Page 62 of A Vow for the Vamp
“Tomorrow night—”
“Why wait that long when the gang’s all here?”
We all turn toward Henry’s voice as he enters through the double doors dragging Teddy by the neck.
This means the guards I stationed outside my penthouse are either dead or critically injured.
“You son of a bitch!” I yell and start toward him.
He clutches Teddy’s neck tighter.
“Ah ah, Queen. I won’t hesitate to kill him.”
Teddy’s eyes are drooping. He’s pissed himself, and he’s deathly pale.
Henry drank from him.
“You’ve been hiding this tasty human all for yourself, Mildred. And he cannot be compelled? How strange indeed.”
“Let him go and take me instead.”
Henry tsks.
“If I do that, then I have nothing to use as leverage to get what I want.”
“And what might that be?”
“For one?”
In a blur—even for my enhanced eyes—Henry releases Teddy to speed around the room, staking every guard flanking the walls. One by one, the ten men and women burst into flames. Henry’s back in place, catching Teddy before he hits the ground.
“There. Now they can’t try to kill me.”
The guards outside the door to this room are also likely dead. I glance up to my two griffins, Wylan and Merc, perched in the rafters where they keep watch anytime I’m in this room. I shake my head, letting them know to wait for my order.
Henry should know that backup is on the way.
Unless he already killed them too.
Why did I think we could defeat him? In a flash, he took out the security in one of the most highly protected rooms. He’s gone mad with power, and he will kill anything that gets in his way.
The council members cower in their chairs, all refusing to stand up to Henry. Even those who are nearly as old as him.
They don’t want to fight. They don’t knowhowto fight. And they definitely don’t want to die.
“Second, I’d like to take control of this council. Not as king, but as your God.”
I scoff, and Henry punishes my reaction by stabbing Teddy in the stomach with the dagger he’s been holding at his side.
It takes everything in me not to rush to my mate.
“It’s time for our kind to stop hiding and emerge from the shadows,” he says, addressing the room. “I know there are other supernatural beings who share this belief. We should be working together to overpower the human race and rightfully take our spot at the top of the food chain. As vampires, we should befarmingthe humans. They are our food, not our friends.”
He locks eyes with me.
“And certainly not our lovers.”
“If you think we will allow this—” a council member begins, but she’s abruptly cut off when Henry lets go of Teddy once again to blur across the room and punch his fist in her chest, pulling out her heart. Teddy is back in his hold before the thousand-year-old vamp collapses to the floor.
