finding a way out

”What can I get you?”

Damien stared at the kid behind the bar for a long minute. He’d never been one of those assholes ordering something new and douchey every time he came in. Froo-froo drinks, all dressed up with wedges of pineapple or umbrellas. That sort of thing was for beaches thousands of miles away from this town – places where you slipped into Hawaiian shirts and shorts, where you sat on the beach and watched the sun rise with someone.

He hissed out a sigh and gestured to the shelves behind the counter. ”A double bourbon, on the rocks, as always.” The kid continued to eye him for a second before he toddled off to grab the bottle. If it was upstairs he’d have helped himself. Hector probably would’ve huffed and puffed about it eventually, but it was always half a dozen deep up there. Considering how much time they spent cleaning up after the clientele – and the staff – at the club, they should’ve been receiving some sort of preferential treatment. At the very least he should’ve been free of lectures about not helping himself to a bottle from behind the bar every now and then.

Today, he definitely needed the hit of the liquor. Planting an elbow on the edge of the bar, Damien nudged his glasses up with a knuckle and ground his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. Reapers helping themselves was what had got him in it up to his neck in the first place. Letting Leah stay had been an act of charity – or mercy if you looked at it from the point of view of the girl who’d almost got bottled in here. It was supposed to have just been for a couple of days, but Leah had pretty much made herself at home. There wasn’t room for two women in his life, especially not those two women. Add Aurora’s brother to that volatile mix and the whole thing might just go up in flames.

A cheating boyfriend, a sister with a broken heart? How long would it be before Tristan got word of what had happened and started to make a real effort to track down the asshole who’d apparently dared to cheat on his sister? Not that he had. He’d sworn as much to Aurora, but who knew if the seed that Leah’s discarded bra had planted in Aurora’s brain would sprout again. The itch between his shoulder blades was growing and he wasn’t going to pull the same trick he and Sonny had done for decades and just get out of dodge to avoid it. Things were too serious with Aurora for that, he felt too much for her. He just had to find a way through.

The kid set the glass down in front of him, looking at him almost expectantly. Damien slid the glass towards himself, eyeing him back. He started to frown. Ah. ”Put it on my tab.” It’d get settled down time in the next century or so – sooner if Hector cracked down.

Was he manifesting stuff now? Think of the devil and he’ll be there? Dark brows rose as Hector slipped in front of him and the kid went scuttling away. Damien sighed and sipped from his glass. ”I’m good for it,” he muttered. Only Hector didn’t seem to give a shit about the hundreds of dollars he likely owed at this point. ”Not you as well.” He hissed out a sigh, nudging his glass away from himself. ”Did Leah come and tell you what had happened? My love life isn’t anybody else’s business, thanks.” Leah had already got herself tangled in it far deeper than he’d wanted her to.

Screws loose. Damien’s mouth pinched into a thin line. Plenty would have said that about Aurora before they did her brother – and they’d have been wrong. Not being wired the same way as everybody else didn’t mean there was something wrong with you, it just meant they needed to look harder at how you functioned and make adjustments the way he had done with Aurora. Tristan de Martel was a well meaning brother, but beneath all of that he was a manipulative, controlling asshole that needed someone to draw a line in the sand for him. Damien’s frown deepened, a finger lifting off the bar to aim in Hector’s direction. ”He came in here and told you to cut his sister off? And you rolled over and showed your belly to him? Hector … for your sake, grow a pair. Who do you think’s gonna in here and clean up your messes? Leah only does it when she wants to, Elias would get all prune faced about it and Cory? The kid practically faints at the sight of blood.” Still, he'd take Cory over the rest of them most of the time. At least there was no deception with him.

Tagged: HECTOR DACRE * Word Count: 815

Was Leah ever in anybody’s good books? Something had definitely happened between her and Cory that’d left the guy spluttering and trying to skip out of any situation that might involve the two of them being within fifty feet of one another. He’d have said maybe she’d slept with him, but with Cory? Nah, no way. The kid would’ve trembled his way through it like a whipped dog. Handling Leah took balls and Cory’s still hadn’t dropped. Elias probably handled her the same way he did everybody else, with that cold dead stare and a beating with the rule book – if he was sleeping with anything it was that thing. Damien almost puffed out a breath, he’d have said he was handling her just fine but what happened with Aurora had proven that he wasn’t quiet as deft with the whole thing as he’d thought.

Now, Hector on the other hand … Damien looked the guy up and down, the sneer barely kissing his lips before it became a smirk. He’d have said a guy like Hector shouldn’t have had much trouble with her, but look at him now, immediately making it clear he didn’t want anything to do with her. A little yellow belly showing right there. ”Because she’ll tell you to go fuck yourself when you try and boss her around?” Leah gave few shits what other people thought. How she managed to get past Death during her little job interview was well beyond him.

He’d never intended to spend an eternity clearing up the souls of the recently departed. Maybe he wouldn’t have been living it up with Sonny forever – jail had loomed dark in both of their futures – but he’d intended to manage a couple more decades before he ended up going out in a blaze of glory. It had taken what felt like days after he’d done just that to get Death to agree to let him play reaper. Knowing Leah she’d ground Death down in minutes, until it had been a choice between winking her out of existence entirely, or giving in and giving her a chance. Cory’s reference for her had probably helped, although he’d soon realised that mistake.

