Page 81 of B Negative

Twenty-Eight

At some point,the haze of desire and thick hormones lifted, and Julian and I stopped fucking.

We lay nude on his sofa, a towel between us and the fine material. The papers he’d been working on were strewn on the floor. I rested in the hollow of his shoulder, and he traced long, languid strokes down the line of my body.

We lay like that, unmoving and silent, reveling in the afterglow of our debauchery until a young vampire with a tablet identical to Sunny’s strode into Julian’s office.

“My humblest apologies for the interruption,” he said, gaze fixed firmly to the rafters. “You have a meeting with Claudia St. James in a half an hour, sir.”

Julian sighed, but didn’t move. “Thank you for the reminder, Daniel.”

“Of course, sir,” he said and sped out of the office, double time.

“My new Sunny,” he said, by way of an apology.

“Do you like him?”

Julian shrugged, getting up to pull on some clothes. “We’re still in the first stages. We’ll see how it goes.”

I put my clothes back on as well, though what I really wanted was a shower. “Do you have time to tell me about the wolves that were under Titus’s control years ago?”

He didn’t so much as glance at the clock on his desk before answering me. “Of course. Come, let’s have a seat.”

He made space for me on the sofa and pulled me down with him, lifting an arm to wrap around my shoulder and hold me close as he told his viewpoint of events. “Titus had wanted a wolf alpha in his collection for the longest time, but he wasn’t able to trick one into his tower, and he couldn’t risk simply overpowering one, not when that would mean all out war.”

“Titus and his vamps could probably take a wolf pack.”

“You’re right. They probably could. But wolves are much more community minded, more able to come together in times of need than vampires, generally speaking. If Titus had taken an alpha from any pack, he would have to deal with all the packs beating down his door as one uber unit.”

The very thing he now feared from the witches in his city.

The thing the witches here were able to do without an issue.

“Instead, he convinced the witches in his territory to use magic to keep every wolf in fifty miles in their wolf form. The wolves immediately knew something was wrong. They felt the magic overtake them and were able to follow the source of the magic back to Cypress City.”

“What did they smell the magic or something?”

“I’m not sure about the mechanics of it, love.”

I settled back against him, content to hear his version of events and let him stroke my hair.

“Ten packs were affected, the three that lived in the forests here and the seven packs that populated the outskirts of Cypress City. And when our three packs made it across the river, Titus had his witches lock them in his forest, compelling them never to leave and to always protect his city.”

I filed it all away for when I got Titus to tell me his version of events.

“Are there wolves still living who were there? Who experienced it?”

“I only managed to negotiate for the wolves’ release a few incursions ago. Most wolves remember it.”

“No. I’m asking whether there are wolves alive who remember it happening? Getting trapped in their wolf.”

“It’s possible. Wolves live quite a bit longer than humans, but I’m not sure if they live quite that long. Besides, anyone who might remember, might not want to relive it.”

That was fair. I’d hardly want to talk about it if it happened to me.

“Why the sudden wolf curiosity?”

I started to say I wanted all the information I could get about the wolf packs so I could help Jaxson the best way I could. But that wasn’t the whole of it. Some parts of me were still vetting Titus. Making sure my friend wasn’t married to an actual psychopath. I could deal with Titus being a former amoral vampire who’d turned himself around. And I desperately wanted that to be true.

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