Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets)

by Michael Anderle

  She was about to give Nathan a small tongue lashing when she realized Alexi was leaning towards her surreptitiously from beside Ecaterina. “What the hell is wrong with you two?”

  Alexi answered her, leaning back with a shrug. “It’s how we know someone is a vampire if they aren’t being, what did you call it? Yes, ‘Vampy.’ All vampires have a smell, like old blood, yes?”

  Bethany Anne scrunched her nose up, “I heard about that, but haven’t smelled a vampire since getting the olfactory upgrade, so I don’t know, myself. If you two have had enough smelling, you’re making me want to take another bath.” She got up and started pacing between the two couches, dictating how she wanted the effort to go. They broke the meeting up and the two trackers took a bath and went to bed. They would be getting up early to be in position to look around when dawn broke. They carried a cell phone to text in when they found anything.

  That next morning, right after Ecaterina and Alexi had left to meet Ivan at one of his many equipment stashes, Nathan and Bethany Anne discussed how he would approach the house with Bethany Anne as a ‘prisoner.’ They had decided to blame Alexi for the pack deaths. The story was that Nathan wanted to trade his life for Bethany Anne. Since she was the new chosen child, she should be worth it, right? Since she smelled human, that should get them in the door.

  At first, Nathan got a little righteous about his own honor. He would never trade a woman for his own life. Bethany Anne smiled a little at the realization that she was becoming a person to Nathan again, not just something to be feared.

  She was able to get out of him that he also didn’t like the fact that when word got around that he didn’t play straight up, it wouldn’t go well for him in future negotiations. She pointed out that he was a hacker, among other things, and she didn’t believe he had a lily-white reputation.

  He pointed out that he wasn’t his hacker personas and that no one knew those ‘highly intelligent workers for freedom of information’ were him, anyway.

  She shut him up by observing the dead wouldn’t talk, or be concerned about what people said about them.

  After the small, obligatory grumbling from Nathan, they got ready and then got into their vehicle. They were only going to get to within about three miles of his house and walk the rest of the way. They didn’t want to have their vehicle tracked. Petre’s house was on a small road, anyway.

  They were waiting in the car a little before 9:00 AM when they got the first text that Ecaterina had found an entrance. They were still looking.

  Bethany Anne didn’t like how easy it was to find the first exit. Nathan championed Ecaterina’s abilities, it was why he paid so much for her skills.

  Bethany Anne had already gotten the story from Ivan, so she knew how Nathan had been suckered into paying for the trip in advance. While she let his comment go without correcting him, she thought it cute he was trying to pump up Ecaterina’s skill. She was pretty sure that Nathan was shooting for Ecaterina to be on the team when they left Brasov.

  A little after noon, she got a text that they had found a separate and much more hidden exit. Alexi had changed to his bear form and went smelling around until he had caught a musty smell and of all things, the smell of French fries coming out of a large clump of bushes. It was agreed that Alexi would stay as a bear and push against the metal door at the bottom of some poorly poured concrete stairs behind the bushes. Petre would be strong, but it was incredibly unlikely he would be able to move Alexi.

  Alexi had sent Ecaterina to watch the other exit.

  It was time.

  Nathan and Bethany Anne got out of the car. Nathan took a couple of plastic ties and after walking a little way down the path until he found what he was looking for, turned to look over at Bethany Anne. “You sure you’re able to handle your anger? I don’t want to get suddenly dead doing what you told me to do.”

  Bethany Anne smiled at the comment. “Yeah, I’m good. I won’t feel a thing. Are you OK throwing down a defenseless woman?”

  Nathan took Bethany Anne and grabbed her arms and held them behind her back and zipped the ties in place. “I am absolutely NOT OK with hurting a defenseless woman. In fact, it goes against my masculinity.”

  Grinning behind her back, Nathan used his substantial strength and pushed Bethany Anne so hard she flew into the thorny bushes rolling ass over appetite getting her clothes, face, hands and pants torn up until she stopped with a crack against a tree. He heard her voice coming from about twenty-five feet away from the road, “You son-of-a-bitch! I’m defenseless here!”

