Page 29

“I need you to come to the hospital.” Soren’s voice was sharp, lacking any of his usual teasing tones.

“What for? What are you doing in a human hospital?”

“Gabe was attacked.”

Merde. Roman’s eyes darted reflexively to Danny’s sleeping form. “How bad is it?”

“He’s okay. Relatively. He had a bite and some superficial wounds I was able to heal. But I had to bring him to the ER for a broken arm.”

Not good. Not good at all. “Are you there with him now?”

Soren huffed into the phone. “He wouldn’t let me stay in the room. Kept calling me a monster, kicked me out. I’m outside the hospital’s emergency entrance.”

“What did you do?” Roman accused, dressing as fast as his abilities allowed. Danny still hadn’t stirred.

“I didn’t do anything!” Soren sounded aggrieved.

“I healed the dolt. But Luc wasn’t exactly subtle when he attacked him, and my licking his wounds closed might have raised some additional questions about my own less-than-human condition.

I kept him calm enough at the scene with a little compulsion, but whatever pain meds they gave him in the ER messed with it, and that’s when he started panicking, yelling at me to leave. ”

Roman was gently shaking Danny awake as he listened to Soren’s rant. It was unusual for his friend to get so worked up. Danny blinked up at him in sleepy confusion. “Gabriel was hurt,” Roman whispered gently. “He is all right, but he is at the hospital. I need you to get dressed.”

Roman watched as the blood drained out of his mate’s face, but Danny only nodded, moving to grab his own clothes from the floor. Roman watched long enough to make sure Danny was steady on his feet before stepping out of the room, into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

He turned his attention back to the phone. “How did you even happen to be there? I thought you lost Luc’s trail?”

There was a long pause on the other end. Then, “I picked it back up again.”

Lying. His friend was lying to him, although Roman wasn’t sure for what possible reason.

“We’ll be there in five minutes,” he snapped out.

“You know this could be a trap to lure Danny in.”

“It could be.” It was definitely a possibility. “But I am imagining the response if I tell Danny he cannot go see his injured brother, and I believe it would not be pretty.”

“You’re whipped.”

“I do not know what that means.”

There was a small, reluctant laugh at the other end of the line.

“Besides,” Roman continued, “Danny works regularly at the hospital despite my protests. Luc does not need to injure his brother to lure him there.”

Soren didn’t sound convinced. “I’ll stick around anyway. I can warn you off if Luc comes close.”

“I owe you a debt, mon ami.”

“Ugh, stop being so dramatic. You owe me nothing. Just get here.”

Roman hung up, relieved to hear his friend’s voice sounding slightly more normal.

The drive to the hospital was a mirror of their earlier drive to the house—tense and silent but for a few questions Danny asked about Gabe’s condition. He clenched his jaw at hearing about the broken arm but said nothing more about it.

Roman wasn’t sure if he should be grateful for the silence or worried.

They spotted Soren outside the hospital doors pacing back and forth in a way that reminded Roman of himself earlier that morning.

“A moment, sweet.” Roman tugged at Danny’s hand to attempt to halt the boy’s entrance into the hospital.

“I need to see him, Roman.” Danny’s eyes were dry, but his voice broke at the words. He was clearly distressed at the thought of his brother hurt.

Roman hesitated. He was reluctant to let his mate out of his sight, but he trusted that Soren would have scouted for Luc’s presence in the hospital, and they wouldn’t be long outside. He had questions for Soren. And…perhaps it was better if Danny didn’t hear any gruesome details of Gabe’s attack.

“All right. I will be right behind you,” Roman acquiesced, releasing Danny’s hand.

Danny nodded at him and then at Soren in greeting before turning his back on them both and rushing inside the hospital entrance.

Roman turned to his friend. “No sign of him?”

“No.” Soren looked terrible. His golden hair, usually perfectly coiffed, was standing in every direction, as if he’d been running his hands through it.

His ridiculous fur coat had spatters of blood on the collar.

Forced to stand still to talk to Roman, he was now biting at his nails, a nervous tic Roman had only seen him indulge in on a few occasions over the decades.

“He was out for breakfast with a woman. Some morning-after brunch affair with his latest bar hussy, I presume.” Soren looked away as he said it, with a studied casualness that almost took the bite out of his words.

