Doubtless, she had been served a heavy and unforeseen dose of extreme unpleasantness, the very thing I had always strived to protect her from. And, we were merely talking about Dracul’s henchmen. If he had sent his vampires to Rome instead, or if he had handled the visitation himself, it might’ve turned out far worse.“Beatrice, my love, are you all right?”“I’m not sure,” she said, and I heard a soft rustling near where her voice emanated. Picturing dinginess similar to what Roderick and I found ourselves immersed in, I knew it could be no better. “They treated us roughly after first telling us we needed to cooperate or never see you alive again. They said you were here, and that Dracul would torture you to death if we didn’t come along peacefully.”It broke my heart to hear her like this, and I resisted a powerful wave of incensed rage churning up from my solar plexus. An indignant wrath, I should say, toward whoever specifically had lied about Roderick’s and my whereabouts.
