Chapter 147

~~Beatrice~~

“Hey Clara.”

The werewolf raised a brow as she looked at her, but before the woman could find a polite way — or not so polite way — to get rid of her, Harcourt clapped once and leaned back in his chair.

“Ladies! Visiting?” And again, before Clara could find a way to tell her date that she didn’t want the vampires around, Harcourt grabbed a nearby chair. For three women. Total dunce.

Jennifer didn’t hesitate. She sat down at the small circular table and got comfy, leaned back in the fancy wire metal chair, folded one knee over the other, and finger waved at Brace.

Clara frowned at Jen, and ground her teeth subtlety enough only the dumb dude at the table wouldn’t notice. But, Clara didn’t know Jen, didn’t know Jen was doing it on purpose, to make Clara jealous because she figured it’d get the two together faster, not because she wanted to steal Brace from her. Drama. Jennifer embodied soap opera drama. She really did have more similarities with Daeva bitches like Isabella than a Ventrue like Elaine.

How the fuck did Triss and Jen ever hook up? They kinda didn’t, not really. Sorta just evolved that way.

Triss took a moment to check her hair and make sure it was covering her cheeks. The Discipline Obfuscate had a lot of ways to keep people from noticing her, Cloak of Night being the most used. But Face in the Crowd made sure that while people could see her, they just wouldn’t care about her, and as long as she made sure her teeth weren’t obviously visible, it’d stay that way.

“We were scouting,” Jennifer said, nodding to the hunter. “The Invictus and Carthians insist on being a nuisance.”

Clara put up her hands. “We’re staying out of it.”

“You and the pack, or you and Brace?” The Ventrue grinned as she gestured with her head toward the hunter.

Harcourt shrugged. “Uh, both, I guess? The Prince has done right by Marge, Dennis and me, and she doesn’t want us getting involved. As long as people — kine, I guess — stay out of it too, I got no problem.” Without so much as a glance to Clara for permission, the hunter grabbed another nearby chair, slid it over, and gestured to the two remaining ladies. Clara looked annoyed, but with Brace, not the girls. She probably didn’t realize just how nice the hunter was, until now. Nice to a fault.

But then, maybe that’s what Clara liked? Jack was nice to a fault, or at least he used to be. Still kinda was, but also kinda wasn’t, curse or no curse. Growing up was painful, especially for someone like Jack, and every time Triss caught up with the kid it was easy to see he was growing more bitter and upset with the world. Harcourt, on the other hand, seemed impervious to that kinda shit, considering the rough life he’d had while still being a nice goofball. Maybe that’s what Clara wanted?

Or the girl was just dating a nice guy, cause Jack was off the menu and she finally accepted that.

Samantha glanced at Triss, and Triss gave her a playful shove. Go sit, dumbass. Smiling, Samantha took the other chair and got comfortable.

“I hope it stays that way,” Sam said. “No kine getting hurt, I mean. I’m uh, pretty new to this vampire thing, but—”

A waiter came up to them, but Clara shook her head, waving him off. Yeap, she was annoyed. Well, sucked to be her, an info update was important, and one of the best ways to get one was randomly, like this, catching people off guard so they couldn’t formulate crafty answers easily.

“But uh, I’m more worried about Jack,” Sam continued. “He’s going to try and fix everything himself, like he always does.”

Clara nodded, wincing a little as she took a memory dive. “He does seem to do that.”

Triss raised a hand. “But we’re all staying out of it, right? I mean, you know, barring a really shitty exception, we’re gonna let the two idiot groups duke it out. And Jacob says it’s not the first time they’ve butted heads, and they’re still here, so it can’t get too bad, right?”

Everyone looked at each other, frowning or wincing. Yeah, she didn’t believe herself either.

“How is Marge and Dennis?” Jennifer asked. “I see you and Clara are enjoying yourselves,” a bit of a pause to make it obvious what she meant, “but I do wonder about those two.”

Harcourt nodded, taking a bite of his steak and chewing it fast. “They’d been hanging out with Leauvion’s crew for a long time. Jack apparently thought they were being, uh, hogged? But now they’re seeing what the other vamps are up to. Invictus mostly, though. Not that I blame them. Dolareido’s got this whole Las Vegas vibe going, and the crew and I had been doing backwater bullshit for years. Trying out hot tubs and fine dining,” he gestured to his meal, “seems to be more of an Invictus indulgence here.”

“It’s not everywhere?” Samantha asked.

