Page 29 of Accidental Vampire

Panic exploded in his eyes, fear giving him a touch of strength to push himself away, but only a fraction.

I nodded, turning the giant knife in my hand. I swung and crashed through his neck with a dull sound. A second whack. The head gave way and rolled to stare at the cooler that would forever be just out of his reach.

TWENTY-TWO

LACHLAN

“This is not a good idea.” I stared out the window, the foliage blurring into a black fog.

“Understatement of the century.”

Aurora arrived two hours after my call, dressed to thrill, in a black cocktail dress and heels. In the decades I’ve known her, I don’t think I had ever seen her speechless before. She stood stock still surveying Tiffany, the dead body, the entire scene for a solid minute before declaring “I guess you’ve been having fun without me,” like it was a pity to not be invited to this level of carnage.

We had debated burning down the cabin, but Aurora was right, if it was Nadine’s property, she’d be more pissed at having to rebuild rather than hosing blood off the walls. Aurora made quick work of gathering up the body and the head and stashing it in the back of the van. It was not the most strenuous thing I’ve seen her do in heels. As petite as she might be, she had no issue with dead weight.

I looked over my shoulder for the billionth time. Tiffany was out cold, as comfortable as I could make her in the back of the van. I was desperate for her not to wake up. I knew what trauma could come from waking up next to a decapitated head. I closed my eyes and tried to take a settling breath. I curled my hand around the door handle, woozy and white knuckled. I willed away the memories. I couldn’t fall into that right now.

“Whatever this is about, she can’t find out. That’s why going to him is our only option.” She jerked her head toward the back of the van. Aurora hadn’t asked for details. She didn’t need them. She could do the math on her own, dead body plus unconscious vampire could only add up to one thing.

“We have history.”

“Yeah, I know, but he has more ‘history’,” she took her hands off the wheel to air quote, “with Veronica. This will delight him. Shaw will do anything to fuck up a Patron’s day.”

“Having a dead vampire and a newly made show up on your doorstep is more than a minor inconvenience for a Patron.” I mumbled.

“Exactly. Omar was a nobody. But you are a somebody. That’ll matter to Shaw.”

I rolled my eyes so loud Aurora probably heard it. She loved my place in society. She loved how everyone fawned over her when she was next to me. She loved the power being near me gave her. Fuck all that.

She drummed her fingernails on the wheel. She was picking through questions she had in her head, wasn’t she? I just didn’t care to answer any of them.

“What’s so special about her?”

“Nothing.”Everything.

“You’ve got bigger problems than a secret baby.”

“A secret baby?” It was my turn to stare at her opened mouthed.

“You obviously need to keep this a secret. Veronica would forgive you a lot, but this? You’ve been running around with some filthy snack in secret, thinking you’re just going to slip her into the Family no questions asked? The smartest thing to do, the right thing to do, would be to take her head before this ruined us.”

I lunged for her, curled my fingers around her neck, and squeezed. The van swerved and righted. I let her go, and her smile turned sultry. Aurora could never fully distinguish threat from foreplay.

“Right. Nothing special.” Aurora’s tongue was doused in bitterness.

“You’ve got bigger problems than a secret baby.” She repeated after she incorrectly assumed she had given me enough time to simmer down. I balled my hands into fists and flexed them. Tension was making everything stiff. Aurora waited for me to acknowledge her comment.

“How do you mean?” I relented.

She tapped an index finger on the wheel, like a metronome ticking out the rhythm of her concern. “There are rules against making new vampires. Veronica is very serious about those rules.”

Veronica broke her rules when she made that toy for me, what did she call it, Warrick? That boy who looked like… I squeezed my eyes shut, another image I didn’t need invading my head.

“Everyone is going to want her dead.”

Ah, that was it. That was the thing Aurora had been trying to spit out on this cursed carpool to Brooklyn.

“Veronica will get over it.” I flexed my fingers again, to push out the ache.

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