by Lauren Dane
The flashing lights and techno only made the scene throb with violence and lawlessness.
Within Rowan, Brigid flared so bright that if they’d been in any other type of place, people definitely would have noticed.
A few feet away, at the top of a short group of steps leading down to the booths and tables surrounding the dance floor, Clive cut his gaze her way, one corner of his mouth tipping up very slightly. Admittedly, feeling that heat erased quite a bit of the anxiety the magical attack had left behind.
Clive adjusted his shirt cuffs and Rowan stood back. Clive Stewart, Scion of North America, was going to handle this obscene breach of Vampiric—and Treaty—law.
She’d give Clive the chance and if he didn’t correct this situation to her approval, she’d handle it herself and then they’d have an argument and probably not have sex for a few days.
It was the deal they’d sort of come to over the years they’d been together.
Pru and another one of the LA Hunters who’d come along that night didn’t know about that deal. It was clear from the way she looked at the Vampires in the room and even Clive, that Pru didn’t trust them any more than Rowan had when she’d first met him. Hell, Rowan still didn’t trust Vampires because they were always about whatever worked best for Vampires.
Which, well, she got because that’s how they’d amassed so much power over the centuries and managed to remain a secret.
“I know,” she replied to the unvoiced suspicion coming from Pru, who continued to stand, stiff and angry, at Rowan’s side. “Vampires are shifty and they’re totally arrogant assholes. But that one—” she tipped her head toward Clive “—knows his job and his duty. And he knows I too have a path and a duty,” Rowan said.
“So if he doesn’t handle this mess you will,” Pru said. A statement, not a question. Good.
“Precisely.”
Pru shrugged in a way that said she trusted Rowan would make sure things got done one way or the other.
Rowan paid attention to the room, always scanning for threats. But mainly she settled in to watch Clive be the Scion.
* * *
Clive sighed inwardly as he took the club in. It was his own fault, really. He needed to travel his territory more. Check in more. He’d been caught up in other urgent threats to the Nation and to those he protected but that was no excuse. He’d need to stay in the city for another day or two. He just had to cajole his prickly spouse to stay with him because he wasn’t willing to be even an hour by plane away from her right then.
This bloody nightmare of a possible exposure to the human world had to be cleaned up. These rogue Vampires needed to be brought to heel.
First things first, he needed to get their attention. He stood near the bar and went very still. Unaffiliated or not, these Vampires needed to recognize one as old and powerful as he was.
They needed to recognize their Scion.
It only took a minute before two Vampires approached him with their heads down, gazes averted. Which was a good first step.
“Scion,” one of them said. “We’re honored to have you here.”
Damned right they were. Because if Rowan had been on her own, she’d be staking people and yanking humans out of there before burning the club to the ground. And he wasn’t so sure that would have been a bad idea.
Fear was a great motivator.
“This is unexpected. I wish we had known you planned a visit,” the other one said with a smirk in his tone.
“If you’d known would you have cleaned up this mess? All these violations of our laws?” Clive asked with deadly calm.
“We’re not affiliated with the Vampire Nation. You have no authority here.”
Clive struck the speaker so hard he flew backwards into the crowd. Clive strolled over through the group that scattered before him to grab the fallen Vampire by the hair to pull him to his feet.
The Vampire still wasn’t broken though. Clive saw that when he didn’t avert his gaze.
“The Vampire Nation is affiliated with you. And your existence. Especially when your actions could expose us all. You live at our sufferance.”
He shifted to address the entire crowd.
“Every last one of you lives—and dies—at the sufferance of the Vampire Nation. We allow you a longer leash because you’re insignificant to us and if you want to eschew our protection, it’s nothing. But the promise to obey our basic laws about interactions with humans was that price.”
There were Vampires in that room who had been turned without permission of the Nation. They had no real education about how things worked. They had teeth but no education and that made them dangerous.
“You.” Clive pointed at a rather arrogant fellow who needed to understand a few things.
“Yeah?”
Rowan’s slight intake of breath only fed the apex predator within Clive. He was driven by biology and circumstance to be the strongest in the room. The best. Smartest. They would bow to him and his authority or die and be a lesson to the rest to bow to him and his authority.
Either way.
Clive tossed the Vamp he’d been holding by the scalp off to the side. Discarded him like garbage. Walked away from him to let the room know he felt the others were no threat.
He wanted them to choke on his power because the best lessons were the ones learned the hard way. Clive didn’t have to look over at Rowan to understand the last thought was hers. Agreed.
“What is your genesis?” Clive asked in a very soft voice.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
Clive sighed as he ran his palm down the length of his tie. And unleashed a wave of his power over the room. His glamour turned up all the way. Full of brilliance and jagged razor edges.
“Pay attention,” he said to the Vampires in the space. “When another Vampire, especially your Scion, asks you your genesis he’s asking how you came to be a Vampire. Who Made you and when? Looking at you, I’d say you were Made less than a year ago. Unsanctioned or you’d have known to answer my question immediately before you forced me to hurt you.”