  Nathan smiled wide, “But Bethany Anne, you’re not a woman!”

  A few minutes later, after Nathan decided it was safe enough to get close to Bethany Anne again, he was pleased with how messed up she looked. Plant debris, a small branch and leaves were still in her hair and she had dirt and scratches over her eyes and cheeks.

  The look of death she gave him was just the right touch. He decided she looked just like a human that was pissed, but not in a position to do anything about it.

  His life was complete, or as complete as it would get until they made it through this operation. It was a shame he wouldn’t ever be able to share the story of shoving a vampire into a tree without living to regret it.

  Bethany Anne barely opened her lips, her voice soft, “If this look doesn’t get us in, I’m taking you out back and beating you against a few trees to get my anger out, you feel me, Mr. Lowell?”

  Nathan’s glimmer of good humor wasn’t diminished any at all by her threat. “I believe I will feel it, Ms. Reynolds, I trust that I will. But if this plan doesn’t work, I’m not sure I’ll be alive to worry about it.”

  “Oh, I’ll make sure you stay alive just so I can get my pound of your flesh back. That shove was fucking hard. My teeth almost went out the back of my head, you prick.” All Bethany Anne got for her verbal tirade was a slightly bigger smile out of Nathan.

  They walked up to the entrance. The twelve foot high metal gates opened in the middle and were bracketed by large concrete columns with the letter ‘P’ in Cyrillic on both, topped with large gas lanterns that were lit. The walls then went about fifteen feet in each direction before just stopping. If she wanted to, she could just walk around the walls. It looked so stupid.

  Except for the traps that probably existed over there.

  Nathan hit the call button on the security post.

  Nothing.

  He hit it again and a guy came on and spoke in Russian.

  Nathan replied in English, “I don’t understand that Russian shit, anyone speak English in there?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I speak English too. What do you want?”

  “I’m Nathan Lowell, and I ran into some people up on the mountain. I want to do a trade.”

  “One moment.”

  One moment became two minutes when another, more cultured voice, came on. “Who is this?”

  Bethany Anne kept the completely pissed off angry countenance going. It wasn’t hard to fake, she was getting impatient already. She assumed they had video so the acting needed to be as real as possible and Nathan had already supplied her with a superior reason to be pissed off.

  “Nathan Lowell.”

  “And you would want what exactly, Mr. Lowell?” Nathan decided he was speaking with Petre.

  “I need to speak with Petre, I have something he wants and in exchange I want a free pass back to the States.”

  “And where are my partners, Mr. Lowell?”

  “Are you Petre?” Nathan got silence for his answer. Yup, he was talking with a vampire. Weres would get angry, but most of them would have said something. “They aren’t among the living, I’m afraid. They had a large fight with a werebear over on the mountain. He was protecting two women. I have one with me, the other one was killed with the other pack members.”

  “And what do you have for me, Mr. Lowell?”

  “I have the child that Michael was going to use to create the replacement for Bill, who was destroyed in the Unite
d States.”

  “What do I want with her, Mr. Lowell?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t rightly know, Petre, that’s vampire family business and not something I need to be privy to.” Nathan wanted to vomit in his mouth. He wasn’t stupid around vampires, but he knew enough about this prick that it galled him to have to act like he respected him at all.

  “I see. I’m going to open the gate. Please be sure that you stay on the path, I don’t want to have to smell your remains after they get blown all over my beautiful trees.” The speaker squelched.

  Nathan grabbed Bethany Anne’s arm and pulled her towards the opening gate. “C’mon you whiny bitch, let’s get my ticket out of this country.”

  “Whiny bitch?” Bethany Anne kicked him, hard. He started limping and cussing fluently and loudly. He turned like he was going to backhand her, took one look at her eyes and remembered to act disgusted then grabbed her arm again as they walked up to the house.

  The house was large, with a three-car garage on the lower right and very little glass showing. Made with a large amount of concrete, it looked pretty modern to his eyes.

