by ERIN BEDFORD
"See? That!" He clapped his hands together with childish glee. "That fire. I want that. You have the determination I need to actually make a difference in the vampire world."
I flipped my blades around until they were facing the floor and stood my ground. "What exactly are you proposing?"
"In exchange for keeping away from the Durands, with the contingent you can keep them in line." Vincent gave me a pointed look, before continuing, "I want you to use your vampire connections and human servant position to help us take down the worst of the worst."
I pulled my lower lip between my teeth and chewed on it as I thought over his words. "You mean, vampires like Boris?"
Vincent nodded eagerly. "Boris and others. The human trafficking ring that the Durands led us to in Frankfurt was the biggest break we've had in centuries." He held his arms open wide with a great, big fat grin on his face. "Can you imagine the good we could do with you as our inside woman?" He stepped closer to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Think of the innocent people you could save." Leaning forward, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "And all you have to do is say, yes."
I wanted to say yes. I did. In my gut, everything in me was saying wasn't this the very reason I stayed on with the Durands after I found out they were vampires? To make sure they didn't get out of line and kill anyone?
Except that was before I realized they didn't even do that. The guys only ever fed from paid donors or drank from donated blood containers. This would be me using the Durands to turn their friends and fellow vampires into the hunters. To go deeper into the vampire world than I already was.
Not something I could decide lightly.
On one hand, I'd be saving innocent people. On the other hand, I'd have to work with the vampire hunters, and since I would live as long as Antoine, that might be for the rest of my immortal life. Did I really want to spend the rest of my life playing spy? Possibly having to kill other vampires for these assholes?
Then, there was also the prospect of what if they're the bad guys? Sure, they killed Boris and took down that human farm back in Frankfurt, but that didn't mean they let the vampires who didn't prey on the innocent just go. Based on the way all of them had acted about the immortal beings, they obviously hated them with every fiber of their being. They couldn't or wouldn't just let them live their lives in peace.
And who was to say they would keep their word? What if one day they decided that I was too valuable an asset to let stay with the Durands, and then the next thing I know they have Antoine locked up and me out on a leash to make sure I did what they asked?
There were too many variables and not enough time to sift through them. After all, Vincent didn't seem the type of guy who would let me think about it. He'd want an answer now.
Taking a deep breath, I opened my mouth to give my answer, but before I could utter a word there was a commotion. It sounded like fighting and then a horde of hunters came pouring into the auditorium.
One of them, a woman with long dark hair, rushed up to Vincent and announced, "President, we have to get you to safety. We're under attack."
"By who?" Vincent asked, far less concerned with the intruders than with my answer.
The woman's eyes swung around to land on me. "The Durands."
Chapter 14
Drake
I hated waiting. As a vampire, all we had was time, but waiting here in the car while Piper was in there right now possibly being tortured was the most agonizing thing I had ever had to endure.
"Worse than the time you and Allister got stuck entertaining the daughter of that bureaucrat with the high-pitched voice and hyena laugh?" Rayne questioned, a pair of binoculars up to his face as he tried to get some idea of what was happening inside.
I scowled but didn't reprimand the mind reader for dipping into my head. "Nothing was worse than Andrea, but close." I held my fingers up in a pinching motion. "Very close."
Allister shuddered next to me in the backseat of the car. "I still hear that voice in my dreams sometimes. Draconius, come tell me again how you single-handedly destroyed the fifteenth regiment at the Battle of Minorca." The mocking, high-pitched tone Allister said it in wasn't even close to how bad it had actually been. Nails on a chalkboard was more becoming than that woman's voice.
"Ugh," I rubbed my temple with my hand and leaned farther into my arm against the car door. "Please stop. It took me decades to get over that event and I don't need relapses."
Wynn chuckled on the other side of Allister. "If you think Andrea was horrid, you have not been alive long enough, my friend." He sighed and relaxed into his seat, his eyes drifting out of the window. "I once had to seduce the daughters of a local priest so he would stop preaching celibacy to the good townspeople."
