Page 9 of Rutger

Colton didn’t know what was going on, but he was going to get to the bottom of it. His marks had disappeared, and he wasn’t going to let whoever took them from him get away with it. Damn it all to hell and back, they were his marks, and he was the one who should be wearing them. He just had to find out which upstart in the vampire world thought that they could take them from him. He wasn’t really the richest vampire ever known, but he had been a long time ago, and no one had bothered taking them from him when he’d lost his way.

“It’s that vampire king, I just know it.” His mate just ignored him for whatever she was looking at on her phone, and he decided that if he didn’t get his marks back, he was going to rid himself of the woman that he’d been hanging out with for centuries. She had lost her luster, and he didn’t want to have to be around her any longer now that someone had figured out the money he’d had. “He’s been making new rules up all the time and discarding others that I liked. I loved that I was being singled out as the richest vampire for so long. And no, I don’t want to give someone else a chance at it.”

“Why not?” Now his mate was paying attention to him, and he didn’t like it any better than when she ignored him. He asked her why she was speaking to him. “You started on about being the richest man around. What do you mean you’re not going to be giving anyone else a try? It could be good for them.”

“Because, my dear mate, if I’m not the richest vamp around, I no longer get the breaks that I had once. Nor do I get the bonuses for being rich.” She asked him what sort of bonus he got for being rich. “More money.”

“You get more money for having the most money? That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. What kind of breaks do you get too? You don’t have to pay any fees or something like that?” He told her it was exactly like that. “You can afford it more than the others can, yet they’re making it so that you don’t have to pay them. Christ, that’s stupid. What does the poorest vampire get for being the poorest? Does he get a break too? Perhaps not have to pay—”

“What are you going on about?” She told him what she’d been saying. “Why should they get a bonus for being broke? And yes, they have to pay their fees. I would imagine that they have to pay extra for being such a drain on the vampire world. Sometimes you make no sense at all. What am I going to do with you?” She said that he could be nicer. “That’s not going to happen. I don’t like being mated to you any more than you like being mated to me. So get over it. I’m trying to find out how it’s taken them so long to take my status away as the richest vampire after all this time?”

“How long has it been since you were the richest vampire in the world?” He told her that they’d not had any money for nearly four centuries. “Maybe no one else does either, and you have just enough to have more than them?”

“I like the way that you’re thinking, but I doubt there are many vamps out there that are as broke as the two of us are. Now we’re going to be even broker, as we’re going to have to pay our fees from now on. Not to mention no more bonuses coming in anymore.” She just stared at him. “What don’t you understand?”

“Why not get more money?” He didn’t bother telling her that he’d been trying to get more money for some time now and that other than stealing it, he wasn’t having any luck. “Do you steal it from others? That doesn’t seem right either. There should be a law about that. Stealing sounds like a human thing that’s done.”

“Humans steal all the time. And they take from us too.” He didn’t know if either statement was true or not, but he liked it that humans were made out to be the bad guys. “In fact, I’ve lost money betting on humans.”

Now that was true. He and a bunch of his buddies would get together and watch humans fight to the death. It was relaxing for him, knowing that humans were so fragile compared to them. It was also a good bit of fun for them to watch them bleed to death. Colton wasn’t so old that he didn’t have to feed regularly, but he did enjoy a good bit of sport when it came to humans. And the betting was good for him too.

They would bet on who was going to be the last man standing as well as how long it would take them to bleed to death. Usually he got close to that time, but lately he’d been so off that they would tease him about his bets. Telling him to stop when he’d double the bet on the last fight. Still he didn’t win. And it had become an embarrassment to him.

“I’d like to go shopping.” He told her that they were no longer going to have credit at the most posh stores. “Just because we lost our marks? That’s not fair. They should give a person notice when things like this happen.”

They did. They had sent him several reminders to make sure he updated his status with the Board of Finance. He hadn’t. Because if he had, then he’d still lose his status, but a long time ago. Centuries ago, as a matter of fact.

“I’m going to make some calls and find out who had the nerve to remove our marks when we didn’t allow them to do that.” She stood up, and he told her to sit down. “So are you going to do it then? Find out what sort of person would do that to us? We’ve been the richest vampires since before I mated with you. There is no way that we should be treated this way.”