  The front door opened as they walked up to it and two men came out. Both had underarm holsters, but neither had their hands on their guns.

  The air blowing out the house had a putrid scent on it that Bethany Anne hadn’t smelled before.

  That would be a vampire odor.

  That’s making me want to gag, is it really? What a stench. Can’t humans smell that?

  Your sense of smell is very sensitive and the air in there is saturated from Petre living there. His scent just gets stronger.

  They stopped in front of the two men. One was in a pair of jeans and a sports jacket, the other had on an old Members Only jacket. Bethany Anne could barely bite her tongue in time to keep from making a scathing fashion choice comment.

  The one with the Members Only jacket took Bethany Anne’s arm, looked at her disheveled appearance, scuffed up face and debris tangled hair and then back at Nathan. “What?” he said defensively, “She’s a whiny bitch, sue me.” Bethany Anne’s eyes got a little narrower.

  That same cultured voice was at the door, “Mr. Lowell, you should take care how you speak about anyone in the family.”

  Nathan looked up at Petre. He was a normal sized guy. About four inches shorter than Nathan and a leaner swimming pool body with wider shoulders and thin waist, compared to Nathan’s bulked up physique. Black hair cut really short and a designer athletic suit. He looked a little rumpled for a vampire. They had probably woken him up.

  “I figured she wasn’t a family member yet, my apologies.”

  “Oh, she isn’t. If she was then I would have had to kill you. You realize that we can’t have disrespect to the family, right?” There was a dangerous glint of humor in Petre’s eyes. Like he was saying the right words, but found them loathsome to say out loud without a sardonic smile at the same time to give the lie to his statement.

  “My apologies. Again, can I go now?”

  “No, not yet Mr. Lowell. Please come and enjoy my hospitality while you tell me the whole story about what happened to my associates. We will need to go back and find them for a proper funeral, of course.”

  Nathan didn’t let anything show on his face, but this wasn’t something they had considered. He hoped Bethany Anne would just go all spastic on them and they could get this over with. He wanted a real bed to go collapse in for a couple of days. Preferably with a certain someone as company—if he could find a way to get rid of her uncle. Maybe if he put steaks down Alexi would gorge and go hibernate for a week.

  They were walked into the house past an office and kitchen. There was another room that seemed to be ready for painting as they had a large paint tarp on the floor. Petre had stopped in the kitchen while the guy with Bethany Anne took her to the room with the tarp.

  “Well, I will need your information, Mr. Lowell. I doubt Ms. Reynolds will be able to provide me much in the way of answers.” Petre had reached over the bar as Nathan was walking past him.

  Suddenly he heard a room-thundering boom as Bethany Anne was thrown to the floor, a hole through her chest and blood splattering on the wall behind her. She fell to the floor, unmoving.

  Nathan jumped to the side and twisted, looking back at Petre, who was lowering his weapon with a twinkle in his eye. He looked at Nathan with an eyebrow raised, “Vampire politics, you understand, right Nathan?”

  Gott Verdammt vampires, especially the psychotic ones!

  Both of the pack guys had returned to Nathan with a gleam in their eyes that had taken a darker turn. Their animals seemed to be pretty close to coming out.

  “Now, Mr. Lowell, why don’t we discuss where my associates can find their pack mates?”

  A small movement started in the other room. Both pack members turned around and stared, as did Petre, when Bethany Anne stood up and turned around. There was a huge gaping red hole through her torso that was big enough to reveal the blood-spattered wall behind her. Her eyes had turned red again, like they had been when Nathan had first encountered her out on the mountain.

  There didn’t seem to be any intelligence behind those eyes. Nathan started thinking about how the hell he could get out of there without getting noticed by Bethany Anne when Petre lifted the gun. Without thinking, he jumped to hit Petre’s arm to knock off his aim. The gun fired once into the bar before Petre backhanded Nathan into a wall five feet away.

  Nathan hit the wall and landed on his knees, coughing, working to get his breath back, anger in his eyes. He couldn’t stop his mouth. “Petre, you hit like a girl.”

