Savage Sons (House of Winterborne Book 2)

by Luanne Bennett

  I decided to give her the news about her blood. “Hawk thinks you’re something called a Violet.”

  She snorted a laugh. “A what?”

  “Your blood has some kind of special energy. Apparently you’re a prized commodity in vampire circles.”

  She stared at me for a few seconds before cocking her head. “Really? Interesting.”

  “I don’t need any right now, but I might take you up on your offer in the future if it doesn’t get too weird between us.”

  She smirked. “It’s already weird, but we’ll survive. We always do.” She headed out of the bedroom. “I need a drink.”

  I came out a few minutes later wearing the dress. I must have put on a few pounds, because it didn’t fit quite as perfectly as it had when I bought it. “It’s a little snug. Does it look like I’m trying too hard?”

  She handed me a glass of wine. “That depends on whether you’re trying to land a job or a man.” Seeing the look on my face, she quickly turned it around. “I’m kidding. You look great.”

  “Yeah, tell that to my ass when I try to sit down.”

  Samuel called, and I let him up. Olivia was with him when he walked into the living room. She looked stunning in a baby-blue dress, her lavender-blond hair cascading down her exposed back. She was showing a lot more skin than I was, which made me a little more comfortable. Samuel was wearing a simple but elegant charcoal-gray suit.

  “How’s it going, Jules?” Olivia headed over to give her a hug. The three of us used to close down the clubs back in the day. “Are you coming with us tonight?”

  “I don’t think I’m on the list.” She guilted me with a glance before turning back to my cousin. “You look amazing.”

  “Immortality,” Olivia said with a snort. “I swear it makes us age backward.”

  Jules ran her eyes from Samuel’s shoes up to his face. “It’s good to see you too, Samuel. How’s Scotland?”

  “Scotland is Scotland.” His smile was enough to make her flush ever so slightly. “You look good, Jules.” She’d had a huge crush on him when she was a teenager, but the look she was giving him now was anything but schoolgirlish. Samuel had that effect on women. After all, he did father my Aphrodite and Adonis cousins, and the apples didn’t fall very far from the tree.

  “Does anyone want a glass of wine before we leave?” I said.

  Olivia took the glass from my hand. “Just give me a sip of yours.” She downed half of it and handed it back. “It ought to be an interesting night. Sure you don’t want to come, Jules? I bet I can get you on the list.”

  Samuel cleared his throat. “It’s getting late and traffic will be heavy. We should probably get going.”

  I finished my wine and for some reason felt a swarm of butterflies in my stomach. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. We were just planning to vet a future US senator who was more than likely backed by the Caspians. Piece of cake.

  Edward was waiting out front when we got to the lobby. The Whitney wasn’t far from Jules’s place in the Village, so we decided to drop her off on the way. He kept glancing back and forth between us as we drove downtown.

  “It’s okay, Edward. Jules knows what’s happening. You can speak freely in front of her.”

  Even with that said, he still hesitated before speaking. “You need to be very careful tonight.”

  “Just me?” He didn’t seem very concerned about anyone else in the car.

  “Samuel has been through more than his share of Caspian battles, and Olivia is a seasoned hunter, but you’ve just gotten your first taste of the bastards.”

  I met his eyes through the mirror. “You’re forgetting what I am.”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything. But having Caspian blood in your veins won’t guarantee you’ll walk out of there alive if they figure out your real motives for being there tonight. Any threat to their plan is as good as dead.”

  “Dead?” Jules muttered to me. “I thought you were just going to a fundraiser? You sure you don’t need some blood?”

  Olivia glanced down when Jules flipped her forearm over to expose her wrist. “Don’t tell me you two are…”

  “Jesus, Olivia!” It sounded so lewd coming from her mouth. “Is that all you think about? Jules gave me some of her blood the other night because Hawk and Jakob convinced me I needed to get my cravings under control. It was a test, that’s all.”

  Samuel muttered, “I was wondering about that myself the other night in chambers.”

