by Laken Cane
“Bad news travels fast.”
“Yes. And he sounded desperate.”
“Did you find out what his circumstances were?”
“Vampires are the most secretive group on earth. But he did tell her he’d been forced out of his coven by his former master. He and those now under his command are looking to for a city to claim. He chose ours.”
She frowned. “I still don’t see the advantages for us, bringing in another master.”
Llodra wasn’t even dead yet. But now that his children were dead, Matthew was…gone, and RISC had no more questions for him, he wasn’t long for the world.
Z hesitated. “I might see one.”
“Tell me.”
“I read that a couple cities have created centers for humans who have been turned against their will and need some help dealing with it. They’ve actually hired Others—vampires, wolves, shifters—to teach the new Others. Parent them, in a way. You know what I’m saying?”
Ellis.
“Yeah. I do.” She rubbed her temple, thinking. It was a good idea. Some newly turned humans lost control, went nuts, or simply lay down and died. They needed help getting through their first weeks and especially that first night.
Centers for turned humans.
Times were changing.
“Okay, I’ll talk to this master.”
“Let Elizabeth know and she’ll hook you up. Now, the second thing.”
“Give it to me.”
“Emerson’s brain cancer is still there.”
“Good.” But her blood hadn’t healed him. She couldn’t heal everybody. Even if she’d reached Matthew in time, she probably couldn’t have saved him.
She dug her nails into her bare thigh, concentrating on that pain. It was better than the pain of Matthew and Tina.
Oh, Berserker.
“But,” Z continued, “he’s so addicted to your blood he’s going crazy. They have him under suicide watch. From the information I got, even the coldest of the guards are having a problem watching him. They said they’ve never seen anyone suffer so much.”
Funny how that didn’t bring her any real satisfaction. “Good,” she said again.
Lex and Strad were also addicted to her, but it appeared there were varying degrees of addiction, just as she appeared to be able to heal some people and not others.
Or maybe it was only Others that she could heal. She sighed. “Everything is fucking complicated.”
“I figured you’d want to know.”
“Thanks. What else?”
“This is about work. The wolf alpha you fought when you first came home—”
“Darius Elliot.”
“He’s asking for our help.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. Some bad shit happening in his county.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know much. He told Elizabeth the Others are being fucked with. All of them.”
“Dirty county. And they have yet to come out of the Dark Ages.”
“That would be correct.”
“So what does he want us to do?”
“He said something about Others going missing and that those who disobey—his word—are being sent to the Camp.”
Fuck. The Rock County Department of Other Corrections—the Camp—was whispered about by outsiders who had heard the stories. “We shouldn’t get involved.”
“He was terrified.”
“Still. Not up to us. We can’t do it. Not our problem. Besides. We have no jurisdiction over there.”
Z blew out a breath. “He believes COS may be connected. And…” He hesitated, as though reluctant to tell her anything that might hurt her. “He said a couple of kids were being hurt.”
Well son of a bitch.
“Okay then,” she said. “I’ll talk to Elizabeth about lending them a hand.”
She could almost feel his smile.
They were Shiv Crew.
It’s what they did.
“What is RISC saying about Llodra, Z? Why are they keeping him alive?”
“They’re keeping that to themselves. Elizabeth didn’t really say—she just said he was being dealt with.”
As tired as she was of the violence, of the nearly constant emotional agony, Rune wanted Llodra’s death. She wanted revenge.
He was hers to kill.
Let RISC keep him alive. The longer they kept him, the better her chances of getting to him and taking what was hers. He had to die.
Maybe his madness would die with him.
Llodra had admitted to knowing that SCOS was going to take Matthew. Little went on in the Other community he didn’t know about. He’d used that knowledge to fuck with Rune. An amusing little game that kept him occupied in his madness.
“There’s nothing going on tonight, Z? I need to do something. I’m climbing the walls.”
Restlessness grew inside her like a malignancy. She needed to do something. Something to make her not have time to think.
Maybe she just wanted an excuse not to read Amy’s emails. She’d hidden that grief inside her and knew that someday it was going to mess her up. But not right then. She couldn’t handle it.
“I’m sure we could find something. Want me to come pick you up?”
“Maybe. I—”
A knock on her door, insistent and hard, cut her off. “I’ll call you back.” She hung up, hopping into a pair of jeans and pulling on a T-shirt before going to the door.
She tapped her gun against her thigh. “Who is it?” The doors of the inn had no fisheyes.
“It’s me.”
She leaned her forehead against the cool hardness of the door, her heartbeat suddenly quick and unsteady. Fuck me.
“Rune.” His calm, determined voice seeped through the wood. “Open the door. Let me in.”
She slid her hand to the doorknob, unsure, tempted.
Don’t do it, Rune.
She opened the door.
“Hello, Berserker,” she said, and let him in.
About Laken
Laken Cane is the pseudonym of a published paranormal romance author currently living in the Midwest. Blood and Bite is the second book in the Rune Alexander series, following her debut book Shiv Crew.
You can learn more about her and join her mailing list at www.lakencane.com, friend her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/laken.cane.3, and follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/lakencane. Watch for book three in the Rune Alexander series, Strange Trouble, coming soon.