Page 29 of Grim’s Delight (The New Protectorate Syndicate #1)

FIFTEEN

“Explain what’s going on, Felix. Now.”

She was pissed. Felix could feel her ire radiating in the air like heat waves off hot concrete.

He shut the door and flicked the lock in place. No one would bother him in his private space unless invited, but it never hurt to be extra sure. Especially now.

Felix turned slowly back to where Dahlia sat on the couch. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes narrowed. She looked rumpled and so fucking beautiful in that silk robe he’d gotten her. When she looked at him like she was ready to rip his throat out, it only made him harder.

“Being venom neutral — it means something, doesn’t it?

” she demanded, watching him stride toward her with slow, purposeful steps.

“That’s what you were talking about last night, and that’s why Devon kept trying to— Gods, how did any of you even know?

Weren’t you too busy bombing your own family members to pay attention to what happened to me? ”

Felix weathered her tirade calmly. Sinking into the seat opposite hers, he leaned back. “You want me to explain or do you want to keep yelling at me?”

He swore he could see a vein throb in her neck when she hissed, “Oh, buddy, you haven’t seen me yell yet.”

Gods, he loved her.

Felix shifted his legs a little, trying to ease the discomfort of his pants’ seam cutting into his cock. He didn’t want to suffer an accidental amputation just when he got the chance to use the damn thing again.

Gods knew he’d waited long enough. He hadn’t touched another woman since he met Dahlia. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. Vampires were single-minded when they locked onto a potential anchor, and he was no different. No one tempted him the way she did. No one ever would.

Anticipation burned sweetly in his veins. His claws tapped a steady, patient rhythm on the armrest of his chair — a countdown beat to taking everything he wanted at last.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” he said, his tone conversational. Relaxed. The complete opposite of everything burning inside him. “You know me, but you don’t know what I do or who my family is.”

“I’ve put together what you do, Felix. I’m not missing any brain matter.”

“You know I’m in the vampire syndicate and I’m a criminal,” he corrected her.

“You don’t know that I’m the head of the Amauri family, which controls much of the underground gambling and arms trade on the east coast. I deliberately withheld that from you because for the last three years I’ve been in a war with my Aunt Yvanna, who wanted control of the family and our operations after my grandmother passed.

” He paused, sniffing. “Not that you ever asked.”

Dahlia shot him a withering glare. “Because I didn’t want to know. Still don’t.”

He waved her comment away, unbothered. “The risk that you could be targeted for revenge was high enough that I decided I wouldn’t further our relationship until the fighting stopped. I put you on ice until I could be sure you’d be safe.”

“Put me on ice.” Dahlia leaned over to grab a silver dish off the coffee table. She whipped it at him with impressive speed and force, but he was just a bit faster. Felix leaned away, letting the dish sail harmlessly over his shoulder to dent the wall beside the fireplace.

“I’m not a fucking steak, Felix!” she seethed.

He arched a brow. “So you would’ve preferred I put you in danger, then?”

“Here’s a thought: You could’ve left me the fuck alone.”

Felix gave her a long look. “That was never an option.”

When Dahlia simply sat back again, arms crossed, he continued, “The hit at your bar ended the war. You weren’t supposed to be there. I made sure you and Cecilia were off that night.”

She jolted, the angry flush in her cheeks draining away. “How do you know about Cece?”

Felix held her gaze steadily. The mask he normally wore slipped, revealing the dark, watchful predator underneath. “Pet,” he murmured, “I know everything about you. You’re mine.”

“She doesn’t know anything.” A desperate note entered Dahlia’s hushed voice. “I’ve never told her— She has no idea I’ve been talking to you. Please just leave her alone.”

Instinct kicked in his chest. Her distress was a sour note in the air, making his muscles tense like he needed to be ready for a fight. It’d make his life a lot easier if he could use her best friend to keep her compliant, but Felix had never been interested in Dahlia’s surrender.

“Cecilia is safe,” he promised her. “From me, at least. Whatever she gets up to on her own is her business.”

She still looked a bit queasy, but Dahlia seemed to accept that he was sincere. Still, she whispered, “She’s the only family I have, Felix. I can’t lose her.”

“Well, that’s not quite true.”

“The McKnights don’t count.”

He grimaced. “I wasn’t talking about them.”

