Page 55 of A Vow for the Vamp

Does he realize how connected we would be? More so than the sire/fledgling bond? Would I have control over him like Henry had over me?

We need to talk about this but before I can utter a word, my phone rings. I curse against Teddy’s lips and break thekiss to jump off the counter and grab my phone on the table.

“What?” I growl into the receiver.

“Wow, I must have caught you mid-fuck,” Layla chuckles.

“What do you want?”

I make my way into my office, half naked, and thinking about all the ways I can torture my bestie for the interruption.

Layla, however, is unaffected by my attitude and sighs heavily.

“We have another body.”

I curse. “That makes nearly two dozen now. The media will take notice soon, if they haven’t already. We can’t keep covering this up. Anything from the gargoyles?”

“No. They’ve managed to get glimpses of Henry but by the time they follow him, he’s long gone.”

That’s because he’s fifteen hundred years old. Even if we capture Henry, he’s stronger, faster. He could take out dozens of vampires on his own in a battle.

But I’m determined to end him.

Iwillkill him.

Somehow.

“We need to draw him out,” Layla says.

“And how do you suggest we do that?”

The other line is silent and if I didn’t hear my friend’s nervous tapping on whatever surface she’s nearby, then I’d have thought she hung up.

“You won’t like it.”

“Say it and I’ll decide if you should live or die over the suggestion.”

She snorts, not even a little intimidated by my threat.

Because she knows I wouldn’t hurt her.

Even if she hurt Teddy?

I shake the thought because my best friend would never lay a finger on my mate. She fights and kills those who deserve it, like her husband and the vampire who turned her... and the hunters who aim to destroy our kind. But she’s never taken an innocent life. Even when she was a newborn vamp, she never let her urges win. She’s always been so strong willed, which is why she deserves to be the Vampire Queen of New York City.

“We use Teddy as bait.”

Or I kill her and find a new successor.

Chapter 16 - Teddy

“Absolutely fucking not!”

Millie’s been screaming at whoever’s on the phone for the past five minutes. She hid away in her office, but the walls are no match for my queen’s wrath. When she finally emerges, her fangs are out, and she has murder on her face. The killer emotion fades when she spots me.

“I’m afraid I have some royal business to attend to.”

She’s changed as well, now dressed in a red blouse and black pencil skirt. Her black hair is up in a high ponytail. Her makeup is light and natural and flawless.