Part 2 (1/2)
His gaze bored into hers as if he knew who and what she was. ”Once Transylvania is in your blood, it never leaves you.”
Retta disregarded that. ”Tell me, Andrei. Do you know a Viktor Petcu?”
He arched one handsome brow. ”And why would you wish to speak to him?”
”I'm an old friend.”
”I somehow doubt that, since I know all of his old friends and I would have remembered a woman so beautiful in his past.”
Someone tsked.
Retta turned toward the counter to find a woman moving to stand before the old-fas.h.i.+oned ledger that was there. Appearing
around the age of forty, she was dressed in the traditional Romanian peasant blouse and loose skirt. Tall and quite striking, she was someone Retta hadn't seen in over five hundred years.
Surely it couldn't be...
”It is not Viktor she wants, Andrei,” the woman said, indicating Retta with a tilt of her chin. ”She is here for Prince Velkan.”
”Raluca?” Retta breathed as she stared in shock at the woman.
She bowed to her. ”It is good to have you home again, Princess. Welcome.”
Her jaw slack, Retta approached the woman slowly so that she could study her features. She looked only slightly older than she'd been when Retta had last seen her. Only then Raluca had been a servant in Retta's father's castle.
”How is this possible?”
The woman glanced to Andrei before she answered. ”I am a Were-Hunter, Princess.”
Were-Hunter. They were akin to the vampires or Daimons her husband had been created to kill. The Daimons had once been
mortals who'd run afoul of the Greek G.o.d Apollo. A group of them had a.s.sa.s.sinated the G.o.d's mistress and child. As a result, Apollo had cursed them all to having to drink blood to live and for all of them to die at the tender age of twenty-seven. The only way for them to live longer was to steal human souls. Dark-Hunters had been created by Apollo's sister Artemis to kill the Daimons and free the human souls before they died.
Several thousand years after that, an ancient king had unknowingly married one of their cursed race. When his wife had decayed on her twenty-seventh birthday, he'd realized that his beloved sons would meet their mother's fate. To save them, he'd magically merged the souls of animals with their race until he'd found a way to save them. Thus, the Were-Hunters had been created. Able to bend the laws of physics and with highly developed psychic sense, the shape-s.h.i.+fters lived for centuries.
But it was rare for a Were-Hunter to be near a Dark-Hunter, never mind serve one. Since Dark-Hunters were created to kill their Daimon cousins, most Were-Hunters avoided them at all costs.
Most.
Retta looked over her shoulder to Francesca, who was now squirming uncomfortably. A bad feeling went through Retta as she realized that Francesca had befriended her just weeks after she'd fled Romania. They'd known each other almost fifteen years before Francesca had confided the truth of her existence to Retta.
Now she had a suspicion that sickened her.
”Lykos?” Retta asked Raluca. That was the Were-Hunter term for their wolf branch.
”Raluca is my mother,” Francesca said quietly. ”Andrei and Viktor are my brothers-it's why I never used a surname. I didn't
want you to realize I was one of the family.”
Retta couldn't breathe as she stood there with her emotions in turmoil. Anger, hurt, betrayal. They were all there and they each wanted a turn at Raluca and Francesca, but most of all, they wanted Retta to beat her husband. ”I see.”
”Please, Princess,” Raluca said, her bright blue eyes burning with intensity. ”We're only here to help you.”
”Then call me another cab and get me back to the airport ASAP.”
Francesca shook her head. ”We can't do that.”
Retta glared at her. ”Fine then. I'll do it myself.” As she moved toward the phone on the desk, Raluca pulled it away.
Retta saw the sympathy in Raluca's eyes as she cradled the phone to her chest. ”I'm truly sorry, but you can't leave here,
Princess.”
”Oh yes, h.e.l.l I can and I am.” Retta started for the door, only to have Andrei block her path.
”You are in danger, Princess.”
She narrowed her eyes on him. ”Not me, buddy. But you are if you don't move out of my way.”
Francesca took a step toward her. ”Listen to him, Retta, please.”
She turned on Francesca with a hiss. ”Don't you dare start on me. I thought you were my friend.”
”I am your friend.”
”Bulls.h.i.+t! You lied to me. Deceived me. You knew how I felt about Velkan and yet you never once told me that you serve him.”
Francesca glared at her. ”Yes, Retta. Prince Velkan sent me to watch over you because he was afraid for you to be alone. As
you've said repeatedly over the centuries, you were young and naive. You spent the whole of your life behind a convent wall. The last thing he wanted was for you to be hurt again, so I was charged with your care. Is that really a crime after all we've been through together?”