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4
Back in Gideon’s residence one day later…
Gideon was recovering from his injuries. They were already almost entirely healed, which he was faintly disappointed by. They would have healed more quickly if he would stop picking them with curious interest. It was so fascinating to have been hurt. He kept trying to mentally recreate the pain, but nothing worked. It didn’t have the lethal intent that the woman had brought with her, possessed, vile, broken thing as she was.
“Are you feeling alright, pater?”
Ray could be a sniveling little shit at the best of times. Gideon usually had plenty of patience for it, because it came with obedience of the kind that made his life easier. Today, however, he found it an irritant.
“Yes,” he said. “What is it, Ray?”
“The monster that nearly killed you, we have been unable to identify what she is.”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course, pater. She is capable of doing damage to you. She could appear at this place at any time and attack us all. She seems impervious to pain. I thought I wounded her, but she did not bleed. She acted as though she could not feel it. She is a clear and present danger to you, and to every vampire loyal to you.”
Gideon’s dark eyes flashed with eternal glee. “I know. Isn’t it exciting?”
Ray’s face looked on the verge of crumpling. “Father, I have never seen you injured before.”
“I know. Isn’t it exciting?” Gideon repeated with a broad grin.
“I don’t think you understand. This represents a fundamental shift in what you are, and what is ultimately possible.” Raymond lowered his voice, as if he was about to say something unthinkable. “She might be able to kill you.”
“If there were anything on this planet capable of destroying me, it makes sense that I would have been the one to make it,” Gideon replied. He was quite entranced with the experience of being hurt, harmed, and having his life threatened. He wanted more of it. It was, he supposed, something like a drug.
“Bring me Maddox.”
Ray’s face did that unattractive contortion once more. “What could he do that I cannot do?”
“Bring me Maddox,” Gideon repeated.
The black sheep of the family would yet have his utility. There were many times when Maddox was more pleasant company than Ray. There were times a fawning, obedient son was useful. And then there were times his most rebellious child mattered most.
Ray went and fetched Maddox, which only took a matter of seconds given the speed vampires were capable of traveling at. Deliveries inside Gideon’s castle were incredibly swift.
Maddox arrived in his usual modern yet formal attire, a black suit emphasizing the long and powerful lines of his body, his red silk shirt a nod to the sanguine nature of his existence. It had been some time since Gideon and Maddox spent any real time in one another’s presence, and in the light of his recent experience, Gideon was suddenly very much aware of just how beautiful his creation was. Maddox was something special, not just because he was dark and powerful, or because he contained more fearsome impulses than anybody besides Gideon expected, but because he was unique. Special.
“You called?” Maddox asked the question with apparent deference that completely failed to impress Gideon. He saw the lingering hatred in his spawn’s eyes. He knew the resentment that lived there.
“I’m surprised you are still here,” he said, his gaze on Maddox.
“Why? This is where my fledgling is.” Maddox’s expression was still, giving away no emotion.
“Your wolf has escaped. I imagined the moment you heard that news you would have abandoned my home to find him.”
Maddox gave a very slight shrug. “He does not consider himself mine, and I have responsibilities to attend to here.”
If he was lying, he was doing so very convincingly. Gideon could probe the mind of his offspring, but he was not feeling inclined to do so. He had not asked for Maddox in order to perform vampiric psychotherapy on him. The experience of being hurt had excited him greatly. He was eager to repeat it.
“I want you to find this”—he waved his hand in the air—“this woman. You knew her once. You must be able to find her again.”
“The woman?”
Now Maddox was certainly playing dumb. The entire coven had been deep in conversation about nothing else ever since Gideon returned wounded. Tales of her existence had spread from one side of the mansion to the other. It was the most exciting and terrifying news to hit vampire-kind in centuries, if not millennia.
“Yes. The woman you used to use. The woman who bore your wolf and your fledgling. The one who seems to have cheated death in some way we do not yet recognize.”
