Authors: Lauren Dane
“Because I’m a lot like Ms. Manners, I’m going to introduce myself first. I’m Rowan Summerwaite. I’m a Hunter. Now you.”
He flicked his gaze to Warren and she kicked him in the side hard enough to break some ribs. They’d heal soon enough. But it would hurt.
“You don’t need to look anywhere but at me. What. Is. Your. Name?”
“Klaus Krier.”
Rowan managed not to send a raised brow to Recht.
So the Lacostes
and
the Kriers. Important old families who apparently hadn’t learned much in their time on earth.
“Well, Klaus, you’re a liar as well as guilty of treason against your own people. I was just upstairs in the room Enyo used until yesterday. Should we try this again or do I need to hurt you more?” She held up a hand. “I should stop you by saying I’m totally good either way. Hurting you would probably help me sleep better.”
“If you don’t tell me what the hell has been going on, Klaus, I’m going to kill you so slowly it’ll take years.” The power and command flowed from Warren like a shove.
“This is about the health of our people. Go on and tell him, Klaus. We should not be ashamed of our goals,” one of the Vampires Alice had been holding shouted this out with the fervor of the newly converted.
Beings with as much power as Vampires were dangerous enough. Give them a cause or a belief and it had sent them into fervor more than once over history.
It was how the war originally started between the Vampires and the group that eventually formed Hunter Corp.
“If she wanted them to know she’d tell them.”
“May I?” Clive asked Warren, indicating the Klaus with a wave of his hand. He wasn’t the Scion here so Rowan noted his manners and was pretty impressed given the level of friction between the two Vampires.
Warren’s face took on the same bored mien as Clive wore. “You can if you don’t leave him such a mess he won’t know I’m torturing him for not cooperating.”
“I’ll do my level best. But.” Clive’s shrug was elegant and menacing all at once. He rarely got this way but holy shit it was so hot. She wanted to be back at the villa, behind a locked door naked and being sex lectured, not playing this dumb game.
“Oh for fuck’s sake! Klaus, this one over here? He’s the Scion of North America. That one?” Rowan pointed to Recht. “He’s one of the Five. You can’t win. We already know this is Blood Front activity. We already know Enyo was here. We already know you were behind the attacks tonight at the wine bar and a private residence. She left you all exposed but she’s gone and we’re here. A distant threat as opposed to a blatant promise. Don’t be more stupid than you already are. I thought you creatures liked to pontificate about your plans and machinations like you’re all Machiavelli? If that’s not true and it’s only in the company I keep I’m going to be super pissed at how much pontificating I’ve been listening to over the years.”
“I do find it incredible that Clive can get you to shut up long enough to kiss you.” Warren rolled his eyes.
“He’s magic that way. Anyhow, Klaus, you gonna tell us all the master plan or tell us anyway but have it ripped from you and leave you a lump? You can’t brag if it’s the latter.”
The Vamp on the floor kept swiveling his head to look back and forth between them, confused. He could resist Warren’s power to answer a general question by avoiding a subject or trying to change the topic. Which meant Warren would have to ask him very specific questions, which would take longer and she was done waiting for Vampires to make up their minds on stuff.
“Yo, Klaus.” She knelt in front of where he’d remained partially on his back. “Tick tock. I have things to do. This is a one-way street. You know it. You knew it when you threw in with the Blood Front. I bet you all made a big deal of it. How brave you are to stick it to the man. So tell me about it. Go on. Impress me with your master plan.”
“Make fun all you want, but your day is done, human. The time when Vampires look to Hunter Corp. or humans to exist is over. We descend from kings! Why should we have to bow to humans?”
Oh goddess, this one. Rowan kept her features impassive. They always said too much when they bragged. “Sure. So how you do plan to make that happen?”
“You started it!” He pointed to Warren and Clive. “You didn’t have to agree to let the Hunter Corp. be our masters. You signed us over to them. Again. There are those of us who are tired of waiting. She came to you in good faith and you pursue her. It is you who violates the law!”
