Page 52 of Caller of Crows

"Get out of here," Altair waved him off.

Mordyn grinned and vanished through the door.

With a sigh, Altair put his head in his hands.

Vampires.

Trying to run a coven full of them was worse than wrangling cats. Mordyn especially. Altair appreciated his friend's free spirit, but sometimes, Mordyn took things a little too far. Hiring dancers without telling Altair was certainly a step beyond his usual antics.

Hopefully, the new employees would work out. Altair certainly didn't have the time to check on the new hires. He had his office work to finish, and then…

He'd have to schedule another blood donation for Sven, now that they'd found buyers.

Thinking of returning to Sven, though, made his headache intensify.

The moment Sven had promised him ‘forever' with that look in his eyes… it had taken all of Altair's willpower not to cave. The mortal did something to him that Altair couldn't explain. Made him weak, when Altair couldn't afford to show any weaknesses.

He'd made the right choice, though, he knew that.

Sven wasn't ready to become a vampire.

Neither was Altair ready to sire him.

Or anyone.

Neglecting his paperwork, Altair pulled the mortal's phone out of his pocket to check on the situation with the mortal's mother. His crows hadn't reported anything noteworthy so far, but Sven's phone was blowing up with several people asking where he was and why he wasn't coming home.

Altair scrolled through them, wondering who these people were.

Obviously, Sven was popular in his community.

Altair supposed that made sense. Sven was attractive, spirited, and not easy to intimidate. Of course people liked him.

If he went home, even if his mother passed, he would not be alone. He would have a whole network of people to support him. In time, he would get over his grief and heal. He would lead a full life, the way he was meant to do.

If Altair let him go.

Altair returned his phone to his pocket and stared at his paperwork again. He couldn't afford to let himself be distracted by sentimentalities. Those were for mortals, for the living, and Altair wasn't one of them.

His heart might still be beating in his chest, but it had been dead for years.

ChapterSixteen

Sven thought hard about what he wanted to do, and in fact, he had a lot of time to think about it. The vampires left him mostly to his own devices for the next two days. They brought him food, but no one bothered him beyond that. Not even Altair showed up. The vampire must have found another room to sleep in. Clearly, he was avoiding Sven, but Sven wasn't sure why.

Was it because of their last conversation?

Or had he somehow found out about the conversation Sven had had with Keegan?

Either way, Sven was slowly going crazy with nothing but his thoughts keeping him company.

He studied the crow who perched on the dresser, fairly sure that it was a different one each day. The first one had shown up shortly after his talk with Keegan, appearing out of thin air as if to dispel all of Sven's doubts about its nature. These birds were basically sentient cameras for Altair.

Sven looked into the crow's beady black eyes. "Are you punishing me?"

The crow cawed, ruffling its feathers.

Sven glared at the bird for a second but soon gave up. Even if Altair could watch him through the crow's eyes, hear him through its ears, there was no guarantee he was doing so right now. He was the leader of a coven, and as the last few days had demonstrated, he had other things to do than to obsess over Sven's every move.