Chapter Twenty-Four

It seemed like days, but Xavier and Granny finally burst into the room. “Where is she?” he asked.

Rose led my grandmother and Xavier into the bedroom and then came back out to wait with us.

My knees gave out, and I crumpled to the floor. Vaughn picked me up and carried me to an overstuffed chair and set me on his lap.

He just held me silently while we waited to find out.

“Why won’t she wake up?” Rose asked the question we all wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” Xavier replied. “Besides the stab wound, there’s a small bump on the back of her head.”

Vaughn and I exchanged a glance.

“Someone took her by surprise,” Connor said. He growled. “When I find out who did this to her, I’m going to take them apart and feed them the pieces.”

“The security cameras might have picked up something,” Rose said. Her eyes were red and swollen.

Xavier and my granny finally came back out. “Xavier managed to heal the internal bleeding,” Granny said. “Thorn’s resting.”

The normally calm Xavier had sweat rolling off him, and there were lines of stress at Granny’s mouth.

I crossed to Xavier and gave him a long hug. “Thank you.”

Then I hugged Granny, too.

Rose burst into noisy sobs. Lucas took her into his arms and soothed her. Pretty soon, we were all hugging and sobbing.

Finally, Rose stopped crying. “Can I see her?”

“Five minutes,” Xavier said.

Rose glanced at me. “Want to come with?”

My throat hurt too much to talk, but I nodded.

Thorn was so still that Rose sucked in a breath.

I laid a hand on her shoulder. “She’s sleeping.”

Rose exhaled shakily. “I know.”

“I’m going to make sure my mother doesn’t hurt anyone else,” I promised my sister. I promised both of them. They were my family now.

Then I tiptoed out of the room, leaving Rose to watch over her twin.

When I came back into the main area of the suite, my grandmother wrapped me in her arms and hugged me tight, then stepped back so she could take a look at my face.

“You look tired,” she said.

“Thank you for coming,” I said. Tears formed in my eyes, but I sniffed so they wouldn’t fall.

She scoffed. “Like anyone could stop me.” Then she added, “There’s someone else here, too.”

“The Old Crones Book Club?” I was so tired that my eyes felt full of sand.

“They had to sit this one out. But someone else insisted on coming…”

Hecate, my pet hellcat, came bounding into the room. She had grown so much in the week that I’d been gone. My pet had been the runt of the hellcat litter, but you’d never know it to look at her now. She was probably more than two hundred pounds and almost as tall as me.

She nearly knocked me over in her excitement at seeing me. Her green eyes glowed when I gave her a scratch behind the ears and she started to purr, although her purr sounded like a chainsaw. Her black coat was shiny, and the little star on her nose danced with excitement at the sight of me.

Her familiar nutmeg and roasted marshmallow smell soothed me.

“I missed you, too,” I said.

Vaughn came over to give Hecate some love.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” Skyler said. “I asked one of the chefs for a treat for Hecate,” she told me. She held up a pie. “It’s apple. Can I give her a piece?”

“Thanks, Skyler,” I said.

She gave Hecate a slice of the pie, but the hellcat gulped it down quickly and then meowed for more.

She did the same thing when Skyler doled out another slice. Finally, Skyler just set the entire pie plate down and Hecate gobbled the whole thing.

I sighed. Now that Thorn had stabilized and my Granny and Xavier were here, I was crashing hard. But I couldn’t go to bed yet.

“I want to see her,” Mason said.

I followed my father into the bedroom. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him—in fact, he seemed completely torn up about what happened to Thorn. But still, trust was hard-earned with me these days.

To my surprise, Thorn was awake.

“Do you know who did this to you?” I asked.

Her gaze swung to our father.

“It wasn’t me,” Mason said.

“Why should I believe you?” Thorn asked. “You’ve done it before.”

He gaped at her. “What? No.”

“The hellcats,” she prodded. “My stomach. Remember?”

“It wasn’t me who sent those hellcats after you,” he replied. Mason’s eyes were red, like he’d been crying.

“You were so mad at me,” Thorn said.