Rowan thanked her luck that night when neither Scion argued back with Klaus.
“How long have you been with the Blood Front?”
“Fifteen years.”
Fifteen years?
Years?
What the hell? Why had they been so quiet until just recently? Yes, the Joint Tribunal and the addition of an amendment to the Treaty had stirred up people on both sides. But this was more. That sort of agitation could explode into action, but it was also shallow and easily dealt with and extinguished.
Rowan knew right at that moment that while the Vampire Nation hadn’t known Enyo was about to crack open a can of governmental overthrow, they had known more about the Blood Front than she’d assumed.
Or been led to assume.
* * *
She couldn’t get a look at Clive because she had to keep herself locked down and she didn’t want Klaus to see any weakness in their team. But she’d get her answers all right.
“Why not declare war then? If you’re sure your path is righteous, why do you not take it boldly and openly?” Warren asked.
“Because this would happen. You would stamp us out. Like you’re doing now. So we act smart and when the time comes we will reveal ourselves. We’ve been around a long time. We can be patient.”
“How long has the Blood Front existed?” Rowan asked before Warren could speak again. The jagged change in his energy hit her shoulder and arm as she got her own damned answer.
“Centuries. It’s an exclusive club you know.”
Of course it was.
Every
Vampire organization ever was an exclusive club because they were all assholes that way.
“Have the Kriers been Blood Front all this time?”
“No.”
Warren snarled. “Answer the question!”
“My father and I were the first. My grandfather doesn’t know but my uncles and brothers do now.”
“Where do you think Enyo went?” Warren leaned close, his voice the barest whisper but it cut through her on the way to Klaus.
If he’d asked where Enyo went the Vampire could say, and honestly so, that he didn’t know. Enyo wouldn’t tell any of these lackeys where she was going and leave herself vulnerable.
But ask what he thought? Rowan was impressed with Warren’s skill. Also, he’d shifted the conversation away and if he thought she hadn’t noticed she’d take all that impressed stuff back.
Klaus visibly attempted to clamp down on the words. His body tightened as he fought it.
“Enyo loves sorcery. I bet she put a pretty little geas on everyone here. But it can’t defeat what is in his very cells, allegiance to his Scion.” Generations of allegiance. Century upon century of obedience and loyalty. Even though he appeared to have shifted his loyalties, he couldn’t resist the magic he was born to.
“Italy,” burst from Klaus’ lips.
“What city in Italy do you think she went to?”
“V-Venice.”
“When did she leave Prague?”
“She was gone when I awoke tonight.”
“What’s the household feeling on when she left?”
The Vampire Clive was stepping on yelled and the sound died on a gurgle as Clive bent to grab him by the throat and gripped tight enough to choke off air.
“No one saw her go to rest at sunrise. It could have been any time after she left the house to feed at nine or so that night.”
“Why do they think that?”
“We got news you were coming.” Klaus was defeated by that point. He’d expended all his will, which Rowan thought was disgusting. He lay there, staring up at Warren, answering questions without even trying to protect Enyo.
“Keep going. What did you do tonight?”
“We were sent to dispatch the Vampires at the bar who were going to betray her and the Blood Front. And then we heard about the one in the apartment block in Chodov. They haven’t returned so we wondered if you had found them. That’s how you found us here?”
Warren’s features went so hard and sharp Rowan leaned back a little. “We found you here because this house belongs to Sangre International, which apparently no one saw fit to tell me until a
human
had to. For that humiliation alone I would have killed you.”
They got some more details from him, but the nature of their organization meant they really didn’t know a whole lot about specifics other than what their own cell was up to.
Before they left these Vampires to Recht though, Rowan had to correct some misperceptions.
“Oh and Klaus? You don’t descend from kings.” Rowan made air quotes around the last word. “You descend from Theo. The First. Every last one of you descends from him. Your disobedience is to your
king.
