stop sprinting as she ran as far and as fast as she could away from the room where Bronwyn had tried to kill her. She knew where she was going. She’d studied the map well enough to have a mental guide for which way to go. It would be easier with Beckham directing her, but she’d done her homework.

Still worse…the way to Harrington’s office was empty of people. As if, like before, he’d wanted her to find him. But there was no backing down. Not with a battle raging behind her and Beckham taking on his sister. She had to finish this. That was the only way. Cut off the serpent’s head to scatter his army.

When she reached the last hallway, she skidded to a stop.

“Bonjour, ma cherie,” Rowland said. His thick French accent sweeping over the words as his eyes did the same to her battered body.

Reyna put her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

“Did you believe you could just stroll through these walls unnoticed? Barge in here and save the day?”

She had no response for him. She wanted to spit in his face. He was waiting for her. He had clearly double-crossed them. But at the end of the day, it didn’t change anything. She still had to see Harrington.

“You’ve played your part. Now your fight is up. Surrender and he may be merciful.”

“Yeah. Sure. Okay,” she said sarcastically. “Has that ever actually worked on someone?”

“Or I could kill you right here.”

“Now we’re talking.” She stood up and began to stride toward him. “You’re standing between me and that door. Either get out of my way or do something about it.”

“You have no weapon. Beckham is occupied. It is just you—a weak, defenseless human against two of the most powerful vampires in known existence. What do you seek to gain from walking into that room?”

“Justice,” she spat in his face. She would not back down. She would not walk away. She could speak Rowland’s language. She knew what made him tick. “Now open the damn door.”

He laughed seductively. “I love when you order me around.”

“Liar.”

“Oh yes, I’d prefer to rip your throat out to shut your loud mouth, but watching you walk to your own death will do just fine.”

Then Rowland did the unthinkable. He turned the knob on the door and held it open for her.

“After you.”

Chapter 34

“About time,” Reyna said, and then entered the monster’s lair.

She held her breath as she walked inside. She couldn’t believe she was here. That she was actually doing this. It was impossible to think that she was face-to-face with her kidnapper and torturer again. That she could actually look at him and not just see the man who had turned Brian and set him loose in a room full of people. That she didn’t just see Beckham’s murderer.

Harrington was sitting behind a glass desk in a glass room. The walls were opaque so that he could see out, and undoubtedly her exchange with Rowland, but no one could see inside. Clever, creepy, and voyeuristic all at once.

How little Harrington had changed.

“Ah, my little queen,” he said. “Welcome.”

Reyna shuddered at the nickname. God, she really hated it. She was not his queen. She was not reigning over anything here. It was a bad play on her name. And too close to Beckham’s nickname for her for comfort.

“William,” Reyna said. She held her chin high on the offensive. “Nice digs.”

He gestured for her to take a seat. “I thought you might like it.”

Yeah, not happening. She stood her ground.

She heard Rowland enter the room behind her and the door quietly whirred closed. He stepped around her, taking a position of power to the right of Harrington. She nearly rolled her eyes. Bastard.

“It’s so…clean,” she commented. “Still washing your hands constantly and organizing the pen drawer?”

His eyes narrowed briefly and then relaxed. “I prefer my life orderly. It has been a sticking point between you and I.”

“Right. Because I’m so out of order.”

“You are a…complication,” Harrington said, gesturing forward.

She noticed that he didn’t get up out of his seat. She tilted her head to the side in contemplation of what that could mean. Then she assessed him. His color had worsened. His eyes were sunken in. His shiny hair was no more, replaced by an oily, thinning mess. His hands were gnarled and sickly. He looked the way he had the first time she had met him all those months ago at Visage. He looked…like he was dying.

Her eyes snapped up to his. And it was there that she saw the masterful mind who had always outwitted her. He held his supreme intelligence deep in the windows of his eyes. Yet his body was failing him.

“I don’t believe that I am the only complication,” Reyna said.