Page 25 of Vampire Visions

“Embarrassing,” Sloane muttered.

“Hilarious,” Novak corrected. “That was amazing.” He tilted his head toward the door. “Does he come around often?”

“He will now,” Sloane confessed while rolling her eyes. “He’ll be here once a week, drinking all my liquor, smoking all my cigars, and embarrassing the shit out of me.” She groaned, scrubbing her hand over her face. “Right. Let’s get back on track. Baton Rouge?”

We all nodded our heads. I asked the next logical question. “We’re leaving tomorrow?”

“I think that would be best,” she replied with a heavy exhale. “We can’t make many plans from here. Simon is compiling all the insider information that he can find about the party she’s throwing. We’re going to crash it, but I don’t want her to see me until then.”

“We can still stay at one of Nate’s places. He has a separate entrance to his quarters at the House of Vampyre that she shouldn’t have access to. Vaughn and I can go in and confirm before trying to decide if you want to stay there, or we can stay at the guest house in town,” Novak shrugged a shoulder, and Sloane nodded her head.

“That’ll be good,” she confirmed. “The fewer vampires that see me, the better our entrance will be. We want to catch her off guard so she doesn’t have time to change her plans. If she sees me, Jack, or my parents then she’ll know something is up.” She tilted her head to the left, the movement a sign of her thinking deeply about something. “Actually, let’s have Grim slip in first and check the house out.

“Yep,” Novak agreed before grinning at Sloane. “What are you gonna wear?”

She cocked her head and raised her brows, her mannerisms reminiscent of Lucy’s. “You just wanna know what’ll be under my dress. I see through you, Vampire.” But it didn’t stop her from returning the grin.

“I think we all want to know,” Briggs concluded with his hands held out in front of him, palm up.

“Guys?” Stone snapped, shaking his head. “This is serious. The next couple of days are going to be a whirlwind of planning, bullshit, and fighting.” He gave us all a blank look. “Let’s be honest here. We know enough about Sloane to know that there’ll be some light murdering, justified or not.” Then the demon turned to Novak and Briggs with a devious grin. “I’m guessing that she wears black lingerie under her dress.”

“I bet she wears nothing under it.” Briggs chuckled.

“Nope. Not betting.” Novak shook his head full of electric yellow hair.

Sloane rolled her eyes at them. “You make me sound like a serial killer.” She bit her lips together, trying to keep her mouth from splitting into a grin.

“Kitten,” Stone lazily addressed her, flashing all his teeth as he smiled. “If the shoe fits…” He shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

“Mmm, I can’t argue with that,” she laughed as she spoke but sobered before continuing. “I’m expecting this to get real dirty, though. Kadence doesn’t know what a fair fight is. She’s going to be pissed that we're interfering with her plans. She wants to take over, and she wants to out the vampires publicly. To the world. I won’t let that happen.” She shook her head twice. “There'll be twelve of us there, against who knows how many vampires that she has deceived into giving her their loyalty. All I can do is call her out and see how the tables turn.”

“I think you should bring the hounds, too,” York admitted. “At least, that way we know that there’s someone or something there to watch your back if all of us get dragged into a different fight.”

Sloane rocked her head from side to side. “I’ll bring them, but if Kadence issues a formal challenge then no one can intervene. If anyone does, it forfeits my claim.”

“Like an alpha fight,” Briggs agreed, nodding his head in understanding.

“Exactly. Same rules with one difference.” Sloane held up her right index finger. “It’s vampire vs vampire normally, but since we're both hybrids of sorts, we’re allowed to use secondary powers. Since there’s never been a hybrid like myself, Dominic will likely have to change that rule slightly. Either I’ll have to choose a secondary power and not use the others, or I’ll be able to use them all. There’s no way to know until the time comes.”

She was so matter-of-fact with her statement that I actually stopped to think about how many times she’d been challenged or how many times she would be challenged. It wouldn’t just be with the vampires. The other mage apprentices would definitely have issues with her stepping in. The shifters would, too. I didn’t know about the demons, but I had a sick feeling we’d see her bruised and battered more often than not while she took her titles. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Wait,” Vaughn held up a hand. “What do you mean by choosing? Wouldn’t you have to rely on the same skills she has?”

“Why would I?” Sloane shrugged. “It’s like this: if a vampire-mage like Kadence challenged, say, a vampire-shifter, then she would use all of her abilities and so would the other person. It doesn’t matter if they match or not. So, if I want to act as a vampire-mage then I could, or I could act as a vampire-demon. Both would have pros and cons. I’ll just have to weigh my abilities and see what feels right.”

“Okay,” Vaughn agreed hesitantly. “And, hypothetically, if she doesn’t fight fair from the jump?”

“Then all bets are off.” The vampire in the room turned oddly formal. “She would be breaking the laws of engagement. That forfeits her right to challenge Sloane and allows Sloane the opportunity to call for Kadence to be punished to fit her crime or gives Sloane the chance to dish out her own brand of punishment. It would be up to Sloane to choose in that scenario, because she was the one wronged. Vampire fights get nasty when that happens.” Novak always surprised me when he cited vampiric laws. He acted like he didn’t care, but he really did take his apprenticeship seriously.

“If yer for bringin’ the hellhounds with us, then ya should think about givin’ them some healin’ potions.” I eyed Sloane as the side of her mouth curled up. “I’m guessin’ ya want them at their best.”

“Yeah. I’ll ask Franklin to help me with that.” Sloane shook her head, straightening her lips back out, only to have them disobey.

“Good, because I don’t want to help.” York cringed. “I can confidently say that the guys wouldn’t be much help either.”

“Why?” Briggs looked as confused as I felt. Stone was silently laughing at Briggs.

“Helios has a temper,” Sloane reminded us.