romance through bacon. Can they?” Certainly, there was the coffee as well. The world had changed, most assuredly it had, but could it really have changed that much?
The vampire pushed himself up with agonizing slowness as Fin paced around him.
“Whether you can or not, I suppose is a moot point. Because I know there are other ways, and one of those is to right that which has wronged her. Do you understand my meaning, David?” Fin put a foot on the vampire’s back and slammed him back down to the wood. The pained groan he released as more bones cracked under the force Fin exerted echoed around the club. “I can’t hear you, could you speak a little more clearly?”
“You’re such an asshole,” David managed to wheeze out, and Fin chuckled.
“I can be. I would remind you, however,” Fin continued, before easing his foot off of him and kicking him over so he was face up, “I did ask quite politely the first time. I even observed all the social niceties of announcing myself. Your men—”
“Are young,” David said with a wet cough.
“I was going to say stupid, but we can go with young. Maybe too young to have the positions they are in. After all, who else would remain behind when their prince flees an invitation from Alfred?” The rules hadn’t been written yesterday after all.
“Isaac didn’t want to die,” David protested. Or maybe it only sounded like he did. Coughing up a lung did have a way of turning a man’s tone wheedling. Fin would let him have that one—for now. “He knew…he knew that you had taken the succubus from the prison.”
“Hmm, did he?”
“The warden contacted him.”
Squatting down, Fin met David’s agonized gaze. “And what did the warden tell him?”
“I didn’t hear the whole conversation,” David admitted. “When Isaac realized it wasn’t just that she’d escaped, but that Rogue and Maddox had been seen there, he began making plans to vanish.”
Well, maybe Isaac had more brains than Fin had credited him with. “I won’t be insulted that my presence there didn’t give him pause.” After all, it would be rather inconsiderate at the moment to lord that over them. At. The. Moment.
There was always later.
“Fearing Rogue and Maddox is very wise. That does not explain declining Alfred’s invitation.” The prince hadn’t just ‘not shown up’ or ‘not answered.’ He’d sent an answer. His answer had been in the negative, along with the head of the retainer who’d carried the invitation to him. A young vampire, a very young one. Someone Fin had adopted twenty or thirty years earlier. A baby really. “Did you know Emilios was a friend of mine?”
“No, my lord,” David wheezed. “I didn’t. I would beg forgiveness, but you will grant it or not as you see fit.”
“This is true. But I’m listening. Why did he decide to decline the invitation?”
A vampire on the other side of the room had made it to his feet and staggered in Fin and David’s direction. The idiot’s leg was still broken, and his arm was bent backwards at the elbow. He really stood no chance, yet he tried to rush Fin anyway. Rising smoothly, Fin caught him by the throat and lifted him with one arm as he held David’s gaze.
“I do hate to repeat myself.”
“He did not tell me,” David said slowly, his expression a rictus of discomfort. “But I would imagine he expected to be executed upon arrival. So he ran.”
“Well, we wouldn’t have done it right away.” His death was a gift. It would be rude to open the present before Fiona was there to enjoy it.
David tried to smile. It didn’t really work so well, though the blood speckling each of his breaths began to diminish. Probably not permanently harmed. Maybe. Well, forty percent chance of it. Perhaps only thirty, because he coughed and had to turn his head as more blood spilled from his mouth. Definitely a punctured lung.
Very uncomfortable.
“He may not have told me, but I know all of his holdings, even those he thought he hid from me.”
“Delightful, now you are speaking my language.” The vampire in his grip kept struggling and struck Fin’s arm once. Then twice. Bored with him, Fin spared him a brief glance before he wrenched his neck and broke the vertebrae, then dropped him on the floor.
“How would you like the list?” Smart boy. David might yet survive this encounter.
“In detail,” Fin informed him, then bit into his own wrist before lowering it to dribble