CHAPTER 11
Piper
Iwas wrapped up inDarren's arms when my phone went off. I untangled myself from him and leaned over the bed, searching for my discarded phone. Grabbing it, I saw an unfamiliar number on the screen.
"Hello?" My voice was hoarse from sleep. I cleared it and tried again. "Who is this calling at..." I glanced at my phone again—"Freaking midnight. Someone better be dead or dying," I warned, already throwing my legs over the bed in preparation.
"Someone's about to be."
I frowned, my brows drawn together at the voice. "Mizuki?"
Instead of answering me, she said, "Meet me in Savannah. We just got word of a vampire club there."
"There is?" I pretended not to know what she was talking about. I couldn't bring up Club Dead on my own. I couldn't be that premeditated about it. The mattress moved behind me, and I knew Darren was awake. He placed his hand on my shoulder, and I waved him off. "Why are we going there?"
"Why else? To kill vampires." She hung up the phone, and I was left blinking down at a beeping phone.
"What did she say?" Darren asked.
I shook my head and stood. Turning the light on, I went to the closet. "She wants me to meet her in Savannah. At Club Dead."
"But that's Morpheus's club," Darren reminded me.
"I know that." I jerked on a pair of jeans and searched for my bra. "The jerk has it coming anyway. Now I have an excuse."
"You can't kill him."
I paused in the middle of putting on a long-sleeved black shirt. "Why not? He's a dick and an abuser." I jerked my shirt over my head. "After what he did to me and tried to do to Rayne, if any vampire deserves to die, it's him."
Darren walked across the room to me, still completely nude from our previous activities. For a moment, I was distracted by the expansion of his muscled chest, the line of his abs, and the hair that trailed down from his belly button to one of my favorite appendages.
I felt myself flush as I bit my lower lip.
"Stop looking at me that way, or you're going to be late." Darren's eyes darkened as he stopped a foot away from me. "And we owe Morpheus. We can't kill him until that debt has been paid."
My gaze jerked up from Darren's body, annoyance crossing my face. "I don't owe him anything. It wasn't me that needed his help. I figured out where the vampire hunters were without going to him."
Darren took me by the shoulders and smoothed his hands up and down them as if I were a startling calf. "Still, if you kill him or let him be killed without warning him, the other vampires will see it as a breach of conduct. Failing to uphold our side of a bargain is one of the vampire laws that the Council upholds above all else."
I snorted. "And killing one's maker? That's not against the law?" I paused and looked at him. "Council? What Council?"
Dropping his hands from my arms, Darren stepped back and went to the dresser. He pulled out a pair of pajama bottoms and slid them on. "The vampire Council resides in Italy where they can watch all their little peons as if they were the Pope." He made a disgusted face showing how highly he thought of that idea.
"Why am I just hearing about them now?" I watched him move around the room, getting dressed as I went about finding my weapons.
"The Council does not step in unless forced to. They do not want to get their lily-white hands dirty." Darren found a white t-shirt and covered his delectable body with it. Sad. "They didn't come after us for killing Boris because he was grotesque and made it harder for the vampires to stay under the radar. He needed to be put down. We just made it easier for them."
I remembered the blood-red of the Durand's maker, Boris, and shuddered. His teeth resembled that of a shark's mouth. His skin was loose and rough as if he had a skin condition though it was from living too long rather than any outside force. His ears were pointed and his nails were sharp enough to cut someone's throat. There was no way Boris could pass for human, and those who thought otherwise were just fooling themselves.
"So, what?" I slipped my dagger into my boot and fastened the other one into place on my wrist. "If we don't keep our promise, they're going to kill us?"
"Something like that." Darren crossed the room to stand beside me. "There is also the fact that they don't know you are working with the hunters. If they find out..." he sighed and shook his head. "Let's just say killing us will be the least of our worries."
I huffed. "Fine. I won't kill Morpheus." I moved away from him and stalked toward the door.
Darren called after me, "You can't let him be harmed by the hunters either."
Freezing in place, I twisted around to glare at him. "So what, I'm supposed to protect him now?"