Page 67 of How to Entice a Fiend

I hand her my phone as she proceeds to roll around on the floor to get every angle of the cat.

Once Orin gets home, it wasn’t long before Alexei, who’d gone back to the department, called and asked us to meet him at the council hall where we now stand.

“You know, when you were like, ‘Finn, the very man I would give my heart to if I wasn’t already spoken for, the one true king of humans, I need you like I need Claude in a cheetah thong,’ I thought it’d be for something a little more fun,” I say as Alexei stares at me. His breath must have been taken away by my speech.

“Why is Claude wearing a cheetah thong?” Bentley asks as he joins us at the tail end of the conversation.

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Briar teases.

“I wish I was!” Claude says as he pushes his pants down enough I can see the edge of his lime green underwear. “Chartreuse today, baby.”

“What in the world is ‘chartreuse’?” Alexei asks, and neither Briar nor Bentley seem to know. “You know what? I don’t feel like I need to know.”

“It’s the color of my underwear!” Claude displays a bit more for everyone to see just as Marcus and Orin walk up.

“Wow, we sure look professional,” Marcus deadpans.

Claude waves his worries off. “I was teaching them what color chartreuse is. As simple as that.”

“Simple as that, Finn,” Alexei echoes. “The reason we are being judged and looked at is because of you, I would like you to understand. Because you started it with your thong speech.”

“Because of me? Why the hell is it my fault?” I ask, positive that I didn’t ask Claude to whip his pants down and flash the goods! “You’re the one who didn’t know what chartreuse was. Like gosh, everyone knows what that is.”

“Who invited the VRC here?” Harris asks, voicing his distaste loud enough everyone can hear.

“I was just wondering that as well,” Callum says. Apparently, the two have made friends and no part of that sounds good. Or maybe they overheard our underwear conversation.

I smile sweetly. “We thought you might care or wonder what we found out about the people who died at the hotel and Mads’s abduction, but evidently, that’s not the case. It’s kind of strange you don’t want us here. Like… if one of you were abducted or hunted down, I would really want to know what happened unless I was involved. Although that’d be silly saying you two were involved. Ha. Anyway. We will be on our way.”

“I very much would like to know,” Ha-joon says. “One of our own is missing and there are multiple vampires who were killed that no one knows. Have you found the ID on any of them?”

“Love to tell you but we’re obviously not welcome,” I respond as I give Ha-joon a shrug. “Good luck. I mean… you guys are going to need it.”

“I was too rash,” Callum says with a grimace. “Please, come in.”

“Me… too,” Harris chokes out.

“What was that?” Marcus asks as he eyes Harris. “I might have missed what you said, so please, repeat it. If you’d like to be on your knees when you do so, I wouldn’t complain.”

“I would… absolutely love for all of you to join us,” he says, ducking his head when Marcus’s aura hits him. I’m pretty sure Marcus would be happy to never see Harris again.

“Good to know,” Marcus comments as we all file back into the room we were in during the last meeting. I don’t expect this one to go much better but sadly, we don’t have Ender to waltz in and entertain me. Although it’d honestly be fantastic if we did, so we could figure out what happened to him and Mads. Rylee is going to be an absolute mess until we can assure her that Ender didn’t leave her and really is coming back for her.

Hopefully, she’s now convinced that he didn’t leave her because she “wasn’t being good.” It’s hard to reassure a child while still being uncertain and careful of what to say to her. Orin told us that Rylee was concerned the “monster from Ender’s nightmares” had come for him and will be coming for us next. The problem is that she doesn’t know who this monster is or anything about him. It sounds like someone might have been hunting Ender and could be the very person who took them both. But when you have nothing beyond that, it’s hard to know where to look.

Since Orin came with us to speak to the council, River is watching Rylee. She wasn’t thrilled by this until he showed her the wonders of “cat TV,” which Señor Fluffybottom thought was quite thrilling.

“Did you identify who the dead were?” Leona asks.

“Some of them,” I admit. “We know their identities. We’re not quite sure what their connection to Mads or the council is. We’re unsure if he was personally targeted or targeted because he’s part of the council. The blood on the floor has been identified as belonging to Mads,” I say, refusing to mention that the blood splatter on the wall was Ender’s blood.

Mads’s blood had come up in our records since all new vampires have to be registered, which includes blood andfingerprints. But looking into Mads and reading his vampire registry left me surprised that he is an extremely young vampire. I think all of us were startled, even Marcus who, while saying that he assumed he was younger, was surprised by how much younger.

“Callum, how well do you know Mads?” Marcus asks.

“I know him well enough.”

“The council petitioned to have him turned. Why?”

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