VAMP, I mouthed, then tilted my head in the direction we came from.
With a barely noticeable move of her finger, she adjusted a parameter on her device. Her brows furrowed together, her gaze flickering from the screen to the woods and back again. I didn’t know what data she was getting, but given she had yet to attack, I assumed our thoughts were running along a similar line.
There was a good chance the vampire wasn’t one of Svinimir’s.
He was far enough away from the house to be outside all the wards, and based on his scent, the way he was moving suggested the demon’s dwelling wasn’t his intended destination, either. Still, unease slithered down my spine at the idea of having an unknown supe at my back.
For several long moments—moments that only increased our chances of discovery—both of us stayed locked in position, barely breathing. The swaying branches overhead could hardly cover up anything more than that. While vampiric senses weren’t quite as keen as a werewolf’s except when it came to sensing their own kind, they were sharp.
Sharp enough to hear an unusual rustle in the forest, indicating possible prey.
Just as I sifted through our options, something snagged the vamp’s attention. He broke into a run.
I listened to the soft thud of his footsteps headed well away from us, then let out a long exhale. Dodged that one.
Lena looked up from her device, a grin on her face. “That was certainly a good warm-up exercise in stealth.”
I snorted and shook my head, then followed her forward. As soon as we reached the top, emerging between a set of two gnarled pines, Svinimir’s house came into view. Contrary to Kaloyan’s, this one was a manor.
Made of heavy stone, the two-story structure sat in the small depression amidst the hills and gave off a serious medieval fortress vibe. What surprised me, however, was that the residence wasn’t posh or polished, but blended into the grass-and-rock environment. The kind of thing one would admire from afar, but had no true reason to see up close. I was pretty certain it wasn’t some sort of glamour but checked with Lena just to be sure.
“Oh, it’s real,” she said under her breath, then pointed at something to our right. “But it is heavily warded.”
I followed her gaze, only instead of just looking at the spot in the distance, I tried to feel it, too. A small shimmering appeared in the corner of my eye, backed by a foreboding sense that snaked through my body.
“Repellant ward?” I whisper-asked.
After I’d filled her in on my plan, Lena had given me a quick rundown of the protection setups most commonly used among demonkind. The more my demonic self grew, the easier it would be to sense wards. Spells, on the other hand, weren’t that simple. Unless some other fuck decided to experiment on me in the process and added a dash of witch blood to the mix or, the more pleasant option, unless I obtained one of Lena’s nifty gadgets, I wouldn’t be able to read them. Sometimes not even sense them.
But I could hone my awareness of those that made me want to turn the other way. Pick up on the aversion long before it truly hit me.
“Yeah, that’s a repellant ward all right.” She showed me a graph on her device. “A potent one, too. Even knowing what it is wouldn’t be enough to overcome the compulsion and pass through.”
“But a walk in the park for you,” I said with a small smile.
“Maybe a hike, but yeah.” Another quick combination of clicks brought up an odd-looking map, filled with ellipses and circles. “Now these are the wards you won’t be able to feel.”
The smile on my face died. There was at least a dozen of them. I didn’t doubt Lena’s ability to defuse the compact magical energy, but it was still a daunting prospect.
From what we gathered, Svinimir had stacked his protection in layers. A ward followed by living guards followed by a ward and so on. Any misstep on our part could alert the entire grounds of our approach.
Lena’s eyes, however, were brimming with excitement, not concern, when they met mine. “Ready for the party?”
I opened my mouth to answer, only what came out weren’t words, but a growl. I spun around, nostrils flaring as I sucked in the faint traces that were rapidly gaining potency.
Fuck.
That vampire hadn’t found some prey to chase.
He’d run away from a predator.
Twenty-Nine
“Werewolves,” I whispered without taking my eyes off the shadow-filled forest. “A pack of seven.”
“Svinimir’s?”
“Seems like,” I said dryly, surprised that I managed to keep the tremors from overtaking my voice. Surprised by what I was about to say, too. “I’ll meet them halfway. They’ll scent me. But I’m pretty sure they won’t kill me outright.”
Lena laughed. “And here I thought I was the crazy one.”
My stomach tightened into a painful knot, but I managed to roll my eyes at her. “Cover me?”
As soon as she gave a curt nod, I ventured back the way we came, hoping a new layer of my scent would conceal I hadn’t come through alone the first time around. Even blanketed by night, the woods struck me as great hunting grounds—a fact the fleeing vamp confirmed—and I’d come close enough to the manor for the repellant ward to turn me around had I actually been here for another, far more innocent reason.
Svinimir was a bastard, but if he’d gone to such lengths to force people the other way, it was possible he wasn’t too keen on outright murdering everyone who crossed the outskirts of his territory. If not for anything else, the unwanted attention bodies—or at least missing persons—would draw to this area definitely wouldn’t do him any favors.
I knew I was betting a lot on what was an assumption, but I had to believe in something that would play to my advantage.
Looking far more confident than I felt, I let out a warning growl once the distance between the pack and me grew too close to ignore. The sound was echoed by another, lower. Menace lined the were’s growl but didn’t indicate an immediate threat. The best I could hope for.
