Thomas Wright walked into the light. He was lithe for someone who had to be near fifty, clearly making an effort to remain physically fit for his line of work. His light brown hair was the same shade as Zack’s, only he had streaks of gray starting from his temples. And though Zack had his mother’s eyes, he had his father’s jawline and squared his shoulders in the same fashion. Everything about him was a glimpse of what age would bring to Zack.
There was so much familial familiarity between Zack and Thomas that Roger was glad the Wrights were dealing with a spat between them. If he’d had to speak, his cracked heart would’ve shattered, and he couldn’t afford weakness around these predators.
“I said put the gun down,” Thomas ordered.
“I see a fucking bloodsucker and no Zack, so no, Dad, I’m not putting the gun down,” Cal replied sharply.
“Oh my God, you are the fucking worst!” a higher-pitched voice declared.
Both men jumped and turned toward their truck. Roger had the advantage of seeing someone crawling out from the back seatwhile both men shielded their eyes in the headlight in an attempt to spot the interloper.
But from the way they frowned, they clearly knew the voice. Thomas called out, “Amber? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Amber joined them outside the vehicle. Though she was the shortest of the three by at least six inches, she had the same defiance in her posture. The dark gave her longer shadows, but Roger was accustomed to picking out details. She had a few acne blemishes, but the softness of her features gave away her youth. She was practically a child, and yet she had an enchanted dagger in a sheath on her belt. Roger couldn’t remember if Zack had ever said her age. Sixteen was too generous of an estimate. Was she fifteen? Fourteen?
She had the sort of determination that Zack had had when Roger first met him. The confidence of a freshly minted hunter suited her. Roger only hoped that she wasn’t so entrenched in her family’s beliefs that she was a crusader like Cal.
“Maybe if you two hadn’t been arguing since this morning, you would’ve seen me sneak into the truck,” Amber declared.
“Get back in the truck,” Thomas said.
“Zack is my brother.” Amber stamped her foot as she came to stand between them. “I’m not letting him down more than we already have.”
A flicker of a deeper emotion crossed Thomas’s face, but he quickly schooled his features into the firm countenance he’d first displayed.
Cal didn’t bother hiding his disagreement. “You’ve got it wrong, little sis. Zack’s the fucking disappointment.”
“He is not!” Amber whirled on her brother. “I can’t do a third of the research he pulled off at my age!”
“Because you actually get to do thejob,” Cal said.
“When are you going to get that research is part of the job? You can’t just shoot everything until it stops moving!”
“I find cutting heads off works pretty damn well, too.”
“Enough,” Thomas snapped with parental authority.
Watching the three of them only strangled Roger’s heart. No wonder Zack had been so hurt when they had disowned him. Family was something Roger had never really had, not like the Wrights did. He had seen plenty of them to know that the Wrights were tight-knit. He’d assumed Zack had never fit into their weave, but was he wrong? What was he like with his sister, his father?
Roger prayed he’d find out one night soon.
“We’re not unaware that something happened at Chateau de Vampire last night,” Thomas said. “We have our resources, and the community has been lit up with rumors about the ball. You texted on Zack’s phone that you needed our help. What’s happened to my son?”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Cal growled. His finger half squeezed the trigger of his gun. “This bastard seduced him and then got him killed. Let’s put him down.”
“I am not a starved nest vampire eager for my next blood fix,” Roger said, matching Cal’s tone. “I have been contending with greater threats than you could dream to be for centuries. Put the weapon away so we can have a civil conversation, or go pout in the truck like the small child you are. Zack needs us to cooperate.”
Cal took a step forward.
Thomas moved at the same time, reaching out to catch Cal by the wrist and force the point of his gun toward the ground. He was face-to-face with him. “Callum, I came to learn what we can do. Wrap your head around the mission, or do what the vampire says.”
“We know what happened. He turned Zack into his blood bitch. He’s probably luring the rest of us into a trap,” Cal replied. “Let’s end him and join Mom in Indiana before we wind up in the ground. Or worse, enchanted into mindless blood bags like Zack was.”
Thiswas the brother that Zack had once idolized. This was the man the family had chosen over Zack. Kind, courageous, compassionate Zack had been cast out, and his monster of a brother was the one loved and adored.
Roger embraced how anger petrified his heart and allowed that stillness to creep over his limbs. All the rage and self-disappointment that he’d been putting off compounded inside him, and he turned that into fuel for his cold and distant attitude. Every second bickering was a waste.
“I have seen a thousand petty pieces of shit like you, Callum Wright,” Roger said, the snarl and hiss working into his voice. He curved his lips into a cruel smile. “At their rotten core is the fervent wish to drag everyone into the mire with them because they can’t figure out how to rise above their heartless, loveless selves.”