“I’ve been in a few cities. Clara too. We’ve seen some weird setups, you know? Dolareido’s the only one I even know of with dragons in charge; we rarely even hear of them, let alone run into them. But in other cities, the Invictus aren’t always rich and wearing suits. Sometimes it’s more like a military state. Sometimes the city doesn’t have any luxury at all, and the Carthians and Invictus becomes more like, local anarchist punks versus the local mob.”

“Tijuana,” Clara said, “was a little more ... extreme. The Invictus were brutal, and thrived on markets a lot nastier than the shit you find in Dolareido.”

“Oh?” Sam asked, with the enthusiasm of a mother getting drawn into a documentary about crime. “How ... how bad was it?”

Clara picked up on Samantha’s innocent mom personality quick, and she laughed as she leaned in a little toward her. “Heavy drugs sold to kids, sex slaves, and we ran into one incident involving organ trafficking.”

“Oh god. And you were fighting the vampires there?”

“It didn’t start out that way, but everything went to shit quick when the vamps realized we were in the city. They didn’t want to talk, just wanted us out. Then we ran into a new Uratha, Arturo Ibarra, and things got even more confusing. Eventually we had to leave.”

“Wow. That ... that does sound a lot worse than Dolareido.”

Harcourt nodded, chewing with one side of his mouth so he could talk with the other, smiling the whole time. “That asshole Jeremiah tricked us pretty bad. I mean, he didn’t have to try very hard; most cities we’d seen with vampires had a nasty side to them. But with Dolareido, he told us a lot of horror stories, and we came here full intent on war, you know? If we’d known the Prince was so strict about how kine are handled in Dolareido, a lot more than just Dennis, Marge and me would have sided with Jack.” His smile faded for a while, but once he started chewing again, his smile came back, and he nodded to them all as he swallowed. Easiest way to a man’s heart, his stomach.

“Perhaps Dennis and Marge could visit the Circle?” Jen said, and she made sure to put a little slutness in her voice. “Or you? We’re all quite friendly in the Circle, and comfortable with each other.” Leaning back, the Ventrue made a small gesture to Sam, and to Triss behind her.

Harcourt raised a brow, but when he saw the other vampires not exactly deny what Jen said, he coughed and choked on some more of his food, before managing to swallow it down.

“I don’t think Harcourt is gonna be seduced by a random offer for an orgy,” Clara said, narrowing her eyes at Jen.

“Oh? I heard y—”

Triss slapped Jen upside the back of the head, and Jen went quiet after a tiny squawk. Harcourt blinked, confused, and Clara breathed a hidden sigh of relief as she smiled up at Triss. Yeah, Jacob might have hated the werewolves, but Triss didn’t, and just cause Clara had made a drunken mistake once or thrice with Jessy’s ghouls didn’t mean it was worth rubbing her face in it. Not that Harcourt would care, but Clara seemed worried anyway.

“Jen’s lewdness aside,” Triss said, “it’s probably best the hunters steer clear of the Circle. You are hunters, and the Circle don’t always do ... nice things, to kine.”

That earned a frown from the man. It didn’t fit his personality at all.

“What?”

Triss put up her hands. “Don’t worry about it. Nobody dying you’d care about. Check the obituaries if you don’t believe me. And I’m guessing the hunters do that regularly anyway.”

“Missing persons reports, actually. But obituaries sometimes too.”

“Ooh.” Samantha’s eyes went wide as she looked at Harcourt. “Do ... do you hunters stand around as you put up pictures on walls, and draw webs connecting them? Or is that all digital now? Do you, um, stay up all night reading newspapers about old, mysterious deaths? Do you do stakeouts and stuff?”

Clara, Jen, and Triss all struggled to keep from laughing. There was no denying the kind of woman Samantha was. But thankfully for Samantha’s sake, Brace was too dumb to pick up on it, and probably just figured she was an inquisitive soul.

“Uh, sorry. Don’t wanna give away trade secrets.”

“Oh! Oh, right, sorry. It’s just so fascinating! I’ve only been a vampire for half a year, not even, and all this cloak and dagger stuff is scary, and interesting!”

“It’s scary, I’ll give you that. Dolareido ain’t like the other cities my friends and I have dealt with.” He sighed as he leaned back, shaking his head. “Kills me that I couldn’t convince more of them to listen to me. But hunters don’t usually cooperate, you know? Solo gigs, sometimes a pair. They didn’t want to listen to me, didn’t trust me.”

