Tree Of Souls (Transfusion Saga #6) - Stephanie Hudson Page 0,49

agreement, I hung up and went back to the uniform, hoping to find a receipt or something more in a pocket but what I didn’t expect to find was blood.

Blood…

That wasn’t hers.

Chapter 12

Devil’s Right Hand

I left the hotel with my hopes of being able to track her from the air crushed as it became clear, after speaking with witnesses, that it was as I suspected. No-one had remembered seeing a Ferrari of any kind in the parking lot. Meaning that my cunning girl had somehow managed to change her car. Now, how she had achieved that without having proof of ownership, I didn’t yet know but at the very least I was close to finding out. And the key had been her friend Wendy.

Dante had come through, as I knew he would for it was clear that he didn’t want me anywhere near her. So, with the ultimatum I had set against him, he had done the job. He had exercised that certain skill set he was known for and admittedly, was a master at. Doing what he did best, which was manipulating her dreams. Something I should have been able to do with just as much ease with Amelia, but something was changing in her.

She was getting stronger.

I’d never had a problem before entering her Void, especially while she slept. Which made me question now if my blood, my influence and essence in her was doing something more than just keeping her immortal? It made me begin to question the past and start asking myself if I had missed something?

Either way, it didn’t change the fact that the timing couldn’t have been worse, despite being at least assured that should she find herself injured in any way, that she would heal. But then I also knew that eventually my essence in her would run its course and when it did, then even in this way I could not protect her.

A fact I spent a great deal of time worrying about and ultimately dreading. But naturally I was hoping it wouldn’t yet come to that. That time, even though it felt like it was slipping through my fingers the longer she was gone from me, would run out for her long before it did for me. However, despite feeling confident that I was tightening the net around her with every hour that passed, I also couldn’t dispel the fabled tale of assumption biting me in the ass!

But as new information was coming in, I had to act accordingly, starting with the flight attendant. Dom had called me to let me know that my instincts had been right, the only thing missing from her room had been a diamond necklace that she had bargained with. Something I was happy to discover, he had retrieved. This was solely for Amelia’s benefit, for I could have bought her all the diamonds she wanted, I was fucking rich enough!

But knowing Amelia the way I did, then I knew that she would already be trying to think of ways of getting it back one day. Little did she know was that it was worth over two hundred thousand dollars. Something we discovered she had traded for nothing more than a small overnight bag, a uniform and a total of $1751.61, that she had drawn out at ATM’s on her way to New York.

Dom had been furious, doing little more than writing the girl a check for double that amount and telling her that she should count herself lucky that she received anything at all. If it had been me, she would have lost a lot more, not gained from it. For if it hadn’t been for the woman’s greed, then I would have most likely found her by now, seeing as she would have run out of gas and had no choice but to try and make it on foot.

However, this gave her enough money to make it to New York, which I discovered was her first destination after Dante had recovered a phone conversation Wendy had with her from her memories. He mentioned some cryptic shit about never giving Wendy access to any sporting goods, mainly the use of a bat and also the name of a friend of Wendy’s who worked at the New York Times.

Which was exactly where I found myself now, stepping through the glass front of the Times’ building on 620 Eighth Avenue, Manhattan. Doing so with the sole purpose of finding the next piece of the puzzle and discovering