Chapter 14
Drake
Ihated waiting. As a vampire, all we had was time, but waiting here in the car while Piper was in there right now possibly being tortured was the most agonizing thing I had ever had to endure.
"Worse than the time you and Allister got stuck entertaining the daughter of that bureaucrat with the high-pitched voice and hyena laugh?" Rayne questioned, a pair of binoculars up to his face as he tried to get some idea of what was happening inside.
I scowled but didn't reprimand the mind reader for dipping into my head. "Nothing was worse than Andrea, but close." I held my fingers up in a pinching motion. "Very close."
Allister shuddered next to me in the backseat of the car. "I still hear that voice in my dreams sometimes. Draconius, come tell me again how you single-handedly destroyed the fifteenth regiment at the Battle of Minorca." The mocking, high-pitched tone Allister said it in wasn't even close to how bad it had actually been. Nails on a chalkboard was more becoming than that woman's voice.
"Ugh," I rubbed my temple with my hand and leaned farther into my arm against the car door. "Please stop. It took me decades to get over that event and I don't need relapses."
Wynn chuckled on the other side of Allister. "If you think Andrea was horrid, you have not been alive long enough, my friend." He sighed and relaxed into his seat, his eyes drifting out of the window. "I once had to seduce the daughters of a local priest so he would stop preaching celibacy to the good townspeople."
"Oh, boo hoo." I scowled over at him. "So you had to dip your prick into something that wasn't your choice. Join the club."
Wynn's gaze turned to me. "They were a hunchback." My brother and I visibly shuddered.
"Not that bad," Rayne quipped from the front seat. "I've done worse."
Grabbing on to the back of Rayne's seat, Wynn added on, "Did I forget to mention they were conjoined twins with halitosis?"
Everyone in the car visibly quivered, even the stoic Marcus sitting in the driver’s seat.
"What about you?" I bumped the back of Marcus's seat. "Who was the one person you wished you could forget?"
Marcus's dark eyes glanced up into the rearview mirror. "I am not chosen for my bedroom skills. All of my bedmates were by choice."
"Pfft." Rayne lowered his binoculars. "What about that—" He gagged as Marcus's hand wrapped around Rayne's throat, silencing him before he could get another word out.
"Don't."
The single word was enough for Rayne to jerk his head up and down before Marcus finally released him. Rubbing his neck, Rayne glowered at the massive man. "Geez, don't get your panties in a wad. It's not like I told them what you did with Piper." He ducked down, expecting Marcus to lash out at him again, but surprisingly, he didn't.
Since no one else in the car was going to ask, I decided to put my neck on the line. "What'd you do with Piper?"
"That's none of your concern," Marcus growled, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.
"Oh, come on." I kicked the back of his chair with my foot. "We've all fucked her. We all care about her. There's nothing you can say that would piss any of us off. Not unless you did something to hurt her." I paused, my gaze narrowing. "You didn't, did you?"
Marcus snorted in amusement. "Nothing she didn't beg me for."
I sighed in defeat and sank back in my chair. "Fine. Keep your secrets."
Tired of waiting, I pulled out my phone to find a game or something to play, but before I could begin a single match, Rayne cried out, "I see her!"
"What? Where?" All four of us reached for the binoculars at the same time, and it became a game of tug-a-war for a moment before Marcus jerked them out of our hands. Grunting with annoyance, I leaned over his shoulder and tried to see for myself. "What's going on? I can't see shit."
"She's leaving," Marcus rumbled, his gaze focused on what he saw.
"Is she alone? Is she in trouble?" Allister pushed in next to me, trying to see into the dark as well, but we were too far away.
"I cannot tell. She's being escorted by two other hunters. She doesn't look happy about it." Marcus lowered the binoculars and then dropped them into his empty seat as he dashed out of the vehicle.
We all grabbed for them, and then realized we could just follow him. With a similar duh moment, we raced from the vehicle to catch up with Marcus. He stopped by the fence, hiding behind some bushes. The yard was barely lit up by the night sky and we had to squint to see anything.
"Antoine should be here," Allister murmured beside me. "He's our leader. We shouldn't be doing this alone."