Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 50954 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50954 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
“I am sorry,” he said as Carter’s blue eyes opened and looked up into his in complete confusion, pain, and fear. “I am so very sorry.”
Carter spoke his first plaintive words as a vampire.
“I want my mom.”
22
“I thought you were going to kill me.”
Will was surprised, and a little annoyed, to find himself still alive. With Maddox’s realization came a yearning for an end to things. He was tired of struggling for no reason, finding nothing true in the world. If Maddox could lie to him, if he could be betrayed by him, then there was nothing left of life to him.
But Gideon had not killed him. Gideon had put him in the back of a car and driven him to a fortified location upstate. It was an entirely new building built to look like a very old building, a gothic monstrosity with turrets and buttresses, and other architectural features Will did not know the name of, but all of which added up to a very imposing sight. It was a place that looked precisely as though it housed a coven of vampires, all the way to the black rock and marble edging that looked out over a garden of flowerless roses hedged by wrought iron gates. A foreboding air hung over the place, a sort of absence of life, a void of being. It felt like a cemetery, if the cemetery were interred solely with the flesh of those who had never lived at all.
“After you banished me from Maddox’s hovel, I decided to begin construction on something a little more permanent,” Gideon explained. “Though this is far from the grandest of my designs, it will do for now. Some of it is still under construction, as I create wings for those who please me and crypts and dungeons for those who do not.”
“Yeah. I thought you were going to kill me, not tell me about your building plans, HGTV.”
Gideon shot him a sharp look. “I was, but you’re worth much more to me as a token than you are as a corpse. If that changes, so will your status.”
“Fine. I don’t care. Kill me if you like. It doesn’t make a difference one way or another.”
“Aw, the poor little puppy doesn’t want to live because he was mortally betrayed by his vampire lover,” Gideon pouted mockingly. “It is much less fun to kill you if you don’t want to live. We will have to do something about that. Cheer you up, so you have something to fight for.”
Gideon was in a very good mood, and in that mood he was suave, controlled, and absolutely charismatic. Will could see what made everybody fall for him. Even if he were not an ancient immortal, he just had that it factor.
The absolute truth was, Will had not invited Gideon in because he wanted to die. He’d called for the Maker because he could not stand to be in Maddox’s presence for another minute, and that meant being in Gideon’s possession instead. There were no other choices. Gideon had made sure of that. If death was coming, he truly no longer cared. Hiding from it for such a long time had almost made the prospect of it a welcome relief.
Their car purred around the back of the construction, showing that it was indeed still very much a work in progress. There were tradesmen working in the moonlight. Will would have put money on them being some of the same tradespeople who had built the Sistine Chapel and the pyramids. Gideon was a creature with contacts throughout time. The interior of the property would no doubt be grandly morose, deeply morbid, and utterly disturbing.
But Will did not get to see the interior of the house. Instead he was taken to a door in the lower rear, a door made for things one wanted to hide.
“Into the kennels with you, puppy,” Gideon purred as he handed Will off to Raymond’s tender care. “I will come for you later.”
Raymond looked at Will with that same smirking self-satisfaction he’d met Maddox with at the airport all those years ago. Will had hated him from the moment he saw him. Seeing him again and having absolutely nothing to lose, not to mention an intense amount of anger to discharge, he balled his fist and drove it directly into Raymond’s nose.
There was a satisfying crunch, a breaking of vampire cartilage. No matter how old one might be, there were still weak spots on a human form.
“Cursed beast!” Raymond gasped as black blood flowed from his nostrils.
Will laughed. And changed. He became the beast he was born to be, a big black wolf with piercing blue eyes. He had no intention of being put underground by Raymond or of remaining Gideon’s captive at all. His romantic feelings might have been decimated, but his instinct for freedom was stronger than ever.