“After all the trouble you’ve caused me, I want you to suffer while I torture your companion, the human you tried to save,” Kat snarled.
I hated being right.
“You really should have been taught the dangers of taking another vampire’s former companion for yourself,” Kat continued, her earlier anger disappearing. “Chadwick has a fun little gift. He can scan the thoughts of any human he’s shared blood with. The best part is that since it’s not technically a compulsion, it’s almost impossible to detect. Even for someone as skilled as Thomas’s pet healer. It wasn’t particularly useful, but it was fun watching you turn in circles in search of a traitor when all it took was placing a tracker on your car at the Gargoyle. Add in the bug we put on your phone during the meet and greet when you left it unattended and this was far easier than I thought it would be.”
Kat smirked at Liam. “Makoto tends to be overconfident in his abilities. He never once considered there are ways to circumvent his security. I doubt he even looked through Aileen’s phone.”
“I’ll be sure to inform him of his oversight later,” Liam murmured.
“I’m sorry, Aileen. I didn’t know he could scan my thoughts. I swear.” Deborah’s voice cracked.
“I believe you.”
Kat’s grip on Deborah’s hair tightened. “Isn’t that sweet? She forgives you.”
“Fuck you, bitch,” Deborah snarled.
“What is it with the people in my life having a death wish tonight?” I said, hoping to distract Kat from retaliating against the human. “At least wait until she doesn’t have your neck in her hands to tell her to fuck off.”
I thought that was commonsense.
“Is that what you would have done?” Deborah asked, still channeling that bravado.
“Definitely not,” Liam said.
I looked at him. “I might have.”
“You would have enraged your captor,mo chuisle. We both know that.”
Okay, probably.
“You’re being awfully quiet,” Liam said to Dominick.
I agreed. It was like he was waiting for something.
“Not that we don’t appreciate your villain speech and everything, but what happened to all the killing?” I asked as the side of Deborah’s cross-body messenger bag bulged. A second later, tiny hands hooked on the top of the bag and Inara poked her head out.
Oh no.
She waved at me, way more excited by this hostage situation than I was.
Lowen joined her.
Great we were all here.
“He’s timing our deaths for when the challenge starts,” Liam answered for Dominick. “He’s hoping the shock will distract Thomas and make him careless.”
Dominick’s faint smile remained plastered on his face. “To answer your question, Aileen—the human is here because anyone with ties to Ahrun’s line will be stamped out by dawn. My master learned something very important the last time he went up against Ahrun and lost. That the bonds Ahrun has with his progeny and any who belong to their lines give him power. He uses them for fuel and to increase his strength. It’s why we had Thomas’s witch lover curse him. To ensure Ahrun had no other connections to stabilize him as we slowly weeded the rest of his line from this world.”
Dominick’s gaze moved to Liam. “We’d planned to curse you too, but you never gave us an opening.”
“That’s why you went after Lilith,” Liam said softly, not showing any surprise at this news. “You knew her death would tear Ahrun apart.”
Dominick’s smile was hard. “His devolution started after that, didn’t it?”
I was starting to understand why Ahrun had made me drink dream-blood to establish a link. Maybe Dominick and his master’s plan wasn’t as crazy as it seemed.
“And as for Thomas, you’re right,” Dominick drawled. “Your deaths will advance our cause very nicely.”
