She turned and looked at him, straight in the eye, feeling scorned, and her sadness hardened to resolve.
“I won’t promise you anything.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kyle stood opposite Napoleon in the smal side chamber of the Pantheon. After his dramatic entrance, Kyle had marched Napoleon off, fuming like a chided schoolboy, surrounded by a dozen of his closest fol owers.
Napoleon’s men had wanted to come inside, but Kyle had ordered them to wait outside. They looked to Napoleon for approval, and he grudgingly lowered his gaze and nodded, clearly embarrassed he was no longer the one giving orders.
One of them wouldn’t budge, though, so Kyle walked up to him, picked him up, and threw him with such force that he went flying through the air, out the door, and into the hal way.
“Wait outside,” he said to the others.
They abruptly turned, and hurried out, leaving just Kyle and Napoleon facing each other in the smal chamber.
“You needn’t always be so dramatic,” Napoleon fumed. “I would have fol owed you here if you had only asked. You needn’t order around my people.”
“Your people?” Kyle asked. “The only reason you are in power is because of me. I’l do anything I wish. Including stripping you from power.”
Napoleon final y softened, as if ready to take orders from his commander.
“Why are you here?” Napoleon asked. “I thought you were waging your war in New York?”
“I was,” Kyle snapped. “But a girl got in the way. A very annoying girl named Caitlin. And her boyfriend, Caleb. And her brother, Sam. The three of them—they have ruined my plans. I’ve come back myself to take care of them al .”
“So?” Napoleon snapped. “What do you want from me?”
“They’ve come to your time and place, unluckily for you,”
Kyle said. “You and your men are going to help me find and kil them.”
Napoleon stared back, indignant. “You have chosen the worst possible time. We have no time for such distractions now. We are in the midst of a revolution. My men—I can barely control them.
They want a revolution. They want democracy. They want to be entirely out in the open.”
“Perfect,” Kyle said. “We wil give them the war they want.
We wil attack Versail es.”
Napoleon raised his eyebrows.
“Impossible,” he snapped. “We’d never win. They have ranks of vampire soldiers protecting the place. Aiden’s people. My men could not possibly win an attack.”
“That’s because you’re not as good a strategist as I,” Kyle retorted. “We wil attack. And we wil defeat them. For that is where Caitlin’s people wil be. And once I kil them, I can kil her. But I agree, that we wil not attack head on. Instead, we wil create a diversion.”
“What diversion?” Napoleon asked, impatiently.
“The savage seven,” Kyle stated.
Napoleon’s eyes opened wide.
“Impossible. They’ve been locked up for centuries. No.
That’s way too dangerous.”
“That’s precisely why we’re going to break them free,” Kyle answered with a smile.
Napoleon paced, thinking.
Kyle knew it would be a shock. It was an unexpected plan.
Which was precisely why it was bril iant. The savage seven, he knew, were some of the most vicious vampires to ever walk the earth.
They had not belonged to any coven, and they had been captured in Paris centuries before. They sat rotting in jail, in the bowels of the Bastil e. If unleashed, they could wreak endless havoc. Exactly what he needed.
But they were also a liability: they were just as likely to turn on Kyle and his men as they would on the humans. They were machines of destruction. It had taken hundreds of years to catch them, and both the vampire and the human races were happy to keep them where they were.
Which was precisely why Kyle would free them. They would never expect it. And it could create exactly the sort of diversion he needed.
“We wil free them,” Kyle commanded. “And then we wil attack. And your people can also have their revolution.”
“Even if we wanted to,” Napoleon said, “it is impossible.
They are deep in the Bastil e. There are legions of guards surrounding them. And I hear they are contained in a special cel , unbreakable.
It’s better for us to wait,” he added. “I have infiltrators in Versail es. A spy, who reports back to me.
She wil tel me al I know. We just need to wait for her.”
“I have an infiltrator there, too,” Kyle said.
“Who is yours?” Napoleon asked.
“Who is yours?” Kyle asked.
Neither answered, both distrusting of each other.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kyle final y said. “We wil not wait for them. We never wait. We initiate.
This is our war to begin.”
“I don’t like it,” Napoleon said.
Kyle stepped forward, bearing down on him with his ful height.
“Wel then I’m glad you’re not the one in charge.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As Caitlin walked through the fields, heading back alone to Caleb’s castle, she felt the world fal ing out from under her.
She was in a daze, barely paying attention to where she was going. She barely glanced at the sea, barely heard the crashing of the waves, barely noticed that Ruth skipped alongside her, craving attention. Caitlin was oblivious to it al . Once again, she had let her guard down, had been ready for love, and had let Caleb back in. Once again, her heart had been broken.
She was so mad at herself. How many times would she al ow herself to become vulnerable, only to be crushed again? When would she ever learn her lesson?
And how had it al fal en apart so quickly?
Caitlin wondered why her life could never just be normal.
She felt as if she were always ascending to the highest peaks, only to be brought down to the lowest depths. Al she wanted was a normal life, a steady relationship, a place to cal home. And she had thought she’d final y found it.
This place had seemed so imperturbable; it had felt as if nothing from the outside world could ever reach them here.
And then, like lightning in a clear blue sky, that awful bird had appeared, carrying that letter.
From Sera. In her awful handwriting. It was so unfair. It made her want to scream at the world.