"Oh, boo hoo." I scowled over at him. "So you had to dip your prick into something that wasn't your choice. Join the club."
Wynn's gaze turned to me. "They were a hunchback." My brother and I visibly shuddered.
"Not that bad," Rayne quipped from the front seat. "I've done worse."
Grabbing on to the back of Rayne's seat, Wynn added on, "Did I forget to mention they were conjoined twins with halitosis?"
Everyone in the car visibly quivered, even the stoic Marcus sitting in the driver’s seat.
"What about you?" I bumped the back of Marcus's seat. "Who was the one person you wished you could forget?"
Marcus's dark eyes glanced up into the rearview mirror. "I am not chosen for my bedroom skills. All of my bedmates were by choice."
"Pfft." Rayne lowered his binoculars. "What about that—" He gagged as Marcus's hand wrapped around Rayne's throat, silencing him before he could get another word out.
"Don't."
The single word was enough for Rayne to jerk his head up and down before Marcus finally released him. Rubbing his neck, Rayne glowered at the massive man. "Geez, don't get your panties in a wad. It's not like I told them what you did with Piper." He ducked down, expecting Marcus to lash out at him again, but surprisingly, he didn't.
Since no one else in the car was going to ask, I decided to put my neck on the line. "What'd you do with Piper?"
"That's none of your concern," Marcus growled, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.
"Oh, come on." I kicked the back of his chair with my foot. "We've all fucked her. We all care about her. There's nothing you can say that would piss any of us off. Not unless you did something to hurt her." I paused, my gaze narrowing. "You didn't, did you?"
Marcus snorted in amusement. "Nothing she didn't beg me for."
I sighed in defeat and sank back in my chair. "Fine. Keep your secrets."
Tired of waiting, I pulled out my phone to find a game or something to play, but before I could begin a single match, Rayne cried out, "I see her!"
"What? Where?" All four of us reached for the binoculars at the same time, and it became a game of tug-a-war for a moment before Marcus jerked them out of our hands. Grunting with annoyance, I leaned over his shoulder and tried to see for myself. "What's going on? I can't see shit."
"She's leaving," Marcus rumbled, his gaze focused on what he saw.
"Is she alone? Is she in trouble?" Allister pushed in next to me, trying to see into the dark as well, but we were too far away.
"I cannot tell. She's being escorted by two other hunters. She doesn't look happy about it." Marcus lowered the binoculars and then dropped them into his empty seat as he dashed out of the vehicle.
We all grabbed for them, and then realized we could just follow him. With a similar duh moment, we raced from the vehicle to catch up with Marcus. He stopped by the fence, hiding behind some bushes. The yard was barely lit up by the night sky and we had to squint to see anything.
"Antoine should be here," Allister murmured beside me. "He's our leader. We shouldn't be doing this alone."
I placed a hand on my brother's shoulder to calm him. "We all agreed. If Antoine goes in there and dies, it's not only him, it's Piper and Darren. We don't need thre
e dead bodies today." I smirked at him as I saw the other hunters loitering around the front door. "At least, not any that aren't hunters."
Before anyone could stop me, I jumped over the fence, darting in the direction Piper went in.
"Drake!" I heard my brother's voice quietly yelling for me from the other side of the gate. "Get back here."
I grinned and turned back, urging them to follow with two fingers.
My brother cursed, but he jumped the fence next. Then Marcus. Then Wynn. Only Rayne waited on the other side, arguing.
"Antoine is not going to like this. We're supposed to keep our distance until we're sure there's a problem."
I rolled my eyes and whispered back, "Don't be such a suck-up. We can't keep an eye on Piper if we can't see her. Now, are you going to get your ass over here or let us do all the saving?"
Rayne muttered, "Fuck," before he, too, jumped the fence.
I edged closer to the front of the house where two lone hunters stood smoking. My plan was to grab them and force them to tell us where Piper went. However, before I could initiate my plan, Marcus grabbed me, pulling me back into the shadows.