A nude, muscular male appeared from the inky shadows, followed by six still in wolf form. I breathed a little easier when I noticed they were of the plain old brown variety like me, although my instincts kept on yelling at me to flee.
A smarter wolf would.
Unfortunately, being smart was an option I’d given up the moment I stormed out of my apartment and into Isa’s office, setting everything in motion.
“These aren’t free lands,” the werewolf snarled, hazel eyes narrowed as he took in my sleek black attire.
My knowledge of the Serbian tongue was mostly based on the similarities between it and Slovene, but I had no difficulty catching his meaning.
I scrunched up my nose and answered in Slovene, “I didn’t scent any markings on the territory.”
“Where was your point of entry?”
Panic flared for a moment, but I shoved it down. Think. I couldn’t exactly say I materialized right in the middle of the woods…
“Northeast.” I added a little snarl to my voice, hoping it would mask the fact that I’d just pulled the answer straight out of my ass.
But the vampire had run in that direction when he sensed the pack, which made me think it was probably the safest choice. Possibly unmarked, too. Only someone with a death wish would try to escape by going deeper into a very traditional pack’s territory.
The werewolf’s chest expanded as he sucked in more of my scent. I tensed involuntarily.
He’d smell Lena on me—on my clothes since she’d handled them. I just hoped he’d think I had a Nightwraith lover and not a co-conspirator waiting to storm their boss’s stronghold.
He cocked his head to the side. “Your reason for being here?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the six werewolves spread out. I might have ditched pack life before it even truly began, but I’d learned enough about tactics during my training to realize what they were doing.
Every muscle in my body screamed to retreat before they
would encircle me. I clamped down hard on the impulse, going against my very nature, and forced myself to shift from flight to fight mode. Their intent was thick enough to scent, and if I showed even the slightest inclination of running, they wouldn’t hesitate to hunt me down.
The alternative was, sadly, only marginally better.
“I meant no offense to your pack. I’m new in the area, in the country, actually, and wanted to explore my options.”
“New?” His hazel eyes sparkled, his lips curling into something caught between a snarl and a smile. “Alone, too, little wolf?”
Still playing casual, I adjusted my stance. The werewolf took a step closer. As did the others.
“I have a feeling I’m sure as fuck going to be lonely for the foreseeable future.” A bitter, dry laugh rolled off my lips. “But that’s what you get when you decide not to take crap from assholes any longer.”
Confusion swept across his face. Obviously hearing about my romantic woes was not what the would-be alpha expected.
At least my damn breakup had something positive to offer.
Before the were could return to his previous predatory state, I uncorked the godsdamned ocean of anger bottled up inside me.
A flash of blue cut through the darkness.
The werewolf collapsed, nothing but a gaping hole where his heart used to be.
Thirty
Only two sounds existed in the silence.
The pulse of my own blood.
And the hum of magic inside me.
My gaze was fixed on the neatly cauterized wound on the left side of the werewolf’s bare chest, the knowledge that it was me who did that, a quiet, heavy weight in the pit of my stomach. But what scared me the most was that his death didn’t feel wrong.
I knew a time would come when I would mull over what it all meant, but this wasn’t it.
The demonic side of my essence picked up on accumulating magic, and without hesitating, I lashed out with more blue flames at precisely the same time as Lena emerged from the trees.
I took down another were before the howl could leave his throat, then spun around and planted a booted foot in another’s face. The distinct slice of a blade cutting through the air whisked past me—Lena, finding her target in the bastard who tried to jump me from behind. He went down with a gargled sound.
The were I’d kicked in the snout was up again. But he wasn’t in wolf form any longer. Shit.
I launched myself at him. Flames flickered at my fingertips but refused to form into anything useful. Like a damn longsword to skewer the asshole.
It wasn’t burnout messing with my performance. There was still power inside me, that much I was sure of. But whether it was my unfamiliarity with life-or-death fights or the fact that I had yet to process I’d actually killed a man with my new demonic skills, I was unable to find the proper state of mind to control the fire.
I’d have to do this the old way.
Blood still dribbled from the werewolf’s nose, murder dancing plainly in his eyes. Under the spill of moonlight filtering through the gaps in the trees, I could discern every well-maintained contour of his towering body. Shit, the man was built like a fucking wrestler with muscles that bulged even at the smallest of movements.
An enforcer.
In a traditional pack, every alpha had one. They were little more than killing machines, but they did what they did best. I had to trust Lena to have my back and take care of his remaining three pack mates.
I feinted a jab to his harsh face and smashed my other fist into his plexus. The werewolf wheezed but lashed out without hesitation. Red-hot pain exploded in my stomach, then right under my chin. I staggered back. The night suddenly seemed a whole lot darker, though the sky remained cloudless. Faintly, I tasted blood on my tongue, probably from where I’d clamped down on it with my teeth.
Fuck, this hurt.
I doubled over and focused on the sounds—the shift of wind, the thud of the enforcer’s footsteps as he circled around me. I could feel his desire to kill rising at the sight of the pitiful prey I’d been reduced to.
