smoke out into the air. “I’m going out either way. Let me go out doing something useful.” He looked Jonas in the eye. “It’s my decision. Not yours.”
The king stared at him long and hard. “Then, yes. I found a way to get you in.” He chewed the inside of his cheek, brow heavy with a furrow. “One of our own is posing as a supporter of the dark uprising. He’s been at Hadrian’s manor for weeks. Training. It took some convincing, but he’s willing to switch places with you.”
Tucker nodded. “That’ll do.”
Jonas heaved a humorless laugh. “He is impossible to defeat alone. It’s very likely you’ll never get close enough to take the amulet.” He paused. “Though I’ve learned not to underestimate a mated vampire.”
“Tucker?”
With a jolt, Tucker turned at the sound of his father’s voice, finding Carl sidling slowly out of the factory’s shadow, a duffel bag clutched to his chest. “Dad?” He took a step forward. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I followed you.” Carl split a look between Tucker and Jonas, his expression nervous but…stubborn. “I could tell something was wrong. Thought you might need me.” His chin went up. “And frankly, I’m tired of waiting around, fiddling with satellites, waiting for something to happen. I want to be a part of what’s happening. Not on the sideline. Not anymore.”
With a hot poker twisting in his throat, Tucker turned back to Jonas and gave a sheepish wince. What was that fullness in his chest? Was it pride? Yeah, he reckoned it was. “Jonas, meet my father. Carl Moore.”
To which the king sighed and said, “You’re lucky I have bigger shit to worry about right now than human discovery.” He nodded over Tucker’s shoulder. “How do you do, Mister Moore?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“This is Jonas,” Tucker explained. “He’s sits on the throne of the High Order.”
Carl nodded jovially. “And that means?”
Tucker puffed his cigar. “He’s the king of the vampires.”
When Carl staggered on his feet, Tucker shot forward to catch him before he could faint and smack his head off the asphalt, but there was no need. Carl pressed a hand to his sternum and straightened, raising his chin. “Ah yes, the vampire king. Of course.” He gulped and transferred his dazed attention to Tucker. “What did he mean? That he found someone willing to switch places with you? Where?”
A weight sank in Tucker’s gut. He’d forced himself to smile through a goodbye to Carl back in Buckhannon, thinking it would be the last time he saw his father. Wanting to leave him with good memories from their final time together. He never anticipated Carl following him. How was he going to explain to this man that he’d chosen to die?
“I…” Tucker started. “Dad…”
“There is going to be a battle, I’m afraid,” Jonas said, stepping in with his usual briskness, though there was a deep groove between his brows. “Tucker and myself. All of us will be fighting in it. For a worthy cause. But…” His throat worked. “A potentially deadly one.”
Tucker listened to his father’s pulse quicken. He expected the man to ask scientific questions or beg Tucker not to participate in the battle. Instead, Carl notched his chin even higher. “I volunteer for this battle.”
Silence. Until eventually Tucker forced a laugh, finding a spiky impediment lodged in his throat. “Dad, it’s not a human battle. You wouldn’t be remotely safe.” Tucker slashed a hand through the air. “No. I…look, there’s a good chance I won’t come back from this, all right?”
“It’s Mary, isn’t it?” Carl glanced toward the warehouse. “She isn’t here or she would be by your side. Your battle is for her, son?”
Tucker couldn’t speak, so he let his father see the answer in his eyes. Let him see everything. The emptiness, his willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice. And he’d never been prouder to be Carl’s son than that moment. When Carl swiped at his reddening nose and straightened his spine. “I will have my son’s back. Damn the consequences. I’ve lived too long in confusion and regret. I refuse to regret this. I refuse to be left out now when being…present matters most.” He jabbed a finger in Jonas’s direction, who raised an impressed eyebrow. “You can’t stop me, king vampire or not.”
“Well,” Jonas began in a drawl. “Technically I could stop you—”
“I will be on daddy-sitting duty,” Roksana sniffed, walking out of the shadow thrown by the warehouse, Elias close at her back. “I will make sure no one