Wild Blood: The Trueborn Saga Book 1
Page 25
When he turns to face me, I drop my hood with a grim expression to regard the stereotypical greasy biker in front of me, with his leather jacket, slicked back dark hair, and long unkempt beard. His face blanches as he meets my gaze. His eyes flicker briefly to the two facial scars that only heighten my already forbidding expression. One begins at my right eyebrow and continues below my eye down my cheek and into my beard, the other stretches along my left cheek to disappear into my hairline.
"Tell me I didn't waste my time meeting you here...again," I say with disdain as I arch one brow.
"Uh...you have to understand the position I'm in," he says, already with excuses I don't want to hear. "My brother is being...difficult and I..." he trails off as I take a threatening step closer to him.
"I was made promises," I say darkly. "I was made assurances."
"I...I...I just need more time to bring him around," he continues with a frantic edge.
"I think I've been more than generous with the time frame I gave you," I tell him, then move closer. "My patience has worn thin," I growl out irritably. "Harlow's patience has worn thin."
"Please j...just give me more time," he pleads. "I can bring my brother around. I sw...swear."
"I have a better idea," I continue, grinning with predatory intent as I lean toward him. "Perhaps having his brother's head delivered to him will be just the incentive he needs to fall in line like the others."
Consolidating all the demonborn gangs into a force I could use for my purposes is an ongoing struggle that I've gotten better at. They respond well to threats, intimidation, and absolute ruthlessness. Out monstering the monsters is something I excel at, just ask my poor excuse for a father. He's little more than my puppet now along with his pack of pathetic trueborn dogs.
His eyes flick toward Harlow and widen in panicked fear under the force of her eager and bloodthirsty grin. "N...n...no," he stammers as he backs away. "There's...there's no need for that."
"Maybe, maybe not," I say gruffly. "But there's definitely no longer a need for you." I glance at Harlow, who's already pushing off the wall with her eyes fixed on her prey as she takes off her coat. I reach out to take it from her. "Take out the trash, Harlow. I'll be in the car."
"Gladly, boss," she answers in a gleeful tone as she pushes up the long sleeves of her black henley shirt. Harlow prefers to wear black while working. It doesn't show blood stains.
She bends down to pull a long wicked knife from her boot sheath and stalks toward him. He's already huddled fearfully against the far wall with glowing red eyes as she reaches for him.
I turn and leave the room as our little friend begins pleading for his life. His voice thickens as he most likely starts to shift, even though it's not going to do him any good. He still doesn't stand a chance against Harlow's inhuman strength and skill, very few can. I close the door as the screaming begins.
Halfway across the garage, I'm hit by the popping sensation of one of my spells suddenly being disrupted. I recognize it as one of my veiling amulets. It must have fallen off or been removed. It's an old one I gave to a demonborn called Chavez, who's one of the first converts I turned to my cause, and one of my most loyal. He's also one of the first I turned into a demonborn myself.
I talked to him a short while ago tonight about a wild blood girl he finally managed to capture and was bringing to me. Something must have gone wrong. Taking them from a trueborn pack was always fraught with risk that he understood. If he got himself into a situation he couldn't handle, I would chalk it up as a loss and move on. He was on his own. There would be other wild bloods to catch and other demonborn to do my bidding.
I walk outside and climb into the passenger seat of the SUV and settle in to wait for Harlow. I know it will be quite a while before she comes back out again. She's nothing if not thorough in her work. I lean back into the seat and let my mind wander, pondering my next steps as I seek out more of the power and influence that I deserve.
Only a short while later, I abruptly become aware of another disruption to Chavez's amulet as someone other than him touches it. I throw my awareness out and sense a faint yet familiar energy signature that I haven't felt in twenty-two long years. I recognize it immediately. It belongs to the one person who defied me and almost defeated me, the one person who nearly cost me my life and put the scars on my face that I now carry as a stark reminder every time I look in a mirror.
