Page 63

H arlow locked his knees as the floor shook, his nerves instantly on edge. He had this urge to listen to a command he couldn’t hear or understand, yet it was enough to almost bring him to his knees.

Maverick, who had lunged at him, fell flat on his face just inches from Harlow.

Foxx took an unsteady step to the side but remained standing, swearing, “What the bloody hell was that?!”

“That fucker, Santiago, sure has some secrets, doesn’t he?” He chuckled, shaking his head as the weight of the power lifted.

The vampire giggled. “Apparently!”

“You dare let a beast near what’s mine!?” Maverick growled, jumping to his feet. “I knew that fucker survived!”

“Oh, he survived all right,” Harlow sneered. “He survived, and I’d say, he has more of a claim on what’s ‘yours’ than you do, wouldn’t you agree, Foxx?”

“He has NO claim on Ignatius,” the werewolf roared, as he leaped towards him again, the hair on his arms starting to grow while his nails lengthened to claws.

Knowing there was no way to keep up his human charade and deflect it, Harlow moved back quickly and let Foxx meet the attack.

The vampire smacked the man’s hand aside, landing a punch on his jaw that sent the wolf tumbling back. Maverick instantly jumped back to his feet and attacked again. Easily avoiding the hit, Foxx started skipping backwards as the man continued to come after him.

Leaning back against the wall, Harlow watched with a smirk. “I don’t know, Maverick, you keep going on about him being yours, but I’d say the last person who fucked Iggy would have more claim than the weirdo who kidnapped him.”

Not that fucking someone gave anyone a claim, but that fact aside, he was just trying to push Maverick’s buttons.

Maverick tried to get past Foxx to him. “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT, EVERY?—”

The vampire cut the rant off with a fist to the wolf’s stomach as he blocked his path, and after another seemingly hard jab to the abdomen, Maverick dropped to his knees.

Foxx tsked. “How are you this bloody pathetic?”

“Pathetic?!” Maverick screeched, leaping as he took a swing, and then another, at the vampire.

Foxx dodged or hit away each attack, getting jabs in himself while the man continued to go after him. Clearly, the vampire was holding back still.

“Do you ever take responsibility for your own actions?” Foxx said with a laugh as he clocked the man in the face. “Like, I’m a brat, but I know when I fuck up. I know when my actions hurt others. It’s something you usually learn as a fucking child. Curious how you didn’t.”

Foxx watched Maverick spit out blood as the man’s eyes narrowed sharply on him with hatred.

“Don’t you lecture me!” Maverick roared, attacking on the last word. Foxx went back to skipping backwards, avoiding the wolf’s claws easily. “A child?! ME?! When it is you all who failed to understand that casualties are always an accepted result of WAR!”

Foxx struck out, slamming his fist in the werewolf’s nose with an angry hiss. There was a loud crack, blood bursting outwards when his knuckles connected and broke the man’s nose.

Maverick stumbled back with a roar. Clutching at his face, the man grew in height. Hair formed over him rapidly as he shifted into his bipedal werewolf form, his shredded clothing falling to the floor in pieces.

“Don’t talk to me about casualties, Maverick,” Foxx ground out, his eyes narrowing. “I have been alive for more wars than the number of times you have likely washed your ass. I have seen the results, and the causes of them. And they always, ALWAYS are due to the selfishness of man. War is SELFISH! There are no acceptable casualties when you, just like the other fucking useless rubbish bins of history, use your religion to justify your cruelty, to wash away the horrors you are committing!

“And you know what you are, Maverick? Just a whiny ass little bitch baby. It honestly infuriates me that someone so fucking pathetic managed to take someone from me!”

With his snout clenched and sharp teeth bared at him, Maverick growled, “You know nothing!” while once again uselessly attacking. After smacking the man’s clawed hand away, Foxx punched him in the nose again, breaking his septum further.

Maverick stumbled back with a high-pitched, pain-filled whine, dropping his head before looking up sharply, but not at him. The wolf was staring behind him at Harlow.

The werewolf held his arms out. “Look! Look what he did to me! Look what you did to me, you bastard!” Maverick growled, his voice sounding nasally now. He took a few steps back and did a 360 spin, as if to show all of what he was now. “How is this not HIS fault?! So many of my plans were destroyed because of HIM!

