“Gerald?” I pause. “Or Harold? I never could remember.”
“Protection.” She lifts her chin like she’s daring me to comment. “You’ll need protection too. There aren’t many of us.”
So the nightmare won’t ever end.
“Wouldn’t you prefer to hold knowledge close?”
“You’re pushing for this pretty hard.”
“And if you knew what I know, you’d push too,” she says. “Brides need to look out for each other. Most vampires haven’t figured out yet that they can’t manipulate our memories.”
I snort. “And what about Callie?”
“The odds of Callie being a Bride are small,” she says gently. “One in thousands.”
“But you found me.” I shake my head.
“Oh no, darling. I suspected. But unless a Bride is near a complete Coven, she may never know.”
“These rules are bullshit.”
Her laugh echoes around Philadelphia.
“Of course they are.” She smiles, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. “But you should get to know them.”
“They’ll never stop?” I ask, nausea building inside me.
“Never. Once a Bride is found, well… usually a Coven tries to keep them to themselves. If they cannot, then it’s…”
“Open season?”
“Well, yes.” She drops her head and stares through my soul. “Decide quickly. They’ll know by morning.”
Not long ago a vampire on this same rooftop asked me to be his Bride. I said no. Walking away was the right answer then.
I don’t think it is the right answer now.
Epilogue
“Ms. Astaroth.”A gentle voice from my left. An older gentleman. He reminds me of the grandfather I never had but drew fantasies over. “We will be descending within the next half hour.”
“Thank you.” I force myself to look at him. To meet his gentle gaze and smile.
“You should eat before we land,” he says it to my window, not to me. “Long flights have a way of catching up to a person.”
He also reminds me of George at the front entrance of the Penn. The same trained warmth. The same eyes that miss nothing. I understand now that the kind older men in my life have not been random.
He nods and walks off. The window and I are alone again.
Out the window the vast blue ocean stretches to the horizon. Eighteen hours in the air. I have not slept. I have eaten what the man with the gentle voice put in front of me because not eating would have made Judy worry and I don’t need Judy worrying about me right now.
The clothes I am wearing are not mine. The Ellenburgs had them waiting on the plane.
I took the job. Obviously. I’d be a fool not to.
And Angela was in my ear the whole time reminding me that no is a complete sentence.
The other voice—the one telling me there are a million ways to live if I only said yes—that voice is not Angela. I know this. Angela said she chose her life. She regretted it. The voice telling me to eventually say yes is something else wearing Angela’s voice.