Clive was on the other Vampire in a breath, tearing out his throat.
He dove into the memories of the soon to be true dead Vampire, learning all he needed.
The shock on the faces of the now kneeling Vampires in the room was a very good start.
“Now that we’ve established you are indeed under the aegis of the Vampire Nation and that to break our rules is death, we’re going to talk about interactions with humans,” he said.
Right on cue, Patience came inside with Seth. He’d called them before dinner to have them come out. At their side was the Vampire holding the county, Rita Alvarez.
“The humans need to have their memories wiped,” he told Patience. Then to Rita, “You’ll need to follow up to be sure none of them remembers any of this. Any break at all in our cover will be addressed immediately. I want every single Vampire in here to be registered and then, I want every single Vampire responsible for illegally Making brought into custody.”
Patience flowed into the room, gathering humans. Rowan noted that and headed over to him.
“I need to question those humans before she makes them all forget,” she demanded.
“I have all the information you need from the one I dispatched.”
“You have no way of knowing that!” she said in an outraged hiss.
He wrote down an address and handed it to her. “This is where they’ve been meeting with Blood Front Vampires for the last year and a half. This place is where the Vampires sent the humans and sorcerers for a little fun and future blackmail material. Everyone here tonight is a low level tool like he was.”
“Let one or two of them go. Genevieve can put a tracking spell on them,” she said quietly in his ear.
In a back room an hour later, Clive faced Rita. He’d ju
st fed from her to make sure she wasn’t lying to him. She’d willingly opened her memories up to him to prove her loyalty.
He’d told her she had much to learn to establish control. He’d send another from his immediate staff to coach her through this transition.
She was nearly two hundred and had survived more than one battle. She knew how to use violence to make her point. The territory was too large to only have one Vampire holding it.
His mistake. And one easily corrected.
The larger problem of unaffiliated Vampires though, that was a far more complicated one to fix. Which is why he was Scion, he supposed.
He’d have Alice set up a tour of the major cities across North America so he could see them face to face and figure out where more support might be needed to hold his territory.
Chapter Nineteen
Clive drew a symbol on a pad in their hotel room. He pushed it Rowan and Genevieve’s way. “Do either of you know what this is?”
“It’s a lot like a rune,” the witch said, pulling the paper closer to give it a more thorough look. “Norse. I can have the archivist at the Conclave look into it.”
“Where’d you find this?” Rowan asked.
“In the head of two of the Vampires in that club tonight.” What he didn’t say in front of Genevieve was that that symbol connected the Blood Front and the sorcerers. He trusted Rowan with that delicate information but this was Nation business and he had his own rules to obey. Secrecy was law. He’d share what he could, but for the time being, this was need to know and she didn’t need to know it.
Rowan took a picture with her phone. “I know someone who’s a folklorist and archeologist, with a billion and five PhDs. Been part of the supernatural world for a long time. He’s one of a kind. Lives in Stockholm. If anyone would know, he will.”
“In the meantime, I’m going to bed.” Genevieve stood. “Call me when you wake up,” she told Rowan.
Rowan walked her to the door and once she’d locked up, set several more security alarms. He left her to it, knowing she needed to feel in control after the night they’d had. He had a team on security, Alice had insisted, along with Patience, and he hadn’t argued.
David was staying in one of the other bedrooms, which also gave them some security because he knew Rowan’s valet would provide extra watch inside. And since Clive would be at daylight rest, that knowledge soothed.
“What else did you see?” Rowan asked him when they were alone.
“Why don’t you tell me what you think I saw?”
“I think you saw a link between the Blood Front and these magic users and this whole fucking mess. I think that mark might be the key. The Norse one.”
“Who is this person in Stockholm you sent the symbol to?” he asked because he was tired, slightly cranky and, though he hated to admit it, jealous.
“I told you. Super smart folklorist and archaeologist who knows about our world and is pretty well versed in it. And since you’re not addressing anything I said about the Blood Front, that must mean I’m right. Which we’d already thought anyway. So it’s not really news. It’s just we have a link.”
“The way you’re dancing around who this person is to you makes me think you and he had a sexual relationship.”
“Why do you even care? My goddess, every time I turn around there’s some new gorgeous and delicate Vampire you nailed for a while.”
“I care because I just...well, I’d like to know. In advance so there are no surprises.”
She stared at him awhile until she rolled her eyes. “Yes, we had a thing. For a few weeks about eight years ago. As far as I know he hasn’t been pining for me and I sure as shit haven’t been doing anything like that on my end because I have zero time on my hands between trying not to get killed and managing an insufferably arrogant Vampire.”
“Hmpf.”
That made her smile.
“Jealousy is petty. I’m not petty.”
