Free Trust Me When the Sun Goes Down by Lisa Olsen Page A

his cavalier attitude toward the violence against humans on our streets.  The council respected strength, well, I’d give it to them.  “Tough.  This is my territory, and I have my own ideas on what’s great.  We don’t need Jakob.”
    “If you say so, boss.”  His tone was instantly contrite.
    “I do,” I snapped irritably, counting to ten in Chinese inside my head before I spoke again.  I was tired of trying to rely on Jakob to solve our problems.  He’d been disappointingly useless up against Lodinn.  If not for my plan of attack I’d be sitting at Lodinn’s feet, shackled to my sister, and Jakob would be long dead.  “I’m sorry, I just don’t like all this needless death cropping up so often.” 
    “That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” Felix replied and I could practically hear the shrug in his voice.  “We ain’t the PTA, we’re vampires.  It’s in our nature to kill.”
    “I’m sick and tired of hearing that.  We’re not animals, we can control who and where we feed from and whether or not to kill.  And if people won’t control themselves because it’s the right thing to do, then they damn well better do it so the Order doesn’t come after them.”
    “People ain’t exactly shaking in their boots from the Order nowadays.  Breaking the law don’t mean an instant death sentence no more, vamps are growing bolder.”
    “Yes, but exposing ourselves to the humans is a bad idea all around.  That is one of the laws that the Order won’t pussyfoot around.  How many mistakes involving neck trauma have to be made before the humans start asking different questions?  We have to do something about it before the Order has to take more direct steps.  If this attracts Rome’s attention, Bishop will have no choice but to send more troops to deal with it.  I trust our local guys, but I’d rather not have gung-ho soldiers roaming our streets if I can help it, whether they’re shooting to kill or not.”         
    “I’m just sayin’, since you took away their ability to kill on first sight, a lot of people ain’t sweating the Order’s involvement no more.”
    Ugh , was there no way out of this mess?  It felt like I kept digging myself deeper and deeper.  Every time I tried to fix one problem, another one cropped up in its place.  Sure, vamps weren’t being killed left and right by the Order anymore, but at what cost?  How many humans would pay the price because of my policy?  “There has to be balance in here somewhere so that we can all live together,” I muttered, rubbing my temples at the tension headache that gathered there. 
    “In peace and harmony?” Felix snorted.  “That’s sweet and all, but it ain’t too realistic, boss.  I thought you knew that.  If Jakob was around…”
    “Well, he’s not,” I snapped, tired of hearing his name bandied about.  What good had banishing Jakob done if we couldn’t stop talking about him?  “Look, I’ll take care of this situation, you focus on finding us a new magistrate.  I haven’t received your candidates yet.”
    “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” he said contritely.  “I’ll have them ready for you within the hour.”
    I felt bad about jumping down his throat, but didn’t apologize.  There were some things we obviously didn’t see eye to eye on, but I was the one in power, and he needed to remember that.  “Why were you calling in the first place, Felix?”
    “Oh, right.  That hunter buddy of yours is on the move again.  Last I heard he’s been killing vamps up in Reno.  I thought maybe you could…”
    Was he talking about Carter?  He was the least of my problems.  “I can’t even begin to worry about that right now.  Actually – no, on second thought, let’s talk about Carter,” I decided, changing tacks to a course Felix might be on board with.  If he wouldn’t get behind me on legislation against violence to protect humans, maybe he’d do it out of self preservation?