Before the meeting, I met privately with Thomas out near Blaz on the outskirts of Doran’s property. He shook from head to toe, his lanky arms and legs all but knocking together. “Thomas. There are going to be a number of vampires at the council meeting, Faris included. Can you hold your shit together?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. Frank and I spoke at length about what this trip would require of me. If the boy can do it, so can I. But I do not like it, nor will I ever trust the blood drinkers.”

“You only have to trust me. Not them. That and do your best not to unleash a zombie horde on us, okay?”

Thomas gave me a tight smile and held out his hand. “You have my word I will do my best. If I must, I will walk away.”

I took his hand and held it, my grip tightening. “Faris, he’s more than just a vampire to you, isn’t he?”

The necromancer’s jaw twitched furiously and then he jerked his hand from mine. “Yes.”

That was it; that was all I could get out of him. But it explained a lot if Faris had something to do with Thomas’s captivity.

From there, the council was to meet.

We gathered outside where the fountain spewed water, teasing the lazy koi.

Of course, the council meeting never happened, or at least, not the way I’d thought it was going to. No, Blaz was right, my name should have been chaos.

Doran lifted his hand to bring the council to order when the veil slashed open and Faris fell through, bloodied beyond belief. He was missing his left arm, taken at the shoulder; bite marks and wide, open wounds covered his body.

Confusion erupted and Liam moved first, opening a vein up in his wrist with a single slash and holding it over Faris’s mouth before I could even suggest offering my own blood.

“Drink up, bloodsucker, it’s the only time I’m giving freely.”

Faris drank deep and his wounds healed, but his arm didn’t grow back. The gaping hole sealed over with bright pink, new skin, but that was it.

He leaned on the tiles. “Orion is making a bid sooner than we thought.” Faris’s icy blue eyes found mine and for the first time, I saw fear in them.

“The doorway in the castle, the one that goes to the deep veil, it has been …” His words dried up as he shook his head.

Faris didn’t have to finish the words, I knew them already, but I asked anyway.

“He got it open, didn’t he?”

Faris nodded, the council members around us hanging on his every word.

“Yes. And he’s sending through his demons. Not in hordes, but carefully chosen packs. One of the packs did this to me like I was a child to be tossed between them. A toy to be broken.”

There was the sound of sucked in air around the courtyard, the uneasy stamp of Nikko’s foot on the tile. The idea of Faris being manhandled was … difficult to see, even in my mind.

“How bad could that be? Against all of us, the odds are in our favor, look at us,” Raw said, his hand on his hips, legs spread in defiance. I caught a flash of red in his eyes as his anger and pride filled him.

Erik let out a low laugh. “The odds are not in our favor, ogre. This is bad. Yet bad doesn’t begin to describe what we’re up against if Orion is sending his packs through. They will make way for the demons who will set up Orion as king. The four horseman. If the packs are coming through, the four horsemen will be next and we don’t want that. Trust me.”

I met his eyes, felt the blood pool from my face. He had to be shitting me, us. “Four horseman?”

He nodded and everyone else melted away. The four horseman of the apocalypse would soon be upon us, and Orion had set it in motion. He set them on us and now we had to face them.

This was not what we needed right now. But then again, when would there be a good time to have the four horseman show up on our doorsteps?

Yeah, never.

Fan-fucking-tastic.