by Leah Blake
Problem was catching the creeps. They moved fast. Mik was willing to bet they moved faster than a regular vampire on caffeinated blood.
“Young lamabra. They need blood. Animals won’t sustain them for long before they crave the real deal. Until they’re strong enough to target shifters, they go for humans.” Mik let out a short breath. “Question is, are we dealing with one or more than one? And who created them if they were supposed to be near extinct?”
“How are they created?” one of the guys asked.
“Unfortunately, we don’t know how,” Jude said. His eyes narrowed briefly on Mik, and in that moment, Mik felt the man scrutinizing him deeper than a damn spear in his chest. He took a small breath when Jude turned his gaze away. Next time, Mik would be sure to keep his mouth shut. “In the past, they were used in a power struggle between the vampires and the shifters. This might be a sign of an impending war between the two factions. We need to hunt these creatures down and stop them before more humans end up dead. Then, we can address the why. I’ll be notifying the local organizations to prepare them for a possible invasion if I learn that these creatures were unleashed by Beauty.”
Mik received his assignment, along with who he’d be partnered up with. The three of them were going to scout out the forest area. A small group would scour the town and another group would infiltrate the local police department to gain access to investigative files. One squadron of three was set to investigate one of the vampire clubs in Manhattan.
“Move out is at 20:00. Gear up and let’s go,” Jude instructed, pressing to his feet. His gaze lowered to Mik again before he took his leave.
As the team headed out of the conference room, a chill curled around Mik’s spine and left an unsettling churn in his gut. It made him pause, two men knocking into him as they passed.
“You’re not scared, are you, B?”
Mik groused under his breath before turning a wicked smile to one of his partners. Dave slung an arm around Mik’s shoulders and led him from the room.
“Scared doesn’t exist in my book. I’m ready to own this assignment.”
“Good. Lucky to be in your group ’cause you know a bit about these fucks.”
“Yeah. A bit.”
Mik ground his teeth as Dave hurried off. That chill spread into his shoulders, pumping tension into his muscles. This was not adrenaline, and not anticipation.
No.
This was that subtle voice in the back of his mind whispering warning of impending doom.
Shit’s about to go down hard.
Chapter Two
Nico Montague tracked the putrid scents of decay for miles now, his steel stomach taking a sucker punch with every hour of subjection to the foul smell. The tenacious odors practically adhered to his skin and somehow infiltrated his body.
The wretched smell would never come out of his nose or off his tongue.
He’d been so immersed in the awful smell and the long hours of waiting for an enemy that wasn’t coming to the party, he almost missed the quiet crunch of leaves and branches.
“Anything yet?”
Storme’s low-pitched husk permeated his mind, freeing him of the choke-hold—and not entirely figurative—the odors had on him. Nico padded between two towering boulders, following the sound.
“Think I might be coming onto something now.” Nico lowered his wolf’s body to the ground and slunk along the wide, jagged base of the boulder, creeping closer to the noise. “Found piles of animal carcasses on this side. Laced with the scent of lamabra.”
“Got a ton of decaying animals over here, too,” Marco added.
“It’s been three nights since we last caught activity in the area. Keep your eyes peeled. I’m certain they’ll be coming back here.”
Storme’s ominous warning settled in his bones. He had a feeling tonight would be the night. Damn, he sure hoped so. All they needed was a bunch of hunters pinning the paranormal community as a whole with the current string of murders.
The hunters that stalked this particular area were well known to Nico, Storme, and Marco. They researched their quarry, made sure they stepped carefully. No need to raise unnecessary tensions between the shifters and the human hunters. They had enough shit to deal with in their own crazy world. They could do without the free-of-charge extras.
Unfortunately, with research came realization. One that to this day, Nico kept to himself. For starters, he wasn’t happy about the discovery.
The faint steps started up again. Woven within the putrid scents of death came a unique aroma of anticipation and the tang of fear.
And something warm and delicious.
