slipping off my feet, my shirt torn with blood soaked into the material, but all I wanted to do was run.
I screamed when someone jumped from the tree branch in front of me, his white skull makeup clear against the full moon. “Blessed be the EKC.”
Bang! A shot rang out.
Brantley
There are a lot of things that people know, or assume they know about The Elite Kings, and then there are the things that truly never leave the covenant. Things like Hector having enough power to initiate the damn Purge if he wanted. He doesn’t, but he has come close. Many fucking times. When he’s trigger-happy, we need to clean house and make sure he doesn’t. Which is ironic because it’s the exact reason why he hasn’t handed the gavel over to Bishop yet, because he thinks Bishop is volatile. Which he is.
I kick my leg up against the conference table. The fucking third meeting he has called in the past three days.
“These people are dangerous. I’ve never said that before, but these ones are.”
“What makes them so dangerous?” I challenge, clenching my jaw.
I’ve known that Hector was her dad since the second she came into my house. The anger I feel inside of me is aimed at him for abandoning her. In hindsight, I get it. At the time, no Swans could exist. But now, he still hasn’t asked me about her, and that pisses me right the fuck off. I slam down any and all thoughts about Saint because the mere mention of her has my fingers flexing and my teeth throbbing to sink back into her soft flesh. Fuck. My cock swells against the zipper of my jeans and I shuffle, turning to the side to get comfortable. She took it better than I would have ever imagined. Not just the sex, but the blood play. I had every intention of not fucking her again, but now she has my interest. As if she fucking lost it all those years ago. I’m invested in her now on a sexual level, though. I won’t lie, there have been times where I’d think about those innocent fucking eyes looking up at me with my fist around my cock, but they never left my fantasy. Never. There was another time when I was balls deep in a woman three times my age, fucking her over her husband’s workbench in their garage when I thought about Saint’s little body beneath me, too. Then I felt even more like a fucking creeper for thinking that, and carried on pounding into Mrs. fucking Robinson.
“The fact that they are our oldest allies. They’ve studied how we work, what we do. We can’t underestimate them.”
“Maybe,” Nate says, adding in. “But they don’t have what we have, and that’s money and power.”
“Sometimes you don’t need those two things to get what you need done.” Hector’s eyes come to mine. “Sometimes all you need is the burn to destroy something.”
“That bad, huh?” Eli asks, lighting a cigarette and blowing out smoke. We arrived at the EKC headquarters this morning, which is around a two-hour drive from the cabin. It’s right smack in the middle of New York City. Bishop has been living in the penthouse since Madison left. The King Hotel. Just one of the many real estate dippings we all have. I prefer mine in Europe.
“And how is Perdita?” I ask the question that no one seems to care about. Especially Nate.
Raguel, Eli’s dad, rests his elbows on his knees, where he’s seated on the ledge of the window. “It’s fine. The Peacemaker is doing his stage job and the little Adamantem seems to be natural with leading, though she’s becoming a little distracted. They’ve had a few run-ins with a couple of The Lost Boys who are not warming up to her particular style of sovereignty, but I’m sure it will work out.”
“Good,” I say, bringing my eyes to Hector. “I don’t want to put another Stuprum on that island, if you feel me.”
Hector’s eyes bore into mine. I read the questions I know he wants to ask. “She’s a Hayes before she’s a Vitiosis or a Stuprum.”
“Eh, wrong,” I say, stretching my leg out in front of me. Bishop kicks my foot in an attempt to shut me up, but it doesn’t work. “She’s a Vitiosis before she’s anything else.”
“A Hayes by blood,” Hector adds, and I can’t help it.
The corner of my mouth curves, flashing my straight teeth. “Sure about that?” He won’t catch