18. Trent
Chapter 18
Trent
T he road stretched out in front of him as Trent sank into the cushy leather seat. He glanced over at the muscular red headed coven master in the driver’s seat. The vampire hadn’t said a word since they got on the highway. Trent looked down at his phone. Hopefully, there would be service soon, so he wouldn’t have to stare awkwardly out the window, thinking about how intimidating Freddie Grosvenor was.
Eventually, he couldn’t stand the silence anymore.
“What will happen to Justin?” Trent asked.
The powerful vampire raised an eyebrow, but didn’t take his eyes off the road. He replied in his deep, British-accented voice.
“He will be dealt with.”
Trent shook his head. Vampires. Why did everything have to be dramatic? And end in death?
“What does that mean?” he asked, figuring that the coven master would tell him to shut up if he didn’t want to talk.
“We’ll speak with him. We’ll determine the severity of the offense and follow our laws. Betraying a fellow vampire and his mate is no small misdemeanor.” Freddie spoke matter-of-factly, as if this were a typical day of business. Maybe it was for him.
“His aunt was taken hostage,” Trent said. “That has to be a mitigating circumstance.”
Freddie glanced over at Trent. He felt naked under the gaze of Freddie’s piercing green eyes. “Perhaps. Do you wish to advocate for Justin? His actions almost led to your death.”
“I just know what it’s like,” Trent said, picking away at his pant leg with his fingers as he spoke. “To face an impossible choice.”
“And…?”
“Justin and Oscar have a history. I’m already depriving Oscar of his mate. I wouldn’t want him to lose his friend as well.”
“Ah.”
They sat in silence as Trent stared at the evergreen boughs flying by on the side of the highway. At one point, they passed a small family of turkeys waddling around in the ditch parallel to the freeway. Their clumsy, round bodies made him chuckle.
It had been many years since Trent lived anywhere but a city. He hadn’t missed the countryside, but there was a part of him that yearned for the peace of nature.
“Has Oscar told you about his time in the old Azarian coven?”
The question jolted Trent into the present. He thought back to things Oscar had said.
“Some. I know that the younger vampires were starved. That he kept the sickest of them safe when the coven fell apart.”
“When Anthony, Lillian, and I found Oscar, he had set traps for us.”
“What?” Oscar was smart, but this seemed completely out of character for the flirty, flighty singer. Even if he’d recently discovered there were more layers to Oscar than Trent had initially thought, that sounded like some spy movie shit.
“Well, not specifically for us, I suppose. He kept the other vampires safe by booby-trapping the entrance to the floor of the covenhouse they were holed up in. A homemade aerosol torch, spring-loaded knives…it was fairly impressive. When we went in, he set himself as a shield between us and the rest of them.”
“Alone?” Trent asked.
“By then, they’d been so starved that Oscar was the only one conscious.” A pained expression crossed the stoic coven master’s face. “He had kept them alive by feeding them small amounts of his own blood. The others were all in comas. By force of will, somehow Oscar was still standing.” Freddie’s voice hummed with a low undercurrent of grief and anger. “It…it was horrific.”
“Oh.” Trent didn’t know what to say. “Why…why are you telling me this?”
“Because I thought you should know who he is. The party boy facade is a new development. It’s a reaction to the trauma of what happened, a way to hold the world at arm’s length. When I first met him, he was starving and trying to keep his covenmates alive. He was intelligent and resourceful. And terrified. For the first six months after we found him, he woke up screaming every night. He cares a great deal.”
Trent crossed his arms, squeezing them hard against himself. He hated how raw everything had felt recently. Before now, he’d used his hyperfocus as a shield, keeping any problems at bay. But since Oscar, he was one man-sized exposed nerve.
“I’m starting to see that. I just worry…I can’t give him what he needs.”
“I know about the Madison coven,” Freddie said.
Trent flinched at Freddie’s words. “Why? What do you mean?” He didn’t like to think about his “home” coven.
“The vampire world is small, and we keep track of each other.” Freddie’s voice was even and grounding. No wonder people followed him. “We have to be prepared when a coven turns to evil and has to be put down. Your old coven never got to that point, but it did come across my desk in London.”
“Oh.” Trent’s brows furrowed. “Was it that bad? I was new to the supernatural world. I assumed all covens were like that.”
“The word was that leadership was weak, and that the fight for power was brutal.”
Trent nodded, not saying anything. He’d spent most of his adult life trying not to think about his old coven.
“We were planning on sending someone if it got any worse.”
“It was bad enough,” Trent whispered, looking away from Freddie. “The jockeying for control was at all levels. The coven master ran it like his own mini-army, and everyone was obsessed with rank. They’d do anything just shy of killing off a covenmate to be promoted. Eventually, they did start killing. That’s when I left.”
“Because they murdered your stepfather.”
Trent’s gaze snapped to Freddie, who still didn’t look away from the road.
“You think I wouldn’t find out about your history? You were in my covenhouse, even if only for a few minutes. It’s my job to know.”
Trent shook his head. “I guess. Yes. When my stepfather died, and then…everything else happened…I got out.”
