Chapter 10

A Deal

Failure was supposed to mean death, but for the second time, Dante hadn’t killed him. Echo watched as Dante’s white shirt soaked up the blood from the wound that hadn’t reached his heart. Echo gripped his knife while Dante held his wrist, and the “deal” hung in the air between them.

Dante’s hold softened. He reached down, took Echo’s other hand, and placed it over the knife handle. Dante let go, fully giving Echo back his weapon.

“I can’t die yet, little rebel,” Dante said, smooth and low and vibrating straight through Echo’s skin. “I have plans, and I want your help with them.”

“To—to kill the king?”

Dante nodded as forbidding designs smoldered in his dark eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Echo said, lost and unbalanced.

Dante picked up his drink and stepped away, releasing Echo from his entrapment against the desk. He could breathe easier now with the distance, but his cock was still hard and aching—it had to be an effect of the thrall bond.

Dante circled the desk and sat in the chair, the effortlessly self-assured boss. “King Luther is more of a monster than me. The larger threat to humans. Will you pass up this chance to help take him down?”

But why did Dante want Luther dead? As Echo watched the vampire sip on his drink and gaze steadily back, he knew he wouldn’t get satisfactory answers.

“And if I don’t help?”

“I’ll keep your knife, and you can be nothing more than my pretty thrall.”

“You wouldn’t kill me? For what I just tried to do?” Echo held his knife tightly.

“I don’t kill what I can use. And I believe you know how a thrall can be useful.”

Echo shivered. He grimaced with revulsion even as heat pooled in his belly. He swallowed down his unwanted desire.

“And if I help? What would you have me do?”

“You would be my eyes and ears in the places I cannot go. You will follow my orders. Sometimes you will observe, sometimes you will strike—exactly as I command it.”

Dante said it as if his control of Echo was already decided. And that surety wrapped around his deep yearning for direction. Could he do this? Obey the lesser of the two evils to take out the tyrant king?

“And when he’s dead? Then what will you do with me?”

“You will be free, Echo.”

That stunned him more than anything else he’d heard. It could be a lie. But Dante spoke his name with not a hint of deception nor his usual smugness. So Echo pushed.

“Free to carry out my original mission and kill you?”

“You can try,” Dante said. And there, the smug attitude returned. His lips tilted in an amused smirk as if he enjoyed the idea of Echo “trying.”

Echo knew he would agree now. And he could see Dante knew it too. Even if the vampire lord was lying about freeing him. But before Echo voiced his assent, he needed one more thing addressed.

“You won’t fuck me,” Echo said, not a request but a demand.

Dante’s eyes lit up, and he drank the last of his liquor before the glass landed on the desk with a clink. “I won’t fuck you… unless you want me to. But Echo, you will be needing my bite.”

Echo knew that—a thrall required it—and frightening anticipation ignited as he remembered the first bite. Dante knew the effect of his blood drinking, and maybe he expected Echo would beg for more when the time came. But he would resist with all his strength.

Echo held his favorite knife, the smooth wood so familiar in his palm. It seemed as if he were selling his soul, but wouldn’t he do that to get back to Axel—to make Axel pleased?

Nodding once, Echo said, “It’s a deal.” And the collar felt tight against his throat at the agreement.

Dante leaned forward over his desk, triumph in his eyes. “Then I have one more gift for you,” he said as his hands, which were too elegant for him, reached for the same box that held the collar. He pulled up the bottom of the box, which looked like a square of velvet, and hidden underneath was something small wrapped in thin paper.

Echo set his knife down on the desk and forced his hands to be steady as he reached for the “gift.” He imagined something worse than the collar, but he’d just made a deal for his obedience and could not refuse whatever it was.

It fit in his palm, small but solid, and Echo rolled away the paper. In his hand was the handle of a dagger. The finely carved ebony wood fit nicely in his grip. Echo flicked the locking mechanism, then pushed the metal button—a blade launched from the handle.

The switchblade was a stiletto-style knife. The blade itself was straight, slim, and ended with a wicked point. It was a thrusting type of dagger, and at about four inches long, it would be just sufficient enough to pierce the heart of a vamp, if it was made with real silver.

Seeing Echo’s meticulous inspection and doubt, Dante reached out and touched the blade. His finger came away red from burn. “It is genuine silver alloy,” he said, returning to relax in his chair as if he hadn’t just armed the rebel with now two deadly weapons.

“Why would you give this to me?” Echo asked.

“I need my rebel assassin armed. This can be concealed.”

Echo locked the blade back into the handle, which made the entire thing about five inches long. It could easily slip into a pocket, unlike the knife Axel had given him. Rebels on missions didn’t use pocket knives or switchblades. The seconds it took to make it ready to strike were too many. But this new mission was different. Echo couldn’t carry his favorite knife in an easy-to-reach holster, and it was too long to fit unnoticed in a pocket.

Echo hadn’t realized he’d been brushing his fingers over the worn cherry wood of the old knife as it lay on Dante’s desk. It would be his first mission without it.

Putting the stiletto into his jeans pocket, Echo let go of the other knife and looked at Dante. “Thank you,” he said. “Where can I keep this one?”

Dante’s eyebrows rose briefly, perhaps surprised that Echo would show gratitude. And Echo enjoyed being on the other end of surprise for once.

“Anywhere in the apartment you’d like,” Dante said, standing. He made an intimidating tableau looming large over his desk. “Have you seen the upstairs yet?”

“No,” Echo replied. No need for either of them to pretend Echo hadn’t already snooped where he could.

Echo let go of Axel’s old knife. He’d find a suitable hiding place until he needed it again.

“Then let’s have that tour now,” Dante said. Then he sauntered around the desk and toward the door, expecting to be followed.

And as Echo silently obeyed, he found that the satisfying weight in his pocket relieved some of the tightness of his collar. When the mission to kill King Luther was done, Echo hoped Dante would carelessly expose his back to him again. Oh, how he hoped.