Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Maddox was sitting in his office musing such thoughts when the front door swung open, and a familiar step entered the house, more boldly than it had before.
“Lorien,” Maddox said, emerging from his office to greet the younger vampire. He tried not to look too pleased at the intrusion and failed miserably. “What brings you here?”
Lorien, dressed in black jeans and a leather jacket, his long, slightly curling hair looking greasier than it should have, gave Maddox a what the actual fuck stare.
“What brings me here? What the fuck brings you here? And by brings, I mean, makes you sit around indoors all the time like quarantines are still in effect?”
Maddox’s head jolted back. He looked down at the vampire who had the nerve to stroll into his house and lecture him.
“Don’t give me that look,” Lorien said, lighting a cigarette. “We have to talk.”
“About what?” Maddox plucked the cigarette from Lorien’s fingers and put it out on the wall. It left a black ash stain where it fizzled.
“About William. He’s gone feral.”
“Is he in danger?”
“He. Has. Gone. Feral,” Lorien repeated, putting obnoxious emphasis on every single word. “Do you understand what I mean by feral? I mean like, needs to be put down like the feral vampires, feral.”
“So you came here, thinking I might be interested in killing him?”
“No. Idiot!”
Lorien just barely got that piece of disrespect out before Maddox cuffed him around the ear, hard.
“Ow! Fuck!” Lorien grasped his ear with a hand and shot Mad a confused and offended stare.
“You have forgotten who you are speaking to,” Maddox said.
“No. I haven’t. It’s just fucking crazy that I am the one here telling you what’s going on. You used to know everything ahead of everyone. Now you’re some pathetic shut-in. Ow! Fuck!” He cursed as Maddox cuffed his other ear for good measure.
“You know what? It’s good if you’re angry. You should be angry,” Lorien said. “Because the wolf you’re responsible for is going to need your anger.”
“What is he doing that is so feral?”
“He’s dangerous. He’s not safe.”
“William has never been safe.”
“He’s eating people.”
“We eat people.”
Lorien stood back and regarded Maddox with a long stare. “I know the two of you aren’t getting on right now, but…”
“He hates me.”
“Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe that doesn’t matter. He’s yours. You’re responsible for him.”
Maddox turned his head and looked out the window. His noble profile belied a deep sorrow.
“You are correct,” he said. “I am responsible for William, but I am also the cause of much of his pain, and the amends I must make are so deep, I find myself bereft of ideas.”
“You can start by going and getting him before he gets himself killed. He’s worse than Ivan ever was. He’s committing legitimate atrocities. I don’t know how to explain it any clearer. If you don’t get Will, I will go to Gideon, and I will turn him in. He has to be stopped, for all our sakes.”
“I don’t think you understand, Lorien. He has rejected me. He does not want me. He does not like me.”
Lorien threw up his hands in absolute confusion.
“Since when do you care about being liked, Maddox? You never cared if I liked you. And Will is nothing more than a beast you tamed. You used to understand what you were to him, but then you started getting soft. Started to believe in a human kind of love. Started needing him to love you.” Lorien’s upper lip curled with vampiric disdain. “Will has never needed you to need him to love you. Will has always needed you to rein in the beast you both see inside him. Stop moping about like some lovesick fledgling and go break that beast.”
There was a heavy silence in the aftermath of Lorien’s lecture, a very long moment in which his passion gave way to a distinct uncertainty. Maddox’s expression remained impassive.
“Ordinarily, I would tear your throat out for such an impudent speech,” Maddox eventually mused. “But on this occasion, I have an inkling you might be entirely correct.”
“Of course I am,” Lorien said. “I am the rightful vampire king of New York.” He grinned with that reckless rakishness and innate mischief that had always been so charming to Maddox.
“Yes. I keep forgetting that. I suppose it’s the air of…”
“Debonaire charm?”
“A complete lack of authority,” Maddox finished his own sentence.
“We can’t all be brooding monsters,” Lorien said, flashing a broad smile. He was clearly very glad that Maddox seemed to be responding to his plea for help, vague as that plea seemed to be. Maddox was not surprised to hear that Will was acting out, but since Lorien was given to a certain level of drama, how bad could it really be?
7
It was not hard to find Will, though it was also not a goal immediately achieved. Maddox found himself on the trail of his wild wolf pup, a trail that stank of blood that began just outside the New York City limits and seemed to go all the way to the Pennsylvania border.