Betrayal Bites (Tales of Sydney Sedrick Book 2) (16 page)

Inside the room, the walls had dark wood paneling running from floor to ceiling. The air held the bitter smell of a recently smoked pipe. Maybe that was what I had smelled in the limo? Vampires didn’t have to worry about lung cancer, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or lines deepening around their mouths from the act of inhaling from a cigarette or pipe. Vampires also weren’t focused on smell, not like humans and wolves. Vampires didn’t care much about unhealthy behaviors like humans needed to. They could smoke and drink all they wanted. They didn’t have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases, either.

Kieran closed the door behind us and slid the deadbolt into place. He lifted his head to focus his red, glowing eyes toward the ceiling. I waited until he was done communicating with his Knights. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to watching a vampire, their eyes glazing over, while they spoke by their blood link. Vampires and werewolves really had an edge, especially while they hunted in groups. Unfortunately, they had to be careful over who in their packs and covens were listening, especially since the rogues still had ties to their respective links before their pack master and coven leaders severed their connection to the rest of their kind.

“The Judges have just arrived with the king and his niece. The Elders will also be here shortly. Sydney, my sources tell me there is a rogue in my employ. The traitor may indeed be present at the ball. Somehow they are keeping their identity from me, which means they have an ‘in’ to our blood link until I can figure out who it is. It is imperative I figure out who they are before my brother, Cian, finds out.” Kieran strode to the heavy curtain covering the window of the room and pushed it aside to gaze out into the night. Despite the lightly falling snowflakes whirling around in the air, the stars in the sky twinkled a distant brilliance.

Kieran took a deep breath. Did vampires need to breathe or was that another show for my benefit? Then he continued. “My brother would use this as an opportunity to make the Elders believe I’m not capable of taking care of my coven, and you, because I’m not capable of keeping rogues outside of my own house. I expect Cian will try to sway the Elders into believing the coven is not safe under my protection and that he would be more competent in doing the job. Even though he is my brother, he wants the Elders to see me as an incompetent coven leader. My own brother will do anything to have me removed.”

I carefully walked on my purple ballpoint pen shoes over to a crushed, green-velvet cushion and sat. Whoever made the statement that being beautiful hurt hit it right on the head. My toes, squashed in the pointed tips of the shoes, were killing me.

The coven leader, despite his usual calm demeanor, sounded stressed. I’d never have known it by assessing his features, not unless he wanted me to, and even then it would be expressions he crafted and emotions he acted out only for my benefit.

“Kieran, I haven’t had the chance to tell you yet, but my Selected powers have increased since last we spoke. I’ve been having visions of the rogues working together. One of them was a vampire. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make out their identities during the vision.”

He put his hand to his chin while scrunching his forehead to appear in deep thought. The gesture was one of his more natural-appearing ones, but it was still purely to put me more at ease at being in a room, all alone, with an insanely powerful vampire.

To be honest, he looked a bit silly while he pushed the skin on his chin too strongly, creating deep wrinkles in his otherwise perfect complexion. His efforts made me like him more. I appreciated he tried to make me more comfortable being around him. There were a lot of vampires in his coven that didn’t bother themselves with such trivial things they felt were beneath them, and that included having anything to do with humans other than using them as blood sources.

He nodded slightly. “Interesting. Yes, I knew it was a vampire who was betraying us, or at least that a vampire rogue was working with a group of Others. We have an idea who it is, but at this point it’s all conjecture. The Elders would not care too much if I executed a member of my coven without having irrefutable evidence against them, which at this moment I do not have.”

“Thank you for letting the wolf pack be involved tonight with watching over everything. It must not be easy admitting that you could use their help.” I lifted my eyebrows with morbid curiosity. The wolves and vampires had such a strong hatred for one another, but it was clear from my visits with both that each had a dark, if not begrudging, respect for the other. Not that they would ever outright admit that to anyone, but I could tell when they spoke of dealings with each other.

Morris and Kieran didn’t like each other because they weren’t the same species, but they respected each other as leaders. They knew when push came to shove, like tonight during the Blood Rites Ball, they could work together to achieve common goals when they absolutely had to. What they didn’t realize was that their personalities were quite similar. Each had a deep, unyielding loyalty to their people, and they would both put their own lives on the line to save their respective pack or coven.

“Yes, dear Selected, you have that right. Morris is an honorable wolf, of that I am certain. I don’t particularly care for them as a species, and I think they should leave this town. But I, unlike most of my vampire brethren, believe we can live side-by-side with them because they find it so difficult to give up their holdings they’ve accumulated, in and outside the city boundaries.” That was the first time Kieran called me Selected instead of using my name. I liked to think we were on a more personal level. It bothered me that he was objectifying me. He spoke to me in that moment like a teacher speaking to their student, and I, as the student, was an ignorant human who had a lot to learn. I suppose, in the end, I was nothing more than a tool in their war against the wolves.

“We should be going, my dear. There are many people who would like to meet you. The Elders have arrived and will want to be greeted appropriately.” Kieran donned his mask. His eyes glowed red through the black, bat-shaped mask that covered the majority of his face. It didn’t matter if his face was covered or not. It wasn’t like I was able to read how he was feeling through his facial expressions.

The black tuxedo Kieran wore fit him well. Normally he wore well-cut, expensive suits to his parties. Seemed he was pulling all the stops to impress the Elders.

When we exited the room, Liam, who stood leaning against the hallway wall with a phone in his hand, looked up quickly, like he had been caught red-handed doing something silly like playing a game on his smart phone instead of standing guard over the leader of his vampire coven. I knew Liam had an addiction to Killer Knights, a game he downloaded onto his phone that reenacted jousting matches during the time when knights wore shiny metal armor and competed for women, horses, and other spoils.

