His gaze softened. “And I love you.”
I nodded once. “Good. Now, you’ve only told me bits and pieces. We have time and I really want to know exactly what the Guild is. I know you said it’s a governing body for vamps, but are they, like, vampire cops or more of an advisory council?” I glanced out the window again. “And is it cool now for me to get up and get some food?”
There was no air steward, as this was a hush hush flight. There was a pilot and the two of us. That was it.
Clive stood. “Let me. I have excellent balance and my leg wasn’t recently broken.” He went to the galley area and picked up a white card. “It’s a long flight. Would you like breakfast, lunch, or dinner?”
Hmm, according to my watch it was breakfast, but I hadn’t slept all night. “Dinner, I think.”
He scanned the card. “Your meal is from Maxfield’s and you have an ahi poke appetizer with a main of grilled chicken, sweet and spicy Brussels sprouts, and fondant potatoes.”
Shaking my head at the ridiculousness of such a fancy meal on a plane, I said, “What? No dessert?”
He turned the card toward me. “And a vanilla bean crème brûlée for dessert.”
My stomach rumbled. “No time for jokes. I want all of it now, please.”
He loaded up a tray for me, pulling items from the refrigerator and the warming thingy. It wasn’t an oven—I didn’t think. Honestly, I didn’t know or care. I moved to the small table opposite the one Clive had been using.
He placed a tray with silverware wrapped in a napkin and a tall glass of water in front of me, sitting on the bench seat beside me. “Sorry, darling. I hadn’t realized I was being so circumspect with information. Most vampires don’t even know the Guild exists.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Even now, I’m finding this conversation very uncomfortable.” He shook his head. “You’re my mate. You’ve a right to everything I have, including information.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or himself.
“I had to explain it to Russell,” he continued, “when he ascended to Master of the City, so you’d think this would be easier.”
“If it’s a super confidential, I’ll-have-to-kill-you-if-I-tell-you kind of deal, don’t worry about it. I don’t want you to break a vampy NDA.” The poke was delicious and finished too soon.
He rubbed his hands over his face and then shook his head again. “No. You need to know what you’re walking into. All right, when vampires are made, we stay with our makers until we understand this new life and have control over our new urges, particularly blood lust. We must know and live by our laws. If we don’t, it’s our maker’s responsibility to put us down. It’s far too dangerous to have rogue vampires. For humans, of course, but mostly for us. We will always put ourselves first in this equation. Humans outnumber us by quite a substantial margin. We’re helpless during the day. If humans believed we were real instead of the stuff of horror films, they would hunt us all down. We’ve kept our existence a secret for millennia and we’ve done so by staying well-hidden and killing anyone who suspects.”
“Bloodthirsty.”
He patted my thigh. “By definition, love, yes.”
I paused midbite when he went quiet, but he finally continued.
“The training and information comes from our sires. They teach us how to survive in this world, including the need to keep us corralled in nocturnes. If we were off on our own, it would be far more difficult to police ourselves. The nocturne system was created about six hundred years ago in order for the Guild to keep an eye on us.”
“And none of the Masters told their people, ‘Sorry, guys, these damn Guild jerks are making me watch you like a hawk, so stop killing tourists?’” I asked.
“Ah, I forgot to mention that the Guild has spies everywhere,” he said, running a hand down my back before resting it on my hip.
“Okay, but do they really or is that just what they want people to fear?”
Chuckling, he kissed my cheek. “One of the things I love about you is your suspicious nature. It’s true enough. Vampires who flout our laws disappear. Our secrecy is paramount.”
I swallowed a bite of fondant potatoes and almost wept. So. Flipping. Good. “So the Guild has its own goon squad?”
He squeezed my hip. “Yes and no. They eventually created the role of Counselor, but that wasn’t how they started. Darling, who in their right mind would make Vlad the Impaler a Counselor? Or Cadmael, for that matter? Vlad was chosen by the Guild because he has a reputation for killing huge swaths of people. Reveling in it, really. And that was when he was human. Cadmael is a renowned warrior with unparalleled mental skills. So, yes, early members were a kind of hit squad. The Guild was created for the protection of our kind. The first order of protection is silencing those who, through word or action, would expose us.”
I put my fork down and turned in my seat. “You’ll be a hit man?”
He tipped his head side to side. “If necessary, yes. Thankfully, most of the problematic ones have already been disposed of. Masters are usually good at controlling their own people. The Guild comes in when a Master can’t or won’t kill the rogue or if the rogue is living far outside the nocturne system.”
“Ergo the need for a nocturne system.” I leaned back to look at him. “I’m totally paying attention, but just so you know, I’ll be ordering all my meals from this restaurant from now on.”
Some of the tension in his shoulders relaxed. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”
The plane bumped, but I grabbed my glass and steadied the tray. “So, in addition to counseling Masters on problems they’re having, you’ll need to go out and hunt down rogue vampires whose reckless behavior is threatening the exposure of vamps to the human world? I mean, where was a Counselor when Garyn and her planeloads of vamps were invading San Francisco?”