“They listened to Jeremiah though?” Triss asked.

“Someone like Jeremiah doesn’t come along often. Dude had connections, magical tools, and the most insane force of will you’ve ever seen. He could have walked into a bar full of strangers, and had everyone in there following him into the pit of Hell thirty minutes later. And Angela, that psycho bitch was scary as fuck, but at the same time, you knew she could get the job done. Whenever shit hit the fan, Angela always came out on top.”

Samantha sighed as she looked down.

Harcourt’s eyes went wide as he realized. “Oh shit, sorry.”

“It’s ok. That was ... it was...” Sam clutched her necklace for a few quiet seconds before lifting her head. “Bad things happened. But Jeremiah and Angela are dead, and I got to talk to my daughter again. I still get to, sort of.”

Brace leaned in. “I heard about that. I ... don’t want to overstep and tell you what you should do with your life. Or your second life, or whatnot. But, ghosts are dangerous, Samantha. Very dangerous.”

“Do you ... know a lot about ghosts?”

He shook his head vehemently as he took another bite of his meal. “Not as much as some of the other hunters I’ve ran into. But I’ve dealt with a few ghosts in my time, and it’s always the same story. Given enough time, ghosts turn bad. I don’t know why, probably something to do with that they’re ghosts and don’t exactly think, just ... do. But every ghost I’ve dealt with, I ran into because they started causing trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Killing people.”

“Oh.” Samantha looked down again.

“But hey, I don’t know if that’s gonna happen to Mary. Probably lots of ghosts out there we don’t know about because they don’t do things to attract attention.”

But they all knew the dude was speaking truth earlier. And the truth fucking sucked.

“I think you were making Clara jealous,” Sam said, “flirting with Harcourt like that.”

Jennifer chuckled as the three of them walked the streets, not in any real direction, just wandering. They were hungry too, and looking for a meal.

“You have to admit, Samantha, that Harcourt is a delicious looking man.”

“Yeah, but he’s dating Clara! Or, you know, kinda is.” Young relationship, far as they knew.

“Jen was doing it on purpose,” Triss said. “She knew it’d make Clara jealous.”

“What? Why? That’s mean.”

“She was doing it cause she’s hoping it’ll give Clara the nudge she needs to be more proactive. The girl hasn’t had the most successful romance life in Dolareido, so a kick to the ass might get her moving, get her out of her rut.”

“Ooooh. That’s smart.” Samantha nodded as she smiled, understanding clicking into place. “Still mean, though.”

“I am a surgeon with a scalpel,” Jen said, returning Samantha’s nod.

Triss laughed, shaking her head. “More like a butcher with a cleaver.”

“Either way, the meat gets cut, and progress is made. Now hopefully Clara will take the initiative and find a little happiness. And leave her interest in Jack behind before it gets her hurt. Or dead.”

“Dead?” Samantha asked.

“Of course. Jack and the Prince are an item, and if Clara ever pushes a little too hard, I can imagine your sire pushing her back. Off a thirty-story building.”

“Jesus,” Triss said. “I don’t think she’ll kill her. Unless...”

Samantha gasped again. “Unless!?” Damn, the Daeva was just too cute.

Laughing, Triss gave the woman a pat on the arm. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go find ourselves some men to seduce and drain, and tomorrow night, I’ll try that ritual.” And hope to fuck it worked, and didn’t leave Samantha traumatized for it.

~~Natasha~~

“Jessy, J-Jack is—oh my god!” Natasha stared at her laptop, squeaked, and as realization set in, she groaned. “You said you’d be ok to talk!” Apparently, she should have given Jessy more than a five minute warning she was going to call.

Jessy and Eric were sitting on the couch, facing the laptop they had on the table in front of them. Kat the cat sat on the couch back, blissfully dozing the night away, while her owner and his lover had sex. The damn Gangrel was leaning back against Eric’s chest while the man had his hands holding her hips, and she had her legs between his, almost close enough together to hide her bits. Almost, but not quite, and the angle showed that the two were having anal sex, while a lot ... lot lot of white stuff trickled out of her sex.

Casual, lazy anal sex, judging from the complete lack of movement in the two.

“Sorry,” Eric said as he peeked around Jessy’s shoulder for the camera. “Her idea. We’d been relaxing, and then you texted her, and—”

“Th-This is how you relax!?” She leaned toward the laptop so she knew her angry face filled their camera.

Jessy shrugged and gestured to the cat only a foot away. “Kat understands.”

