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“You know, when you were like, ‘Finn, the very man I would give my heart to if I wasn’t already spoken for, the one true king of humans, I need you like I need Claude in a cheetah thong,’ I thought it’d be for something a little more fun,” I say as Alexei stares at me.

His breath must have been taken away by my speech.

“Why is Claude wearing a cheetah thong?” Bentley asks as he joins us at the tail end of the conversation.

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Briar teases.

“I wish I was!” Claude says as he pushes his pants down enough I can see the edge of his lime green underwear. “Chartreuse today, baby.”

“What in the world is ‘chartreuse’?” Alexei asks, and neither Briar nor Bentley seem to know. “You know what? I don’t feel like I need to know.”

“It’s the color of my underwear!” Claude displays a bit more for everyone to see just as Marcus and Orin walk up.

“Wow, we sure look professional,” Marcus deadpans.

Claude waves his worries off. “I was teaching them what color chartreuse is. As simple as that.”

“Simple as that, Finn,” Alexei echoes. “The reason we are being judged and looked at is because of you, I would like you to understand. Because you started it with your thong speech.”

“Because of me? Why the hell is it my fault?” I ask, positive that I didn’t ask Claude to whip his pants down and flash the goods! “You’re the one who didn’t know what chartreuse was. Like gosh, everyone knows what that is.”

“Who invited the VRC here?” Harris asks, voicing his distaste loud enough everyone can hear.

“I was just wondering that as well,” Callum says. Apparently, the two have made friends and no part of that sounds good. Or maybe they overheard our underwear conversation.

I smile sweetly. “We thought you might care or wonder what we found out about the people who died at the hotel and Mads’s abduction, but evidently, that’s not the case.

It’s kind of strange you don’t want us here.

Like… if one of you were abducted or hunted down, I would really want to know what happened unless I was involved.

Although that’d be silly saying you two were involved. Ha. Anyway. We will be on our way.”

“I very much would like to know,” Ha-joon says. “One of our own is missing and there are multiple vampires who were killed that no one knows. Have you found the ID on any of them?”

“Love to tell you but we’re obviously not welcome,” I respond as I give Ha-joon a shrug. “Good luck. I mean… you guys are going to need it.”

“I was too rash,” Callum says with a grimace. “Please, come in.”

“Me… too,” Harris chokes out.

“What was that?” Marcus asks as he eyes Harris. “I might have missed what you said, so please, repeat it. If you’d like to be on your knees when you do so, I wouldn’t complain.”

“I would… absolutely love for all of you to join us,” he says, ducking his head when Marcus’s aura hits him. I’m pretty sure Marcus would be happy to never see Harris again.

“Good to know,” Marcus comments as we all file back into the room we were in during the last meeting.

I don’t expect this one to go much better but sadly, we don’t have Ender to waltz in and entertain me.

Although it’d honestly be fantastic if we did, so we could figure out what happened to him and Mads.

Rylee is going to be an absolute mess until we can assure her that Ender didn’t leave her and really is coming back for her.

Hopefully, she’s now convinced that he didn’t leave her because she “wasn’t being good.

” It’s hard to reassure a child while still being uncertain and careful of what to say to her.

Orin told us that Rylee was concerned the “monster from Ender’s nightmares” had come for him and will be coming for us next.

The problem is that she doesn’t know who this monster is or anything about him.

It sounds like someone might have been hunting Ender and could be the very person who took them both.

But when you have nothing beyond that, it’s hard to know where to look.

Since Orin came with us to speak to the council, River is watching Rylee. She wasn’t thrilled by this until he showed her the wonders of “cat TV,” which Senor Fluffybottom thought was quite thrilling.

“Did you identify who the dead were?” Leona asks.

“Some of them,” I admit. “We know their identities. We’re not quite sure what their connection to Mads or the council is.

We’re unsure if he was personally targeted or targeted because he’s part of the council.

The blood on the floor has been identified as belonging to Mads,” I say, refusing to mention that the blood splatter on the wall was Ender’s blood.

