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“I am astonished at you all, that you would let her control you like this. I saw through her, even during the briefest of our encounters. I could see her for the freak-show bitch she really was.”
Between his words and Juan Carlos’s, I was getting sick and tired of being insulted. Sig, too, appeared ready to come to my defense a second time, but I held my hand up to silence him. If I was no longer being considered a suspect for anything, it meant my position within the Tribunal was secure, which gave me as much right to speak here as anyone else. Perhaps more, since I was the one accusing Arturo of being a traitor.
“Either you give Monica your blood willingly, or I will take it from you by force.”
He snarled, flashing fangs at me. My own elongated in response, and I showed him I was just as capable of making scary faces as he was. And more than able to draw blood if need be.
“Please.” I grinned wider. “Give me a reason.”
In a flash he was across the room, and faster still his hands were around Reggie’s throat. Though the young vampire was not my friend, since we’d barely shared a full conversation in our twenty-four hours together, I also didn’t want to see him harmed because of me.
“Stop,” I shouted. “Your quarrel is with me, not the warden. If you want to challenge me, challenge me.”
“He can’t,” Rebecca reminded, not particularly helping the situation. “A Tribunal leader cannot challenge or kill another. Secret, be mindful of the rules. You cannot harm him any more than he can harm you.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Reggie’s eyes widened as Arturo’s fingernails sank deep into the flesh of his neck. Blood pooled, spilling down Reggie’s skin and filling the air with a fresh copper tang.
I was still armed. I could take Arturo out with one headshot. But with the whole council standing around me, it would be the last shot I ever took.
Then, as fast as Arturo had crossed the room, came a sharp crack like thunder. For a moment everything was still, and the only sound that followed was the loud thumping of my heart.
I couldn’t understand what happened next. The way Arturo had been holding Reggie, I’d assumed the sound was Reggie’s neck being broken. Yet in the following moment, Arturo’s body went slack, and his hands dropped limp and useless from Reggie’s neck. The young warden stepped away, holding his open wounds, and with nothing to keep Arturo propped up, the Tribunal leader slumped to the floor.
Standing behind him, her hands still raised, was Clementine.
“I was gettin’ mighty sick of his holier-than-thou bullshit. Pardon my language.” She placed her hands back at her sides. “I think y’all can go ahead and test his blood now, if you’d like.”
Chapter Twenty
“Clementine, what did you do?” I braced myself against Holden, who seemed just as stunned as I was. Around the room everyone was gaping at the pretty blonde vampire like she was a viper in their midst.
She glanced down to the body at her feet, then kicked him over onto his back, his lifeless eyes staring straight up at the stone ceiling.
“If I had to speculate, I’d say I seem to have killed him.”
Yes, that did summarize things in the simplest of terms.
“Jesus.” I didn’t know what to do. I was still in the frozen stage Arturo’s sudden attack on Reggie had put me in, and this new development wasn’t helping my brain work any faster.
They were going to kill Clementine now, weren’t they?
Reggie pulled his hand away from his neck, and the holes Arturo had put there were already closed. He wiped his bloody palm on his jeans and nodded to Clementine. “Thanks.”
She smiled back sweetly. “No problem.”
But it was a problem. There was no way this ended so quickly and easily.
Sig walked past me and crouched beside Arturo’s body, turning his head to the side. He must have been satisfied with what he saw there to determine the vampire was truly dead, since he couldn’t check for a pulse.
“Monica, would you be so kind as to confirm Secret’s accusations for us?”
The ancient seer moved smoothly in her little-girl body, lifting Arturo’s limp arm and taking a dainty bite from his wrist. When she’d had her fill, she set his hand back on the floor and faced her rapt audience.
“Arturo is…was guilty. He had his spies seek out Alexandre Peyton after the rogue’s escape. Together they conspired a way to bring Secret to California. He worked willingly alongside a fugitive rogue and attempted to kill a fellow Tribunal leader.” Now she looked at Clementine. “If not for the young one, he would have been sentenced to die. And I believe by attacking a member of the Tribunal leader’s entourage he was declaring himself open for a fight, wouldn’t you say?” She directed this to Sig.
“I would say so.”
