His gaze bored into hers as if he knew who and what she was. "Once Transylvania is in your blood, it never leaves you."
Retta disregarded that. "Tell me, Andrei. Do you know a Viktor Petcu?"
He arched one handsome brow. "And why would you wish to speak to him?"
"I"m an old friend."
"I somehow doubt that, since I know all of his old friends and I would have remembered a woman so beautiful in his past."
Someone tsked.
Retta turned toward the counter to find a woman moving to stand before the old-fashioned ledger that was there. Appearing
around the age of forty, she was dressed in the traditional Romanian peasant blouse and loose skirt. Tall and quite striking, she was someone Retta hadn"t seen in over five hundred years.
Surely it couldn"t be...
"It is not Viktor she wants, Andrei," the woman said, indicating Retta with a tilt of her chin. "She is here for Prince Velkan."
"Raluca?" Retta breathed as she stared in shock at the woman.
She bowed to her. "It is good to have you home again, Princess. Welcome."
Her jaw slack, Retta approached the woman slowly so that she could study her features. She looked only slightly older than she"d been when Retta had last seen her. Only then Raluca had been a servant in Retta"s father"s castle.
"How is this possible?"
The woman glanced to Andrei before she answered. "I am a Were-Hunter, Princess."
Were-Hunter. They were akin to the vampires or Daimons her husband had been created to kill. The Daimons had once been
mortals who"d run afoul of the Greek G.o.d Apollo. A group of them had a.s.sa.s.sinated the G.o.d"s mistress and child. As a result, Apollo had cursed them all to having to drink blood to live and for all of them to die at the tender age of twenty-seven. The only way for them to live longer was to steal human souls. Dark-Hunters had been created by Apollo"s sister Artemis to kill the Daimons and free the human souls before they died.
Several thousand years after that, an ancient king had unknowingly married one of their cursed race. When his wife had decayed on her twenty-seventh birthday, he"d realized that his beloved sons would meet their mother"s fate. To save them, he"d magically merged the souls of animals with their race until he"d found a way to save them. Thus, the Were-Hunters had been created. Able to bend the laws of physics and with highly developed psychic sense, the shape-shifters lived for centuries.
But it was rare for a Were-Hunter to be near a Dark-Hunter, never mind serve one. Since Dark-Hunters were created to kill their Daimon cousins, most Were-Hunters avoided them at all costs.
Most.
Retta looked over her shoulder to Francesca, who was now squirming uncomfortably. A bad feeling went through Retta as she realized that Francesca had befriended her just weeks after she"d fled Romania. They"d known each other almost fifteen years before Francesca had confided the truth of her existence to Retta.
Now she had a suspicion that sickened her.
"Lykos?" Retta asked Raluca. That was the Were-Hunter term for their wolf branch.
"Raluca is my mother," Francesca said quietly. "Andrei and Viktor are my brothers-it"s why I never used a surname. I didn"t
want you to realize I was one of the family."
Retta couldn"t breathe as she stood there with her emotions in turmoil. Anger, hurt, betrayal. They were all there and they each wanted a turn at Raluca and Francesca, but most of all, they wanted Retta to beat her husband. "I see."
"Please, Princess," Raluca said, her bright blue eyes burning with intensity. "We"re only here to help you."
"Then call me another cab and get me back to the airport ASAP."
Francesca shook her head. "We can"t do that."
Retta glared at her. "Fine then. I"ll do it myself." As she moved toward the phone on the desk, Raluca pulled it away.
Retta saw the sympathy in Raluca"s eyes as she cradled the phone to her chest. "I"m truly sorry, but you can"t leave here,
Princess."
"Oh yes, h.e.l.l I can and I am." Retta started for the door, only to have Andrei block her path.
"You are in danger, Princess."
She narrowed her eyes on him. "Not me, buddy. But you are if you don"t move out of my way."
Francesca took a step toward her. "Listen to him, Retta, please."
She turned on Francesca with a hiss. "Don"t you dare start on me. I thought you were my friend."
"I am your friend."
"Bulls.h.i.t! You lied to me. Deceived me. You knew how I felt about Velkan and yet you never once told me that you serve him."
