Page 51 of Blade

“Fuck. Okay.” Facet pulled out his phone.

“What exactly are your suspicions?” I asked Voodoo.

“He’s on his way,” Facet replied as he hung up the phone, and my question was momentarily forgotten.

“Watch closely when he arrives,” Voodoo insisted. We all nodded.

The rest of our brothers filtered into the clubhouse. While we waited, Voodoo filled them in on what happened.

“Raptor isn’t back yet?” Gator asked, voice laced with concern.

“Not yet,” Phoenix muttered, also obviously worried.

There was a hissing sound that had all of us going still. In the center of the room, a small tendril of smoke rose from the floor. It darkened and swirled until it resembled less of a cloud or smoke, but more like… shadows. Then there was a flash of light that sounded like electricity zapping, before Facet’s father, Séamus, stepped out.

The shadows seemed to shrink away into the corners of the room.

He straightened his very expensive suit, then stared at us all.

“What was so important that I had to come rushing over here? Not that I don’t love visiting with you and Willow,” he told Facet. “And Satan’s toenails, why are you all in Texas?”

While Gator and some of the other brothers filled him in, I could only stare with my mouth hanging ajar. Voodoo noticed and cocked a brow. “You see what I was talking about?”

“You don’t think he’s my….” I couldn’t finish my sentence. It was too crazy—and too much of a coincidence.

And though Voodoo and I were talking quietly amongst ourselves, Séamus stopped Gator by holding an elegant hand up. “Whatwereyou talking about?” he demanded of Voodoo.

Voodoo lifted his chin and crossed his arms, completely unfazed by Séamus’s intense stare. “I think Blade here might be related to one of your kind.”

One of your kind.

I had a flashback to the first day I’d met Voodoo’s grandmother. How she wouldn’t let me come in her home untilI drank the vile concoction she had in that bottle. How she’d referred to me asyour kind.

My eyes bugged and I shook my head in disbelief.

Séamus honed in on me. His head tilted to the side and his gaze narrowed. “Indeed?”

He approached us slowly, like a jungle cat stalking its prey. He then took a deep breath as he leaned into me. “Give me your hand,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Reluctantly, I did as he said.

Before I knew what he was doing, he sliced my palm open with one of his fingernails, then swiped through the blood, and lifted it to his nose. I jumped and grunted. He appeared shocked.

“It can’t be,” he muttered. Then he placed his finger covered in crimson between his lips and swallowed it. What was really weird was that as he did it, I could actually imagine what it tasted like. I almost craved it.

He appeared startled, then angry.

I was confused as fuck.

He shouted, “Hayden! Come to me!”

But when no one reacted, I realized he hadn’t moved his lips. I took an involuntary step back.

Séamus simply blinked at me. “You heard that?”

“Yeah. But that’s uh, new.”

“Explain.”