"What the hell?" I growled at him, jerking my arm from his grasp.
"Wait," Marcus ordered, and then a second later six more hunters exited the house and joined the others for a smoke.
My shoulders sagged. Marcus had just saved me from getting my ass kicked and us found out in the process.
"Do not make contact if unnecessary," Marcus reminded me, as he turned toward the back of the house. It wasn't the quickest way to where Piper had gone, but it would keep us from running into any other vampire hunters.
Quickly and quietly, we made our way around the house, keeping low so as not to be seen through the windows or by the surveillance cameras on the corners. When we got to the back of the house, there was a single hunter standing there talking on his phone.
"Yeah, Mom. I'm fine. Just getting settled in." There was a pause as he listened to his mom berate him about being nice to the other kids.
I mouthed the word, “Kid” to my brother, who shrugged his shoulders.
"Mom," the hunter drawled in an annoyed tone. "This isn't high school. I'm training to be a vampire hunter. Not make friends."
Marcus patted me on the shoulder and pointed toward the guy before doing some kind of weird hand gesture. Before I could figure out what exactly he planned to do, Marcus jumped the patio railing and hit the hunter—who, now that I really looked at him, couldn't have been more than sixteen—on the side of the neck, knocking him out cold. Catching the phone before it dropped to the patio, Marcus tossed it to Allister.
Without being told, Allister spoke into the receiver, his power causing the hair on my arms to rise. "Everything is fine. Your son had to go. He'll call you tomorrow." Without waiting to see if she was truly enthralled, Allister hung up and sat the phone next to the knocked-out kid.
With a scowl, Allister bumped Marcus on the shoulder with his own. "A little warning next time would be nice."
Marcus didn't seem fazed. "I did."
I shook my head and follow them with the others. "Whatever this is," I repeated the hand gesture, "did not include what you just did. I don't even know what that was."
Lifting a shoulder, Marcus continued without apologizing. Though, lifting his shoulder was about as much of an apology as you were going to get from him.
Moving around the other side of the house, we made our way toward a large area in the back. It was the only place that Piper could have gone unless she left the property.
Approaching the building, I noticed it was some auditorium of sorts. Sitting outside beneath the stars, its open top did nothing to shelter those inside against the elements. If we had been there for any other reason, I would have enjoyed exploring it. Perhaps seeing a show of some kind there, but I had a feeling the shows they had weren't the kind vampires would enjoy.
"Come on." Rayne smacked my arm with a knowing look. "I can hear Piper's thoughts coming from inside."
We moved in slowly, keeping to the shadows so as not to be seen. Inside the auditorium, it was empty. Mostly. Piper stood below the stage with two other hunters, and a fourth figure stood in the middle of the stage. The authority coming from the man and the way he was dressed suggested that he was someone of importance.
"The head of the vampire hunters," Rayne provided for us. We were too far away to hear what they were saying, but apparently not too far for Rayne to listen in to their minds.
"What could he want with Piper?" Wynn mused from his hiding place.
Rayne sucked in a tight breath. "He knows who she is."
"What?" I jolted and gripped the column next to me. "Then we have to get her out. He'll kill her for sure."
Marcus grunted. "Unlikely. Torture, yes. Killing would be too merciful for them."
"All the more reason to get her out of there," I reiterated, preparing to launch myself from my hiding place.
"No, wait." Rayne held his hand up. "I don't think he plans to do either." His brows furrowed as we watched Piper climb up onto the stage. They spoke some more and one of the hunters on the ground jumped up a few moments later, waving his arms wildly in the air.
"What? What's going on?" Allister hissed at Rayne, not liking this helpless feeling either.
"The president wants to make a deal with her." Rayne frowned tightly. "Something about trading our safety if she worked for them."
"What the fu—"
"Someone's coming!" Allister cut me off, shoving me to the side and back into the shadows.