  I glanced out the window and tried to get the thought of her blood out of my mind. “They said she was the perfect guinea pig because I wouldn’t hurt her, and I passed with flying colors.”

  Jules shoved her wrist at me. “So take some. If you get hurt tonight, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “I don’t need it.” I nearly growled at her, feeling like my most intimate secrets were being lit up in Times Square. “I’m still hopped up on it from the other night.”

  Edward pulled into a spot in front of Jules’s building. She got out and bent down to looked at me through the door. “If you don’t call me when you get home to let me know you’re all right, I’ll be paying you a visit in the middle of the night.”

  I agreed to text her when I got home. When she was inside the building, Edward leaned over the front seat to look me in the eye. “A weapon is only useful with a steady aim, and right now you’re a loose cannon.”

  Olivia flipped open a small mirror and applied a coat of fuchsia lipstick. “Don’t worry about Morgan. She could kick all of our asses.”

  Samuel groaned and checked his watch. “No one’s getting killed tonight. Let’s just move so we can get this over with.”

  We headed toward the river and pulled up to the entrance of the museum. As we were getting out of the car, Olivia reminded me why she’d tagged along. “Focus on Benjamin Fuller when we get in there. Decker is mine. I’ll know exactly what he is before the night’s up.”

  As the car pulled away, the three of us headed inside to look for Avery. We were directed to the second floor, where guests were mulling around under the close watch of security guards. No one’s hands were getting within touching distance of the art. There was a podium adorned with campaign posters at the far end of the room where a wall of windows overlooked the river, the perfect backdrop for Benjamin Fuller to deliver his fundraising speech to all the wealthy donors in attendance.

  I spotted Avery’s dress before I realized it was her. It was brilliant red with a pleated skirt that fanned out at the waist. Very sixties. She saw me and smiled, beckoning me over.

  “There’s Avery,” I said to Samuel.

  Olivia had already zeroed in on a small group of men with badges hanging around their necks. Campaign staff, I assumed.

  “You’re late,” Avery whispered when I walked up to her. Then she introduced me to the couple she was talking to. “John and Nancy Newhouse, this is my sister Morgan Winterborne. The Newhouses own that wonderful furniture gallery on Madison that you like so much.”

  “Canapé?”

  Nancy Newhouse smiled brightly. “Yes.”

  “I bought a table from you not too long ago.” That was about as much small talk as I could muster with my mind preoccupied with vampires. “Where’s Decker?” I whispered to Avery when I couldn’t locate him.

  She glanced around the room and waved her hand. “He’d around here somewhere. This is a working event, so I suppose he’s off doing campaign stuff.” Then she got back to mindless chatter.

  “It was very nice to meet you,” I said to the Newhouses. “If you’ll excuse me, my uncle is waiting for me across the room.”

  Avery gave me a strange look. “Well, go get him. I’ve barely seen Samuel since he’s been back.”

  “You haven’t seen him at all,” I mumbled under my breath, heading back across the room. “No sign of Decker,” I said when I reached Samuel, “but I did get to meet the Newhouses.” I looked around for the bar. “I need a damn drink to calm my nerves.”
/>   “What are you nervous about?”

  “I’m not really nervous. I think I’m still buzzed from drinking Jules’s blood the other night. Hawk thinks she’s something called a Violet.”

  “Really? Tell her not to spread that information around, or we might be springing her from a vampire’s cage in the future.”

  “Am I the only person who’s never heard of a Violet before? I hear they’re highly prized.” I finally spotted the bar. “Want a drink?”

  “I’ll get it. What are you having? Wine?”

  Olivia walked back up as Samuel was about to fetch our drinks. “Make it scotch, and I’ll have a double. I need to forget about that hand that just grabbed my ass so I don’t go back over there to teach the son of a bitch some manners.”

  I nodded to the men. “Find any Caspians in the bunch?”

  She sneered at the one who kept glancing over at us. “No. Just a bunch of mortal pricks who think they’re entitled to my ass.”

