The Van Alen Legacy

The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de La Cruz Page B

Book: The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de La Cruz Read Free Book Online
Authors: Melissa de La Cruz
Tags: Fantasy
disaster. And still she could hear Jack’s footsteps, light and

quick behind her.
    In a way the chase invigorated

her: running so fast, using her vampire muscles and exerting them in ways they had never been

used, by god he was fast! But I am faster, she thought. “ I can outrun you,

Jack Force. Just try; you’ll never catch me.”
    “I can and I

will.”

    Schuyler closed her mind to

the glom as Lawrence had taught her. That would shut him out.
    There had to be somewhere she

could hide. She knew this place. Cordelia had left her here for hours when they visited, and as a

child she had explored every inch of its sprawling grounds. She knew every crevice, every secret

hiding place, she would lose him in the residential wing, there were so many camouflaged closets

and clandestine compartments, she ran back inside the castle through the servants’

entrance.
    While she ran she sent a

message of her own through the glom. “Oliver!”

    “Oliver!”

    She tried to locate his signal “Oliver!”

    But humans were not as

sensitive to the glom’s twilight communications. Oliver had never been able to read her mind, let

alone speak to it directly. And while they had tried to practice building the mental bridge that

tied a vampire to its human Conduit, they had faltered in their exercise. They were young, and a

bridge took a lifetime to build, like the one between Lawrence Van Alen and Christopher Anderson.

Maybe in fifty years they would be able to communicate telepathically, but not now.
    She had to find Oliver. He was

probably sick with worry. Probably pacing the party, ignoring the fireworks, drinking too

many cocktails to steady his nerves. He had given up so much to be with her. Of course he

would tell her it was his duty, his very destiny to live and die by her side. But still she could

not stop feeling that she was a burden to him, that she had brought too much on him, had fated

him to live in an endless chase. He had given her everything, his friendship, his fortune, his

life, and all she could give in return was her heart. Her fickle, foolish, guilty,

unreliable heart. She hated herself.
    A terrible thought struck her:

What if they had gotten to Oliver first? They wouldn’t hurt him, she thought. Just let them try .

. . If anything had happened to him . . . She did not want to think about it.
    As she ran through the

hallway, everything suddenly went black. Someone had turned off all the lights in the palace. She

had a feeling she knew who that someone was.
    Fine, but like you, Jack, I

can see in the dark. She found the door that led to a secret staircase that led down to the

basement, past the kitchens, and into the lower dungeons, a relic from an earlier century. Not

many knew that the H’tel Lambert had been built on the ruins of a medieval castle, and that the

castle’s foundation hid layers of secrets.
    Oh god, please don’t let that

have been a skeleton I just stepped over, Schuyler thought as her sandaled foot landed on

something that crunched in a disturbing way.
    She could see the outlines of

the steps, ruined and steep, down, down, she had to go down . . . She had to get

away.
    “Oliver!”

    Nothing.
    She would have to send for him

later somehow.
    Because she was there at

last. In the very lowest depths of the dungeon, in the solitary prison cell that had

housed who knows how many prisoners, who knows how many miserable souls behind its

iron bars. He’ll never find me here.
    She felt dizzy and

light-headed, and her whole body was trembling uncontrollably as she stepped inside.
    And fell straight into the

arms of her former love and current pursuer. Jack Force.
    His grip was like a vise. His

voice was colder than the air around them.
    “I told you, Schuyler, you’re

not the only one who knows the secrets of the H’tel Lambert.”

SIXTEEN

Bliss

    The good thing about fashion

people is that they were usually

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