Mads’s blood had come up in our records since all new vampires have to be registered, which includes blood and fingerprints.

But looking into Mads and reading his vampire registry left me surprised that he is an extremely young vampire.

I think all of us were startled, even Marcus who, while saying that he assumed he was younger, was surprised by how much younger.

“Callum, how well do you know Mads?” Marcus asks.

“I know him well enough.”

“The council petitioned to have him turned. Why?”

“I… don’t know. I wasn’t involved in that,” Callum says. “Leona?”

“I didn’t know they did. How long has he been a vampire?” she asks.

Marcus responds, “Only two years. It’s unheard of for a new vampire to join the council. Generally, that’s something reserved for older vampires with higher influential power. How did that get approved?”

Callum opens his mouth but his phone starts ringing. “I apologize. It’s another member of the council. After Mads went missing, I contacted the others to inform them of what happened. She was hoping to join us but got delayed.”

He steps out of the room as Leona turns to us.

“Have you found out any more about this drug that’s leaving vampires just… dead?”

I leave this to Claude, as he and Alexei have been the main ones in charge of organizing that information. “We have some information on it, but we need to decide how it’s best to discuss it,” Claude says.

“I believe it should stay within the VRC,” Alexei states. “I trust no one here.”

Leona opens her mouth, undoubtedly wanting to say something about that before we’re interrupted by the sound of footsteps.

The door opens and Callum returns with a woman and a man behind him. The man smiles the moment he sees us, but she seems to scrutinize the group of us. Callum steps back to introduce them. “This is Vivian and Arrington. They’re both council members but Vivian is directly in charge of Mads.”

“I came as soon as I heard what happened,” she says. “Have you heard anything new as of yet?”

“We were just discussing the details. I’m Detective Finn Hayes of the VRC,” I say before introducing everyone from the VRC and shaking their hands.

Marcus folds his arms over his chest instead of shaking anything, throwing out his dominating aura like he just hopes someone dares to fuck with him on this.

“Here’s where we stand. We don’t feel comfortable releasing some of this information to a roomful of people we don’t trust. We’d prefer to keep it out of the council’s hands and within the VRC. ”

“Why out of the council? Shouldn’t the council be the safest place for it?” Vivian asks, like she could possibly have not heard what happened with the US council.

Alexei scoffs. “You’d think, but take a look at what happened to our council.

And if we can’t trust our own council, why would we trust yours?

Our council went above and beyond to try to imprison one of our own while harming another member.

They nearly killed Finn. And it was staged in a way to separate Marcus from him.

Do you see why we’re reluctant to trust the council? ”

“Understandably,” Arrington says. “I guess, at this point, does it matter? If we have trust that the VRC is doing what they can, it’s not like any of us have information that would help or we’d have already given it. Do we know why Mads was taken?”

“Not at this point in time,” Marcus answers.

“Can you fill us in on anything that is essential to keeping the rest of my members safe? At this point we don’t know whether this was a targeted attack on Mads or the council, correct?” Vivian asks.

“That is correct, and I sure can try,” I say.

“There is no connection between those who were killed on scene, at least none on surface level. They are all vampires registered under different makers, and all of the deceased vampires were from different areas. We know that they targeted Mads but there is a possibility they took one other.”

“Who is that?”

“We will disclose that information when we know more.”

“Is it a council member?” Vivian asks.

“It’s not.”

“I heard that Ender invaded the meeting last time. Was he involved in this attack? Did he attack Mads or plan this?” she asks.

“I know for a fact he wasn’t one of those who attacked Mads,” I say.

“Why for a fact?” Arrington asks.

“He came in here demanding Orin take over as council head,” Callum says. “Nothing against Orin, I’m sure he’d make a fantastic council head, but he’s never even been in the council. It would certainly be best for someone who has been in the council for many years to take over.”

Orin leans forward in his chair, watching Callum closely as he gives him a smile. “No, I haven’t, but I have a pretty good idea of what’s expected to keep it running. I can assure you that anything I do will be better than how it was run previously.”