No one would follow a shadow. Roger had to step into the light.
But he had to keep Seamus from ripping their throats out as soon as the crowd looked away.
Roger unbuttoned his suit jacket, then hissed out at the rest of them. Not as a threat but to show them his fangs, trying to infuse in them the same urge he had. He spread the desire with his own ability and pushed it out farther than he ever had before.Protect.
He dropped to the floor below. The mortals had quickly cleared for him, but then they surged around him, drawing closer. Delicately, he threaded his way between them and made for Zack and the other two. Without his vantage point, the pit was a sea of bodies. The spell crashed over him, but he shovedit out of his mind. He had his desires in control. No influence would distract him.
Moments were an eternity, but Roger spotted Zack, Kit, and Carver dancing. He moved with the currents, across them where he had to, and reached them.
Just as Anton came from another direction.
Roger pivoted Zack so that he took his place and became the center of their tiny knot. Carver rolled up against him, grinding against his leg. Roger wrapped an arm around him, touched Kit’s cheek, and kissed Zack before leveling a glare at Anton.
He mouthed the word “Mine.”
Anton smiled brightly, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, then melted into the crowd around him.
The knot in Roger’s chest didn’t ease until Takashi emerged beside them. The pit was descending into chaos. Blood drinking and magic-fueled sex were quickly overcoming the dancing. Roger steered his group toward the exit. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
CHAPTER 24
Thud. Beat. Thud. Thud. Zack punched the combo into the bag and watched the long swing. The weight carried it out, momentum tugging and pulling it, and he stepped toward it as its pendulum movement brought it back. He caught it on his good shoulder and threw a few punches up close. Then he backed off and danced around to the side of it.
The suite’s workout room was just large enough to hold the bag, the treadmill, a weight machine, and an elliptical. Having a private room for it in the suite was ridiculous.Vampires probably don’t want their pets getting sweaty in front of anyone else.
He concentrated on his pace. Light steps, quick movements, and bringing in the punch to precision points. He wasn’t aiming to build his strength at the moment but working on his endurance. Even a vampire could overblow their stamina. Surviving came down to taking out the enemy in the first blow or outlasting them.
Certainly been working on the second one lately. The thought was grim and kicked off the slow cycle of events that had occupied him the last three weeks. Thanksgiving was a week away, and picking apart the data was easier than thinking abouthow he wouldn’t taste his Grandma Bonnie’s pumpkin pie or nab a bread roll fresh out of the oven rather than waiting for dinner. Processing the vampire politics and thinking about the slowing but continuing crap filling his inbox was preferable to reliving the family flag football game and wondering if anyone would even miss him from their team. He’d always been picked near last. Cal and Denny were almost always the captains once the older cousins decided they were too old or had too many injuries to play.
No, the timeline of what had happened was more important. He could push away what could’ve been and focus. He drove another punch home, and the bag rocked harder. Breathing and moving, he shifted around to the other side, waited for the swing to reach the right point, then delivered another combo punch.
The Halloween party had been fucked-up. From his research, Zack had expected the vampires inside of Devil’s Cove to be among the poorer side of the coven. A bullshit mentality his family had instilled in him, he realized. The vampires that the Wrights and Gladwells tended to hunt created nests and practically lived as a hive. Those groups never had a vampire more than a few decades old and had little in common with the covens.
The attendees of the Devil’s Cove party had been decked out in wealth. Every costume that the pets wore had been a custom job, and the outfits the vampires had worn were high-end quality. Devil’s Cove seemed a more functional version of the Chateau de Vampire, but it’d been dripping with the same wealth.
The fact that the rich could be monsters, or that the monsters could be rich, shouldn’t have been a surprise after his months with Roger. Zack had let himself get caught up in the way “nice” vampires behaved and been swept away with the luxuries his new life was affording him. Money could provide, but it couldn’tprotect. And plenty of monsters, both human and not, were wealthy assholes. The concept just hadn’t struck home until he’d seen it in person.
Punching the bag didn’t alleviate the growing chasm in his heart, but he continued working it. He tried to fall into the rhythm of the punches. His mind plunged through memories.
They’d bounced between a few parties that night, none of them as extravagant as Devil’s Cove, and they’d been against theme everywhere else. Roger had glided through on his natural and unnatural charms.No. That hadn’t been magic. When Roger was at his most charismatic, he was irresistible, and constantly, others flocked to him. Zack had become a speck. And that shouldn’t have bothered him, shouldn’t have dug into his skin weeks later.
Except it just kept happening.
The next night, Roger had given him his birthday present with a belated, though loving, “happy birthday.” Zack had received a first-editionA Study of the Vampyre and Its Alliesby Rudolph Hagen, which dated back to the early 1800s. The text had been one of the fundamental training books the family had used, so it seemed like a really weird present. But Zack had read a few chapters, and it wasn’t the same one that he remembered. Somewhere in the editions, the care Hagen used to define vampires as complex individuals had faded away to make them a homogenous monster.
Just another lie of the family, he guessed. Just more bullshit he had been fed.
Zack’s shoulder was growing sore, so he stripped off the boxing gloves and moved over to the treadmill. He turned it on to a brisk jog.
Vincent’s smear campaign raged on to the point that Zack had ditched his phone in a dresser drawer and hadn’t looked at it in three days. He’d picked up a cheaper one with a fresh numberto text Blake. She was appalled that Vincent hadn’t let up and nudged him to take a swing back. But Zack was torn between an exhaustion of going out every night and looking like a piece of arm candy and a growing pity for the position that Vincent was in. Few vampires seemed to give a shit about the mortals they had with them, and none seemed to care about how another vampire treated their pets. Vincent wasn’t the only one who looked like he was on the verge of collapse almost every night.
And Zack could only take notes and plot.
And be stuck in a waiting pattern. He kicked the treadmill up another setting.
Roger promised he was working on a plan. Promised that he’d started taking the steps necessary to finally take power. That was why he was laying on the charm. More invitations to more parties and gatherings poured in every night. Going to the Chateau had become routine. The glimmering spectacle was working. Zack had overheard vampires complimenting him on a “brilliant show” at the Devil’s Cove Halloween party. As if, somehow, jumping over a railing and encouraging a hundred other vampires to go prey on mortals was a good idea.
You know it was more than that, his practical mental voice chided. He had seen the wisdom in it, especially since he had glimpsed Anton in the crowd. The blond, white vampire had cropped up here and there in the throngs of people. He’d been moving in a hunting pattern. And Zack had longed for his dagger, but he hadn’t had it. Then Roger had been at his side and scooped him, Kit, and Carver out of the mess.