“Kat is a cat!”

Laughing, Jessy leaned back against Eric’s chest, let her head roll back onto his shoulder, and she slowly spread her legs until they nudged his apart. One of her hands drifted down to caress her very swollen clitoris, while the other teased and massaged her breasts. And the whole while, Eric kept his grip on her hips, and slowly pushed her back and forth.

Well, they were relaxing, that much was true. There’d be sweat if they’d been going at it rough, and there wasn’t any. Which meant Natasha really was interrupting their lazy relaxing sex, which she also knew they both kinda deserved with all the shit everyone had been going through, them included.

“I’ll call b-back.”

“No! Come on, don’t do that. You know I love it when you watch.” Jessy leaned forward until she was literally leaning over the table, and she planted her hands against it as she smiled at Tash. Which of course made her big breasts hang underneath her, and Tash had to make a very strong effort to not look at them.

Natasha didn’t have the same bisexual tendencies a lot of women in Dolareido had. Or at least, not as much. That didn’t change that Jessy looked really, really good naked.

“Fine! F-Fine. Just ... hurry up, ok?”

“Yeah alright. We’ve been kinda just grinding for a while now anyway.”

~~♥♥♥~~

A moment later, Jessy was on her knees on the couch, a big towel beneath her knees, elbows on the couch arm, and she made sure to arch her back and stick her large ass out as she got comfortable. Eric got behind her on his knees too, lined his length up, took her hips again, and thrust and yanked at the same time, burying himself inside. Tash couldn’t see the actual point of penetration, looking at their profile like she was, but the angle indicated anal again.

No matter how much she tried to not, Natasha couldn’t help but watch Eric, his thick muscular arms, his defined abs, his hard ass, and his long cock, as he pounded Jessy’s ass. Each thrust meant the woman’s big butt hit his pelvis hard enough to have the whole thing rippling, and her big boobs jiggling under her. They also had her groaning as Eric picked up the pace.

Kat, right beside Eric from the camera’s angle, didn’t care in the slightest. She licked herself a few times, glanced at the laptop and Natasha, licked herself a few more, then settled on the couch back once again.

The boys weren’t around. If they were, they’d probably say some stupid stuff like ‘oh wow look at that’ and maybe gesture to the way Jessy’s body looked absolutely fantastic in that position, back arched down and ass up. They’d want Natasha to notice, and she would. But Natasha would notice Eric more, like she was now. An innocent treat! The boys didn’t mind. And Jessy really liked it when Natasha watched. So did Natasha, much as she kept trying to convince herself otherwise.

Eric liked it too, evidently. He twisted his chest a little, making sure Natasha could see the muscles as he built up a sweat. Show off. He made some grunts and groans that were less natural, more practiced, more the kinda noises a guy made when he was trying to be pretty for the camera. They weren’t bad, Tash even kinda liked their more controlled sound, and she doubted Eric noticed he was doing it. A natural actor?

Either way, Jessy certainly loved hamming it up for the camera, and Tash could see it helped her get off, but she wasn’t a good actor. Awesome and attractive and full of passion, but a horrible actor. She just did whatever felt good, and whatever she thought made her look hotter.

Natasha gulped, and stared on as Jessy bounced back and forth on the couch until she came. But Tash’s jaw utterly dropped when Eric pulled out of her, set his cock along her ass, and came as well, drenching her back in layer after layer of cum. Tash had seen this done to her from her own perspective, but it wasn’t the same as seeing it from the outside.

Vampires had the Blush of Life to let them basically fake life, and since that was an ability fueled by vitae, they could push it if they wanted. It made sense why some vampires got addicted to sex, and basically spent all night every night having it, as long as they had some blood to fuel their Blush. Werewolves didn’t. Instead, the strange wolf thing living inside them drove their bodies to superhuman abilities, and that included regeneration. And that included, uh, all the juicy stuff.

By the time Eric was done, thick white lines flowed down Jessy’s sides, down her ribs, and down to her teardrop breasts hanging underneath her, until they dripped onto the towel on the couch cushions. The cum flowed down her waist, and some flowed down her ass when Eric backed up a bit, and trickled down her thighs as he coated her. Wow, she looked like a painting.

~~/♥♥♥~~

“D-Do ... you always have anal sex?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Jessy, shivering as she recovered, eventually stood up and smiled down at the laptop. Having sex in the living room must have been common, cause she reached over, grabbed another giant fluffy towel, and cleaned herself off. She didn’t bother hiding any of herself while she did it, of course.

