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Fine, I was the only demon I knew who could feed in the special ways I could, but I wasnotthe only one who could feed someone dry. Those lust demons had done it when we’d rescued them in LA. It was absolutely possible.
I moved away from him when more bile came out of his mouth before I punched his head off or something that would cause trouble for us.
I handled several things, pulling out my phone when it rang but shocked at who it was. “Yes?”
“Did you really take Graham’s son into custody?” Gavin asked me. “I doubt it’s because he insulted you like he said, but tell me you aren’t trying to start war.”
I snorted. “What else did he say to you?”
“He blasted me to get you under control and use whatever leverage I had to make your council behave,” he answered. “Clearly, people just hear what they want because I wasn’t vague at your fight setup that you didn’t answer to us. I told him the same and he accused me of lying. It’s not vampires putting a lot of these rumors out. The shifters think we helped you so we had allies and weren’t outnumbered.”
“We know that,” I interrupted. “We do,butsome of your members have played that rumor up like they own us andSloan, so if councils want tech help, they need to be nice to your vamps. We have recordings of it, so it’s not just whispers or guesses. But yes, you don’t have to prove to me that people don’t listen or use their brains.”
“Yes, it would be nice if more did.” He cleared his throat. “Is Sloan well?” He sighed when I snorted. “Yes, my intentions were not honorable towards her, but the child had grit and did help us immensely. I didn’t like that one of our own members traumatized her and she’s had such difficulties because she helped us. I’m mortified as the head of this council even.”
That was pretty nice of him to say, shocking to admit even. I let out a slow breath. “She’s doing better. I think if she can figure out how to balance her feelings for O’Malley and not get trapped into vampire shit, she’ll be much better. She’s not built for politics and being front and center, but she likes him. She’s talking to someone about what your councilman did to her and it’s helping.”
“Good, I’m glad. So what did you pick up his son for?”
“His dad is on the council, but the son is the head of their family pack. And they were holding twenty demons in their pack house, four lust demons personally for the son. Everyone knew it. Everyone laughed that no one would touch them because Daddy was on the council. I doubt they’re laughing anymore.”
Gavin was quiet several moments. “Sloan said something to me that stuck and she wasn’t wrong. I put vampires first—always. Fighting with demons is bad for vampires. I’m not a nice man, and I don’t care about what others should.”
I remembered saying it, but what shocked me was it stuck with him and he was bringing it up to someone else. “She has a way of calling them like she sees them but with a spin that’s not meant to insult you, just facts like she sees life in code.”
He grunted in agreement. “But while I might not help kittens like she said, I’ve never kept anyone captive. I’ve killed or taken people out who were in the way, but there is a level of evil waiting for someone who keeps people prisoner and uses them like they’re not living beings. I might not ever save those kittens, but I also could never stomach someone who would abuse them.”
“I get why Sloan said you’re not her favorite person, but you’re someone she would trust to get things done the way he said he would,” I told him. “And I agree with you that it’s a different kind of evil to do that to anything living. The problem is too many were raised that we’re not to be respected as living beings since we’re demons as if the humans got it right and we’re evil.”
He snorted. “None of you pop out any eviler than the rest of us. We feed on blood and you on emotions basically even if they’re packaged as sins. You’re just another type of vampire in my mind, stronger ones since you were born.”
“Say something else nice and I might just think you’re buttering me up for something, Gavin,” I teased, smiling when he snorted again. “Sloan is monitoring the situation with those who hacked you. Not officially and not something the council should know like we work for you, but she told me she’s checking in to see if they’re planning on making a move.”
“Thank her for that. I’ll let my council know what’s going on and to stay out of the shifter business. Happy hunting.”
I thanked him and hung up.
And that wasn’t the only call we received. Off the record, someone from all of the other councils reached out for the real story, and we made it clear that it was real and just the start of what we were planning since councils didn’t follow the lead of the vampires. That we were going to get our people out, and if any stood in our way or tried to get rid of the evidence, we had no problem getting rid of them.
Painfully.
It worked because over the next few days, a few other councils did what we’d forced the panthers to do. They asked if we knew who had demons and worked on getting them turned over safely.
“I told you they’d be chicken the moment we went after one of their families,” I chuckled as Natalia got off the phone with the head of the snake council. They were the latest to make it clear they would help. “It’s pathetic that it’s come to this, but at least we finally pushed the right button.”
I went to check on the compound after that and was shocked to see Bain there and in charge of a bunch of wolves who were helping out. I was glad he was okay, but I didn’t go by him, wanting to leave that alone and maybe he was just someone that I could be friends with later when my life calmed down.
Councilwoman Watson came through though, having those packs get in touch and jump on the opportunity for work. And not just with the compound, but Chun said they were hard workers getting houses cleaned out and stuff sold. He even let them keep a bunch of stuff like cars that now needed fixing, or like one house had a bunch of mountain bikes and the pack was thrilled for that.
I had no problem giving bonuses to hard workers that didn’t make trouble for us.
Hell, I was impressed when Chun had most of it dragged to a warehouse we owned—and hadn’t known about—and set it up like a Goodwill almost. He had Lewis launch an internal website that employees could access and had the pictures of everything we were wanting to get rid of.
Some of it we were willing to give away for free as long as someone would use it. The rest of it was for a cost but not much. People didn’t value things if it was all free, but we didn’t need the money nor have the time to charge for a bunch of no-name clothes that people could use.
The weapons found were trickier, but luckily we could hand them over to the German government with no questions asked as we had before.
One of the packs owned a paint store and could get bulk for us at a great price even with them getting a cut. So that was a huge score, and all around things were working out. I wouldn’t say they were working outwellbecause everything was exhausting and people were putting in a ton of work to make it happen, but it was working out.
