Page 76 of Vampire Kings Box Set

“Both of you, I suppose. You were very young. And very scared…”

Candy nodded, tears in her eyes.

“And very stupid.”

With that, she broke into fresh sobs.

“There, there,” Maddox comforted her from a distance. “Will is fine.”

“I think I should tell him,” Candy said. “I think he needs to know everything.”

“On the contrary. The less Will knows, the better.”

“Why?”

“Will has a unique opportunity now to remake himself, to become more than he was before, to be better, to transcend his past. Miring him in the sordid and tragic depths of a teenage monster’s love affair will not help him.”

Candy sniffed and dabbed her nose. “Isn’t that up to Will? Doesn’t he want to know who I am?”

“No.”

“Ouch.” Her head jerked back.

“He wants to know who his father is. His opinion of his mother, whoever she might be, has been understandably marred by being left to die within minutes of his birth.”

Candy’s face crumpled. She did not say anything for a long time. She simply nodded.

“I should go home,” she said when she could speak again. “Thank you for speaking with me, sir. I hope this can remain in confidence, and not affect our working relationship.”

“Of course not, Candy. Go home. Get some rest. Things will appear brighter in the morning.”

Candy got up and Maddox showed her out. As they reached the front door, she looked back at him. “I know I have no right to ask you for any favors, but I do have one, a request.”

“What is that?”

“Don’t ever let Will meet his father. Even at the age I knew him, Ivan was… there’s something broken inside him. It’s not just that he’s an animal. He’s an actual monster.”

“That will never happen,” Maddox assured her. “I promise.”

10 THE ROAD TRIP

“Where’s home?” Will tried to make conversation. His father really didn’t talk much. It almost made him miss Lorien’s constant babbling. They’d been driving for several hours already, and he still didn’t know much of anything about the man who had given him life. He was so eager to learn, but Ivan’s brief glancing glares whenever he asked a question were enough to put him off from asking more. The last thing Will wanted was to be ditched by his dad now that he’d met him.

“Just over a day’s drive from here,” Ivan said. They were pulling into a remote gas station. Will had noticed that they’d taken back roads the whole way so far. The interstate would have been faster and much more direct, but he guessed his dad didn’t exactly want to run into law enforcement. Neither did Will, come to think of it. Maddox’s threat about being returned to prison was still pretty fucking fresh.

Ivan put the car in park and glanced over at Will. “You want anything to eat?”

“I’m okay,” Will said. Truth was, he was fucking nervous. He didn’t know what to make of his father at all. He didn’t even know what to call him. Ivan? Dad? Ivan felt too casual. Dad felt too familial.

Ivan got out and Will sat in the truck, drawing in deep, calming breaths. This was okay. It was going to be okay.

Maddox was going to be pissed. That just made Will smile. He’d been fucking hiding his father from him, keeping his true identity a secret, just like Chauvelin had accused him of. It was such a fucking mind trip to realize the guy he’d been lusting for, giving himself to, was the asshole of the century. Actually, maybe it wasn’t. Will had always had terrible taste in men and everything else, for that matter.

Will fancied he heard some faint screaming in the distance, but it was somewhat usual for his mind to be flooded with the cries of his victims. There had been a lot of violence in his life, and echoes of it often played about his frontal lobe when it was at rest.

Then an arc of blood splattered over the windshield, heavy, wet, arterial.

“Fuck!” Will cursed in surprise as the now lifeless body of a man who had presumably just been doing his job was hauled over the pickup and into the bed. The whole vehicle shook and shuddered with the motions of predator and corpse.