“And that wolf touching what is mine, I just know you had something to do with that too, Harlow. You sent him to him, didn’t you?! You lured Ignatius to your ways of fucking creatures. Of fucking monsters, or corpses in your case,” Maverick spat, in clear disgust. “Was it spite? Is that it? Did you do it out of spite?! And now look at you, mocking me by not even fighting your own battles. How have you fallen this low, Harlow?! Letting your fucking whore?—”

The werewolf’s rant was cut short when Harlow slammed his fist into his face, sending the man to the ground. It was obvious though that the dhampir had held back .

On the floor, Maverick started to laugh as Harlow moved to Foxx’s side, the dhampir’s face remaining completely neutral. “Just look at you!? Human, yet even at your age, you are just as strong as you always were. God, you would have been so fucking perfect!? Yet, you did THIS to me! WHY?!”

Foxx found it so incredibly odd that the man seemed to hate Harlow, but yet still, to the point of obsession, wanted to use him for his own purposes. It also confused him why Maverick put so much on someone he’d likely never had a conversation with. Because if Gavin hadn’t lied, and he likely hadn’t, Harlow had been even less talkative back then. The sheer number of assumptions that the man had to have made to reach the conclusions that he had…just, how?!

The dhampir let out a deep sigh. “See, this shit right here… This is exactly it, your mistake. You think I care. It’s actually funny, because you called me an unfeeling killer, yet still act as if I have the capacity to care about you, your plans, your organization, the world, humanity…hell, even about who fuckass Iggy is sleeping with.” Harlow paused and chuckled before musing, “I will admit, I do care a bit about that last part, but only because he hit on Foxx. Thankfully, I don’t have to kill him, as he’s fucking that almost seven-foot werewolf now.

“Anyway, just to be perfectly fucking undeniably clear on this… I don’t give a fuck. About you, or really most people, for that matter. The world, humanity, they both could fall to ruin, and as long as the things I deem mine are alive and protected, I wouldn’t give a flying rat’s ass about any of it.”

Maverick rubbed his furred snout, still on the ground. “You think by saying this you will upset me?!”

Harlow scoffed. “Maverick, I don’t care if it does or not. I may be mildly entertained if it does, but otherwise—” The man shrugged. “—you mean nothing to me. I will say this, you are wrong about me being unfeeling. To be that, I would have to feel nothing, yet while I do have a very limited range of emotions, and my empathy for others is severely lacking, my anger has always been quite present. I can care about things, I just don’t care about you. You asked me why I shot you? Do you still want to know? ”

Pushing to his feet, the wolf eyed them both angrily. “Only if it’s the truth, and not more lies like you’ve just spouted.”

Foxx couldn’t help but giggle at that. Did the man really think he was worth lying to?

“You were as good as dead the minute we found you, Maverick. What purpose would I have to lie to a dead man? I can’t even muster up enough empathy to lie to the dying, so what reason would I have to lie to you?” the dhampir asked with a chuckle, before humming and saying, “But fine, the truth is, I shot you because you pissed me the fuck off.

“I never liked you. I didn’t hate you, as I would have to care enough about you for that. I put up with you because that was the least effort. But then you did something and caused the death of someone I had collected as one of my things, and that, on top of all the other random shit you did that pissed me off, was the last straw.”

“ Gabe ?! It was about GABE?! THAT TWIT!?” Maverick roared.

“You’re wrong again,” Foxx rasped before his boyfriend could reply. “It was about Gabe and Elowen. You caused him to lose them both. He was likely pissed about Gabe, but knowing the way he thinks, he no doubt, at that point, deferred to Tony when it came to dealing with you. As much as he likes to cause him headaches, he wouldn’t overstep that far.”

Harlow eyed the vampire with a smug smirk. “Know me, do you, Brat?”

And the truth was, Foxx did know him. Because that was exactly what had happened. Harlow had been enraged when he found out about Gabe. However, Maverick had been deeply entwined within what had been the old school Guild at that time, especially with some of the other bigger players. It would have caused Tony a lot of trouble if he had just killed him then.

“Mmm,” the vampire hummed, smiling up at him. “Losing Gabe was one thing. You haven’t talked too much about him yet, but from the little I know, I still realized that Elowen was the person you were actually closer to, out of the two, even if it was fake. So, when you had to pull away from her, and step out of her life because you didn’t know how to handle her grief without hurting her, I’m guessing that was likely when it became too much for you to hold back.”

