by Kaia Bennett
“There’re other vampires out here.”
Vaughn stopped rubbing the shimmer of release into his skin and sat up on his elbows. He met my frown with one of his own.
“Where? Did they say anything to you?”
She shook her head. “Josh was with me the whole time, no one bothered us. There’re tents scattered all around these woods. I didn’t notice until we went for a run to blow off some steam this morning. Maybe they don’t know what I am and thought I was one of you? But that’s how we saw Bailey, he was checking on another camp and—”
“Saw you bathing. Figured he’d sniff around, like Stark’s been dying to do since this whole trip started. Right?”
She sat up and glared.
“You always give Josh so much shit for doing the right thing.”
“The right thing?” I shot to a sitting position. “How is the wolf humping the air every time he catches your scent the right thing?”
“You wouldn’t get it because you’re a selfish bastard. You’re supposed to wait until someone invites you to fuck. You have a lot of shit to say about him, but none to say about you or the train you ran on me with your brothers,” she spat.
“Looked like you enjoyed every bit of that.”
She forced herself to look at Vaughn over her shoulder, and didn’t flinch from his words or his lascivious grin.
She rocketed to her feet with a snarl, snatching her towel from the floor in the process. “That’s what I’m talking about. You don’t get to be jealous of someone who respects me enough to jerk off in the woods rather than make me feel like a fuck toy when the mood suits! And those other vampires you’re worried about? They showed more restraint than you, or Vaughn, or Liam did, no matter how my blood smells. So, fuck you!” She spun to Vaughn who still had his cock dangling out of his fly while he enjoyed the show. “And fuck you, too, Vaughn!”
She hurled one of the bags tangled at her feet in my face then stormed to the tent entrance. I peeled the fabric off my head. Rage and jealousy coiled in my gut like a snake. “Going to find the wolf?”
“I’m going to take another bath! Prick.”
She stormed unzipped the flap and disappeared into a streak of daylight.
“I just need to break her in, he said.” Vaughn tucked an arm behind his head. “She’s feisty. Like a puppy, he said.”
“Keep talking, see what happens.”
Ignoring Vaughn’s taunting stare, I rose to follow Evie. I didn’t hear the snap of her shower shoes, her scent still lingering outside the tent. I collided with her at the entrance, thanks to Stark.
The wolf stood in his human form, a hand wrapped around Evie’s upper arm. His steely gaze snared mine. He stood in a puddle, washed clean of the transformation goo by an empty jug at his feet.
Evie still hadn’t wrapped her towel around herself. The wolf and I stood naked on either side of my mate.
“Let me go, Josh.” Evie’s voice didn’t quaver with anything but anger, all modesty forgotten.
“We have a situation.” Stark glanced skyward. “Might be nothing, but we need to lay low for a while.”
“What for?” My gaze slithered over Stark’s hand.
“Get in the tent.”
Dominant but gentle, he pushed Evie through the flap, displaying in one touch everything I despised about him.
Vaughn still had his cock out, a smug smile directed at Stark while he blew smoke rings up to the ceiling.
“Black helicopters.” Stark’s simple declaration sent a ripple of panic through me.
I swallowed. Vaughn sat up immediately and squinted through the smoke. He even tucked his dick into his jeans in honor of the seriousness of the announcement. Evie looked confused, then the fear darkened her eyes.
“When?” Vaughn demanded.
“Maybe ten minutes ago. I came right away to tell you, but you were… busy.” Stark grimaced and inhaled. He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head at the scent of Evie’s blood and sex. She wrapped her towel around her body, and he reached for a pair of jeans to cover his growing erection. “I noticed them on my run with Cade.”
We all frowned.
“Who’s Cade?” I took a seat without bothering to cover up.
The wolf furrowed his brow like I made no sense. “The wolf you just saw running with me. He was walking with Evie before we took off. Flannel shirt, dark hair, dimples.”
“Huh?” Evie looked at Stark like he’d gone mad. “That’s Bailey, the guide from the Gate.”
