Troy rawly gulped, revealing his apparent hesitation. In his delay, he finally placed his wrists on Kai's palms, and their eyes slowly closed. Memories began to intertwine, offering them glimpses of each other's lives. However, Troy selectively blocked out his shameful infidelities and the existence of his offspring, including specific details of his life he wished to keep hidden.
Despite Troy's attempts to shield certain aspects of his life, Kai pulled a twist by skillfully unblocking every sinful affair and wrongdoing he committed, including his unborn offspring and his encounter with Orlando. Kai caught a full glimpse of the conversation between them before Evan intervened.
As the memories unfolded from Kai's mind, Troy grappled with the revelation of his uncle's dark deeds. All the shocking images of the innocent life Kai willingly took or consumed left Troy's heart shattered with disbelief at what he was witnessing. He struggled to discern whether Kai was inherently good or evil.
In reality, Kai had only blocked his past relationships and the intimate moments he shared with his wife, which he'd never permit anyone to see. Troy grasped the concept his uncle was exceptionally private about his personal life.
By the time they had released their hands, Troy was stunned at how thoroughly his uncle unblocked every little detail and sin about him. Little did he comprehend that Vlad taught Kai the knowledge of unblocking memories. Vlad had only shared this knowledge with a select few family members, and Kai was one of them, including his thirteen sons. Only the male grandchildren deemed worthy by Vlad were granted this knowledge, and Evan wasn't among them.
"I can see why you've been sort of exiled," Kai disappointedly commented before Evan handed him a full bottle of blood for him to drink.
From a different bottle, Evan poured the two glasses to the brim with blood before sliding one to Troy.
"Please don't tell my dad about the vamp baby," Troy pleaded, clutching his drink.
"It's your responsibility to tell him, not mine." Kai asserted, giving Troy some relief, though he wasn't anywhere close to being off the hook.
"Anyways, why don't you tell me the details of the bargain you wanna exchange for finding Vlad?" Kai directly asked Evan before chugging on the bottle.
"Land from our cousin Quin. He's not handing it over to me unless I help him find his wife, and that's where you come in," Evan briefly explained, leaving out some important details.
"What happened to Laura that requires her to be found? Has she been abducted by a vampire?" Kai asked, taking the matter seriously.
"Nothing serious like that! I just need your help to locate her. Then I'll tell you who knows Vlad's resting place," Evan replied, being a little too avoidant with the details.
"Alright, what's the catch? What did Quin do to her?" Kai intensely scrutinized him with an askance look for his strange behavior. He is no fool and was onto his cousin.
"Nothing, why would he do anything to Laura?" Evan smoothed it over with a question, but Kai squinted his eyes more skeptically.
"Tilly!" Kai called, and when she popped in, he asked her. "What did Quin do to his wife?"
Tilly explained as she dried a glass cup with a hand towel, "Quin cheated on Laura, so she hid from him. Sometime after she hid, he regretted his mistakes and realized how much he loved her. Now, he's been trying to locate her whereabouts, and only Mitchell's wife Elizabeth would know where her cousin is hiding, but she refuses to tell Quin."
"Tilly!" Evan playfully griped. "I can't believe you told him."
"What?" Tilly innocently giggled. "I won't lie to any of the Collin Alphas."
"But I should be your number one Alpha that you lie for," Evan teased with a whimper.
"Ohh, stop being a jealous baby," Tilly laughed. "You know I still love you."
Evan shook his head, chuckling as she left.
"What is with the males in our family constantly cheating on their wives or in their relationships!" Kai gruffed, sickened by it as he glared at his nephew with such disgust, causing Troy to cower.
"Because we're sexy, and we know we can get any female we want," Evan joked, but Kai didn't find it funny. "Did I go too far?"
"I'm not helping Quin," Kai affirmed before sipping on the bottle as he dismissed Evan's last question when it wasn't humorous to him.
Alpha Mitchell and his wife, Elizabeth, were Kai's closest friends, so hearing that his own flesh and blood had caused distress to Elizabeth's sweet cousin, Laura, irked him.
"He regrets it!" Evan justified their cousin's disloyalty. "They can fix their relationship. Quin gets his wife, I get my land, and you get Vlad. Everybody wins!"
"He can suffer for cheating on Laura," Kai meanly asserted.
"Oh, come on!" Evan childishly whined. "What about my land he's offering me?"
"You can suffer with him," Kai snickered. "I'll find Vlad myself."
"Good luck with that," Evan challenged. "You won't find Grandpa Vlad unless you get my help."
Kai ignored him as a text came through on his phone. "Second Command is yours for speaking to Miles without an issue," his dad sent him, and Kai faintly grinned to read it.
"Guess who has the Second Command?" Kai was sure to gloat to his cousin.
"Uncle Gaston didn't grant you Second Command!" Evan chuckled at the thought of Kai's dad granting him such authority.
It overall meant, Kai could call any guardians and advisors from anybody's clan in the whole Coven to be under his authority for war, and his family couldn't stop him.
"Wherever you take my friends, I'm going with them," Evan declared, making Kai laugh.
"I knew you'd say that," Kai proclaimed. "That's why you're coming with me to attack Matt's Coven."
"Just give the word when," Evan remarked, raising the glass to his lips.
"What can I do to help?" Troy joined the conversation.
"Can you kill a youngster?" Kai questioned him, and Troy audibly gulped.
"I—"
"Go easy on him. His mother softened him up," Evan teased, though he was hardly joking since Zoey raised him not to kill little ones.
"Sorry, I need a nasty vampire, not a pansy, and sleeping around doesn't make you a vampire in my eyes," Kai shot him down, and his ego got crushed, but Troy wasn't about to get any sympathy from his uncle.
"I'll tell you what you can do for me," Kai determined as an idea came to mind.
He got up from the barstool and whispered into Troy's ear for no one to hear him. However, Evan heard him and ended up slyly smirking.
"Aside from the three of us, no one can know about this plan. Not even your dad." Kai asserted, taking a seat across from him again.
Troy's eyes broadened on what his uncle required him to do, and he disputed, "I can't do that, or else I'll be exiled forever! I'll be lucky if Vlad doesn't detain me!"
"If you do it for me, I can guarantee you won't get exiled or ousted if you succeed," Kai avowed.
"And what if I don't succeed?" Troy whimpered.
"You have to because I'm counting on you," Kai asserted, leaving it at that.