4
Cal
Lucian didn’t waste any time making my brothers and me follow through.
And now, here I stand, inside a luxury mansion, surrounded by elite vampires listening to my uncle address the room.
“Welcome, gentlemen, to Viewing Night,” Lucian announces.
“For the next two hours, you’re invited to observe and learn about the pool of exceptional women we’ve gathered for this year’s Selection.
I know many of you are new to the process, and we’ll be walking you through it as necessary, but the Council’s biggest piece of advice is to enjoy it.
You’ll only have your first Selection once, and I must say…
there’s nothing quite like that thrill.”
My jaw locks tightly as I lean against the wall in the back of the room, trapped in the hell of watching my uncle and his elder peers talk about this event like it’s some sort of fucking trip to an amusement park.
I’m wearing a tux and holding a glass of bourbon in my hand, but the liquor is untouched and the setting is the least deserving of formal wear I’ve ever seen.
It’s fucking disgusting, plain and simple. And if I had any other option at all, I wouldn’t be anywhere near it.
As things stand, though, I’m stuck here. Kane and Blair and Rook and Kylie have been confined somewhere out of sight since we arrived, and I’ve been tucked under Uncle Lucian’s wing.
And because of the tremendous exhibition of power he made during our first meeting, I haven’t gone rogue. Hell, he might be one of the most powerful vampire I’ve ever met. There’s no telling what he’d do to Rook, Kane, and their mates before I even had a chance to find them.
I’m trapped—both physically and emotionally—for the time being.
“Calloway,” my uncle calls from the front of the room, startling both me and the large group of men around me. I expected to be the unspoken elephant in the room for a bit—to be cast as an outsider as a further form of punishment.
Several sets of angry eyes find mine in a sneer, and the ones who don’t are openly curious. A hundred vampires, all waiting for me to make a wrong move. As the quietest brother of the Slater trio, I’ve never been under this much scrutiny in my life.
But I guess that’s the point.
“Yes?” Even the simple word feels like a bitter betrayal of my tongue. To be here. To be compliant. Everything about this is an assault on all that I stand for.
“Come up here, please.”
My jaw locks around a nasty lack of choice. He’s taken away my autonomy completely by separating me from my brothers, and he knows it. But he’ll be the only fool if he thinks my compliance is built to last. I will be ruining him and this place and all these men when the time is right.
I vow it.
Weaving through the agitated group of wealthy pricks, I make my way to the front, only stopping when my uncle sets a hand atop my shoulder and spins me to face the room. My body is stiff, and my eyes scan the space for threats.
“Gentlemen, I know some of you are wondering about the presence of Calloway here, as most of you know him as a member of our blue-collar class,” my uncle announces.
“I understand the confusion, but I want you to set aside your preconceived notions about who he is or where he comes from and treat him as one of your own.” He chuckles. “Calloway is my nephew.”
There are a few subtle inhales at the unexpected news, and a quiet murmur of hushed and hurried whispers follows swiftly. Naturally, my ears don’t disappoint. I can hear every fucked-up thing they say about my blue-collar background and orphaned childhood, but I shut it out as quickly as it starts.
Opinions of assholes like these are irrelevant, and letting their nonsense clutter my mind will unnecessarily dull my senses.
“He’s one of us, of the fourth, previously thought to be extinct, noble bloodline,” Lucian continues, shaking my body with a tight squeeze of his still-present hand.
“And as such, is a key piece of the Council’s long-standing goal for racial purity.
If we’re to be the best, we need the best. And Calloway… is the best . Understand?”
There’s a low murmur of understanding and begrudged agreement, but for my part, I’m reeling over the news.
Not only are my brothers and I elite, but our mother was of the fourth bloodline that went extinct decades ago? I’m shocked.
But I’m also fucking over this ostentatious display.
Without waiting for permission, I step out from my uncle’s hold and back into the crowd, carving my way to the back of the room.
A couple of men laugh, and my uncle joins in—relishing the cute little display of obstinance from their pawn—and then continues with his speech.