A quick blaze erupted from behind me as Lena brought down another one of the pack, but I knew she wasn’t done yet. She couldn’t rush over to save me.
The were closed in as I fought to stay conscious and planted an elbow in my back, effectively bringing me on all fours. I rolled over as a thousand searing daggers sliced my spine, my mind nearly overwhelmed with agony. A musky, male scent invaded my nostrils.
The bastard had come to preen.
His broad smile flashed under the moonlight. He lifted one leg up, foreshadowing the death I was to greet.
A crushed skull.
Brain matter leaking onto the forest ground.
I shifted my gaze from his face to the sole of his foot, monitoring for even the smallest twitch. And when it came, when the space between us closed, I moved.
My hands shot up and wrapped around his ankle at the same time as I twisted my head to the side. His foot crashed against the soil, scraping my ear, but I didn’t care about the pain. All that mattered was the firm contact I had with his skin.
I shoved my will deep into the lake of power I carried within me. The energy surged, flowing through my fingertips and into his flesh.
Wave after wave, I fed it into him, filling his bloodstream, his very cells with the potent blue.
The werewolf jerked, but I didn’t let go.
Didn’t unclench my fingers until he collapsed on the grass beside me, nothing more than a shell housing a burnt, wasted interior.
“You all right?” Lena’s concerned face hovered over me.
I grunted, then accepted her offered hand.
The forest ground swayed uneasily under my feet, bile rising at the back of my throat for a moment before it subsided. Once I was pretty sure the movement wouldn’t result in me toppling over, I chanced a look around.
Corpses.
Stabbed. Burned. Decapitated.
A weak laugh bubbled from my lips. “So this is your life, huh?”
“It’s a quality job.” Lena shrugged, then cleaned her still-bloody knife on her pants before securing it in its respective thigh sheath. “If I had to spend my life like my mother, dealing with demonic underlings day after day, I’d probably drop a lot more bodies. With a lot less reason.”
Despite feeling like shit, I grinned and toed around a corpse, Lena following suit. “I’d probably be more enthusiastic about all of this if the bastard hadn’t nearly broken my spine. And, well, if we didn’t still have a godsdamned manor to infiltrate.”
Lena smiled, but worry lined the corners of her eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah,” I said, surprised it was the truth, too. “A couple of bruises, but nothing that won’t be healed by the time we make it to the wards.”
Actually, I had a suspicion my body was mending even faster than usual. I was fairly certain the enforcer asshole had cracked my jaw, but the bones and muscles felt perfectly fine now, aside from a mild, dull pain. Maybe I really did gain more than just demon fire from the entwined essence.
Right now, that worked just fine for me.
After Lena sprayed us with something to cover up the reek of blood, we pushed through the woods without another word. We crested the small hill—again—then trekked along the seam between the trees and the pasture where shadows reigned. Lena kept monitoring her equipment as she took us in a semicircle around the estate, while I kept my senses on high alert in case any other nasty surprises wanted to creep up on us.
Much to my relief, the only threats lurked up ahead—as expected.
Though relief was probably a generous word. We definitely weren’t done fighting yet.
Once we reached our point of entry and inched right to the very edge of the woods, we hunkered down behind the wall of thick underbrush. Nothing but open terrain up ahead. Even Lena’s ability to pull demonic shadows around her couldn’t get us across unnoticed.
Unless we played t
his right.
As Lena tapped away on her device, I scanned our surroundings again. Two guards upwind to our right.
“Do you have a lock on the ward?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Lena nodded, brow furrowed. “But I won’t be able to defuse it entirely. Svinimir really went all the way with the barriers.”
I cocked an eyebrow in question.
“Standard wardings of places like this consist of several individual layers. The first one is the alarm, the second designed to slow any intruders down, and the third is supposed to be next to impenetrable. But these…” She shook her head, graphs and numbers flashing across the low-lit screen. “I couldn’t get a detailed read on them earlier. If we’d acted then and tried to undo the outer perimeter from afar, we’d alert every fucker in there to our presence.”
Understanding dawned. “They’re connected?”
“Which isn’t unheard of, just rare. These nasty little things… They’re linked by a nearly untraceable thread.”
“So what now?” My fingers scraped the hard soil.
I shifted a little to prevent those stirrings of cramps in my legs from getting any worse. Crouching in human form sucked.
Lena didn’t seem to be bothered, her gaze glued to the device. “I’ll have to weave an exception into the barrier. Rewrite a part of it so that we’ll be able to pass through.”
“How long?”
“Long enough that you’ll have to take care of those guards before they get any closer.”
Blowing out a breath, I nodded—not that Lena could see, tinkering furiously with her mag-tech. The guards had always been part of my task, but the initial plan would have allowed us to move forward in case I couldn’t handle them. Somehow knowing that wasn’t an option made me more than a little uneasy. All or nothing scenarios had never been my strong suit.
“What about the other two wards?” I asked.
Here, at least, we had the trees and bushes for cover. Out there, nothing but grass. A Nightwraith sitting in the middle of the flat terrain and hacking the protective magic would hardly go unnoticed, shadows or not.
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