“Fine,” was all I said. “Text me if you need anything, and let me know when she wakes up.”

I leaned down and kissed my sister’s forehead. Her flesh was now cooler than mine and she no longer gave off the low energy field all humans had. For all intents and purposes, she was dead, and Maximus had done this to her. All at once, I understood my father’s anger at Vlad for changing me. It might be irrational because both Gretchen and I had asked for this, yet the urge to punish the person who’d killed—even temporarily—someone you loved was as strong as it was unreasonable.

Once back upstairs, I grabbed my suitcase and went looking for a bedroom that hadn’t already been claimed. As it turned out, they’d left me the master suite on the top floor, and I eyed the comfy-looking bed almost lustfully.

I might have built up my fortitude so that dawn no longer knocked me unconscious, but I was still exhausted. Daylight made all of our kind tired. That’s how the rumor that vampires couldn’t go out in the sun got started. My being a mere half a year undead only made the weariness that much worse.

“I’m taking a nap,” I called down to Marty and Leotie, then closed the bedroom door. But instead of crawling into the king-sized bed like I wanted to, I sat on the floor in front of it. I had a little time where I wouldn’t be interrupted, so I’d try reconnecting to Mircea.

I was about to close my eyes to increase my concentration when a photo on the nearby nightstand caught my eye. It showed a beautiful redhead with her arms around an equally attractive man. They both looked so happy and perfect, the picture could have come with the frame, but I recognized them. For starters, they were at my wedding. More importantly, the redhead had helped Vlad bust me out of Szilagyi’s prison a few months ago.

Could Bones and Cat be the owners of this house? I looked around, spying another photo of them on the opposite nightstand. Must be. How ironic that they were the friends Ian had referred to. He truly ran in varied circles.

Then I pushed that out of my mind and refocused on Mircea. I didn’t have anything of his to touch while I tried linking to him, but I hadn’t needed his essence imprint when I’d reached him earlier. Maybe the spell that bound me to Mircea was enough of a link. It made sense; I didn’t need Vlad’s essence imprint to reach him psychically, either. My deepest tie to Vlad came from the blood he’d given me to raise me as a vampire.

If the same were true with the spell binding me to Mircea, all I had to do to reach him was concentrate on him personally. I cast my mind back to the brief moments I’d spent with Mircea, trying to summon up a picture of him in my mind.

He didn’t look like the most dangerous sorcerer you’d ever meet. Mircea might even have been a couple years younger than Gretchen when he was changed. He also had a cockiness that probably came from lots and lots of women fawning over him. Mircea’s biological father had been called Radu the Handsome, and according to Vlad, Mircea was the spitting image of him. Mircea’s too-pretty face was set off by inky black curls and copper-colored eyes that would have been identical to Vlad’s, if their irises also had emerald rings around them.

But they didn’t, and that was the least of their dissimilarities. Sure, both Vlad and Mircea could be brutal and mercurial, but Vlad always had a good reason for his actions. Mircea was cruel for cruelty’s sake. I’d spent less than an hour in his presence, yet it had been enough to show me that there was something permanently broken inside him. Despite centuries of war, death, power struggles, betrayals, and loss, Vlad had managed to keep both his heart and soul intact—

And I obviously missed him since I was now thinking more about him than Mircea. I gritted my teeth and tried again, forcing everyone else from my mind. Come on, Mircea. I know you’re out there. Let me find you.

I sat that way until Ian came back with the blood bags over an hour later. Then I went downstairs and opened the stone cell to hand them off to Maximus. Gretchen still hadn’t woken up, thank God, so after giving Maximus the bags, I sealed them back in. Ian left again, saying he had to go to another hospital farther away to get more blood. That was fine with me because I wanted to get back to my attempts to reach Mircea. It had taken me a long time to reach Vlad only using our inner tie, but I’d done it. I’d do it again with Mircea, now that I knew I could.

I was deep into my second attempt when my cell phone rang. My eyes snapped open, and I was surprised to see it was now completely dark outside. I’d been concentrating so hard that hours must have slipped by. This was probably Maximus calling to say that Gretchen had risen. But when I put my current-repelling glove back on my right hand to answer my cell, I didn’t see Maximus’s name over the number on the screen. It was Vlad’s.

“Um, hi.” The inane greeting was ridiculous, but what else could I say? I sure as hell couldn’t ask how his day had gone.

“The hotel e-mailed,” he said, his flat, impassive tone telling me nothing of what he was feeling. “All of you checked out this morning instead of tomorrow. Why?”

I didn’t want to talk about our earlier-than-anticipated checkout, and I couldn’t imagine that he really did, either. All I wanted to do was ask about Samir, but I didn’t. If Vlad was finally returning my calls, then he’d already killed him. Period. My throat tightened and I fought to keep the evidence of that from showing in my voice. I was so angry at him for everything he’d done to thwart me from trying to save Samir, and yet I didn’t want him to hear my burgeoning tears. He had to be in torment, too, even if he did sound rigidly cold.