Page 48 of Born Wicked

“Shit,” I mutter, shaking my head. The idiot should have known better than to leave a newborn vampire unattended in a building full of potential victims, even if it was just for a few minutes to go pick up food.

Mason nods, and I don’t know that he’s ever looked so pale, and it has nothing to do with him now being a creature of the night. “Jason knocked just two minutes after Patrick left. I swear, Juliet, I did everything I could to make sure I was in control. But the second I opened the door, the second I smelled his blood…”

The bloodlust took over.

“And you had some control,” I fill in, based off the little I do know about the Bitten, “but not enough.”

“I stopped, Juliet,” he says, and his tone sounds desperate. He shakes his head. “I knew I had to stop, and I did. But then he just… collapsed. And for a second, I thought I killed him. But his heart kept beating, kind of. And then thirty minutes later… I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to do this to him.”

I look back at Jason. He’s still breathing hard, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his eyes glowing, wild and feral.

He smells different. It’s hard to describe. Vampires smell… well, I can’t describe that either. Humans smell like the best meal I’ve ever had. But Jason… he doesn’t smell like either.

“Mason, Roman made it pretty damn clear what happens if you create a Bitten,” I say as the cold realization hits me.

“I’m painfully aware,” Mason says, his voice quivering with fear and self-hatred.

Creating a Bitten is explicitly forbidden. And an instant death sentence.

“You’re a council member,” I say as I start to pace. My fingers naturally rise to lace into my hair as my stress levels begin to rise. “There’s no way Roman is going to kill you over this. Besides, he’s currently locked up. We have some time before he’ll ever know.”

Mason curses and drops his head into his hands. He looks so defeated. So different from the confident, kind man I’m used to.

“Why… why is he just standing there?” I ask, eyeing the newly created Bitten with caution. “He sure as hell looks like he doesn’t want to be.”

“It’s the Debt,” Mason says, resolved. “I told him to. He can’t help it.”

“Literally?” I ask, raising a doubtful eyebrow.

“Jump up and down five times and then do a summersault,” Mason says, looking at Jason.

And without hesitating, Jason bends his knees and then jumps. He repeats it four more times. And then, just like a little kid, he tucks and rolls over in a perfect summersault.

“Shit,” I breathe out, shaking my head.

“What the hell do we do with him?” Mason asks, looking totally at a loss. “He can’t stay in the city. He’ll expose himself too quickly. And Roman would absolutely lose his shit if he knew there was a Bitten in Chicago.”

The stressed, selfish, snarky part of me wants to scoff,we? I didn’t make this problem.

But maybe I did, at least a little bit. I should have made sure Mason had better control before releasing him. I should have known he might potentially do something like this. I well remember how powerful the bloodlust was when I first Resurrected.

But I also rode in a plane with him trapped inside with me just an hour after I Resurrected.

Apparently, my expectation of others is unrealistic.

“We’ve got some time,” I say, still pacing. “I’m going to get Roman released, somehow. But for now, he’s taken care of while he’s still in custody.”

“Wait,” Mason says, shaking his head. “Roman was arrested?”

Apparently, it didn’t hit the first time I mentioned it. “Yeah,” I answer, pressing my palms into my eyes. Just when I felt like a few things were handled for a few seconds, another wrench was thrown into the cogs. “While you were dead, Superintendent Day issued a search warrant of Roman’s apartment at the club. They found blood. And then it came back as Sebastian’s and his.”

Mason curses again. “I’m so sorry, Juliet. I can’t imagine how that felt, shouldering everything by yourself.”

I nod. Yeah. The breakdown I had that night left me groveling on Sebastian’s voicemail for help. An all-time low. “So, yeah, at least we have a couple of days, I guess, to figure out what to do with the Bitten.”

There’s a knock at the door then. I hold up a finger to Mason, the wait for a second signal, and walk down the entryway to open the door.

“What’s wrong?” Jon asks, his eyes instantly scanning the space behind me for danger.