He smirked, and I felt my skin as gooseflesh rose on it. “Fine, we can play it your way,” he said as he turned and started to leave the club with his men.
I felt the tension before I knew what it was. Elijah, Silas, and some of their men walked in, and instantly, he and Lucian were eye-fucking each other. I was willing to bet they knew each other, and in everything I’d ever read, Demons and Angels didn’t get along. Of course, rumors went along the lines of another breed of Demons that were in fact Fallen Angels.
“Lucian,” Elijah growled and shook his head.
“Angel, I see you lost your wings. Momma get mad at you and take them back?” One of Lucian’s men taunted.
“I lost them a long time ago, when I started killing your kind for fun,” Elijah snapped and then turned his back on them.
“Pretty girl,” Vlad crooned, pulling my attention away from the men and the pissing contest. “Don’t fuck with Lucian; we want him on our side.”
“You think I care? I have Ryder and I’d bet the bank on him any day of the week. We have almost two hundred of the meanest warriors watching our backs. We could have handled this without you calling in a favor. And how the hell did he hear our conversation?” I asked Ryder.
“It’s Lucian,” Vlad answered. “I don’t question how he does shit; I only know that when I want bad shit done, he is the person I think of. You want someone to disappear? He is the person you call to get the job done.”
“I don’t want anyone to disappear,” I said with a wrinkled brow. “You basically called in the Devil. Should I be worried?” I asked as I took a sip of the forgotten glass of wine he’d poured earlier.
“Only if he takes interest in you; other than that, I wouldn’t. He is a lot like Ryder, but where Ryder wants to fix things; Lucian seeks to destroy and doesn’t give a fuck about anything. He’s a good person to have on your side. Not an ideal one to have against you. I sure as hell don’t want him as an enemy,” Vlad said as he refilled his own glass and downed it in a single swallow. “Now, let’s go kick the Guild in the balls, and then I’ll make you a real drink.”
“We got a problem,” Adrian interrupted as he walked in and turned on the news. “They’re going to execute some of the Fae they’ve captured, the ones who supposedly killed Humans.”
“Are they guilty?” I asked as I stared at the seductive faces on the flat screen TV that Vlad had muted.
“As far as I can tell, they’re Light Fae. They’ve been the worst of the offenders we’ve encountered lately,” Vlad said as he poured more drinks for Adrian and his crew that had just returned. The substance was thick, crimson and smelled coppery. Eww. “Those who were faithful to their King and Queen followed them here. Tatiana basically declared open season on the Human race. I think she’s trying to start this war singlehandedly. I expected something like this from Dresden. He, however, has seems to have gone missing. In his absence, Tatiana is using her male admirers as pawns.”
“Then if they are guilty, we won’t stop them from executing them,” I said worriedly as I turned to Ryder to judge his response.
“If they broke the laws, then you’re right. We can’t save them, not without jeopardizing the peace we are trying for,” Ryder agreed with hesitancy in his voice. “But they don’t just have an execution planned, Pet, they will plan on torturing them to make a point.”
“Then we’d better do something about it,” I said softly as I wrapped my fingers around his. “I won’t allow them to suffer, but I won’t allow them to start a war either.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
We stood in the crowd, cloaked by invisibility. Snipers lined the roofs, and I watched silently as Lucian and his men removed the threat. They didn’t just remove them though. I was certain he’d taken them someplace else and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know where, or what he was doing to them. I also didn’t care, which surprised me. I didn’t care as long as no one ever found the corpses, or proof that they’d been taken out.
The Guild members lined the steps of the Seattle Guild. They were preaching to the Humans who listened as if they were God himself. Fanatics, people who would hang on each word they said, and every lie they whispered.
“We will not take it, not anymore. We can rise up against them, and stop them from feeding on our race. If we work together, we can push them from our world and ensure that no other suffers the fate that these innocent women have at the hands of our enemies. Make no mistake, we are at war!” Harold, one of the Guild Elders continued. He was one we all knew, because he was the top dog at the Seattle Guild. He was also the one who fed orders to the Spokane Guild, or had before they’d lost it.