Midnight CEO

14.

It had been a month now since I had seen Carter. One whole month since we had kissed for the first time and one long month of crying myself to sleep with worry about him in the vampire world. As part of Carter's terms for leaving, I was living at his house with Jake, who apparently had volunteered to stay, and the armed vampires who patrolled the house twenty-four-seven. The council had agreed to keep me safe on the condition Carter returned to their world, and they had so far kept their word. Callan and Vinnie had been ordered to return with him, and no one knew when or if they would ever return.

Jake had been my only source of friendship and entertainment, as I was forbidden to leave while Leon was still out there. We spent most of our time playing video games and watching movies. We built a pillow fort once, and it was so big, it almost made it right through the house, we also tried our hand sports, but neither of us was naturally gifted in that department.

My whole life had changed now. I slept during the day and hung out with Jake at night. I kept the business going by responding to emails and making up excuses for Carter's absence, but keeping up the appearance of a man who now lived in a different world was becoming challenging.

"What do you want to do tonight?" Jake said as he slumped on the sofa next to me.

"When are they going to catch him? I said, folding the laptop down and sighing.

"I don't want to sound like an asshole here, Eb, but I don't think they will ever catch Leon. Our only hope was Carter, and he could just never kill his little brother. No matter how hard he tried, he could never take the life of his only brother. It was his weakness and Leon's strength; now he has gone. I don't know what is going to happen." He slumped in the chair next to me.

"Then why did they take him?"

"The council has always hated Carter because although he is a vampire and wolf, he tends to lead with his human side. He is a very powerful man, and the council fears him. He has never had anything they could threaten him with, nothing that he cared about, and then he told them about you. That was their only chance to control him, and they knew it. Carter is probably the only thing the council fears as he is probably the strongest vampire ever to walk our world, but he is weak because of his human side, and now the vampire council has complete control over him and his wolf. I don't know what will happen, and I wish I did." He shrugged.

"I just don't understand why they have forbidden him to return here. He did nothing wrong."

"That's the thing Eb, he did. I don't believe, for a second, that he intended for Genevieve to get hurt, but you have to understand that she was released from our world to come here on the condition that Carter protected her. He was responsible for her safety as he is for Callan's and even mine, and even though he told her to return to our world after their split, he still felt responsible for her because he was the reason she was here. Every vampire family has an alpha who keeps them safe, bar nothing, and Carter is our alpha. He must now pay the price for one of his own being killed."

"Are they going to hurt him?"

"I hope not because our family is doomed without him, and I will have to return to that horrible world."

"Were you born a vampire?" I pulled my knees up to my chest.

He shook his head. "No, I was human." He smiled slyly.

"You were human?"

"I was, and I had a wife and two children, Beth and James, and they were my whole world. It was over a hundred years ago now, and I was a carpenter. I didn't make much money, but we didn't care. I had my wife, and that's all I cared about. Her name was Audrey, and she was beautiful." he went quiet momentarily as he stared at the wall, lost in his thoughts. "She became quite ill, as did our children; before I knew it, they had all passed on. I was left alone in this world, weak and heartbroken. No matter what I did or how much time passed, I couldn't heal my heart. I was about to end it all by slitting my throat when Carter found me crying on the street with a knife to my neck. He promised me he would make the pain stop and make me stronger than I could ever imagine, and so I made the second greatest decision of my human life and let him turn me into the strapping vampire you see before you."