Page 21 of Taming His Vampire Mate
James raised his brows reproachfully. “You need to be nice, too. I can fight my own battles.”
“He is quite fierce when he wants to be,” Pierce said solemnly, meeting his mate’s gaze. “It’s one of the many things I love about you.”
Anger twisted through me at the thought of that… monster… sharing the same space as James. Breathing the same air. After what he’d done, he was every bit as bad as my own maker. I met James’s gaze and said, “If he so much as looks at you the wrong way, his pack will be searching for a new alpha before the night is through.”
“I understand the sentiment, but no one wants a war,” Pierce warned.
“Precisely,” Nathaniel said coolly from beside him. “Thierry, keep your own counsel. James was the wronged party. We will respect his wishes.”
“The monster who tried to hurt James ought to be punished,” I said, ignoring Nathaniel’s tone.
“No,” James said, glaring. “I’m serious. No punishing. I’ve let it go. So has Pierce.”
Based on the way Pierce was practically vibrating with tension and glancing at the door every other second, I doubted that last part.
“If James says he’s over it, we’re over it,” Ethan said. He leaned forward to peer at James from around Nathaniel, his violet eyes full of concern. “If you’re sure you’re okay with him being here?”
“I’m sure,” James said firmly. “And anyway, I’m actually sort of worried about him.” His voice softened, gaze turning towardthe door, though we were still alone. “He wasn’t all that bad, really.”
Pierce looked like he wanted to loudly disagree, but he wisely kept quiet. I, however, wasnotmated to James and therefore had no obligation to support him unconditionally.
“Yes, yes,” I said, my words dripping sarcasm. “Apart from nearly killing you, nearly killing Pierce, and then kidnapping you so he could force you to be his mate against your will—really not that bad at all.”
James was many things, but at the end of the day, he was also a bleeding heart. He tended to look at supernatural creatures and see people, not predators. It made him remarkable—like Derek—and perhaps it even spoke to a fundamental goodness in him. But it also blinded him to the genuinely dangerous among us, like the alpha who had tried to turn him.
It didn’t surprise me that Jeremy had let him go, though. If James had asked him to jump off a bridge instead, he probably would have. I doubted James had ever met a supernatural being he couldn’t charm in under five minutes. Even Sadie—one of the iciest, most no-nonsense vampires in the city—adored him. And she didn’t like anyone. Well, almost anyone. She had a soft spot for Derek and Ethan, and a bizarrely deep commitment to helping with the vampire-witch effort to end homelessness in Seattle, which somehow made her even more insufferable. The rest of us, she barely tolerated.
“Jeremy let me go,” James reminded us. “I reasoned with him, and he allowed Pierce and me to leave without a single drop of blood spilled. He’s not what you think. He was in pain.”
Before I could reply—explaining, in the smallest words possible, that the alpha wasexactlywhat I thought he was—the door to the council chamber opened and more people began filing in.
The arrival of another faction meant the session had begun. And everyone, including James, knew that airing dirty laundry in mixed company was a no-no. For one thing, it was tacky.
Fuming, I bit back my reply and focused on happy thoughts. Like how I might remove a certain werewolf alpha without getting caught. I wasn’t prone to killing other creatures unless necessary, but I might make an exception here. Though I’d never met him, I already knew the world would be better without him. And if he so much as looked at my friend the wrong way, he’d find out exactly how dangerous I could be.
The humans entered first, taking seats at the far end of the table, casting us wary sidelong glances. The mayor was among them, along with a well-connected city council member, the police chief, two CEOs from the city’s most powerful companies, and the executive director of one of Seattle’s largest nonprofits. All were powerhouses in human politics.
Only the police chief seemed at ease—likely because he’d been in talks with Nathaniel for months about getting vampires onto the force. I suspected he prioritized the lives and safety of his officers over something as trivial as discovering Seattle was teeming with supernatural creatures.
The old souls—three of them—sat next. A woman in her forties. A young man who looked barely twenty-one. And a ten-year-old girl with an uncanny depth in her eyes that suggested she might have been the oldest person in the room by a country mile.
I couldn’t help watching them with a bit of fascination. Though old souls are technically human, they possess perfectly intact memories of every life they’ve ever lived. They remain one of the few creatures that still hold some mystery for me. Most are immeasurably ancient, perhaps even older than Simone. No one, including them, understands why they keep coming back. But they do.
The shapeshifters came next. Only three of them. Perfectly human-looking, but with an unnatural grace humans don’t possess.
With them seated, that just left the witches. Poppy glared at me reproachfully as she sat down, along with Tatiana, Wynn, and two other men.
The door opened again.
And I froze.
Three werewolves entered the room.
Recognition slammed into me like an icy wave.
Oh no.
It washim.
