“Uff, I used to get the most dismal headaches,” Ezra murmured. “A bit of quiet will set you right. Come along with me.”
Escaping from the endless parade of greetings sounded amazing. Zack started to follow Ezra.
Seamus caught his arm. He leaned in close to whisper in his ear, “Not more than ten minutes. You are meant to be down here meeting people. Understood?”
Narrowing his eyes, Zack focused on the screaming pain ramping up.I’ll take as long as it takes.
With another wince, Seamus let him go. “Perhaps twenty, if necessary.”
Ezra ushered Zack from the room. The noise and light weren’t any better in the hallway, but before he could comment on that, Ezra whisked him up the staircase. Though the floor was open to guests, the floor was blessedly empty. Echoes were still chasing them, but Zack was able to ignore that better.
Ezra opened a door, cursed, and then closed it. He opened the next and did the same. And again with the third.
However, Zack hadn’t heard anyone in those rooms. No smells of blood or sex lingered on the air either. “What are you looking for?”
“A surprise,” Ezra grumbled. “Which I should have designated a better where. Unless we’re the first ones up here. Fuck, I’m an idiot.”
“What sort of—” Zack’s sense of smell was still on overload, but he thought he caught a whiff of Takashi’s scent. As far as he knew, Takashi had never been up to the third floor of the Chateau. He followed his nose to a door and opened it.
The room looked like a modern office, complete with filing cabinets. In the center, Takashi was hugging a tall, blond man. The man was holding on to him just as tightly. They were comfortable with each other, familiar in a way that made Zack ache with jealousy.
“Here we go,” Ezra said. “Good find.”
“Good find?” Zack hissed.
“Well, yes. You found the surprise.”
At the sound of the voices, Takashi and the man broke apart. Takashi brushed bloody tears from his cheeks.
“What the hell?—”
“Zack,” the man said. Only he said it exactly how Roger should. While Zack’s brain attempted to come back online after that startling realization, the man took off a necklace.
The illusion vanished, and before him was Roger. His hair was horrible, overall short and in some places brownish, and he was wearing the sort of black tactical gear that hunters tended to wear on bigger missions. But otherwise, he was Roger. Tall, handsome, warm smile, and big-hearted Roger.
He opened his arms wide.
Zack flew into them, and their hug was one of the top three in Zack’s entire life. The wash of relief soothed away his headache, and he clutched to Roger. He was barely aware that Ezra stayed out of the room and shut the door for him.
Takashi’s crying made sense. A sob was in Zack’s throat, too, and he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. It didn’t feel happy. He should have been nothing but blissful that Roger was here, was with them, and was safe. Instead, sadness overwhelmed him.I don’t deserve this.
He latched onto Roger’s emotions, seeking something happy in him. Trailing his mind along Roger’s inner journal page, he ran across shapes that held no meaning and a firm feeling that Roger wanted everything to be good.
“Someone has some natural talents, I see,” Roger said gently.
Slowly, the inner journal closed, not leaving behind a pop-up or anything else for Zack to read. Roger just closed his mind off as if it was just that easy.
“You have to teach me how to do that,” Zack said.
“I will.” Roger kissed his forehead.
His touch was reassuring, and that broke the storming clouds of sadness. With Roger here, everything would be okay. That waswhat Roger did. Zack researched, Takashi schemed, and Roger made things okay.I want everything to be okay.
You are the one that makes things difficult, Seamus said in his mind.
The echo of Seamus’s voice startled Zack back from the brink of his joy, and he pushed away from Roger. One stray thought might alert Seamus, and then they’d all be in danger. The three of them might be able to fight him and win, except a couple hundred other powerful vampires were partying downstairs. Killing Seamus would mean claiming the throne of the GLC, but how many others would immediately leap at the chance to kill the new master and take it for themselves? If it became a free-for-all fight, then there was no telling how many threats were downstairs.
“I can’t be here,” Zack said. “I-I-I just can’t.”
