I didn’t see Thomas move. Just heard a wet gurgle and saw the spray of blood as Thomas ripped out his throat.
“Should one of us stop him?” Anton asked, appearing next to me as if by magic.
“Be my guest. I won’t get in your way.” Nathan paused to think. “It might be amusing. Why don’t you do that? Aileen and I will wait.”
Anton’s glare was interrupted by Clive’s sobbing. He sighed at the teenager. “Will you stop that?”
The question only made Clive cry louder.
Thomas lifted his head from Elliot’s throat. Blood covered his jaw and neck. His white dress shirt now looked like a Rorschach test. Thomas licked his lips, his gray eyes like liquid silver.
To my surprise, Elliot wasn’t dead. His heart beat was slow and unsteady, but still there.
“You couldn’t have waited until I finished the interrogation?” Anton complained.
“Feed him some of our blood. Keep him and the other alive.” Thomas’s expression was dismissive as he glanced at Clive. “Do to them what they wanted to do to my children.”
Clive pulled on his chains, struggling to get free. “You said you’d let me go if I talked.”
Anton’s look was cool. “We lied.”
The devastation on Clive’s face should have made me feel some kind of empathy for him. But hearing how they’d planned to torture Connor and I as a means to weaken Thomas had left me in an unforgiving mood.
Thomas paused beside me, his gaze seeming to ask if I was going to object.
I might have if I didn’t remember the excitement in Clive’s eyes when he first pointed his gun at us. The fervor of a zealot burning bright in his face. He hadn’t felt any doubt about his cause then. Not even a second of hesitation.
“Please,” Clive moaned. “Please save me.”
If I’d been the one begging, would he have given me respite?
I knew the answer without having to think. No, he wouldn’t have. He’d have laughed in the face of my pain.
Seeing my answer, Thomas looked at Anton. “When you’re done, make them vampires. I want them to feel despair over knowing they’ll never get into their heaven before you kill them.”
Mental note—never make Thomas my enemy.
He was vicious, not even sparing the idea of their souls. If they really existed.
Thomas guided me outside. Nathan followed.
“You said a bomb was discovered under Aileen’s car?” Thomas asked.
“That’s right.” Nathan looked at me. “It’s likely Aileen and Connor would have been in the car when it blew if the hunter and Dominick’s vampire weren’t murdered.”
“Strange way for them to capture us,” I said.
A blast like that would have ripped me apart. I’d have died. Connor might have survived though.
“It would have been difficult for them to take Connor otherwise,” Thomas said. “They assumed his torture would affect me worse than yours.”
Should I be offended that they were probably right?
“If you did manage to survive, they would have had a second bargaining chip,” Nathan said.
“It seems Ahrun’s intervention saved you both. Perhaps he’s not as far gone as we feared.” The last part was said in a low voice as Thomas’s gaze turned distant. “Inform the clans to search their territories for signs of explosives. From the number of hunters Aileen saw in Easton, it’s likely this isn’t the end. They’ll try a multi-pronged attack next.”
Nathan cursed. “You think they’ll drive a wedge between you and your allies?”
