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A creature of centuries accustomed to sleeping between bouts of bloodshed, the current peace was making him feel rather somnolent. He sat on the great throne he had commissioned, an iron structure covered in skulls and bones. It was a little trite, but it did remind him of the original he had once constructed himself from the skulls of the fallen. That throne lay in a crypt far away, a treasure yet to be discovered by modern man’s probing.
The throne he lounged uneasily upon had the same problem as everything else he encountered in the modern world. It was an echo of the real thing, an easy facsimile of something that should have taken time and effort to make and yet took none of either. It was comfortable in a way a throne of skulls and bones should not be. It supported his back and molded to his body. It made his lids start to drift down…
Gideon snapped his golden eyes open, dark lashes narrowing with temper. He could not sleep. He was well aware that the moment he slept, Maddox would reclaim his wolf mate. He had absolutely no intention of allowing that to happen, which meant staying awake in a time of peace until he was certain that the bond between the wolf and his progeny was well and truly broken.
“Father,” Ray hailed him, entering the room with a brisk and orderly stride. His latest little fascination, Chauvelin, came after him like a little shadow in his wake. Raymond’s golden hair fell to his shoulders in a glorious skein, his tall, broad shoulders clothed in what passed for formal attire in these modern times, a cloth suit with stitching that would barely have satisfied a peasant in the good old days.
Gideon felt his spirits lifting at the sight of his firstborn. Ray had always served him faithfully and completely, unlike his second son, Maddox. Ray was the fledgling who had made Gideon want a thousand more fledglings. Maddox was the progeny who made him more than content with two.
“What is it? You come with urgency, my son.”
Ray was uncharacteristically flustered. “Something is stalking the streets, killing vampires. And not just the carelessly made or the young. We have lost three master vampires more than a thousand years old in the last week alone. There have been sightings of what some are calling a monster.”
Gideon shifted in his seat and raised a brow, suddenly very much awake. “And what do we think this monster is?”
“It could be of wolf origin, or perhaps some kind of human construction, but the stories coming from survivors tell of something very disturbing.”
“Oh?” Gideon was intrigued now.
Ray paused and shuddered, as if the mere prospect of describing the creature took true effort. “They describe it as female, sir.”
Gideon stared, his beautifully masculine features completely composed, golden eyes locked on his son. “Just…. female?”
“Yes.”
He sat back on his throne, hating the way it didn’t jab him when he did so. “Femaleness is not, of itself, anything to fear.”
“Then why are there no girls here?” Carter spoke up. “I haven’t had a date since I came to this fucking hellhole.”
Gideon had forgotten about Carter. The young vampire, barely made, had a tendency to blend into the background. It was not because he was particularly plain, but because he was sullen and overly attached to his phone, which Gideon kept ordering be taken away from him, and which somehow always seemed to materialize in his hand again. Turned at eighteen years of age, Carter was the product of a disaffected, dying world, and like many of his age, he resented everyone and everything for that.
He would grow out of the petulance in time, maturing mentally, even if physically he remained in the first prime of a male’s life. He would forever be young and beautiful. It was a gift he was not yet grateful for.
“Why is the baby here?” Gideon said, looking for Carter’s maker. Of course, Maddox was not present. “Take him and find his maker.”
“Nobody young, nobody female, just a fucking old sausage fest,” Carter declared.
Gideon gave the baby a sharp look. Any other vampire would have cowered before that stare, but Carter was oblivious because he was scrolling through his phone again.
Carter was very rebellious. It was because Maddox refused to correct him in any way, and that in turn was another rebellion. It was Maddox’s way of abdicating the responsibilities of a maker, a role in which he had been trapped quite purposefully.
“Come,” Chauvelin said, stepping out from behind Raymond, his dark gaze always dancing with a kind of Machiavellian energy. “We will find your maker, boy.”
“Fuck off, Chauvelin,” Carter said, not even bothering to look up. Chauvelin was barely a year old himself as a vampire, though his middle-aged energy and previous life experience as an FBI agent did give him a certain gravitas.
“Father, this creature is causing great fear among the vampires,” Ray said, ignoring the squabbles of the younger ones. “If she is allowed to kill unchecked, well, they are already saying that you are not what you once were, and that in the past, no beast would have been permitted to kill your vampires while you were awake in the very same city. It is being interpreted as weakness on your part.”
“Is it!?” Gideon slammed his fist down on the arm of the throne. One of the skulls broke off and rolled across the floor with a hollow and unsatisfying plastic sound. Even the fucking skulls were fake in this new millennium. Gideon let out an eldritch curse.
“Pater,” Ray said, lapsing into Latin, as was his habit. “I would suggest a hunting party. It has been too long since we went on a good hunt, and the hounds do need a run.”
Ray was of course referring to William and Henry, two wolves captured from the house of Maddox. An experienced alpha, who had thus far given them little trouble, and Will, who was absolutely feral. Ray was right. They needed to be given a task and put to work. Having them lie about the kennels all day was less than ideal, and there were only so many times they could be forced to battle for Gideon’s amusement.
“Very well. Call a hunting party. Your good self, the hounds, and I.”
“Very good, pater,” sticking with the Latin again. Abandoning languages of the past simply because the languages of the past had been abandoned was not on his agenda. It was also a point of difference, and indeed, pride, between the very ancient and the very new. Vampires like Lorien and Carter, though they were made hundreds of years apart nevertheless did not share the lingua franca of the ancient world. Thus the divide between the truly ancient and the merely old was maintained.
Ray left with a spring in his step, and in very short order, Henry and Will were brought forth, transformed and chained. There was not currently a hint of human about either one of them. The larger, darker wolf was the one Maddox was obsessed with.
