Page 118 of Vampire Kings Box Set

“Thanks,” he said. Nobody seemed to remember the spanking thing. He'd managed to overshadow it with his awesome wolfness. Cool. Very cool.

The door behind them opened. Henry emerged, followed by Maddox. Will found himself looking to Maddox for signs of emotion. Anger. Forgiveness, maybe. He didn’t see anything. He saw a dark wall of hidden emotion, with perhaps just a hint of wait until I get you alone behind it.

“Come with me,” Henry said. “Put some clothes on first.”

Will glanced at Maddox. Maddox nodded, inscrutable. Will obeyed.

A few minutes later they were walking down the city street. Will found that he liked walking with Henry. He felt a similar way to the way he felt when he was out with Maddox — protected.

“Where are we going?”

“I saw a place that sells a hundred kinds of ice cream a few blocks from here.”

“I don’t want ice cream.”

“I do,” Henry said simply.

Henry got a fudge ripple cone. Will got nothing. A spanking was as close to juvenile as he wanted to display himself being tonight. Together they went to a nearby park. Will thought about warning Henry about the vampires that wanted his head, but he didn’t bother in the end. He’d decided to see what Henry was made of.

“Your father is a monster, William. You know that as well as we do. That’s why you brought him back. I know that you feel loyalty to him. That is the pull of blood.”

“He’s not your monster to slay.”

“Who else will? Maddox won’t. You won’t. He’s loose and killing innocents. He has to be stopped. I think you know that as much as you resent it. And I think it’s half the reason you’re struggling with your own appetites.”

“What do you eat? How do you take flesh without killing?”

“We used to take from those recently passed.”

“Like jackals, you mean. You won’t make your own kills. You chase ambulances? Come upon roadside accidents?”

“Our kind has survived as best they can. There are new advancements. Lab grown flesh. Never was a human, so no moral issues. You, we, can indulge as much as we like without guilt. Or sometimes we get donated flesh.”

Will frowned. “Why didn’t Maddox mention that to me? About the lab stuff?”

“He is a vampire. They feast on more than mere flesh. They drink blood, and they take it direct from the living thing. We are harder to feed.”

“You're not killing my father,” Will said. “He sickens me. But I won’t let you hurt him any more than you have. If you go after him again, I will kill you.”

He said it simply, without emotion. It was a cool, collected statement of fact and it carried the weight of the history of Will’s crimes behind it as no idle threat.

The moon shone down on the pair of them, solving nothing, but casting everything in a silver glow that made Will feel very Will-like. He was becoming something more, something new. He felt himself shifting on the inside; thoughts, feelings, needs rising and falling in new combinations.

“I’d rather not have to kill you and your father. But I will do anything I need to in order to rid the world of feral wolves,” Henry said.

Will’s upper lip curled in a sneer. “You’re just Maddox in a wolf suit. So caught up in thinking you deserve to decide who lives and who dies. Arrogant. Stupid. And more vulnerable than you think.”

“You’ve been warned,” Henry said. “I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not going to keep you in the dark. I am telling you. I will be killing your father.”

Will punched him right in the fucking face. It came swiftly, the motion not telegraphed at all. Will knew how to hit someone without them knowing it was coming. Prison fights didn’t come with a lot of warning. They were quick and they were brutal.

Henry stumbled backward, blood pissing down his face. He cursed and tossed his ice cream to the side.

“Little shit,” he growled.

Will grinned broadly, standing handsome and strong in the moonlight.

“Maddox is going to work out that you're not here for me. He probably already knows you want to kill Ivan. Guess what? If Mad wanted Ivan dead, Ivan would be dead. He’s alive because the vampire king allows it. You’re not just crossing me. And you’re not just coming for Ivan. You’re crossing Maddox too. You might be the one who doesn’t survive, pack master.”