Present Tense (Out of the Fire #3) - Candace Blevins Page 0,72
private with his newly built home. Most of it’s underground, and only close friends have been invited to see the downstairs portions, so far. Last year, we had the party in the cafeteria of Drake Security. I understand we may be invited to Homewood this year.”
“I’ve heard rumors of that,” Eunice said. “Halloween was up there — Pack, vampires, lions, Rolling Thunder, and a few other assorted smaller groups. I think they’re considering repeating it for Christmas.”
Right, because with Marco and the Pack Alpha coming together, it made sense for them to bring their people together for celebrations.
“Rolling Thunder?”
“Local biker group. Started out as all werewolves, but they’ve added other supernaturals in the past couple of years. I’m not sure they’d be as powerful as they are if they weren’t so connected,” James told her.
“Sometimes, power is about connections,” Fabio said. “They went head-to-head with The Abbott and came out mostly unscathed. Not many organizations could pull that off.”
“Bikers?” Kelsey asked. “Against The Abbott?”
“There’s an imperator crocodile in town, named Isaac,” Eunice said. “He’s part owner of The Billiard Club, and The Abbott owns, or rather owned, the other half. The crocodile is in charge during the day, the vampires at night. Abbott and Isaac are close. Isaac is in a poly group, and one of his partners is brother to the MC’s president’s wife. Let’s just say it’s never a good idea to piss off an imperator crocodile shifter. Even if the bikers couldn’t keep the president’s wife safe, her brother-in-law is one of the scariest motherfuckers around. That connection is good for more than immediate safety, though.”
“The Dragon King’s wife, who happens to be the Swan Queen, is good friends with the Pres and VP of the bikers,” Fabio said. “But the ol’ladies, the women who belong to the bikers, played a possibly bigger role than their men when everything went to shit.”
“The only reason the whole shitshow went away,” James told her, “is because the biker who originally caused all the problems agreed to a hell-night with the vampires. Granted, he might not have had to do so if the women hadn’t done what they did, but it got smoothed over because he let the vampires have him for a night, not because of politics.”
“No,” Eunice countered. “He agreed to that night because of politics. Rumor has it, his brothers told him to fix it, since he’d fucked it up. Whether that’s the case, or whether he chose to do it because he realized how bad things could get if he didn’t, we’ll never know. The bikers always put on a united front, no matter what.” He shrugged. “Their women usually do as well, but they banded around their newest ol’lady.”
“Who was ironically a man,” Fabio said. “Completely fucked up. But the point is, the bikers have more power than one would expect. I thought they’d lose some of it when Randall — the old wolf alpha — died. He and the MC president were twins. However, the new wolf alpha decreed that any lone wolf who fought in the big battle can use magic, and they’re usually forbidden if they aren’t Pack, so in a way, she’s made them more powerful than they were before.”
Clearly, Kelsey needed a meeting with a vampire who could lay all this out on a flowchart. Until then, she felt it best to change the subject. “Etta wants to come in one night and oversee me feeding lust directly from one of you. She says as long as there’s someone to time me and make sure I stop before I take too much, it should be safe. She had to force me to keep drinking from the shifter they made me kill. Normally, once a vampire new to this power starts feeding from the new thing, they can’t stop. I did. Many times. She feels that now that I’ve been absorbing it from the air, that I’d be okay with short sips directly from the source.”
“I’m game,” Fabio said.
She turned to face him, and looked at him, deciding. What made him anxious to volunteer? She assumed he wanted to give blood because of the orgasms, but this wouldn’t give him that. She needed to know, so she peeked in his head.
When she’d first met the three men, she’d thought Eunice and James tied for bad-ass, though for different reasons. She’d assumed Fabio was the least bad-ass — not a wimp by any means, but not the warriors the other two are.