She saw that red-eyed gaze flick past her and toward her bedroom door.

She shook her head and, reaching up to grab twin handfuls of his white shirtfront, pulled him down beside her onto the bed.

“You know I can’t go,” Lucien said, still looking toward the bedroom door.

“Yes, you can,” Meena said, shaking her head. She continued to cling to his shirtfront. “Why can’t you?”

His gaze turned back toward her, the red dying down a little, thankfully. “You know why, Meena.”

What was he talking about? He couldn’t possibly mean…there wasn’t any way he could-

“I can’t go because I’m in love with you, Meena,” he said in his deep voice. He reached up to curl his hands around hers. “I told you. You have slain the dragon.”

He was in love with her? Lucien Antonescu was in love with her?

Just a few hours earlier, this news would have made her the happiest girl in the world.

But now…

Now she knew he wasn’t just Lucien Antonescu, professor of Eastern European history.

He was the prince of darkness.

He went on in the same deep, ragged voice, still holding her hands. “But you’re hiding something from me, Meena. And it’s not just a Palatine guard in your living room. I’ve known since the moment I met you. Something that you hide from everyone-”

“I’m hiding something?” She knew exactly what he was talking about, of course. But she lied automatically. Because she always did.

“Yes, you,” he said. Now his hands moved to grip her shoulders. “I know. I should never have thought I could deceive you, of all people. But you know I was as honest with you as I could be without…terrifying you. But you…you weren’t honest with me, either. There’s something about you. Ever since we…were together-I…I…”

“You what?” Meena asked. Her heart was thumping. She knew she was taking an enormous risk letting him into her room-let alone into her heart. At any moment, Alaric might come bursting in, bringing Jon running after him. After that, if the worst happened, it would all be her fault…

By letting him into her room, she was essentially doing what he’d just confessed to doing, all those years with his father and brother…committing murder.

What was she doing?

“Ever since I left you this morning,” Lucien said, “I’ve had the oddest sensation that I know how almost every human I’ve come into contact with is…is going to die. And not, whatever you might think of me, by my own hands.”

Meena stared up at him. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I’m sure the man in your living room told you some very colorful things about me.” Lucien went on. “A good many of them might even be true. I’ve been what I am for a very long time.” He was obviously choosing his words with care. “But I’ve never, ever experienced anything like this. Not until…well, being with you. Would you care to tell me what, exactly, is going on? I think it has something to do with this secret of yours. The thing that you’re hiding. What makes it impossible for me to read your mind fully. And what makes you identify so strongly with Joan of Arc, who heard voices. Because that’s what I feel like I’m doing. Hearing voices.”

In the next room, she heard a stereophonic car crash. The Fast and the Furious was pounding its way to a metal-crunching crescendo.

“It’s me,” she said. She heaved a tearful sigh.

His grip on her tightened.

Not very gently, either.

“What are you talking about?” he rasped.

“You drank my blood,” she reminded him.

“Not a lot, so it’ll probably go away after your next feeding. This should teach you to be more careful. You are what you eat, you know.”

Chapter Forty-three

2:00 A.M. EST, Saturday, April 17

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11B

New York, New York

Lucien stared down at her. Her face was a pale, resolute moon beneath his.

How must his own look to her? he wondered. A mask of shock.

“You can tell,” he murmured, trying to make sure he understood her correctly, “how everyone is going to die?”

“Well, not everyone,” Meena said. “Obviously not you. Since you’re already dead.”

He had hold of both her arms, and he didn’t let go or loosen his grip on her. He just kept staring down at her.

“That’s why you have to go,” Meena said in her husky voice. “I know you’re going to kill the guard. The one from the Vatican. And also Jon.”

On the word Jon, her voice broke.

Lucien felt as if the roll of thunder that sounded just then had come from somewhere deep within him. He shook his head, trying to shake the truth of her words from his mind, like the tiny rain droplets that were still clinging to the ends of his hair.

“No,” he said. “Meena, I wouldn’t. I haven’t killed a human in centuries, and you have to know, I would never kill your brother or anyone you loved.”

Despite the darkness in her bedroom, he saw the tears at the corners of her eyes, shining like diamonds. “Except that you’re going to,” she said simply.

“Meena,” he said. His heart, which for so many years he’d suspected had died within him, along with his soul, was finally coming back to life. “What you see…your visions…they don’t always come true. Do they?” He thought of the boy whose keys he’d taken away earlier in the evening.

“No.” Meena lifted a wrist and scrubbed at her streaming eyes. “Not if I warn people. And they do something about it. But you’re a vampire, Lucien. You’re not just any vampire. Apparently, you’re the ruler of all vampires, the prince of darkness. I’m really supposed to just…trust that you’re not going to do anything to this guy? Or to my brother? Not even in self-defense? Because they both really want to kill you. Alaric Wulf’s got a really big sword, and-”

Lucien released his hold on her shoulders then. But only to pull her close and rest his cheek against her hair.

“Shhh…,” he said. “Then what you saw is just one possible future.”

“Unless something changes,” Meena said, pushing him away.

“And what needs to change is your being here. And you should probably tell Mary Lou and Emil to go, as well. Because the Palatine is onto them, too. And I’m really not trying to be prejudiced against…well, what you are. Because God knows I have my own problems with people thinking I’m this awful person just because I have this sort of…obsession with death. But they do call you the prince of darkness. And that tends to suggest that you’re evil and so not very trustwor-”

“I’m not evil,” he ground out. Then he reconsidered. “Well, not anymore.”

“I believe the words anointer of all that is unholy were used in reference to you,” Meena said. “Maybe I’m wrong, but to me, that doesn’t suggest anything good.”

“The Palatine are hardly unbiased where I’m concerned,” Lucien said wryly. “But I’ve worked hard since rising to my position to bring about a new, enlightened age to my people, to protect both their interests and those of humanity.”

“I saw a photo,” Meena said, “of a Palatine guard with half his face eaten off. Alaric”-she nodded her head toward the bedroom wall-

“said it was from a vampire attack.”

Lucien nodded, his shoulders drooping. Alaric. Alaric Wulf.

“Yes. I know of this man. And,” he added, unable to keep his shock that all of this was happening from showing, “his partner. That was the Dracul who attacked them.”

“Was it the…Dracul”-she said the word like it was distasteful to her-“who attacked us outside St. George’s the other night?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Not us, though. Me. They were after me. You were never in any danger.”

Meena let out a small, mirthless laugh. “Well, you weren’t in any danger while I was there,” Lucien said, amending his statement.

“And is it the Dracul who are murdering those girls?” Meena asked.