I sit there in the vehicle fuming and seething for quite some time until the energy signature shifts to an unfamiliar one, one that I can sense is a mage. When the spell winks out completely a few minutes later, I know the amulet has been destroyed. But it's too late. Though I couldn't sense my enemy's exact location through my connection with the spelled amulet, I know where Chavez was these last few weeks. And now I know where to start the search for my long-lost enemy. I grin with maniacal glee. Yes, I finally have a chance at revenge after all these years. I plot and scheme as I wait. By the time Harlow returns, places her prize in the cargo area, then climbs into the driver's seat, I know exactly what I'm going to do.
Harlow starts the vehicle, then grips the steering wheel with bloody knuckles. She looks at me, her eyes bright and energized, and her face flushed and splattered liberally with blood. I reach into my coat pocket and hand her a small package of wet wipes with a pointed glare. She grudgingly accepts it, then uses them to clean the blood from her face and hands. As expected, not one speck of it belongs to her.
"What's next, boss?" she asks as she tosses the used wipes negligently into the back seat. Thank God the SUV was stolen and not mine.
"I need to hire Ronan Nash."
"The hitman?" she asks with a frown.
I nod once.
"Boss," she says with a disappointed and almost petulant expression. "If there's a monster in need of killing, you know I'll do it for you."
"I know." I shake my head. "But this is a special case, and it needs to be Nash who kills this particular trueborn."
Now she looks confused and cocks her head to the side quizzically. "A trueborn?" she blurts out. "But Nash won't kill his own kind. He won't take the job."
"Oh, I think he will." I grin wickedly at her with an arched brow. "Especially after I tell him it's the trueborn responsible for killing his parents."
Harlow snorts out an amused laugh and smirks, then nods as she puts the SUV in drive and pulls away from the decrepit old garage. She guns the engine and speeds down the dark road back toward town for several moments before finally asking in idle curiosity, "Who's the mark?"
Still smiling, I reply in a gleeful and smug tone, "Rett Weylin."
Look for Lyric and Ronan's story in the next book of this series, Rogue Heart: The Trueborn Saga Book 2, coming out in early 2019.
Thanks for reading my book. If you loved this book or any of my others, please leave a review on my Amazon author page, http://www.amazon.com/Samantha-Wolfe/e/B0172GSQGY. I'd really appreciate it.
S.W.
Books by Samantha Wolfe
Beautifully Broken Trilogy
(Jensen and Sydney's story)
Let Me Love You:Beautifully Broken Book 1
Let Me Save You:Beautifully Broken Book 2
Let Me Heal You:Beautifully Broken Book 3
Breathless Trilogy
(David and Natalie's story)
You Are My Air: Breathless Book 1
You Are My Love: Breathless Book 2
You Are My Life: Breathless Book 3
Order & Chaos Trilogy
(Ford and Jenny's story)
An Act of Restraint: Order & Chaos Book 1
An Act of Release: Order & Chaos Book 2
An Act of Redemption: Order & Chaos Book 3
Dangerous Desire Duet
(Gareth and Malory's story)
Dark Dominion: Dangerous Desire Book 1
Dark Devotion: Dangerous Desire Book 2
Blood Brothers Standalones
Taming Rough Waters (Calder and Ella's story)
Temp
ting Calm Waters (Scott and Lu's story)
The Trueborn Saga
Wild Blood: The Trueborn Saga Book 1 (Emmett and Raven's story)
Rogue Heart: The Trueborn Saga Book 2 (Lyric and Ronan's story)Winter 2019
About the Author
Samantha is a self-professed nerd from the Midwest, who loves anything with a good plot. She'll watch anything with werewolves, vampires, or zombies in it. She is a voracious reader and loves smutty romance novels and contemporary fantasy. Samantha started writing her first erotic romance in February of 2015, and now she can't stop. It's a passion that she can't shut off, nor would she want to. She loves animals, especially dogs, and if her husband let her, she'd have a dozen, but two are his limit. She's looking forward to sharing more of her books with the world.
Website:
www.samanthawolfeauthor.com
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/SamanthaWolfeAuthor/
Samantha Wolfe's Amazon Author Page:
www.amazon.com/Samantha-Wolfe/e/B0172GSQGY
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14553364.Samantha_Wolfe