Anne smiled at her friend. “Did you know your mate was an expert at love?”

The sound of Brigid’s laughter drove the last of the shadows from Anne’s mood.

She had some difficult decisions to make, but first…

Anne needed to write a letter to a Russian.

Chapter Sixteen

MURPHY RUSHED OUT THE DOOR as soon as the meeting adjourned. He was almost to his car when he heard the Dutchman’s voice.

“Mr. Murphy?”

He turned, pasting a polite façade over his frustration. “Mr. Anker.”

“Please, if you would call me Rens.”

“Then you must call me Murphy.”

“Of course.”

He paused long enough that Murphy started to wonder what his purpose was.

“I wonder if you might share a drink with me,” Rens said. “I have… a theory I would like to discuss in private.”

Murphy might have wanted to apologize to Anne, but he knew it needed to wait. A meeting with one of the primary intelligence peddlers in Europe could not.

“Of course.” He plastered on his most charming smile. “Walk with me. There’s a club nearby that has late hours.”

“Excellent.”

He walked down the mostly deserted sidewalk, enjoying the smell of rain in the air. Puddles reflected the streetlights, and damp filled the air. He took a deep breath and drew the water into his lungs.

“I am also attuned to freshwater,” Rens said, “more than salt.”

“We’re some of the few, then.”

“And yet my brother loves the sea.” Rens shrugged. “I love the canals and the rivers. He loves the sea.”

“A good balance.”

“It is.”

Murphy said, “My sire was of the ocean. And I was not. Some things cannot be predicted, can they?”

“No. I have watched you this past week, Murphy. Watched you as you observed the others. You are everyone’s friend, I think. And yet you take everything in and only speak when you must.”

Murphy disliked being scrutinized. “You’re very observant. Of course, I suppose it pays to be.”

“You are correct. I think… you are a man who sees many angles, not all of them visible.”

Murphy shrugged. “I do my job, same as the rest of us.”

“My sire called Livia of Rome ‘de spinnekop.’ The spider. I believe—even after her death—her web still entangles.”

Murphy paused at the corner and watched low clouds move across the sky.

“The spider? I hadn’t heard that one before.”

“Come,” Rens said, putting on his own charming smile. “We need beer.”

“HOW much do you know about Livia?” Rens asked when they were sitting in a secluded booth with dark pints of porter between them.

“I know she was the mate of Andreas, son of Kato. I know she supported Giovanni Vecchio’s son, Lorenzo, as he hunted the original formula for the Elixir of Life. I know she succeeded in making it, only to have Vecchio kill her in a massive explosion outside Rome.”

“And yet,” Rens said, “Elixir still lives.” He held up three fingers. “Three original strands in the spider’s web. Production. Distribution. Advertising.”

“Production was in Bulgaria. Distribution, no one knows exactly. And Livia was the advertising. Is that what you’re getting at?”

“Livia was trying to sell it as a legitimate cure for bloodlust. It was not.”

Murphy had never truly understood the need to “cure” bloodlust. He enjoyed drinking blood. He enjoyed hunting. Enjoyed the taste and the heat of it. But since experiencing Anne’s more extreme hunger, he had changed his mind. If there was a true cure for her thirst, Murphy knew he would pay a fortune to obtain it, and he wouldn’t be the only one.

“But she was found out,” Murphy said. “Vecchio and his mate discovered the side effects for humans, and vampires and exposed her. Exposed the drug.”

“And one strand of her web—the legitimate one—is torn,” Rens said. “There are two others remaining. Production and distribution. And there is no need to seek approval for either of those. Livia produced the drug in Bulgaria using her cosmetics factories. But she needed blood from all four elements to even begin. Substantial amounts of blood from all four.”

“She was a water vampire,” Murphy said.

“And she had both earth and wind vampires under her aegis. Livia only lacked the last.”

“No fire,” Murphy said. “She was a known antagonist of fire vampires. Rumor has it she tried to convince Andreas to kill his son when he was sired to fire.”

Rens smiled. “Considering that same son killed her in the end, it could be argued that she exhibited foresight. But that didn’t solve the problem of obtaining a substantial donation of blood from a fire vampire for the initial production.”

“Who was it? Do you know? Was he or she killed in the battle in Rome?”

“He wasn’t killed. He walked out before the battle even started. Livia was paranoid about information dissemination. When her fire donor discovered the side effects of Elixir, he abandoned her. He wanted no part in it.”

“Who was it?” Murphy asked.

“Oleg.”

He sat up. “The Russian?”

Rens nodded.

“Oleg Sokolov had knowledge of the Elixir—”