I shake my head. “I don’t think so. The vamps are notoriously secretive, that’s why getting into the Forbidden Archives is like solving a mystery wrapped in a puzzle while someone throws knives at you.”
“True enough,” Dante replies.
“But there must besomethingdown there we can use, right? Hundreds of years of history and surely at least one vamp has to have gone nuts in the past and tried to take over the world, right?” I spread my arms out. “Well, clearly they weren’t successful since we’re not all blood slaves, so we just dig around until we find something.”
“There are hundreds and hundreds of books down there, Silver,” Dante says quietly, like he’s afraid to pop the bubble of my optimism.
“Well then, we’d better get started, hadn’t we?” I stretch my arms above my head and add, “My Plan B is for me to spongeoff Seb’s magic and then borrow some super-powered blood from somewhere and make every one of Simpson’s crew and all the Archarcans forget their whole damn lives. If they don’t care about people’s futures, why should we care about their pasts?”
“Very poetic,” Dante says.
“Ruthless,” Z adds. “I like it. Makes my cock rock hard when you talk like that.”
I snort, but then cock my head as my eyes scan down to the evidence he’snotjoking. “Good to know.”
The tone of his voice plus Zeph’s growl have sensation prickling over my skin and I shiver. I imagine Dante sliding onto the bench beside me, his hand sliding up my thigh as the two of them bookend me to teach me a lesson for my naughty tongue. In my mind’s eye, Zeph spins me around and I lean back against Dante’s solid body as he licks and kisses the delicate skin of my neck and Zeph buries his face between my legs.
“Silver?”
“Yep. I’m focused. Focusing.” I blink away my little fantasy, my cheeks burning and my thighs clenching. “
“Are you sure you want to go down this route?” Dante asks. “If we find the way to take out Simpson and his gang of merry murderers and then we’ll be the ones with the knowledge of how to end them. It’s always an optionnotto throw yourself directly into danger, you know.”
I pop up and press a quick kiss to his cheek. He grips my wrist before I can dart away again and presses the gentlest of kisses to my wrist before releasing me.
“I know that. But Simpson is one sick fuck. He poisoned Fabian, and we all know that there’s no one currently hunting him and his cronies down to stake them, despite them being a genuine threat to the city.”
“They’ll be too busy trying to reason with him,” Zeph says.
“Exactly. It wouldn’t surprise me if they try to appease him somehow. Add him to a new subcouncil or something. They can’t seem to get it into their heads just how much he wants power and how few shits he has to give.”
I could see the kind of feral desperation he had the night of the Solstice Ball.
“So... we fight back?”
“We fight back.” I nod. “Information is power. That’s what Fabian’s always saying, right?”
Maybe it’s the caffeine and the sugar coursing through me or something else, but I feel like I could take on the world right now.
“Information is power,” Dante repeats softly.
“Fuck running and hiding,” Zeph says.
I give a wobbly smile. “Is that all right with you?”
Dante just nods and reaches forward to squeeze my hand. “I’m with you, Silver.”
“I’ll fight with you to the ends of the earth, Little Witch.”
