Page 14 of Blood

Alex elbows me yet again. I have a feeling my stomach is going to be bruised by the time I leave here today.

“Do you really need to ask?” Spider lady sneers down at me. Yeah, I really, really don’t think she likes me. Of course, I could be reading the room wrong, but I get the impression she’s visualizing stabbing a fork up my anus like a miner digging for gold. “You’re a wanted criminal. We should toss you into Revenant and throw away the key, so you’ll never see the light of day again.” A cold, calculating grin tugs up the corners of her onyx-colored lips. “Or we could just eat you.”

“No eating,” Pan retorts lazily. “We talked about this. Don’t forget your diet, my friend.”

The terrifying woman scoffs. “It’s a cheat day. One little itty-bitty vampire won’t kill me.”

Wait...

Are they talking about...?

Eating me?!

Excusez-moi. I’ll have you know, I’m a terrible dinner choice. I’ve been told by more than one person that my meat is bitter and can bring about indigestion. These monsters will be shitting out bats for weeks. Now, if they’re serious about chomping down on me, there are ways to make me delicious. You just need to add a bit of seasoning to the meat before you cook it—some salt and pepper will do nicely—and then you can slow roast it over a fire.

Honestly, between Alex and me, I think Alex would taste better. I have a little more cushion than the necromancer, but that only means my chunk of meat would be fatty. Alex, on the other hand, is lean and muscular. I’m sure with a little bit of butter and—

What the fuck am I thinking?! Bad, Violet! Bad!

“Mr. Gray, sir,” Alex implores earnestly, thankfully unaware of my internal cooking show, “I think this situation will impact you more than most.” Alex’s tongue fiddles with his lip ring, the nearly imperceptible move belying his unease. “It involves your son.”

One of Dorian’s blond brows begins to twitch.

“My son? Don’t you mean my brother?” he asks with a rather pointed stare, releasing a semi-hysterical laugh. “Surely, you don’t think I look old enough to have a son, right?” He volleys his gaze from side to side, his startling blue eyes turning more frantic when no one jumps to his immediate defense. One of his hands inches upward to smooth out a nonexistent wrinkle on his pale face. “Right?! Right?” The last word is a strange combination of a growl and a sob.

“Oh, please,” Spider lady says with a wave of her hand. “You’re not fooling anyone, Dorian.”

“Perhaps I can make an elixir to make someone young forever...” Frankenstein muses, absently scratching at his chin. I almost startle at hearing his raspy voice. Is it wrong if I admit that I forgot he was even here? He has a way of blending into his surroundings. Everything about him, from his small stature to his graying hair, is utterly insignificant. Add to that his indolent expression and glazed-over eyes, and I half believe even he forgot he was in the room with us.

“Frankenstein, sir,” I begin, ignoring Alex’s rapid head shaking, indicating for me to be quiet. Tried that, bought the T-shirt, and now I want to return that too-small fucker. “Your brilliance. Your esteemed excellency.”

Dorian’s frown deepens. “Why does he get ‘your esteemed excellency’ and I get ‘father’?”

“Um...”

God, this is not going how I thought it would.

Granted, I didn’t really have an idea of how this would work out, considering there’s an order out to capture me dead or alive. But it definitely wasn’t as shit-tastitc as this is proving to be.

I decide to cut to the chase.

“Frankenstein, are you aware that Zeus has kidnapped Frankie and is holding him hostage?” I ask tersely, not bothering with pleasantries or bullshit.

Frankenstein blinks at me, frowns, then blinks again.

“Which one is Frankie again?” he asks, causing my heart to sink into the deepest depths of the ocean, becoming lost in the turbulent abyss. “Is he the one with the green skin?”

“I think he’s the one with the mustache,” Pan pipes in rather unhelpfully.

Frankenstein’s frown intensifies. “It’s so hard to keep track of all of my experiments.” To me, he asks, “Does Frankie have red hair? Oh, wait! He’s the bald monster, isn’t he? With the scar?”

Anger rushes through me in a torrent, almost painful in its intensity. I can feel my wrath fizzing, boiling, seconds from exploding. A bulbous, hovering storm. A volcano of emotion threatening to bubble over. A ticking time bomb in an underground bunker. I. See. Red.

Alex turns to stare at me helplessly, his eyes pleading, but Frankenstein’s words only serve to push me over the edge.

My heart pounds like a distant army thundering down a mountain. The pain I felt from losing Mason lingers, spreading like a malignant tumor and threatening to ravage my mind, body, and soul. All these feelings compound into one inevitable explosion.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!?” I screech, unable to keep my outburst in. My stomach ties itself into a pretzel as I begin to pace in front of the table. “That is your son! Frankie is your motherfucking son! How can you not care even a little bit?” I whirl until I’m facing Dorian Gray, who honest-to-God cowers under the force of my glare. “And you. Don’t even get me started. You’re not a twenty-year-old any longer, you assface. And you certainly don’t look like one! Take responsibility for your actions—and that includes forgetting to wrap your package. Dimitiri’s your son, and he’s in danger.” I ball my hands into fists and continue pacing. My shoes click against the dark stone flooring, the sound ominously loud. “Did you guys even know that there are no more souls left in Mount Olympus? Yeah, your homeboy, Zeus? He’s digesting the souls, and now that he has Lucifer in his grasp, he plans to do the same to the souls in Hell. There’s a stark imbalance in the afterlife, and if you think that won’t affect you, you’re wrong. So, so wrong. Do you think Zeus will be satisfied once he’s done eating all those souls? Fuck, no. Men like him always want more. More, more, and more. It won’t be long until he starts going after the most powerful monsters. Say...the monster council. If you don’t want to help me to save the world, then maybe you can consider helping me for selfish purposes. You guys are total asslicking fuck faces!”

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