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

16. Trent

Chapter 16

Trent

T he room closed in around Trent. He wasn’t sure if it was this new information, or the blood loss, or just general overwhelm, but the atmosphere pressed down on him. His chest tightened as he gripped his legs, his hands on his thighs.

“Oscar—”

“I would never force you to accept the bond, Trent. Never.”

“I don’t want this.” Trent couldn’t temper the harshness of his tone. This was the thing that had destroyed his mother, that had haunted his teenage years.

“I wouldn’t have revealed it to you.” Oscar stayed plastered against the butcher block counter, far across the cabin. “I didn’t expect an attack or for your life to be in danger.”

“Wait.” Trent pushed down against the arm of the couch, fighting his exhaustion to come to standing. His core was shaky, and Oscar stepped toward him to help. Trent held out a hand to stop him.

“You…you knew? And you didn’t tell me?”

Oscar paled, his already fair complexion going sheet white. His hands gripped the wood of the countertop.

“I knew that you wouldn’t want it. That you couldn’t. And I didn’t want it either. You’ve seen Elliott. You know what I ran from?—”

“When? When did you know?” The adrenaline was banishing Trent’s grogginess, strengthening his uncertain legs. He needed details, and now.

Oscar took a deep breath. “The day of the attack. When I dressed your wounds. I was drawn to your…your blood. After we were done, I tasted a drop. I knew then that you were mine.”

“I am not your property!” Trent’s voice echoed off the wood of the cabin walls. He was trying so hard to keep control, but this was too much. “Why would you taste my blood? What an invasive, disgusting?—”

“I was pulled to it. Drawn to it. Because you are my mate. My demon pushed me to try that single drop, to know for sure.”

“You should have told me.” Trent’s jaw clenched. “You didn’t have any right to hide something like that from me.”

“I wasn’t?—”

“If I had known we were mates, I would have never come here with you!” Trent’s knees buckled at the exertion, and he collapsed down onto the couch. He hated not being one hundred percent. He hated having to rely on someone else.

Oscar walked over to Trent, sitting across from him, perched gingerly on the armchair, scooched to the front of the seat cushion.

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t?—”

“I want to go back to New York.” Trent fought against the panic and desperation threatening to stop his voice. “They know we’re here. It doesn’t make any sense to stay.”

Oscar flinched almost imperceptibly, then nodded. “Freddie and his First are on their way. Once they get here?—”

“No. I want to go now.” Trent knew he was being unreasonable, but he couldn’t help it. This was all too much. He just wanted to be home.

“Please,” Oscar said. “Elliott probably won’t return so soon after being injured. We should wait for Freddie and Lillian. They can take on anyone. And even if we were attacked again, the cabin is the best place to be. We don’t want to run into Elliott and more of his coven alone on an empty backwoods road.”

Trent sighed, almost whimpering. Anxiety churned in his stomach. He couldn’t purge the raw panic from his system. It was silly, all this inner turmoil in a ridiculous, rustic cabin in the woods of Maine. Was he gonna shoot a bear and then cry about his childhood trauma?

“Fine.” Trent closed his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone that we are mates.”

“I…I had to report to my coven master. I can’t hide things from Freddie when we speak mind-to-mind.”

“Dammit!” Trent kicked at the wooden coffee table, sending it flying off its three remaining legs with a crack. He sat up, glaring at Oscar.

“I won’t repeat the mistakes my mother made,” Trent continued. “I won’t give up my independence to find myself at the mercy of a coven full of vampires. It doesn’t matter if I’m attracted to you, it doesn’t matter how hot the sex is. I’ve seen what happens. I’ve seen what the manipulation and blood lust do to a person. My mother is dead because of it. And she lost her sanity long before that.”

Oscar didn’t respond. Trent was being vague, but he didn’t owe Oscar an explanation. He didn’t owe anyone an explanation. His life was his own.

When Oscar finally spoke, his voice was small and tentative. “I didn’t expect us to be together. I didn’t plan to make it happen. I knew how you felt.”

Fuck. Oscar was hurt, and Trent had lost the ability to be dispassionate. He cared about Oscar, and if they stayed in this moment for any longer, his resolve would soften.

“Let’s look in Justin’s room.”

Trent walked away without waiting for a response. He needed a distraction from the conversation and from his thoughts. The power Oscar had over him, the pull he felt. Was it real, or due to some kind of bullshit destiny thing? Was he actually bisexual? Or was he being forced to feel that way by vampire magic?

Whatever it was, he couldn’t be seduced by it. He couldn’t afford to be tempted by an easy salve to his loneliness. He knew his mind, and he knew that what mattered was his career and his future, and not being caught in the trap his mother had found herself in.

He threw open the door to Justin’s room, grabbing at the door frame for support for his slowly strengthening body. What he saw didn’t make any sense.

“He didn’t leave anything behind,” Oscar whispered. He was right. It looked as if Justin had cleaned from top to bottom. Everything was spotless, the twin bed made, a colorful old-fashioned quilt spread over the sheets.

“There,” Trent answered. He gestured to the small wooden desk in the far corner. On it sat a scrap of paper, torn from a notebook and lightly lined. He walked over and bent down to read what was written there.

Just one word.

“It says ‘sorry.’” Trent forced the words out from behind his clenched teeth. “That’s it.”

