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Max felt his jaw drop, head spinning with surprise. “What? You never told me that!”
Chase just shrugged, a grim smile pulling at his lips. “Ask me later. We don’t have any alcohol handy to get into that story right now. But don’t think I’m so innocent. I’ve had something of a rough road.”
Max made a mental note to follow up on this later as he really, really wanted that story. But Chase was right—now wasn’t the time. They had bad vampires to deal with.
Zander faced the vampires. Max couldn’t help but catalogue that expression for future reference. This was what Zander looked like when utterly furious.
“What did you plan to do with them?” Zander asked, his quiet voice loud as thunder in the silence. “Answer me.”
The one who had held Max lifted his head, shaking uncontrollably. He was a large man, tall and well-muscled, but he shook like a newborn foal in front of Zander. Voice trembling, he answered, “W-we were g-going to haul them t-to the river, feed off them, maybe f-fuck them, then l-leave them there.”
“Max and Chase carry the scent of myself and my brother. You must have smelled us, known they belonged to other vampires. Why did you continue?”
The other vampire answered, almost crying now. “We—we didn’t think it mattered. It never has b-before. What generation are you? I-I can’t move. I want to move but c-can’t.”
Zander lifted an eyebrow as he regarded the insects at his feet. “Me? I’m one.”
They were crying now, openly, fear pouring from their mouths.
“You,” Zander said in a clinical manner, “are likely twenty-six or twenty-seven. Just strong enough to give humans trouble. Not smart enough to realize how powerless you are in the face of most of vampire society. You made two mistakes tonight. First, you let a false sense of superiority fill you—thinking you could do whatever you liked to humans. Second, you laid hands on something that was not yours. If you think you’ll survive the night after what you just attempted, you are very delusional.”
A motorcycle roared onto the scene, tires burning rubber. Chase popped up from the bench with a relieved smile.
“Ronan!”
Max watched as Ronan threw his helmet to the side and raced for his lover, catching Chase up in his arms, enough to lift his feet off the ground. Naked relief painted his face as he held Chase. That embrace looked tight enough to leave bruises, but Chase didn’t protest it, just wrapped both arms around his boyfriend and held on.
“All right?”
Chase nodded against his boyfriend’s shoulder. “Zander, he saved us. I’m okay.”
Ronan looked relieved, but not appeased, his anger nearly palpable. He lifted his head to look at Zander. “I owe you.”
“Anything of yours I’ll protect. You know this.” Zander moved to rejoin them, this time coming to stand next to Max, his hand lightly landing on Max’s shoulder. “Their plan was to take both Max and Chase to the river, feed from and rape them, then leave them for dead. They’ve apparently done this before.”
Ronan’s expression turned dark as a thunderstorm. “Oh, did they. I don’t think they’re fit to stay in our society.”
“I quite agree. I spoke with Franklin. He assures me they’ll be prosecuted to the fullest extent, and he’s on his way to get them now. But I don’t feel the need to give them any level of comfort.”
“I don’t either.”
Ronan kissed the top of Chase’s forehead before stalking toward the kneeling vampires. He paused in front of them, examining them both for a moment, anger a live thing in his body language. Without a single change in his expression, he struck both of them in succession, and Max winced at the sounds of bones breaking. Ronan had just broken both their jaws, hadn’t he? Daaaaamn, he was certainly livid. Max would feel bad for the two, but his sympathy could currently be found in the dictionary somewhere between shit and syphilis.
“Stop breathing,” Ronan ordered in a voice as smooth as silk.
In seconds, they were choking, clawing at their own throats for air, unable to breathe. Max shivered at the sight. Mesmerized. Ronan had just Mesmerized them. Great Buddha, how powerful was this ability? His eyes went to Zander, the implications snowballing in his head. Could Zander have ordered Max to trust him? To stop being afraid of him? Was that within his ability?
He hadn’t, though. He had chosen to win Max over in other, natural ways. Like bringing him food, taking him on outings, spending time with him—all in order to win his trust. Only when he was truly furious did he use his ability at all. Max now felt a little guilty he’d ever painted Zander with the same brush as the monster that had hurt him so many years ago. Clearly, Zander was not someone he should ever fear.
“Um.” Chase pointed at the kneeling vampires. “Are they going to die like that?”
“If they’re lucky, Franklin will arrive before they do and lift the command.” Zander gave a bored shrug. “Traffic is bad tonight, though; I don’t give that good odds. Do you want them to live?”
“Eh. I dunno. What happens if they do?”
Ronan returned to Chase, hands gentle as he brought his lover back into his embrace. “We have no tolerance in vampire society for this sort of thing. Their crime was compounded by hunting another vampire’s lover. Cardinal rule: Do not touch what is not yours. Since they were too stupid or too arrogant to obey even basic rules, they’ll be sentenced to immediate execution.”
“Then…let them breathe,” Chase decided. “I don’t want their blood on your hands. Let the law take care of them.”
