I glance over at Magnus, my own heart suddenly feeling a little broken. I had no idea, that night he bit me, how much he’d been looking forward to having a blood mate of his own. And then I went and completely rejected him, demanding to be changed back into a human and treating him like a vile monster who tried to steal my soul. When all along, all he wanted was my heart.
Charity leads me over to the table, where Magnus is swishing around a goblet of wine. He looks up at me, his beautiful sapphire eyes lighting up as they fall upon me.
“You’re back,” he says, sounding surprised. “I thought when you left last night…before we could practice…”
“I know, I’m sorry,” I say, pulling over a nearby chair. “I didn’t mean to abandon you. There was just something I had to work out.”
“I hope you were successful?”
I sit down in the chair, drawing in a breath. “Look, can we talk?” I glance over at Rachel and Charity, watching with rapt eyes. “Alone?”
Magnus nods, then gestures to the donor chicks to make themselves scarce. Charity gives me a secretive wink while Rachel throws me a suspicious glare. I sigh and turn back to Magnus.
“So,” I say, not sure where to begin. “I wanted to—”
Magnus raises a hand to stop me. “It’s all right,” he says. “I know what you’re going to say and I understand.”
“Um, I don’t think you—”
“I felt you waffling at the church. And then you ran out before the practice bite.” He gives me a sad smile. “I know you don’t want to become a vampire. Not really, anyway. And I want you to know that that’s okay with me. I mean, not that I don’t want you. I’ve been waiting for a blood mate for some time now, after all. But I don’t want you doing something you’re going to regret. As I said last night, this is eternity we’re talking about.” He reaches out and places a hand on top of my own, sending a chill down my spine. “I will inform the council of your decision and they will send you a withdrawal form in the mail. You should expect to receive it between one to three—”
“Wait, wait, wait!” I cry. “That’s not what I came here to say at all!”
Magnus drops my hand. He looks at me with a hope in his eyes that nearly kills me. “It’s not?” he asks in a hoarse voice, as if he can scarcely believe his luck.
Gah. This is so hard. I mean, I don’t want to give him false hope. But at the same time, we’ve got much more important things to discuss before we go down that whole blood-mate road. And if I tell him I’m backing out now, he’ll never listen to what I have to say.
“No, I’m still planning on going through with it,” I say, my lie tasting like sawdust in my mouth. I think back to all the times I yelled at him for lying to me. He’d tell me it was for my own good, something I could never understand. Now I think I’m starting to. “But right now we have more pressing matters.” I lean over the table, lowering my voice to a whisper. “Your Master’s life is in danger.”
Magnus jerks to attention. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. Your Master. Lucifent. The little-boy vampire who sired you.” I wonder how much I should reveal that I know. I want him to believe me, but I don’t want him to get suspicious because I know too much. “There’s a contract out on his head from Slayer Inc. One month from today they plan to send Bertha the Vampire Slayer into Blood Coven headquarters with a commission to dust him with her stake.”
I pause, not daring to breathe as I wait for his reaction. Will he believe me? Everything we’ve planned up until this point in our little quest to save the future depends on it.
For a moment, Magnus is silent. Then he speaks. “How did you come across this information?” he asks quietly.
I bite my lower lip. How indeed? Obviously I can’t tell him I’m a time traveler. That would just bring up too many unanswerable questions. But what else can I say? How would I know this information? “I can’t reveal my sources,” I say at last, deciding to plead the fifth. “But I can assure you the threat is very real.”
Magnus frowns, staring down into his glass of wine. I can almost see the thoughts whirling around in his head like a prairie tornado. He wants to believe me, even though he thinks what I’m saying is completely absurd.
“Look, I’m going to be a member of the Blood Coven soon,” I remind him. “And the last thing I want is for something to happen to our fearless leader before I even get a chance to join.” I look at him pleadingly. Silently begging him to believe me.
He pushes back his chair abruptly, rising to his feet. “Come.”
“Um, what?” I squint up at him, confused. Not exactly the reaction I was expecting. “Come where?”
“Lucifent must be informed of this threat,” Magnus says. “I will bring you to him so you can tell him what you know.”
Wait, he wants me to tell him? “Oh. I don’t know if that’s such a good idea…” I stammer. After all, though I’d only met the Blood Coven Master once, mere minutes before his death, let’s just say he wasn’t as cuddly or cute as he appears to be. In fact, now that I think about it, he was kind of mean. “Can’t you just, you know, warn him yourself?” In my head I can hear Rayne calling me a wimp, but I push the thought from my mind.
“I could,” Magnus replies. “But I’m guessing he’d prefer to hear about his impending demise straight from the source.”