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“You need to pose as a human. He can’t know you have any wolf in you at all. Your kind and his kind are natural and mortal enemies. He is a large part of the reason your numbers are so small. If he knows what you are, if he senses you have even a drop of wolf blood, he will slaughter you. The last time Gideon rose he led the purge that is behind the reason for so few of your kind existing today.
“As if you’d let him.”
“I admire your confidence in me, my boy, I really do, but it is impossible to understate the power of this creature.”
“Well, then, he’s going to know I’m a wolf. I smell like one. I assume he’s not stupid. I assume he can smell.”
“We’ll perfume you. And we’ll keep you at a distance. Actually…” Maddox let out a sigh. “I don’t think I can take you back, William. I think we’re going to need to send you to live with Henry for a while.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Last time Gideon was only awake for fifty, perhaps sixty years.”
“So I’d be eighty before we saw each other again? I don’t have sixty years, Maddox.”
“I will try to get him to sleep as quickly as possible. It won't be long.”
“What’s not long for you is most of my life,” Will frowned. “I don’t want to live with Henry forever.”
“We may be able to start a war sooner,” Maddox said.
“Don’t start a war over it,” Will scowled. “Just tell him to fuck off.”
“One does not simply tell the ancient father of all sanguine evil to fuck off.”
“Tell him to fucketh offeth then.”
Maddox smiled, and for the first time since he took the call his facial features relaxed. “I do love you,” he said. “More than anybody. You have a way about you, an irrepressible, indomitable spirit…”
“Don't say nice things to me,” Will growled. “I know that means you’re planning on ditching me.”
“I will miss you so much.” Maddox walked to Will and took his face in both hands, searching Will’s visage with a hungry, lonely gaze. It was as if he was already gone, and Will absolutely hated that feeling.
“I’m coming with you, obviously.”
“Gideon will kill you if I allow you to come with me. I am certain of that.”
“I’m hard to kill.”
“I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”
“You let Henry fucking magically taze me with that metal ring!”
“Well, you deserved that,” Maddox said. “Gideon would undo you in ways that meant you would never go back together. If we were lucky he’d just kill you.”
“I’ve never heard you so scared.”
“That’s because I’ve never had any reason to fear for you, my boy. Not this way.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
“You absolutely cannot take care of yourself, boy.”
“Yes. I can.” Will truly believed the words as they came out of his mouth. He had no intention of letting anything happen to himself. Maddox might think he was just some young pup who needed protection, but Will had been looking after himself for a very long time. He’d survived prison on his own, and what was some dusty old vampire compared to warring prison gangs combining forces to kill him? Will had survived that, and he knew he was going to survive Gideon too. Maddox’s refusal to entertain him as a serious contender in his own life pissed Will right the fuck off.
Will’s world cartwheeled. This had happened enough times that he knew what it meant. He’d been lifted off his feet and thrown like a rag doll across the room, onto the bed. He landed lightly, thanks to Maddox catching him and pinning him in place, one hand on this throat, the other in his hair, long legs straddling his body, dark and merciless eyes locked on his.
“Show me, boy. Show me how you protect yourself.”
