“We shouldn’t be here,” Jono said in a low voice. “This doesn’t feel right.”
“You can wait outside,” Patrick told him.
Jono shot him an aggravated look. “You’re off your bloody head if you think I’m leaving you in here alone.”
“Then shut up and let me do the talking.”
They started forward again, Patrick’s magic barely pushing back the dark. Musty, sour air hit his nose as everyone carefully worked their way through years and years of debris to the center of the building.
Someone hidden in the dark flipped a switch. The humming whine of a generator powering up reached Patrick’s ears. Several floodlights came on, the light almost too bright in the dark, enclosed space. Patrick vanished his witchlights, squinting to try to save his night vision, but it was a lost cause. He couldn’t see much beyond the ring of light they stood in, but the back of his neck prickled from too many eyes on them he couldn’t see.
Emma, Leon, and Sage moved to surround Marek, their backs to him in a small protective circle. Jono stood so close to Patrick he could feel the heat in the other man’s body. It was a nice reminder that he wasn’t alone, even if things might be easier if he was.
“I’m rethinking not listening to you for once,” Marek said in a hushed voice.
“Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you decided to tag along,” Patrick retorted.
“Still not your little soldier.”
“Shut. Up,” Sage told her lover through gritted teeth.
Movement caught Patrick’s eye, and he looked at where Carmen seemed to suddenly appear out of the shadows, her glamour gone once more. Her red pupils seemed to expand, burning like embers in her face. Einar stood beside her at the light’s edge, still her ever-attentive guard dog. Shadows moved in the dark behind them both, Patrick hard-pressed to track them.
“Where is he?” Patrick finally asked.
Carmen smiled, sharp teeth flashing in the light, and didn’t say a word. Patrick dropped his shields to find out for himself. Recognition of the undead was almost overwhelming, not because of the multitude of vampires he could sense surrounding them, but because of how deeply he knew their master.
Lucien was familiar in a way an infected wound was—weeping, rotten, and in danger of becoming gangrenous.
A figure slid free of the surrounding darkness, stepping into the light on cat-quiet feet. Tall, built lean under the heavy leather jacket he wore and hidden weaponry he never went anywhere without, Lucien hadn’t changed at all. Patrick could see that even from where he stood. The same brown hair, the same black eyes, the same ugly hatred in the snarl of his mouth—all of it familiar.
I really fucking hate reunions, Patrick thought to himself.
“Oh, shit,” Emma whispered behind him, thewe are going to dietone easy for Patrick to pick out.
Lucien had that effect on people.
Those who’d come with Patrick tonight might not know who they faced, but their instincts knew the monster wrapped in pale, pale skin standing before them.
A thousand years ago, Lucien had lived the life of a soldier beneath William the Conqueror’s banner. He died on the battlefield and was born again by the mother of all vampires. He’d gone by many names over the centuries, but the one he carried now he’d favored for two hundred years or so.
Lucien was still riding high on everyone’s Top Ten Most Wanted Lists, no matter what name he went by. His notoriety these days came more from murder and mayhem, a weapons- and magic-trafficking empire, and money laundering rather than the fact he was an undead bloodsucking bastard.
“I didn’t ask Setsuna to call you,” Patrick said, breaking the heavy silence.
“I wouldn’t have come if she was the only one who begged,” Lucien replied. His accent was a flat thing ground down by time. He took on the inflections of the country he traveled in as easily as people changed clothes.
Lucien stalked forward with all the grace of a tiger hunting prey. The sheer, overwhelming sense of his presence made Patrick’s bones ache. Patrick stared Lucien down, because he’d never learned how not to, no matter how many bruises he ended up with at the end of their meetings. Running wasn’t an option.
It never had been with Lucien.
“Setsuna doesn’t beg.”
Lucien flashed his teeth in a disdainful snarl. It was met by a warning growl from Jono as the werewolf put himself between the master vampire and Patrick. For a second, Patrick could only stare at Jono’s back, too surprised to do anything but gape.
“Back off,” Jono warned Lucien.
“I don’t take orders from your kind,” Lucien said in a low voice. “This isn’t your territory. It’s not even your country. You are a long way from your home, wolf.”
