Chapter 77

“Isn’t that… Sibyl of the Red Moon Pack?” I asked. What the hell was she still doing here? Candido had banished her days ago.

“It is,” he said lightly. “The king banished her from his territory for assaulting his ward… But what else do you see?”

Not much. I didn’t recognize the building, but a faint glimmering scrip above the door caught my eye. It was the same script as the script in the vampire book.

“It looks like the writing that was on the painting,” I said. “That means it’s related to vampires, right?”

“Come to the haven of the children of the night,” Armageddon said softly. “It’s used to mark safe spaces. Whether the spa knows that they’re in one of those buildings, I don’t know, but it almost doesn’t matter.”

My heart lurched, “You can read it? Without blood?”

“What do you mean without blood?” He asked.

I winced. “I… found a book full of that script, but it’s only legible when there’s blood spilled on it.”

“… Your blood?”

I didn’t answer, hearing the tension in his voice. I reminded me too much of Candido, honestly.

“I’ll get to why you had enough blood spilling out of you—”

“It was a nosebleed before you get overprotective.” I felt a little ridiculous. “I get them sometimes. I always have. It’s nothing.”

He said nothing for a moment, but I felt that he wanted to.

“You need to rest more.” He opened the door. “For now, are you coming or staying?”

I scoffed and opened my door. “Of course, I’m coming.”

I closed the door softly. He handed me a laptop and took my free hand, leading me through the shadows and out of the sight of the window as Sibyl entered the back door. We reached the alley near the building. We climbed on top of the building, and I opened the surveillance panel. I logged in using my credentials and opened up the surveillance of the spa’s shop. I hacked Sibyl’s cellphone and listened. For a while, they were just walking through the spa. Then they disappeared into another door that seemed to lead into the basement.

I lost sight of them, but as soon as we heard the door close.

A sharp sound came through the laptop. It sounded like someone had been slapped.

“Can you get anymore useless?” The vampire’s voice hissed. “How could fuck this up?”

“Why are you so upset with me?” Sibyl said. “I’ve done everything—”

“You let that little girl halt the wedding, you idiot,” the vampire hissed. “Did you expect me to be happy?”

He scoffed. “I didn’t expect her to recover so quickly from the mall attack, but honestly, you had one objective.”

“It wasn’t me! It was the priest!”

He sneered, “The priest? You expect me to listen to your excuses?”

“He stopped it. She had a mark on her chest. They said something about it being one moon away or something. I couldn’t even touch the rings! That’s what—”

“What do you mean you couldn’t touch the rings?”

“The altar… it burned me when I tried to—”

A growl of frustration filled the air. I heard things crash and fall. “Son of a bitch! That…”

He growled and huffed. “It’s no matter. If you had done your job properly, you would have been married already, and it wouldn’t have mattered.”

“I tried to—”

“No, Sibyl, you didn’t. You expect me to think that you did your best? The girl saw you with me!”

She gasped. “What? That’s impossible, I—”

“And she doesn’t have a very high opinion of you in the first place. If you were smart, you would have realized that his honor extends beyond Red Moon’s deal.” He sighed again. “Now, you’ve been banned from the territory. If you’re caught, you’ll only make things worse.”

“He has to change his mind. He has a mark but—”

“Of course, he has a mark,” he scoffed. “… Did he seem… surprised when she arrived?”

“… Maybe? I couldn’t be sure. She was in a nicer dress—”

“Focus, you idiot. She went from the mall after being in a fight to the ceremony. What does that tell you?”

“… That she came to ruin everything.”

The vampire sighed again. “If only you knew how to think about anything but your next orgasm or piece of jewelry… It means that she seized an opportunity. She wasn’t at the mall to shop. She was at the mall so no one would bring her to the ceremony. It means she just realized that she had a moon mark. The king’s mark may have something to do with her, but it’s more likely that he’s met his mate already and simply seized the opportunity to stall until he could find her. This month’s waiting time is already set, but it will mean nothing if we don’t keep him from finding his mate.”

I frowned, thinking about it. I couldn’t argue with him, especially given that he was so staunch about us not having a chance. Armageddon listened on, tilting his head thoughtfully.

“You mean if she hadn’t shown up, he would have—”

“No,” he said. “It means that he used it as an opportunity to protect you whether he knew it or not. The altar would have never accepted you as he’s had his mark before you tried to get married, but he doesn’t know that the altar would have rejected you on principle. You have a chance to use this to your advantage if you can get him to see you.”

“W-Why would the altar reject me?”

“You’re plotting against the Moon Goddess’ Chosen One, Sibyl. What did you think was going to happen?” He laughed. “You and your father are so odd. Focus on Candido’s sense of honor. Focus on getting married outside of the temple because the contract didn’t say anything about a legal marriage, it was just your preference for a temple one. It won’t carry the same weight as a temple marriage, but it will be enough for our plans.”

Armageddon walked to the edge of the building and peered over the edge.

“It’s a Red Moon car,” he said.

“How can you tell?”

He chuckled. “They tend to drive the same car and merely take off the flags whenever possible. They’re not in the financial state to have enough cars while supporting Sibyl’s bad habits.”

I heard them leaving the room. I leaned over, watching the back entrance as the car on the front side cranked up. The vampire never came out of the building. No one did. A car pulled up in the back seat, and a woman got out, humming a soft song and unlocking the backdoor.

I checked her out using the backdoor surveillance and realized that she was the owner. I put her on the Moon Shadow watch list as I heard the car driving away, and Armageddon came back to me.

“Norton was in the car,” he said. “If we’re quick, we can follow them.”

I nodded, closed the laptop, and scaled down the side of the building, heading back to the car. He cranked up the car and pulled onto the main street.

“What do you make of their plan?” Armageddon asked. “It seemed like the king’s ward might become a target."

My stomach jolted. “I think… she already is.”

“Why do you say that?” Armageddon asked, stiffly.

“If she saw him,” I started. “If she survived the attack, doesn’t that mean she’s special? He seemed… to have an interest in her.”

Armageddon changed directions sharply. “What do you mean an interest?”

I pulled up my own citizenship profile, feeling a little odd about all of this, but if I had a chance to figure out why that vampire had such an interest in me without letting on that we were the same person, I had to take it.

“Maybe he sees something we don’t. He seemed to know that Sibyl’s relationship with her wasn’t a point in her favor with the king, but do you think there could be something else?”

“… what can you find on her family? She’s from Wolf Fang.”

I kept pulling information, but my access didn’t go far enough to reveal anything more than common knowledge. Maybe there wasn’t much else to reveal, but I didn’t buy that.

“That woman in the caves was her sister.”

“Half-sister,” he corrected. “Hedy is the eldest between the two, but her mother was never the wife of the current alpha.”

“You… seemed to have looked into this.”

“She’s around the king. When she came into the Full Moon Pack, she was watched heavily, but other than being poisoned for most of her life, there wasn’t anything of interest about her.”

I was almost affronted, but I understood what he meant. Norton turned off from the main road onto a side street.

“Where do you think they’re headed?”