“It’s you!” Zack blurted out. The truth was supposed to feel good, but he only felt hollow. “You say you want to kill Seamus, but you don’t know how. You don’t talk about what you’ll do as coven leader. What are you going to do if you can’t get Quinn’s money? What’ll happen if you never get Seamus’s accounts either? What are you going to do if someone doesn’t follow your rules? What kind of rules are you even going to have?”
“We have time to figure that out,” Roger said.
“You should already know!” Zack got onto his knees and crawled over to Roger. He grabbed his hand and held on tight. Touching him felt like brushing his hand against cold stone. Tears started to slip out.“Roger … deep down, you care about others. I can tell! But I watched you turn it off tonight. You just threw a switch in your head. Those people were mindless slaves. How can you be okay with it?”
“I’m not, but we have to be. For now,” Roger whispered hoarsely.
“For now,” Zack mocked.
“Don’t,” Roger said. He had an edge in his voice, one of warning and mingled with exhaustion. “I have seen good peoplelose their minds and worse around this coven. And I am not innocent of misdeeds myself. But we can’t help anyone if we don’t exist. The idea that Anton or someone he knows has successfully created mind control bothers me deeply, but we do not have the luxury of throwing a fit whenever we see something we can’t stand.”
“You want me to swallow it and say nothing,” Zack snapped.
Roger scanned him and said seriously, “I think you already know that you must, or you would have done something on the plane.”
Zack looked away. Roger was right. Of course he was.
Roger put his hand over Zack’s. “This will be worth it. My rule will be nothing like his. I promise you.”
“I want to believe in you,” Zack said quietly.
“If you don’t, why are you here?”
“Because if this doesn’t work out, I’m nothing.” Zack released Roger’s hand. The alcoholic haze in his mind had led him to a mental cliff, and he teetered on the edge of the abyss of depression waiting to swallow him. “And this is about more than you and me. This is about the people he’s hurting—that the coven’s hurting. This is about making change. And I can find a way to handle the dark tunnel if I can see a fucking light at the end of it, but right now, it just feels like a fucking car coming at me.”
Gently, Roger caressed Zack’s cheek. He leaned in and caught Zack’s gaze. “I have weathered this for centuries. You are so much stronger than you know, and together, we will make it through this.”
“How?”
“Patience,” Roger replied.
Zack blinked, and tears trailed down his face. Roger wiped them away before he could. “I don’t have centuries to wait. Nell won’t wait forever either.”
“You won’t have to.” Roger kissed his forehead and then touched their foreheads together. “But we can’t fix the world in a night. I need you to trust me.”
The nagging voice that sounded like Cal was resurfacing, keeping him close to the abyss.Vampires are the enemy. You’re an idiot for going along with this. The family would say that. Cal would.
Not Roger. Not Blake or Kit or any of his friends. The family had abandoned him, but he had new people in his life. And so what if Roger wasn’t much of a planner—that was why he’d aligned with Zack, wasn’t it? Together, they had a chance that they wouldn’t have alone.
“I’ll hold on,” Zack said, and he managed a weak smile. He could do this. “Think I’m just overwhelmed still.”
“And more than a little drunk.”
“That too.”
Roger kissed his forehead again. “Maybe don’t drink that much in public.”
“Mm. We’ll see.”
Roger chuckled softly and stroked Zack’s cheek. “I’m certain tomorrow morning will provide enough motivation.”
“Morning?” Zack scowled at him. “You don’t have anything planned for the morning.”
“It’s been three hundred years, but I do remember what a mortal hangover feels like after a night of binge drinking.” Roger kissed his temple, a quick brush of his cool lips that was refreshing. “Let’s get you settled into bed.”
And there was something to the way Roger was taking care of him that felt comforting, even though the abyss was lurking, waiting for his misstep. Zack stripped with Roger’s help and shivered when Roger lightly traced the scar on his left shoulder. A sadness was in Roger’s eyes, but he swept it away before he tucked Zack into bed.
Zack pushed that strange look out of his mind. He clung to Roger’s words, to the thin line of hope he’d offered. Because otherwise, he’d tumble.