Nico shook his head, holding back the urge to sneeze. The moist tip of his nose taunted him.
Then, for the briefest of moments, he was suffocating within bulky clothes and heavy gear strapped to his waist and shoulder. Green-gray coloring lit up the darkness of the forest. Sweat beaded along his brow.
His finger held steady beside the trigger of a gun.
Nico swallowed back a growl as he transferred back to his own wolf body.
Damn it.
Yep, that discovery was nearby. As in way too close.
“Think we have some company.” Marco’s warning resonated in his head.
“What do you have, Marco?” Storme asked.
“Hunter.”
“Fucking lovely.”
Exactly my thoughts.
Nico used the forest terrain to hide his advance, keeping a safe distance from the shadow of a man moving with an uncanny grace beneath the weight of his equipment. Mikhail. Black covered him from head to toe. A set of night-vision goggles covered his eyes. A large handgun was positioned at the ready as he lowered himself behind a wide tree.
Nico took a seat and watched the man work, but never once did he let his guard down. Lamabra were a danger to humans, but fatal to shifters. One bite would render a shifter paralyzed, caught in the middle of a transformation that could not complete. Death came after a torturous battle between man and beast, where neither would win and both would end up destroying each other.
It was a brutal death.
The man peered around the tree, gauging his surrounding before he moved forward, keeping low to the ground. He came upon one of the many dumping sites of animal carcasses and toed the decaying mounds.
“What a feast.”
The man’s whispered words were laced with disgust. Nico moved after the man as he continued ahead, deeper into the forest and into a proverbial predator’s den.
“Nothing yet.”
Nico cocked his head. That’s when he saw the black earpiece and wire he had missed before. He was connected with his hunter pals. He thought the man smarter than speaking aloud with lamabra in the area. The guy had kills under his belt that should make a shifter cringe and run, if it was in a shifter’s nature to cower in the face of an adversary. He didn’t survive this long by being careless in the field.
Then again, everyone had an Achilles’ heel, right?
Focused on the hunter, Nico nearly missed the offset ripple in the air and the blur of shadow that dropped from a tree.
The creature was on the hunter before Nico could get his paws off the ground.
A silenced shot went off. Wood cracked and splintered from a nearby tree.
Nico sprang forward, the distraction from the shot what he needed to plow into the lamabra before the creature’s teeth ripped into the hunter’s throat. He latched his teeth into the lamabra’s neck, tearing him off the hunter. They rolled over the forest ground, blood pooling into his mouth from the vicious bite. His grip tightening on the rabid vampire’s neck until he heard the snap of vertebrae. The creature went limp.
He shifted into his human form and twisted the lamabra’s neck until the red glow of its eyes dimmed and the creature softened in his hold. Skin grew taut over bone and turned ashen in color until patches began to fall away. A breathless hiss escaped its lips.
Nico tossed the decomposing body to the grou
nd and turned.
He gazed straight into the steel barrel of the hunter’s gun.
Nico groaned. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“You tell me, beast.”
Nico lunged to the side as the gun went off. Mikhail spun, tracking his movement, aiming the gun again. Nico kicked, arcing his leg and smashing the heel of his boot against Mikhail’s forearm. The hunter yelped, his gun flying out of his hand. Nico snagged the strap across Mikhail’s chest and shoved the man back until he crashed into a tree trunk, breathless. Snatching the black ski-mask thing and night vision goggles from his head, tearing the ear bud from Mikhail’s ear, Nico growled. He dropped them on the ground and stomped on the goggles before lifting his anger-heated gaze to Mikhail.
“You need to learn some manners, hunter.”
“Fuck…you,” Mikhail gasped.
Nico caught the faint motion of the man’s hand reaching for something at his back. He swatted the man’s hand away, ripped another gun from his fingers, and pitched the weapon deep into the forest.
“Try it again, and I’ll break your fingers.”
“Sounds about right for your kind.”