The Kriers have taken an esteemed place of trust in the Vampire Nation and broken it. You betray the oath that has kept you safe and prosperous for generations. You have consorted with a being who attempted to shame all Vampires with the laws she’s broken. And you didn’t even do a good job with that. You will not die well and your family will be hunted down until every last collaborator is no longer. Know this before you take your last breath—that’s all your fault.”
She stood tall, dusted off her pants, glared at Clive and walked out, David in her wake.
Chapter Twelve
“Do you want to talk about it?” David asked as they headed down the street, away from the house they were staying in. She wasn’t ready to go back just yet.
“We were aware the Vampire Nation had knowledge of the Blood Front when they showed up at the Keep for the Joint Tribunal meeting. They have a hundred dumb, shadowy clubs of eight haughty old Vamps who sit around, drink aged bloodwine and talk about how humans were all cattle who should be bowing down to them. It’s their version of bridge club. But I clearly don’t know all the details they do.”
David sighed, following as they headed down the steps leading to the tiny island nestled between the castle district and the Vltava River. Kampa Island, so pretty and quiet and the perfect place to get some space to think this over before she said or did something bad.
“They don’t tell you everything. You don’t tell them everything. In and of itself it’s not alarming you don’t have all the details. Do you feel as if you’ve not been given something integral to this hunt? Or is this internal Vampire Nation business they’d keep to themselves because that’s how they are. And? It’s
not
your business unless it does concern the hunt. And if it does, I’ll arrange our travel to Venice myself after you tell them all to fuck off and we head off to handle this ourselves.”
She threw herself onto a bench with a sigh, looking across the river toward Old Town Square. “It’s disturbing and amazing to watch you be so smart and in charge.”
“I’m not a child,
Deese
. You don’t have to protect me like that.”
“David, you don’t need to be a child for me to protect you. You’re my family. Mine to keep safe and nothing you say will change that. I’m proud of you. I’m always proud of you. I know you’re skilled and tough. Letting you come was not about me accepting that because I knew it already. It’s more that you’re taking on this expanded role with so much aplomb and thoughtfulness that I’m proud in a new way.”
She heard his swallow as he processed all she’d said. Hell, she was trying
not
to process it right then because she wasn’t prone to this sort of sharing and over the last few weeks the intensity of her relationships with the important people in her world had gotten so much deeper. Killing and punching and being angry was easier ground for her to stand on. She knew that, was comfortable with it. But if that’s all she felt, she had no room for all this other stuff like pride in David and love for Clive. And also upset that she felt he’d held back. Which seemed so stupid and simpering, but she felt it nonetheless. Which made her cranky.
“Is it that you love him and feel like he lied to you?”
He’d changed the subject, which meant he accepted what she’d said and they were moving on.
“I do love him. Goddess knows why, but handsome, powerful, intelligent, rich, arrogant asshole seems to be my favorite flavor. And yes, I suppose part of it is that.” It stung. Did he think he couldn’t trust her? She who’d saved them all from Theo just two days before? She who’d come to do
their
work and dispatch Enyo and deal with their internal shit that could be a threat to their very existence?
“After all Vampires have done to me I still seek to protect them and they hold back. It’s fine for me to take out the garbage but not sit at the dining room table?”
David settled back against the bench and they were both silent for a time.
“It’s my belief that this increased contact with your father and all this Nation business will raise the threat factor toward you immeasurably. I’m not exceptionally comfortable with that. But to tell you honestly, I also believe you need them.”
She’d done this to herself by allowing all this Vampire Nation stuff back into her personal life. “As long as I was killing them everything was fine. Once I started letting one sex me up and doing family dinners with the other one this has all gotten out of control.” But she did need them now. She’d opened the door and they’d come in and made themselves at home. Damn it.
“And there’s something hinky going on with Hunter Corp.”
David sighed. “Yes. Why didn’t they know about this? They have to. Which means they didn’t tell you. Do they all know or is this a matter of a faction knowing and not telling everyone else?”
