Page 19 of Trapped for Her Blood
“Why are the others down here?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Don’t know everyone’s story. Stopped caring decades ago, but everyone down here didsomethingto piss off that bitch, or has something on her she didn’t want discovered.”
Does she mean Octavia? “Are you referring to the CEO?”
“If you call her that.” Gracen frowns. “You know the bitch stole that job.”
I never fully understood how Octavia’s rapid rise at DEFTA happened. When I first met her, she was a baby vampire, the Progeny of the previous CEO, and employed as one of his assistants. Back then, she certainly did not possess the kind of powers she does now.
Her interest in my research was flattering and I took her under my wing for a while, but when I returned from a lengthy business trip to Romania, I found the former CEO had died during my absence and Octavia now held his position.
Since she had also taken mates, I always assumed that one of them possessed the power of the Ancients. But frankly I didn’t care. Especially since, as CEO, she gave me access to everything I wanted to continue my research, encouraged me.
“Bitch killed the real CEO.” Gracen’s eyes narrow, so full of hatred I feel it wafting toward me like a toxic cloud.
Gracen’s claim seems unlikely. Vampircide carries a minimum life sentence. And if someone in such a high position as the DEFTA CEO had been murdered, a thorough investigation would have uncovered his killer.
No. The former CEO had lived a very long life, and all vampires eventually decide that their time is up. “How did she get away with such a crime?”
Gracen’s eyes narrow. “Bitch has someone—or something—truly evil on her side.”
Gracen is starting to sound paranoid. Perhaps her accusations of evil are the real reason she ended up down here?
But no…DEFTA has ways to deal with vampiric mental illness, and it is starting to seem as if I’m not the only one trapped down here because I angered Octavia.
“What do you mean by evil?” I might as well explore Gracen’s theories, however absurd.
She rubs her arms as if a shiver has traced through her. “I don’t know what it was, but I felt it. She must have a demon under her command. Something malevolent that can steal a vampire’s powers and make them obey her.”
She must be referring to whatever power one of her mates uses to help her… but I could never ascertain the source of Octavia’s power, and never felt anything like Gracen is describing myself.
“Explain further how you came to be down here.”
Gracen turns toward me. “Bitch wanted my man.” Her chin rises. “Antonio and I were in love, but she did something to him. Forced him to leave me for her. Forced him to become one of her mates.”
Her eyes are so full of pain and hatred, and I turn away from her, uncomfortable with the veracity in her expression. She might be insane, but she believes what she’s telling me. And if she’s right, Octavia is not only operating outside the bounds of vampiric law, but using unauthorized powers to do it.
But while I concede that Octavia’s rise to the CEO’s office was unusual, and that she commands an unusual amount of loyalty and obedience from most of the DEFTA members and staff, she has no such control over me.
Does she?
I think of all I’ve told her about my research, things I never tell anyone else. But I told her many of those details long before she was CEO.
“How long have you been down here?” I ask Gracen.
“Twenty thousand, three hundred and forty-two days.” She shrugs. “More or less.”
“More or less…” I nod, grinning at the irony of her phrasing. That means she’s been down here nearly sixty years. Her precision is impressive, belying my theory of her madness. And that timing does line up with Octavia taking her first and most powerful mate.
“And the others down here? How long has this place existed?”
“Don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I was one of the first, but some were here before me.”
“Which ones? What are their names?”
“Don’t know them all for sure.” She shrugs one shoulder. “But definitely Psycho and the bear.”
“There really is a bear?” Ember mentioned that.
