My Bad Boy Werewolf Quadrillionaire Space Lord

A Cabal (Brood? Clutch? Pack? Clan?) of Vampires

"My leader." Lanval Adams visibly scoffed when he spoke, as if turning the idea about like an unpleasant vintage of expensive wine. "They're lucky I'm being paid extremely well; because the temptation to nuke that moronically named cruiser and leave them stranded on your planet is becoming hard to resist."

"Please don't," Luca requested. "Unless this is your way of torturing me. If it is, I give in and will tell you anything. Anything to keep those morons from freeloading on my planet."

Lanval frowned at that, then grinned at Luca. "You don't look as distressed as you should."

"Not my first time with a gun pointed at me," Luca admitted. He shrugged, and added, "you wouldn't believe how many women are into that sort of thing. Or the number of women who thought of threatening me into marrying me so they could claim half in the divorce proceedings. Or the number of people who felt I dishonoured their wife, sister, daughter, friend, vague acquaintance."

"I think I get the picture," Lanval said.

"Even had a nun point a gun at me once," Luca recalled, snapping his fingers.

"I need to hear this one," Isabella said with a laugh.

"Matron mother of 'The Tranquil Mission', the first nunnery and orphanage on Luna. Came into my office with a Gauss gun and told me point-blank that I was not allowed on the grounds without a shirt, even if I was the only person making donations. Apparently, I was a featured favourite at confessional."

"Was that Sister Francis? About six years ago?" Lanval asked.

"It was!" Luca said excitedly. "Lovely woman, we have tea once a month. How do you know her?"

"She's my sister. I wondered why she needed to borrow that Gauss gun," Lanval mused. "She said she had met you, but didn't mention threatening you. Thank you for taking it so well."

"Like I said, not my first time at gunpoint," Luca said.

"Good. Then you know enough to avoid doing something stupid. There's a reason we're expensive. Now if you'd walk down that road a little ways, I'll take you to my employers," Lanval said, and he gestured down the lantern-lit street.

"You ask us to walk to our execution?" Alcuard asked, and despite their circumstances, his hand was resting on his sword. "Yours wouldn't be the first bloodstains on these cobbles."

Luca could see Isabella, agreeing with Alcuard despite being unarmed and significantly less durable than the millennium-old vampire. Rather than let his friends do something reckless, he took a chance and turned one hand to them placatingly. "Hey, none of that. We'll be okay," he said.

"Their masters will not be merciful," Alcuard said, but the sword at his hip remained sheathed. "If you are not killed, you will be used as food."

"Trust me," Luca said. "We'll be okay."

"My employers haven't decided your fate yet," Lanval said. "But the terms of my contract and my license as Private Military Contractor are clear-cut. And as much as I hate this job, you gotta pay the mortgage."

"Luca, can't you bribe them?" Isabella asked. "Pretty sure his mortgage costs less than your smaller yacht."

Luca shrugged sadly, but the smile didn't completely fade from his face. "He runs a registered mercenary company. He's legally obligated to keep to his contract once he signs. There are serious repercussions to breaching a contract by taking a competing one."

"So it's an expensive bribe," Isabella said. "My point still stands."

"The penalty for that kind of breach is every other mercenary corp in the system would be required to hunt us down and murder us. As explosively as local laws will allow. It's how we maintain integrity in the system," Lanval explained. "Otherwise we'd happily take more money to not kill someone."