Almost. “He was putting the lady in her car when Luc attacked. Broad daylight. Fucking bold.”

Roman ignored the comments on Gabe’s dating life, having no idea what to say to something so beside the point. “And you had picked up Luc’s trail and followed him there?”

That hesitation again. “Yes.”

“Soren, look at me.”

Soren met Roman’s eyes, a forced smile on his face. “Yes, Roman?”

“Were you following Gabe tonight? Have you been following Gabe?”

Soren said nothing. That was answer enough.

“Fuck,” Roman swore. “Merde. I told you to leave him alone.”

Soren huffed. “My being there might have saved his life.”

“Your being there might be why Luc attacked him in the first place. You drew attention to him.”

Soren’s eyes narrowed. “I think Gabe being your presumed mate’s brother is what drew Luc’s attention, you cretin,” he hissed.

“You can’t play house with your little human, ignoring the fact that an immortal psychopath is fixated on you and your love life, and not expect him and everyone else around him to be in danger! ”

“I’m not ignoring it. I did not think Gabe would be a target. I do not know why I did not think that.” Roman had been careless, too focused on Danny’s person and not on the people his mate cared for, those Luc would see as weak spots.

“Because you’re not thinking,” Soren accused. “Being in love has made you stupid. It makes everyone so fucking stupid.” He sounded so truly miserable, so defeated, that Roman’s budding anger at his friend deflated in an instant.

He sighed, looking Soren over more closely. “Were you hurt? Fighting Luc off.”

“What fighting?” Soren snorted bitterly.

“I didn’t have time. I was…lurking, I guess you could say, trying to keep my distance from the human, and then suddenly Luc was there.

Biting. Tearing. Breaking.” Soren’s voice cracked a bit at the last word.

He cleared his throat. “And then he left just as suddenly. A fucking hurricane of destruction. He could have killed him if he wanted to. Snapped his neck in an instant. He’s just toying with us. It has to stop, Rome.”

“And you think killing him is the only way.” It wasn’t a question. Soren had made his feelings on the matter clear before.

“Were the ties of your friendship really so strong that you’re still reluctant to, even after all he’s done?” Soren sounded more curious than angry.

Roman didn’t know how to answer that. Were they?

He didn’t feel like he had any love left for Luc.

Too much had happened between them since their days spent as brothers.

But Luc had been there, in some form or another, since the moment of Roman’s transformation.

He was a part of Roman, whether he liked it or not, and carving that part out would be painful.

“I am not fond of killing,” was what Roman landed on. It sounded feeble even to him.

Soren scoffed. “You’re a vampire. We’re all fans of killing.”

Roman shook his head. “You know that isn’t true. You are being deliberately obtuse. I like violence; I will admit that much. Blood and fear and rage, like any other demon of our kind. But I have never really liked killing. Such a waste. Life is…precious.”

“Depends on whose life you’re talking about, if you ask me.”

Roman shrugged but didn’t argue. Maybe Soren had a point. Roman would protect Danny’s life at the cost of his own without hesitation, but there wasn’t really another person he could say the same for, except maybe Soren.

Roman didn’t have his mate’s love for all humanity, that need to heal and protect all those around him.

Soren’s thoughts were on another track. “You’re going to have trouble with that one now.”

Roman raised an eyebrow. “Gabriel?”

“A different century and he would have a torch in one hand and a pitchfork in the other. He thinks we’re monsters. Not everyone is as understanding as your little human love, it seems.”

“He was attacked, Soren. He is in shock. Danny will get through to him.”

“You think?” Soren’s head was down, and he was scuffing his shoe against the sidewalk.

He looked so…young. He wasn’t—he was far older than even Roman—but there was a vulnerability there he still hadn’t lost after centuries of living.

Roman wondered, not for the first time, what it was that kept Soren running from place to place.

He wondered if his friend would ever tell him.

So full of secrets, Roman’s little friend.

“Gabe will not hate you forever, Soren.”

Soren stopped his scuffing and glared at Roman. “He will if we let his little brother get killed.”

Never. “Do not even jest about that.”

“I’m not jesting . Figure out a plan, Roman. Stop letting Luc call all the shots or one of those shots is going to hit Danny.”

There was no way Roman was letting that happen.

But his options were narrowing, and it seemed any path he took, he would be tearing out a piece of his heart to do it.