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The root cellar wasn't as good as a basement, but it would do.
Well, the human might not think so when the sun came up and she saw all the creepy crawling shit all over the place, but she was so fucking drugged out that I wasn't sure she would even care.
But, yeah, back to my head. And it being fucked and all.
I couldn't begin to understand what was going on with me. I didn't start possible wars between my crew and other creatures. Over one pesky human.
It made no fucking sense.
I wasn't a bleeding heart. I'd been around for a long-ass time. I'd seen the humans stab one another with swords and shoot one another with bullets and drop bombs for the same stupid shit for ages. God and country and race.
They were a petty and selfish species. I had no real love for them.
Sure, I liked how they made whiskey. They made some banging music. And the women were warm and willing if you knew what to say to them.
But as a whole? I didn't give a fuck about them.
So why was I giving a fuck about this one, in particular?
I didn't begin to understand it. I wasn't sure I wanted to. All I knew was there was a pull inside when I'd seen her at first, and then I'd felt it again, but stronger, when I'd seen her hurt behind Sanctuary.
I wasn't a warm man. It wasn't a warm feeling. It was something hard, almost. Possessive, even.
But, clearly, it was just because her treatment had offended me and my beliefs about the whole issue of consent when it came to scenes.
Nothing else made sense.
I was no one's fucking white knight.
And yet.
"Fuck," I hissed, pushing off the tree to make my way back to the bike.
I had to figure out how to put an end to this thrall shit.
Normally, this was an issue I would go to Ace with. He was the oldest of us. He was the one with his nose always in a book. He knew practically everything about humans, but also a shitton about our history as well.
But there was no way I could go to him;
By now, Daemon would have told him what was going on.
They were probably actively looking for me, if not already having issues with the bloodsuckers.
So I couldn't go to him to help me.
But where, then?
Thysa knew a lot about all the otherworldly shit, but I couldn't get her any more involved in this than she already was since it happened at her club.
But I'd brushed shoulders with a lot of different creatures over the years. One of them had to have had some information.
But who?
"Shit," I hissed to myself as the answer to that came to me. There was really only one other creature around who likely knew as much about the bloodsuckers as Ace.
Arick.
A fucking, if you can believe this shit, warlock.
My crew and I had a lot of history with witches. What with the treaty and all. As a whole, the witches weren't all that uncommon. There were the witches in the woods, the witches in modern society, the tech witches. You never had to look hard to find some witches.
But warlocks?
They were a rare breed.
Sure, you could find some wizards around. Guys who practiced the Craft. You could even find sorcerers—men born with innate gifts, who did or did not practice the Craft.
A warlock, though, was a combination of two. They were born with skills and then trained and learned to harness them.
Which made them someone you didn't fuck with.
And as long as he'd been around, no one screwed with Arick. Hell, you were lucky to get an audience with the slippery fucker.
Luckily enough for me, the guy had a fondness for some less than common recreational drugs. And I knew where to find them.
An hour or so later, I had a pocket full of drugs, and was pulling up to Arick's place.
For reasons I didn't fully comprehend, but he claimed had something to do with his Craft, he lived in a two-story modern building made of dark gray metal. The large windows were mirrored, which made it impossible to see inside even in the bright daylight.
His place had always been a party spot.
Partially because Arick was rich, because he had a massive pool out back, because he had a hot tub, because he hired caterers, and because he always had the top-shelf booze.
So when I pulled up, despite it being closer to sunrise than sunset, there was a line of cars parked in the driveway.
On a sigh, I climbed off my bike, making my way inside.
Arick's home style in and of itself was modern and minimalist, but Arick himself was a maximalist by nature. It was reflected in the interior of his home with its dark-toned, yet mismatching carpets, the abundance of couches and chairs, the art that lined the dark green walls. There was so much of it that he'd acquired or painted himself over the years that they were stacked several canvases deep against many of the walls in the living and dining room.
