Willing (The Un 1)

Shaking my head, I ignore my misgivings about coming back to this hellhole.

I’ve come here few times since Nikolaos was granted the city, and every single fucking time it’s to fix something that asshole fucked up. Revolts, riots, huntings… Each and every time I’ve been here I’ve walked away with at least one more reason to rip his head off his neck.

“You’re not allowed to kill anyone.” I look over to Matthias and Andrei, then peer pointedly at Raphael. “Not without my expressed verbal permission.”

Raphael frowns at me. “That’s some bullshit.”

“Istanbul.” Andrei snickers. “There’s a reason he says expressed verbal permission.”

“That was eighty-five fucking years ago, you shit,” Raphael growls. “If I hadn’t acted on my own fucking permission…”

“Yes, yes.” Matthias grins. “We’d all be in a world of hurt.”

“Fuck all of you.” Raphael crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“Remember,” I say, and laugh. “Blinking my eyes doesn’t fucking count.”

Raphael’s right though, we’d probably be a few members shy of where we are now if he hadn’t gone into his berserker rage.

The stretch SUV that we’re riding in though is giving me bad feelings. We shouldn’t be riding around in circles… I can feel it. We should already be at the meeting spot Nikolaos set up for us.

“Raph,” I say as I look out the window.

“Yeah?” he grunts, still acting as if he’s been deeply wounded.

“You’ve been here recently… Should we be circling around like this?” I ask.

All three guys look out the windows and begin to growl.

Matthias moves in the blink of an eye, slamming his fist through the glass partition between us and the driver.

Over the squealing of the tires, I hear Matthias asking the driver where exactly he’s taking us.

“Fucking hell,” Raphael says as he moves up beside us. “Either they’re delaying the meeting or they’re using an absurdly stupid ghoul.”

“You drive,” I say to Raphael. “You know the city better than me.”

Matthias begins to force his will upon the ghoul, and it’s not long before we have the address of the meeting spot.

Raphael moves up into the driver’s seat and pushes the knocked-out ghoul into the passenger side.

“What the fuck are they playing at?” Andrei asks as he moves into a protective position near me.

Big fucker is trying to act like a shield, as always.

Pushing on his shoulder to move him out of the way, I growl, “I don’t fucking know.”

Trying to shoulder me further back into the seat, Andrei moves his bulk around as if he’s some damn teddy bear.

“If you don’t get the fuck off me…” I warn, and slam my fist into the back of his thick head.

“After the shit you put us through?” he says, and moves enough for me to see what’s going on around us.

“Yes,” I grunt. “It’s the awakening and being so close to her. I can feel her… I can feel her emotions… At least some of them. She’s afraid, yet she’s keeping herself unnaturally calm... I can’t understand why.”

Shaking my head, I push Andrei fully out of my way and move up to the seat behind Raphael. “Get us to wherever we’re going, fast. I don’t like the bullshit that’s getting pushed on us.”

“It’s some fucking club Nikky boy owns,” Raphael says as he pushes the SUV hard.

The large engine roars as he swerves and threads us through the lanes of traffic.

“In one piece, dammit!” I snap at him.

“We’ll be fine.” Raphael laughs. “Besides, when’s the last time you died in a car accident?”

I’m going to fucking kill him some day, I just know it.

The building we pull up in front of is large and unimpressive. It has zero advertisement. There’s no windows with beer slogans, no neon flashing lights. On this late summer night, there’s nothing that shows what it really is.

A blood den.

Staring at it pisses me off so bad I want to murder Nikolaos over and over again.

I might just do it too, Council approval be damned.

Looking at the long line of fang-wannabes waiting to be granted admittance, I fight the urge to growl.

In a city that’s practically being run over with the Order, this illogical fuck is operating as if he has a fucking truce with them.

Vampires are out in human society. Our existence is no longer hidden from the those who would have hunted us down centuries ago.

But that doesn’t mean we have immunity from the world at large.

All the things that go bump in the night came out a hundred years ago, but that doesn’t mean openly operating a blood den in a fucking Benedictine stronghold.

Looking to Raphael, I murmur so only the four of us can hear my words. “Contact the local pack and see what it takes to get on their good side. Have Aaron in New Philadelphia cover whatever it is they want. Set a gathering in two days, somewhere outside the city.”