Page 38 of Hunted

Time pressing close, which is an absurd thought for an immortal. And yet… seven days have passed.

If Dorian is bold enough to test borders, others will follow.

I will not give them cause.

It is time to see Eira Cross again.

And Gods help anyone who attempts to stand between me and what is mine.

8

EIRA

Being summoned twice in as many weeks does something to a person. It doesn’t inspire loyalty or warm fuzzies.

It inspires homicide.

I stand outside Vanta, one of Umbra’s crown jewels, and stare up at the black-glass façade hiding more sins than the church across the street. The entrance is guarded by men who don’t look like bouncers so much as executioners waiting for paperwork.

It’s the kind of place where humans come to feel important and vampires come to remind everyone they’re top of the food chain.

My collar sits high on my throat, a strip of matte leather that looks like fashion to anyone who doesn’t know better. A ward. An extra buffer. Maybe a prayer.

Selphine’s work.

Three months of breathing room for almost six months of my pay cheque, assuming I don’t do anything stupid. Like bleed. Or get too close to a certain centuries-old, hot-as-Netheris vampire who has just summoned me like I’m a dog he’s playing lethal fetch with.

Fuck my life.

I snap my name at the bouncer, almost daring him to turn me away so I have an excuse to leave. He studies me for a beat, murmurs into an earpiece, then steps aside without asking me for ID.

That alone makes my teeth grind.

Inside, the club is a cathedral of velvet and decadence. Low lighting, black marble and gold accents whisper money.

All very tasteful, until the scent hits.

Perfume. Sweat. Feral hunger dressed up as luxury.

Umbra doesn’t do anything halfway, and apparently heightened senses are the theme of the night.

I’m near gagging by the time I’m escorted to a waiting area beneath the VIP mezzanine. It isn’t so much a lounge as an antechamber.

A holding pen.

Humans in expensive desperation cluster with low-level vampires oozing manic arrogance, all of them glancing furtively towards the upper floor, frantic for a summons that probably won’t come.

According to the grapevine, this is where Valentin interviews those who want to be Made. Where he toys with the desperate and the greedy who’ll sell their first, second and third borns for a shot at immortality.

His special guard, the Black Twelve, handle most turnings. Twelve men in Tom Ford black, matte onyx signet rings, shadow-metal cuffs hidden beneath tailored sleeves, and a thin black vein staining the inside of each left wrist. Every one of them over six foot five and moving with the contained violence of predators barely leashed.

Officially, they don’t turn more than two dozen vampires a year.

Unofficially, power has always preferred flexible accounting.

Apparently Valentin himself turns one, maybe two, every decade. Someone wealthy enough, ruthless enough, useful enough.

Yet everyone waiting here thinks destiny owes them a miracle.