“She disappears when the elixir is being consumed, somehow without alerting them.” He ticked off another finger. “She returns after they are engaged in creating the new vampires.” A third finger. “She alerts the whole house right before we strike.” He dropped his hand. “This has to be part of Vlad’s plan. There’s no way she could’ve snuck around his people, or escaped him, for that matter. It’s not possible. She must have been on their side all along.”
Charity’s hand stopped mid-reach, the material of the mug forgotten. “Are you serious?” she asked, rather calmly given the circumstances. “You not only want me to buy in to all this…insanity, but you think I’m somehow a part of those freaks’ circus? Have you completely lost your mind? None of this can be real…” She blinked at the guys in front of her, then the castle around her, then the gold filaments lazily drifting past the castle windows.
“Vampires are also shifters, in a way,” Roger said, still somehow patient. “They have two forms—a human form, which tends to be more beautiful and faster and stronger than the average human, and a creature form that is stronger and faster still. Someone I know calls that their ‘swamp creature’ form. I’m sure you can see why. You met them in their human form at the beginning of the night, and their swamp creature form toward the end. They were as real as you or me. As real as the chair under your butt, and the table under your arms.”
“That’s all still questionable,” Charity mumbled, tapping the mug. It felt like ceramic.
Charity shook her head and held up her hand. “Seriously, am I in a coma or something?”
“The sooner you admit to your ruse, the faster we can move on,” Devon growled.
“Why? You seem pretty convinced by your little theories,” she spat.
“Enough,” Roger said quietly, nearly under his breath, but Charity’s small hairs stood on end and her skin prickled, as if danger were running directly at her with a grin and red glowing eyes.
Devon’s ordinarily lush lips pressed into a tight white line.
And that was why Roger was an alpha over a large area. He was intensely scary. That made sense.
“Charity, why don’t you walk us through how you got to the party?” Roger said, back to good-natured, as if he hadn’t just scared the room silent.
Charity wasn’t fooled. She still had unpleasant shivers and an insane urge to flee.
Calming herself, she explained how Sam had peer-pressured her into going to that party. Thunder clouds peeked through Roger’s calm eyes when she got to the part about Devon’s goon threatening to kill her. Cocky McCockerson at least had the sense to appear mollified. Finally, her words tapered away as one horrific thought slammed into her.
“What happened to Samantha? And Donnie?”
“While not everyone who was invited to the turning party was actually meant to be turned—some were there for food supply, and thanks to you and us, they’ll mostly be fine and will remember little—Samantha and Donnie were not so fortunate. We believe they were turned.”
“No.” Charity furrowed her brow and shifted in her seat. “No, that can’t be…”
Roger and Devon shared a look that stopped Charity’s heart. Neither commented.
Anger pulsed through her. “If you knew what would happen, why did you let them go to the party?” Charity asked, her voice rising in pitch. “Devon and his friends were just hanging out in the road. They warned us, sure, but it was vague at best. Why didn’t they block the road off? Get more specific?”
“You don’t believe us now, after you’ve seen them,” Devon said. “Do you really think you would’ve turned back if I’d told you not to go because you’d be turned into a vampire?”
“So you let those things kill innocent people? Change them into those, those creatures?”
“We wanted to take out the vampires before they could distribute the drink, but there wasn’t time,” Roger said, compassion sparking in his eyes. He felt for the lost, she could see it. It eased the tightness in her middle, if only a little. “We only found out about the party hours before it started. I couldn’t organize a big enough crew on such short notice, something Vlad, the elder vampire who organized all this, surely knew. We had to go for plan B and try to take out the host when they were at their weakest. You see, when an established vampire gives blood to a new vamp, they have to give it in