  As Samuel walked away, she did a double take at my eyes. I could feel them heating up, and I got an uneasy feeling she could see the tiny flicker at the center of my pupils. That meant my secret wasn’t as safe as Jakob and Hawk had assured me it was. “You can see it, can’t you?”

  “I see something. But don’t worry, I wouldn’t have even noticed it if I didn’t know what you are.” She kept gazing at my eyes to the point of making me uncomfortable. “What does it feel like? Being a vampire and a witch?”

  “I’m still trying to figure that out.” I glanced down at my right palm. “One minute I’m crushing people with my hand, and the next I’m crushing them with my mind. It’s all very confusing at times.”

  “You didn’t seem to have an identity crisis in the park the other night when you caught that knife heading straight for Cabot’s neck.” As she studied me, she seemed to finally figure out what I was going through. “You don’t even see it coming, do you? Your powers just show up when you need them.”

  Olivia was one of the deadliest creatures I’d ever met. “Isn’t that how it is for you and James?”

  She gave me an incredulous look. “Are you kidding me? You want to know why my brother and I are so lethal? Because when other kids were out having fun, we were at home practicing our magic from the moment we woke up until we went to bed. Sometimes we stayed up half the night working on it. It’s easy now, but we gave up our childhood for it.”

  “Georgia,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking about Georgia and what Rebecca is trying to mold her into.”

  She huffed a laugh. “Now that little shit is scary.”

  Samuel returned with our drinks. As he was handing me my glass of scotch, I heard the distinct tapping of a finger against a microphone. I looked over at the podium and saw Decker standing behind it with a charismatic smile as he addressed the crowd.

  “Is that him?” Olivia asked.

  “Yeah, that’s Decker.”

  He looked out over the crowd and smiled, his voice climbing as he spoke. “I want to thank you all for coming out tonight to support the next US senator from the great state of New York!” Everyone cheered. “We’ll be bringing Ben out in just a minute, but I wanted to personally thank everyone for their time and contributions. We want to see some real change in our state, and you’ll all be a part of that.”

  As the crowd erupted, Decker’s eyes scanned the room and stopped when they landed on me, his grin widening. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t.

  “Hey.” Olivia gave me a nudge. “Are you okay?”

  “We’ve got a long road ahead of us,” Decker continued, his eyes still locked on mine. “But with the help of everyone in this room, we’ll get there. We’re going to take Ben straight to the top.”

  I finally managed to pull my eyes away from Decker to look at Olivia. “Yeah, I’m fine.” When I glanced back up at the podium, Benjamin Fuller was standing there. Since his campaign had just kind of sprung up out of nowhere, I’d only seen a few pictures of him on the internet and the local news. He was younger than I expected—early forties, blond hair, blue eyes. Reminiscent of a Kennedy. I was starting to convince myself that he was nothing more than a pawn for the Caspians.

  “I won’t bore everyone by repeating everything Decker just said, but I would like to thank you all in my own words.” He even sounded like the ultimate do-gooder. The perfect neighbor.

  Trying to get closer so I could sense him and see what my instincts told me, I squeezed through the people crowding the podium. I managed to get within ten feet, but all I picked up on was the clear blue of his eyes and the twinkle in them. There wasn’t a drop of darkness in the man. Benjamin Fuller appeared to be clean.

  Twenty minutes later, he ended his speech and stepped away from the podium to mingle. I guess he wasn’t as inaccessible as I’d expected him to be.

  As I made my way back toward Samuel and Olivia, I saw Decker talking to a group of men. He was laughing at something one of them said, but he spotted me and lost interest in the joke. He leaned in and whispered to one of them before heading in my direction.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said, his eyes just as penetrating as I remembered. They gave me that same uncomfortable feeling they had the night I met him.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  He just kept looking at me in that intense way of his. “Would you like to meet him?”

  “Benjamin? I’d love to.” Shaking Fuller’s hand would answer a lot of questions, like if he was too good to be true. If he was a vampire, I had a feeling I’d know it.

