“I know. I’m not saying he deserves to live. He’s cruel and dangerous, and I don’t want that decision left up to me. But—” Seth hesitated. The other vampire was watching them closely. Seth lowered his voice. “It doesn’t have to be you.”
Riley’s black eyes gave nothing away. Seth swallowed hard. “You and your moms worked so hard for so long to keep you from doing exactly this. I don’t want to be the one that breaks that.” Hetilted his chin to the waiting vampire. “Lethimdo it. He looks…capable.”
He looked more than capable, Riley’s companion. He looked cold-eyed and curious and wryly amused, like the life he held was nothing to him and the conversation happening in front of him was only mildly interesting.
“You’re trying to tame him,” the vampire said to Seth. “But it would be wiser to encourage him. He’s already failed to protect you once.”
Seth made a low noise of frustration. He stepped forward to face the vampire with the ugly burgundy suit, all Seth’s helplessness and frustration coming to a boiling point. “I’m not taming anyone. I’m giving him a choice. Everyone keeps talking about whether he can protect me. That’s bullshit. How about this? How aboutIprotecthim. I’m older and wiser, and he’s—he’s mine. He’smine, okay? He said so, and I believe him.I’lltake care ofhim.”
The vampire scoffed. “You aren’t strong enough to protect one of our kind.”
“I’ll fix that.” Seth turned to Riley, who hadn’t once taken his eyes off him. “It’s your choice, baby. I’m not—you’renot an experiment. You’re not a problem to be solved. Do what you think is right. But you don’t have to kill him for me. I don’t need it.”
“You’d turn for me?” Riley asked. There were layers to his voice, gruff and soft at the same time. Like both sides were speaking, vampire and lost boy for once sharing the stage. “For us? Is that—is that what you just said?”
Seth adjusted his hold on Riley’s arm. Not because he wanted to restrain him, but because he needed the connection. “I want to stand by you.Withyou. You’re not alone, Riley. Not in any of this. I love you—allof you. You’re mine, I’m yours. We protect each other. We protect our friends.”
Riley smiled, slow and fanged and beautiful. “We don’t careabout the lawyer,” he said, his voice rough and low. “We only care about you.”
He made a gesture to the other vampire, and there was a strangled, gurgling scream. Seth barely registered it. Because Riley was kissing him, a perfect, hard press of bruising lips and fangs and tongue.
Seth wrapped his arms around Riley’s neck and hung on tight.
He’d done it, hadn’t he? Seth had helped end this, in his meager, human way. He’d made the right call, and he’d protected the man he loved. He’d do it again and again if he needed to. He’d call in every favor, every connection he had.
“I love you,” Riley murmured, kissing Seth all over his face. “I love you so much. More than anything.” He captured Seth’s mouth again, lifting him off the ground.
“Ew. Gross.”
Seth broke the kiss. Violet. He’d forgotten about Violet.
Oh fuck. She was watching a man geteaten. “Look away!” Seth yelled, banging at Riley’s chest until he put Seth down.
Everyone kept lifting Seth off the freaking floor today. He wasn’tthatdainty.
“I’m talking about the kiss,” Violet said, and Seth finally realized she was facing the wall, away from Mr. Perkins’s untimely end. He was kind of surprised she wasn’t visually devouring the gore, but maybe writing about bloody retribution and witnessing it in real life were a little different after all. “My eyes might be closed, but I can still hear your mouth sounds.”
Seth gave Riley a stern look. A look that said, without a doubt,What in the fuck is she doing here?
Riley’s black eyes and fangs receded, leaving only a sheepish young man with kiss-bitten lips in their wake. “It was Wolfe’s idea.”
Seth was going to assume Wolfe was the vampire in the garishsuit. The one who had just—from the sound of it—ripped Mr. Perkins’s throat out with his teeth. Seth swallowed back bile. “She could have been hurt. She’s probably traumatized.”
“I’m not,” Violet said, sounding cheerier than Seth had ever heard her. “Not unless you two getreallygross and bang it out on the floor right now.”
Seth took a deep breath and gathered the tattered remains of his dignity. “We’re not doing anything on this floor,” he said, grabbing hold of first Violet’s and then Riley’s hands. “We’re getting out of here.”
“And the other staff?” Wolfe asked.
Seth shot him a glance, pointedly ignoring the body now slumped on the tile behind him. “We leave them. The doors stayed unlocked, right? Whoever or whatever was held here on the other floors escaped?”
Wolfe cocked his head like he was listening. “I believe so,” he said after a moment. “We have someone who can verify.”
“Then leave it, I’d say. I’m not interested in a massacre. If they start up again, we’ll deal with it.”
“Very well.”
Seth had no idea why this vampire was listening to him. Maybe it was because Seth had summoned Benny and Helio’s help, or maybe Seth’s stupid little speech had impressed him. Hell, maybe he was only mollifying Seth in the moment and would come back and kill everyone in the dead of night.
