Page 21 of Happily Undead in Dark River

X just grinned, looking supremely confident. “Don’t I? Are you sure?”

I had no fucking idea what was going on. Who the hell was Titus? What was the Convocation? I was basically drowning in a tidal wave of my own stupidity.

Raul grunted something that sounded completely unflattering. “We will see what Lucius says when he gets here, hmm? Maybe he’ll take your toys off you just because he can? Just because he likes to watch you squirm like the maggot you are.”

Oh, that was it. I might be insignificant, and couldn’t fight to save my life, but I couldn’t stand here and let him speak that way. Fortunately, a smooth, familiar voice spoke from the doorway. “I do hope you aren’t speaking for me again, are you Raul?”

There was casual cruelty in the familiar voice that didn’t belong. I looked around Raul’s shoulders to Nico.

Only, it wasn’t Nico in the finely tailored suit. Oh, they looked the same, right down to the light tattoos on his face. But this Nico had a cruel twist to his mouth, and his eyes were cold, dark flint.

Raul blanched. “No, Sir. I would not.”

Not-Nico walked in, smiling pleasantly at me like he was a contestant in the Miss America pageant. It was all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

“Nico?”

I heard Tex’s sucked in breath. “Holy shit.”

X swallowed hard, his muscles flexed so hard I could see his muscles quiver in his back. “Lucius.”

He smiled almost fondly at X. “Ah, X. It’s good to see you looking so well. Are you going to invite me in?” He sounded so sincere despite the fact that he’d stabbed X in the back with the Traitor’s Blade. What a fucking sociopath. Lucius’ gaze landed on me. He gave X another long look. “Well? No? Damn witch,” he muttered under his breath and pushed past Raul.

He looked me over appraisingly. “Nicolai is my twin, as you probably have surmised by now. And you are?”

“Raine Baxter.”

He raised his brows in surprise. “Oh? You are the one that all the fuss was over? No offense, but I thought you must have been a great beauty.”

Well, ouch. Did I care that a sociopath thought I was ugly? Fuck. No.

He drifted closer, and both Tex and X went rigid beside me. “Perhaps there is something else about you that has them all so protective. As loathe as I am to say it, perhaps Raul is right. Perhaps I would like to take you from our friend here. But I would let you keep your half-blood pet. Wouldn’t that be lovely?” he cooed.

“No. Thank you.”

He laughed again, and it was a cruel, awful sound. “You speak like you have a choice, Fledgling.”

There was some kind of kerfuffle outside, and the real Nico appeared in my doorway. He still looked vicious, but there was passion in his eyes, not that cold barbarism. “Raine has a choice. Everyone in this town does. You do not have carte blanche to take what you want, Lucius, even if you believe you do. You still answer to the remaining members of the Vampire Council. Raine has done nothing wrong. She is not under the purview of the Enforcers.”

Lucius gave me a sneer. “Not yet. Everyone slips up eventually, even in this little false-utopia you’ve created.” He stared down his twin, cocking his head. “You care for her too?”

Nico scoffed. “She is a vampire under my care. They all are. The only thing I care about is making sure you go back to where you came from, my vampires unmolested by you and your thugs.”

Now that hurt. He didn’t mean it. I knew he didn’t, but still hearing him saying the words bruised something inside my chest.

Lucius laughed, looking over Nico’s shoulder to where Judge and Walker stood. Walker looked stoic, but Judge’s eyes begged for bloodshed. “I think that some of my thugs have already been molesting this one,” he laughed, looking between Judge and X.

Nico didn’t smile. “They are no longer yours, Brother. They are mine.”

Lucius walked out the front door, clapping Nico on the shoulder. “We’ll see, Brother. We will see.”

Nico sent me a longing look and followed after his twin, no doubt to stop him from terrorizing the rest of the town. Walker went with him, but not before mouthing, “Are you okay?”

I nodded and gave him a weak smile. It had been a big fucking day, and my emotions were bordering on total meltdown.

Judge came in, slamming the door in Raul’s face. I gave him a lopsided grin, that quickly turned watery as my adrenaline spiked through my veins. Judge quickly had me in his arms. “Fuck. They are terrorizing the place out there. The shook down Bert and Beatrice’s Diner, smashed everything. They’ve completely decimated the Doc’s office looking for ‘evidence’. What a fuckin’ joke. They’ve frisked down everyone they could find and have been going door to door hoping someone will crack and spill something they can use to take the entire town down.”

I shook my head. I now knew why everyone had gone rigid with fear at the very mention of the Vampire Nation and the Enforcers.

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