Chapter 19
Scotty
“Holy shit! What are you doing?” I cried as Lysandro calmly picked up a wooden baseball bat and cracked Ego across the back of his head right as he finished drinking the blood from his goblet.
Ego turned with a hiss, elongated teeth out and showing in a way that I knew he wasn’t comfortable with.
Lysandro snorted, spinning the bat in his hand. “What are you going to do, fledgling?”
As I rushed over to check the back of Ego’s head, Lysandro held up a hand toward me. “Wait.”
“No, you hurt him,” I snapped, pissed off beyond reason.
“This is his next training exercise,” he said with a hint of a smile.
“He didn’t hurt me,” Ego growled, “but I’m going to hurt him.”
He flew across the room toward Lysandro, but the old vamp literally blurred to the other side of the room.
How we’d gone from tracking the heartbeats of different animals and insects, to Lysandro setting up different targets for Ego to spot through the woods surrounding his place, to this, I had no idea.
Ego howled in outrage, rushing Lysandro again. He didn’t get close to tackling him, running head-first into the window with a resounding crack. The window itself splintered.
“Holy shit. Ego, stop,” I said, going around the bar to find a towel.
By the time I’d wet it, the two vampires were staring at each other from opposite ends of the room.
Well, Ego was glaring, but Lysandro appeared mildly amused.
While I loved him—he’d been my first real friend that I’d made in this town by myself, after all—the way he was treating my vamp…
uh, not mine, but he was my charge in a way, right? If I was his anchor.
“I want you two to knock it off.”
Lysandro huffed. “He’s right. I just wanted to see your reaction to a sneak attack. We need to do this properly.”
“What does that mean?” I asked suspiciously.
Lysandro went out to the entryway, coming back in with a long black bag—which had to have been where he’d pulled the bat from—and a black briefcase. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him with anything that didn’t have a flair of color.
He put the stuff up on the bar counter. “Are you coming, Ego?”
Ego crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the window. “I don’t think I will. This is some bullshit.”
“No, it’s not. Your senses are coming along beautifully.
There’s not much more we can do with them until you’re willing to step outside of this godforsaken castle.
I don’t really want to work on strength exercises in here, either.
You might bring the whole place down. So tonight we’ll work on pain tolerance. ”
I flinched. “Maybe I should wait this one out in my room.”
Ego’s gaze widened, landing on me for the first time since he’d been struck with the wooden bat. “Can you stay down here? Please.” He licked his lips and glanced quickly at Lysandro’s stuff, probably scared of what other tricks they hid inside. “I’m a little…”
“Scared?” Lysandro asked, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow.
I threw my arms up. “Do you blame him? Normal people don’t walk around torturing each other.”
“But he’s not a normal person, is he?” He focused on Ego with an intensity that made me shift uncomfortably.
“I can sense it, fledgling. You’re waking up to your nature, growing comfortable even.
But this world doesn’t know about our kind, and those who do can be… less than kind. I need you prepared.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this,” I said, mimicking Ego’s posture and crossing my arms over my chest.
“I don’t mean this unkindly, my friend, but it doesn’t matter what you think,” Lysandro said.
Ego crossed the room, standing in front of me protectively. “Don’t be rude to him.”
“I’m not trying to be. I just need him—both of you—to understand that this is necessary.”
Standing behind Ego, I saw the blood that had leaked onto his shoulder and matted his hair where he’d been hit. Tsking, I blotted at his head with the wet towel. “I’m sorry if this hurts,” I murmured.
Lysandro barked out a laugh. “He can’t even feel it. Can you, fledgling? Scotty, push the hair to the side. You won’t even find a scratch on him.”
Doubting him, I did as he said and paused. “He’s right.”
Ego huffed. “I felt my scalp knit back together.”
“No way.” I dropped the towel and spun him to face me. “Are you serious?” He nodded. “Gah, that’s so badass.”
Ego rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched as he fought a smile.
He’d spent the last two days of us cohabitating trying to determine if all of my praise was sincere.
And it was. Everything he did was so ridiculously cool now.
I wasn’t sure if it was this whole me being his anchor business blinding me to reality or if it was just the truth.
The guy was a freaking vampire now. I mean, come on. That was too cool. But it wasn’t just that. Watching him set up and record for Dead Air had been epic, and I’d fallen in love with that music before I knew it was Ego.
Then there was the biggest truth, which I hated admitting, only because I felt bad about it.
