to the captain of the vampire guards, and as for what I’m doing here, I would’ve thought that was perfectly obvious. I’m looking after the place for you.”
“Looking after the place?” Arvyn watched as Kirill scanned the room. The bedroom was as bad as the sitting room. Clothes strewn everywhere, DVD’s out of their cases, spread across the bottom of the bed, more pizza boxes and on the bedside table a half-empty bottle of lube was spilling it’s contents onto the dusty veneer of the bedside cabinet. “Did your brief include going through all my things?”
“Well, er… no, not exactly.” Doblin squirmed to get down, but Kirill wasn’t letting him. “But the job came up in a hurry, and I didn’t have time to get my stuff so I could stay here. I was sure you wouldn’t mind.”
Lying. Arvyn snarled, knowing Kirill would have heard him.
“Try again.” Kirill shook Doblin hard enough his teeth rattled, before dropping him on the floor. “My darling beloved can smell your lies. Start telling the truth or I’ll use my thrall on you.”
“Fine. Gods, you old farts are all the same.” Doblin got off the floor and peeled a piece of pizza box off the leg of his sweatpants. “Mine. Mine. Mine. You’ve got all this stuff, and you don’t share…”
“Excuse me,” Ra said quietly, with far more politeness than Arvyn thought was warranted in the situation. “You said yourself you’re not a member of Kirill’s coven, you work for the vampire council. Why should Kirill owe you anything at all?”
“Because.” Doblin flung his arms wide. “Look at what he walked away from. I can’t handle it anymore. I’m closing down the coven. I’m tired.” His whinging voice was nothing like Kirill’s and Arvyn growled, lifting his lip. “Why shouldn’t I enjoy myself for a while, have a wee vacation at the master’s expense? It’s not like anyone would notice, or they wouldn’t have done if you hadn’t come bursting in like you own the place.”
“I do own this place,” Kirill roared, his power flooding the room. Arvyn’s tail started to wag again. He loved it when their vampire mate went all masterful. “Everything here I bought and paid for. I worked my ass off for centuries to have everything you see here. These DVDs,” Kirill snatched a handful of them off the bed. “Mine.” He shattered the cases with his bare hands and threw the remains at Doblin who ducked.
“Those suits you treated like rags, mine.” Kirill snagged a jacket off the window seat and ripped it clean down the middle before dropping the rags on the floor. “This bed, even that damn lube, everything in here is mine. I earned it. What right do you have coming in here and trashing everything?”
Doblin clearly hadn’t been expecting Kirill’s anger. He was cowered, his arms raised, as if warding himself. “They said you were the sucker,” he said bitterly. “Never knows what’s going on under his nose, they said. Would give you the shirt off his back, they said, even if it wasn’t needed. Why shouldn’t I…”
“Who said?” Bending over, Kirill invaded Doblin’s personal space. “Who told you all this garbage? Answer me!”
Ooh. Arvyn’s tail was wagging furiously now and he glanced over at Ra to see if his other mate understood what was going on. He’s using the thrall, he sent to Ra gently, or at least Arvyn hoped it was just Ra who got the message. He didn’t want to disturb his angry mate.
“People I spoke to.” Doblin’s voice was robotic. “The office workers at the council, the guards who dragged me along here to catalogue the contents of your coven buildings. Even a few of your coven members were upset when the coven guards questioned them, claiming you didn’t care what went on around the place so long as your peace and quiet wasn’t disturbed.”
The hurt, when it came through their bond wasn’t unexpected, although Kirill showed nothing of it on his face. “How did you end up staying here,” Kirill said quietly, but the firmness was still there. Doblin had no choice but to answer.
“I had some vacation time. This house was going to be empty for months. No one was using it.”
“There are over thirty bedrooms in this coven. Why did you violate my space?”
“I wanted to be master of a coven. I have to wait five hundred years before I could ever start a coven of my own. I could be dead by then.”
Kirill shook his head. “Does