“We’ll be moving now to the observation room on the second floor. Don’t worry about your drinks—there’s a bar up there—just follow us swiftly, if you would, to prevent any commingling with the women in the hallway.”
As the men file out into the hall, chuckling and festering in evil rapture, a small group of men congregates at my uncle, who is, once again, flagging me over.
Frustrated, I down the glass of bourbon before setting it aside and stride toward them, anger clinging to me like a sturdy companion. It’s as though Rook cloaked me in his personality for good measure. He’s always been a grumpy-as-fuck bastard.
“Calloway, before we adjourn to the viewing room, I just wanted you to meet my brothers,” Lucian declares, effectively drawing my eyes to the three men beside him in a snap.
His brothers, meaning one of these men is my father.
It’s the second time he’s caught me off guard in the last five minutes, and by the smile on his face, he’s reveling in it.
Regardless, I log information about our sperm donors as both a matter of confirmation and information. The more I know about the men who decided not to raise us, the more ruthless I’ll be able to be when I destroy them.
Tall, intimidating, and sickeningly unbothered, my father is immediately recognizable. But of course he is—I, unfortunately, am his spitting image. From our hair to our posture, to the slightly outward camber of our feet, we are of the same blueprint.
He greets me with a jerk of his chin and zero relational warmth, and I return the favor with a look of disgust. The inside, evidently, is where the similarities run dry.
And then he laughs . “I don’t know, Lucian. I know you said he’s mine, but I don’t really see the resemblance,” he mocks, actively ignoring my matching brown hair, blue eyes, and sharp jaw for a chance at a low blow. “Looks like any other poor fuck playing dress-up in fancy clothes to me.”
“Please, Cassian, practice some decorum, I beg of you,” Lucian chastises, though his anger falls well short of his eyes. “This isn’t the setting for uncivilized behavior.”
Good news? I now know my father’s name is Cassian. Bad news? He’s a fucking piece of shit.
Cassian just keeps laughing, and the two other men—one blond and one dark-haired—laugh right along with him. They don’t hesitate to look in my direction the entire time. They want me to feel uncomfortable. They want me to know they think I’m the butt of the joke.
And when the blond and dark-haired men’s faces turn up in all-too-familiar smiles, the unbearable news of Rook’s and Kane’s fathers—and their also shitty personalities—confirms itself too.
Wherever my brothers are, I hope to fuck they’re not being subjected to this kind of mental warfare.
“A spade has no problem being called a spade,” I eventually say, shrugging an unbothered shoulder. “Which is why I’m sure you don’t blink when people call you a prick.”
My uncle, the crazy asshole, laughs like he’s somehow proud of the reply, heading off my father’s angry steam before it can escalate. “Good. Now we’re even on the jabs, and we can move on.”
The other three, however, take much more offense. They were hoping to crawl under my skin and root there—but it’s hard to bully someone who doesn’t give a shit.
I only care about the opinions of people I would trade places with—and I wouldn’t trade places with these fuckers for a hundred billion dollars.
“I wanted all of you to meet so we could act as a welcoming committee of sorts,” Lucian goes on to explain.
“If Calloway is going to assimilate among us, he needs to have some stewards.” He points toward the dark-haired asshole.
“This is Nathanial.” And then he points to the blond-headed fuck. “And Ronan.”
Neither man offers a smile or their hand.
“Good luck, kid,” Cassian— my fucking father —spits.
He eyes me over his glass of bourbon before snorting in disgust and downing his drink.
“You’re certainly going to need it.” He turns hard blue eyes to Lucian, spilling his evil out for the world to see with no filter.
“If I’m his steward, he’s dead. How about that? ”
Lucian sighs as Cassian walks away, and Rook’s and Kane’s fathers snicker among themselves.
“Nathanial? Ronan?” Lucian eyes them pointedly. “You owe me this.”
“Fine, Luc.” Nathanial nods, his mouth set in a firm line, and it’s almost uncanny how much Rook looks like his father. “But don’t expect me to do it nicely.” He shoves into my shoulder as he walks away, and Ronan is the only brother left to consider me.
