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“No! Fuck!” Lorien grunted the word against the desk. His usually composed facade had slipped. He was breathing hard, even though he didn’t need to breathe. It was a carry over from his human memories, a reaction to the energy of being beaten.
“It’s been some time since I punished you,” Maddox said, laying the cane over Lorien’s ass and holding it there, still. “I think you’ve forgotten it is always an option I will have when it comes to you.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Lorien said.
Maddox lifted his arm and brought it down swiftly, cutting the cane down across Lorien’s haunches with another harsh stroke.
“You have done a great deal. Do not insult me by imagining I don’t know what is happening in my city. I run an entire team of detectives. There’s only one thing I don’t know. Who turned Chauvelin? Did you feed him your blood? Is that what happened? Tell me the truth, Lorien. I do not have any patience for another disobedient subordinate.”
“I don’t know. I buried him like you told me to. I promise.”
Maddox tapped the cane lightly against Lorien’s ass, keeping a firm grip on him in case he gor the very bad idea of trying to get away. “Someone’s turned him.”
“Could have been any of the vampires looking for an edge, turning as many as they could. It's easier to hunt the recently deceased.”
“No. You can’t turn the deceased.”
“Which means….”
“I buried him alive,” Lorien said, making a distinct ‘my bad’ face. “That’s rather… that’s not… hmm. He probably didn’t enjoy that.”
“No. I’d say he probably did not.”
Maddox stepped back and gestured with the cane to indicate that Lorien could rise. He did so with an ashamed expression that held not a little guilt.
“I know it was you,” Maddox said. He was tired of the games. He was tired of the lies. He was tired of playing games on top of games. It was time to come clean. For all of them.
“It was me what?”
“You killed Bertram and Ernest. I knew it the moment I saw them. It was an act of vengeance, and it had your quirks all over it. How did you do it?”
Lorien’s lips turned down, and then up in a bright, irrepressible smile. “You have no idea how hard it has been keeping that to myself.”
“How. Did you. Do it?”
“I entered the kitchen and sedated them with silver and garlic in their blood tea, plus a little extra ingredient I discovered in one of the old texts. Not enough to put them under. Just enough to make them a little slower. And you saw the rest. It was just wood and hammers. Very simple.”
Very simple and remarkably cruel. Lorien did not wear his perversion on his sleeve. He kept it hidden beneath a charming veneer, but it was there, and it was deeper and more dangerous than almost anybody supposed.
“You started a war. It is time you put an end to it.”
“How?”
“By taking their place.”
“You mean become king?”
“Yes.”
Lorien shrugged the suggestion off, literally and metaphorically. “I’m ninety years old. I can’t stand the midday sun. How can I take their place?”
“What did you think would happen when you killed them?”
“I thought you would take their place.”
“Me?”
“Why not? You’re an ancient. You’re always in control.”