“I like both,” the Gangrel said, shrugging. “Eric likes both. Why?”

“I dunno, I just ... I mean...”

“Well, unlike you, I don’t have two guys to fill me up, so I can only do one hole at a time.”

Tash groaned and buried her face in her hands. Trying to talk to Jessy about sex was a mistake, always leading to more ridiculous, crass comments. Horrible talk like that was fine in the middle of sex, when everyone’s brains were all clouded with hormones and stuff, but it was vulgar when everything was done.

Or was that just Tash still being a prude? Well, she wasn’t a prude, she knew that! Not with her sex life. But still, Jessy was a bit much sometimes.

Case in point, Jessy made sure to wipe Eric’s length off with the towel, and made a show of it for the camera. And Eric, completely corrupted by Jessy’s evil ways, didn’t stop her or twist away or anything. If anything, he posed a little, and subtly flexed his abs and stuff, like posing for the camera before a fighting match.

But he laughed, quite aware of what Jessy was doing, and how silly it was, and eventually slipped on a pair of boxers as he sat down. Jessy tried to sit down next to him, but he blocked her.

“Get dressed.”

“Ugh, fine.” Jessy reached down and put on her underwear and her blouse, and sat down with Eric. The sight of Jessy cuddling, like full on romantic lovey dovey cuddling, was a strange sight, and Natasha couldn’t help but smile. Which earned a flip of the middle finger from the Gangrel at the camera. “What’d you say about Jack?”

“R-Right, Jack. Jack is ... um ... Jack doesn’t know about Minerva’s legacy yet, right?”

Eric winced. Jessy shrugged.

“Course he does. I messaged him. Dude needs to know.”

Natasha sighed, leaned forward over her laptop, and rested her chin in a palm.

“He d-deserves to know, but it might have been better if he didn’t, you know? At least not yet. The Prince doesn’t w-want us to let Samantha know about Black Blood.”

“You fucking serious?” Jessy snapped her eyes to Eric, but he put up his hands in quick surrender, and she groaned as she leaned back toward the camera. “Samantha is the nicest vamp in the whole fucking city, and we’re just gonna let her keep dating that asshole Jacob?”

“The Prince thinks it’s ... complicated, and w-we shouldn’t try and make Samantha do anything. And if we d-did, it might tip Black Blood off. We need to be stealthy.”

“Jesus,” Eric said.

“Fucking right, Jesus! Samantha’s her childe! Jack’s mom! Like ... god damn it.” Realization set in, Tash could see it on her friend’s face, and Jessy leaned back on the couch and against Eric’s shoulder as she accepted the cold truth of the situation. There was some logic to the Prince’s choice, no matter how much they hated it. “Your boss is a cold bitch, Tash.”

Natasha laughed. “So was Maria.”

“Ha, true.”

“W-What did you message Jack?”

“Just that Black Blood is doing whatever Minerva was doing in the past, and is probably gonna get us all killed.”

Natasha frowned at her, and then Eric, who again put up his hands in surrender.

“She pays my salary, Tash. Plus, you know, the whole loving her thing.”

Right, loving her, and thus telling her very secret stuff. A dangerous thing to do, but something Tash would have to seriously think about in the future when dealing with Matthew and Arturo. She couldn’t break her trust with the Ordo, but there had to be a common ground she and the boys could walk on.

“Jack’s smart,” Jessy said. “He’ll talk to the Prince before he does anything.”

And that conversation might not go all that well. Tash had just recovered from a horrible situation with her boys, but what Antoinette was doing might even be worse. Sure it made sense, tactically, but emotionally she was being utterly brutal, leaving Samantha in her situation and ignorant of it besides. Jack might not take it too well, and with the curse thing making him a ticking time bomb, things could get very bad.

“I got a m-message,” Tash said. “From the boys. They said we should talk with Clara.”

“How much Clara know?” Jessy asked.

“M-More than Avery used to, since Jack told her about stuff.” Repaying Clara a favor, Jack told Natasha later. “But, after all that’s happened, I think Avery’s caught up. They were investigating the t ... t-tears before Jack told her about the mysterious threat we’d been investigating. And after what happened with Eric, Sándor, me, and the boys in the Hisil? The Uratha p-probably know everything now.”

“How much is everything?”

