Nial snorted and then chuckled deep and rough. “You know, you could have just erased her memories.”
“Whatever. Useless.” I shoved the gun back into my holster and started sorting through the memories I’d taken from Johnny Samson. That was a terrible name, but he was an endless source of good memories. The guy never forgot a face.
Especially Cato’s.
I didn’t know if I was shocked or resigned to it at that point.
I raised an eyebrow and cocked my head at Nial standing there.
He looked around then finally peered back at me. “What? What’s going on?”
A movement flashed beyond the door, and it was too fast for me to bring the gun around.
I darted to a broken window and stared through the dark.
Only to find that whoever it was had already vanished.
“There was a vampire here,” I whispered. I growled in frustration, unable to even have a glimpse of the person. “He was hiding, and he’s going back to Ginter’s. Cato wants them.”
“Cato? What exactly did you learn?”
Cato was using me to do his dirty work. He was behind all of this. This wasn’t a Challenge, this was a chance for him to keep his hands clean, and have all of his manipulating hidden behind another layer of secrecy so they’d never trace it back to him.
“We have to go to Ginter’s.” I raised the gun and put down all the men on the back deck, and turned to take out the rest standing in the kitchen.
Nial caught my arm. “Slow down. Answer my question, Gwyn.”
“Cato.” I yanked him close, and hissed my words in his ear, “You’re sworn to secrecy, or I’ll have your balls on a platter when I’m crowned. Cato is behind this. He wants Ginter dead. I don’t know why, and I don’t care, but if Ginter is against whatever the hell Cato is doing, I want Ginter alive—and we have to stop that vampire.”
He had nothing to say. Letting go of my arm, he stepped back, and I watched as his lips twisted in disgust. He raised his own weapon and helped me take down the rest of the humans milling about like drunken zombies. They were all down in less than a few seconds, and we holstered our guns, marching out of the house and back to the car.
I had the engine of my Lamborghini purring by the time we walked up, grateful for the remote start—and the driver’s manual I’d gone through. I wasn’t a fan of the cold, so I wanted that inside warm.
We slid in on the softest leather and pulled away from the curb—and I used the full measure of the engine to get us through the streets as fast as I could. We were nearly forty miles from Ginter, and I really hoped the vamp I had barely glimpsed had some shitty car that mine could overtake.
“Are you sure this is Cato?”
“Yes. From Samson’s memories, that’s who delivered the money.”
Nial stared straight ahead and didn’t say anything. He was lost in thought.
“Are you Monitor of Challenge right now or don’t you believe me?”
“Monitor.”
“You broke that back there, putting down those men and cloaking me earlier.”
“Self-preservation and I’m assuming secrecy works both ways.” He raised an eyebrow. “You have your reasons to be queen. I have my own, too, for being king.”
It was quiet again, and I used that time to take the car even faster down the winding back roads. Cato had always been a pain in my ass, even before my Rest, and before he rose to the Council. Now, he’d moved from manipulating the vampires to manipulating the humans? I didn’t want to rule humans. I wanted to rule the vampires.
“This doesn’t seem like Cato’s work to me, despite the evidence. Vampires would destroy the humans if they entered politics—I heard what Samson told you,” Nial mumbled over the engine. I tossed a glance at him and didn’t say anything. Resting his right arm on the door, he leaned back and closed his eyes. “My advice? Be careful, Gwen. There’s always more to the story. Always.”
I thought it through silently. Contemplating and evaluating.
“One of the problems is, we don’t technically need to rule the humans. We practically already do. We are the predators, and they’re the prey. Even if they don’t know it,” I said. “We don’t hunt. We order up a fresh meal.”
“All someone would have to do is ensure a breeding program for the vampires, and then they could destroy the rest of the humans.” A glance in my direction with a teasing smile. “No hunting for you then.”
I pressed the pedal a little harder.
I didn’t know what was going on in my father’s head, but I knew I didn’t like it.
*
Haley’s panic rushed through our bond, just as I had a bonus orgasm from her halfway to the house. Mere minutes before we could be there, her panic had taken over.
As soon as I slid the car into the driveway, I knew we were too late. The lights were on in too many rooms, and the two security guards at the front were face down on the stairs, bleeding out. Utter waste.
I ran up the stairs without even turning off the car. I followed the panic that plowed through my brain, grateful for the massive amounts of blood I’d taken. I wouldn’t have been able to hold back the emotion from the connection otherwise.
But this was helpful as I was able to find her in the house right away.
It wasn’t what I wanted to discover, though.
The vampire was already there and had Ginter by the neck with his fangs buried deep into his neck. Eyes rolled back, blood dripping out of the vein, sucking every last drop of life out of the man. Haley was frozen in terror on the bed, covered in the blood of a fight between Ginter and this vampire.
My claws unleashed, and I drove them into the vampire’s spine.
His high shriek pierced the night air as he let go of Ginter’s neck, dropping the man to the floor, not quite dead.
The vampire turned to me…and it was a female.
A female vampire I didn’t know. One I had never seen before. She smelled new.
Hissing at me, she tried to spin away off my claws.
I shoved them in harder and drove my fangs into her neck, ripping the flesh open.
She screamed and desperately tried to crawl away from me.
I pulled on her blood, trying to pry her memories from her. If she were new, it wouldn’t be hard, but I couldn’t find them. She was holding onto them desperately, pushing them back from her blood again and again.
If she wasn’t going to let me have them, she wasn’t going to live.
I was going to be hungover from all the blood I’d taken tonight. But I didn’t mind. I drained her, using a single claw from my other hand to slice the matching vein on the other side. I didn’t even care if it was wasteful at this point. She just needed to die.
The last of her blood crossed my tongue, but she wasn’t dead yet. With her fresh intake of blood, she could still survive. I reached behind me and yanked out my sword.
My blood-red lips pressed against her ear. “Keep your memories then. Your life is mine.”