"Well, I hate to break the news now, what with all of the back-patting going on, but we need to talk." Lucien and Nikolas both shook their heads and shrugged, waiting for me to go on. "There's been another murder."
"And let me guess, a werewolf is responsible?" Lucien asked.
I nodded.
"Christ," Nikolas cursed.
* * *
I turned over in bed and reached for a warm body, only to find that the bed was empty. Considering the events of the last day or so, I'd have thought someone would've at least had the courtesy to wake me up with a blowjob.
I grabbed my phone, slipped on a robe, and went in search of my three men.
Three. Men.
Leave it to me to be able to get into the most complicated of relationships. But I wouldn't trade what I had now for anything. I was happy. Unbelievably so. In fact, I was so happy, I was afraid that the other shoe was about to drop and everything would just crumble.
I found them in the office.
Lucien was in his chair, Nikolas perched on the desk beside him, and Sabaan was pacing back and forth between the two windows behind them, tail just twitching. None of them looked particularly happy.
"What's wrong?"
Lucien turned the flat-screen monitor around so that I could see it. "See for yourself."
At first, I wasn't sure what I was looking at. The video was shaky, like it was done by an amateur. When it steadied out, the picture became clear and my stomach did a flip-flop. On the screen were Ricky and two other people& and I was behind him. I watched as I bit into him, half-shifted, and then laughed as he stopped moving.
It was my face, my long, brown hair... My height and my build, but it wasn't me. I started to say so, but Lucien held up his hand. "There's more."
The video cut and there was a time and date stamp, and then blank video. The black screen only lasted a few seconds and then there was a werewolf holding down some guy and ripping his stomach open. I watched in disgust when the incident stopped and the werewolf shifted back to human form.
And he looked just like me.
The guy from the video wasn't the guy from the pictures Tanner had given me, so this was obviously a third victim. All I could do was shake my head and repeat that it wasn't me, over and over and over again.
Nikolas was somehow behind me, and I thought that was great because I was two seconds away from passing out. He held me close, comforting me.
"We know it's not you, baby," Lucien said gently. "But if anyone else sees this video."
"They'll think it's me." I cut him off. "They'll think I'm some kind of fucking monster. Who delivered the video? What do they want?"
"We don't know," Nikolas said softly. "It was hanging on the gate at sundown."
"What the fuck are we supposed to do?"
I pulled away from Nikolas, suddenly needing a little space. He let me go, but stayed close beside me. Sabaan turned and took Nikolas' place at the edge of the desk beside Lucien.
"To start with, you need to call the Council," Sabaan said. "If there's someone running around pretending to be you, then they need to know about it."
"Right." I grabbed my phone and opened it. As I was scrolling for Daniel's number in my contacts, the phone rang and he was on the other end. "Hello?"
"Peter!" Daniel's voice was cheerful for once. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I'd have cleared my schedule. What did you.?"
"What the hell are you talking about, Daniel? I haven't been to see you."
"Don't play games, Peter. What's on the disc?"
"So you have a disc, too?" I shook my head, sighing into the phone. "It wasn't me that showed up, Daniel. That's why I'm calling."
The line went silent and I wondered if he was still there. That was the problem with talking to a damned vampire on the phone. Most of them didn't bother to breathe, so there was a definite lack of sound on the other end.
"Daniel?"
"Sit tight, I'm on my way." Daniel paused. "Tell me one thing, first; are you ready?"
I knew exactly what he was asking about. I might not have been ready, but it was time. I'd avoided him as long as I could, and to be honest, the Council was something I wanted behind me in case this shit with the murders and this new video "evidence" fell apart.
"Yes. I'm ready."
"Good. We'll get this mess cleaned up first and then we'll concentrate on that. Like I said, sit tight, I'll be there as soon as I can."
I closed my phone and looked up. Everyone was staring at me. "Daniel's on his way. He said to sit tight, whatever that means." Still, none of them said a word. "What?" I finally asked.