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Wade’s eyes flashed red. He leaned forward, staring down at me, his long lashes fluttering against his pale skin. “Don’t be an ass. I know what you went through. And I know you had to kill him. But Menolly, be logical. If I don’t win, Terrance will. And Terrance is another Dredge in the making. He wants to bring the mystique of fear back into being a vampire.”
Terrance, the owner of the Fangtabula, was an old-school vamp. Badass and arrogant, he thought nothing of using mortals for his private feeding station, then tossing them out when they were dry. But he was a Boy Scout compared to Dredge.
“Bullshit.” I stared past him. As much as I hated to admit it, I knew he was right. I had become a controversy, a division among the vamps. I weighed down his campaign, unless he chose to stand by my side and defend me. And he could do it—if he wanted to. But Wade didn’t like being the bad guy. Wade wanted to win on his charm, not his ability to lead.
I felt the bloody tears well up and willed them away. I wouldn’t let him make me cry. “Damn you. I’ve done one hell of a lot for Vampires Anonymous, and to be shoved aside like this is a fucking slap in the face.”
“Menolly—”
“Don’t Menolly me. If you had any real balls, Terrance wouldn’t have gained the foothold he has now. But you don’t like confrontation, and you’re still trying to please everybody, even though you know you can’t do it. If you’d taken Terrance out when he started showing signs of being a troublemaker, we wouldn’t be facing this problem.”
Wade grabbed me by the shoulders.
I slowly reached up and took hold of his wrist, squeezing hard enough to feel the bones shift. “Take your hands off of me, or I’ll toss you across the fucking room.” My fangs extended as anger clouded my senses.
He abruptly let go. I shoved him again, just enough to give him the message that I was serious.
His gaze never left my face as he steadied himself.
“I agree that you’ve done a remarkable job for Vampires Anonymous, but don’t ever lose track of the fact that the group is my baby. I started it, I built it into what it is today. There have been others who’ve put just as much time into it as you, if not more. Sassy Branson for one. Now, can’t we keep this civil?” He leaned down, his lips a hairsbreadth from mine.
I let out a low hiss. “Don’t you go all red-eye toward me.” No breath, no whisper of air passed between us.
His gaze lingered on my face. “I thought you liked men who take charge. You’re certainly spending enough time with that incubus. And he’s still a breather, demon spawn or not.” And then Wade was kissing me, pushing me hard against the door.
Without so much as a second thought, I kneed him in the groin, and he shuddered, backing away. While a kick in the balls didn’t hurt vamps the same way it hurt FBH men, it still smarted.
“Touch me again, and I’ll stake you. First you kick me to the curb, and then you try to kiss me? No more. I rescind my invitation. Wade Stevens, you’re no longer welcome in my home. You may not pass through my door. And think twice about darkening my bar again.” I couldn’t prevent him from visiting the bar—it was a public venue—but I could make certain he never came inside our house again.
He actually had the nerve to look shocked. “Menolly—don’t! We’ll figure out something—”
“Too late. Get. Out. Now. If I have to, I’ll call Tavah to help me, and we’ll take you down. You can’t stand against both of us.” The bloodlust pounded in my ears. I wanted to hunt, to seek, to tear something apart. “You’d better go. I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself in check.”
He took one last look at me and then, smart enough to recognize my breaking point, vanished in a blur. I was walking on the razor’s edge, I was stronger than he was, and he knew it.
I tried to gather my wits. So that’s where we were at. Wade had betrayed me for political reasons. He’d broken our friendship for personal gain, and while I understood his desire to ascend to the regency, I also had the suspicion he was overreacting to play a part in front of his buddies. He’d always wanted to be the good cop. And to do so, he’d had to make me the bad cop. Typical man.
I sidled out to the bar. The smell of sweat and booze rose to overwhelm me. The sound of heartbeats drummed out a pulsing tattoo, threatening to send me into a feeding frenzy. I motioned to Luke.
He took one look at me and immediately nodded toward the door. “You need to hunt.”
Luke was a werewolf. He understood instinct, especially since he didn’t live with a pack, the way most of the werewolves did. A lone wolf, he was on his own, and he had to remain alert. Luke had never told me what made him break with his pack, but I’d checked, and he had no criminal record, though the scar running down the side of his face told me he’d seen trouble in his past.
“Yeah. Really bad. Can you tell Camille I’ll be back in a little bit? If I don’t get myself outside, I’m going to explode, and that would not be a good thing. And if Wade comes back, tell him I said to get the fuck out of my bar and stay out.”
Luke was good at reading between the lines. He didn’t ask questions, just threw his bartender’s rag over his shoulder, then headed toward the stairs. I gave him one backward glance, then slipped out the door.
Moving so fast no one would notice me, I passed by the alley behind the Wayfarer. I didn’t want to put Chit and his posse in danger. No, I knew exactly where to go.
When I hunted, I tracked the lowlifes: the rapists and druggies and pimps and pushers that haunted the Seattle night. If I had to drink from an innocent, I made sure that I never took more than they could spare, and I wiped their memories, leaving only a pleasant suggestion that they’d been out for a long walk and needed a little nap and a good steak to refresh themselves.
The city proper was sweating with the scents of gasoline fumes and heat rising from the pavement and the mingled perfume from over a half-million people. I slipped through the back alleys, crossing from neighborhood to neighborhood until I reached the Central District, a high-crime area that I frequented during my hunts. I almost always found somebody to stalk and seldom went away hungry.
Closing my eyes, I sent out feelers as the city moved around me. There—down a nearby alley. A rumble of excitement filtered out from a group of gangbangers getting ready for a brawl.
Used to be the Crips and the Bloods controlled the Seattle streets, but lately a new set of gangs had moved into town. The Zeets, named for their hold on the infamous Z-fen market—the current date-rape drug of choice used primarily by pimps to keep their stables in line because it was so highly addictive—kept a tight fist on the drug trade. And the Wings, an Asian-based gang, had taken over the protection racket.
I zeroed in on the group. Ten or eleven, they were from the Zeets. The energy of drug-enhanced testosterone raced through them like a line of sparks. I slipped through the shadows, pressing close to the brick buildings that lined the passage. As I approached the end of the alley, it opened into a dead-end space. I listened to the snippets of conversation that floated out.