“Not all covens are like that, Trent,” Freddie said. “Some do their best to protect each other and lift each other up. My people do.”
“I suppose that’s possible, but…”
“You can trust Oscar, you know. He could have had his way with you whenever he liked. He could have forcibly changed your mind.”
Trent sat up straight. He’d forgotten about Oscar’s gifts.
“His powers are incredible.”
Freddie nodded. “Quite unusual. The power of mind control is one that usually manifests in older vampires. But even though he is young, he doesn’t abuse it. He’s a good person.”
“I think that’s true. But I also saw what happened to my mother. I don’t know if I can ever trust a vampire. Not all the way.”
They sat in silence for several minutes. The sky was clear blue above them, the clouds fluffy and white, as if Maine had given them a picturesque day as a parting gift. Finally, Trent broke the quiet.
“I know you’ll put some kind of surveillance on me when we get back to the city.”
Freddie grunted affirmatively. “We haven’t seen any sign of Elliott. I don’t trust him.”
“It’s fine,” Trent said. “I expected it. But…can you make sure it’s not Oscar? I…we need the time apart.”
“Not every mating ends in tragedy, you know.”
“I know that!” Trent stopped himself and breathed in and out, trying to calm his system. “I do. Really. I just…I need the time.”
Freddie cocked his head for a moment, taking in what Trent said. Finally, he spoke.
“I’ll have Lillian do it. She won’t have any problem keeping you safe. And she’s discreet.”
“Thank you. Tell Oscar…I’ll call him in a week.”
The first couple of days back in the city were strange. The landlord had put in a new window, so Trent’s apartment wasn’t quite the mess he’d left it. Although he was on edge at first, there were no signs that he was being watched or followed, other than the occasional glimpse of Lillian. He attended his classes, but Oscar wasn’t there. Anthony gave him a piercing look when he first saw Trent, but Trent quickly calmed him down.
After he’d been back for three days, he had his first one-on-one lesson with Anthony. He arrived at the practice room early to run through his music with Julie.
“Where have you been?” she demanded after Trent walked through the door. Her hair was up in a tight bun, and her wire-framed glasses gave her the look of an imperious-but-still-glamorous schoolteacher.
“Family emergency.”
“Come on.” Julie rolled her eyes. “Both you and Oscar were gone for a long weekend. I’m not Sherlock Holmes if I solve this mystery. You left town together!”
“I…I can’t really talk about it.” Trent swung his backpack off his shoulder and unzipped it, pulling out his binder full of music.
“Whatever. But something must have happened between you.”
“What do you mean?” Trent asked.
“Are you kidding me? You two go, and then you come back, but he doesn’t. Where is he? What happened?”
Trent pulled up a nearby music stand, metal scraping against metal as he slid the black contraption to the appropriate height. “Can we just rehearse? The Manhattan Lyric audition is in two weeks, and I have to…”
“Have to do better than Oscar?” Julie asked, snarkiness creeping in.
“Yeah,” Trent said, although his heart wasn’t in it.
Trent wanted to focus on music. He didn’t want to think about what had happened. He didn’t want to worry about how Oscar was feeling. He came to New York to achieve his career ambition and get away from vampires. If that was all that he did for the next five years, that was fine. He needed to let go of the long-haired vamp with the swimmer’s build who had made his skin catch fire with his touch.
“I’m going to call Oscar after this. The two of you are my friends. We’ll go to that coffee place with the hateful baristas and you two can work through whatever?—”
“I just want to sing!”
The words came out louder and harsher than he intended. He was exhausted from being so on edge. It wasn’t the upcoming audition, or even the vampires-are-trying-to-kill-me shit. It was Oscar.
Julie nodded, her eyes wary after being shouted at. “What should we work on?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Dammit.” Trent closed his eyes, reaching for the control that had eluded him over the last week. After a moment, he opened them, locking his gaze to Julie’s patient face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Okay…” Julie waited expectantly. Of course, she wanted more information.
“I…yes. There’s something going on between us, and I don’t know exactly what it is or how to deal with it. I just need some space. I need to focus on my singing.”
Julie nodded, then slid out from behind the piano and walked over to Trent. She smiled and opened her arms, looking up for consent. Trent nodded.
She wrapped him in a tight embrace, and Trent felt something give, a knot of tension finally loosening and giving way. He had no one he could talk to, no one he could be fully himself around. He had kept everyone at a distance.
“Thank you,” he whispered into her ear, his face buried in her honey-scented hair. “I don’t think I can…I don’t know…”
Julie pulled back and took his face in her hands. Her palms were warm against his cheeks.
“Listen, if you need space, that’s fine. But as someone who also uses her career to avoid thinking about emotions, let me give you some advice. Sometimes distance is helpful. But for people like us, it’s a distraction. We occupy ourselves with the mountains of work and all the internal pressures that we pile on our plates. We never actually feel the thing we say we need space to deal with.”
Trent sighed, nodding. She was probably right. Not that he would tell her that.
“I just don’t know.”
Julie smiled, wide and warm. “That’s okay. In the meantime, let’s sing.”