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"Gee, I wonder why," I grumbled, getting a chuckle out of the man.
"Aram," he said, holding out his hand.
"Nova," I said, giving his hand a shake.
"And what has Ace done to piss you off, Nova?"
"I—" Ace started, only to get a tssking sound from Aram.
"I was asking Nova," he reminded his boss.
"He doesn't seem to care that Drex is being tortured," I said, waving an arm out. "He's just demanding all sorts of meaningless information instead of going over there and helping him."
"Ah, yes, that sounds like Ace."
"Aram," Ace growled.
"But perhaps the information isn't useless to him. He is a grizzled and old leader, need I remind you," Aram said.
"Really, Aram?" Ace asked, snorting.
"It makes him cold and cynical and seemingly unfeeling."
"The bastard brought it upon himself," Bael interjected. "Do the crime..." he added.
"Yes, very helpful," Aram said, sighing. "But Ace is just trying to figure out how best to handle the situation. Trust me, he will handle it. If for no other reason than that he'd like to torture Drex himself instead," he added.
"Thank fuck this one isn't a witch," Daemon said, grimacing. "She looks like she'd flay you with a wave of her hand. Can they do that?" he asked, looking at Arick. "I mean, I saw it on an episode of Buffy but I figured they took some artistic license."
"You're watching human shows about our kind?" Bael grumbled. Since grumbling seemed to be how he spoke.
"A witch? No," Arick said. "Not unless she was the kind of powerful that I haven't seen in a long, long time."
"Could you?" Daemon asked.
"Not by a wave of a hand alone," Arick said, smile devilish. "But with a few words thrown in, sure."
"Bitchin'," Daemon said, nodding.
"You're mixing up your decades again," Ace said with the sort of resigned annoyance of a father.
"So?" Daemon asked.
"So, the humans pick up on shit being out of place. And we need to blend in," Ace insisted.
"What about this," Daemon started, waving a spoon down at his body, "blends in?"
"For fuck's sake," Bael said with a sigh.
"Anyway," Aram said, giving me a strained smile. "Ace would like to handle this with the vampires without an outright war. So, all the small details that happened once they got their hands on Drex might be helpful."
"Oh, okay," I agreed, deciding it was reasonable enough. "Alright. Well, I was sent upstairs."
"Because they thought Drex kidnapped and drugged you," Ace clarified.
"Well, in a way, he did," I said, shrugging. "He did take me. And he did drug me."
"But he drugged you to help you. And you weren't being held against your will."
"Right," I agreed. "So, Renwick decided I was free to go back to my life. But that Davor wouldn't feed off of me for a few days because he thought drugs were still in my system."
"Okay. Then?" Aram asked.
"Then I realized that I couldn't leave without killing Davor."
"Fucking hell," Ace snapped, jumping up from his chair so roughly that it screeched across the floor.
"Keep going," Aram demanded.
So, I told them about my plan, about going to see Drex, about our conversation, then coming back up to be confronted by Davor.
"You killed your master?" Ace asked, voice choked.
"No. I killed a guest of my former master."
"In front of him," Ace clarified.
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"I didn't stick around long enough to find out," I admitted. "I knew he couldn't follow me because it was light out and there was no one to drive him, so I just ran to Sanctuary like Drex told me to do."
"Did he say why he didn't send you to us?" Aram asked, sounding a little hurt.
"I think he wanted there to be a buffer," I said, looking toward Arick.
"We don't make it a habit to harm human women," Ace scoffed, offended.
"Uhm," a female voice said, making me turn to find her leaning in the doorway, her pointer finger up in the air like she was asking What about me?
She was a pretty woman with a long blonde bob.
Josephine.
Jo, Drex called her.
"That's different," Ace insisted, waving an arm as he sat back down, calling her over.
"So it is okay to kidnap, drug, and hold a woman against her will when one of your own is hurt?"
"Red was more than hurt," Ace said, reaching up to snag his woman as she got close, dragging her onto his lap. "Besides, it all worked out," he added, wrapping an arm around her.
"Neither of you is helping," Aram said, giving them both wide eyes before turning back to me. "No one is going to hurt you. But I can see why Drex wanted someone else here. To verify your story, so our cynical leader here had no reason to doubt you."
"Okay," I conceded, nodding. I guess you had to be cautious when it came to things like this. "Well, are we going to go save Drex now?"
