Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 50954 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50954 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Will opened the window. “Hey. Gideon. Isn’t it funny, being the most powerful creature in all existence, completely unkillable, and yet I can just tell you to get out of my house like a little bitch?”
Gideon smiled back through the window. “Enjoy yourself while you can, puppy. When I get my hands on you, I will make you howl in agony.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Will snapped back glibly. “What?”
The second question was directed at Maddox, who was giving him a stern glare.
“That doesn’t help.”
“It doesn’t hurt, either,” Will pointed out, always pragmatic. “Asshole wants to kill me either way, may as well give him a reason to. Besides, he’s creeping out there to get a reaction.”
“What do you want, Gideon?” Maddox addressed his maker with a casual tone that must have rankled.
“You are a disobedient boy,” Gideon intoned. “And when I have slain this furry little interloper, you and I will have a very painful reckoning.”
“Eat a dick,” Will guffawed.
“I may well do that,” Gideon replied, without humor.
“Kinky,” Will shot back.
“Will, enough,” Maddox said, his tone sharp.
“I’m not going to respect the guy who wants me dead,” Will said.
“No, but you will respect me,” Maddox reminded him.
“Don’t see why you give a fuck either.”
“He is my maker. He is wrong on this issue, but he is due some respect from the pair of us.”
“He’s got us bailed up here under pain of death! I’m not respecting him.”
“Don’t intervene with the brat on my behalf,” Gideon said, his dark gaze lit with a kind of malevolence that suggested he rather enjoyed it. “I might have felt the slightest pang of guilt in killing him before. Now I have a multitude of reasons.”
“If you kill people just because they annoy you, you’re just a… actually, whatever. I’d kill people just because they annoyed me too if I could get away with it,” Will mused.
“You have killed people because they annoyed you. Remember Chauvelin?” Maddox said.
“Oh, yeah. What a piece of shit. He had it coming.”
“Ivan and Candy are still exposed. We need to get them out of harm’s way and into this house.”
“You want Ivan here, in the same house as Henry and Lorien. And you want Candy here too? A human woman locked in a house with two hungry vampires and my dad? Candy can banish the vampires from her house herself,” Will said practically. “It’s fine. We’re all going to be fine. This time is about us now, isn’t it? Finally, about us.”
20
But it was not just about Will and Maddox. How could it be, with so many others in play? Though they were willing to insulate themselves from the world, the world did not stop turning. Outside the relative security of Maddox’s home, Henry sought his lover.
Henry had come into the city to be with Lorien now that Will was no longer in the wind. They met in the park, where over eight hundred acres of nature allowed him to feel somewhat at ease.
He had been struggling with the guilt of Lorien’s injury since it had happened, and when he saw the man he loved emerging from the shadows before him, it ignited twin flames of possession and passion.
“Lorien!”
Lorien ran toward him. Henry could not contain himself. He ran toward Lorien, catching him as the vampire flung himself at him.
“I have missed you so much.” Henry wrapped his arms around Lorien, holding him close. “I am so sorry I was not there to help you. I should have put you first, not Will.”
“That would have been nice. But I have eternity, and Will has, well, at the rate he is going, days at most.”
“Our future has to be about you and me,” Henry said. “Nobody else. In times like these, we have to look after our own. You are mine. We will leave the city. We will go to the country. Somewhere with buildings for you to sleep in and people to feed on. I’m going to make this right for you. I’m going to be the mate you deserve.”
“Aw, what a pretty speech.”
Henry’s arms tightened around Lorien. He felt a spear of ice run through the very core of him. The voice came from the depths of history. It was old. It was powerful. And it was angry. He was trapped. He could feel it. Malevolence surrounded him on all sides. He was a predator, but suddenly he knew what it was to be prey, to feel himself at the mercy of forces so much more powerful than himself.
“What a pretty speech,” Gideon growled in the darkness.
“Run!” Lorien cried the word out, but it was too late.
They were surrounded. Gideon had not come alone. Raymond and Chauvelin were flanking him, and there were many others besides. Two dozen vampires at least, and not young fledglings, but the city’s old blood, those who had tired of the chaos in the period following the deaths of the twin kings.