“Fair is for women. If you take me down, I’ll go out with you.” Cian gestured toward the door. “We’ll hunt tonight.”
Interest brightened Larkin’s eyes. “Your word on it?”
“My word. Take me down.”
“All right then.”
Larkin came in fast, then spun out of reach. He jabbed, feinted, spun again. Cian merely reached out, gripped Larkin around the throat and lifted him off his feet. “You don’t want to dance with a vampire,” he said and tossed Larkin halfway across the room.
“Bastard.” Moira scrambled up, raced to her cousin’s side. “You’ve half strangled him.”
“The half ’s what counts.”
“Was that really necessary?” Glenna got to her feet, moved to Larkin to lay her hands on his throat.
“Kid asked for it,” King commented, and had her whipping her head around.
“You’re nothing but a bully. The pair of you.”
“I’m all right, I’m all right.” Larkin coughed, cleared his throat. “It was a good move,” he said to Cian. “I never saw it coming.”
“Until you can, and do, you don’t hunt.” He eased back, lowered carefully into the chair. “Time to work.”
“I’d ask you to wait.” Hoyt came into the room.
Cian didn’t bother to look at him. “We’ve waited long enough.”
“A bit more. I have things to say. First to you. I was careless, but so were you. I should have barred the door, but you shouldn’t have opened it.”
“This is my house now. It hasn’t been yours for centuries.”
“That may be. But courtesy and caution should approach a closed door, particularly when magic is being done. Cian.” He waited until his brother’s eyes shifted to him. “I would not have had you hurt. That’s for you to believe or not. But I would not have had you hurt.”
“I don’t know if I can say the same.” Cian gestured with his chin toward Hoyt’s face. “Did your magic do that?”
“It’s another result of it.”
“Looks painful.”
“So it is.”
“Well then, that balances the scales somewhat.”
“And this is what we’ve come to, checks and balances.” Hoyt turned to face the room, and the others. “Arguments and resentments. You were right,” he said to Glenna. “A great deal of what you said was right, though I swear you talk too much.”
“Oh, really?”
“We aren’t united, and until we are, we’re hopeless. We could be training and preparing every hour of every day of the time we have left, and never win. Because—this is what you said—we have a common enemy, but not a common purpose.”
“The purpose is to fight them,” Larkin interrupted. “To fight them, and kill them. Kill them all.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re demons.”
“So is he.” Hoyt laid a hand on the back of Cian’s chair.
“But he fights with us. He doesn’t threaten Geall.”