Chapter 10
Autumn
More words are spoken between them. I can’t hear what they’re saying over the angry thud of my heart.
Everything is a blur. How dare Will even think about taking another woman to a party, instead of me?
What even is this relationship between us, that he could consider such a thing? Am I worth so little to him?
I stride into the kitchen, feeling like a vengeful queen even though I’m only wearing a towel.
Will looks up. He takes one look at me and an oh shit expression transforms his face. “Xander, I’ll talk to you later,” he says, then sets down his phone.
I don’t know what to say. Will simply stands there and waits. Stubborn asshole.
He won’t talk? Fine. I will.
“You just suggested bringing another woman to an event. As your date. Don’t you even feel bad?” I ask. “Why aren’t you apologizing?”
“Because I’m not sorry.”
I can hear my pulse thundering in my ears. “You aren’t sorry.”
“No,” he says. “I’m not.”
“So you…you want to take someone else to a party?”
His shoulders fall, and his blue eyes soften. “Do I want to? No, love. I want to take you. But Gaius is a bad, bad man.”
“What’s he going to do to me?”
“I don’t know. All I know is this—every instinct is screaming at me to keep you far, far away from him.”
That’s not good enough for me. He’s being overprotective…right? But what do I know about vampire politics? “What did Xander say?” I ask.
Will’s jaw tightens.
“Well?” I prompt.
“He thinks you should go.”
“Because it’s safe,” I say. “See?”
“No. Because Gaius will see through an attempt to trick him. And he’s already smelled you on us, so he’s familiar with your scent. But I think if we found someone with a similar scent signature—”
“Don’t even think about it,” I say. “I’m going.”
“You’re not going, little girl,” he says. “It’s too dangerous.”
“How dangerous could it be, with you there?” I ask. “Besides, by your own admission, me being here in your apartment is dangerous. Fuck it—me being anywhere is dangerous. My freaking existence on this planet is a danger!”
I hate that I’m raising my voice. I hate that I’m allowing all of this to get to me.
And I hate, hate, hate that hot tears are forming in my eyes and spilling down my cheeks.
“Oh, love,” he says, wrapping his arms around me.
I remain stiff in his embrace, trying not to cry.
“I won’t take anyone else to the blood banquet,” he whispers. “I’ll tell Gaius you couldn’t make it. I’ll…come up with something. All right?”
“I’m being stupid, aren’t I?” I ask. “You’re trying to save my life and I’m trying to throw myself in front of the bad guy. All because I’m jealous.”
“No, no.” He kisses the top of my head. “I feel the same possessiveness over you, love. It’s all right.”
I melt into him, the fight leaving me. “You’re not taking anyone else, really?”
“Really. I’m not taking you either, though. And that’s the end of that. You want to fight me on it, I’ll put you over my knee and that punishment will hurt.”
I don’t doubt him. That’s something to test another time.
Right now, though, there’s only a towel separating my naked body from this man. He seems to realize that fact at the same moment I do, and a wicked smile forms on his face.
“You are jealous,” he says.
“Fuck yes, I am,” I say with a pout.
“Let’s go.” He heaves me up into his arms and I wrap my legs around his waist.
A few minutes later in the bedroom, we’re both naked and he’s leaning over me, pushing my legs apart with his.
“No one else for me, Autumn,” he says as he sinks his cock into me, filling me up. His whiskers scratch pleasantly against my cheek. “Just you. Only you.”
Xander
The blood banquet is tonight, but all I feel is a sense of foreboding.
What the fuck is Gaius’s true game, here?
He can’t want to stay in San Esteban. He always turned up his nose at the former colonies, saying they were too young to hold the rich traditions he values.
It’s a comment which solidifies him as one of the biggest assholes in my acquaintance, because those former colonies contain vast multitudes of cultures and histories, much of which were present prior to their colonization.
If his racist, colonialist biases kept him far from San Esteban, though, I was happy.
However, he’s here now. Why?
My suspicion is that he is bored. After four hundred years, not much entertains or amuses him. What does still amuse him, it turns out, is intrigue, manipulation, backstabbing, politics. Tormenting his frerte, Benjamin, is another amusement. Petty cruelties and domination rule their house.
