Page 88 of Five to Love Him
“My dear Leopold, you must be patient with Conrad. I think of him as very much younger than his years when I explain things to him or give him direction. I can assure you, he sounds like a ruffian but isn’t one. And most of all, he has no direct connection to you, is not directly concerned for your and your hive’s continued well-being. But I am. I would hear what ails the hive and you as a result.”
Coral nodded. “The vampire’s right. The hive’s never missed a single day of work since he started working for me.”
“And he left his computer on,” Xander added, tucking a strand of hair back behind his ear. “Is he okay? Can I dash up real quick and check? If he’s not, wolf noses are really good at picking out the cause.”
“Everyone here has a set of highly acute senses to determine that,” Farrow said. “Leopold. Please tell us whether they are required.”
I rubbed my eyes. This was too much. I’d not been good at handling this kind of thing before, and I’d had to do too much of it, Gran’s treatment at the end, the funeral, inheriting everything she’d owned.
I took a deep breath as if I were getting ready to jump into a pool. “No one’s going up there right now, but I’ll tell you. If you make him feel the least bit self-conscious about this, you’ll have to answer to me. He didn’t give me the details, but he was held captive. The man who did it made him work but he also abused the hive.” I used the coffee cup as an anchor point and wrapped my hands around it. It was still just as hot out today as it had been yesterday, but I didn’t mind the steaming coffee, not right now.
“And he split the hive apart as well. That especially would have been terrible,” one of the blond ones said.
“Someone did…a human, Leo?” Coral asked.
Xander’s pupils had narrowed, and he was shivering, one of his hands balling into a fist on the table.
“Xander, dear. Mind where you are. This is not the place to shift and show us your wolf, magnificent though you look in fur,” Farrow said.
Both he and Conrad had gone very still, uncannily so. There was a tenseness in Conrad’s neck that I didn’t think I’d seen before.
“So that’s the phone number,” the big vampire said.
Coral turned to Xander. “He called your yoga studio? How did he know?”
Xander was still busy with controlling his werewolf side it looked like, but I watched his jaw work, watched him open his mouth to reveal sizeable and very much not human-looking canines.
“I’ve been posting videos. Yoga stuff. He was in one or two. Fuck.” He looked at me. “I did this.”
I was still catching up, trying to understand what they’d said.
“How do you know that guy called the hive? Do you know who he is?”
“There’s a call list in the phone system,” Conrad said. “And I have a name. I didn’t know he was…this. Doesn’t matter. Let’s say that when he called he threatened the hive or extorted him, seems likely enough.” Very slowly, he turned his gaze on one of the hivelings in the kitchen. “You’re going to help, right? You know, help out with what you do.”
Farrow scoffed. “Sweet virgin’s bosom, Conrad. I have a mound for that kind of thing.”
Two of the hivelings looked at the headmaster. “You know a mound?” They sounded excited.
Farrow waved his hand. “It runs my IT department. Excellent worker, never sleeps, but loathes coming out during the day.”
“What’s a mound?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer. “We didn’t cover that in Instructor Arick’s class.”
“Oh, that’s because they are relatively rare and ever so shy, Leopold.”
Conrad rolled his eyes. “It’s because they’re creepy as fuck but don’t bother you unless you bother them first. No idea how they get by at that school without coming out for a snack, especially with you and your special skillset when it comes to computers.”
Farrow clicked his tongue. “I have a secretary for that sort of thing now, and we order from Anatoly’s for the mound, of course.”
“W-what does Anatoly’s sell exactly?” I’d seen the name on supply lists, but I had no idea what they made. I’d thought maybe they retailed binders and pencils, that sort of thing.
“They sell meats. A huge variety,” Coral said. “I got some of my skulls from them.”
I recalled the interior design of the Dazzle. I didn’t think I’d seen any animal skulls in there, but maybe they were tucked away in some back corner.
“We’ll help if that becomes necessary,” the blond guest hive said. “But we have become a friend of the hive, and we know he’d want us to protect his gleaming one first, so that’s what we’ll do, at least until they can get back to doing it themself.”
“What exactly are we talking about?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I could guess the answer.
