CHAPTER 17
Piper
IWAS GOING TO killMorpheus. I was going to find that smug little prick, pull him limb from limb, starting with his smallest, most favorite one. Then, I was going to rip out his heart and grind it into dust, mix it with my morning coffee, and drink what is left of Morpheus, the mother fucking vampire. Maybe I’ll even wear his fangs as a pair of earrings. Yeah. That would make an excellent threat to the other vampires in this state.
“Geez, Piper,” Rayne's lip curled up in a grimace. “Nice visual.”
I flushed. “Sorry.”
“So, Morpheus is an asshole,” Drake growled, “Why am I not surprised?”
“Well, sitting down here isn’t going to fix any of this.” Allister dragged a hand over his face. “We need to find Morpheus and make him fess up. Fix whatever he did to the businesses. Or the vampire hunters are not going to be the worst of our problems.”
I winced. “Yeah. I probably need to smooth things over with them.” I suddenly had a thought. I pulled my cell out of my back pocket and sighed. Yep. Several missed calls from one Vincent, vampire hunter president, and pain in my ass. Fuck. This wasn’t going to be fun. “I need to see the president. Maybe I can get them to sniff around for Morpheus.”
“Any luck, and they’ll kill him for us,” Wynn mused with a pleased grin.
“No way,” I shook my head and turned for the stairs. “I want to be up close and personal with Morpheus. No one fucks with my family and gets away with it.”
The guys stared at me for a moment and then collectively laughed.
I pivoted, and my brows shot up to my hairline at their laughter. “What? What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, love.” Wynn followed after me. “You are just sounding more like a Durand every day.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” I asked, walking backward to the stairs.
“No,” Wynn chuckled. “Not at all.”
We marched up the stairs in one line, one united front against our enemies. One family.
At the top of the stairs, we split up. Drake headed to the kitchen, no doubt smelling the pie Gretchen had finished making. I wasn’t holding my breath that he would save me any—damn pig.
The sun hadn’t gone down yet, but thankfully, the tempered glass the Durands had put in recently made it easier for them to move around their own home without going up into flames. It was nice to have more light throughout the house, but the sun did limit the actions we could make to implement our plans.
“How long until sundown?” I asked over my shoulder as I walked through the dining room. I needed weapons, lots of weapons.
“Two hours, at least.” Allister glanced at his phone before stopping at the bottom of the steps.
Wynn raced up the stairs, no doubt to get Antoine up to date. Rayne followed after him, but he didn’t offer up his plan of action.
Making my way up behing them, I only made it a few steps up when Allister called out to me, “Hey, Piper?” He grabbed my wrist before I got too far up the stairs.
I twisted back around, climbing down the stairs until we were at eye level. “Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
I frowned and cocked my head to the side. “For what?”
“For forgiving me. For loving me.” He sighed and stared off at nothing. “For giving us all a reason to want to have eternity.”
A small smile crept up my face, and I leaned into him. Cupping his face with my hands, I pressed my mouth to his. I kissed him deeply, as deeply as I felt for him and the others. I kissed him with everything that I had in me and then some. I pulled back, my breathing hard as I said, “I was floating through life before I walked into this house. It should be me that is thanking you.”
Allister opened his mouth to say something else, but Jack appeared at the top of the stairs. The hand on my wrist tightened slightly, and I patted Allister’s hand to calm him.
“Hey, Jack. How’s it going?” I forced a smile, hoping it didn’t show how much I wanted him to be gone.
Jack returned my smile with a more genuine one. However, I’d worked with the man long enough to know what the tightness around his eyes meant.