Page 31 of Fangs, Frost, and Folios
The heavy boom seemed to echo in the silent house and Beatrice froze.
The man froze.
Mrs. Dawson’s snore paused, then immediately started up again.
The man twisted out of her grip and rolled away from her, crouching down and scrambling for the knife on the ground.
“I don’t have time for this,” she hissed. “What’s the plan?”
She grabbed for the stranger in black, who knocked a floor lamp into a heavy set of drapes, then hooked her arm around his neck and dug her fingers into his skin, intending to make him talk, but her amnis came on too strong. He slumped in her arms, dead asleep.
“Shit.”
Beatrice closed the closet door, set the lamp back on its base, and kicked the hunting knife under the bed as she dragged the unconscious human out of the room. She’d have to get the knife later.
Mrs. Dawson kept snoring.
She locked the unconscious human in the bathroom, grateful for old doors and skeleton keys that worked from the outside, then hunted down the next human. He was going through a massive linen room next to the bath, tearing through the drawers and cupboards with so much concentration that she came up behind him and put him to sleep in seconds.
That left the mysterious Barnes, Elise, and one more human unaccounted for, along with the two vampires she could hear in the attic overhead.
Were they looking for a safe? A treasure room? Beatrice had a feeling that whatever Lord Mortimer might have taken, it was probably smaller than what these opportunists were thinking. In her experience, most vampires kept their treasure caches small, portable, and easy to hide.
Of course, the cache of treasure had been in a remote region of Central Asia, hardly a place where a vampire would expect humans to stumble on it.
Gold.
Idols.
Ceremonial weapons.
Jewels.
With a description that vague, the treasure could have been the size of a room or as small as an ice chest. Would Lord Mortimer keep something that valuable around the family quarters? Near the bedrooms where his nieces and nephews slept?
She walked to the south wing of the house where Elise was sleeping, but all the bedrooms were empty. Had she heard the intruders and gone downstairs to look for Nick? Were human police already on the way?
A quick scan of the second floor proved no one other than Mrs. Dawson was there, and she no longer heard vampires above her. Where had they gone?
She heard something crash below her.
Rushing down the stairs in the south wing of the house, she raced through a ballroom, a formal parlor, a drawing room, and a smoking room before she managed to find a hallway that she recognized. She flung her senses wide, searching for the vampires she knew had to be lurking on the first floor.
She felt them in minutes, and they were in the worst place imaginable.
The library.
Beatrice rushed into the palace of books, only to freeze when she saw the scene in front of her.
René, bleeding from the throat and held at knifepoint by a tall, male vampire with dark hair, dripping fangs, and a unibrow that defied modern grooming. Another vampire held René’s shoulders from the back, keeping him motionless.
“Beatrice.” René kept his eyes on her. “It seems we have visitors.”
His voice might have been calm, but the rage was seething below the surface.
She wondered why he didn’t simply break free since neither vampire seemed to have a firm hold on him, until she realized that the knife wasn’t at his neck butinit, the tip of the blade likely brushing his spine.
“Everyone stay calm.” She raised both her hands. “Your men are alive upstairs. Everyone is alive down here. No one needs to get hurt.”
