“Let go, I’m not going to kill Maximus,” I said shortly.

“Really?” Ian eyed my whip, which crackled and curled with sizzling energy. “Tell that to your sparking little friend.”

“I’m not going to kill him,” I repeated, and Ian finally let go. Yes, moments ago, I would’ve sliced Maximus’s arm or leg off, but the surge of rage that had made me want to dismember him had drained away. Now I felt exhausted, as if losing that rabid anger caused all my other strength to abandon me, too.

My sister was in the in-between state of death and vampiric rebirth. Nothing I did to Maximus would change that, and now we had another problem on top of the cluster fuck that was today. In the next few to several hours, Gretchen would rise. In her newborn-vampire, blood-crazed state, she’d kill anyone with a pulse, be it man, woman, or child. We had to get her as far away from humans as possible, and we also had to have blood bags available to satiate her hunger. Lots and lots of blood bags.

Later, I’d give Maximus a more thorough piece of my mind over what he’d done and why, but first things first. “Do any of you know if there’s a vampire safe house near here?”

“Vlad has a place in Raleigh,” Maximus stated.

Ian glanced at Gretchen’s prone form. “Cutting it close. Raleigh’s five hours away in good traffic. I know a safe house that’s less than three hours from here, and it’s very remote.”

“You know it, but it’s not yours?” I liked the closer distance, but Ian hadn’t gotten a warm welcome from anywhere he’d been and we couldn’t risk getting kicked out or worse.

He flashed me a smile, guessing the reason behind my question. “It’s empty. A mate of mine went through a dreadfully boring phase where he wanted to be all alone with his wife. Now they’re overseas and I have a key to their mountain hideout.”

That sounded perfect, but . . . “You’re sure they’re not there?”

He grunted with grim amusement. “Bet your life on it.”

“I want to go with you,” Leotie said, speaking for the first time since I’d come back.

I turned to her with the word no on my lips. I might be putting my feelings aside for the momentary greater good, but I was still very upset with all of them. Maximus had deliberately changed Gretchen when I wasn’t there to stop him, and Leotie, like Ian, had done nothing to dissuade him. Only Marty had come after me in a vain attempt to stop it.

But if I were focusing on the greater good . . . “Sure,” I said, glad that I didn’t sound surly. “I want to talk more about our ancestors, anyway.”

I was going to attempt linking to Mircea as soon as Gretchen was safely secured and I had some uninterrupted time, but if that didn’t work, Leotie was almost a thousand years old and she knew more about magic than anyone I’d met before her.

Maybe, just maybe, she also knew where we could find some necromancers.

Chapter 25

Under other circumstances, I would have loved the cabin Ian brought us to. It was on top of a small mountain, and in addition to its sweeping, long-range views, it also had a helicopter pad and hangar. How convenient, if we had one of those. The log cabin blended in beautifully with its wooded surroundings, and the floor-to-ceiling windows showed off the majesty of the Blue Ridge Mountains beyond. It also had the exact number of bedrooms we needed so that no one had to double up. More importantly, it had a basement. A special one.

Vlad had taught me the advantage of building a home on top of a rock foundation. Nothing beat tons and tons of solid stone if you needed to vampire-proof a place. This house lacked the huge, underground dungeon that Vlad’s castle had, but it did have a small, underground room surrounded by enough solid rock to secure even a bloodthirsty new vampire.

That’s where Maximus and I put Gretchen. Maximus set her down on the single pallet the narrow room contained. I didn’t speak as he then secured Gretchen’s wrists and ankles to the shackles the room also came equipped with. I hated seeing Gretchen chained like an animal, yet it was the safest choice.

Ian had left to round up blood bags since he knew the area and we didn’t. I fervently hoped that he got back before Gretchen rose. I remembered all too well the agonizing, all-consuming hunger I’d woken up with as a brand-new vampire, and I’d only had to wait seconds before my first liquid meal. If Gretchen had to wait hours before hers . . . well, we’d need to have her chained. Otherwise, she’d mindlessly try to bash her way out of this chamber no matter if she broke every bone in her body.

When Maximus was finished, he sat down on the floor and handed me the keys to both the underground room and Gretchen’s shackles. “You need to lock me in here with her, Leila.”

“I’m staying,” I said at once.

He gave me a jaded look. “Gretchen will be worse than rabid when she wakes and these chains aren’t as strong as I’d prefer.”

“She’s my sister,” I said quietly. “I want to be here for her.”

He grunted. “I get that, but you wouldn’t be helping. When Gretchen goes into a feeding frenzy, I can’t worry about restraining her and protecting you. Besides, you must be exhausted. You should catch a few hours of rest while you can.”

I wanted to argue more, but Maximus was only reminding me of what I already knew. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was abandoning my sister, even if Maximus was right. I would only be in the way when Gretchen went rabid, and she would. If she escaped her chains, Maximus had the brute strength to handle her without harming her or getting harmed himself. My methods of self-defense could kill her, and I’d had two near-blowups with my voltage today already. No point in tempting a third.