Stark shuffled swiftly into his jeans and zipped up while Evie clutched that towel like the Holy Grail. She took a seat beside me, then scooted away. Still pissed and staring into the neutral space between the four of us.
“You wanna put on some clothes?” she muttered, scowling in my direction.
“Nope.”
At last Stark chuckled and plopped to the floor. “I forget sometimes your noses aren’t as strong as ours.” He pointed at the three of us and them himself to signify the difference between wolves and the rest. “We breed in litters. Sometimes that means identical children. The guide who brought us here is Bailey, Cade’s older brother. They’re two of four quadruplets who take turns guarding the Gate from the outside. The guy who sold us some of our provisions the other day? That was Daniel, the baby. We’ll meet Adam, I’m sure, at some point. Just assumed you could smell the difference, plus they’re completely different people. They even walk different.”
“Oh,” the three of us said in unison.
That explained how ‘Bailey’ went from Clint Eastwood gruff, to a kid who made me think of Liam, to a submissive man I might’ve killed, if he were human.
Wonder what’s behind door number four?
“Anyway, it could be nothing, but it could be people looking for you after the shit that went down in Syracuse. We still have two weeks before the full moon. It’s best not to risk being seen when we’re so close.”
“Yeah and what are we supposed to do in the meantime, K9 cop?” Vaughn smirked. “We have to eat, and unlike you, we can’t just shift and grab a deer to go.”
“Yeah, I got it, Vaughn, you have to fuck and suck. You done?”
The air between the two predators crackled. Staying in this tent for two weeks couldn’t be the only way around possible surveillance. Evie wouldn’t be able to suppress her hungers so close to the full moon. Stark and Vaughn would kill each other. Or Vaughn and I would kill Stark. We had to hunt, and besides, I wasn’t too keen on pissing off the bond witch by murdering her wolf companion.
“There’s also something you should know. I didn’t have any choice, Evie. I had to tell the Gate guard what your deal is in the hope they might let you in early.”
Evie’s shoulders slumped and she stared at her lap.
“Who told you that was your call to make?” I didn’t realize until Evie touched my arm that I swung, but Evie caught my arm before my fist connected with the mutt’s smart mouth. I trembled under her fingers. Vaughn tensed, ready to back me up if the wolf put up too much of a fight when I killed him. “Every time we expose her, we put, not just her, but ourselves at risk.”
“You don’t think I know that? Everything I do is to protect her. Within the wards, she’s safe, we all are, but they wouldn’t entertain an early entry unless we had a good reason. Cade says even with that atom bomb of information, we still might not get in early. It’s a big coven and you’re not the only vampires here, or even the only true born. It might not happen, either. They might say preferential treatment could expose you and make us wait.”
“So, you put us at risk for nothing?”
“No.” He shook his head at Vaughn’s question. “I go in tonight, to request permission on your behalf, Evie. If that doesn’t work, we just have to be careful. No leisurely strolls to the lake. We bathe at night now. No feeding unless there’s plenty of tree cover. I’ll shift every day to keep an eye out, until we can get in.”
Evie finally looked up. “Why do I get the feeli
ng that’s just as bad as not changing when you need to? Doesn’t that take a toll, shifting everyday?”
Stark scrubbed a hand over the stubble that had nearly grown into full beard territory. I got the feeling he didn’t like the excess hair and the thought made me chuckle.
“I’ll be fine. The brothers from the pack can help with that. I’ll ask if they can run with me at night when the Gate closes for business, to help with the beast.”
The smile he gave her spelled ‘lie’ with white teeth.
“What can I do to help? Masilda taught me some breathing exercises before I left, and I’ve been—I know it sounds stupid but I’ve been practicing how to place an impression inside the mind, maybe even a whole memory or the masking of one. I thought maybe it would help me learn how to hunt without killing—”
Vaughn scoffed and flopped onto the floor.
“—but maybe it can help you with the stability you’ll need to turn every day.”
