Page 15 of Master Botosoni

I grab the asshole by the throat, squeezing my thumb into the cartilage that with one shift I could snap. “Do not test me. You’re on borrowed time in my region. It won’t be long before you do something so egregious that even your uncle will shun you from his grace. Apologize to the lady.”

He holds his throat when I let it go, and glares insolently at me, but better that now he’s glaring at me than at Catina’s breasts. She hasn’t said a word, her heart is racing, but that’s not the smell of fear—it’s out and out anger. The fearless beauty doesn’t allow him to apologize before getting in his face. “The next time you come near me, I will kick you in the balls so hard that you’ll never be able to use that pathetic little dick again.”

The vampire lord roars with a growl…

Chapter 12

Catina

The vampire’s eyes go flame red, and his fangs descend. There’s something extremely different about the way they look compared to when I’ve seen Botosoni’s do that very same thing. Passion and anger, two extremely different emotions but triggering the same physical changes to the vampire purebloods. He takes a menacing step forward, and I rethink my remarks. Perhaps now isn’t the time to let Botosoni know that growing up with brothers and having to fend off haters of the travelers, I had to learn how to defend myself from a very young age. But this is different.

Botosoni steps between us, though, and gives the lord a low guttural growl. “Think long and hard about your next step before you find yourself tossed out of my region without a further thought to your family or their connections. You won’t be as protected as you have in the past.” He gestures to the table. “Overmaster Descallia has had a front seat to your behavior tonight.”

The vampire lord’s eyes track his movement and widen, glancing over at the reserved table and into the reddened eyes of the Overlord himself. “The rogues and shifters should be our focus right now. If you want to keep your position, I would get sobered up and get a call into your soldiers. Get them on the ready. Now if you’ll excuse us, Catina and I need to meet with the others. I’ll let you and the other lords know more as soon as we have a plan to attack.”

Botosoni places a protective hand on my lower back and guides me and the others who’ve gathered around us back to the table just as Lucianna arrives with a group of people. She introduces us from left to right, all the way around the table as everyone gets settled into our seats. Her deep eyes glow with a green hue with excitement. “Silver and I know where they went.”

All eyes fall to them. Botosoni pours a glass of water from the vase in the middle of the table for me and himself, and then he passes it, waiting as everyone takes a seat, gathering a few chairs from a neighboring table, and squeezing in to make room around the crowded table.

Lucianna can barely wait before she explodes with information. “They did head back to the eastern side of the Carpathian range, but they didn’t go in as far as you would anticipate them to have gotten. There’s a den at the bottom of base, and it leads to various tunnels. We believe that’s where they’ve been hiding out since they moved into Botosoni’s region.”

Overmaster Descallia has been scowling as he listens, but now interrupts. “Tell me you didn’t go there alone after I asked you not to follow them?”

Our future queen rolls her eyes dramatically. “I did not go there alone, or at all. Silver and I were following their scent and came across a place right by the water’s edge way, way before you get to the range. One of them left a canteen. Silver used it to home in on their exact whereabouts with his powers of sight because we lost their tracks. They saw the tunnels. We’re still not certain if they wiped them as they went, or what, but we searched every bit of that area from one end to the other, right down to the lake where we saw them end, but we never found the trail of their prints picking up to leave. It’s as if they vanished into thin air right in the middle of nowhere, really.”

Willow and Raven exchange a furtive glance, but no one misses the exchange. Willow touches the stone around her neck. “It is very close to where the witches’ coven is located. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that the witches were protecting their territory, their land. Nobody just disappears into thin air, and being that close to the witches’ coven is not usually in someone’s best interest without a direct invitation to come onto our land.”

Descallia growls, looking at each of the witches and their mates. “Relationships aside, the witches are always going to think that land belongs to them while we will fight to the death defending it as our own.”

My eyes take in both of the witches, both now stroking their stones as if to calm the storm brewing amongst the group and the wrath of the Overmaster who could sear them with those red eyes in a second if he chose, but the redness dies down as quickly as it flamed. Instead, now, he looks thoughtful and inquisitive at the two witches. “Would Devora tell you if that were the case if you asked?”

Raven nods gingerly. “I think she would. The land is always going to be a point of contention, but she’s honestly tried to help where she could. She is always going to repay any debt she feels is owed, and she feels she owes the vampires for helping the witches get freed from Isala.”

Botosoni nods. “Good. Our fight with the rogues is not about that land,> although I know it continues to be a source of contention for us all. The witches have nothing to worry about in that regard.”

I glance at both Campania and Romano who have protective arms around the witches they’ve chosen to mate. If the witches and vampires can make it work, even with such a controversy as the land standing between them, surely it could work between Botosoni and me.

As if he hears every word that’s floating through my mind, his hand finds mine under the table and squeezes it in his.

My cheeks heat with embarrassment at the intimacy between us and the embers that are still burning hot beneath my skin, knowing that he could turn them into full fledge flames with just the right touch, in just the right place.

Campania clears his throat across the table. “If Devora and the other witches were defending themselves, we have no beef with them. Like Botosoni said, this is not about the land. It’s about the future of the vampires, and whether we remain a constant admired faction in the underworld or are taken over by rogues who want to continue roaming the world, snatching humans just for the sport for the blood. There are more refined ways of getting the nourishment you need these days, but the rogues like to attack and kill. We are simply not going to let them have their way.

Willow nods. “I don’t mind asking Aunt Devora if she or the other witches know anything about their disappearance. She’ll tell me if she can.”

Overmaster Descallia pours a glass of Descallia Red. “If the rogues are at the base of that mountain, they are a threat to us all, witches and vampires alike. And if Sheba is still helping them, it’s not just the rogue shifters we need to worry about; it’s every single one of the sheisty bastards. If she doesn’t cooperate fully, she’ll deal with me,” Descallia growls.

Campania, Sardinia, and Romano look grim at the turn this conflict has taken, and with the knowledge that the woman they love are caught in the middle of an all-out war because of the baubles they wear around their neck. I’m still not sure why fate has put me in the mix, but ever since being with the vampires, my powers have seemed to grow, and there is no denying my attraction for Botosoni.

Descallia’s not wrong, though. I know this region like the back of my hand, and those tunnels underneath that base only go so far in before running parallel with the face of the range. I take a drink of water, thinking through the different approaches we could take before speaking aloud. “They’ve laid trap after trap for us, led us from one place to another and then another. The Vade Mecum was clear—we need to have the three stones in order to succeed, and we do. But we need to be careful that we don’t put the ladies in any danger.”

I glance at the baubles hanging from Willow, Raven, and Madria’s necks, glowing. “What was it that Devora told you both?” I ask Raven and Willow. “Something like the stones coming together is exactly what the rogues want, right?”

Raven nods. “Exactly, she said that it’s written in the witches history, in their bible of sorts, that when the three stones come together, a play for power will surmount anything ever seen.”

I mull this over, and a plan begins to formulate in the back of my mind, quickly taking shape because my patience with the fucking rogues is near an end. “The stones will lead us to them, but it will be a trap to get the stones and our secrets. So how do we get them to come to us? I ask, smiling as an evil thought comes to mind.

Chapter 13

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