Nell eased her grip and backed away from him. She smoothed and straightened her clothing on her way, ensuring the door was fully shut. “Excellent reflexes. How did you know I was in the room?”
“Trade secret, master,” Zack muttered as he sat up.
“Drop the formalities. They don’t suit you,” Nell said with a dismissive wave. She strode over to the desk.
Zack was about to thank her when he realized his notebooks were spread out over the desk, and Nell was approaching them with familiarity to their setup.
There were pages and pages and whole-ass notebooks about lore and rumors. He had theories on vampires and magic, and none of it was meant for Nell to read. He dashed forward and slammed his hands on top of the closest notebook. “Those are private!”
Nell smiled, the corner of her lips lifting, but there was a predator’s gleam in her eyes. “I’ve known for a long time what you’ve been doing, Zackery.”
How was he supposed to explain that this was beneficial for himself and Roger and not something to pass on to hunters? Would she believe that his parents had effectively cut off his contact with the hunter community? She could have killed him, and she’d stopped.But what if she strikes again?“Nell, I …”
She held up a hand. “You continue to impress me.”
“I … do? Uh, thanks?”
“I particularly like this line, ‘Nell is a professional badass with no patience for insubordination from guests and underlings alike.’”
“I wrote that after our first meeting.” Zack cleared his throat. Though his hunter tattoo protected him, if he felt too much fear, she’d be able to sense it.She may be strong enough to slip past my ward anyway. “You, uh, can keep that notebook, if you want.”
Nell slid the notebook off the desk and walked over to the bed with it. She sat on the end and crossed one leg over the other while she continued to skim through the notes. “You have a list of weaknesses in my coven. I’m not surprised to see notes on the security of my home or my donor house or even the town itself, but you have strategies here for social infiltration. How did you develop these?”
“I paid attention to who’s talking to who and who’s talking about who,” Zack replied. “I don’t think any of them would really work. Those are thought experiments.”
“I don’t believe you’re far off. I’ve had my eye on a few of these people already. The tricky thing about vampires is that you can never be truly certain of their loyalty.” Nell closed the notebook and set it beside her. “You can keep it. You may need bargaining chips in order to grow close to Seamus.”
“And now that you’re aware of what information I could give him, you can guard against it even if I don’t warn you,” Zack said.
“Precisely.” Nell folded her hands and looped them around her knee. “Now, there is something lacking in your notes. What, specifically, is Roger’s plan for defeating Seamus?”
“Regain his former position and then strike,” Zack said.
“Regainhow? Strikewhen? What is his timetable?”
“You know Roger. He can be aloof.”
Nell narrowed her eyes. “Which is how he hides his cowardice.”
“That’s not fair.” Zack had a journal under the bed where he’d listed out the details that he’d picked up over the last three months.
Roger had told him that everyone was a sad monster made of trauma when they first met. He probably had scores of them. The least of those traumas was that Seamus had paid Quinn to seduce Roger and turn him into a vampire—something that Seamus had revealed while Roger waited for Quinn to rise from the grave.
But Roger didn’t talk about his past freely, and he always had a sad, wistful look in his eye when Zack tried to ask. The details Zack knew weren’t for sharing.I should burn those pages.
Zack took in a steadying breath and forced himself to release his clenched fists. “Roger hasn’t been exempted from Seamus’s cruelty. In fact, he’s survived it longer than anyone else.”
“I thought that would motivate him to form a cohesive plan,” Nell replied.
“He’ll get there.”
“Will he?”
Over the last two months, Roger’s conviction hadn’t faltered, but he had grown …laxwasn’t the right word. Complacent? But he was still catching up to the world’s changes. Zack hadn’t found any clues as to who could have put Roger in a coma. Not knowing who they could trust was making the trip back to the GLC tricky. Seamus might even kill them the first night. He had a reputation for being a capricious asshole.
“You want him to take charge of the GLC,” Zack said slowly. “That means we can’t just blow up Seamus with a rocket launcher on the street. Roger needs allies to have a better transition of power. And there’s Anton to take care of.”
Nell’s expression became colder and unreadable. “If Roger should falter, or worse, do you intend to carry on ending them?”
