said, she's the bait."
"But he must care for her. He's kept her with him for two hundred years."
"He cares for nothing, and no one." Grigori lifted his head, nostrils flaring as he tested the air. He could sense the night changing to day, feel the first teasing warmth of the sun. "It's time for me to go. Don't leave Marisa alone for a moment."
Edward stared at the key in his hand. "Won't you need a coffin to rest in?"
Grigori lifted one dark brow. "You watch too many movies, Ramsey." He bared his fangs in a wolfish grin. "But I thank you for your concern."
Edward muttered something obscene under his breath.
"Take good care of Marisa," Grigori warned, and left the apartment.
Outside, the sky was turning gray. He could feel the dawn approaching, the promised heat of the sun in the sudden itching of his skin, in every nerve ending.
With preternatural speed, he traversed the city.
The door to the motel room opened at a wave of his hand. After locking the door behind him, he stripped the blankets from one of the beds and used them to cover the room's single window. He checked the bathroom, noting the bars on the narrow window over the tub.
Returning to the main room, he observed his surroundings in a long, sweeping glance. It was remarkably ugly, from the drab brown carpet to the pale beige walls and matching drapes. A cheap painting hung over the bed. There was a dresser, a chair upholstered in a hideous plaid.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he switched on the TV, turning to a local morning-news show. As he feared, another body, drained of blood, had been found near the zoo.
Sitting back, he stared, unseeing, at the television screen, his senses probing the surrounding area for some indication that Antoinette was nearby. Antoinette...
... She gazed up at him, her blue-green eyes radiant. "We're going to have a child, Grigori," she whispered tremulously. And he swept her into his arms, his heart swelling with love for his wife, for his unborn child. He was at her side when their daughter was born, humbled by the miracle of birth, by Antoinette's willingness to walk through the valley of the shadow of death to bring a new life into the world. And a year later, she gave him a son... Life was perfect, better than perfect. He adored his wife, his children, and knew their love in return, until that fateful night when he came home to find his children murdered in their beds, and his wife a mindless shell of a woman...
"Damn you, Alexi," he murmured. "I thought we were friends. You could have had any woman you wanted."
Even now, more than two hundred years later, he cursed himself for bringing Alexi home that first night. People had warned him there was something peculiar about Count Alexi Kristov, but he hadn't seen it. Maybe he hadn't wanted to see it. He had liked having Alexi Kristov for a friend. Alexi had often been a guest in their home. Always, he had been polite, well mannered. In spite of Alexi's idiosyncrasies, Grigori had never suspected him to be other than what he seemed, a gentleman from a far country who kept peculiar hours. How had he been so blind? Why hadn't Antoinette told him that Kristov had asked her to go away with him? Had she been afraid of his reaction? Afraid he wouldn't believe her? And what would he have done if she had told him? He had been a mortal man then, no match for a thousand-year-old vampire.
He remembered the first horrible days after he had buried his children. He hadn't eaten, or slept, had not been able to bring himself to leave the graveyard that held their remains, could not bear to leave his son and daughter there, alone, in the darkness of eternity.
He had been sitting there, late one foggy night, when he felt a sudden coldness creep over him. Turning, he had seen a slender figure in a dark cloak moving soundlessly among the headstones.
Grigori had gasped, certain, for one dreadful moment, that he was seeing a ghost. Only it had been far worse than a ghost. Between one blink of his eye and the next, the shadowy creature was standing before him. He saw then that it was a woman with waist-length silver-blond hair and skin as white as the shrouds that enfolded the bodies of his children.
What are you doing here? she had asked,