She burst into peals of laughter. “Vampires are the pettiest beings on the face of this planet. And you like your things. Your collections. It bugs you that you weren’t the first to get into my knickers.”
“But I am the last.”
Rowan leaned in to kiss him. “Yes, Scion. Naturally there’s no one else my vagina prefers more than you.”
“As long as that’s clear. There’s a link, just like you thought. That symbol is the key, as you also thought. And I saw Enyo’s mark.”
Rowan stiffened and for just a moment, fear crossed through her gaze but was gone quickly. The very old Vampire who’d also been connected with magic users had very nearly killed Rowan.
Clive hated to bring it up. Hated the memory of the entire situation. He had his own wounds that felt as if they’d never heal. That fear that lurked in the back of his brain that his wife, strong, vibrant and fierce, could be killed. The world could be full of her presence one moment and absent of it the next.
“That bitch is like the fucking clap. You think you’ve killed her but she pops back up to ruin your day over and over. Except Vampires can’t contract social diseases. So she’s worse.”
Despite the overall distress of the night, she did occasionally remind him why he adored her.
* * *
Rowan had been feeling more and more that she and Genevieve had been meant to come back into contact and this deepening connection to the magical world—the outlaw blood magic world—was just further proof.
She began to pace as she thought it all over. The last several years of struggle had led them there. Each time they’d thought it was over—that particular threat anyway. And each time it had just been yet another step in a long line leading them right the fuck there. Vampires and sorcerers. Over and over.
“It really annoys me when I miss stuff, Clive. We thought that because we killed her it was over. She was a leader, but not the leader. Which is scary as fuck because despite the fact that I ended her, she beat the crap out of me on her way out.”
She saw then, on Clive’s face, that he’d had that very same thought and was just as frightened.
“And not to make things worse, but this means Theo didn’t kill all those responsible for the Blood Front business. And that Vampires highly placed in the Nation are betraying him. I can’t even begin to figure out how to tell him that.”
She sat across from him, taking his hands. “And I have to be the one to do it. This is beyond the Scion thing, Clive. He won’t take it well.”
“If I can’t do this, I don’t deserve to be Scion,” Clive said being all affronted and stuffy to hide the fact that he was scared as balls to deal with The First.
“Let’s just take this a step at a time. We got a lot of new evidence tonight. Genevieve and I are going to talk with that girlfriend. The teacher with the witch friend. Witches are going missing. This thing at the top is sucking the power out of a lot of beings. Humans, witches and Vampires alike. When we know more, I’ll coordinate with Nadir to talk to Theo.”
“I don’t want his negative attentions focused on you,” Clive said. And because she knew what it cost him to say anything against his leader, she leaned over to kiss him.
“I don’t want that either. Let me be clear, I’m not taking anyone’s punishment. I just want to make sure he gets his focus correct. On the right party. It’s best if we handle this mess and then tell him about it. So let’s do all we can to have that outcome instead of having to trust that he won’t set the world on fire in a fit of pique.”
“I need to shower,” he said, standing and holding a hand her way.
“You totally do. You look like an extra from a horror movie set with all that blood in your hair. You were super scary tonight, by the way.”
“One must make an effort from time to time. Wayward children are dangerous,” he said.
She laughed all the way to the bathroom but by then he got na
ked and there were much better things to do than laugh.
* * *
Though she hadn’t meant to sleep seven hours, she’d clearly needed to. When she awoke she felt much better than she had the night before. The shower blow job her husband had given her before bed had helped too.
Smirking, she got herself dressed before wandering out to the living room where David was already set up with his laptop and a stack of papers next to him.
“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked her.
“Much better than I did last night. I got a text back on that symbol. My friend is on the case. Seemed rather excited by the symbol. Weirdo. Right now I’m hungry and my need to punch people has returned. Good signs I think. It’s a good time to question folks when you want to do some throat punching. I hope Genevieve isn’t too fancy for tacos because that’s totally what I want for lunch.”
“I’ll find us a taco stand near one of the places we have to go. The teacher girlfriend lives in West Covina. School is on break right now so she should be home most likely.”
Two hours later they had finished a very fine taco lunch and the three of them were walking up the sidewalk to the teacher girlfriend’s front door. Genevieve was planning to accompany them to speak with their witness but afterward she had to head off to the first meetings of the Conclave Senate.
“I need her to be honest with me,” Rowan said under her breath. “Is that something you can do all magic like?”
“It depends on what sort of shape she’s in. And if she’s keeping things to herself, I’d need to know why. But that’s easy enough to see usually. If she’s part of the disappearance of witches I’m going to make sure she shares all she knows. Whether she wants to or not,” Genevieve said before she knocked on the door.
Teacher girlfriend took one look at Genevieve and stepped back on a gasp.
Genevieve didn’t wait to be asked in. She simply strode through the door like she owned the place. Rowan followed, checking corners, with David at the rear.