The Baritone’s Rival (The Vampire Impresario #2)

7. Trent

Chapter 7

Trent

O scar had been so gentle with him, caring for Trent as he bandaged his side. Even in his exhausted, probably-in-shock state, it took Trent by surprise. If he was honest with himself, it had felt good. More than good. Oscar’s touch was soothing, calming him despite the throbbing ache.

He had closed his eyes and relaxed, drifted as Oscar cared for him. The few moments of sharp pain had passed quickly. He’d felt safe.

That wasn’t normal for him.

The sense of security fled as he found himself in the one place he wanted to avoid. In a covenhouse. Surrounded by vampires.

Trent had only met Anthony’s husband once before, at a school event, and even then, he’d been intimidating, his tall, hulking frame towering over most of the students and other faculty.

Up close, he wasn’t any more welcoming.

Trent was perched gingerly on an upholstered antique sofa, the cream fabric embroidered with Victorian flower motifs. There was no way to relax while sitting on furniture that was more than one hundred and fifty years old. Every time he shifted, the joints of the couch squeaked. He was terrified the whole thing would fall apart. Freddie sat across from him, somehow looking totally at ease in a dainty floral chair, like a giant in a birdbath.

Of course, he was relaxed. He was probably alive when the chair was made.

Anthony sat to Trent’s right. His paternal instincts had been turbo boosted, and Trent bore the brunt of it.

“You’ll stay here while you heal,” he said, patting Trent’s hand. “In case the dickwad that escaped comes back with reinforcements. You couldn’t be safer.”

“I’m not moving into your covenhouse.” Trent kept his voice even. He didn’t want them to see how freaked out he was by being around so many vampires. “And I don’t need time to recover. Oscar bandaged me up. I heal quickly.”

“You can’t return to…where do you live?” Anthony frowned. “Are you in downtown Brooklyn?”

“Crown Heights. My apartment is perfectly safe.”

“You’re staying. It’s decided.”

Trent opened his mouth to argue when he heard a slight movement behind him. Although heard wasn’t quite the right word. It was more that he sensed someone. A nexus of warmth.

“What’s going on?”

Trent turned his head to see Oscar standing there, his arms crossed, leaning against the slate gray wall. Next to him was a ridiculous portrait of some stuck-up-looking British noble on a palomino horse. Oscar was the source of that warm feeling. Trent really didn’t understand what that meant.

“Trent’s moving in here,” Anthony said.

Oscar’s eyes went wide at Anthony’s words, but he said nothing.

“It is safer.” Well, the coven master finally speaks. Freddie’s accent-inflected bass was intimidating, but Trent wouldn’t be bullied out of his home.

“Yes, exactly,” Anthony piled on. “We don’t know who these people were, if they’re coming back, anything. You’re human. A human against even one vampire is like an ant against a mountain lion. Or Anna Wintour. An ant against Anna Wintour.”

“I’ve taken care of myself for a long time,” Trent said. His muscles tensed at Anthony’s insistence, and it made his injury throb.

Anthony shook his head. “Not against?—”

“Yes, against vampires.” Trent pushed down against the arm of the sofa, bringing himself to his feet. Oscar was by his side at once, steadying him. His grasp was strong but careful.

“Thank you,” Trent said under his breath, and Oscar nodded, worry in his eyes, but he didn’t speak.

“You may have gotten lucky against those thugs,” Anthony said, his voice tight with urgency, “but if they send more?—”

“It was not luck.” Trent was getting louder now. He wouldn’t let anyone deny his hard-won abilities. “That asshole wasn’t the first vampire I’ve killed, and he won’t be the last. But what I’m not going to do is move into a house full of them.”

“You know us.”

“I know you , because you’re my voice teacher, and I know Oscar, barely. I don’t know any of the other vampires that live here. How many?”

“Fourteen right now, but?—”

“Anthony, he said no.” Oscar interrupted their teacher with a quiet determination. Trent felt a flowering of warmth in his chest as Oscar backed him up, which was immediately followed by suspicion. Why was Oscar taking his side?

“Besides,” he continued, “they were after me . Why would they go after Trent?”

“Revenge. Leverage.” Freddie’s voice was gravel, his face an unreadable mask. “Trent. Who are you?”

Trent’s jaw tensed. He didn’t owe this coven master anything, certainly not an account of his shitty teenage years, even if he was Anthony’s husband. He’d done his damnedest to forget them. He glared back at the redheaded coven master. He wouldn’t be intimidated.

“Someone who knows what the hell he is doing.”

Freddie nodded, not pressing further. He was silent for a moment, then spoke in a tone that would brook no disagreement.

“We’ll run security around your apartment.”

“I don’t want?—”

“And if they do come for you,” Freddie continued, ignoring him, “we’ll need an alternative. You’ll have to go away, get out of the city.”

“I have a cabin in Maine if necessary.” Everyone turned to Anthony on the sofa. Trent groaned inwardly at the possibility of some other scheme. They should just let him alone to defend himself, like he always did.

“My nonna’s old place,” Anthony continued. “It’s secure. Nothing around for miles other than a pack of wolf shifters, and they’re friends.”

“What?” Trent blinked, thrown off balance by this new piece of information. “Werewolves? Those are a thing?”

“Not exactly werewolves, no,” Freddie answered. “They can control the change. And yes, they are real. Vampires aren’t the only supernatural beings. Wolves tend to stay rural and isolated.”

