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“He’s with another vampire.”
“Another vampire. What other vampire?”
“I don't know. They’re in his office.”
“Right,” Will said. “I’m going to go see him.”
Lorien was talking to Maddox. Or rather, he was listening to Maddox give him a dressing down.
“To call this a disappointment would be to vastly overstate it,” Maddox said. “You not only took up residence with someone who tried to kill us all, you aligned with Ivan. What is so loathsome about William and me, and the future you have before you, that you seek our polar antonyms?”
“I… it wasn’t intended to be that way.”
“That house is a crime scene. My unit of human detectives is going to be combing through remains for weeks to discover how many souls lost their lives in your feral den.”
“Ivan and Chauvelin…”
“Are not here and mean nothing to me,” Maddox snapped. “You do.”
“Do I? Because it seemed to me that Will was the only thing that mattered.”
“I became the vampire king to cover for your mistake,” Maddox reminded him. “Don’t be a spoiled, petulant little…”
“Don’t treat me that way. I’m a grown man and you cane me and whip me like, like… like I’m a chimney sweep who fell asleep in the grate instead of crawling up your flue. I left because I wanted to be respected in the place I live. Ivan and Chauvelin might be two nasty little monsters, but…”
“They never required any standard of behavior from you, so they’re better, are they? You want to live worse than a mindless feral? Surrounded by rotting flesh?”
“I get it!” Lorien nearly shouted. “I know I’m a huge fuck up.”
Maddox strode across to him. “You are not a fuck up. You are of a long and powerful legacy. You have a destiny, Lorien, all you have to do is get out of your own way long enough to claim it. I’m not disappointed because you’re trash. I’m disappointed because you treat yourself like trash.”
Lorien did not have a chance to reply, because Will came through the door and everything immediately became about him all over again.
Will stormed off to Maddox’s office and burst through the door with a question. “Why are there a bunch of assholes covered in blood in the kitchen? Oh. Hey, Lorien.”
Lorien looked pretty crestfallen, as if he’d been in the middle of being lectured. Normally that would have thrilled Will, but nothing felt right today. It was like he’d woken into another world. Henry’s appearance seemed to be the beginning of a series of changes he wasn’t going to like.
“Henry has brought some of his pack into town to meet you,” Maddox explained, barely looking at him. He was far too busy impaling Lorien with a stare to do that. “Why don’t you go out and meet them.”
“I’ve already met them. Henry was a dick about it. Why didn’t you tell me that was happening? What’s going on here? Where have you been. Lorien?”
Lorien didn’t reply. Maddox walked over to Will, took him by the shoulders and gently nudged him out of the office.
“I will be with you soon,” Mad said. “Lorien and I need to speak.”
“Is he in trouble for something? What did he do?”
Those two questions joined the dozen or so others that had not been answered. Will was starting to truly loathe the way he didn’t know what was going on. The entire house was infested by wolves, Lorien was miserable, and the scent of blood still hung in the air.
“Later, William,” Maddox said, starting to close the door.
“No. Now,” Will insisted. “I don’t like Henry and I don’t want to meet his friends. I want our house back the way it was.”
“My home, boy.”
“What?”
“This is my home. I decide who I invite in.”