Francesca glared at her. "Yes, Retta. Prince Velkan sent me to watch over you because he was afraid for you to be alone. As
you"ve said repeatedly over the centuries, you were young and naive. You spent the whole of your life behind a convent wall. The last thing he wanted was for you to be hurt again, so I was charged with your care. Is that really a crime after all we"ve been through together?"
"I didn"t need a babysitter. How could you play both sides of the fence when you knew how much I hated him?"
Those blue eyes singed her with sincerity. "I never played you. Okay, so I didn"t mention that he"d sent me to stay with you originally. So what? We are friends."
"Uh-huh. Friends don"t lie to each other."
"What lie?"
"You said you never met him."
"She has never met him," Raluca said quietly. "I am the one who sent my daughter after you at the prince"s request. She was the
one closest to your area when you left here. But Francesca has never met His Highness. Not once."
That made Retta feel better than she wanted to admit, but still it didn"t rectify any of this. They"d all deceived her and she was too tired to play this game anymore. "It doesn"t matter. I"m going home."
Andrei blocked her way again. "You are home, Princess."
"Like h.e.l.l." She feinted to the right, then rushed left, past him.
He caught her in his arms before she could make it to the door.
"I don"t want to hurt you, Andrei, but so help me, I will."
Before he complied, Francesca went to the door and locked it with a key. "You"re not leaving."
"d.a.m.n you!"
"Look, spew at me all you want, but you need to be aware of why I brought you here."
Retta crossed her arms over her chest. "Let me guess. Velkan wants to see me?"
"No," Raluca said, joining them. "The only thing His Highness would like to see in regards to you, Princess, is your
disembowelment."
Now that surprised her. "Since when?"
It was Andrei who answered. "Since about halfway through the sixteenth century when it became obvious that you had no
intention of returning. He"s been cursing your name ever since. Loudly, too, I might add."
Raluca nodded eagerly.
For some reason Retta didn"t want to think about, that actually hurt her feelings. She"d a.s.sumed that all of his attempts to
besmirch her father"s name and reputation had been his way of getting her to contact him. Of course, she"d had no intention of ever doing that since she still wasn"t convinced he hadn"t intended to kill her the night he"d given her his sleeping potion.
"Then why am I here?"
Andrei took a deep breath before he answered. "Because of Stephen Corwin."
She was baffled by the name. How in the world could he fit into this madness? "The investment broker?"
"Among other things," Francesca said. "Remember when I told you I had a weird feeling about him?"
"You have weird feelings all the time. Nine times out of ten, they"re attributable to either pizza or spoiled beer."
Francesca gave her an unamused stare. "Yeah, right. Remember when I told you that his scent bothered me? That I couldn"t place it? Well, I did some checking and it turns out he"s a member of the Order of the Dragon. Sound familiar?"
Retta rolled her eyes. Both her father and grandfather had been members. Their epitaphs of Dracul and Dracula had stemmed
from their membership. "That order ceased to exist not long after Velkan killed my father."
Raluca shook her head. "No, Princess, it didn"t. They merely went underground and wanted the rest of the world to think that. It was a cousin to Mathhias Corvinus who lost his wife to a Daimon. Horrified by the demon who claimed her life and soul, he reestablished the order to purge the world of the undead. They went on a killing spree of Daimons, and he called for his brethren to help him. But they didn"t stop there. They killed our people and countless Dark-Hunters as well. They don"t distinguish between us. To them, one preternatural being is the same as the other and all of us should be exterminated. Even now, centuries later, they hunt us without discrimination, brutally slaughtering all they find."
Retta felt terrible about that, but it still didn"t explain why they wanted her to stay here. "What has this to do with me?" Francesca took a deep breath before she answered. "I think Stephen was sent to kill you."
Retta scowled at her friend. "Are you insane? There"s no way."
"Remember the tattoo on his arm you told me about? The one of a dragon coiled around the cross? It"s their emblem. He"s one of them, Ret, trust me." "Trust you? After all these centuries when you were lying to me? Think again. Stephen wouldn"t hurt me. He"s had ample time to try."
Francesca gave her a deep, meaningful stare. "Are you sure?"
Retta hesitated, then hated herself for it. Stephen had never once given her an indication that he was anything more than an
acquaintance who wanted to be more significant in her life. But since she was still technically married and an immortal, she"d kept him at bay. "Of course I"m sure."