Page 158 of Vampire Kings Box Set

“We don’t conclusively know it was me. Besides. He didn’t actually ask.”

Henry shook his head. “Sometimes you’re an elegant vampire. Other times you have the morality of a teenager trying to talk his way out of trouble.”

“I am a mixture of contradictions,” Lorien agreed. “As are we all. You sleep in your little tent. I’ll keep watch for anybody looking to hurt you.”

“Such a sweet boy.”

Henry almost sounded like Maddox.

Lorien watched while Henry slept. Watched and worried. He was not accustomed to having to worry about what was going to happen to someone. Henry was mortal, and that meant Henry was at risk of harm. He could not rid himself of the memory of Gideon, of the ferocity of his teeth, of the darkness of his soul, and of the intensity of his fury. In all his time as a vampire he’d never met anybody more terrifying than Maddox, but Gideon was quite literally something else. He had never been that close to such power before, and he was quite glad to be away from it now.

4

New York always looked larger from the air. Maddox had seen this city expand from a mere settlement to a grand metropolis over the years. He remembered it as clear as yesterday when Gideon was interred at the end of the second world war, heralding an age of peace and prosperity. It had been a bittersweet moment when the concrete was poured. He was fond of his maker, built of his blood, but the world was always safer without Gideon.

Will was snoring beside him in the first-class seat, oblivious to the danger they were hurtling toward. Maddox’s plan was to hand him off to Henry and Lorien as quickly as possible. Leaving Will to his own devices was out of the question. There had to be a chain of custody.

As the plane circled the runway, Maddox steeled himself for a reunion he had not anticipated happening for a very long time. Gideon’s awakenings were usually more predictable than this. Usually the drums of war had been resonating for some time, and death stalked the streets before Gideon rose.

Somewhere in the back of Maddox’s mind lurked the possibility that this was his fault somehow, that the ancient had sensed his absence, and that was what had woken him. That was a silly, sentimental thought. Gideon did not care if Maddox was near or far. He only woke for one thing: blood.

Maddox did not expect to be welcomed at the airport, but there was a man waiting with a sign bearing his name outside baggage claim. At first he seemed to be nothing more than a hired driver, but when he raised his head and Mad saw who was under the peaked cap, he groaned internally.

It was the season, it seemed, to be haunted by old ghosts. A pair of dark, laughing eyes met his. The face under the cap was handsome in a less than obvious way than most. Those eyes were wide and soulful, or more correctly, soulless. Hard blonde brows slashed over the top of those two voids. His nose was neat, and his mouth was exquisitely shaped with full, nearly bow-shaped lips that managed to be less than effeminate when matched with a strong chin and jaw. Golden hair peeked out from the cap here and there. Beneath the long coat, Ray was a golden Adonis. Maddox had long memory of Ray on various Grecian beaches and other Mediterranean locales, shirtless and frolicking in the waves. There had never been anything carnal between them. Their relationship was one of incompatible siblings, Ray the golden child jock, and Maddox, the brooding and dark-minded intellectual whose power had grown slowly. Maddox was not pleased to see him. He did not need to be reminded of familial power imbalances right out of the literal gate.

The smile that spread across Ray’s face constituted a shit-eating grin.

“Hello, Maddox. Quite a mess we have here.”

“Raymond. I haven’t seen you in a long time. I thought you were on a beach in Aruba.”

“I had to return, because you went on holiday, your kingdom collapsed, and the city fell into ruin. Your entire retinue, which appeared to be comprised entirely of hounds, fled for the hills, leaving your house empty and your city without leadership.”

“Gideon awoke.”

“And you left the throne to a fledgling who can’t stand midday sunlight to run the city, with a wolf by his side. I don’t know if you recall, Maddox, but vampires kill wolves.”

“Lorien has royal blood, and more importantly, he killed the previous kings. He has every right to the throne, and it is still his.”

“Oh. And who did he leave in charge when he fled?”

“I don’t know, Raymond. I wasn’t here.”

“No,” Raymond says. “You weren’t. Were you.”

Maddox considered tearing Raymond’s throat out along with his voice box, but it was so hard to do that casually in an airport, so he refrained. There would be time to do that later.

“Mad! I’m fucking starving.” Will came striding up from the vending machines, where he had been unsuccessful in finding anything he deemed palatable. His hair had grown out while they were on vacation and now fell almost to his shoulders in dark, glossy waves. Was it possible that he was growing ever more beautiful? Or was it simply Maddox’s perception as he fell ever more in love with this rough, young whelp?

“And who is this?” Raymond directed his attention to Will. How could he not? Will grabbed the attention of everybody in his orbit. He was a stunning creature.

“I’m Will,” Will said. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I am Raymond. I’m”—his lips quirked for a moment—“Maddox’s older brother.”

“Gideon made Raymond before he made me,” Maddox explained as Will’s expression contorted in the effort to try to work out what a vampire’s older brother meant.

“I clean up Maddox’s messes. You look like you might be one of them.”