Chapter 237

Chapter 237: Chapter 237

Gideon’s pov

"Drake will never take you back," I said.

"Drake won’t have a choice. When Calix is dead and Lysander’s gone, he’ll have nobody. I know how to be there for a man who has nobody." Julian lifted one shoulder. "And it’s not your problem, is it? Your problem is getting your brother back."

"Stepbrother," I said.

"Does he care about the difference? You didn’t seem to care when your cock was in him."

I didn’t answer that.

All that was in my head was getting Lysander back and putting him back where he belongs, under me.

I was short of words to describe how giddy I felt.

My father looked at me then, a long, level look across the lamplight, and I looked back. I knew what he was asking without him saying a word. He’d wanted Lysander back.

And I’d done what he wanted my whole life. When he’d sent me to fight for him, I’d fought. When he’d told me to smile at men I couldn’t stand, I’d smiled. When he’d found the vampire who’d turn me and told me it would make me strong enough to protect this family, I did all that.

I nodded once.

My father turned back to Julian. "Fine."

Julian let out a breath he’d been holding since the front steps. "Fine?"

"Don’t make me say it twice. I’m too old to repeat myself." My father folded his hands on top of his ledger. "You came here with a plan, or you came here to bleed. Which is it?"

"In three days, the council’s holding its winter banquet at the assembly hall. Drake has to go. He’s never missed one." Julian’s eyes brightened with something sharp and hungry. "Calix will be glued to his side all night, playing the hero who saved the heir. The hall’s huge, and there are courtyards and side rooms everywhere. At some point Drake will get pulled into a conversation with the elders, and Calix will be on his own."

"And you know this how?"

"I stood at Drake’s side for three of those banquets. I know where everybody goes and when."

My father nodded slowly. "And the house?"

"Half empty. Drake takes his best guards to the assembly. He always has."

"Then it’s simple." My father tapped one finger on the table for each of us. "There are three of us. You and Gideon go to the banquet. You find Calix alone, and you kill him. I go up the mountain to Drake’s house, and I bring Lysander home."

"You?" I stared at him. "You’re human."

"Which is why nobody in that house will see me coming." My father smiled for the first time all night, thin and dry. "I’m not an assassin, Gideon. I’m his stepfather, come to visit my boy in his time of trouble. Who on that mountain is going to stop an old man with a basket of his mother’s biscuits?"

Julian laughed. "You’re terrifying."

"I’m practical." My father picked up his brandy. "Gideon, you’ll need clothes that’ll get you through the doors of that hall, and Julian will need a face nobody recognizes. Can you manage both by the banquet?"

"Yes," I said.

It came out of me the way it always did, before I’d thought it through. I’d said yes to him so many times that the word lived in my mouth like a tooth.

Julian pushed his chair back and stood, swaying a little on his bare feet. "I need somewhere to sleep that isn’t here. If Drake’s men come looking, this is the first house they’ll check."

"There’s a boarding house by the river with a blue sign. The woman who runs it owes me money." My father didn’t look up from his glass. "Tell her I sent you, and tell her the debt’s halved. She’ll give you a bed and keep her mouth shut."

"Only halved?"

"You’re not worth the whole thing."

I walked Julian to the door. I didn’t trust him, and I didn’t like him, and I wasn’t going to let him walk through my father’s house alone. He stopped on the threshold with one hand on the frame and looked back at me.

"Six weeks," he said. "Does it get easier?"

"You tell me. You’ve had longer."

"No." He smiled, and for once it didn’t have any edge to it. "It doesn’t."

Then he went down the steps and into the dark, barefoot, with his ruined shirt flapping around him, and I shut the door and leaned my forehead against it.

My father had gone back to his ledgers. The scratch of his pen filled the room. I listened to it for a long time before I spoke.

"He’ll hate us for this."

The pen didn’t stop. "Who?"

"Lysander. He chose Drake. He left this house to be with him. If you walk in there and drag him away while Drake’s gone, he’ll hate us for the rest of his life."

"He’ll be alive to hate us." My father turned a page. "That’s more than Calix is planning to give him."

I crossed to the window to draw the curtains. The street outside lay empty under its burned-down lamps, and down at the corner, I could just make out Julian’s pale shirt turning toward the river.

Then I saw him.

A man stood in the deep doorway of the house across the street, wrapped in a dark coat, so still I’d taken him for part of the shadows. He wasn’t watching Julian go. He was watching our house. He was watching this window.

Our eyes met through the glass.

He held my stare for one long heartbeat, then turned up his collar, stepped out of the doorway, and walked away down the street without once looking back.

I scoffed internally, what a lovesick fool. Did he forget he is a vampire and could take on everyone? Why was he acting like an imbecile only to belong to Drake?

Was special about Drake anyway?