a wink and pulled out the seat closest to Brian. She leaned one elbow on the table and stared at him intently. “Feeling chatty yet?”
Brian cut her a cold glare. “Piss off, witch.”
Rita pouted. “Now you’re just being rude.”
“Have you ever done this before?” I asked her.
“Once or twice.”
“And it worked?”
She grinned. “Oh yeah.”
Brian, unassuming and a touch nervous when he first arrived, now stared hatefully at Rita. “You should let me go. My mistress won’t be happy if you hurt me.”
“Oh really? Who’s this mistress then?”
His eyes narrowed, and he turned his face away from her. Rita clapped her hands happily.
“See? It’s starting to work already. Come on, Brian, tell me who she is. You know you want to.”
Brian looked like he was about to spit in Rita’s face, but she held her hand up again and his jaw stilled. “Don’t do that. It’s no way for a gentleman to behave.” She swept her hand downward, and I watched Brian swallow the saliva back down his throat. Had Rita always been this good at magic? I knew she was brilliant before, but it seemed to be becoming even more effortless to her as the days went by. When Brian turned his head again, I caught a small glimpse of a wound on his neck.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered, getting up and walking over to see if my suspicions were correct. I took hold of his collar and pulled it down, revealing several fresh bite marks on his neck and a few old ones that left scars. They reminded me of the ones I’d seen on Amanda when I’d first come back to Tribane. I glanced at Rita. “I think he’s a vampire blood donor.”
“Oh,” she said like she didn’t expect that. “I thought it might have been Theodore or Marcel who sent him.”
“Not judging from the bite marks all over his neck.”
Brian’s whole face tensed up, as though he was trying very hard to keep from talking. A vein in his forehead bulged with the effort.
“My mistress sent me here to spy on you,” he blurted then, the words spilling from his mouth involuntarily.
“Oh yeah? And who’s your mistress?”
Brian’s face tensed again, but no matter how much he tried to stay quiet, he couldn’t fight Rita’s magic.
“Eliza Whitfield, daughter of the vampire governor, Jeremy Whitfield,” he sputtered the words out against his will, before swearing, “Fuck!”
A shiver of fear ran through me. I’d hoped Eliza had forgotten about me, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Why did she send you here?”
“She told me to get as much information as I could about your routine and to find out a time of the day when she would be alone.” He nodded his head to me.
“When Tegan’s alone? Why?”
“Because she wants me to take her and bring her across the river to be killed in front of all the vampires. She wants to make an example of her for deceiving them.”
Rita reached out and slapped Brian hard across the face. She was absolutely fuming, even more so than me and I was the one Eliza wanted to murder.
“What kind of person are you, allowing vampires to use you to kill an innocent woman?” she spat at him harshly.
I grabbed her hand as she moved to strike him again. “Hey, Rita, it’s okay. You don’t need to hit him. It’s not his fault. He’s just an addict. I remember when Amanda was like him. She’d have done anything just to have Lucas feed from her one more time.”
Rita’s eyes cut to me, and for a split second, they seemed almost black. I startled and let go of her hand. She shook her head and moved away from Brian. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” she said, a perturbed look on her face. I was perturbed, too. I mean, yes, Brian was a spy, but her anger towards him seemed displaced. She’d been amused to watch her truth spell take hold but turned furious almost instantly.
“So, you’re a blood donor of Eliza’s?” I said as Rita stepped away for a moment. “Tell me, what else are the vampires planning? They’ve been very quiet.”
Brian let out a derisive snort. “How would I know? Eliza only uses me for my blood and my body. Occasionally she gives me daytime tasks—like this one.”
Rita stood, that dark look returning to her eyes. “If you don’t know, then you’re no use to us. I’ll give you the poison now I suppose.” She walked over