“Regardless, it’s safe,” Anthony said. “The two of you could head up there until Freddie and Lillian have taken care of the last dregs of the old coven.”

Trent sighed in frustration. He hated dealing with coven masters, and even more with their mates. They were always certain they were right, and they had the power to enforce their notions.

“We both have class,” Oscar spoke up from beside him. At least there was someone who got it.

“I’m not missing audition season.” Trent would not back down from that.

“Of course not,” Anthony replied, as if this was an opening. “The audition for the Lyric program is the earliest, and that’s in four weeks. Plenty of time. I wouldn’t let you miss it. We all know one of you two will get it.”

Oscar took in a breath and moved a few inches away from Trent. Trent didn’t blame him. With the gravity of the situation, it had been easy to forget the big day hanging over their heads.

“This is stupid,” Trent said. “Only three vampires saw me, and two of them are dead. They have no reason to come after me. I’m going home to my apartment.”

Anthony looked back and forth between Freddie and Trent. He scratched absentmindedly at his forearm.

“I don’t like it. We might have killed Charles Azarian, but who knows the damage his escaped sycophants could do. And his sire Gabriela is still out there somewhere. It would be safer?—”

“It’s his choice,” Oscar said. He flashed Trent a tentative smile. “Trent’s decision is final.”

There was something about that smile. It called to Trent in an unsettling way. Oscar should have more cause to smile, bigger smiles, wider smiles. Oscar should lean back and shake out his long brown hair as he laughed. He could picture it. He imagined being the reason for it, and the image stirred up an odd sense of longing.

What was wrong with him? He needed to get home to his apartment and study his music.

His teacher sat there in unhappy silence. Freddie nodded. “The car will take you home.”

The ride was blissfully quiet. It was unsettling to be driven by a stranger that he couldn’t see, his face obscured by the dark glass of the partition, but it was also a long way home from the Upper West Side. He was grateful to not have to ride three separate trains to get there.

When he arrived in Crown Heights, he stepped out onto the tree-lined sidewalk in front of his old brick apartment building. It was a behemoth, taking up two street numbers. For the most part, the neighborhood was quiet.

He shouldn’t complain. It could be a lot worse. Housing in New York was notoriously expensive. He was able to live alone, due to the money his mother had left him when she?—

He really needed to stop letting his mind drift in that direction. Images of her had been popping up recently, and worse, memories of his stepfather and his old life. Seeing so many vampires in one day…

He slipped his key into the lock. The door was a huge wooden monstrosity sporting what must be hundreds of coats of white enamel. He was sure that there were even a couple layers of lead paint from the ‘50s in there somewhere.

He stepped inside, and the ancient parquet floor of the entryway creaked under his footfalls. The apartment had been listed as a one-bedroom, but that was charitable. There was barely a quarter of a wall between the tiny kitchen and the tiny bedroom, and the “living room” consisted of a four-foot square area to the left of the stove.

He didn’t mind. It was his, his sanctuary from the world outside. After the tumult of his teenage years, and the anxious searching of his undergrad, he needed an oasis. A place to shut out all the demands, all the ambitions, all the competitiveness, and just be.

He also didn’t want anyone to see him when things got bad. Like now.

Trent double-checked the door. He felt the old beasts of desperation and loss stir inside him. And terror, that was a big one.

As he always did when haunted by his memories, he set his single, beat-up upholstered chair in the center of the tiny living room, facing the only two windows. He surrounded himself with what weapons he had.

Several wooden stakes, lighter fluid, a blowtorch, and a machete. A strange collection of items to the uninformed, maybe.

Trent breathed in and out slowly, calming his quickening heart rate. The first tendrils of panic reached out from the center of his chest. Not an assault just yet, but an incursion.

Trent knew it was ridiculous. He was safe. He had killed a vampire earlier in the day and fought off two others. But logic didn’t help his brain. Here, alone in his apartment, with the night creeping in and the memories of his childhood scratching at the door of his mind, the terror was a living thing, a writhing, tortured beast.

The old hurt was always there, waiting to overwhelm him. At moments like this, he found it hard to hold on to himself, onto the successful up-and-coming opera singer in his mid-twenties. He was once again a teenager, watching his father die of a heart attack. Seeing his mother fall in love, so soon, with a man who turned out to be a monster. One of the undead.

Being thrust into a world of vampires that would eventually take the person he loved the most from him. Could anyone blame him for becoming an expert at killing them?

His breath quickened, and he surveyed the room, attempting to ground himself. The thin, ratty carpet under his feet. The faint smell of fish wafting through the vents from the apartment down the hall. The moonlight shining in through the windows, casting shadows on the floor. A flicker of movement in the dense leaves of the oak tree outside.

Wait.

Was it just a trick of his mind, or was it something more? Something, or someone, dangerous?

Taking a stake in one hand and the machete in the other, he gripped his weapons and waited for a siege. He hoped it was nothing, a bird or an errant eddy of air molding the leaves into unexpected shapes.

His anxiety, the specter of his past, screamed that this was a potential threat. But as the minutes went by, there was no other sign of a watcher. His shoulders relaxed, and terror, his old monstrous friend, died down, leaving only boredom.

He was too wound up to sleep. If he turned on the light to study, he wouldn’t be able to see out into the thick night. Instead, he let his mind wander.

For some reason, it kept coming back to one thing. Oscar.