Anton put his hand on his shoulder and murmured, “Together?”
“All right.” Takashi waited, but Anton nodded for him to go first. He approached Katie cautiously, and Anton mimicked him, slipping away from him to approach her from her other side. “Hello, there.”
Katie jumped as though he’d broken a trance. She took her fingers from her mouth and wiped her hand on her dress. Then she became distracted by the stained white cloth. Frowning at it, she said, “What the fuck?”
“Stunning first words,” Anton said with a chuckle in his breath.
Katie snapped her attention up to him. “You!” She started to step away but stopped when she noticed Takashi. “And you!”
“You remember us?” Takashi asked.
“I—I do.” She put a hand to her forehead. “You’re my … technically not my anything, are you? He—” She pointed at Anton. “—he tricked me.”
“I did,” Anton said unapologetically. Rather than continuing to move toward her, he sat on another gravestone. “What about yourself, girl? Do you know your name?”
“Kathleen. My friends call me Katie.” She glared at Anton. Her glowing red eyes settled to a shade of dark brown. “Friends you killed.”
“He didn’t,” Takashi said. “They were freed.”
“I’m supposed to believe that?” Katie snapped.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Anton replied happily. “I would have killed them. Actually, I probably would have let you kill them.”
“You—I … oh shit, I killed someone.” Katie turned toward the corpse. “Wait, I know him. He’s been trolling me for weeks. He’s a total perv.”
“Now he’s nothing,” Takashi said.
Katie tilted her head as she regarded Takashi. With her hand, she gestured at Anton. “I’d think you were some sort of vigilante vampire, but you’re working with that evil spawn of the night.”
Were Zack and Roger with him instead, Takashi would have let her remark slide. But Anton wanted a daughter, and Takashi had promised to deliver. Eventually, he hoped to have a chance to sit down and explain everything to her, but he had no opportunity for that at the moment.
Besides, not everything Anton did was wrong, and the care he’d put into Katie’s first night gave Takashi an odd hope. It would likely all blow back in his face, but he had to keep pushing his pieces further across the board if he was ever going to succeed. To trust Anton, though?He would be a powerful ally, if he could be brought to our side.
“Morality is an ever-shifting philosophical argument,” Takashi said slowly. “There are those that would call any murder wrong. There are those who would have seen this man suffer far worse fates. Evil is a judgment that we need not overthink.”
“Okay, buthestraight up catfished me, kidnapped me and my friends, and talked you into turning me into a vampire,” Katie replied. “That’sevil.”
“Do you hate it?” Anton asked lightly.
“Excuse you?” Katie demanded.
Anton slipped off the gravestone and slowly strode toward her. “Has the confusion of death made you forget how you begged to become something greater than you were? Did you not notice that you cast magic without effort when you have struggled in your studies for years?”
“How do you …” Katie closed her eyes and shook her head. “Duh. I wasn’t talking to Takashi. I was oversharing with you.”
“I treasure what you revealed to me,” Anton said. “Out of the three of you, I was most interested in meeting you.”
“Me?” Katie widened her eyes. “Seriously?”
“I know you believed my interest was romantic, but that wasn’t my true intent.” Anton lowered his voice to a gentle whisper as he reached out to touch her cheek. “Over a century has passed since I’ve found anyone who might make a worthy apprentice to my arcane studies. Longer since I discovered a kindred spirit like yours.”
“So you kidnapped me.”
“To offer you everything you’ve ever wanted. Eternal youth. Immense wealth. Arcane knowledge beyond your wildest dreams. The opportunity to become what everyone at your school will forever envy,” Anton replied. He circled around Katie, lightly placing his hands on either of her shoulders. While speaking to her, he caught and held Takashi’s gaze. “Imagine what possibilities lie ahead of you. Power. Respect. Anything and everything. All you have to do is learn how to grasp it and make it yours.”
Anton’s ruby-red eyes had a simmering, molten heat to them. His smile had a coaxing twist, like he was preparing to ask Takashi for a kiss.
Those words weren’t just for her. He sees something in me that he likes. Were Anton anyone else, Takashi might consider bringing him close. But he couldn’t. Anton played games and ruined lives and—And how much of that is to survive Seamus? Roger had shown a few of the traits Anton displayed regularly. He flirted too often, smiled and teased when he was hurt to bluff his way through difficult situations. He distracted anyone growing close to him with whatever version of himself he thought the other person wanted.
