Redemption (Page 8)

A table crashed against the wall as a chair toppled over. She was already adding up the cost of the losses as another table hit the back wall and bits of wood exploded across the room. She didn’t have time to move out of the way before a flying splinter of wood hit her in the cheek. That was it, she’d had enough.

She pushed past a grinning Heath and grabbed a pot filled with water from the unlit iron stove. The fighters were still scrambling over top of each other when she arrived back at the pile and threw the water over them. Some of them came up sputtering, but three others were so determined to kill each other that they didn’t even notice.

Lucas finally separated himself from the chaos. Pushing back strands of wet hair, he rose to his feet. Hannah shoved the pot into his hands and glowered at him. He at least had the decency to look ashamed as he clutched the pot against his chest. "What were you thinking?" she demanded.

He shrugged as his gaze slid back to the group of men. "Just blowing off some steam."

"Break this up," she told him.

"I will."

She was turning away from him when the familiar sound of bells approaching drifted through the building. The hair on her arms stood on end as she exchanged a look with Lucas. "Calvin!" she hissed. "Calvin is coming!"

Where the pot of water had failed to completely end the brawl, those four words succeeded. She grabbed hold of a table and quickly settled it back into place. Humans and vampires alike scrambled around her to right the broken furniture the best that they could. She didn’t look back as she fled toward Heath and shoved him into the kitchen. Though Calvin most likely knew Heath was here, she didn’t want him to see the boy right now.

CHAPTER 3

Jack wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. One minute he was cheerfully beating a smaller vamp and the next minute the guy had launched to his feet and was trying to repair all the damage that had been done. He gazed around in astonishment as tables and chairs were righted, the ruined furniture was hastily thrown behind the swinging kitchen door, and people that had just been pummeling each other were now scrambling to find seats at the same table like some sort of demented game of musical chairs.

He spotted a man with wavy brown hair and brown eyes rapidly throwing debris into an empty pot before dashing toward the kitchen area. William straightened his shirt and ran his fingers through his disordered hair. A purple bruise was beginning to form on his cheek but he appeared otherwise unharmed from the melee.

"What’s going on?" William muttered.

"I don’t know," Jack answered.

"Sit stranger, if you know what’s best for you, you’ll sit," a man with a blossoming black eye said out of the corner of his mouth. The man kept his head bowed but Jack knew his attention wasn’t on the cards he clenched in his hands.

Jack exchanged a look with William. Jack had faced his father down, a man that had managed to survive a stake through the heart, he wasn’t about to sit because of this Calvin guy that had caused everyone to scatter. "Stranger, you don’t know what you’re asking for," the man continued.

Jack folded his arms over his chest. No, he didn’t know what he was asking for and it was rare that the prince within him reared to life, but nearly a millennium of breeding and pride surged to the forefront to keep him standing. He didn’t fear anyone, well maybe Braith when Aria was threatened, but certainly not anyone else.

"Sit," he said to William.

William snorted and shook his head. "That’s not going to happen."

Jack stepped a little closer to his friend as the front door opened. He detected the distant sound of a lake lapping against the shore as a vampire stepped through the doorway. The vampire’s shoulders took up almost the entire doorframe as eyes the color of gold surveyed the room with open disdain. His hair, the same color as his eyes, was brushed back from the well-defined planes of his angular face as it fell to his shoulders.

Jack knew power; he was a member of the most powerful vampire line in existence, he’d been around it his entire life, and this man oozed it in waves. This was one well fed, extremely old vampire standing across from him. If he hadn’t known better, he would have assumed the man was a member of the aristocratic vampire line, but he knew all the members that were left of the ruling families and this man wasn’t one of them. Jack had never seen the man across from him around the palace, not even before, during, or after either of the last two major wars.

Calvin remained unmoving as he raked Jack from head to toe with a look that would have intimidated all humans, and probably most vampires, but Jack only smiled in return. Calvin was built more like Braith than Jack’s own leaner form, with broad shoulders and a thicker chest. He was a good two inches taller than Jack and at least twenty pounds heavier.

Calvin pulled his gloves off as he entered the building and dropped them on a table that was, due to its missing leg, now being propped up by the knees of the men sitting around it. The men at the table winced as Calvin’s shrewd eyes narrowed upon them. One of them stuck his hand beneath the table to keep it from shaking.

Jack moved William back a step with his shoulder as Calvin began to walk through the room. William didn’t push against him but he kept his feet planted as he resisted Jack’s attempt to move him. Jack kept his body firmly in front of him though. William may be one of the toughest humans Jack knew, but he was no match for this vampire, and Aria would kick his ass if something were to happen to William.

"Was there a fight in here?" Calvin inquired as he stopped next to a chair that had a fissure running down the back of it. The man sitting in the chair lifted his head to look at him but didn’t respond.