She rolled her eyes and threw off the covers. If only she could stay herself; but she couldn’t let Laurent catch her as Tatiana. Not before she’d had a chance to explain, if that was the route she was going to take.
Reaching for her locket, she remembered that it was back in Corvinestri with the rest of her things. She let out a half sob, so completely and utterly drained, but forced herself to assume Daciana’s identity, then dressed and went out to check on the comarré. Laurent should have locked the girl in the coat closet like they’d discussed on the way to the plane.
Had he taken her out of the body bag? Probably. Tatiana hadn’t heard any screaming. Not that she would have, considering how deeply she’d slept. She tried the closet door. Locked. She listened. Breath and heart sounds and the scent of comarré blood. She smiled and reached for the key in the overhead compartment. She grabbed the small pistol she’d brought along as well. Comarré were human enough that bullets could still be persuasive.
She unlocked the door and opened it, keeping the gun aimed forward. The full body bag was huddled against one wall. So he hadn’t let her out after all. “Well, well, comarré. You’re mine now.” Tatiana reached for the zipper and tugged it down a few inches. “And once I have the ring, I’m going to take great pleasure in—”
Bright blue terror-stricken eyes stared back at Tatiana. She pulled the zipper down farther. The face was familiar, but not because it belonged to the comarré whore who had taken up with her former husband, Malkolm. It was the comarré she’d purchased for Nasir, the one who had run away from her with her own comar, Damian.
The girl gasped. “Please, whoever you are, you must get me back to my patron, Nasir, or the vampiress Tatiana. I was forced to run away with her comar, but I didn’t want to and—”
“Bloody hell,” Tatiana whispered. She shut the closet door and locked it, then tossed the key and the pistol back into the overhead, wishing she could slam it shut. Bloody, bloody hell. She stomped up to the cockpit and went inside. “How far are we?”
“Less than three hours,” the pilot answered.
Tatiana stifled another curse. “Turn around and go back.”
The pilot made a face like she’d lost her mind. “We can’t. Not enough fuel.”
She clenched her fist but somehow managed not to maim the pilot. No wonder Laurent had taken the girl with such ease. She was the wrong damn one. Tatiana forced her body to relax. Killing Laurent now meant no chance of sending him back to Paradise City to rectify his mistake. And since Tatiana was supposed to be Daciana, she couldn’t say a single bloody word without giving herself away.
Mal waited until the SUV pulled away. At least the rain had stopped. They’d dropped him in a residential area off of I-10, far enough away from the checkpoints masked as tollbooths so that there was no chance of him being caught. Sun would be up in about an hour. Plenty of time to make it from Jefferson Parish into Orleans Parish. Or die. Then he just had to wind his way through the city, down into the French Quarter to Jackson Square, and find Chrysabelle and Mortalis. If they haven’t ditched you.
He walked at an easy gait, scanning the working-class neighborhood, but the few people he saw were more interested in the coffee clutched in their hands or getting to work on time. Despite Mal’s long black coat and sunglasses, he drew no stares. Still, he kept to the shadows for a few more blocks until, confident there were no fae patrols in the area, he picked up his pace and followed the directions Mortalis had mapped out for crossing the parish border.
Half an hour later, the pale gold blush of dawn—a rare color in his world—edged the horizon. It reminded him of the glow that surrounded Chrysabelle. And how much he was willing to do to keep her in his life. Bite her, drain her.
He crossed street after street, angling farther away from the interstate until he came to the canal he’d been anticipating. He just hadn’t expected it to be so wide. Looked like a hundred and fifty feet, maybe more. Too far for him to jump and there was no way he was swimming through that brown, murky soup. Try it. Maybe you’ll drown.
Mortalis had told him to get across the canal before the sun came up or seek shelter. Time was running out. So he started running. He kept between the water’s edge and Orpheum Road, which ran parallel to the canal. Traffic was light but picking up.
He’d hoped to be lost in the city streets by now, not out in the open of the residential area. He pushed himself to go faster, but he’d been slack about feeding the last week and the blood he’d had at Chrysabelle’s had been old and done little for him. Not that he would have expected her to give him fresh while she was recovering. As a result, he was slower, less powerful, and faster to fatigue. Easier to kill.
The road veered off but the neighborhoods remained. He ran under an overpass, the noise of the passing cars drowning out the sounds of the city waking up. The sky brightened with each minute, urging him forward faster and faster. The voices started to howl. At last, a train bridge appeared. He sped forward, using the last of his immediate strength to traverse the tracks.
His feet touched land on the other side just as the sun’s brilliant light cast its first rays on his body. He flinched, but no fire burst off his skin. He’d made it.
Tipping his face toward the sky, he took a moment to breathe in the air and smell the earth. The sun made it all different somehow. Except for the brief hours he’d spent under the influence of Dominic’s daywalking potion, he hadn’t spent time in the sun in almost five hundred years. And now he could do it without the threat of aging. Or dying. Too bad.