Page 47 of Born Wicked

Finally, the elevator dings and opens on the private penthouse level. I push my way out of it before the doors are fully open. I don’t even hesitate as I reach Mason’s front door. I let myself right in, once more entering the lavish space I once lived in for a few months.

“Mason?” I call out as I walk through his long entryway.

The sound of a snarl greets me, making me pause in place for just a second.

“Not her, ever,” Mason says sternly, though in a tone I’ve never heard from him before. “You’ll watch yourself.”

“Who…” I begin to ask, but the second I make the turn into the main living area, I stop dead in my tracks.

A man stands beside Mason. There’s blood smeared all over his neck, staining his white, button-up shirt. He breathes hard, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly. His breathing sounds… strange.

But it’s his glowing yellow eyes that make my stomach drop.

Red. If eyes glow, they’re supposed to be red. Vampire eyes are red. Always red.

Except when they’re the eyes of a different kind of vampire.

“Holy shit,” I breathe, barely more than a whisper. “Mason, is this a…”

My eyes shift over to Mason, and I actually look at him for the first time since racing in. There’s blood on his chin, on his lips. It’s dried, like it’s been forgotten about for an hour. The look in his eyes… Mason has always been confident, always been calm. But he is neither of those right now. He looks… terrified, horrified even.

“Mason,” I say, my voice wavering just slightly. I consider taking another step toward him, but the way the man with the yellow eyes is looking at me, like he wants to tear me limb from limb, I stay put. “Is this… I…” I shake my head. I can hardly find the words. I’ve been in this vampire world for damn near close to a year, but this is something new for me. “Is this a… a Bitten?”

“Shit, Juliet,” Mason breathes. “I screwed up.”

I look back over at the man with the glowing yellow eyes. From his business attire, I assume he works here in the building. There are hundreds of employees who come and go every day from Godfrey Tower. He sniffs, his nostrils actually flaring.

“I need…” he says, his voice rough and uneven. “Shit, what is that smell? And why do I want it so bad?”

He tries to take a step forward, and my knees bend just a little, prepared to try and restrain him, so he doesn’t go out too and kill someone, or make another like him. Actually, I don’t know if that’s a thing or not. This is completely unknown territory for me.

But only the man’s upper body moves slightly. It’s as if his feet are glued in place. And he seems exceptionally annoyed at this.

“I… I told him he had to stay here,” Mason says, his voice quivering just a little. “I always heard about the commands, the Debt, but I never…” he shakes his head. He looks over at the man, and he looks… afraid.

Okay. I know I’m a council member, and I’ve delt with plenty of complicated shit during my time in Chicago, but this? I feel like I’m in way over my head.

I pull my phone out and fire off a text to the first person who comes to mind with this weird, unique situation. Jon.

I need you. Can you come to Godfrey Tower? Now? Mason’s penthouse.

He replies immediately.On my way.

“Okay,” I say as I slip my phone back into my pocket. “I need you to explain what happened. Really spell it out, cause this…” I shake my head, once again feeling overwhelmed. “I’ve never even seen this shit before.”

Mason finally unfreezes and crosses to the couch. He sinks onto it and braces his elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers back into his frazzled hair, his head hanging.

“I was working from home today,” Mason begins. “After being out of commission for five days, and with Elena unconscious, I had an inconceivable amount of work to catch up on.”

Okay, understandable. When we were together-not-really-together, he worked non-stop.

“We really, really needed to get this contract signed and sent off. It being late is going to potentially cost us three million dollars,” he says, and I hear his frustration rising in his voice. He looks up, and his eyes are bloodshot, embers sparking in them. His emotions are heightened as a vampire. He could react any moment, still a newborn with poor self-control. “I drank eight blood bags before I let Jason bring up the paperwork.”

Jason, Jason, poor Jason.

“And Patrick let him in?” I ask, annoyed. Where the hell is he?

“Bad timing?” Mason says, cringing. “He had gone down to pick up the food we ordered. And I think I lost my mind a little bit, because as soon as I smelled Jason, I revoked Patrick’s access to the penthouse. He’s probably trying to scale the building right now.”