“Were you talking to him about me?” Will entered Maddox’s office. “Why are there words in your mouth about me to him?”
Before Maddox could correct Will on the proper way to address such concerns, Lorien called out.
“MAD! There’s an officer at the door!”
Will scuttled away at high speed, clearly imagining himself to be on the verge of re-arrest. He needn’t have bothered panicking. It was one of Mads’ people, not an officer coming to return him to prison.
Captain Lora Candy was the commanding officer of the NYPD division which officially did not exist. She’d come ready for action, wearing a black bite-proof vest which rose all the way up to her chin, and a bold identification stripe across the chest and back.
SUCU.
Most of the force thought it Serious Unexplained Crimes unit. In truth, the acronym stood for Serious Undead Crimes Unit. Some pronounced it Suck-u. Maddox did not approve of that even a little bit. If he heard it, his human subordinates would be for it.
“Detective Candy,” he greeted the severe-looking blonde woman. Lora Candy was a forty-year-old, hard as nails, no-nonsense career cop with scars inside and out. She was one of Maddox’s favorite humans by a very long margin, Will excepted.
She got to the point without bothering with a greeting. “There’s been a crime, sir. A particularly nasty one. The vampires are out for blood.”
“Enough with the puns, Candy.”
“Sorry, sir. It’s just… accurate,” she said. “There’s been a spate of feral attacks tonight. Something’s stirring them. We staked five on our way here and there’s been two deaths so far, with twenty serious injuries.”
“Excellent work,” Mads praised, watching the way her eyes lit up. Candy, like most officers who joined his police unit, was a hard-ass seasoned cop hiding an eternal teenage girl who just thought vampires were super cool, and was absolutely thrilled to be let in on the conspiracy that they were real. Common humans were allowed to keep the delusion of vampires being mythical. It suited the vampires, and it suited the human powers that be who knew better too.
“Word on the street is Bertram and Ernie have been slain, sir.”
Maddox’s brows rose. “One hopes that remains a rumor.”
Her radio crackled. “Candy,” she answered, snapping it from her shoulder. Maddox pretended to not be able to hear what was going on though he could hear the ear piece as well as she could.
“No longer a rumor, sir. It sounds like a grisly scene.”
“Let’s go,” Maddox said. “Lorien, watch Will.”
“C’mere.” Lorien grabbed Will by the back of the collar and hauled him backward off the couch where he had been sitting watching TV.
Will cursed and reached back, trying to grab hold of Lorien, but his fucked leg and the awkward position, not to mention having lost the element of surprise, made it almost impossible. Lorien dragged him over to the kitchen island and tossed him up on it.
“Don’t. Move.”
Green eyes pierced Will’s skull and made it impossible for him to resist. It felt like his brain slowed down to a point where he couldn’t actually think anymore. Instead, he just sort of floated around mindlessly in his skull, barely inhabiting it.
“Did you ever notice the shackle points on this island before? Bet you didn’t,” Lorien said, reaching under the kitchen sink to pull out several lengths of chain, which he then used to secure Will to the island, the jangling of the links almost threatening to break through the vampire’s influence, but not quite.
It didn’t drop until the last link had been secured. Will’s mind cleared and he found himself completely chained on the kitchen countertop.
“What are you fucking doing?”
“Maddox told me to watch you.”
“He didn’t tell you to chain me up!”
Prison had given him both a fear of chains and an acceptance of them. He hated the way they felt wrapped around his waist and his ankles, his wrists and his neck. It was so unnecessary.
“You’re a flight risk, baby bird. And you can’t fly.”
Will knew Lorien couldn’t hurt him. Maddox would murder him. But there was a lot Lorien could do that didn’t rise to the charge of serious damage, and Lorien seemed to be very aware of that.
“I don’t like being chained.”
“Poor baby bird,” Lorien tutted, hefting himself up onto the counter to sit next to Will’s restrained form. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll get out of them eventually.”
Lorien smiled, flashing very white teeth with just a hint of fang. “So Mad thinks you’re special. Has he made you feel special? He likes to fuck things like you.”
Will gritted his teeth and said nothing.
Lorien smiled brighter than ever and snapped into a new position, moving so quickly he seemed to be teleporting. Suddenly, he had vampire weight across his torso, and Lorien’s handsome, cold face sneering down at him. Lorien extended a finger and tapped Will on the nose.