“Maybe. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Fingers crossed the priestess says yes to our petition. If not, we keep a low profile, stick to hunting close to nightfall. We stay here for as long as we can stand before our urges take over.”
Vaughn sighed. “For two weeks? With the full moon approaching and those two fucking like vampire rabbits? Sounds. Like. Fun. We can get hairy palms together while we watch ‘em raw dog.”
Vaughn found his comment hilarious. I tried not to.
Stark and Evie didn’t meet each other’s eyes.
34
I jerked my head high at the sound of Stark’s howl, fangs dripping with blood from my interrupted feeding. The whoop, whoop of circular spinning blades gave away the source of Stark’s alarm.
Thankfully, we were all hidden by a forest thick with pine. Evie reluctantly pulled away from the bend of our prey’s arm and scanned the skies. Staring at the spaces between the tips of the majestic trees surrounding me, an ominous sight slipped through the clouds. A single red light blinked from the rear of an ebony helicopter headed south, away from camp.
That’s twice. My pulse, already speeding from the hunt, revved so high, it drew a searching glance from Evie.
“Like he said, it’s probably nothing.” I licked blood from my lips and laved the fading girl’s throat clean. Evie didn’t look as convinced as I felt.
“Oil pipeline survey crews use black helicopters too. Eat your food.” The female Evie and I fed from flirted with unconsciousness, the back of her head lolling against my shoulder.
If my father had homed in on our location and sent a black ops retrieval team, we’d be dead by now. Eamon could’ve gotten in to see Metis, but Eamon was also on my father’s shit list. Pissing off my father, and Metis’s undoubted fury over Evie’s escape, could mean Vaughn’s maker risked danger if he got within ten feet of my old man.
That counted for something. Plus, my father should’ve sent search parties south, like Cai intended. My unlikely ally hadn’t called me to say otherwise.
“We don’t have to kill her.” Evie drew my gaze over the dying girl’s shoulder. “I can try again, okay?”
I rolled my eyes. Like she’d stop if I said no?
Evie cupped the cool face of our prey in her hands and closed her eyes. The crimson stains of the hunt painted her lips. One quick swipe of my tongue as I pushed her to her back could end this witch shit. Or, I could get slapped, like the last time I tried to discourage my mate’s nonsensical idea.
We hadn’t been admitted into the coven early, though Stark had been told he could guard his charge in the circle during the full moon. This was supposed to be some kind of great honor. More wolf nonsense I didn’t give a shit about. After the ceremony ended, the high priestess would see us.
Stark had settled into weary acceptance of a physically taxing two weeks. The only good to come from that exchange had been a cryptic message from the high priestess. “If you don’t receive healing, then she’ll set you right. She’s curious about Evie too. That’s a good sign.
Evie stewed for two weeks. With each hunt she joined me on, she became increasingly restless. She couldn’t just glut herself on blood and fuck herself into a coma like Vaughn and me. Oh, no. She had to reinvent the fucking wheel, fix the nature of the hunt itself.
So, before the end of every meal, she laid hands on our prey and tried her hand at magick. Replacing the memory of feeding, or blocking the memory in our prey’s mind, became her goal. She planned to fade out the terror and confusion, mine her victim for positive feelings, and plant them over the memory of our attack, along with her blood. They’d heal and be none the wiser.
Vaughn, who had no such designs, had been dragging his prey away from Evie’s insistent witch side ever since. Every withering glance from Vaughn’s eyes seared me. He’d been driven away, thanks to Evie. All I did was check his food for disease and let him go, in order to indulge a witch.
For the last time.
We were hours away from the moment of truth. Everything would be sorted in the circle. Severed.
A few hundred feet away, Vaughn celebrated impending freedom by glutting on two hikers. One now lay dead. He cooed in his remaining prey’s ear as he fucked her. Evie took a deep breath and shook her head at the perfect strains of suffering filtering through the trees. I imagined my brother relishing his cruelty, while Evie tried desperately to block him out. She did battle with her killer urges, her fangs bared to the wind for a moment. Her eyes squeezed shut and she leaned in, squeezing the female’s face with trembling hands.
