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But for Greeley, strangely, life among the humans was, if anything, the perfect way to blend in, to hide in plain sight. The humans, for all their deficits and idiosyncrasies and dim intelligence, were a perfect camouflage for his kind. They always had been, and they always would be.
They weren’t just a vampire’s source of sustenance and reproduction, they were—if one boiled it all down to its essence—an ecosystem that his kind lived in. “Civilization” was the domain that the superior species utilized, manipulated, and optimized for their use, benefit, and profit.
The world of the humans wasn’t actuallytheirs—in truth, it was owned by the vampires.
Straker, sitting opposite him, had his hands spread upon the tabletop, his hulking form barely able to fit in his side of the booth. His long forefinger drummed slowly upon the well-worn, varnished wood.
Under the harsh light of the overhead fluorescents, his nails were just a little too long, sharp in a way that wasn’tquitenormal. But none of the incredibly obtuse humans around them bothered to notice.
Humankind was marked by one thing and one thing above all—and it wasn’t only stupidity. No, their most striking feature was a fatal attention to detail. Entire books could be written chronicling humankind’s constant overlooking of important context, minutiae that told the real tale, a chronic and amusing tendency to miss the true point.
Of course, this was part of the reason why humans and vampires had been such constant companions over the millennia. One used the other, one suffered at the hands of the other—and were collectively oblivious to the fact they were part of a parasitic arrangement.
It was the way of the world, the way of nature, and the way of predator and prey.
“I see. Keep watching them. If you learnanythingelse, contact us. Without delay. Understand?” Greely sighed, ending the call. He placed his phone, screen down, upon the table.
Straker’s brow lifted slightly, his eyes the same lifeless black pools they always were. The monster looked exactly the same, whether he was petting a purring kitten, or torturing a werewolf to an agonizing, shrieking death.
Cold, hard, utter calm.
“It seems our gambit might not have worked after all,” Greely muttered, with a slight shake of the head. “Our contact with the Coulee clan, he says they didn’t take the bait. Kellen’s enraged, of course, but it appears he and Cold Ridge have… deferred a conflict. At least for now.”
“Killing the young wolf wasn’t enough.” It wasn’t clear whether Straker meant it as a question or a declarative. Regardless, the answer was yes.
Greely couldn’t help but grimace at the news. Though it had always been a long shot, his plan had been sound. The wolves had many flaws, but chief among them was their fetish for holding honor above all else. Even if it meant killing each other, which would advance the cause of their own common enemy.
It was self-destructive and stupid—and it was something vampires had learned over thousands of years to exploit ruthlessly.
The wolves never seemed to realize either that that very trait was being used against them, even as they held its importance as paramount, regarding honor as more important even than death.
Stupid dogs.
Greely was silent a moment, weighing their options—which were dwindling, truth be told. “Further measures are required.”
“Kill the leader.”
“No, youfool.” He glared across the table at his murderous thug of an enforcer. “Just do as you’re told. I’ll take care of the thinking in this operation.”
Straker’s mouth firmed, but wisely he said nothing.
“We need to find out when the Cold Ridge pack have got their guard down. That’s when we might see our opportunity. When they’re distracted.”
“How do we do that?”
Greely grunted, derision in his tone. “The dogs have an idiotic ritual when one of them dies. They make a spectacle of it, gather ‘round and intone in their mongrel tongue. It’s all very silly.”
“When?” Straker shifted in his seat, the torn, taped leather of the booth creaking loudly under his bulk.
Greely gazed out the window, the pregnant waxing moon bright silver high in the night sky. He smiled then as it came to him. “I think I might have an idea on that.”
It was endlessly amusing that the place of their little meeting, the truck stop at the base of the mountain—the last place for skiers and snowboarders to gas up before heading up to the Cold Ridge Complex resort—was funded and owned by the alpha of the Cold Ridge pack.
What Dmitri doesn’t know, won’t kill him. Until I want it to.
CHAPTER24
Stacy