“Master, I was just waiting to see if Sydney was ready to start enjoying the night’s festivities.”

Yep, busted, but Kieran didn’t look too displeased with his Knight. All the vampires were fascinated with the latest technological gadgets, probably because the majority of them came from a time before plumbing and electricity existed.

“Sydney is ready.” Kieran turned his eyes toward me and bowed his head while he spoke. “Be cautious who you interact with. If you find yourself in any danger, if you feel the slightest bit nervous, you have but to come find me.”

“Um, if you haven’t noticed, Kieran, it’s a bit late for that.” Smiling, I went on with, “But thanks. I’ll be sure to stay away from old-school vamps that don’t like me and would rather munch on my veins for a midnight snack than socialize with me.” Mentally I wanted to slap myself. Why did I say something like that? Kieran was pretty much as old-school as a vampire could get, although he was more advanced in his willingness to change with the times than most of the others.

“Don’t worry, Selected.”

Oh, just great, I’m back to being the Selected. I must have struck a nerve with that one.

“Yes, I, too, am an ‘old-school’ vampire. No, I don’t need to read your mind to know what you are thinking. You project your thoughts on that pretty little face of yours. Just remember, you never need to worry when you are near me. My protection is yours, whether you are willing to take it or not. Now,”—Kieran clapped his hands together, the sound echoing off the walls—“let us all have a divine time at this very special ball and see if we can get through this with our heads intact.”

I didn’t like his statement one bit. He was the leader of the coven. Wasn’t he supposed to instill confidence and joy at being able to participate in such a grand event? I had to admit for a pep talk, that totally stunk.

Kieran left to go do his hosting duties and play the good vampire politician while Liam led me to the grand ballroom. Vampires filled the corridors to the entrance. From the far end of our hallway, I could see what waited up ahead. There had to be more than two hundred of them in the ballroom. The skirts of the women’s dresses were wide enough that going down the hall was difficult. I couldn’t make my way among them without having my skirts mash up against other women’s puffy dresses. A few of the female vampires gave me nasty looks and bared their fangs, regardless of my efforts to stay out of their way as much as possible.

The vampire women wore full-length gowns of various jewel-toned colors. Most females had ornate jewelry adorning their necks and wrists along with fanciful masks covering their faces. Picking out a rogue in a masquerade ball was going to be difficult. Most of the vampires were wearing masks. The women tended to match their masks to their dresses. One even had black-and-white striped ears on the top of her mask, a perfect accessory to her zebra-patterned gown. It was hard to find one specific vampire wearing a tuxedo when all the male vampires were wearing tuxedos, and they were all inconveniently black, too.

Even if I felt the sickness and excruciating pain that went along with the presence of a rogue, I feared pinpointing one out of the crowd would be next to impossible.

“Put your mask on, pretty lady, it’s time to party.” Liam already had his mask on. It matched the one Kieran wore, but Liam’s didn’t have the purple trim along the bat’s wings. Curiously, Kieran’s purple matched my dress. I wondered if Kieran’s assistants planned that, or if it was an odd coincidence. The bat-shaped masks accentuated the way the vampires’ eyes glowed red, making them appear more dangerous and mysterious than usual.

We slowly walked through the throng of ball attendees toward the doorway leading into the ballroom. Full-length mirrors lined with gold trim covered the doors. Putting my mask on, I stopped in front of the mirror hanging on the door to my right. Gold flakes and gems matched the silver-and-gold dipped feathers on each side of my mask.

Even though most of the vampires thought of me as just another silly human who complicated their lives more than I was worth, I had confidence that I normally couldn’t call my own as we continued forward to the doorman standing just outside of the mirrored entryway.

It may be a false sense of confidence, but the dress and the mask made me feel like I belonged amongst the partygoers. No, it didn’t make sense, and Blake would freak to hear that those thoughts were running around in my mind. I wasn’t crazy. I was almost sure of that.

Liam cleared his throat, bringing me back to the present. I found myself often getting caught up in an inner conversations with myself. He offered his arm while we waited for our turn to be announced into the ball.

Aaron, Kieran’s second-in-command, and the snootiest vampire I’d met so far, stood by the entrance doors. One of the Knights I hadn’t met yet approached him and showed him something on a notepad, making sure Aaron was the only one capable of seeing what was written on it. Nodding at the Knight with a curt tip of his head, Aaron walked away, leaving the newcomer to take his place at the door.

“Liam, why would vampires write things to each other when they are capable of communicating telepathically?”

Liam’s eyebrows furrowed with concern. Seeing Liam concerned made me nervous.

“I don’t know. The only reason I can think of is they have something to hide from the coven.” So that could only mean Aaron had something to hide. Aaron was using Kieran’s own Knight against him. Were they going against their leader, or were they trying to ferret out the rogue vampire? I hadn’t felt anything while walking past the many vampires, well, besides the normal chill the vampires gave off. Were Kieran’s Knights in on whatever nefarious activities Aaron was involved with?

An avocado-sized lump sat in the pit of my stomach. I guess even the top guy in the coven couldn’t trust his own people to always have the vampires’ backs, or maybe it was specifically the top guy who shouldn’t trust anyone?

“Do you think we should tell Kieran?” I didn’t want to speak too loudly and let on we saw anything go on between the traitors. If a vampire wanted to hear what I said, no matter how quietly my words were spoken, they would hear it if they had their attention directed my way.

“I just told him. He said for you to enjoy the party. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you.” He winked.

Aaron’s replacement surveyed me up and down before announcing us and opening the doors. He didn’t make my gut any queasier than it already was, but I didn’t get as strong of a reaction from the rogue vampires as I did from rogue werewolves lately, so I wasn’t sure how much to trust my Selected sensibilities.