“Mmm, the exact moment.”

“A woman—ha?” Maverick said, almost in disbelief. “You did this to me OVER A WOMAN?!”

The werewolf swung at him with an enraged roar. Harlow swiftly jumped back and kept moving, avoiding more hits as he went.

“Gender has nothing to do with it. I did it over you taking two of my things away from me. And have to say, I enjoyed it.”

“You fuck!” Maverick ground out while taking another swing at him.

A werewolf, and trained, yet…dodging the man just felt so easy. Then again, Harlow had never really been that impressed by the man’s fighting skills, even back then. He’d always found it too sloppy and emotion driven. He supposed Maverick also was still young, paranormal-wise.

Man…it really was going to take him meeting someone nearer Foxx’s strength to have any sort of fun during a hunt, wasn’t it?

He tsked. “Ohh, come off it, it’s not like I betrayed you. What trust was there between us? Not to mention, in my mind, it can’t be a betrayal when it was my whole fucking plan. I went on the hunt so I could hurt you. I didn’t plot out my exact actions, I just waited for the right moment to act. And boy did one fucking present itself to me! The funniest part is you didn’t expect a thing. You never even fucking question me asking you to join me on a hunt!”

“You, someone who likely made it clear they preferred working alone, asked him, and he didn’t think anything of it?! Are you na?ve or just stupid, Maverick?!” Foxx giggled, before eyeing him and saying, “Though, Harlow, I feel I must point out, referring to people as objects, in response to him being clearly sexist, isn’t the best rebuttal to that. ”

“Stupid for not realizing he was unpredictable? Maybe!?” Maverick growled.

“Sorry, I’ll call the next person who is sexist in front of me a dickless wonder first,” Harlow said, ignoring Maverick’s nonsense.

“I feel it could possibly be a good idea for us to transition you into not talking about how you see people as objects to collect. It would be a good step in avoiding you possibly being persecuted or institutionalized, just saying.”

He pursed his lips, still dodging Maverick. “I mean, been there, done that already, right? And I feel we are way past the possibility of anyone institutionalizing me.”

Foxx blinked before snickering. “Oh, right, you have! And I know but, well, I honestly just wanted to say it to be dramatic. Also, saying persecuted and murdered doesn’t have as nice of a ring to it.”

“Both of you, shut up!” the werewolf roared. “Going on about nonsense!”

They happened to be passing the vampire just then, and Foxx kicked Maverick’s feet out from under him, before kicking him in the face. It sounded as if he’d caved his face in further, though it was hard to tell, since it was fur and snout, instead of just skin and nose now.

Harlow came to a stop beside his boyfriend, eyeing the downed wolf.

“I swear, so many like to interrupt our conversations, Harlow. It’s rather rude,” Foxx huffed, while standing there with his hands on his hips.

He smirked. “I suppose.”

The vampire hmphed. “Since you wanted our attention, Maverick, fine, I’ll respond. It’s not that you're stupid for not realizing that he’s unpredictable, it’s that you are stupid for putting a claim on someone without ever being willing to get to know them. I can’t say much about Iggy, as I haven’t had a chance to get to know him either, but based on everything I’ve seen, I’d bet my entire fortune on you knowing nothing about the man.

“As for Harlow, while yes, he can do some things that are pretty out there, things that don’t make sense, and they could be seen as random actions, but as a whole, much of what he does is actually pretty bloody predictable. I’d say at least sixty to seventy percent of the shit he does in fact.”

“Sounds accurate,” Harlow mused after thinking on it.

Maverick, who appeared to be feeling around his snout, just growled in response.

Foxx’s eyes narrowed on the man, disgust clear in his gaze. “You know, as someone who has been claimed by someone else, I think the fact that you claim people while not caring enough to know a damn thing about them really pisses me off. Because you made all these fucking plans for Harlow, and for Iggy, but you couldn’t even be bothered to learn what was on the surface!?

“And the funny thing is, without even knowing what else you did to piss Harlow off, the fact that you have lived this long tells me that he is so much more fucking stable and patient than I am. Because if it was me, I’d have killed you, just because of your personality.”

Harlow clutched at his heart, and with a voice full of fake hurt, he groaned, “Oh, you wound me, Foxx. ‘Stable’?! Me!?”

Foxx giggled. “Sorry, Old Man, just saying it like I see it.”

“So cruel!”

