“But if Rouge suspected your father knew something he wasn’t supposed to, why on earth would she have allowed you into the club?I assume she could have rescinded your membership easily.”
“True.And Rouge is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”He rubs his forehead.“Like we were talking about earlier, it would have aroused some suspicion if shehadrescinded my membership.My father was unpopular, but his death was still covered by all the major news outlets.If word had gotten out that his only heir had been cheated out of one of the only two things he was bequeathed by his father, she would have had to make up some reason.”
“So she decided to keep you close.”
“She did.And she liquored me up.Got me hooked on those damned gin and tonics.And… Oh, fuck, Alissa.”He buries his head in his hands.
“What is it?”
“We… It only happened once, but I slept with Rouge.”
I drop my jaw.I’m not sure whether to be angry or frightened.The only thing I’m certain of is that I’d like to toss my crumpets.“You did?”
“It was a one-time thing.She made that very clear when I asked.This was years ago, long before I met you, of course.But that… That wasn’t it.”
“What do you mean?”
“She… She made me take a magic mushroom.A special variety that she had cultivated herself.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah.I kept blacking in and out between reality and hallucinations.And one of the things I saw—I thought it was a hallucination at the time, otherwise I would have turned tail and never returned.She made me drink this goblet full of…”
My heart is beating into my throat.“What, Maddox?”
He swallows.“Blood, Alissa.Human blood, I think.”
I gulp down the acid in my throat.It doesn’t help.“Oh my God.And you thought…”
“I thought I had just hallucinated it.I thought that it was the shrooms.Until we found May’s head in the ground.Then I couldn’t help wondering…”
“If itwasreal.”
He nods.“Yeah.”
I swallow again, trying to quell the nausea.“So…if what you saw was real…”
“I think we can assume it was.”
“Then Rouge is into somethingreallydark.If she simply…hadhuman blood on hand, she’s probably been killing people for years.Servers who break the rules, people like Bill who betray her trust…” I wrinkle my nose.“But why on earth would she make you drink it?”
“I thought it might be some kind of ritual.But now that I’ve given it some thought… She wanted to see if I shared her fucked-up sensibilities.See if she could recruit me to her side.Make me a King, maybe.Keep your enemies close, you know.But she gave me the shrooms first so she could write off anything I thought I had seen as a vision.”
God…
This has gotten so much more fucked up than I could imagine.
And that’s coming from a woman who’s not even a week separated from finding the decapitated head of a young girl in the ground.
I can’t shake an awful feeling.
That this… Rouge’s blood ritual, the disappearances of May and Svetlana, Bill getting his throat slit…
This is just the tip of the bloody iceberg.
33
MADDOX