Their entire dynamic gives me the fucking creeps.
Will and I chose this city because it was far from Gaius’s games. Far from his European strongholds. Far from his influences.
Now Gaius is here, and he’s brought all that shit with him. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I look at the antique grandfather clock in our Dorado Terrace apartment. It’s nearing eight in the evening, so I call Neve, knowing she’ll be awake.
“Xander.” Her voice is cool, cautious. “I told you yesterday, I can’t tell you anything.”
“I know you can’t. How much damage did he do up there, exactly?”
Her coolness edges toward sorrow, regret. “At least six. Two of them mine.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Neve.”
“Yeah. Me, too. We know how he is. If we don’t join him, we’re enemies. Motherfucker doesn’t know how to coexist with anyone.”
“Have you thought about…”
“Creating a triad of my own? Yes, asshole. I have thought about it. And I’m just not ready yet.”
“Okay, okay,” I say before she can start ranting about it.
I don’t bother telling her how if she had a frerte and an amant, she could better defend her territory.
She knows. She’s built up a strong network of allies, but that network will only get her so far if someone like Gaius comes in and wants to remain in her city.
Much like he’s doing with ours. Shit.
“I need info,” I say. “Info on Gaius. And I know you don’t have anything else. But you know people who might.”
Since talking to Will about the blood banquet invitation last night, I’ve been scouring San Esteban for vampires who may have information. Unfortunately, because they are technically poaching on Will’s and my territory, they aren’t particularly forthcoming when I start hunting them down for a chat.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says in a prim voice.
“Don’t bullshit me, Neve. There’s got to be at least a dozen loners in my city. Will and I don’t root them out because they aren’t calling attention to themselves. The least they can do is provide us with information they may have gleaned from the outskirts of SE.”
“They aren’t supposed to be in your territory,” she says in a short voice. “What makes you think they’ll talk to you? They fear you, you scary bastard.”
“Look, Neve, just tell me where to go.”
“Fine. I know a guy who might be in that poor district, I can’t remember the name. Some kind of flower.”
“The Bellefleur,” I say.
“Yes, that’s the one. Anyway, the guy’s name is Maxim. White dude, black hair. He’s usually hanging out near some diner, has a thing for one of the servers.”
“Thanks, Neve. He should’ve contacted me when he first came to my city,” I say. “Why didn’t he?”
“Hell if I know. Pride, maybe. I told him to talk to you, but obviously he didn’t. Don’t hurt him, okay? Maxim’s a teddy bear, and he’ll run if he’s threatened. He doesn’t want any trouble.”
From the affection in her voice, I wonder if Maxim wouldn’t make a good frerte for her someday. But I’m too smart to share the thought aloud.
I thank Neve once more before ending the call. Then I throw on my leather jacket, get in my car, and head out into the night. If I’m quick, I can talk to this poor asshole before meeting Will at Gaius’s Victorian mansion for the blood banquet.
The Bellefleur is indeed a “poor” district, as Neve called it, but it also feels more honest, real, than the shiny, polished face of Dorado Heights. It’s gritty, and the residents have grit. It’s interesting.
Once I’m in the district, I pull up a maps app on my phone and find a listing for diners. There’s one at the heart of the Bellefleur, not far from the pub where Autumn was working.
I find a spot a couple of blocks from the pub and park before walking back toward the diner.
The scents of the city fill my nostrils—car exhaust, cooking meat, spices, perfumes and cologne, garbage, human urine and even feces.
I pass a bar and the pungent sweet scent of liquor wallops me before I cough, clearing my throat and nose.
If I want to find this Maxim guy, I need to focus on my sense of smell and home in on one scent in particular: old blood.
As I circle the block, I come to an alleyway, and that’s where it hits me. The blood is old, but not ancient. This is a much newer vampire, younger than Will and me, perhaps sired within the last forty or fifty years.
I follow his scent beyond a row of cars parked in the alley. From here, the alley makes a sharp turn and comes out on a perpendicular street from where I entered.