Foxx stuck his tongue out.

He chuckled. “Well, now that Foxx has insulted me, I feel we’ve pretty much summed up why I did what I fucking did. Satisfied with the answer?”

“As if I’d ever be!” Maverick snarled as he lunged up at him from the ground.

Harlow caught the man’s wrist, deciding he was done with his game, and tsking, he mused, “That’s too bad, because while I’d have preferred if those wolves had ripped you apart, I can’t help but find it undeniably satisfying that they changed you instead.”

“Satisfying?! You find that they stole my life from me satisfying?! Give it back…” Maverick rasped, the last part almost a whisper as his whole body trembled with rage, before roaring in his face, “GIVE IT BACK! GIVE ME BACK MY HUMANITY, YOU BASTARD! YOU DON’T DESERVE IT!”

The werewolf tried to claw at him with his other hand, but Harlow grabbed that wrist too. With a dangerously low growl, Maverick tried to break free, but the anger in the man’s eyes swiftly turned to shock when he failed.

A slow smirk slipped onto his face as Harlow cracked his neck and closed his eyes. Vision of the world now blocked, he dropped into blood burn. It was like flipping a switch now. A single thought, and urge really, was all that was required for the world around him to start buzzing loudly while it told him its secrets.

“What humanity would you be talking about, Maverick?” he asked with a chuckle, but the wolf stayed quiet. Harlow tsked again. “Maverick, Maverick, Maverick, you should really not be asking for humanity from someone who never had any to begin with.”

He opened his eyes, letting the glowing blue color show. Smiling wide, Harlow flashed his double fangs, before breaking both of the werewolf’s wrists with two hard twists.

Maverick screamed, stumbling back, his clawed hands now uselessly slack, but his eyes were still wide. “A vampire! You let yourself be turned?! For a fa?—”

Foxx punched the man in the gut, the word cutting off as Maverick flew backwards and slammed into one of the thick metal poles holding up the walkway above. The support structure dented inward as the man hit it before he dropped to the floor. “I don’t like that word.”

Harlow moved to stand beside Foxx. Slipping an arm around his waist, he kissed the top of his head before eyeing Maverick. “Dhampir actually. Something I wouldn’t have found out if our dear old friend Micah hadn’t decided to do what those werewolves did to you, and changed me in revenge. Bastard, of course, found out the hard way just how not human I already was.”

At his words, the werewolf slowly looked up, his eyes even wider than before. “Impossible…” the man rasped, sounding just as shocked as he looked.

Foxx giggled. “Ohh, I think you blew his mind, Harlow!”

Harlow chuckled. “Ahh, you realized it, huh, Maverick? All of those plans you made for me, when I was never human to begin with.”

“You’re lying…” Maverick whispered, still on the ground .

“Pretty sure I’m not.” He opened his mouth wide and pointed towards his double fangs.

Foxx scoffed. “I’m definitely sure you’re not. I’ve been bitten far too many times by you to deny it.”

“YOU’RE LYING!” Maverick stumbled to his feet and leaped toward Harlow, his teeth spread in a way that made it obvious he planned to bite him, but oddly, he was aiming for his face. Not that aiming for his face was odd, it was just the angle was straight on, rather than tilted.

Latching on to his upper and lower jaw, uncaring as his hands were punctured by the man’s teeth, he gripped tight and tugged. Maverick let out a gurgling scream when Harlow broke his jaw.

Shoving him back, the man stumbled while continuing to shout in pain. At the same time, Foxx surged forward. The vampire toppled the man with a swipe of his foot, bringing that same foot down on the werewolf’s knee. There was a loud pop as he broke the joint there. Maverick howled, flopping on the ground as Foxx broke one leg and then the other.

“Well, since he can’t use his claws, legs, or teeth, I’d say it’s time for the fun to begin!” the vampire said with an evil giddy laugh, before musing thoughtfully, “I will say, that was a bit of an odd way for a wolf to attack though. Unless they're rabid, usually they turn their head more to get a good hold of you.”

Harlow smirked and pulled back from blood burn, the world returning to normal. “I doubt he tried to train this side of himself. He hates what he is now. So much so, I’m guessing, he has no clue how to fight as a werewolf.”

“What a fool!” Foxx met his smirk with one of his own. “Want to start us off?”

“After you, Brat.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Foxx hissed, the claws on his right hand growing.