in my throat and parted my mouth for my next inhale, unable to handle the grotesque aroma in the air.
“What the hell is this?” the nasally voiced vampire demanded, the sound of a chair scraping following his words. “How dare you come in—”
Ryder silenced him with a bullet from his gun, the boom causing the entire room to stop breathing again.
A thud followed the gunshot.
“Apparently, my ascension wasn’t clear,” Ryder said after a beat, his voice underlined in power. “For those who need this stated in blunt terms, allow me to explain—I’m in charge. My word is law. I will be making changes around here, and you will abide by those changes or get the fuck out of my territory. Any questions?”
Silence.
Damien tightened his grip on my shoulder once more. I didn’t understand why. I was still sitting on my heels, my hands loose on my thighs. Was it my pulse? Could he hear my quickening heartbeat? I couldn’t control that, not with Ryder’s dominance flaring at my back.
“Now, some of you might be thinking this is temporary and believe that you don’t need to listen to me. So allow me to disabuse you of those illusions—I have every intention of staying. And as I’m one of the oldest of our kind, Lilith won’t be able to refuse me. So I suggest you attempt to ally with me rather than against me. Which brings me to my gifts.”
Ryder’s thigh brushed my arm as he stepped forward to push his chair beneath the table. Then he bent to retrieve something from the tabletop. While I couldn’t see it, I suspected it was the head that had fallen onto the floor before.
“Does anyone recognize this former immortal?” Ryder asked. “Or any of the others on the tables before you?”
Several comments followed his question, all voiced by different vampires around the room.
“Karim lived in the condo a few doors down from mine.”
“Alfonzo worked security for Silvano’s building.”
“Stiles was in charge of human transport from the farm down in Hugo’s area.”
Additional details continued to float around the room, the vampires seeming eager to appease Ryder’s request for information.
When the voices began to die down, he tossed the head back onto the table with a thunk. “Well. It seems we are all starting to understand each other. But there’s one piece of the puzzle not yet discussed, which is the fact that someone sent twelve vampires to assassinate me.”
Electricity hummed through the air on the heels of his statement, the tension pulling at my senses and making my heart race faster in my chest. Damien’s hand was beginning to feel like a brand, his presence a fixture at my back that refused to budge.
Something was coming.
Something bad.
“So now for my next gift,” Ryder continued, his hand appearing in my peripheral vision as he pulled a device out of his pocket.
What happened to his gun? Perhaps he’d set it on the table, or maybe Damien had it. The room had gone still, which could have been a result of Ryder’s domineering presence. However, I sensed more was going on than I could see from my subservient position on the floor.
“Who sent you?” His voice sounded through the room again, but this time from the item in his hand.
The question was followed by a grunt of pain and then another male saying, “Fuck, man. I said I’d talk.”
“Then talk. And I also suggest you remember who you’re speaking to,” Ryder replied through the recording, his tone implying dissatisfaction.
“There’s a group of older vamps who don’t want you in power.” The male cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to go along with this, I swear. But my maker made me.”
“Who’s your maker?”
Ryder stopped the recording there and asked, “Any guesses on what he said?” He paused before adding, “I’ll give you a hint. She’s in this room.”
A hiss broke through the air, sending a chill down my spine.
Damien’s grip on my shoulder shifted as he forced me to the ground, my nose hitting the marble below. Shouts and curses littered the air, as did an array of gunshots, each one making me flinch against the ground.
Screams followed.
Then a harsh gurgling sound.
Thuds against the floor.
General chaos.
And Ryder’s angry tones.
Rather than remain on the floor, I curled my legs beneath me and crawled quickly toward the table with the desire to hide beneath it, only to have my ankle caught in a savage grip. My gown slid across the marble as the culprit yanked me toward him.
I struck out with