“Then who?”

Felix rubbed his thumb over the corner of his jaw, watching her carefully. “The Bowans.”

“Mr. Bowan? What does he have to do with this? Besides the obvious, I guess.”

“When Alastair’s blood infected you, two things happened.

” He held up a finger. “First, in the eyes of the vampire world, you became his biological daughter. That means that as far as vampires are concerned, your name is now Dahlia Bowan, your father is Alastair Bowan, and you are the heir to the Bowan family. Which happens to be an extremely old and powerful one, I might add. Congrats on your upward social mobility.”

He held up another finger and continued before Dahlia could let fly the barrage of questions and denials he suspected were bubbling up her pretty throat.

“Second, you also became venom neutral, which is… Well, we should probably both buy some lottery tickets, because the odds of those two things happening in one shot are astronomical.”

Her lips barely moved when she asked, “And what does that mean for me?”

“You heard Alvin. You can mate with another vampire, Dahlia. That means you can theoretically link anyone who claims you to the Bowan family. To some nuts, it means that you can make pure vampiric offspring, too. It’s fucked, but it’s what they think.

” When Dahlia gave him a disgusted look, he spread his hands in a don’t blame me sort of gesture.

“When that doctor sold your information, he effectively announced to the entire syndicate that a new princess was just put on the market — one valuable enough to kill for.”

“So…” She paused, seemingly to try and catch her breath. It didn’t work very well. “So Devon…”

“I didn’t stop to ask, but he would’ve been stupid to pass up the chance to tie himself to the Bowans through you. And that’s why Alastair wanted to snap you up, too. He can’t have you running off with just any vampire.”

The implication that he was one such unsuitable match hung heavy in the air.

It didn’t matter that the Amauris had amassed an incredible amount of influence and money under his grandmother’s leadership. They would always be the newcomers on the block, the ones who didn’t abide by tradition or respect the rules designed to keep them in line with the old guard.

Alastair didn’t like change. He didn’t like new ideas or fresh blood running the game.

Tough shit, old man.

It filled Felix with a deep and malicious satisfaction to know that the old prick was gnashing his fangs, furious that he’d gotten to Dahlia first. Alastair had never liked him. He doubted that would change anytime soon.

“Now!” Felix clapped his hands together, startling Dahlia badly enough that she jumped. “We have one more topic to discuss.”

Dazed and pale, she looked around the room with wide eyes, like some monster was about to pop out of the wallpaper and bite her. “There’s more? What could possibly?—”

Her mouth snapped shut when he reached under his jacket and extracted a sleek black bolt gun. Calmly setting it on the table between them, grip angled toward her, he leaned back into his seat and crossed one ankle over his knee.

Felix spread his arms over the back of the couch and dropped the mask — for good this time.

“You shouldn’t have been at the bar that night,” he said, voice flat and hard. “But fine. You didn’t know what I had planned. That’s not your fault. That was a miscalculation on my part and one I won’t be making again. But you know what I can’t accept, Dahlia?”

He was impressed by the way she kept her gaze away from the gun.

A weaker person wouldn’t have been able to keep from looking at it, sitting there like a bomb about to go off on the antique coffee table.

Not his girl. She held his gaze, her expression tense and her lips thinned.

Afraid, maybe, but too damn proud to back down.

It was inconceivable that he’d ever let some worthless fuck have her. Another vampire would try and break that spirit. All Felix wanted to do was make it stronger. He always had, from the moment they locked eyes in that bar.

When she said nothing, he smiled with too much fang. “You didn’t tell me you’d been hurt. I should’ve been your first fucking call. Not Cecilia. Not your mother. Me.”

Speaking through her teeth, she said, “You’re not my boyfriend, Felix.”

“You’re right. I’m not. I’m your mate. And you didn’t trust me with your care when you needed it most.” At last, the anger bled through the cracks in the ice.

It rolled through his voice — all the rage and fear and hurt he barely understood.

“You were fucking impaled, Dahlia! And then when you started feeling sick, you hid that, too. You know what that tells me?”

There was a vicious undercurrent in her cool reply. “That we’re not dating and never have been, presumably.”

“It tells me that I didn’t properly explain to you how this is gonna be.” He sucked in a sharp breath, trying to calm his temper. It didn’t do shit.