widened slightly. He looked familiar. She was trying to sort out where she’d seen him before when three things happened in quick succession. She heard a door open behind her, felt a cold draft, and heard the murmur of Mabel’s and Elvi’s voices as they apparently returned, a second door opened and she heard Tricia call a greeting, and then movement drew Allie’s attention down to the box the mailman held and she saw that it was open and he was pulling a machete out of it.
“Drina!” she shouted in warning as he swung the machete back. She rushed forward as he started to bring it down.
“I’d just pulled out the machete when the human screamed a warning. The vampire bitch turned and saw it coming at her. She tried to duck, but I still clipped her a good one in the head.”
Allie could hear the speaker, but she couldn’t see anything. She was lying on a cold, damp floor on her stomach, her head turned to the side with her eyes closed and no desire to open them. Her head was pounding as if she was the one who had taken the machete to the head. In fact, Allie wasn’t sure she hadn’t. The last thing she remembered was running to Drina and then pain exploding in her head. Now there was blood dripping down her face, and terrible pain radiating from the back of her skull. If he hadn’t hacked her in the head like he had Drina, then the man had thumped her with the handle of it hard enough to do some serious damage.
“Just a head wound?” another voice asked, this one closer to her. Standing over her, she guessed, and at first thought he was talking to her. But then the other man answered.
“Yes. I was going to cut her head off, but once the human screamed there was no chance of that happening. The bitch’ll be out of commission for a while, though.”
“Yes, yes. Good. But how did you end up bringing Allie instead of the boy, Stephen? It is your son we want.”
Stephen. Stella’s husband, Allie thought, and realized suddenly why he’d looked familiar to her when she’d first seen him there in the door. She’d looked at the picture in the locket often enough since Stella died that she was sure she would have recognized him at once if he hadn’t been dressed in the mailman gear. That had thrown her off.
“Well,” Stephen said, “she rushed over to try to help the vamp bitch. But her scream had raised the alarm. People were coming from every direction. There was no chance of looking for Liam, so I knocked her out, threw her over my shoulder, and ran. I thought maybe we could trade her for Liam.”
“Ah. Yes. Clever,” the second man complimented. “Fast thinking too.”
“You think they’d trade my son for her, Abby? She’s just a human.”
Abby, Allie thought grimly. So she was in the presence of not just Liam’s father, but of the man who had turned Stella so violently and made her into a monster. If only temporarily. Apparently, her husband hadn’t been so lucky and was still in crazy town.
“Allie was human,” Abaddon corrected. “But not anymore. She’s been turned.”
“Has she?” Stephen sounded truly surprised. “I didn’t notice.”
“Well, she has. Which means she is a life mate to someone in that house, which makes her very important. I have no doubt they will trade Liam for her. After all, he is not related to any of them.”
“So I did the right thing?”
“Yes. You certainly did. Come now, we shall plot how to arrange a trade.”
Allie heard their footsteps move away. She listened until she couldn’t hear them anymore before risking taking more than the shallow breaths she’d allowed herself until now. But she didn’t move. She wasn’t sure she could. God, her head hurt. Shouldn’t the nanos be fixing that?
Forcing herself to calm down, she concentrated on her breaths rather than the pain. Or tried to. Unfortunately, her mind was turning to what Abaddon had said about the others being willing to trade Liam for her.
“No.” The word slid out in a soft whisper of denial. Surely Magnus wouldn’t trade Liam to get her back? Hand her son over to these madmen and let them twist him into another Leonius? She didn’t want that. And Stella certainly hadn’t. She’d killed herself to prevent that happening. And Allie would too, without a single regret.
Well, that wasn’t completely true. She already