“I only know I can trust Susan and Rex. She pulled that weird thing about you petitioning to come with me but it wasn’t to harm me. I haven’t been able to get her alone and off the Hunter Corp. grid to ask her what’s going on. But I need to initiate some contact, so if you can start the process by reaching out to her valet I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll do that when we get back to the house. Or do you want me to book our travel to Venice?”
“I think I have to get an answer to my question first. And yours. Does it have anything to do with my hunt and if so, yes, we’ll be leaving.”
“You’d leave him for that?”
“I don’t think I could live with myself if I thought we had this deeper level of trust and we didn’t when it really counted. How could I respect myself if I don’t walk away from that?”
They stood and he hugged her. A quick thing but she’d needed it more than she’d thought.
“Let’s go back so you can get answers. He’s going to start looking for you once they get that house cleaned up.”
“Oh I have no doubt he knows I’m pissed.”
* * *
Clive knew she wasn’t on the premises when the Vampires got back to their villa. He shot a glance Alice’s way and she gave him a replying expression that told him he deserved exactly what he was getting.
“Where the hell is she? Leaves us to do all the work and she’s not even here? Check her rooms to be sure she hasn’t left,” Warren said to Gemma.
Alice spoke up, stepping to Warren. “With all due respect, Scion Farrelly, you can’t do that. If you send someone into her rooms she’s going to get very angry. You can’t check on her that way.”
“Why is that?” Warren’s surprise was another point in Clive’s favor. At least he understood why Rowan would not take her rooms being searched in her absence well.
“Because she’s not an animal or one of our servants. You can’t invade her private space and not expect there to be repercussions.”
Warren’s sputter of indignation was priceless. “Repercussions? For what?”
Alice huffed a breath and Clive wanted to demand she admit he was far less annoying then Warren. “You honestly haven’t even realized she’s angry over not being told everything about the Blood Front?”
“We told her what she needed to know,” Clive said. Moreover, he’d been instructed
not
to share anything more than he had to about the history of the Blood Front. The First had insisted she be informed of anything that would be integral to the hunt and her safety, but also that she was not to be given any information otherwise. The Blood Front had been around a long time but most of them hadn’t really taken it seriously. It had been an Old Vampires Club as Rowan would say. Elitist, yes. Violent rhetoric, yes, but mainly they’d never done much more than whine so The First had decided they were less of a threat and more of an annoyance and he preferred it that way.
Clive couldn’t argue with that reaction because he’d have had the same one. Better to let that sort of thing happen and stay in the nattering, prattling stage instead of give it attention and make them all feel as if they
had
to act.
And the problem with that stance was what they all drowned in just then. They’d been doing far more than talking and the Nation hadn’t known it until it had gotten this out of hand and boiled over at the Joint Tribunal.
He had wanted to give her the whole file about the Blood Front but had been overruled not only by three of the four other Scions—Warren had sided with Clive—but The First as well.
There were limits even Clive had to obey.
In the pit of his belly he felt the swell of her power. She was on the way back.
Interesting.
He hadn’t felt her like this before she’d given him her blood. Part of his concern eased back a little. Their connection was still strong.
“We told her what we were
allowed
to tell her,” Warren corrected. “If she has an issue with that she should take it up with her father because that’s where the order came from. In any case, she knows now so we don’t have to continue to withhold it.”
“And we still don’t need to enter her quarters without her presence.” Alice kindly referred them back to her point. She was right, of course. Clive never would have allowed such an invasion of her space and more likely than not Warren was just blowing off steam. Not that Clive planned to save him from Rowan, who was inside the house by that time, heading to them.
“She can’t just take off without telling us where she’s going. What sort of team is this if she doesn’t even check in?”
Gemma’s eyes widened and she stepped back as Rowan’s energy rushed into the room right as she did.