“My kind?” A dangerous sound built from deep in his chest. He couldn’t stop it before it reached the back of his throat. His skin tingled with the onset of his wolf’s coat preparing to make an appearance. “I was mistaken about you. I didn’t realize you were so shallow.”
Nico waved a hand, dismissing the man, but a slight ache in his chest had taken root. His wolf, as calm as he was, yearned for this man to understand and accept him. Unfortunately, Nico knew better.
Despite the fierce heat and hunger that fought to claim grounding in his mind and body, Nico held his dominating stance. He stared the hunter in the eye, beautiful copper eyes filled with thick hatred and a hint of something else. The man’s mouth remained taut in a scowl, his breathing hard, fast, and raspy. Against the back of his knuckles, Nico absorbed the rapid pace of the man’s heart. Adrenaline. Pure, drug-like adrenaline.
And the first promising hint of arousal.
Nico’s nostrils flared. He tried his damnedest to tamp down the painful erection screaming for release from his jeans. The taunting scent of the hunter’s musk didn’t help. He barely held onto his control, unwilling to break eye-contact while he battled to restrain this relentless hunger he’d been fighting since he first laid eyes on this man almost a month ago.
If he held any hope of winning his mate’s affections, it was going to be a long, trying battle.
There was no doubt that the man standing before him, seething in his own failure, had a wicked hard-on. And it wasn’t adrenaline-induced either.
“Don’t get yourself killed out here,” Nico said, taking to his heel and turning away from the hunter. Duking it out with his mate in the middle of the forest wasn’t the best idea.
“You’re as much a threat to me and my people as that thing. You’re no better than the next fucking creature to come around and cause harm.”
Nico’s nostrils flared, as did his ire.
“Is that your way of life? Stereotype everyone different from you?” Nico snorted. “Disgusting.”
“Don’t give me that shit. You’ve got blood on your hands. You’re not innocent.”
Nico spun around and stormed over to the man. Frustration boiled hard and fast, threatening to cause him to combust. His misplaced arousal didn’t help matters.
Mikhail stood his ground until Nico had a finger against the tip of his nose. A flash of vulnerability crossed the man’s stunning copper eyes and he recoiled an inch or so.
“Here’s the difference between your movement and mine. First, I’m not part of a movement. I’m part of a community trying to protect our species from blind, shallow humans such as yourself. Second, we don’t target humans for murder because they’re humans. For crying out loud, we protect them, too. Three, we know how to let go of a grudge before it ruins us.” Nico narrowed his eyes when Mikhail’s gaze slid to the side before snapping back. So, he wasn’t too far off his mark. Interesting. “There’s bad and there’s good in this world. There are times you fucking hunters cause us more problems than you realize. Somehow, when shit hits the fan and we’re trying to clean up your mess, it becomes our fault. If any faction of living creature is selfish and naïve, it’s you. As in hunters.”
Nico stepped back, dropping his arm to his side. He snarled, refusing to turn his back on the hunter again. If he ripped another gun out of his mate’s hand, he’d hit the guy upside his pretty head and hope it would bring him to his senses.
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt the man but he didn’t want to end up a trophy on Mikhail’s impressive kill sheet.
“Remember who saved your thankless ass tonight. You would’ve been dead, another statistic, had I not shown up when I did. Do you think your buddies would avenge your death as fiercely as you fight for their cause?”
Mikhail’s gaze never broke from his, but Nico sensed the man’s fight to hold steady. It made the corner of his mouth twitch.
“I have my doubts. It would’ve fueled the fire to hunt and kill. It would’ve given them more reason to think it’s perfectly acceptable to murder what they don’t understand.” Nico motioned to the get-up Mikhail wore. “All of that shit on your body? It’s nothing. I’m not impressed. You cowards hide behind your techy weapons and badass clothing. We don’t hide behind weapons when we fight because we aren’t going out looking for a fight. Expect, yes, but not looking.”
Mikhail’s gaze faltered at last, cutting toward the ground. He wasn’t in a hurry to lift it again, indicating to Nico he had hit a soft spot.
