Just as I finished speaking there was a flurry amongst the women in the room and they all ran towards the walls, vanishing from sight down secret passageways that had to be hidden amongst the walls.
I looked at Viktor in confusion just as another wolf entered the room. His focus was on Lucas, not paying any attention to either myself or Viktor. "The vampire has come," he said with a low growl in his voice. It seemed that their inner wolves were riding them hard right now, not that it wasn't unexpected.
Lucas nodded and the other man left. Lucas let out another tired sigh and this time started to rub his own forehead as the Omegas had vanished. "My wolves are on edge enough right now," the man rasped. "I don't need the bloodsuckers to add to my troubles today."
"I am so sorry to hear that," said Vlad as he practically glided into the living room we were in. "I would like to think that I was the life of any party."
"Party?" growled Lucas as he stared at the man that he considered to have been both a friend and an enemy over the centuries. "You think I am throwing a fucking party? Over a hundred of my people are dead. MY WOLVES! And you think I am having a party?!" Lucas rose out of his chair, his face twisting with unadulterated rage as his wolf tried to push forward.
This was not where I wanted to be, and for a second, I thought about following the Omegas into the walls to avoid all of the testosterone in the room.
"I merely misspoke," said Vlad with a wave of his hand as if Lucas was overreacting.
Since I seemed to have doubts about the vampire that the other two men didn't seem to have, I didn't think that Lucas was overreacting at all.
In fact, if Vlad was human I might accuse him of returning to the scene of the crime just to see how others are reacting to their actions. But I am sure that wasn't possible at all. *Cue eye roll*
"So why are you here?" asked Viktor as Vlad went to take a seat in the chair beside Lucas.
"Can't I stop in to say hi?" asked Vlad snapping his fingers. "Where are all the Omegas? I want something to drink," he said, seemingly under his breath, but everyone in the room could hear them perfectly.
"Our pack is devastated; they are helping out members. They aren't here to wait on you hand and foot," snarled Lucas as he clutched the glass of brandy in his hand.
"Of course, of course," said Vlad. "And what brought the Hunter and the Gypsy by? Has anyone else commented on the fact that the Gypsy smells a lot like the Hunter?" he asked, looking between me and Viktor.
There were a whole lot of things that seemed off about the vampire, but I couldn't figure out exactly what it could be.
'The curse,' came the voice of my monster.
'What curse?' I asked, not sure what she was saying. I didn't remember any curses.
'You put an oath breaker's curse on him. He should not be alive right now,' my monster hissed.
'Could I have somehow screwed it up? I am not the best at curses,' I said as I tried to pay attention to the conversation going on amongst the men at the same time as holding a conversation with my monster.
'Not possible. An oath breaker's curse is not a typical Gypsy curse. He should be dead.' Just as my monster spoke her last word, Vlad looked over at me and I saw a flash of undiluted rage in his eyes as he stared at me. He quickly blinked and his face returned to the friendly one that he had always shown.
But that brief glimpse was enough.
I knew that look. I had seen it a lot in my last year on the force.
"So, you never said why you were here," I said, interrupting the conversation. Lucas and Viktor didn't seem to care, but I could see a brief tinge of red in his eyes, indicating that his monster was riding him hard.
"I didn't, did I?" he said with a bright smile. "Do you want to know?" he asked as he looked around the room.
"I really do," I said with an answering smile of my own. Viktor might be the Hunter, but he was not the only one that could hunt.
"I am planning something big, something huge! Are you sure you want to know? Can you keep a secret?" I looked at the other two men in the room to see if they noticed the somewhat unhinged vibes that Vlad was giving out, but neither man seemed to.
"I can keep a secret," I promised him, leaning forward in my seat as if the next few words out of his mouth were the most important ones that I had ever heard.
He gave me a side-eyed look as if he didn't really believe that I could keep a secret so I simply shrugged my shoulders and sat back in my chair as if I was no longer interested in whatever he had to say.
"Fine, I'll tell you," he said as if I had been on my hands and knees begging him. He leaned forward and stared at me, his eyes flashing between red and brown. "I am going to start a circus and I wanted to know if there were any mutts that wanted to join. Did you want to join? Every circus needs a Gypsy to tell the future. Oh! I know! We'll get Viktor and his Knights to be the clowns. What do you think?"
"A circus?" I asked. It really didn't seem to fit with the whole vampire thing.
"A circus," he confirmed. "A vampire circus, to be exact. I was thinking of calling it 'Circul Vampirilor Sangerosi'. It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"