The fair-haired girl in my arms smiled, then giggled. Evie’s eyes remained shut tight, her brow beetling. An exuberant expression transformed our victim’s face. I tilted my head in curious shock. My prey’s eyelids flickered rapidly with forced dreams.
Evie’s brow broke into a sweat. Her breathing increased, panting, like she did when we fucked. In her chest, a predator’s heart strained with maximum exertion.
I scowled and studied the victims face, strangely dejected at being locked out of the moment with Evie. Our thoughts mingled as smooth as our blood. I’d grown used to the permeable nature of our bond.
How is she able to keep me out?
“Evie, we don’t have time for this. It’ll be dark soon.”
She didn’t respond. Maybe she didn’t hear me.
She’d gone deep sea diving in the mind of her victim and they swam together now. What she hunted, I couldn’t say. None of this witch nonsense made sense to me. Shifting memories, plucking out emotions like strings.
Like threads in a bond.
For a moment, I stood outside of her, outside of myself. I felt so hollow. Somehow, the final thread holding me to my mate began to melt like snow in spring.
I glanced at the sky above, the full moon’s silver outline teasing me. Nightfall approached like the wildly spinning hands of a clock. I should’ve been ecstatic. Freedom so close, I could taste my escape from bondage.
Instead, I watched a witch rising in power. I watched a vampire, flush with the strength of feeding. I watched a bond witch spend our last moments together on some bitch we’d snatched from the woods. Death, as natural as the cold winter air around us, succumbed to her siren call. Just like I had months before.
I snarled and snatched one of Evie’s hands away from the girl’s face.
She started and snapped out of her spell with a gasp. Glazed black eyes scanned her surroundings as if she didn’t know how she’d gotten here. Maybe she didn’t, because the girl still seemed to be lost, too. The rapturous expression of our prey faded with each passing moment, like ripples in a settling pool.
I felt the filter of shared thoughts again, the thread no longer invisible between my mate and me.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because we don’t have time indulge your humanitarian efforts. Not to mention, no vampire can afford to be that out of it on a hunt. You were completely gone. I could’ve killed you and her, and you’d have never seen death coming. That’s why we don
’t waste time pitying prey.”
She blinked and stared at the girl. I followed her glance. The girl’s smile faded by degrees but still stretched her thin lips. Wherever Evie had taken her, she still roamed. My mate smiled faintly at the placid look on the girl’s face. Just like that, the glazed look returned to my mate’s eyes. If I stared hard enough, I could almost see a road leading into the dark recesses of her mind. I couldn’t follow.
“She loves to run. She’d run forever if she could,” Evie whispered. “Like Nora in the water. Nora loved to swim. She shouldn’t have died in the water. She should be alive and I should be dead. She tried to warn me in the dream that you’d take me under, she tried to warn me, but I couldn’t turn back. I couldn’t save her.”
I exhaled and laid the girl down. Tilting Evie’s chin, I forced her to abandon looking at the girl and meet my gaze. A single tear streaked down her cheek. Her eyes flickered like firelight, licking from one thought to the next. A watercolor sunset withered under the weight of dusk. I felt like that dark hand pressing on the light as I shook her.
“Evie, baby? Snap out of it.”
She blinked, trying to run from my mind, but I wouldn’t let her go. We sank beneath the waves. We raced in the ocean, past Liam floating on his back in a state of quiet contentment.
She climbed out of the water, blood dripping from her body. A girl called to her from the distant shore. A warning to come back. A warning not to swallow, not to let me in.
I gasped as my own eyes stared up at me from the forest floor in Guthridge. The first night again, the night I’d taken her. A phantom had snatched me by the hair, dragging me from the vein in her thigh. The phantom had a face now. Evie, her spirit, everything within her rushing down to claim me.
She’d fallen into me like a breath. I’d gotten into her bloodstream.
Did we ever have a choice? Did I find her in those woods or did something lead me there?