He shakes the ice in his glass and runs his tongue across his teeth. “My boy look as much like me as you look like Cassian?”
Kane might as well be his fucking mini-me, but I shake my head. “Nope,” I lie. “Not even a little bit.”
Without so much as another word, Ronan leaves the room to head for the observation space, and my jaw works itself over with the effort not to break in two.
It’s one thing to meet your father. It’s a whole other thing to come face-to-face with a man who sells and tortures innocent women for sport, knows you’re his son…and thinks you’re better off dead.
“Come on, Calloway. Let’s get moving,” Lucian encourages, moving on from the fucked-up family reunion as though it never even happened. “You’ve got a room of women to see.”
I don’t say anything—because I can’t.
Nothing, and I mean nothing , short of burning this whole place to the motherfucking ground will do.
I walk on wooden legs as my uncle escorts me out the door, past a couple of security guys, down a long hallway, and up a grand set of red-carpeted steps.
At the top, we make a left and enter a pair of double mahogany doors into a ballroom with a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows along the entire left side.
Male vampires of all ages stand at the glass like a bunch of zoo-goers at the gorilla exhibit, talking among themselves and pointing to various parts of the room below.
The moment I step inside, something stirs in my gut—an instinct that pulls my attention toward the glass with them.
It’s unsettling as hell.
And it doesn’t matter what the women down there look like; they’re all innocent pawns in a rich vampire game.
“It’s a one-way mirror,” my uncle updates as he guides me toward the viewing glass.
“The women down below can’t see us. This is an important part of the selection process that allows us the opportunity to see them acting naturally.
As I’m sure you could guess, a lot of them have preconceived notions about how they need to be—what look they need to present—and, when they’re among us, turn into something of a different personality entirely. ”
Overwhelming discomfort pricks at each and every one of my senses as we step up to the massive viewing window and peer down into the room full of extravagantly dressed women.
They talk among themselves and laugh and drink, upturning their faces toward us just enough that my stomach flips over.
“If they can’t see, why are they looking up here?” I ask, hating myself but needing the information if I’m even going to have a shot in hell at dismantling this place from the inside out.
Lucian smiles. “Keen observation, Calloway.”
I don’t accept the compliment, but he doesn’t care. He takes the inquisition as a personal victory, leaning in even more closely and lowering his voice as he explains.
“For their part, there’s a montage of previously bonded couples playing via a projector on the wall above them,” he answers. “It’s comforting for them to see the happiness on the faces of their predecessors and ancestors, and for our part, it gives us a chance to see their faces more clearly.”
Forcing myself to scan the faces of the innocent women below, I log them into my memory and vow internally to set them free from the chains of a fate they cannot and should not have to foresee.
What these men here intend to do with them is both self-serving and morally compromised in every way it can be.
I know there may be a couple among this group of vampires who don’t fully understand the implications of buying a woman to use for their own consumption and enrichment of power—or, I don’t know, maybe I’m just hoping there are for the sake of my sanity—but the practice is archaic and repulsive, and I can’t, in good conscience or moral heart, allow it to go on for another year.
This one will be the end. This one will—
Everything inside me freezes as a face peeks through the crowd below, upturned in something much, much different than a smile.
Her pale-yellow dress further highlights the sick pallor of her skin as she watches the supposed movie rolodex of couples who came before her, and a grimace turns down the corners of her perfectly pink mouth.
She looks…wrong here.
My body leans toward the glass before I even realize I’ve moved, and a strange pressure spreads through my chest, tightening with every second my eyes stay locked on her.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask her name, but the thought slams to a halt as something hits me with the force of a fist to the gut.
The room fades.
The noise disappears.
All that exists is her .
And the terrifying certainty blooming inside my chest.
This is it , I think, as wonder and regret and something dangerously close to grief twist at every nerve-ending inside my body. This is the feeling my brothers both had. This is the change. Immediate. All-consuming. Irreversible.
She— whoever she is —is my fated mate.
I know it as well as I know that Calloway Slater is my own name.
Suddenly, the pull to the glass makes perfect sense.
But it also means everything about this situation just got a hell of a lot more complicated.