  I followed Decker through the crowd and found myself face-to-face with the man of the hour. Benjamin Fuller was even more charismatic up close. As we were introduced, he gazed at me without even looking at Decker. A jolt traveled through me when I shook his hand.

  “Winterborne as in Winterborne’s?” he asked me. “The auction house?”

  I found it difficult to let go of his hand, and suddenly I was second-guessing my initial assessment of him. “That’s right. It’s nice to meet you.”

  Without letting go of me, he slowly turned his head to look at Decker. “Your girlfriend is a Winterborne, isn’t she?”

  “Fiancée.” Avery corrected him as she walked up in the middle of our conversation.

  Fiancée? Since when?

  She extended her hand, and he finally let go of mine. “Decker has told me so much about you. I feel like we already know each other.”

  Decker placed his hand on her waist and whispered something in her ear. Her face took on a slightly startled look, like she’d stepped on a sharp pebble with her bare foot. She gazed straight ahead as if she’d lost her train of thought.

  A wave of nausea suddenly swept over me, followed by a mild sense of panic. It felt like the walls were closing in. “I’m sorry, I have to go.” I turned around and nearly slammed into Samuel and Olivia as they walked up behind me. Decker took one look at Olivia and seemed to lose interest in Avery completely.

  “Olivia Winterborne.” She extended her hand, and he gently took the tips of her fingers between his. For a moment, I thought he was going to kiss it, but he just gazed at her with hungry eyes while Avery watched with a vacant expression on her face. Benjamin Fuller, on the other hand, was still focused on me.

  Feeling as if I was about to be sick, I ran for the escalator and bounded down the moving stairs. If I could make it out the front door without vomiting all over the floor of the Whitney Museum, I promised the gods I’d owe them one. I made it outside and ran smack into Edward on my way to the street.

  “Whoa,” he said, snatching me around the waist before I could keep going. “What’s wrong?”

  I looked at his face and began to calm down. The sickening feeling started to pass, and I was able to catch my breath and shake off the panic. “I have no idea. I thought I was going to be sick, so I ran out.”

  Samuel came out after me. “What the hell was that all about?”

  “
Energy drain,” Olivia said as she walked up to us, looking as pale as I was. “And I thought Decker was a piece-of-shit psychic vampire. Thank God I didn’t shake Fuller’s hand next.”

  “It that what it was?” I winced as a throbbing pain kept stabbing me in the head.

  “Something like that. All I know is I’m never touching either of those assholes again.”

  Edward took several steps back while Olivia and I compared notes on our hosts. When I glanced at his face, I noticed how stunned he looked. I followed his eyes to the second-floor terrace. Staring down at us was Benjamin Fuller. He raised his glass and grinned at Edward.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said, heading for the car.

  Samuel looked up at the terrace. “What’s going on?”

  His eyes were hard as stones when he looked at Samuel. “He’s a Caspian all right, and we’re officially at war.”

  Chapter 17

  Samuel made a few calls on our way uptown so everyone would be waiting at the brownstone when we arrived. It was time for the Order to lay out a plan. If we couldn’t get our hands on those boxes, we needed to at least stop Benjamin Fuller from becoming a senator. A Caspian in political power would be catastrophic, especially one with his eye on the White House.

  When we walked inside, Jakob, James, and Charlotte were waiting for us. “Did everything go okay tonight?” Jakob asked me.

  Before I could answer him, Charlotte doubled over.

  “Mom?” Olivia ran to her, but that only made it worse.

  Samuel grabbed Olivia’s arm. “Don’t go near her. She can feel whatever that bastard did to you tonight.” He helped her straighten back up and looked at James. “Take your mother home.”

  “No.” Charlotte heaved several times but managed to catch her breath. “It’ll pass. Just get me a cold washcloth, please.”

  James went into the kitchen and returned with a damp towel. Then he looked at us as if we were the enemies. “What the hell happened tonight?”

  “We met the king.” Everyone looked at Edward, who was leaning against the wall. “Benjamin Fuller isn’t just a Caspian—he’s the almighty Caspian.”