Roger held his hand up as Ezra opened his mouth to speak. The others fell silent once more, which was reassuring though a tad surprising. The only time he had commanded a room like this had been a demonstration of how well one of his pets could take a spanking.
I don’t have what it takes.Roger steadied his nerves. Zack believed in him, even if he did have his doubts. Takashi did, too. He could move forward. He didn’t have to remain locked in his position.
“Anton will have to die as well,” Roger said. “I don’t see where he would let the world rest, either. But he terrifies the coven. They would scatter from him. If we kill him first, Seamus would bend four hundred vampires in the direction of my destruction and then systematically tear it from the inside out for any other traitors while building himself a new army of fledglings to unleash upon the world. We have to be careful. You agreed to that in 1989.”
“I have been careful another thirty-two years, and it has gotten menothingother than agony,” Dmitri snapped.
“Perhaps we can destroy them the same night, but I haven’t seen Anton since I came back.” Roger glanced to the others. “Does anyone know what he’s been doing? Where he is?”
“He lives with Seamus,” Dmitri replied. “Always has.”
“And we both know there areyearswhere he won’t leave the mansion if he’s distracted with some spell or creation,” Roger said. “I’m not assaulting Seamus’s fortress. That is utter madness and a certain way to die.”
“I have seen him plenty.”
“Having seen him isn’t actionable intelligence, unless you know where and when he’ll be.”
“He’s never bothered sharing his schedule with anyone, not even Seamus!”
Candide stood and gently put her hand on Dmitri’s shoulder. When he jerked away from her, she pressed her lips into a thin line. “I truly believed I’d witnessed every version of every argument the two of you could ever have before we ever moved to this city, mes chers, but this is a new one. Roger has the right idea, Dmitri. We can’t plunge daggers into the darkness and hope to strike the target. Failing would be worse than never striking at all.”
“You will make excuse after excuse until the sun burns us all to ash,” Dmitri said. He gestured between them. “The two of you can fuck yourselves.”
As Dmitri spun toward the exit and stalked toward the door, one of his sentences clicked into place for Roger.I have seen him plenty.Zack’s notes had lacked information of where Anton had been, what he had been up to. None of the vampires in the room with Roger had answered the question either.
But the first few years Roger and Dmitri had been vampires had been rough ones. Always starving. Always the fledglings, the youngest. Always doing Seamus’s and Anton’s bidding. Roger had convinced himself that he might have loved Seamus in those early years, but with the lens of experience, that wasn’t what had happened.
There were cracks in those lies that formed scars in his mind. Though the seams were faint, they were traceable.
Though Roger had desperately ignored his scars, Dmitri’s wounds had never closed. Roger saw that now. Saw the pain and suffering still carving into Dmitri’s soul with mirrored shards.
BecauseI have seen him plentymeantHe’s been visiting me.
Dmitri had never chosen Anton for anything in his life. But Anton chose him for many things.
Roger reached for Dmitri. An invitation to stay with him in the hotel was on his lips. His hand was about to touch Dmitri’s shoulder.
In a liquid blur, Dmitri spun and moved to strike Roger’s jaw.
Instinct kicked in, and Roger quickly blocked the blow. His training had paid off. He whispered, “You don’t have to be alone.”
“I’ve never been anything else,” Dmitri said icily.
And those words were sharper than a blade’s edge and hamstrung the sympathy that had nestled in Roger’s heart. He stepped away and continued to hold Dmitri’s gaze. But all he saw in his brown eyes was the anger, and all that he emanated was a desire for destruction, a fear of what may come.
Roger couldn’t mend Dmitri. He retreated another step.
After the door slammed behind Dmitri, the tension slowly bled from the room. The others were watching him. He and Dmitri had had public arguments before. Seamus had once said they were his favorite form of entertainment. But he had to hold himself together. He had to do what no one seemed to believe he could do. Lead.
Immortal coldness came too naturally, but he embraced the numbness and turned it to his advantage. He slid his hands into his pockets once more and faced those that remained. “I can’t afford for the coven to have a similar reaction. None of us can. I need them to accept me as the best path forward.”
“Few would act like our dear Dmitri, though you will need to establish yourself.” Candide folded her hands together. “Right now, the coven may assume that you would unleash them from any rules, and I feel that is not what you intend.”
“Hardly,” Roger said.
“I hope you don’t plan to follow a hunter’s mentality,” Lucille said. “You won’t find any love for a puritanical morality among us.”
“Hear, hear,” Dempsey said.