“B-Black Blood is responsible for the t-tears, and that we’re terrified that it’s up to something. That it might t-tear down the walls between realms.” The communication software Tash and Jessy were using was secure, hopefully. “Clara knew, and now the boys know that the tears are happening in more places than just the Hisil. And it’s n-not like I could make the boys not tell Avery, not after everything we’ve found out.”

Jessy grimaced. “Shit. Sounds like we’re bedfellows with the wolves, whether we want to be or not.”

“But you’re busy w-with a war.”

“Fuuuuuck, don’t remind me.”

“We should go talk with them then,” Eric said. “Or at least talk with Clara, like Matt and Art suggested. She’s, uh, a little more understanding than Avery.”

“That was then,” Tash said, “this is n-now. A lot’s happened, and I bet she’ll be more willing to help us.”

Eric shook his head. “Maybe. Avery’s stubborn, and it wasn’t all that long ago a short vampire kid thoroughly kicked her ass.”

“Clara then?” Jessy asked. “I mean, back in the day, Jack could just go to anyone and have a chat you know? The monsters, the wolves, the covenants, whatever. Ain’t like that anymore.”

Sighing, Natasha nodded. “Clara then. I’ll t-tell the boys, and we can arrange a meeting. Matt and Art should have told Avery what we want to do, but ... but if you think we should go through Clara...”

“Clara,” they said together.

~~Damien~~

“I don’t think she’s dead.”

Damien raised as a brow as he met Gloria’s eyes. The two of them sat in his apartment, alone. Fiona had been there earlier, but when Gloria Jenning showed up, Damien thought it best the two vampires chat privately. And using her crazy Begotten powers, Fiona had gone into his closet, and literally disappeared.

Sometimes it was so easy to forget that Fiona, bright and fun and jovial and the only sunlight he could touch without immediately bursting into flames, was a monster of nightmares and darkness. An actual, literal, monster of fear.

Mental note: go on a hunt with her again sometime. She’d explained that Begotten like her could sort of feed by proxy, share in the hunt, and alleviate some of their chronic hunger issues. Something about vampires, and other paranormals, all being creatures of the Dark Mother. Azamel propaganda? Fiona had never actually spoken to any sort of Dark Mother entity, but that didn’t mean she didn’t exist.

Damien leaned back in his couch as he watched Gloria. She sat in the sofa chair, leaning forward with elbows on her knees, eyes set and determined. He didn’t need Auspex to see she wasn’t lying.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because, I can ... feel her, I guess.”

“Feel her? Ah, the childe sire bond.”

“Yeah, exactly. I’d feel her if she died, right? I’ve heard sires talk about it, about how it feels when the childe dies, or when their sire did. They can feel it, literally. And I’m not feeling that.”

“I’ve never sired. I wouldn’t know.”

“What about when Lucas died?”

“I was preoccupied.” Collapsing on his knees in the pile of ashes that was his sire had been a scarring moment. Any emotion he felt then was a maelstrom, mixed, and unknowable except as agony.

“Well I have sired, and the moment Amanda opened her eyes from death, I felt it. It’s subtle, but ... but it’s there, always tugging at me.” She shook her head, hard enough her short black hair bounced against the sides of her wide eyes. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. That little tug in my ... in my insides, it’s still there.”

Frowning, Damien nodded as he looked down, chin in his fingers. “Then we have a problem.”

“Problem? This is good news! I just have to find her!”

“You know there’s a issue. You wouldn’t have come to me if you thought there wasn’t. You would have gone to Michael.”

She winced at that, and looked down as well. “I ... don’t trust Michael. He said Amanda’s dead, and when he announced it to the rest of us, he gave me a stern look.”

“You think he knows you’d realize she’s not?”

“I do.”

It was strange hearing Gloria talk flat and serious. The power of the sire childe connection, he supposed. It wasn’t as compelling as the parent child connection, but still, even a vampire could become quite protective of their childe, given the right circumstances.

“That is an interesting situation then. Michael is no fool. If he has hidden Amanda away, possibly staked and trapped in torpor, so he can use her as a catalyst for his war, then he must have realized there would be repercussions. He knew that you would suspect she lived. And he knew that, if and when this war ends, her being alive is a situation he would have to resolve.”

“Resolve? You mean—”

“If he was willing to kill her for this war, he would have by now. It would have been a simple affair for him to kill her when Garry’s distraction set the building on fire. The issue now, is what will Michael do when the war is over. Will he release Amanda? How will that go over with the Primogen?” Damien sighed as he fell back against his couch again, shoulders slumping as invisible lead weights attached to him. “So many unknowns.”