"Oh, trust me. I can do something you won't ever recover from!"
Darian sighed. "Stop it. Both of you." He planted a hand on the shoulder of each and pushed them apart. "D, you've been saying Jonny needs to step up for years now. And Jonny, you should've come to us to help you."
Fuck that. Jonny seethed inside. Outsiders had no idea how much he'd grown and changed or what it took to enforce the catch-and-release program with predators who didn't want to think twice about what happened to their meals.
"I'm more interested in the warrior you allegedly didn't vamp," Xander purred.
"He took out twenty five vamps at once, I heard," Darian said.
No part of Jonny wanted to bring Ashley into this, but neither was he ready to lose Xander's support. If Damian and Darian disagreed on how to handle this, Xander was always the tiebreaker.
"Not a he. A she," Jonny said quietly. "Ashley is helping me."
"Helping you?" Damian repeated. "You fucked with the head of Xander's stepdaughter?"
"I didn't fuck with her head. She made me a deal. She's obligated to fulfill her end of the bargain, just like I'm obligated to fulfill mine," Jonny snapped.
"What bargain?" Xander asked.
A terse silence fell over them before Jonny decided to go with a version of the truth. "My rules can't be broken by anyone, Natural or vamp or Guardian." He shot Damian a look. "It's the only way I can enforce the catch-and-release program, with absolute obedience. Ashley broke one of my rules. She showed up at my headquarters and started attacking my vamps. Any uprising, any trespassing by non-vamp, is punishable by death. The only mercy I give is to kill quickly."
Xander was listening intently.
"She. Fucked. Up," Jonny enunciated slowly. "And I couldn't appear weak in front of the remaining vamps. So we made a deal. I don't kill her in exchange for her doing exactly what I tell her to."
"Which is …" Damian prodded.
"None of your fucking business."
"It's mine," Xander said.
"No, it's not. My fucking business is my fucking business," Jonny said. "You all don't have to like it."
More uncomfortable silence. He fought with them regularly, particularly Damian, but it was rare when he refused to lend them insight into what he was doing. His protective instinct rose with Ashley, though, and with the idea of Damian wanting to slaughter the loyal vamps he had under his control.
"Why did she attack your headquarters?" Darian asked.
Coño! He had to ask. "Because," Jonny drew a deep breath, "her brother went missing and she thought I had him. He was captured by the leader of the rogue vamps, probably because he was helping me track them."