Bound by Flames

“Okay.” I gave him a final kiss and stopped myself before telling him to be careful again. “You know where to reach me,” I joked instead. Then I became serious. “You haven’t told me not to go anywhere—big progress for you—but so you know, I won’t. So don’t worry about me. Just do what you need to do.”

I felt the warm brush of his hand on my face, then he left without a backward glance. I told myself it was my imagination that the doors seemed to close with ominous finality behind him.

He’ll be fine, I mentally reassured myself. Even if this was a setup, if Vlad caught a glimpse of Szilagyi, he could burn him into ash before Szilagyi even had a chance to scream.

I turned to Marty, giving him a smile that felt forced despite how happy I was to see him.

“You hungry? I am, and Vlad has plenty of live-in human blood donors to help with that, so let’s go downstairs and say hi to my friends with pulses.”

Chapter 7

The next few days dragged even though I slept through half of them. Try as I might, I still couldn’t wake up much before dusk. Plus, it soon became clear that something was bothering Marty. He tried to pass off that he was his normal, jovial self, but beneath all his smiles, jokes and genuine happiness to see me, I kept catching glimpses of something else. Annoyance, I would’ve expected. Vlad must’ve insisted that Marty come here to play babysitter, and no one liked being ordered around, especially by someone who’d once tortured you. Yet I didn’t sense any annoyance from Marty during the rare moments he let his guard down. Instead, it was an odd sort of . . . sadness.

I was determined to find out why.

On the fourth night, Marty and I were walking around the exterior of Vlad’s castle, enjoying the coolness of the predawn summer morning. We were well within sight of the guards on the surrounding wall and towers, but two more followed us on foot, although Dorian and Alexandru stayed a polite distance behind.

“If Szilagyi wasn’t on the loose, you’d be wrapping up carnival season right now,” I said, thinking of how different my life was compared to a year ago. Had I never met Vlad, I would’ve been at the carnivals with Marty, hiding my abilities and identity behind my stage name, the Fantastic Frankie.

Nothing changed in Marty’s expression, but his scent soured as he said “No big deal,” in a tone filled with false pleasantness.

I stopped so suddenly that the guards trailing us looked around in alarm.

“Spill it,” I told Marty. “Something big has been eating at you, and it’s not just because Vlad must’ve insisted that you babysit me—although my apologies for that. Sometimes, he forgets that he’s not a medieval warlord anymore.”

Marty snorted. “Vlad will always be a medieval warlord. You’re the only one who keeps forgetting that about him.”

“Don’t change the subject,” I said, although he probably had a point. “What’s going on, and if you say ‘nothing’ one more time, I’m going to electrocute you.”

Marty stared at me, not speaking for so long, I was about to zap him to show him I meant business. At last, he spoke.

“I’m out of the circuit,” he said, his shrug seeming to add, Shit happens, what are you gonna do?

Guilt pricked me. “I’m sorry you have to miss this season, but Szilagyi went after you before. Once we catch him—”

“It’s not Szilagyi,” he cut me off. “It’s Vlad, and it’s not just for this season. I’m off the carnival circuit forever.”

“What?”

His smile was lopsided. “Vlad knows you think of me as a second father, and he knows Szilagyi won’t be his only enemy who tries to use me because of it. Since there’s no way to guard every carnival I go to, he ordered me to stop performing. Said he’d double whatever I used to make and give me another job—”

“He can’t expect you to quit,” I whispered, stunned.

Marty’s smile faded. “He can and he did. He knows I’m in no position to refuse. If I did, he’d cut me off from you, which would hurt worse than quitting the circuit since I love you like my own daughter. Plus, then he’d be pissed, and I already experienced what Vlad does to people when he’s not mad.”

“But being a carnie is more than your job, it’s your life!” I said, as if I was telling him something he didn’t know.

“Told you, kid,” he said lightly. “You’re the only one still in denial about who you married.”

I was about to say that Vlad had no idea who he’d married if he thought I’d let him get away with this when sirens started blaring from the castle. Before I could react, Marty threw me over his shoulder, rushing back toward the house with Vlad’s guards running ahead of him like two fanged linebackers.

Those alarms kept me from arguing about Marty flinging me over his shoulder as if I was a sack of potatoes. Thanks to my trip to the communications room a couple months ago, I knew what they meant. The invisible security grid that extended like a huge bubble around the castle and grounds had been breached.

“Incoming air strike!” one of the guards called out in heavily accented English.

Air strike? Szilagyi had gotten his hands on missiles? I shoved away from Marty, landing on my feet in the grand hallway, only to be swept up by more guards as they hustled me to the stairway behind the indoor garden.

“Madame, we need you belowground,” Samir said. Then the black-haired head of Vlad’s guards pinched his collar and muttered something into the wire concealed there. Another spurt of Romanian came through the same device, then Samir and the rest of them were almost shoving me down the staircase.