The fact that he wouldn’t have ever met Aurora if he’d just allowed that thing to carry on using his brother like a puppet had played on his mind at times. There were still things – brothers – out there to pull the two of them apart. He’d made sure that Leah hadn’t had the opportunity to do it, but Tristan wasn’t as likely to walk away. Damien’s expression turned sour, his hand flattening on the bar again. ”Aurora’s told me plenty about what he did. None of them were like me though. You don’t think I couldn’t take care of him with a single touch?” For Aurora’s sake he hadn’t done – no matter what the asshole had done, he was still her brother.

Laughter spilled out sharply, the grim expression on his face cracking rapidly. Damien sipped from his glass, nodding knowingly as the liquor went down smooth. ”So you’re just worried about your place. You think he’s gonna find out that you lied to his face and strut back in here to take out his frustration on you when he hasn’t been able to on me. I guess I should be glad you didn’t drop me right in it.” Hector knew enough about him that he probably could’ve done. Getting in Tristan’s good books would’ve been as simple as killing folks in the club until he was the one turning up to get their souls. It still wouldn’t have gone well for Tristan, but it would’ve painted Hector in a better light.

”The son of a bitch lays a hand on her again and he’s done,” Damien said flatly, his eyes turning just as stony behind the thick lenses of his glasses. ”I’ve stayed hands off for her sake, but if he touches her then I come for him.” Sectioning Aurora wouldn’t physically harm her, but it might shatter her fragile mind and he’d always sworn to help her hold that together instead of the opposite. ”Did he give you any orders for what to do if I did happen to show my face?” One dark brow winged questioningly. Tristan still didn’t know who he was, but he imagined the older vampire putting out his feelers in town, hoping that someone would eventually want to have a favour with a de Martel tucked in their pocket for a rainy day.

Tagged: HECTOR DACRE * Word Count: 756

Damien huffed out a laugh, his upper lip curling as he nodded at Hector. If Death himself hadn’t bothered keeping Leah on the Other Side, he doubted that Hector threatening her boyfriend would have her hesitating for more than just a heartbeat. Leah had been jealous about the mail order bride that’d been bought for the GQ model, but being capable of jealousy didn’t mean you were capable of love. She’d probably shrug and walk, if there was anything that ached in her chest for her boyfriend then maybe she’d give Hector the finger on her way out – in the having him drop dead instant way. It wasn’t like she’d go and beg Death for permission to bring her boyfriend back if she cared to, not in the way Cory had admitted he had for some professor who’d been stabbed to death up at the college. He’d have said because she probably wouldn’t give you a choice about it, but barring some argument over paying her tab at the club, he didn’t imagine Leah had much use for Hector either.

He'd have said the same – the club had been where he’d met Aurora, but after that it had just been a spot for entertainment, the occasional location of a pick-up. It wasn’t a home away from home and for the most part he’d stayed out of the staff’s way. Tristan had changed that, sticking his nose into Hector’s business as hard as he was his sister’s. Now, it wouldn’t have bothered him any if it had stopped with Hector, but the pressure Tristan had put on him was filtering down.

It left his shoulders going tight, his hand fisting on the bar as his eyes began to take on that cold, flat cast. ”I forgot it was all about age with your kind. He’s too old for you to stand up to.” Aurora was of an age with her brother, the difference between them working out to the equivalent of a blink of an eye now. ”You’re underestimating her if you think she won’t get over it without his thumb constantly holding her down?” She wouldn’t, not really, and he knew it. No matter what Tristan did to her, he was still her brother, the way Sonny was his, no matter if that thing was still in him or not.

”Thanks,” Damien drawled, a saccharine edge to his voice that didn’t reach his eyes. He hissed out a sigh. Hector didn’t seem the sort to do anything out of the goodness of his heart, so kicking them out wasn’t all about him being selfless for once in his life. With the two of them gone from him Tristan was less likely to crawl up his ass about revealing who dared to sleep with his sister. ”You really care. It’s touching, honestly. Your place standing at the end of the day has nothing at all to do with it, right? You just cared enough about the Romeo and Juliet thing I’ve got going on with Aurora to do this for us.” Maybe it was a little cynical, but there was no way Hector had gone soft just over this.

There had to be some way of getting Tristan the hell out of town again. Just a few months with him on the other side of the world and the two of them could start edging towards getting out of here. Move somewhere fresh, somewhere with enough death going on that he was unlikely to be dragged back to clear up this vicious little corner of the world. Til then he was gonna have to stay on the run – maybe he was a little rusty at it, but that wasn’t new. ”If he does then he’s got a harder job on his hands.” Klaus might have had feelings for Aurora once, but surely they’d faded enough by now that he wouldn’t give a damn about hurting her and would just stamp her brother out like the cockroach he was.

The corner of Damien’s mouth lifted as he slipped off of his stool. His fingers spread on the bar again, tapped for a moment before he aimed his index at Hector. ”So if you did, you could tell him that Klaus is the one? He’s not half as likely to go storming into that fancy mansion to try and rip his head off.” Because he knew it would be a losing game and cockroaches like that had a survival instinct that dominated everything else. ”Since you’re so concerned about me and Aurora getting through this, how about you do us a favour and do just that?” He wasn’t about to beg, he had other ways of dealing with it after all, and Hector had been the one to practically suggest it.

Tagged: HECTOR DACRE * Word Count: 798