“Yeah, because
knowing
all the background information is necessary. I totally get that. Too bad you fuckers still don’t. If you want my help—and let’s be totally clear that you
need
it regardless of want—you really should be attempting to be sure
I
have all the information
I
need so
I
don’t end up getting hit in the face with it. Or say, have it ambush me in the dark while I’m unarmed. I thought we’d gotten past all this holding information back business after the last time you did this and I nearly ended up dead because of that. How many times is it, do you think, that I’ll need to nearly die before Vampires figure out it’s totally cool to tell me stuff that could prevent said nearly dying.” Her normally cutting tone had gone very flat.
He’d been feeling her energy but she must have locked it down. She gave off nothing, though it was clear she was pissed. No, this sort of blank calm shook
Clive’s
calm in a very serious way. Rowan refused to meet his gaze for longer than a few seconds as she looked back and forth between the Vampires in the room.
He’d known she’d be angry, but
this
was different. Closed off was not acceptable. This had to be worked out because he had no plans to let her slide away from him and back into lone Hunter mode.
“We told you what we were allowed to.” It was Recht who stepped between both Clive and Warren to take the brunt. “You’re no stranger to how Vampires operate. You had to assume you didn’t know everything.”
“What I assumed was that if you trusted me enough to do your dirty work and to draw fire, you’d have done me the courtesy of simply telling me the Blood Front was more than just some twice a year country house party a bunch of Vampires stuck in Victorian England went to and complained about humans at while they ate watercress sandwiches.”
“You don’t need to know that.” Recht shrugged and she sighed.
“You know what? Maybe I didn’t. I can’t look at it from here and know if it would have made a difference. And neither can any of you.”
Warren scrubbed a hand over his face. “We don’t have time for a philosophical discussion right now. We can never know what we can’t know. Etcetera. The First was very clear about what we could share. When something comes up we think you need to hear, we seek the permission to share it. That’s how this works, which is no surprise to you.”
David stood at her side and Clive flicked his glance to the other man who looked less angry at Clive than concerned for Rowan.
Clive leaned close to her. “Rowan, may I speak with you privately?”
She cut her gaze his way. “No. We
spoke
privately earlier. I think that’s enough.”
That was
more
than enough, just not in the way she meant.
He looked to David. “I do hope you’ll pardon me for this.” And then grabbed Rowan around the waist and tugged her toward his room.
“I said I’m not interested in private anything with you, Scion,” she growled through her clenched teeth as she dug her heels in. Still, she hadn’t gone for her sword. Yet.
“Yes you are and unless you want everyone in this house to hear how much, you’ll accompany me to my rooms where we can speak privately,” he said quietly.
“Go ahead and get close enough. I’m going to punch you in the dick. I’m happy for everyone to hear that.”
Relieved that her anger had filled in the blank canvas she’d given him before, he grinned and kissed her temple as they finally reached the doors to his room. “There’s my Rowan.”
“I’m not
your
anything.”
He opened the doors and pushed her though, closing and locking them at his back. He engaged the daylight locks as well as he kept an eye on her, making sure she wasn’t really going to punch him in the penis.
“You’re far too good at understanding Vampires not to have known this was coming.” He stalked her way and for the first time she appeared to realize she’d pushed a master Vampire too far and that he was coming for her.
She kept him from flanking her so he just took her down, his front to her front, landing on the bed, his body pinning hers.
“I imagine that blade and the sheath are uncomfortable underneath you. Obviously I value my life so I didn’t attempt to remove it before you landed. I could be convinced to let you remove it yourself if you promise you’ll listen to all I have to say.”
“I’m not interested in
anything
you have to say. It’s over, Clive. Thanks for the sex.”
“I think not. Hush or you’re going to make me cranky. Why do you have to be so difficult even when you finally admit you love me? You know I told you all I could. You know I told you more than I was supposed to. I would never put you in danger if I had something that could help you. At the same time, outside that very narrow exception, it’s not up to me to choose how much to tell you. What I
am
sorry for is upsetting you and having you find out the way you did.”
She tried to give her Hunter face. A detached mask. She’d used this face on him before and he hated it. But her emotions crashed over him, wave after wave of sadness, of anger and a little fear. The Rowan beneath him was vulnerable and hurting and she couldn’t hide it.