Ruby glanced at Bennett. “What? Why?”

“Don’t make me tell you again.”

Ruby guided the car off the road into a small clearing, and before she could slip the ignition into park, Bennett was out the door. She didn’t stop until she was several paces away, and standing in the streams of the headlights, Bennett silently berated herself for stupidly believing yet another woman. She was furious she’d been played so easily, and when she heard Ruby approaching, Bennett's fury erupted.

“Look, I know you’re—”

The power of Bennett’s backhand sent Ruby flying across two lanes, and she landed in a heap at the edge of the road. Ruby waited until her head stopped spinning before she got to her feet, and wiping the blood from her mouth with her coat sleeve, she walked back to Bennett. “I suppose I deserve that, and I can’t fault you for being angry.”

“Angry doesn’t even come close to what I’m feeling right now,” Bennett said, fisting her hands.

“I can explain.”

“Which part? The part where you’ve been playing me for months, or the part where you didn’t just go to the goddamned council and tell them you’re alive? Why all the theatrics, Ruby? Why all the fucking subterfuge?”

“Because I needed to see Napoleon’s face when he realized I was alive.”

“That makes no sense.”

“That’s because you weren’t there when he had my family murdered. You weren’t there to see your stepmother run through and your father and brother beheaded. And you weren’t there to hear your sisters’ gut-wrenching sobs as they were being raped and killed. They were fourteen, Bennett. They were babies, and I swore on that day that no matter what it took, I’d make Napoleon pay.”

“Wait. Is this whole bloody charade about your father’s chair?”

“No. Of course not,” Ruby shouted. “It started out as revenge, Bennett, pure and simple revenge. I wanted to take Napoleon’s life to make him pay for what he did, but I was a twenty-one with no training in swordplay, no strength, no stamina, nothing to best him, and he was a vampire. By the time I made my way back to our home in Limoges, I knew if I wanted to avenge my family’s murder, then I would have to be patient…and I was. Bennett, it took me years, centuries to get to this point, and there was no way in hell I was about to show my hand to you or the council. Not after all this time. Not after all I had to do to get here.”

Bennett snickered. “And here I thought Eliza and Desiree were the queens of deceit.”