Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 65066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“Frangelico.”
There’s a flurry of frantic activity in the back seat. “We can’t go there! He’ll kill us!”
“Pull over,” Declan shouts, grabbing the wheel.
I do. “What the fuck?”
Laurie and Parker are already out on the sidewalk.
“We made a bet that you’d win the fight.”
“So?”
“So we might have borrowed a wee bit of money to do it.”
I sigh. “And you borrowed from Frangelico. You don’t need me to tell you that was fucking stupid.”
“You were supposed to win the match!”
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. I gotta get Benny to Frangelico now. Every second that passes is another chance for the one-eyed vampire to get away.
“Get in the car,” I order. “I’ll put a word in with Frangelico for you.”
“Really?” Parker perks up. “You’d do that?”
“He won’t kill you on my watch. Won’t even bleed you.” They’ll just be in his debt, which is arguably worse.
We pull up to the mansion and I park in front of the gate.
“Tell Laurie to park my bike out here,” I order before exiting and grabbing Benny out of the trunk. The sucker gurgles as I arrange him over my shoulder. He better not drool blood on me.
“And you’ll talk to Frangelico about our debt?”
“Yep.” I wave without looking back. I flag the attention of a lookout camera and tip Benny into view.
The gates creak open and I jog up the hill. Benny feels lighter. Loss of blood? Vampire anatomy is so weird.
This time, no guards greet me at the front door. The king trusts me. Or he’s impatient to get his claws into Benny. Or fangs.
“Don’t envy you, sucker,” I mutter to the unconscious vampire as the front door swings open.
Frangelico appears in the foyer, dressed in jeans and a white button-down shirt. It’s the most casual I’ve seen him. “Is this for me?” He rolls up his shirt sleeves. I’m about to point out that white is a bad color for what we’re about to do when Benny gurgles and jerks. The stake falls out and my burden starts to thrash.
“Shit, he’s waking up.”
Frangelico is by my side in a flash. Literally. I didn’t see him move. He didn’t even blur. Shit, fast vampire! My defenses stutter while Frangelico grabs his sired.
“Shh, I got you,” the king croons as if he’s holding his child. Which, in a way, he is. Benny’s eyes flutter and land on the king’s face, where they widen in terror. A moan breaks from the smaller vampire when he realizes who’s holding him.
“Good evening, Benedict,” Frangelico says in the fucking creepy crooning voice of his. “Have you been a bad boy?”
I turn away before I barf, just in time to miss Frangelico breaking Benny’s arm. The lesser vampire screams, but the king just lifts him. “Get the door, will you?” Frangelico asks me and I scramble. “We’ll finish this in the dungeon.”
It takes less than an hour for Benny to break. Usually I’d get involved, but the way Frangelico tortures his own is too much for me. I’ve given plenty of beatings—taken them too—but Frangelico uses both emotional torment and physical pain that’s beyond what I can stand. Plus his dungeon is full of medieval torture devices—actually from the Middle Ages. Fucking creepy. Benny thinks so, too, because he spills everything about the coup against Frangelico and all the players involved. Pretty much all of Frangelico’s sired were planning to overthrow him. When he finds that out, Frangelico drops all pretense about caring for Benny, and gets really cruel.
I almost pity the vampire victim. But then Benny screams something out about “Augustine’s fox.”
“What was that?” I lean closer to Benny’s face. No need to look down his body at what Frangelico’s doing.
“Augustine has a pet. He said you took her. He said he needed her back.”
“Did he say why?”
Benny shakes his head frantically.
“What about the one-eyed vampire,” I ask. “How is he involved?”
“He wanted the fox back too. The experiment is over, they said, but they still wanted the fox back. Something about hiding evidence.”
“Experiment? What experiment?”
Frangelico does something and Benny screams. “I don’t know! They don’t tell me everything.”
I nod to Frangelico and he makes Benny scream some more, but we don’t get anything else about the one-eyed vampire. Just the location of their secret club—behind the basement door where I cornered Benny.
Finally, Frangelico announces that we’ve gotten enough for tonight.
“Join me for a drink?” he invites. As he leaves, he caresses Benny’s limp hand. “I’ll be back for you later.” At Benny’s whimper, we leave.
“I gotta go,” I tell Frangelico after we’ve washed up. The king’s shirt is covered in Benny’s blood, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He washes his hands and inspects his nails as if he spent the last hour getting a fucking manicure.
“In a minute,” Frangelico says.
“Now,” I growl. Every second here gives the vampires a chance to clear out of their club.