Liam paused before saying carefully, “With a little help from the werewolf alpha and a few others.”
Jabari’s attention hadn’t wavered from me. “It is rather fortuitous that you had such powerful allies to draw on.”
“As is always the case,” Liam said.
Stephen’s slight smugness at the announcement of Elinor’s death struck me as odd. I knew they were competitors and her death only gave him another advantage in this selection, but it was more than that. It was almost as if he’d been expecting it. As if some plan of his was coming together.
I chanced a glance at Stephen using my other sight. Black, oily smudges ate away at his veins of power, as if he was rotting from the inside out.
Demon taint.
My attention shifted to the others. Should I say something? None of us had imagined there would be more than one person who’d entered into a contract with the demon.
We should have.
Things started making a little more sense. What better way to eliminate the competition than by having them eliminate themselves? Even better if you convinced one of your main competitors to make a deal so that when people came looking for the culprit, because no crime was perfect and people always came looking, the trail would lead them to the last person in your way.
He probably hadn’t accounted for my seeing magic. A side effect of the spell the sorcerer had cast, no doubt.
“This changes things,” Sophia said. “With Elinor and Robert’s elimination through death, that leaves only two applicants.”
Attention shifted back to Thomas and Stephen.
I didn’t like the look on Stephen’s face, smug and proud of himself.
“It’s odd, isn’t it? That Elinor never bothered going after you,” I told Stephen. “You’re supposedly her biggest competition, and she just left you alone.”
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Couldn’t let him get away with this. If his actions had just affected the vampires, maybe. But they hadn’t. They’d changed Caroline’s life forever. Put me through having the horror of plucking out my own eye.
“I’m strong. She no doubt figured she’d work her way through the less powerful competitors,” he said with a careless shrug.
Bullshit.
Even I could feel the lie in that one and by the looks on the faces of the vampires around me, they did as well. Tse looked like he wanted to disassemble Stephen and scatter him across the city. Sophia looked at him with distaste while Jabari kept his enigmatic expression, giving no clue to his true feelings.
“Doesn’t matter why,” Stephen continued. “I’m the last competitor standing. That means the position is mine by default.”
“There’s Thomas.”
Sophia shifted. “Thomas has failed to pass one of the most important tests. That of proving he can sire vampires.”
I knew I shouldn’t keep drawing attention to myself. I should just let it go, keep my head down and hope Stephen forgot about me in the rush of assuming the mantel of leader of the entire Midwest.
“What does his ability to sire little, baby vampires have to do with being able to lead?” I’ve never been good at doing what was best for myself.
“A vampire can draw power from those he’s sired. Without them his base of power is much smaller.”
“Thomas seems plenty powerful to me. Doesn’t much seem like he needs a bunch of little rugrats running about supplementing him.”
It was the truth too. Thomas’s power shone like the brightest sun, nearly eclipsing Liam’s and two of the three in front of me. Jabari looked like the only one who had enough oomph behind him to present a danger to Thomas.
It was a risk letting them know I knew how powerful he was, but I was hoping they thought I had just been lucky in my assumption.
“The rules state that the master must be able to sire other vampires.”
“Sounds like he already has,” I argued.
“You speak of William,” Tse said. “He was never confirmed as being of Thomas’s line before he died.”