“Hush now. There is a way they can treat us this way, and I’ve told you. We’re broke. We have been for more years than I can count. I just never sent in the status updates, hoping that they’d just continue on like they did. Some upstart of a vampire, more than likely a new vamp, has more money than sense, and we’ll be back to being the richest in no time.” He didn’t believe they’d ever make the list again, but to shut her up, he’d say just about anything. “You know what happens now. We’re going to be required to pay our fees and dues. Also, we’ll no longer receive our monthly bonuses. That’s going to hurt us. Without that money, we’ll be in trouble with the household if we can’t pay them.”

“I will not go without my servants. They make us look good when we have parties.” He said there would be no more parties either. “What? Are you insane? You have to be. I have no desire to be giving up some of my perks simply because, like you said, some upstart has more money than we do. I demand that you do something about it.” He was getting angry with her demands and told her that. “I don’t care.”

“You will, by god if I have to drain you.” He could feel his beast getting the better of him, and he felt good. He’d not had any reason to be his other half in centuries, and he’d forgotten about him. Stretching out, letting him consume him, Colton looked at his wife with blood-filled eyes. “You’ll do as I say, or you will face my beast. There’ll be no mercy for those that piss me off.”

“Don’t hurt me.” He didn’t let her tears sway him. Colton was enjoying this new him. As he made his way to his mate, he let the rest of his beast consume him. Before he reached her, he no longer knew what was going to happen to his mate.

Waking, he didn’t know where he was. The wooded area he was in didn’t look all that familiar to him, and he was frightened. He was covered in blood, and he didn’t know how it had happened. Making his way to some open area, he found the road that led him to his home and walked there. He was several miles from his place and with each step, he was more frightened than the one before it.

It was nearly light out when he still had some miles to go. He’d have to find shelter as he wasn’t old enough to not be able to be in the sun for extended periods of time. There were several empty houses on the route; he’d never realized how run-down his street was until then, and he decided to hold up in one of them until nightfall again. He reached out to his mate and was upset that he couldn’t get in touch with her.

“She’s just mad, that’s all. She’s upset that I left the home without telling her.” He didn’t know why she’d care if he left or not, but that was what he kept telling himself. “I’ll be home by night, and she’ll tell me what a fool I’d been, and that will be the end of it.”

However, he didn’t think she’d be calling him a fool. It was a word that he’d always hated when he’d been around her. Foolish people, including vampires, did stupid things, and he was far from foolish.

The house wasn’t made for a vampire, so he had to go to the sublevels of it to rest. The sun was shining in through the windows down here too, and he had to find a corner to keep from burning. When he was able to sit down, curled up in a corner of the room so that he’d be safe, he thought about the reasons he’d been out so far from home and why he couldn’t get in touch with his mate. Gloria was still mad at him, he told himself.

“That’s all right. I’ve never been my beast in front of her before, and I frightened her.” He had to think about how long it had been since he’d gone to his other half and couldn’t remember. He only remembered bits and pieces from last night. “Was it only one night? Did I only change a night ago?”

He couldn’t remember that either. Being so far from his home made him think that he’d been out of it for several hours, but it could have been days for all he knew. There was no way for him to tell either since he had no one he could get in touch with. Whatever happened, it was because he was upset. Pissed off that he’d been made a fool of over their marks. How did one expect to be able to tell his mate that they were no longer with funds? Because of them, he’d been made a fool, and now he was paying the consequences of whatever happened at his home. And he had a feeling that whatever had happened, it wasn’t going to bode well for him. Or for that matter, his mate.

He’d not rested at all when the sun started to set. He was miserable and hurting in places that he’d not before. As soon as he was in the night, creeping along houses that he’d been to before, Colton decided that whatever had happened, it hadn’t been his fault, nor was he going to give up his status as a rich man. He owed it to his mate to do that. Gloria would be able to do as she pleased for him scaring her, and he didn’t think that there should be any vampire taking away his status. It should have been his for all eternity.

There were cars around his house when he got to it. None that he recognized, however. There were no police, for which he was grateful, but just as he was going to go out in the open and show himself, several of the black and white cars showed up with their sirens going off. He hid behind the trees that were in his neighbor’s yard. That was when he noticed the big man in the suit.

It was the vampire king and his own mate there. They looked professional in their dark suits, and he was suddenly afraid again. Whatever had happened, he was there for a reason, and he couldn’t understand or know what he’d done. Reaching out beyond where he was standing, he listened to the officers who were there.

“Everyone is dead.” He sat down among the trees when he heard that. “There is quite a bit of ash around the house, like he tried to start a fire before leaving. Lucky for us, he wasn’t able to start it.”