If we had to breathe, this would be the time we would be holding our breath. As it was, we simply stayed quiet and waited for the hunter to pass by. When he was gone, we relaxed, turning back to the scene before us.
"What'd we miss?" I asked, anxiously watching the exchange. The president seemed more than thrilled to have Piper there, and even went so far as to get up close and personal with her, even with her blades drawn.
"Nothing much. Just talking her up. Trying to get her to be his spy for the organization." Rayne's brow furrowed. "He wants her to help him take out more vampires like Boris. Take out more of those human trafficking rings like in Frankfurt."
Marcus grunted. "Makes sense."
I gaped at him. "How can you even think—"
"Hey! You!" A shout rose up from behind us. We all turned at once, finding ourselves faced with a dozen or more hunters.
Lifting my hands, I cracked my knuckles and grinned. "This is it, boys. The final showdown. This will decide the fate of all we hold dear. Including Piper."
Allister groaned at me. "Way to state the obvious, brother. Can we please focus on not dying?" He shifted into a fighting stance as the hunters began to close in on us.
Not wanting to bring the fight to Piper, we moved out of the auditorium. There was more space outside to fight anyway. None of us liked to fight when we were backed into a corner.
No matter how much my brother detested my words, they'd been true. Our whole future, our lives, depended on this very moment. It was fight or die. While I didn't know about brothers, I didn't intend to go down without taking some of these bloodthirsty hunters down with me.
Chapter 15
Piper
My heart caught in my throat at the sound of my vampires' name. Fear for their safety saturated my very core, but at the same time, my stomach quivered with anger.
They couldn't let me do this one thing, could they? They had to go and screw it all up. I was a grown-ass woman. I could go into a nest of vampire hunters without having them up my ass the whole time, expecting me to screw up. After all, it was me who saved Marcus. It was me who kept Rayne from having to take Morpheus's payment. I didn't see them doing anything useful this last year but running around in circles, except sometimes stopping by my house for a little hump and dump.
I was tired of not being in control. Tired of vampire politics and being in danger all the time. A small part of me just wanted to go ba
ck to my normal human life and forget all of this. But a bigger part of me, the part that was head over heels for the Durands, would break. I'd be irrevocably damaged for any other man and would likely end up drinking myself to death to stave off the loneliness.
Shaking away the dark thoughts, I pulled myself back into the present. Spinning from the president to take in the scene happening around me, I found myself in the middle of a big ass fight between the hunters and the Durands.
"Piper!" Drake shouted, as he dodged a hunter coming at him with a knife. "Come on, let's get out of here."
"Piper," Vincent's voice cooed in my ear. "You could end this all now. Just say yes."
My hands gripped the handles of my daggers as I struggled with what to do. He was like the devil whispering in my ear, which made me wonder where the fuck my angel was. I wouldn't be surprised if he had quit because of what a disaster I was.
"What the hell are you doing?" Allister called to me, fighting two different hunters at once while trying to see me. "We have to go now."
I searched the mob of bodies in the auditorium crowd and found a familiar dark head of hair. Wynn, even now, fought lazily as if it were all a big joke. How he was able to put in minimal effort while still winning was beyond me. He would always be a mystery to me. One that I planned to spend the next hundred years or so unraveling.
Shifting my gaze, I found Marcus. He, of course, had the most hunters surrounding him. Perhaps it was because they had already caught him before and wanted payback for his escape. Perhaps it was just because he was the biggest one there, but either way, Marcus was holding his own.
As I searched the crowd, I questioned myself briefly, wondering where Antoine was before settling my gaze on Rayne. Out of all the others, he was the fastest. Since he could anticipate their attacks, it was hard for the hunters to even make a scratch on him. The hunters fighting were getting agitated by this and were going at him full force.
They wouldn't last much longer. I could feel it. While I wanted nothing more than to pull myself from vampire politics and keep to my own little world, that wasn't going to happen. The only way I was going to keep these men in my life without fear was to make the deal.
