Passion of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 5) by Bella Klaus (best motivational books txt) 📗

“I don’t know,” Lazarus drawled. “How about her murderous friend, the fire-wielding necromancer?”

His words hit like a glove-slap, making me flinch. Lazarus still thought I was responsible for Valentine’s death. That, or he was blaming me for the damage Coral had done to his body.

“The last time I left Beatrice, she was fine,” I snapped. “What are you doing for Beatrice except freeloading at her apartment?”

He stalked toward me with the gait of a predator, hatred burning in his eyes. I raised my chin, meeting his gaze. There were far more dangerous people in this world than a spoiled prince, and I’d faced two of them and survived. Without the blood lure curse spurring him to drink my blood, Lazarus was all talk.

“How dare you…” he said, his voice a low rumble.

Beatrice rose from her sofa. “Lazarus, stop calling Mera names and acting like a dick. Mera, what the hell are you talking about?”

Lazarus’ eyes softened. “Don’t strain yourself, darling.”

“You haven’t told her,” I said with a gasp.

“What was the point of scaring her when she can’t help what’s happening?”

I shook my head. Lazarus had had no qualms about dropping information on her about our secret world that could have the enforcers scooping out her brain, but withheld information about a magical attack that would lead to her death? I couldn’t make sense of this vampire.

“Mera,” Beatrice said, her voice cracking. “If there’s something wrong with me, please say.”

My throat thickened, and I forced out the words. “Someone is feeding on your youth.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” he snarled.

I whirled on Lazarus, my eyes flashing. “That woman who attacked you. Did she look familiar?”

He shook his head. “Of course not.”

“On her first day at the Blood Salon, you hired her as a cow and fed from her veins. Do you remember now?”

“No.” His nose wrinkled as though he would never lower himself to feeding on someone who looked as old as Coral.

“Cow?” Beatrice clutched the side of her head. “What are you talking about?”

I turned back to Lazarus. “You didn’t tell her?”

He twisted his lip. “After chastising me about Beatrice’s safety, you go and spill all the details about our world. Well done. Your blundering is going to attract the enforcers more than my telling her that I’m a vampire ever could.”

The butterflies in my stomach rioted and my skin tightened with aggravation. Lazarus had a bloody nerve, trying to suggest that I was putting Beatrice in danger by talking about blood cows. He likely hadn’t divulged how he fed because it was off-putting. Respectable vampires either fed from their partners or bought their blood from a broker, never getting to know their donors. They certainly didn’t pay girls extra for something that would get them addicted to their bites.

A dozen retorts rolled to the tip of my tongue. I longed to spit them in his face, starting with the fact that enforcers wouldn’t care that she knew some details about our world. Her knowledge that it even existed put her mind in danger.

My gaze darted to my best friend, who braced a hand against the back of the armchair, struggling to stay upright under the stress of our tempers. My chest tightened. Arguing with Lazarus wouldn’t get us anywhere. Not with whatever was out there was still preying on her.

“Can we focus on helping Beatrice?” I said to him.

He folded his arms across his chest. “If the answer is burning her to ashes—”

“You’re pathetic,” I hissed, my stomach plummeting with regret.

Lazarus hated me for good reasons. Valentine hadn’t corroborated my side of the story, and he still thought I was his murderer, and he also thought I’d raised him from the dead using my fire magic. It also didn’t help that Coral and I had attacked him with fire and that he’d been brainwashed by the Council to believe fire users were evil. I wasn’t sure how old he was when Kresnik took control of the previous Vampire King, but losing his father, his older brothers, and his uncles had to have long-lasting effects.

“Have you taken her to a healer?” I asked.

“Two came in to read her aura,” he replied with a sigh.

“When?” Beatrice asked.

Lazarus turned to her with a sad smile. “Galen and Torus weren’t really my friends.”

Her eyes shimmered, and the corners of her wrinkled lips curled upward. “You brought them in to check on me?”

“I’ve been sick with worry.” He walked around the coffee table to the other side of the sofa and wrapped an arm around her waist. “If telling you about your affliction would have helped, I would have done so the moment I noticed you were aging.”

My throat thickened, and tingly heat spread across my face and down my neck. I had misjudged Lazarus, first by thinking he had been using Beatrice as a pawn to get revenge on me for everything that happened to Valentine, and I had also underestimated the depth of his feelings. I dipped my head and stared at my feet, feeling like the worst kind of judgmental cow.

Despite his bluster and bravado, he really did care about Beatrice.

As they continued to gaze into each other’s eyes, I glanced around the room, over the coffee table, flatscreen TV, and dining table, looking for peculiar-looking crystals or suspicious magical artifacts.

Nothing looked new or out of place, and it seemed unlikely that Beatrice would stumble across an object that could suck out her youth. Someone was doing this to her—perhaps to sustain themselves, like the beloved of Mr. Masood, the gorilla shifter from the cell next door to mine.

My brows drew together. How many supernaturals had Beatrice come into contact with? There was me—

Realization slammed into my heart with the force of a wrecking ball, making me clap a hand over my chest. All the air left my lungs, and I slumped into my seat with a noisy gasp. It was me. I did this to Beatrice the day I boiled her in