Page 56 of The Baritone's Rival

“Who’s watching Trent?” Oscar asked, desperate to fill the silence.

“I thought you didn’t want to hear about him,” Lillian answered without taking her eyes off her target.

“I…I was just checking in. I assumed you put someone on it.”

“Alan and Pip.”

“Oh. Good.” Alan and Pip were two vampire brothers that had come over from the London coven. They’d beenrecommended by Freddie’s old coven master to beef up security. They seemed nice, if a little bro-ey for Oscar’s tastes.

He couldn’t be annoyed at Lillian providing the bare minimum of information, considering that he’d asked to be kept out of it. Even so, he was unable to tamp down the instinctual need to check in on Trent, to make sure he was safe. That would probably never go away.

“Maybe Justin was lying about where the covenhouse is,” Oscar said, changing the subject. “Why would vampires choose to live in Canarsie, of all places?”

“Because the Azarian coven was gone, and their old covenhouse was taken over by a bunch of Brits.”

“Hey!” Oscar pursed his lips. The Grosvenor coven wasn’t just from the UK, even if Freddie and Lillian started it.

“And a few annoying Americans.” Lillian reached out and smacked Oscar on the arm. It stung, but he didn’t mind. It snapped him into the present moment.

“How many nights are we going to sit here and stare at an empty building?” Oscar stretched his arms over his head, fighting off a yawn.

Lillian sighed, staring a little longer at the old church.

“No more. Come on.” Lillian jumped up, heading to the door, the hardwood floor creaking as she stepped. Oscar trailed behind, glad to be out of the rank studio. Their vampire senses meant that he could detect every scent each sweaty aspiring yogi had left behind in the room. It was embedded in the architecture. He needed a break from the stench.

They bounded down the stairs and out to the first floor, stepping onto the sidewalk from the narrow hallway. Standing next to each other, they drank in the sight of the old sanctuary. The facade was a deep red brick, matching the rest of the block, and no light spilled out from the two large stained-glass windows. Without illumination from behind, Oscar couldn’tdecipher what they depicted. All he could see were human figures with halos.

Halos. There were no angels, not in his life. Instead, it was just shades of hurt and anger. Elliott was proof of that. And Trent…

Oscar should let him go. That would be smart. There were too many obstacles: he was human, he was straight, he was competition. Yet the one encounter with Trent, before it was rudely interrupted by his ex, had been exciting. Emotional, even. It wasn’t a typical hookup, and Oscar didn’t know what to do with that.

He also didn’t know if hecouldlet Trent go. His demon inside would push to be near him. At the very least, he’d have to be in the same city, or he’d be in literal pain. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his long life trailing behind the mate that rejected him. And when Trent died…

He shouldn’t dwell on that.

“I’ve never seen you think so much in the whole time I’ve known you.” Lillian smiled, her teeth white against the city night.

Oscar shook his head. “I hate it. I want to go back to what I do best: partying and fucking.”

Lillian crossed the street to get a closer look. “I don’t think the fucking is giving you what you need.”

Oscar shrugged, not answering. It didn’t matter if she was right. There wasn’t an easy fix.

Reaching the front steps, they split, each going to one of the windows. Oscar peered in through the muted kaleidoscope of color. There was no movement, no flicker of light. He couldn’t see in through the thick glass.

“Once Elliott is dead, will you give yourself a chance?”

“What?” Oscar stumbled, catching himself on a nearby shrub. “A chance at what?”

“You know…”

“I do not.”

Lillian rolled her eyes and walked a few feet to her left, bending down to where a tiny basement window nestled inches above the ground. It had been fully hidden from their vantage point across the street.

“A chance to feel something real for Trent.”

“Dammit, Lil,” Oscar said, moving to her side. “Matchmaking is supposed to be Anthony’s domain. It’s a coven master’s mate thing, not a head of security thing.”

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