She cringed. IfLuisthought she looked like a mess, then it had to be worse than she could even imagine — and she could imagine a lot, seeing as she could feel the blood drying on her face.
When he came around to open her door, she panicked. “I can’t meet your parents like this!”
“Trust me, they’ve seen worse,” he assured her. This time, he took a minute to tie them together again before he helped her out of the car. Handling her like she was made of spun sugar, he gently but quickly guided her up the stone steps to the grand entrance of the house.
Typing out a code on the panel next to the door, he ushered her inside.
A grand, classical foyer opened up before her, complete with a chandelier, square columns, and a curved staircase. The house didn’t seem overly large or modern in the way the mansion where the Games were held was, but tall, with high ceilings and rich, antique furnishings.
As soon as Luis closed the heavy door behind them, he tangled their fingers together and bellowed, “Ma! Mom! Who’s home? Dad?”
Francesca tensed when a cry erupted from somewhere near the top of the stairs.
At first she couldn’t really understand what she was seeing. A being of pure color and froth popped into view at the banister overlooking the first floor. And then she saw her face.
Round, rosy-cheeked, and smiling from ear to ear, it was the kind of face that belonged on a billboard selling sunscreen or teaching preschoolers their ABCs, not in a vampire’s home.
But she was, and whoever she was, she wasgorgeous.
Dressed in miles of butter yellow gossamer, her bleached hair styled into a fantastical beehive, and wearing enough jewelry to blind passing m-jets, the woman looked like she had just stepped out of a Broadway dressing room.
“Mybaby!”the woman cried, gripping the banister. Not a moment later she turned her head to shriek, “My loves, our oldest son is home! And he’s brought his wife!”
Francesca made an awful squeaking sound deep in her throat. “Wife?”
“Mama gets the different names mixed up, so she just says husband, wife, or partner.” He shrugged.
Giving him a wide-eyed look of incredulity, she breathed, “Do youreallythink that’s what I was asking ab?—”
She swallowed the rest of her sentence when the clatter of a woman running down the stairs interrupted her. Before she could even begin to brace herself, a storm of fabric and sugary perfume came down on them.
Soft arms squeezed Francesca in a tight hug that forced her cheek up against a rather starchy beehive. “Oh, it’s so good to meet you! I can’t believe Luis waited so long to bring you home. I always knew he’d— Oh! Oh, goodness.”
The woman had drawn backward a bit, her hands clasped around Francesca’s arms, and stared into her face with first shock, then distress. Rounding on her son, she demanded, “Luis Felipe Reyes Amauri, what onEarthhappened to this woman?”
“That’s why we’re here, Mama,” he insisted. Luis ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture that was pure stress. “We were attacked in the parking garage of my apartment building. I think Malachi’s men tried to take her again.”
“I heard you pissed off that old snake,” she muttered.
Luis growled, “Felix should’ve had him put down years ago.”
In a sharp tone that was a far cry from the earlier sweetness she exuded, his mother asked Francesca, “Is all this blood yours, sweetie?”
“Um, none of it is,” she answered, wishing the floor would swallow her whole.
Luis raised his eyebrows in a verycan you believe how lucky I amkind of way. “She bit the guy.”
Relief softened his mother’s features once more. Slinging a soft arm around Francesca’s back, she praised, “Oh, fantastic.Good job, sweetie. Now don’t worry at all. This place is locked up tighter than an elf’s asshole. You’re completely safe. Here, let’s get you cleaned up while my son talks to his mom.”
Luis perked up immediately. “Mom’s home?”
“Last I saw her she was in the gym, but she might’ve joined your father in the office.”
His mother watched with only a small quirk of her brow as Luis untied the knots on their wrists before stuffing the rope in his pocket. Saying nothing about it, she shooed her son away like he was a little dog rather than the towering vampire murder machine he really was.
Hugging Francesca close to her side, she soothed, “Oh, I’m just so happy you’re here. Everything will be all right, I promise. I’m Mary, by the way.”
“Um, Frankie Sinclair,” she replied, watching Luis stride away helplessly.