by E. S. Moore
“Welcome,” Count Tremaine said. He didn’t budge from where he sat. He looked down on us, his face full of disgust. It was clear he didn’t think too highly of the Luna Cult. “Hopefully you have come to a decision in regard to our proposition. I do hope it will be mutually agreeable to both our sides. I would hate to end our talks so ... suddenly.” He grinned, exposing perfectly white teeth.
Jonathan strode to the head of the group. “Where is he?” he demanded. “I will not discuss any treaty with you until I am sure Simon is okay.”
“Treaty?” Tremaine laughed. “Who said anything about a treaty? You will bow to me. You will call me Lord and Master, and you will do as I say when I say without question. You will have some freedoms, in that I will not force you away from your precious Den, but you are still mine. Treaty? No, you will be my servants just like every wolf of this House is mine to call.”
Jonathan’s jaw tightened, but he managed to keep from saying something that would damn us all. “Just let me see him,” he said, his voice as tight as his jaw.
Tremaine sighed and sat up, taking his feet from the back of the nude woman. She visibly relaxed but didn’t rise. By the way she moved, I guessed she had been doing this for years.
“Who are you to make any sort of demands?” Tremaine said. “I will not allow you to tell me what to do, even now. Do you agree to join with House Tremaine, to meld our might with your resources? That is all you need to say.”
The small gathering of vampires moved around us, clearing space as if they expected a fight to break out at any moment. With the way things were going, I wasn’t so sure it wouldn’t.
Nathan started to step forward, seemingly empowered by the movement of the vampires. Jonathan waved him back before he could do something that would set someone off. I wouldn’t put it past Nathan to initiate the fight before we were ready.
“I only want to see Simon to make sure his blood is not already tainted,” Jonathan said. “It is a mere request, one that should be easy for someone of honor to fulfill. I’m not asking you to set him free.”
I had to hand it to him, Jonathan had balls. Not many people would talk to the Count of even a Fledgling House like that, let alone the Count of a Minor House, albeit one of limited strength. Most Counts would kill him where he stood. Count Tremaine only smiled, though it was clearly forced.
“Let’s say I show him to you,” he said. “What will you do for me then?”
“If he is alive and untainted with vampire blood, I will do what I came here to do.”
“And that is?”
“I will do whatever it takes to make sure Simon and my Cultists leave here alive and in one piece. Our lives are more important than my dignity. I will bow to you if that is your desire. I will do whatever pleases you.”
“Even take the Oath?”
Jonathan hesitated only an instant before nodding. I heard the sharp intake of breath as if Nathan was about to object, but like a good dog, he held his tongue.
Tremaine leaned back on his throne and propped his feet up on the girl’s back again. He stroked his chin with one hand and drummed his fingers on the arm of his throne with the other. A smile slowly spread across his face.
I was itching to act. Diplomacy wasn’t my thing. Even though I knew Jonathan was holding face just long enough to get Simon into the room, I still hated the act. How long before Adrian noticed something was amiss? How long before the smell of blood roused suspicions? We were on borrowed time, and I knew if things didn’t hurry along, someone would either smell the blood or find the bodies I had left in my wake.
It would only take seconds. If I could just move closer to the throne, I could leap onto the dais and embed a knife in Tremaine’s throat before taking out Adrian. I was sure Jonathan and Nathan could handle their own long enough for me to take them out, as well as any vamps that got in my way. My hand moved involuntarily to the hilt of my sword. I had to clench my fist tight to keep from grabbing it.
As if sensing the movement, Adrian’s head perked up. He frowned and scanned the gathering of Cultists, me included. I dropped my eyes and looked hard at the back of Gregory’s knees. I felt Adrian’s gaze pass over me and glanced up just long enough to see his eyes fall on Gregory. The corner of his mouth twitched as if he were concealing a smile.
No one seemed to notice his sudden interest in us. Hell, I wasn’t even sure Jonathan had even noticed Adrian standing there. It was odd he hadn’t reacted to the presence of the traitor. Had he known Adrian would be here? If so, I really wished he would have told me. I’m not much of one for surprises, especially the bad kind.
“No,” Tremaine said at last. “I don’t think it would be in my best interest to bring the pup out in the open where anyone can see him. Things happen when all the cards are played. Think of him as my ace in the hole. If you do not swear the Oath, then he will be tainted and set free at the Den to kill everyone. If you bow now and pledge yourself to me, I will release him to you. This is not a debate. You will do as I say or die where you stand.”
Tension flowed around the room like a living thing. Even the Pureblood Cultists could feel it. They tensed and looked around as if expecting an attack from all sides at any moment. The wolves along the walls were dressed to shift, their clothes loose and disposable. At a single word, they could be on us in the blink of an eye.
Jonathan glanced back at me. His gaze lingered only a moment before shifting to the Cultists. I knew what that look meant, and I didn’t like it.
Wait.
He turned back to Tremaine and raised his hands out in front of him, palms up. “You already checked us for weapons. You already scanned us for magic, for my glamours. What can it possibly hurt to let me see Simon? I only want assurance he is alive. In doing so, you will ease my fears, the fears of the rest of the Cult. The others will be more willing to join you if they know they can trust you.”
