Page 18 of Hound

“Imbecile.”

Laughter vibrated off him as the engine roared to life. He yanked us from the humid cave and into the cold night. Frigid wind stirred around us as he curved north onto the bypath behind the household, the mountains broadening the deeper he maneuvered through the snaking road, time slipping throughour grasps until flat lands leveled. Sparse trees enclosed us as Lorenzo slowed the motorbike’s speed until he fully broke.

“Where are we?”

“A pit stop,” he remarked as he parked and we dismounted. We removed our helmets, a sharp grin decorating his expression yet no jest flaunted at the corners. “Stay here.”

Lorenzo motioned forward, trekking through grounds embellished with slanted and wedged headstones that meagerly hinted from the ankle-length grass. Unlike the cemetery at the household, where the fence and our mother’s mausoleum marked passed members of the Sephtis name, this one bore nothing. The grass bled into the exterior woodland.

Lorenzo stopped in the midst of the growing fog, broad shoulders blanketing the single standing headstone as he lowered. Though his back was to me, I recognized the manner his hands gestured, how they carefully traced the rough sides of the singular protruding stone, the manner his jaw moved as if he spoke soft words.

Why was my chest suddenly tightening?

The sight was one I’d never expected to witness. Yet, as quickly as it appeared, it vanished when Lorenzo walked back. When he paused before me, I said, “We’re not to leave until you tell me why you brought me here.”

“Why? Is the little vampire scared of the dark?”

The desire to roll my eyes had never existed prior to this moment. “Although you are a guardian under the Sephtis household, outside the bounds of those grounds, that does not guarantee my safety under your observance.” My head tilted to further take in our surroundings. Fields spanned for miles, trees burying the decrepit buildings that stood by sheer chance underneath the cloak of night. “For you, to bring me to a setting never disclosed, where no living being resides, is anything but innocent.”

Although Lorenzo’s expression remained hardened, within the glint of his heavy gaze, an edge softened. His nostrils flared as he uttered, “As much as I’d love to tear you apart, Doll, I don’t think doing so in front of my mom would be satisfying.”

Realization struck me, a chill freezing over my flesh. “Then why would you bring me to such a place?”

“It’s on the way.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Decided to kill two birds with one stone, especially when I don’t get to see her often.”

He settled onto his bike and slipped his helmet into place. I remained standing close to the cemetery’s main entrance—if it could be considered so with its crumbling ruins on the ground. Lorenzo gripped the helmet I had used and motioned it to me without turning.

“Don’t make me regret my decision now.”

Truthfully, there was nothing to regret. While his mere shadow was irksome, something of this altitude was never to be twisted into egocentric retributions.

After a moment of shared silence that buzzed with tension, I took the space behind him, and once the helmet rested on my crown and my arms wrapped around his waist, Lorenzo veered onto the familiar route.

Le Maudit possessed no difference in its exterior nor interior, yet, after my last visit, I looked upon it in a different light. One that the envelope seemed to want to expose.

I pulled it from its place in my trousers, Lorenzo’s heat radiating onto my flesh as he shadowed behind me. “Are those coordinates?”

“Yes.” I had only unveiled its content last night, and after a quick study, the structure manifested like a puzzle piece. But something was missing. “Le Maudit matches the first row perfectly, but not the bottom one.”

45.630389228055996, -75.73509936682271

He plucked it out of my hand in a swift movement. “‘Cause it’s not a coordinate.”

“Then what?”

Lorenzo shrugged and looked at the entrance. “Only one way to find out.”

“Before we enter?—”

He broke away and stepped into a scene I had yet to warn him about. He froze at the sight of debauchery at the forefront. Once a month, outside the accustomed control patrons abided by, façades shed to challenge the lecherous capabilities ofvampires. Consuming each corner with untamed orgies invoked as such, and by stepping through, patrons gifted fixed consent.

Bitter-sweet blood sloshed in goblets, deep red streaks decorating sharpened fangs and flesh. Moans coated in lustful symphonies drowned the air and blurred what constraint I thought I held on a tight leash.

As an overseer, I had expected this. Nights like these held no bounds to a hierarchy that plagued our kind, titles and status reduced to bodies with one desire. However, I hadn’t anticipated that very lust thrumming through my veins.

Had this been a mistake? Should I have stretched my patience one more night? But it was the only moment I could visit without risking crossing paths with Anabella. Though she partook on a typical night, this was beyond the ordinary. It was pure eroticism that had the might to muddle everything and nothing at once, to bury intuition and withdraw vampirism in its carnal form.

Lorenzo’s wide shoulders rolled back as he angled his face to mine. Anger flamed his gaze, but something more clouded his hardened expression. Before he could speak, my hand intertwined with his and tugged him upstairs where there would be the least activity. Those who visited tonight desired to be front and center—not hidden away in the shadows.

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