“Believe it or not, Mikhail, we have a conscience. We are not beasts or animals. We are not deserving of the target you have placed on us. You, Mikhail, are a threat to myself and my men. Every single one of your guys you deploy with are a threat. The difference between us is night and day. We know the threat. We don’t hunt it down and destroy it. You, on the other hand, have one purpose in life. Kill that which you don’t understand because you don’t want to see the truth behind the lies.”
Mikhail remained silent. Nico wanted so badly to transfer into the guy’s head and see what exactly he was thinking. He began to prod that invisible link between him and Mikhail, but thought better of it.
“How many lies have you told yourself over the years? How many kills have you made based on justification dating back to a single incident?”
Mikhail’s lip peeled back over his top teeth. His gaze shot up, his eyes filled with rage.
Grief.
“It wasn’t an incident. It was a fucking slaughter.”
“Who?” Nico caught the tightening of Mikhail’s fingers as they curled into fists. “Family? Friends? Who?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“Who?” Nico barked.
Mikhail lunged toward him, whipping something from his belt. Nico caught his hand before the silver-edged blade connected with his shoulder. He twisted Mikhail’s arm and winced inwardly as the man shouted in pain. The blade fell from his fingers as Nico turned him, bringing his back to Nico’s chest, and pinning him against his body. Heat licked at his balls having the man so close, the scents of sweat, forest, and a hint of something spicy filling his nostrils. He fought the urge to close his eyes and soak up the feel of his mate, the smells of his person, but reminded himself he wasn’t on any level to lay claim to the man.
Yet.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret, buddy.” Nico brought his lips close to Mikhail’s ear. He instantly sensed the change in the man, his body stiffening before relaxing. A faint aroma of arousal intensified, touching Nico’s tongue and hardening his dick more than fair. “I’ve lost brothers to your kind, but you don’t see me hunting every hunter down for the actions of a few. Stop making excuses for why you do what you do to calm your conscience at night. I doubt you’d sleep well if you allowed yourself the opportunity to realize how wrong you are in
what you do.”
“They killed my brothers,” Mikhail growled.
Nico had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to hear that.
“Who?”
“Those vampire half-breeds.” Mikhail trembled in Nico’s hold. “It attacked us as we were leaving the park and killed them. Slaughtered them. I should’ve been dead but it escaped, leaving me alive. My brothers were dead. I watched it, heard them scream.”
Nico settled the wolf inside of him, easing his own tension and allowing his guard down a little. The anguish in Mikhail’s voice, the strain in his tone, was raw. His mate’s vulnerability didn’t escape him either.
He didn’t release him. His guard might be down, but he wasn’t a completely taken fool for his mate yet.
“The lamabra are an enemy of anything living and breathing. We’re hunting them, too.” Nico sighed. “In the hunt for them, we fight the same battle—”
“We do not!”
“And how is that?”
Mikhail’s trembling increased. Nico glanced down at the guy’s belt, checking for any more weapons that might be hiding in plain sight. He didn’t doubt Mikhail had another weapon somewhere beneath his clothes waiting for when he turned his back.
The man didn’t answer. Nico doubted he had a good enough answer.
“Keep believing what you believe. One day, you’ll find yourself caught between doing what’s right and doing what you continue to do because you don’t want to change your ways, however distorted they are. Your decision, Mikhail, may ultimately destroy you.”
Nico shoved Mikhail forward and took his leave before the man was steady on his feet. When he was certain the man wasn’t going to pull another gun, he shifted into his wolf and bounded off into the protection of the dense forest.
His night was far from over when it came to patrolling, but he’d had enough lip from his mate for a week.
First encounter: Epic fail.
Chapter Three
Mik returned to the hotel room late the following morning after he and his squadron grabbed some grub. They checked in with Jude—Mik created the grandest story about killing the lamabra solo—and were given orders to retire for the rest of the day. They would be called with new orders come dusk.