ROMAN: Fury of Her King (Kings of the Blood Book 2) by Julia Mills Page A

only
groan. “Don’t do anything. Just keep everyone away from that door. Buy the damn
place if you have to. Make sure Cynthia is as comfortable as possible. I’m on
my way. This is my mess to clean up.”

 
    Chapter Six
     
    “Maybe the wooden stake comment was over the top,” Cyn mumbled to
herself as she looked in the foggy old bathroom mirror. Shaking her head, she
fingered combed her tangled hair before grabbing more paper towels, covering
the counter and climbing back up to sit and wait for Adele.
    As if being kidnapped and tormented by the reincarnation of
Morticia Addams wasn’t enough, she had awakened to find that damned album
laying on her lap, then had to find her way out of a dirty, smelly warehouse
all to end up in literally the middle of nowhere and feeling like the hounds of
hell were staring at her through the bushes.
    Disheveled, dirty, and barefooted after walking almost two miles,
she’d hitched a ride with the first vehicle she’d seen since emerging into the
bright light of the noonday sun. Thankfully, it was a kindly old farmer who did
nothing more than tell her she looked like his great-granddaughter who’d gone
to the ‘big city’ to some ‘fancy college’.
    After thanking him for the hundredth time, she made her way into
the diner, begged to use the phone, screamed at Adele to get her to stop
ooooing and aaaahhhing about Cyn’s night with the millionaire, and then locked
herself in the bathroom to wait. That was where two men, who identified
themselves as Roman’s friends, found her and tried to coerce her to come with them.
That was also when she threatened to stake them if they came through the door.
    “And that was where I showed my hand. Now, they know I know what
they really are and if this nightmare follows every TV show and movie I’ve ever
seen, they’re going to have to kill me to keep their secret.”
    She jumped down from the counter, careful to land on the paper
towels she’d spread across the grimy floor like Dorothy’s yellow brick road,
and began to pace. “But that video could’ve been something made by one of
Valentina’s friends. A hoax to scare me away from Roman.”
    Turning when she reached the far wall, Cyn headed back toward the
sink, continuing the conversation she was having with herself. “But what about
the pictures? They are most definitely real.” She picked them up from the
counter as she once again spun on the balls of her feet and continued to pace.
“But, pictures can be doctored, too. And Valentina definitely has the means to
do whatever she wants. The girl’s shoes alone cost as much as my rent.”
Throwing her head back and looking at the wads of dried paper hanging from the
ceiling, she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and sighed,
“But still…”
    Looking down at the four photos she’d removed from the leather
bound book, Cynthia touched the face she knew beyond all doubt belonged to the
man she’d been dreaming about for as long as she could remember. It didn’t make
sense. It wasn’t possible, at least by any stretch of her imagination, but
there it was in living color, right before her face, evidence that Roman
Marinos was centuries, maybe millennia older than the mid-thirties he looked to
be. “Talk about falling for an older man,” she chuckled sarcastically. “Leave
it to me to have the hots for Dracula’s cousin.”
    Stopping midstride, she studied the most recent photo more
closely. From the fashion of the clothes the three men were wearing, it had to
have been taken in the early eighties, but that wasn’t what she found most
interesting. What drew her attention was the fourteen-foot-tall Big Boy statue
holding a forty-inch hamburger with the name Bob’s Burgers painted on the side.
It was the same monstrosity she’d looked at every morning as her mom drove her
to school. The same smiling, red-cheeked boy who’d welcomed her and her friends
every afternoon after junior high for French fries