mentioned anything about this to me before the meeting.”
“Me neither,” Nathan said, frowning. “Was there an attack we should know about?”
Christoph would’ve tucked his tail between his legs if he’d been shifted when the three alphas and vampire all turned to look at him. Instead, he lowered his head, assuming as submissive a stance as he could manage in his human form. There was no way to put any kind of spin on this to make it look good.
“We… uh… had a scuffle. Just a bit of a disagreement, really.”
“He attacked me, unprovoked.” Royce stated flatly. “Twice.”
Grimacing, Christoph nodded at the others’ incredulous stares. Analie looked mightily disappointed in him, but kept her mouth shut.
“Yeah. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”
“You attacked Alec Royce? Over ice cream?” Rohrik looked like he was trying hard to keep from choking on his laughter. He knew Christoph had fought with a vampire in that convenience store, but no one had told him who he’d been fighting with. The warm brown eyes of the elder Were focused on the vampire, glittering with mirth. “And you didn’t kill him for his impudence? Of all of us, you’re the last I expected to go soft.”
The question, while asked in jest, posed a deadly serious problem for the vampire. If he admitted to weakness, the packs might use it against him. Unperturbed, he kept his voice as cheerful as Rohrik’s, though the others stiffened at the implied menace behind his words.
“Not at all. I wasn’t interested in starting a war in my city over so minor a trifle. It seemed a small enough concession at the time.”
“And now you want your pound of flesh,” Nathan added quietly.
“Exactly.”
The laughter sobered. Analie wouldn’t come any closer to where the others were standing, but the vamp talking instead of messing up faces had her emboldened. She wasn’t supposed to butt into this part of the negotiations, but she asked the question on everybody’s minds.
“What would you consider adequate amends?”
She took a step back when Royce shifted to look at her, unnerved by what she was seeing. Unlike the other Weres, she was blind to vampires except for the shadows on their features. Even his scent, which she would normally rely on heavily in order to tell something about the people around her, was so barely-there as to be nonexistent. Having his attention on her was extremely unsettling when she couldn’t see an expression, save for vague impressions of disembodied shadows cast by the street lamp, and he exuded only a very faint whiff of some mustiness not laced with the oils and pheromones of emotion.
He paused for a long moment, considering her question, only making the others more nervous.
“Considering you participated in the second attack, I would accept the service of either one of you to work for me and those under my protection for not less than five years in any way I deem fit. Which of you will be coming with me when this meeting is over?”
Analie staggered back as if he’d slapped her, fetching up against a tree. Christoph swayed on his feet, reaching out to hold onto the nearby fence to stay propped up. His voice came out as a rough squeak, particularly when it didn’t seem like any of the other Weres were surprised or outraged by this demand.
“F-f-five… years?”
“That’s maybe a little much, Alec. How about three?” Rohrik asked, glancing at Analie’s pale features in mild concern.
“On the contrary, I think it quite reasonable. Aside from the property damage, as well as destroying my clothes and doing me minor injury, both scuffles occurred in very public places. The damage against the reputation of Others in our city, let alone nationally, is inestimable. You remember how hard it was to turn around that White Hat campaign two years ago where they were using footage of the Were attack in the Embassy Suites that made us all look like dangerous animals, don’t you? Imagine what those hunters might do with the footage picked up from that convenience store, or interviews with the clerk, or from witnesses on that train we stepped off of right before this meeting. Five years seems rather light, if you ask me.”
Christoph’s sickly pallor deepened as the expressions on the other Were leaders became decidedly unfriendly as they discussed this amongst themselves. Even Rohrik was peeved with the Goliaths now.
Analie’s head was swimming with the implications of what they’d done. The vampire had a solid, valid argument, and she had no idea