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“Don’t intervene with the brat on my behalf,” Gideon said, his dark gaze lit with a kind of malevolence that suggested he rather enjoyed it. “I might have felt the slightest pang of guilt in killing him before. Now I have a multitude of reasons.”
“If you kill people just because they annoy you, you’re just a… actually, whatever. I’d kill people just because they annoyed me too if I could get away with it,” Will mused.
“You have killed people because they annoyed you. Remember Chauvelin?” Maddox said.
“Oh, yeah. What a piece of shit. He had it coming.”
“Ivan and Candy are still exposed. We need to get them out of harm’s way and into this house.”
“You want Ivan here, in the same house as Henry and Lorien. And you want Candy here too? A human woman locked in a house with two hungry vampires and my dad? Candy can banish the vampires from her house herself,” Will said practically. “It’s fine. We’re all going to be fine. This time is about us now, isn’t it? Finally, about us.”
20
But it was not just about Will and Maddox. How could it be, with so many others in play? Though they were willing to insulate themselves from the world, the world did not stop turning. Outside the relative security of Maddox’s home, Henry sought his lover.
Henry had come into the city to be with Lorien now that Will was no longer in the wind. They met in the park, where over eight hundred acres of nature allowed him to feel somewhat at ease.
He had been struggling with the guilt of Lorien’s injury since it had happened, and when he saw the man he loved emerging from the shadows before him, it ignited twin flames of possession and passion.
“Lorien!”
Lorien ran toward him. Henry could not contain himself. He ran toward Lorien, catching him as the vampire flung himself at him.
“I have missed you so much.” Henry wrapped his arms around Lorien, holding him close. “I am so sorry I was not there to help you. I should have put you first, not Will.”
“That would have been nice. But I have eternity, and Will has, well, at the rate he is going, days at most.”
“Our future has to be about you and me,” Henry said. “Nobody else. In times like these, we have to look after our own. You are mine. We will leave the city. We will go to the country. Somewhere with buildings for you to sleep in and people to feed on. I’m going to make this right for you. I’m going to be the mate you deserve.”
“Aw, what a pretty speech.”
Henry’s arms tightened around Lorien. He felt a spear of ice run through the very core of him. The voice came from the depths of history. It was old. It was powerful. And it was angry. He was trapped. He could feel it. Malevolence surrounded him on all sides. He was a predator, but suddenly he knew what it was to be prey, to feel himself at the mercy of forces so much more powerful than himself.
“What a pretty speech,” Gideon growled in the darkness.
“Run!” Lorien cried the word out, but it was too late.
They were surrounded. Gideon had not come alone. Raymond and Chauvelin were flanking him, and there were many others besides. Two dozen vampires at least, and not young fledglings, but the city’s old blood, those who had tired of the chaos in the period following the deaths of the twin kings.
“There you are, baby vampire,” Gideon said, stepping into a beam of moonlight. “I have been looking for you. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find you keeping the company of a beast.”
“Gideon, please.” Lorien’s voice trembled. “Henry has nothing to do with this. He’s not like Will.”
“He is exactly like Will in every respect that matters,” Gideon corrected him.
“It’s not your fault,” Gideon said. “How were you to know any better, given the example Maddox set for you? Our kind does not mate with wolves. They are, at the very best, pets. I have seen nothing of any of these wolves I have thus far encountered to grant them pet status. Thus, they will be tolerated to live as trophies.”
“Please,” Lorien begged. “Just let him go. He has a life outside of this, outside of me. He could leave and never come back.”
“Ah, but look at him, poor thing, marked with the images of a lifetime of frailty. He has bonded with you, and so he is likely to try to return. Do not worry. I have plans for the both of you. Come peacefully and no blood need be shed.”
“Do you promise?” Lorien’s question was plaintive and hopeless. What did it matter if he promised? Gideon could do as he pleased. Henry himself was absolutely shocked by the sheer power of the beast. Looking at Gideon was like staring into the eyes of a dark god. He felt himself weaken, his resolve to live somehow dimming. He knew how it was to be a deer beneath his own jaws. The same natural order of things was asserting itself, and he was on the losing side.
“William has decided to taunt me by casting me out of Maddox’s house and cutting me off from my very own progeny. I have decided to exact revenge on each and every person connected to him. So. You, Lorien, will tell me all you know about William. If you do that, Henry’s life will be spared. If you try to save William, or spare him any pain, then I will kill him, and you will watch. Do we understand one another, baby vampire?”
Meanwhile…
“We can’t do this,” Candy pressed her hands against Ivan’s hairy chest. They had already done it several times. Dozens, actually. Her once pristinely domestic lounge was now a much wilder place. She’d been cleaning it up, but with Ivan around anything clean quickly became dirty again, and with most of the world taking refuge from the sickness, it didn’t really feel like it was worth it anymore. Ivan had a tendency to shed whether he was in his human or beast form — and he had taken both frequently lately.