Tremaine closed his eyes and sighed. “I tire of this,” he said. “I want my dogs to be obedient. You might pose a problem down the road if I cannot break you of this most annoying habit.” He opened his eyes and laid a seething gaze on Jonathan. “But all dogs can be broken. I will give you your bone this time, but I will be taking it out of your hide later. There may be something you can do for me.”
Tremaine motioned toward the double doors. The vampire at his side leaped off the dais and stalked past us to the doors, grinning at us like we were sheep.
Shit. If they were holding Simon downstairs, then Mr. Vamp here was going to stumble right into the body I had left lying right in front of the damn door. I should have taken more time to hide the body, found another way to reach the group. I had been careless and my carelessness, might cost us the element of surprise.
I couldn’t let him find the dead man. Not yet. We still could get the jump on them. What did I care if the Denmaster was lost? As long as we killed Tremaine and the vamps in his House, I would call it a win.
I started to reach for my sword and gun, but Adrian’s voice rang out over the ballroom, stilling my hand.
“Wait,” he said, his voice slow and controlled. He took a step forward, a faint smile on his lips. He glanced back to Tremaine and said something only the Count could hear before stepping from the dais.
“Davin, wait,” Tremaine said, leaning forward. He drummed his fingers on his nude footstool’s back, giving the gathering of Cultists a withering look.
The vampire stopped at the double doors and turned to face the room. “Count?”
Adrian moved toward the Cultists. They stood clustered around me like meat waiting to be slaughtered. They were going to get in the way, I knew. These weren’t fighters.
He didn’t even give Jonathan a passing glance as he moved past him to where Gregory and Nathan stood. He sniffed around each of them, though he paid special attention to Nathan, who was growling deep in his throat.
“What’s the delay?” Jonathan asked, facing Tremaine. He sounded panicked. “I just want to see Simon, not have my pe
ople molested by this turncoat.”
Tremaine dug his fingernails into the nude woman’s back. She let out a small hiss of pain but didn’t recoil from his touch. “You can wait until we make sure everything is in order.”
I sucked in my breath as Adrian approached. His eyes scanned the gathering of Pureblood Cultists, lingering on me twice as his gaze swept over us. My hands were already halfway to my weapons, but I was hesitant to draw. If I were to reveal myself now, there was a good chance Adrian would use the Cultists as shields. The Purebloods would die before I could get a clear shot.
Son of a bitch. Why had Jonathan brought them along in the first place? He could have brought tougher looking Cultists, or more wolves, or something. Hell, did he even have to bring so many? They could do nothing but die.
Adrian shoved aside a pair of Purebloods who were making a valiant effort to keep him from working his way into our midst. They stood no chance against him. They staggered to the side and he stepped between them, taking a deep, long breath as he came to stand in front of me.
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, took another breath, and let it out slow and controlled. He opened his eyes, stared directly into mine, and smiled.
“Hello,” he whispered.
My hands plunged into my coat just as he jumped back.
“They have a vampire with them,” he said almost casually. He grabbed a Pureblood Cultist and pulled her back with him as he retreated. She let out a cry and tried to fight him, but he was just too damn strong.
My weapons came out and I let the glamour shimmer and drop around me. No sense in keeping it up if I was already made. I wanted them to see their killer, not the bald facsimile Jonathan had created.
There was a heartbeat of silence. No one breathed, no one moved. Adrian stood facing me, his human hostage shielding him. He looked smug, safe.
He didn’t know how good a shot I really was.
The air tingled with adrenaline and excitement. I raised my gun and the barrel of my Glock was instantly trained on the center of Adrian’s forehead. All I needed was a single instant and I could drop him.
A smile curved my lips.
Now this was what I lived for.
25
I pulled the trigger just as someone careened into my arm, throwing off my aim. The bullet whizzed past Adrian’s head and struck the wall. The entire room burst into a mass of confusion. Wolves leaped from the walls, shifting and shedding their clothes as they closed in on the group of Cultists. The vampires standing around us fell back, letting their expendable servants take the brunt of whatever damage our ragged looking group might be able to inflict.
I cursed and tried to level on Adrian again, but he vanished in the flurry of action. Nathan shifted as soon as the Tremaine wolves started moving, his suit tearing and falling to the floor in useless rags. He looked far more imposing as a wolf than in his human form, which was quite a feat considering how scary he could be even without all the fur and claws.
Jonathan took a step back and stood as if protecting the Luna Cult Purebloods. He didn’t shift or look as though he had any intention of shifting. His eyes roved over the fighting, anger bubbling from every pore of his body, yet I wasn’t so sure his anger was targeted at Count Tremaine or his wolves. Gregory was at his side, the smile that was somewhat charming, if not a little goofy, still in place. It was starting to grate on my nerves.
I drew my sword, cursing under my breath. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, but at least we were getting to the action. I wanted more than anything to get one more shot at Adrian, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Back toward the doors,” Jonathan said. The Cultists started moving as soon as he spoke. They scrambled toward the doors, their robes tripping them up, screaming as the wolves barreled into their ranks. Two more wolves moved to bar the door and their retreat was halted.
