He was sure they would be the kind that woke him up with a hard-on.“You too.”
ChapterTen
Nix layon his bed staring up at the ceiling.The posters of his favorite surfers stared at him in silent, sun-drenched judgment.He wasn’t ready.He’d never be ready.His mother was talking.Zinnia remained silent; she knew what he wanted but said nothing to stop this.There was nothing she could say to their mother that would save him anyway.He was eighteen.It was time he took his place.He’d been hearing those words for the last week.
Was he still a little drunk from partying with his friends?He wished he was passed out so he wasn’t awake for his death.
The four women gripped his limbs.He closed his eyes and imagined he was on his board, sunburned after a day at the beach.He knew he was going get sucked under the waves and that he’d come up gasping for air.Only this time, when he came up, he’d be a vampire and hungry for blood.
Usually, he liked being bitten.It was fun.When their teeth sank into his wrists and ankles, he didn’t cry out.He drew in a breath and held onto his life for as long as possible before being dragged into a blackness that swallowed him whole.
Nix gasped and sat up, blade in his hand, ready to fight.The taste of blood filled his mouth.His breathing came quickly but slowed as he realized where he was.The room was dark, and he was alone.He eased his grip on the knife, but instead of lying down, he paced around the room and checked the windows and door.All locked, such as the locks were.
He hadn’t had that particular nightmare in a while; it had been overtaken by the attack.He wasn’t sure which one was worse, the day his family had killed him or the day his family had been killed.
They’d both been awful in their own special way.He brushed his teeth again, knowing that the taste was just an echo.It was Lance’s blood, and he’d had fun biting him.He needed to hold on to the pleasure—the way Lance had felt around him and the way he’d moaned and shuddered.The extra sweetness of his blood after Lance had come.
That had been him once, reveling in being bitten.He leaned over the bathroom sink, knowing it would be pointless trying to get back to sleep but knowing the three hours he’d managed wouldn’t be enough to get him through the day.
He put the TV on and pretended to watch whatever late-night movie was on until he nodded off in the chair the way he always did.He hadn’t slept a night through in too long.His grip on the knife didn’t lessen.
ChapterEleven
Lance satat the dining table on his laptop, pouring through everything he had on the Hadley family, looking for something, though he couldn’t say what.Most of what he’d been given access to related directly to Nix.Everything from where he’d gone to school—the same exclusive Melbourne boy’s school all the Hadleys attended.His grades—which had been excellent until the last few months.Lance could guess why.The cars he favored, who his driver was, the gun he used.The brand of suits that he wore.Hell, Lance even knew what wax he used on his surfboard.
What he didn’t have was anything that could prove what Nix had said was true, and if he started digging too deeply or requesting more access to the family archives, his aunt might think something was up.He switched to Nix’s sister, Zinnia, and then the raid on the Hadley mansion that had all but ended the family.
He didn’t need to go to the winery to make sure Nix hadn’t absconded.Nix wasn’t going to run.Lance rubbed his neck.On one side, there was barely a mark.That had been the first bite.The other side was bruised, and while the puncture marks were gone, the scratches were still healing.He’d put on a collared shirt when he’d gone out for breakfast and picked up some things from the supermarket, not wanting people to judge his hickey even though they wouldn’t know it was from a vampire.
He read through the official report that one of his aunts had made about the raid.He’d only heard secondhand information when the amped-up-blooded vampires had climbed into the car where he was waiting.Had he lied to Nix?No, he wasn’t there; he hadn’t fired a single shot.But he had been down the road.There were a couple of other statements, including one from the man who claimed to have shot Nix.A shot that should have immobilized him if the bullet had remained in his body for more than a few minutes.Had he dug it out during the firefight?And Nix had run instead of killing the man.Why?That didn’t make sense.
Lance went back to the newspaper stories that had been written afterward.‘Gangland warfare in suburbia’ is what it had been called.The reporters had even interviewed the headmaster of the school since so many of the dead had been educated there.The neighbors had, of course, been horrified, as the Hadleys seemed like such a nice, normal family.
A few humans who worked for the Orlans had been offered up by his aunt as those responsible.They’d been so thoroughly enchanted that they would have believed black was white.
There was nothing new in the write-ups.
He folded down the screen and stared at the laptop, unseeing.He might be disobeying his family in allowing the truce, but they were still his family.They had no reason to lie.Nix, on the other hand, had every reason to lie—it was his neck on the line.And no matter what happened, Lance had to remember he was fucking the enemy.
His fingers brushed the bruise.He should be dead.He should’ve been dead a dozen times over before the truce.The more he learned about Nix, the man, not the body count or official profile, the less he made sense.Who was Nixon Hadley?
Did it matter when it would all come crashing down in twelve days?
He checked the time, figured Nix would be on his lunch break, and called him to make sure he was coming over—he didn’t want to let the leash get too long.
“Don’t call me on your phone,” Nix said as a greeting.
“What?Why?”That wasn’t what he’d expected after last night.
“Your calls will be monitored.”Nix muttered else that something Lance didn’t catch.
“I want to know if you’re planning on coming around?”
“Yeah.Later.”Nix hung up.
Lance stared at his phone.Then at the laptop.His calls wouldn’t be monitored.Would they?There had been a few times when he’d thought he was being tracked, when someone would call him and know a little too much about what he was doing.
His heart stopped for a moment.
