Mercy's Danger: Montgomery's Vampires Trilogy (Book #2) (Montgomery's Vampires Series) by Sloan Archer Read Free Book Online Page A

call.”
    “To?” Marlena demanded.
    “Liz. I might as well let her in on it, too. No point in having to repeat myself.”
    Liz came over in no time. She joined Robert and Marlena at the table, frowning at the journals. “What’s all this about?”
    Marlena, who was Liz’s boss at Dignitary, shot her a suspicious glance. “These? These journals are you main concern? What about Robert? You can see him, can’t you?”
    “Yes,” Liz answered. “Why?”
    “And you don’t notice anything unusual about  . . .” Marlena pursed her lips. “You knew, didn’t you, about Robert being human?”
    “Afraid so,” Liz said. “Sorry, Marlena! It wasn’t my place to tell.”
    “At least we know that we can trust Liz to keep quiet,” Marlena quipped frostily.
    Liz ignored her. “I’ll ask again: What’s up with all the notebooks?”
    Marlena filled Liz in about Michael’s nutty scrapbooking while I fetched Liz a glass of blood, courtesy of the vegan college student.
    When I returned, Liz’s face was horror-struck. She chucked aside the journal she’d been flipping through and it hit the table with a hefty plunk. Whoever that human had been, they must have kept Michael very busy.
    The owners of three pairs of very curious eyes observed me, their emotions varied: impatience (Marlena), curiosity (Liz), and confusion mixed with hurt (Robert). I was most concerned about Robert’s reaction, as I suspected he’d be upset after learning that I’d been keeping such an immense secret from him.
    “Uh, shall I begin?” I asked.
    The vampires nodded. So did Robert.

 
    5
     
    Carrying the secret around had weighed heavy on my conscience. I hadn’t realized just how much until I finally came clean. I felt about fifty pounds lighter.
    “In a nutshell,” I concluded, “Michael was convinced that the human responsible for the downfall of the vampire race had been spawned from a special bloodline. He believed I was that human.”
    Robert, Marlena, and Liz spoke simultaneously. They all basically wanted to know the same thing: What qualified as a special bloodline?
    “Michael told me that humans from the special bloodline—Cataclysmics, he’d called us—smelled different to him. He also said that the human responsible for the devastation would be in love with a vampire.”
    Marlena, business as usual, enquired, “Us?’”
    “Yes. Us.” I lifted my chin towards the journals. “Take your pick. Michael started hunting Cataclysmics from pretty much the time he’d been changed over to a vampire. If you look through those journals, I’m positive you’ll find that every single one of those humans was in love with a vampire.”
    Robert’s face fell. “Is there a journal in that pile . . . one for Raquel?”
    Raquel was the human actress Robert had been in love with during the 1920’s. She’d vanished without a trace on the night Robert asked her to be his wife. Robert had spent many years agonizing over her disappearance.
    Marlena picked up a forest green leather journal and passed it to Robert with gentleness. “I’m so sorry, Robert.”
    Robert took the journal and silently flipped through a few of the pages. When he looked up, his face was stiff with rage. “At least you killed the bastard,” he said to Marlena. “I’m only sorry that I wasn’t the one to do it.” He placed the journal back on the table and patted it lovingly. I was sad for him. “Please continue, Mercy.”
    I looked at Marlena. “You thought that Michael’s murderous rage stemmed from jealousy—that he was jealous of other humans who had been able to find love with a vampire. That wasn’t the case at all.”
    Marlena was stunned. “I . . . How could I have not realized what he was up to sooner? I was so blind . . .”
    “You figured things out in time to save my life, Marlena. That most certainly counts to me.” I added, “And there was no way that you could have known. Michael was not just sneaky, but he was the only vampire on