18. Chara

Chapter 18

Chara

The minute Master Bistrita walks out that door, my heart feels a little bit heavier, but I do not intend to sit around feeling sorry for myself today. I brush my teeth and glance at myself in the mirror. Naked as the day I was born. My eyes narrow, surveying every curve, all that will be on display to the dominant vampire who wants to keep me naked, and no doubt leashed like many of the submissives seen being led through Club Descallia with their dominants.

It should give me pause, it really should, but after time spent with him, it doesn't at all. It makes me want to help him, Taylen, Natalia and the others even more. I grab a blanket from the closet and curl in on the couch, fingering the raised letters on the soft leather vampire bible, while tracing over the letters of its name.

Vade Mecum .

One page in, and I know I won't be able to put it down until I know more. When I look up next, I'm surprised that half the night has gone by, and all I've managed to do is read. I get up and sift through the refrigerator, finding a premade salad that Master Bistrita must have had delivered with the breakfast this morning. I open the container of creamy white dressing and pour it atop the crisp lettuce, vegetables, and chicken, suddenly recalling something I read.

The entire passage floats through my mind as I find a glass and fill it with water and take my dinner back to my seat on the couch, gently covering my nudity with the blanket, while I balance my salad and reach for the book to find what I am looking for. When I come to it again, I read it again, and then reread it one more time to let it sink in.

My chest heaves with angst. There's no way to get a message to Bistrita, Taylen, or Natalia, yet there is no way that I can sit here now with what I know. I race to the bedroom and pull on my clothes. I'm not sure what the punishment for not following his demands are, but at this point, I don't even care. I race to the door and pound. "Let me out!"

Minutes turn into ten and then into half an hour before I realize no one is going to let me out unless I sound the panic button from in here. That's the protocol. Once in the panic room, you're in the panic room until the masters or their employees come and get you. The alarm button from the inside only put in place in the event the individual being kept safe is having a panic attack, a heart attack, some unforeseen situation and needs to get help. I cuss myself for forgetting all about it and not doing it first. I race to the closet and feel for the button underneath the top shelf.

The minute I sound the alarm, I know someone will come, and they're not going to let me out for my own safety. I grab the closest thing I can find and stand by the door, ready for whoever opens that door because I already know they have orders to keep me in, but that's not going to happen. Getting this message to Bistrita is far too important. The sound of someone's key in the lock puts me on the ready, with a fry pan in my hand and the phone in my back pocket. I squeeze myself behind the door as it opens, and as Gregor walks in, I grimace, pummeling him on the back of the head with the heavy skillet. I run like hell through the hall and into the elevator, knowing in no time at all, he'll have recovered from the blow and be looking for me everywhere.

I won't have long before he uses the panic button himself and everyone and his brother is on my tail. I take the elevator to the main level and walk right out the front door, but the moment I'm out, I race like hell to the end of the street where a wall of yellow taxis competing with business from private drivers all sit waiting for a fare. I jump into one of the taxis that is closer to the club than the rest.

"Drive, drive like hell," I tell him, as his dark eyes capture mine in the mirror.

"Do you know where you want to go?" he asks, accelerating quickly into the road, wide-open this time of the night.

I call Bistrita, and he answers immediately. "Where are you?" he growls.

I lower my voice so the driver can't hear. "I'm safe. Listen to me, Bistrita. I was reading the Vade Mecum . There's another traitor in your midst. Whoever is the overmaster's closest and dearest friend will forge an alliance with the rogues to bring about a change in the hierarchy of all the vampires, with the intent to return things to the way they used to be."

"Love, calm down," he says. "We already know that. Lucas has been Overmaster's right hand man for centuries; there's no one closer. We'll find him and make him pay for all he's done. Where are you, though?" he growls, making me sorry that I let my angst for him get the best of me, ever disobeyed, put clothes on and left that room.

My heart beats with anguish at the worry in his voice. "I'm safe, I promise you, Bistrita. I'm safe. No one knows where I am except the cab driver I'm with. I'll go back and apologize to Gregor. No harm, no foul," I tell him, looking up as the dark eyes of the man watching me in the rearview begin to turn bright flaming red before I let out a petrified scream.