  But there was no Petre to hear him. Nathan looked at Bethany Anne. She had been attacked by both of the pack goons—Members Only guy had his left arm ripped off, screaming in pain on the floor, while the better dressed guy was struggling with the significantly smaller woman’s arms as she was casually chewing on his neck, blood spraying, soaking both of them. The hole in her chest was healing at a rapid rate. She dropped the listless guy on the floor and knelt by the other thug who was slowing down and looked to be going into shock. His healing ability was helping to stop the bleeding from his stump. Bethany Anne snapped her fingers in front of his eyes to get his attention.

  His eyes, frightened, looked up at her as she took a finger across his bleeding arm socket and licked it off right in front of him.

  “Where is the bolthole?” All she got was a guy shaking his head, no, spasmodically.

  “Where is he going?” Her voice was silk over steel, her gaze looking into his soul.

  “Downstairs, he lives downstairs. Left through the kitchen and then behind the mirror at the end of hall.”

  “Good, I hope you yell when you get there.”

  The guy looked confused. “Where? Where am I going?”

  Bethany Anne slapped his head, causing blood to explode all over the wall. The rest of the head, with his unseeing eyes rebounded off the wall and landed on the other side of the room. “To hell.”

  She stood up, looked around, looked at Nathan and told him to check out the rest of the house. Then she calmly walked around him and headed down the hall after Petre.

  24

  Brasov, Romania

  Ecaterina heard her uncle’s roaring and realized that Petre was trying to get out through his exit. They were prepared if he tried to come out during the day, but she was hoping that he stayed over by her uncle. She was determined to pull her weight, she didn’t appreciate anything this Petre had done to her and her family, not to mention her new friends.

  As the noise continued, she took it to be a good sign. If Uncle Alexi was battling the vampire, he wouldn’t come her way.

  That was what she was thinking when the noise stopped.

  She wasn’t strong enough or quick enough to fight a vampire. Hopefully, all of her years tracking and working in the wild had prepared her for this situation. She decided to get ready and set the final bait.

  They had found the exit she was watchin
g easily enough. It wasn’t hidden too well, just a small pile of detritus for concealment. This was a throwaway exit. Only there to hopefully capture the attention of a backup group, keeping their focus away from the better prepared second exit. She would have never been able to find the main exit on her own, it was hidden too well.

  The wooden door started to creak, with successive jerking pushes to get the old leaves and dirt off of it as it opened.

  Petre was hiding under a very heavy dark cloak. Coming out of the hole and turning around to see if anyone was there, he quickly spotted Ecaterina in plain sight, and was struck dumb. He moved towards her.

  Seconds later, Bethany Anne heard Petre’s high scream of pain. She had found the entrance to the underground tunnels and was moving quickly through them, keeping her left hand against the wall. She was barely able to judge any distance in the dank, dark tunnel. When she heard the screaming, she found the tunnel that took her in that direction.

  Only taking a few seconds at her enhanced speed, and with better light—she hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight—she finished the last hundred or so yards. The end of the tunnel was considerably brighter since the trapdoor at the end wasn’t properly shut.

  It didn’t hurt that she could hear Petre’s cussing and then a loud, meaty whack and a body hitting the ground.

  Not knowing what she would find, she practically threw the trap door off in a shower of splinters and came out of the tunnel, only to find Petre, slumped on the ground with his foot in a bear trap and Ecaterina slowly buttoning her shirt up. It was obvious she had no bra on and it didn’t look like one was necessary.

  Looking at Bethany Anne, Ecaterina finished the last button on her shirt and bent over to pick up a large, metal cross. “What? Father always said use right bait. He never looked down.”

  Bethany Anne burst out laughing as Alexi came running through the trees calling out Ecaterina’s name.

  Shaking her head, Bethany Anne reached down and easily pried open the bear trap. Petre was a mess inside his robe and clothes, blood all over his broken left leg. She found a holstered .45 while patting him down. She took it out, considered whether he had enough damage and casually shot him in the other leg. She slid the gun into her waistband after setting the safety.