I swung my gun around and shot a wolf who was tearing into a Cultist. The bullet from my modified Glock moved with enough force to penetrate his skull, but slow enough so that it went no farther. The wolf dropped almost immediately, his brain scrambled. The Cultist fell from between his claws, the tattoo that once adorned her forehead torn clean away—along with half her face.
Another wolf had hold of one of the other Cultists. He held her between us, peering at me with hate-filled eyes. He snarled something totally unintelligible and snapped at me. I would have tried to shoot around the woman, but she was still alive, struggling weakly in the grasp of her much larger, much stronger opponent. I wasn’t going to risk killing her just to get to the wolf.
Instead, I pushed through the stunned Purebloods and dropped to my knees the moment I was within reach of the wolf. I swung my sword at his ankles and it bit into his flesh, striking bone.
The wolf howled in pain, but instead of dropping the woman like I had hoped he would, he dug in with his claws and tore her damn near in two. Her body fell to the ground, a bloody, pulped mess.
I rolled to my feet to face the now unshielded wolf. His eyes were a dark yellow, almost orange in the bright lights of the ballroom. I brought my gun up to bear as he started weaving left and right. He was limping heavily where my sword had taken him in the leg, but he was still moving.
It was then I noticed the scar in the center of his forehead.
I cursed softly and lowered my gun. As the wolf started to lunge for me, I brought my sword up in a sweeping motion. He didn’t have time to avoid it.
The silver blade bit into his groin despite his best efforts to avoid the strike and he dropped, clutching at himself and shuddering. Blood poured from the wound, and even though the silver hadn’t done its job of paralyzing him, the castration would.
There was a loud roar, and I glanced to the side just as Nathan ripped the head off a much smaller werewolf. A pair of vampires were coming up behind him, and I was about to shout out a warning when Nathan spun around with the dead wolf’s body still in his hands. He used the corpse like a club, knocking one of the vamps on his ass. The other vamp hissed and lunged forward, only to have her throat shredded by his claws.
A scramble of sound drew my attention back to the wolf whose life as a male I had just ended. He was back on his feet, blood dripping from his groin, and he was limping my way. A mad grin was spread across his wolfish features. His tongue lolled from his mouth and his eyes were rolling around his head, unfocused, uncaring. Saliva dripped from his jaws in a white foam. His teeth were bared and blood bubbled deep from within his mouth, mixing with the saliva.
“What the fuck?” I said, taking a step back. I knew silver didn’t seem to work against the former Cult wolves, but having his family jewels cut almost clean off should have kept the wolf down. I didn’t care how crazy you were, you didn’t get up from a wound like that.
The werewolf lunged at me, claws bared and ready to tear me apart. I just barely managed to slide around the blow. As I slipped around him, I jabbed him in the ribs with the tip of my sword, opening a gaping wound in his side. He growled with pain but stayed on his feet. He turned back to face me, ignoring the blood pouring from his body in appalling gushes.
Close combat was clearly not working. The wolf made another pass at me and I dodged him easily. The wounds might not be causing him as much pain as I would like, but they were still slowing him down. He staggered to the side and snarled in rage before charging again.
He never even came close to me and he howled in frustration. He sounded weak now, his howl more of a groan than anything. He was panting, frothing at the mouth in a red-tinged foam that splattered the floor at his feet. He glared at me and staggered forward a step. His motions were slow and deliberate, as if he had to think hard about putting each foot in front of the next. He lunged at me, only to come face-to-face with my modified Glock.
“Nighty night.”
There was a muffled thump as the bullet buried itself in his brain. He dropped to the floor, and this time, he stayed down.
“Get up from that, asshole,” I growled
, turning to the rest of the battle raging around me.
By now, half the Cultists were either dead or wounded. The other half were cowering close to the ground, covering their heads with their arms. I saw genuine fear in their eyes. Some of them were probably seeing for the first time the wolves they worshipped so fervently as the monsters they really are. Maybe it would make them realize how foolish they had been to ever worship such beasts.
Nathan was still battling one of the vampires, as well as a wolf that had joined in. The female vamp was lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood, gasping for air. Her arm was severed almost completely from her body, but you wouldn’t know it by the look of anger in her eye. If someone didn’t finish her off soon, she would heal long before dying.
Just as I was about to step forward and finish the job myself, a wolf grabbed her and tore her head off in what looked to be an uncontrollable rage. The side of his head was flat, and the pink flesh of scar tissue looked out of place against his dark fur.
Jonathan had decided to join the fight. Seeing the Cultists he wanted to protect dying around him probably did it. He stayed close to the remaining Cultists, taking out anyone who came anywhere close to them.
I started forward to assist him but stopped when a sudden movement to my right caught my eye. I quickly swung my gun around and found myself aiming at Gregory, still in human form. He was moving quickly toward me, his face frantic. His eyes were wide, scanning the mayhem around him. That damn grin was gone at least.
Davin, the vampire who had been sent to retrieve Simon, shot past Gregory and came straight at me. I wasn’t ready for the attack and had to drop to my knees and use my forearm to deflect his incoming strike. I just barely kept him from reaching my throat and I used his momentum to throw him over my shoulder.