Ego was a pretty cool guy before any of this.
His turning into a vampire and hiding away had been what brought us closer.
The whole anchor had forced that proximity even more, but the truth was, I’d been the dick who’d purposely kept myself from getting to know who he was past his public persona.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Ego said.
“You do have other options,” Lysandro said as he opened the briefcase. “You could go outside so we could work on speed, or you could feed from my wrist. Or Scotty’s if he’s willing.”
Ego’s body jerked back like he’d been struck. “I’m not willing to feed from any human. Least of all Scotty.”
“But he’s your anchor, which means—”
Ego banged his fist down on the bar top, cracking the expensive marble triangle pattern on top. “I don’t care what it means. I. Will. Not. Take. Advantage. Of. Him.”
Lysandro put his hands up in surrender, but I kinda wished he’d pushed him on it.
I had no problem with being Ego’s blood bag, I realized with a start.
In fact, I thought it might be kinda cool.
And I was really interested in what Lysandro had been about to say about why feeding on me as his anchor would matter.
But I knew that Ego was stressed. I could feel the discomfort radiating off of him.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I asked you to let Lysandro train you, and you’re sticking to your side of the bargain. Unfortunately, I guess that means you’re in for some punishment tonight.”
Lysandro flipped his wrist. “Hardly.”
He finished opening the case to reveal a true torture kit. What the hell? He smiled at us happily. “Isn’t it lovely?”
“Who are you?” I asked. “You’re normally so…nice.”
Looking affronted, he frowned. “I am nice. I don’t use this. Normally. Or at least not in a long while.” He waved that off, too, and his grin returned. “Where would you like to start?”
I stared down at the hammer, the dagger, the long nails, a short screw, the hand saw, darts, and some kind of small circular blade. Ego was actually supposed to pick being tortured by one of these things.
He blew out a breath and shrugged. “You pick.”
Lysandro rubbed his hands together merrily, which…wow. I wasn’t sure I truly knew this version of him at all. “Put your hand back on the counter.”
Before I completed my next blink, he’d slammed Ego’s hand with the hammer. I heard the crack of bones and let out an involuntary scream.
Ego stood unmoving for thirty seconds, then shook out his hand. “Well, that wasn’t pleasant.”
I gripped his shoulders. “Are you okay?”
He held his hand out in front of him, staring at it in confusion. “Yeah. I think so.”
Lysandro hummed. “If you’d been in a real fight with someone who knew how to kill you, you’d be dead. You really need to work on your reaction time.”
“Lys, you freakin’ hit me with a hammer.”
Lysandro narrowed his eyes. “For that”—he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder so fast I didn’t have time to process what was happening before he crossed the room and threw something at Ego—“you get the star.”
Ego screamed, “Fuck!”
I watched in horror as he gripped his blood-soaked face, then pulled the circular blade, which I guess was the star, out of his damn eyeball. Like, right out of his eye. Gagging, I turned away. “Did he lose his eyeball?”
Lysandro hummed. “I should think not. If he pulled it out, he could always put it back in.”
Choking back vomit, I asked, “Are you kidding me? It’s not like he’s a zombie.”
Lysandro snorted. “Of course not. Once they lose a limb or an eye or ear or whatever, it’s gone.” He patted my shoulder, and I heard him move away from me.
“Ego,” I called out. “Are you, uh, okay?”
“Other than being covered in blood, I’m fine,” he answered, sounding tired. “Scotty, you might want to go up to your room.”
I wanted to. More than I wanted my next breath, I wanted to go hide from all of this blood and gore, but I wouldn’t.
If being his anchor meant keeping Ego tied to his humanity, then I needed to know what he was capable of and what might set him off.
I needed to be as prepared for what was ahead as he was.
Because unbeknownst to him, Lysandro and I were going to get him out of this prison that he’d locked himself into. We both knew it wouldn’t happen until he felt safe, and apparently, part of the safety for him would be my presence by his side.
Hearing the zip of the long duffle, I forced myself to take a deep breath and turn around.
Ego’s face was hidden behind the towel that I’d wet earlier as he wiped off the blood.
The towel had turned a ruddy brown instead of the pretty pastel it had started as, and I felt bile rise up my throat again.
There would be time to hang over the toilet and let it all out later.
Right now, my—uh, the baby vamp—needed me.
I started to walk toward him, but Lysandro shook his head. “Go to Scotty, Ego.”