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“My brothers…”
“Redbone is…” Spider drew an index finger across his throat.
What? I fiddled with a cushion, keeping my expression carefully blank. The only Redbone I knew of was Andre Redbone, the kapitán of the Kral Syndicate’s Louisiana Coven.
Zaq nodded like he already knew about Redbone. Something he hadn’t told me, apparently.
Spider said something else.
Zaq’s head snapped back in shock. “A coup?” Then he lowered his voice, and maddeningly, I didn’t catch anything else.
The whole discussion took less than ten minutes. Then Spider pressed a buzzer and a young, hard-bodied human appeared from the end of the tunnel along with George.
“Refreshments for our guests,” Spider told the man.
“Yes, sir.”
Spider invited us to sit down. Zaq took a seat on the couch next to me, and Spider took the armchair near me. George and Barbie remained standing.
Spider’s man servant poured Zaq and the vampires each a glass of blood-wine and brought it around. Me, he gave a glass of regular wine.
Zaq nudged me with his thigh, but I didn’t need the nudge. If a vampire invited you to have a drink with him, then you did.
Zaq raised a glass to Spider. “May you always drink from young throats.”
“And may you have your choice of blood and beautiful women.”
He touched his glass to first Zaq’s, then mine, honoring me as Zaq’s guest even though he believed I was human and a thrall at that. He obviously held Zaq in high regard.
I murmured, “To your health,” and sipped my wine as if I wasn’t dying to know what Zaq had found out.
Thirty minutes dragged by while we made small talk. At last Zaq rose to his feet, pulling me up with him. He thanked Spider for his hospitality and steered me toward the exit.
Spider unfolded his long legs and stood as well. His long fingers closed on my arm. “Go on,” he told Zaq.
I concealed my alarm. What could he want with me? I was supposed to be unimportant. A blood-addicted thrall.
Zaq bared his fangs. “She stays with me.”
Spider growled and showed his own fangs. Suddenly, the air was thick with testosterone.
My adrenaline was pumping. I allowed my heart to speed up like a nervous human’s would, but not too much, so Spider wouldn’t think I was hiding something.
I gave Spider a smile and a helpless shrug, playing up to him as the alpha of this little vampire cell. To Zaq, I said, “It’s okay.”
He flicked me a glance. “No. It’s not. Let her go,” he told the vampire lord in a cold, syndicate-prince voice, and took my other arm.
The Barbie doll moved forward, a dagger in each hand, and she obviously knew how to use them.
Ok-kay. Not a Barbie doll after all. Unless she was Slayer Barbie.
Spider heaved a breath. “Chill, man. I don’t have designs on your woman. I just have some business with her. Alone.”
Zaq’s mouth thinned.
“It’s okay,” I said again.
“Fine,” he said after another tension-filled few seconds. “I’ll wait over there.” He moved a few feet into the tunnel and turned to face us, arms folded over his chest.
