"Why not? He's a rogue vampire. Isn't that what you guys do?"
Dmitri's jaw clenched. "I am not going to kill a baby."
"Fine." The baby was taken out of Dmitri's arms and placed back in the crib. The waiter stormed past Dmitri and down the hallway to another door, flinging it open. He waved his hand to the interior of the room. "If you don't kill babies, how about them? They're rogues too."
Dmitri's eyebrows rose when he looked into the room and saw two young kids sitting up in their beds. The boy looked to be about seven or eight years old, but the little girl couldn't have been older than three.
He narrowed his eyes when he looked back to the waiter. "I don't kill innocents and neither does my prince."
"This is Marcus Aguilera's territory isn't it?"
Dmitri nodded. "It is."
The guy let out a loud snort before telling the kids to lie back down and go to sleep. He pushed Dmitri out of the room, shut the door, and then walked down the hallway to the front door, pulling it open.
"You can tell your prince I want nothing to do with him or his vampires."
Dmitri's jaw dropped. He was being thrown out? "You do understand that you have rogue vampires in Prince Marcus's territory, right? You just admitted that. You must know what that means."
The man's arms crossed over his chest. "I have children in Prince Marcus's territory, not rogues."
"If they are not registered with the tribe, or they do not have Prince Marcus's permission to be in his territory, then they are considered rogue vampires."
"I thought rogue vampires were classified as vampires who refused to submit to the rules set down by your council."
Technically, that was true.
"Those rules are in place for a reason," Dmitri spit out.
"Yes, to keep vampires hidden from human eyes and to keep humans safe from vampires."
Dmitri's brow wrinkled as he frowned. Didn't this guy understand how dangerous this was? He seemed to know a lot about vampires. Why did he not understand that the prince couldn't allow rogue vampires in his territory?
"It's to protect humans from vampires who want to drink directly from the source, and most don't care if they kill the human in the process. That's why it's illegal. That's why we have synthetic blood."
"If you can afford it."
"What?"
The man's eyes rolled. "Vampires can have your precious synthetic blood if they can afford it. If not"—he flipped his arm out and pointed to a piece of gauze tape over the crook of his elbow—"you have to get your blood where you can get it."
Chapter Three
Quinn almost laughed at the astonished look on the vampire's face. It was pretty comical the way his mouth hung open and his eyebrows nearly touched the hairline of his lush blond hair.
"Look, just take the rogues I shot and go. I've worked all day. I'm tired. I need to get to bed and try to get a few hours of sleep before the kids get up."
The man's mouth snapped shut.
"Please?" Maybe if he asked nice the guy would go away.
"What is your name?" the vampire asked. "I'm Dmitri."
Quinn's eyes narrowed. "Why do you want to know?"
"I have to have a name to give my prince."
"Why does your prince even have to know about me?" Quinn would actually prefer if the vampire leader didn't know about him. Nothing good would come of it.
"He already knows about you. I just want to be able to give him a name."
Fuck!
Quinn shoved his hand through his hair as the implications of what the vampire had told him filtered through his brain. They'd have to move, which meant he'd need to find another job closer to wherever he could afford for them to live.
"How much time do I have?"
"Time for what?"
"How soon do you have to report to your prince?"
"He wants me to bring you back now."
Quinn shook his head. "No, Dmitri, now will never work. The kids need their sleep." And he needed time to come up with a plan of escape.
"So, bring the kids."
"Are you insane?" Quinn knew his voice rose there at the end, but come on. "You can't take them out in the middle of the night. Do you know hard it would be to get them back to sleep?"
"Do you know how pissed my prince is going to be if I don't bring you back with me?"
"Then he can be pissed." Seemed simple enough to him. "He didn't know anything about me this morning. I'm sure he can wait a few more hours." At least long enough for Quinn to pack up the kids and hightail it out of the vampire's territory.
The vampire's fangs flashed. "You do not make Prince Marcus Aguilera wait."
Quinn snorted. "You do if you have kids."
And he had three.
Okay, technically, they weren't his kids. They were his siblings, but he was still responsible for them. He was all they had. Their fathers were all dead, and their mother only cared for them long enough to drop them off with Quinn each time she had a new kid.
Quinn brushed his hair back again and then drew in a deep breath. He suddenly felt as if the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders and punching him in the gut. "Look, no matter how much you argue, this isn't happening tonight. You need to go so I can get to bed."
And pack and get the hell out of here.
"Aren't you worried that those rogues might come back?"
Quinn sucked in a breath as a new fear filled him, and he already had enough to deal with. "I thought you were taking them to your prince?"
"I am, but what if they had friends?" Dmitri asked. "Do you even know why they were here? Those three were the same vampires that were at the restaurant. They had to have followed you home."
"They thought they knew me," Quinn said defensively. He couldn't exactly tell Dmitri why they had really been here. That would get him killed for sure.
"So, you shot them?"
"They were rogues," Quinn insisted, but it sounded lame even to his ears. He didn't personally have a thing against rogues. He had a thing against assholes. "They wouldn't leave when I asked them to." He lifted one eyebrow. "Kind of like you."
"Look, you need to wrap your head around this. You have unregistered vampires in—"
"Fine, we'll leave. I can have us packed and out of here by the end of the week."
"And go where?" Dmitri waved his hands in the air. "Nikolas Vaile's territory?"
Quinn couldn't have prevented his upper lip from curling back on a bet. "I wouldn't go to Vaile's territory if he offered me all the gold in the world."
Dmitri cocked his head, a questioning look coming into his eyes. "You have something against Prince Nikolas?"
"I have something against someone who withholds synthetic blood from people who need it because he can't make a profit off of it, and then labels those same people rogue."
"You mentioned something like that before. What are you talking about?"
"You know Vaile Industries charges an arm and a leg for synthetic blood." Quinn felt as if Dmitri stared at him as if he were stupid. "You're a vampire. You have to know that."