Page 85 of Suck This

CHAPTER 18

Ice cream is an acceptable choice of coffee creamer… right?

-Acadia to Constantine

CONSTANTINE

“You have a woman in your kitchen.” Caius suddenly switched languages, going back to the Norse we used to speak a long, long time ago.

I grinned.

“My woman,” I replied in the same language. “I was telling her about her new life—one in which she likely is now aware of—when you showed.”

Caius’s grin was hard, catlike.

“I’ll leave you to your affairs. Just remember…” He hesitated and turned back to me. “The others of the council won’t like this. They’ll be furious. They’ll fight you. They’ll hinder you in your path every step of the way. For some reason, they’re convinced that you will be the end of us all.”

That damn prophecy again.

It’d been said for centuries as seer after seer predicted the end of days—me being the star of the entire fiasco. It was said that I’d ruin us all, and likely by them seeing the press conference yesterday promising that vampires would no longer be treated as lesser beings, that now had them all freaked out.

Caius was my friend. He had been for a very long time.

But he was also in the council, and I was not.

He was a member of the council not because he was older, smarter, or more respected, but because I just didn’t want to deal with their shit. I wanted to be my own man. I didn’t want to be dictated by their laws. I wanted to live my own life, with my own people, and be left the hell alone.

Caius understood that. The others did not.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before they tried to step in, but I wouldn’t let them. Fox. Pavlov. Abraham. Render.

Anybody that was in my inner circle would help me defend my territory, and I wouldn’t stop or hesitate, even for the fucking council.

I was done playing fetch. They needed to realize that I was a power in and of my own right.

“I’ll return,” he said, stepping away from me with a clap to the back.

He was almost to the door when I said, “Dad?”

Caius, a man I never called dad unless we were in the privacy of his or my home, stopped and turned. Funny enough, both of us had been turned against our will, by the same man, who hadn’t realized our connection.

“Yes, son?”

Caius was my actual biological father and not my maker. He’d been made by the same douchebag that’d made me, Carrion.

“I think it’s time to stop being their puppet.”

Caius, my father, grinned.

“Why do you think I stay in the council?” he asked. “It’s surely not because I enjoy it. Information from a secondary source can’t be trusted. If you want the best, you have to do it yourself.”

Then he was gone, and I was left grinning.

I heard Acadia tiptoe to the edge of the hall and smirked as she listened for more sound.

When none was forthcoming, she peeked around the edge of the doorframe and blushed the moment her eyes caught mine.

“Have I done something bad?”