Standing in the faint orange light over a bar’s exit is a man with shoulder-length black hair and a sharp nose, heavy black eyebrows. His attention appears to be on his phone, but he looks up sharply as soon as I approach.
“Aw, shit, man,” he says, and tenses as if he might run.
“I don’t want any trouble, Maxim,” I say. “Information only.”
“Then you’ll run me out of your city.”
“So you recognize me.”
“I know who to look out for, yeah.” He shrugs. “Neve told me to keep a low profile, not to start any trouble. All the cities are taken. And it’s too hard to get away with shit in a small town, man.”
I can empathize. The time will come, eventually, when Will and I need to spend a human lifespan away from this city.
With our connections, we will have an easier time residing in another vampire’s territory—likely Neve’s.
But for vampires without our connections or power, finding a home, whether permanent or temporary, can be a much more difficult prospect.
I say, “If you have information that I need, I’ll forget I saw you here.”
“What do you need to know?” he asks, bright green eyes meeting mine.
“Anything and everything about Gaius Black’s presence in my city.”
“Shit.” He shakes his head. “Man, I do not wanna get in the middle of this.”
Staring directly at him, I wait. It doesn’t matter whether or not he wants to get involved. What matters is that he already is involved. By coming into my territory without Will’s or my permission, he opened himself up to danger. He should’ve listened to Neve and reached out to us.
With a sigh, he says, “All I’ve heard is Gaius pissed off a bunch of motherfuckers in Europe. Some of us think he’s looking to claim new territory until things die down over there.”
Interesting. Powerful people make powerful enemies. For the longest time, I thought Gaius had amassed so much power as to be invulnerable. It sounds as if that isn’t the case, after all.
“Do you know who he pissed off?” I ask.
“No. The chatter is just rumors, man. Can I fucking go now?”
“Yeah, sure. Stay out of trouble, don’t call attention to yourself. You have my permission to remain in the city.”
“Thanks, man.”
I step to the side to allow him to pass at the same time the air whistles past my arm and a stake lodges into his heart.
What the fuck?
Maxim’s eyes bug out in shock and he staggers back against the brick doorway behind him.
It’s too late to save him, he’s already gone. I whirl around, taking cover behind a parked car, wedging myself between the bumper and a dumpster it’s parked next to.
Another stake arcs through the darkness. It’s coming from one end of the alley, and it’s quickly followed by another, this one from the other end. Fuck, I’m boxed in.
Maxim’s corpse is quickly turning to dust. He’s beyond my help.
However, he’s my only chance at a weapon.
I dive across the few yards that separate us, snatch the stake from his chest, and rush back to my cover.
Impact, then pain in my bicep—they got me in the arm.
They must be shooting stakes from a fucking crossbow or some shit.
I’ll have to lure them down.
That means playing dead.
I shove my torso under the car. There’s more cover here from shooting stakes, anyway. If I turn just right, I can get my phone from my pocket. Will could be here in ten minutes if he hurries.
I reach for my phone to text Will, but stop when I hear something. Footsteps, which would be too soft for human ears to discern. Vampires.
They’re coming to check if I’m dead. One from the top of the L-shaped alley, and one from the other side.
The best thing I have going for me is surprise.
When the first guy arrives, I recognize him immediately.
Big, muscular build and wavy brown hair reaching to his shoulders, styled like a mullet.
He’s one of Gaius’s, one who attacked me the other night.
Here to finish the job, I guess. I should’ve known there was more to that altercation than simply giving a message. It was a warning.
Followed by an assassination attempt.
Fuck me. This could be the end.
Mullet tugs on my leg. Immediately he knows I’m not dead, because I’m not turning into dust. He pulls again, this time harder, dragging me from beneath the car. As soon as my arm is free, I swing up with the stake.
He blocks me, forearm to forearm, then twists so he can grip my wrist. He’s huge, twice my size, and hauls me toward him. He gets me in a headlock, lifts me up. Damn, this fucker is tall.
His slender friend advances, jerks the stake out of my hands, holds it aloft. He points the sharpened wood directly at my chest.
I can’t escape, no matter how I twist and turn. There’s nothing to do but brace for the impact, for death.
I’m going to fucking die, and Will and Autumn will never know what happened to me.