Page 24 of Ouch! My Vampire Doms Don't Sparkle
Xander’s attackers were thoughtful enough to provide him with an address, so he and I get in my car.I head in that direction, not speaking.I’m still stewing.
I shouldn’t have ignored the threat Gaius posed.
Xander shouldn’t have called Autumn our amant.
I’m angry at both of us.
I just want Autumn to be safe.
To get to Gaius’s place, we have to travel through the Old Thirty-Three neighborhood.Most of the houses here are modest.But after we’ve driven through it, the edges are populated with large mansions, relics of the 1910s and 20s.Gaius came to possess one of these.I’d complain about how pretentious he is…but I live in a fucking library, so I guess I don’t have much room to talk.
“This is it,” Xander says, pointing to a driveway.
The house is set so far beyond the gates, I can’t make out more than its towering, gothic shape in the darkness.
“Fucking typical,” Xander says with a snort.
I pull into the driveway, aware that we are likely being watched by security cameras hidden on the grounds.It takes a couple of minutes to reach the house.I stop in front of it and climb out of the car.It’s a short walk up a wide set up of steps to reach the door.
“Will,” Xander says.
I turn to face him.
“What the fuck is your problem?”he says.“You haven’t said a word to me since last night.”
It’s too dangerous to speak in a normal voice.I get close to him and lean in.
“She’s not our amant,” I say in a voice only loud enough for him to hear.“You had no right to call her that.”
“I was out of my mind,” he says.“And besides, brother, you were the one eager to bring her back to our arms.I did not know what I was saying, though, when I said it.”
“Still.Now she has the idea.”
“She was bound to ask eventually,” Xander says.“Ever since we told her about our social structure, about triads.I saw the little mouse’s mind working.”
I stop walking and stare at him, grabbing his shoulder to hold him still.“She is not our amant.Gaius can’t know about her.She is beneath notice—his and ours.”
The meaning of my words seems to sink in.He says, “Fucking hell.You’re right—he can’t know about her.Ever.”
“Exactly.”
Everything Gaius touches, he perverts.And not in the fun way.
“Me saying that to her changes nothing,” he adds.“I still think we should send her away.”
Must my frerte be against me on everything?
Before I can respond, the front door to the mansion opens.Pale yellow light breaks over us, and a tall, gaunt man steps out.Benjamin, Gaius’s frerte.He scowls at us with dark eyes.
“Gaius is waiting for you.”
Xander and I finish walking up the steps and join Benjamin in a narrow entrance hall.I’m surprised Benjamin is playing butler.Probably another one of Gaius’s power games.As a frerte, Benjamin ought to be Gaius’s equal.That’s never been the case.I wonder why Benjamin puts up with it.
Sometimes I wonder why I put up with Xander.I think the feeling’s mutual.
It’s one reason why having an amant increases a vampire’s power.Not only the blood source, but the way an amant creates a focus of mutual interest and responsibility between the frertes.
That’s the theory, anyway.Fuck, I don’t know.I just know if I were Benjamin, I would’ve left Gaius centuries ago.