Oscar collapsed down onto the bed, burying his head in his hands. He was distraught, but Justin’s betrayal only strengthened Trent’s determination. He couldn’t go back to coven life.

“This is why I can’t have a mate,” Trent said. “Why I can’t be around vampires. At the core, a vampire is a bloodthirsty, selfish being. Look at Justin. You thought he was trustworthy.”

Oscar looked up at Trent, his eyes lined with exhaustion and worry.

“I don’t understand why he would betray us. He sold out his own coven.”

“Because that is what it means to be what you are.” Trent crossed to the dresser, opening drawers, searching for anything else left behind, but each was bare of Justin’s belongings. “A creature that drinks blood for a living cannot be trusted.”

“You think you can’t trust me?” Oscar asked. There was desperation in his voice, but Trent didn’t turn to look. He couldn’t stay strong in the face of Oscar’s sadness. He opened the door to the narrow closet, tugging on the wrought iron handle and peering into the dark. He knew he wouldn’t find anything, but he needed something to focus on so he wouldn’t give in.

“No. I don’t. I don’t trust vampires. And when we get back to New York, we should keep our distance.”

The bed squeaked as Oscar stood. His footsteps were gentle thumps as he left Justin’s bedroom. Trent was alone.

His gut churned with guilt. Maybe Oscar didn’t deserve that. Oscar hadn’t betrayed him. Perhaps he never would. But that’s not what history had shown him. Trent had learned the lessons of the past. Trust no one, but especially not vampires. Today’s events only reinforced what life had taught him.

A crash of wood broke Trent out of his reverie. What was going on? He strode into the main room of the cabin to see Oscar breaking one of the rustic kitchen chairs in two, adding it to a new pile of debris behind the door. Off to the side was Rhonda’s body. Oscar must have dragged her over and covered her with a quilt.

“What are you doing?” Trent crossed his arms as he stared out at the mess that Oscar was creating.

“It takes ten hours to travel here from Manhattan. I might have wounded Elliott, but there’s always a chance he’ll return before Freddie arrives. We have to make the cabin defensible.”

Trent surveyed the interior of the house. The bedrooms had windows, but the doors to those rooms could be shut and barricaded. On the other hand, the two large bay windows that looked out onto the porch from the main room would be hard to defend.

“What about the windows?” Trent asked.

“Tilt the couch on its side and cover one of them. We’ll need to be able to see out of the other. They won’t take us if they come.”

It only took about half an hour to finish the job, which left them another nine hours to spend in each other’s company. Unsurprisingly, Oscar didn’t say much. Trent had pushed the vampire away, so the silent treatment wasn’t a surprise, although it didn’t help his guilt.

Oscar had pulled out a large tome about the American Civil War from a dusty bookshelf and was sitting on the floor, leafing through it. He didn’t have much choice. The rest of the furniture was piled up against the front doorway.

None of the books in the cabin appealed to Trent — they were mostly about war and woodworking, with a few classics thrown in — so he grabbed a puzzle from the pile of games and spread it out on the kitchen counter. One thousand pieces. That would kill a few hours.

The time passed in silence. Tense at first, they settled into an uneasy truce. Oscar stayed glued to his book. Trent stared at the stack of similarly colored puzzle pieces. It was supposed to be a painting of a snow-covered cabin, but all those white pieces looked exactly the same.

Their determined effort to ignore each other might be the reason why it took so long for Trent and Oscar to realize they were being watched.

It was the unsettling tickling of gooseflesh on the back of Trent’s neck that tipped him off. He stepped away from the kitchen counter, glancing out the only remaining unobstructed window. It was dusk now, and the encroaching darkness lay thick around the outside of the cabin.

It took him a few seconds to understand what he was seeing: a figure, so still it was as if the shadows of the trees had molded around it. But the light shifted, and when it did, it revealed the slight blonde twink that had led the attackers to them.

He was staring right at Trent. His face was blank, his eyes unblinking.

“Justin,” Trent whispered in a ragged growl. Oscar was by his side in an instant, his attention focused on his former friend.

“What do you think he wants?” Trent asked.

“I…don’t know,” Oscar said. “He’s never been much of a fighter. But before today, I would have also said that he was a friend. I was wrong about that.”

Trent grunted. The two of them stared out at Justin, who continued to glare at them with his piercing brown eyes. Ultimately, Oscar broke the spell.

“I have to go talk to him.”

“Are you insane?” Trent stepped back from Oscar with his arms outstretched in front of him. “You don’t know who else is waiting out there in the trees. Maybe he has a whole coven out there.”

“I have to find out, Trent.” Oscar gave his head a rueful shake. “He was my friend.”

“It’s a trap. You have to know that.”

“I don’t know that!” Oscar snapped. He pursed his lips and blew out a lungful of air, then continued in a softer tone. “We’re covenmates. I saved him from that asshole. I need an explanation.”

Trent sighed, but finally nodded. He understood, but he didn’t like it.

“Barricade the door behind me,” Oscar said. “If something happens, don’t try to help. If it’s more than just Justin, you won’t have a chance out in the open.”

Trent said nothing. He wouldn’t commit to that. His choices were his own, and he wouldn’t cower in fear from a vampire, not even if it meant his death.