“And you can control animals,” Rose said, joining us. “Can you blame us if we thought it was you?”

“No matter how angry I was, I would never deliberately harm you,” Mason said. He sounded so wrecked that I believed him.

“Say I believe you,” Thorn said, making it clear that it wasn’t true. “Then who did it?”

Mason’s face went cold. “I never did find out who was behind your attack.”

“Why would someone send hellcats after me?” Thorn asked.

“Why are we discussing ancient history?” Mason asked. “I want to know who stabbed you.”

“It could have been Vanessa,” I said. “I have no idea what she was up to before she appeared back in my life this summer.”

“What else made you think it was me? Did somebody say something to you?” Mason asked.

“No,” Thorn said.

“Maybe,” Rose contradicted her. “Remember that woman from housekeeping?”

“What woman?”

Rose shrugged. “She was tall. She wore a housekeeping uniform. She came to visit Thorn at the hotel while she was recuperating.”

“That’s right,” Thorn said. “I’d forgotten all about her.”

“And she had a gift for Thorn from the staff,” Rose added.

“What was it?” Mason asked.

“It was so long ago,” Rose said. She thought for a second. “It was a stuffed animal. A teddy bear?”

Thorn shook her head and then winced. “No, it was a stuffed peacock.”

Mason went pale. “Do you still have it?”

I gave him a puzzled look. “You never noticed your kid playing with a stuffed peacock?”

“She had hundreds of stuffed animals,” Mason said.

“Thorn had stuffies?” I gaped at him and then giggled.

“Still do,” she said. “Boxed up, in storage.”

“We need to find that peacock,” Mason said.

“Why?”

“My sister had one when she was little,” he replied. “Annalise loved peacocks.”

“Why would your sister give Thorn a present and not introduce herself?” I asked.

“Because she hates me,” Mason said. “I’m the reason she was turned into a striga vie. The only other one I know of still alive.”

My heart stopped.

Annalise. Lissa.

Lissa LaStrange was his sister.

She’d been at the hotel as long as I had, masquerading as a staff member. Could she be after something? I thought I knew what it could be. Someone had gotten into our suite and trashed it. The fake ruby was missing.

“I can’t believe my mother tried to kill my sister,” I said.

Mason overheard me. “It’s not even the first time,” he said.

“What? Vanessa tried to kill Thorn before now?”

He just nodded, clearly not interested in telling me more.

“We need to get Thorn out of here, where Xavier can give her real medical attention. And I need to go look for The Executioner—now,” I said. I couldn’t bear to call her my mother.

“We’ve looked everywhere,” Vaughn said. “There’s no sign of her. Or my dad.” There was no accusation in his voice, but I wouldn’t have blamed him if there had been.

“Thorn does need to get to the hospital. She could use the jet, but you can’t exactly go walking around the hotel right now,” Mason admitted. “There’s still no sign of Vanessa, but feral vampires are getting in and roaming the halls. She’s somehow taken out my security. It’s a free-for-all.”

I turned and looked Mason right in the eye. “You’re Mason Alicante. The Serpent King. You can’t handle a few feral vamps? Just long enough to get us to the jet?”

“Fair,” Mason replied. “But I won’t be able to control them long. Their numbers are…staggering.”

“Okay,” I said, trying not to panic. “Tell us what you want us to do.”

The plan was a simple one. After we all got a good night’s sleep, Vaughn and Connor would create a distraction, which, hopefully, would pull some of the vampires away from the back exit, and then Mason would try to control a horde of wild vampires while Xavier got Thorn to safety.

“Maybe we shouldn’t wait. So many things can go wrong,” I fretted.

“Do you have a better plan?” Connor asked.

I shook my head. “All that matters is that my sister gets to a hospital.” I put my hand on Vaughn’s arm. “Be careful.”

After everyone had retreated to their respective rooms for the night, Vaughn turned down the covers and we crawled into bed. He held his arm out invitingly, and I snuggled into him.

I closed my eyes as I fought a yawn. “I hope we don’t live to regret this. God only knows what damage Vanessa can do in eight hours.”

We soon found out exactly what my mother was capable of.