Thomas nodded and pointed to Eddie’s glass. “Drink up. Time for work.”

Thomas was glad for it. How much longer could he have stood there talking about unimportant things with Eddie, when what he really wanted to do was ask whether there was a sliver of a chance that Eddie would one day return his feelings? Of course, it was a question he would never ask, because he knew the answer would only disappoint him more. Why was he torturing himself like this? Why couldn’t he just go to one of the many bars in the Castro, the most famously gay district of San Francisco, and pick up some willing guy who maybe even looked a little bit like Eddie, and fuck him until he’d gotten it out of his system? Why couldn’t he simply screw whatever guy wanted to be screwed, close his eyes, and pretend it was Eddie?

9

The staff meeting was held in a large conference room on the second floor that could hold over a hundred people if necessary. It was windowless. Tonight, only about fifty vampires were assembled, waiting patiently for Gabriel to start. Samson rarely chaired any of these meetings even though he was the owner of the company. Ever since bonding with Delilah and becoming a father less than a year later, he’d delegated most of the day-to-day running of the business to Gabriel.

Eddie sat down next to Zane and leaned into him. “You know what this is about?”

“Yep.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“What’s it about?” Eddie clarified.

“You’ll hear in a minute.”

“Thanks a lot for the info,” he replied sarcastically.

“Anytime.”

To Eddie’s other side, Oliver sat down. Not exactly the person he wanted to see right now.

After all, it was Oliver’s fault that Eddie knew about Thomas’s feelings for him. Feelings that made him uncomfortable and had made his friendship with Thomas feel awkward.

“Hey!” Oliver started.

“Hey!” Eddie kept looking straight ahead as if waiting with bated breath for Gabriel to start the meeting. Anything, just so he didn’t have to talk to Oliver.

“How are things?”

“Fine.” He sounded just like Zane. Maybe that was how he should react from now on: as if he didn’t care about what anybody thought. It seemed to work for Zane, and nobody seemed to fault the bald vampire for it, knowing they couldn’t change him anyway.

If he actually were Zane, Oliver would have probably shut up instantly, but Eddie wasn’t that lucky.

“You sure? I feel awful about what happened. Maybe I was wrong and just reading too much into—”

Eddie whipped his head toward him and glared at him. “I said I’m fine. So get off my fucking case!” He felt his jaw clench and his teeth grind against each other. His neck muscles bulged and his hands balled into fists. If there weren’t so many witnesses around, he would know exactly what to do with those fists.

“Sorry, man,” Oliver quickly pressed out and turned to stare toward the front of the room, where Gabriel was getting ready to address the employees.

Gabriel cleared his throat and knocked on the wooden table to get everybody’s attention. The whispers in the room subsided and it went quiet.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice. I’ve called you to alert you to a potential problem we’ve been made aware of. In the last week or so we’ve had an unusual influx of new vampires into San Francisco. Nobody knows these newcomers, and we’re not quite sure what to think of them. It’s just a gut feeling some of us have, but all these newcomers seem to be connected, like a clan.”

Eddie listened attentively. A large clan was descending on San Francisco? The last time a group of strange vampires had come to the city, they’d brought blood whores with blood that made vampires high. It had led to carnage.

“While they could be entirely harmless, I want us to be prepared. A large group of vampires coming to our city and not integrating into our way of life can spell all kinds of trouble. We don’t want a repeat of what happened with the blood whores. I’m therefore going to have to add to your workload.”

Grumbles went through the assembled.

Gabriel raised his hand to stop them. “I know you’re all exhausted because you’ve been on extra shifts in the last four weeks, patrolling to round up all the vampires addicted to the blood of the blood whores. But thanks to your thoroughness, we believe that the task has been accomplished. I wish I could give you all a break, but I’m afraid you’ll need to continue with your patrols.”

Eddie looked around, and while there were a few vampires who mumbled complaints to themselves, most seemed willing to accept their new assignments. Eddie didn’t mind the new orders. Since he wasn’t assigned to any particular client at the moment, he was glad to have something to do. Otherwise, Thomas would only have added extra training for him. And since Thomas always trained him personally, it would have meant spending more time with his mentor.