“I think it will be five,” Kadence said. “Vicky will be with them.”
“Nathan’s not going to lose that battle.”
“Yes, he is.”
“I agree,” Simone said.
“No way,” Killean said.
“Care to bet on it?” Kadence asked.
Declan turned away when Ronan said. “I do.”
“I’d like to get in on this,” Saxon said. “My money’s on Vicky.”
“I think Nathan’s going to win,” Elyse said.
“I’ll put fifty on Vicky too,” Roland said. “She was pissed.”
As he climbed the sweeping stairs, Declan shut out the conversation behind him. At the top, he turned and walked down the hallway to his room. With every step he took, his teeth ground together more and more. They were leaving soon, but it wasn’t soon enough. Lucien and Willow had been in those woods too long already.
He never should have volunteered to go to Mexico. It was important to strengthen the relationship with the hunters and vamps there when the number of Savages started increasing again.
It also made the most sense for him to go. Saxon and Killean were mated, Lucien could be a hothead, and no one else had been here long enough to trust them with the seriousness of this mission. Plus, the vamps wouldn’t trust a hunter.
Alejandro, the hunter leader in Mexico, already knew him from a visit he made there a couple of years ago with Nathan, Asher, Logan, and Ronan, so he was comfortable working together. Even though he was a vampire now, he was also a hunter, and having Logan there helped to ease the hostility between the hunters and vamps in the region.
It made sense for him to go, but he knew he’d also gone to get away from the temptation Willow offered. There were too many times he found himself watching her as she ran around the compound and trained with the others.
And too many times, he found himself imagining her while stroking his cock at night. He couldn’t recall a time when he’d ever been so fascinated by a woman, and it threatened to undo all the discipline and grueling work he’d endured for centuries.
When Ronan asked him about going, he’d said it was purely volunteer, but Declan knew he wanted him to go. He’d been with Ronan the longest and was the most diplomatic. However, it was also more than that; Ronan wanted him to go because of his ability. Ronan had never asked him what he could do, but he suspected some of Declan’s capabilities.
He could never know it all, because after six hundred years, Declan still didn’t know everything he was capable of doing. Most times, it seemed he possessed a simple empathic ability. But, at other times, his ability took on a life of its own and transformed into something he could barely control.
Sometimes it energized him, and on a few occasions, it was a debilitating disaster that almost knocked him to his knees. And then there were times when the emotions of others, or the intensity of a battle, caused it to border on becoming something more.
What that more was, he didn’t know, and he’d prefer not to find out.
Setting his bag on the bed, he removed his bag of toiletries but didn’t bother to unpack it. Instead, he removed a smaller bag from his armoire and shoved in a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and his toiletries. There was still plenty of room left in the bag afterward, but he would fill it with weapons.
Chapter Seven
Willow’s head shot up when she startled awake. Blinking against the sun, she gazed at her green surroundings in confusion until she recalled where she was and why. Her shoulders drooped, and she rested her head against the tree.
She didn’t know how much time she spent asleep, but judging by the sun filtering through the trees, it was afternoon. Shifting on the branch, she winced when the movement jarred her ankle. Bones no longer ground together inside her boot, but it remained swollen and throbbed like a son of a bitch.
Her fangs throbbed too as hunger burned her veins. When was the last time she fed? Lowering her head into her hands, she rubbed at her temples until she remembered it was two days ago.
That wasn’t much time to go between feedings, but after the events of yesterday, and with her body trying to heal itself, she required more sustenance. If she’d been able to hunt an animal to feed, her ankle would have healed by now, but she couldn’t leave the tree until her ankle healed.
Untying her belt from the tree, she freed herself before leaning over to peer into the shadows below. She’d managed to stay awake until daybreak, but she lost the battle when the Savages who couldn’t tolerate sun retreated into the bowels of the earth where they belonged.
Now it was her and the birds flitting through the branches while they sang their songs. When a blue jay landed a few feet away, its head turned to the side as it studied her from blackened eyes. With a loud caw, it spread its wings and flew away.
Willow had the insane urge to snatch it back and make it stay with her. The bird wasn’t exactly the best company, but it was better than nothing.
Wiggling the toes of her bad foot, she winced when it felt like knives jabbed her from her big toe to her hip. She could probably limp on it if she climbed down. The limp would make catching her dinner more difficult, but if she could get some blood, she’d heal within the next hour or two.
However, there were probably still some Savages who could tolerate small doses of the sun’s rays out there. If she got down and ran into them before she healed, she didn’t know if she could fight them off.
Tipping her head back, she stared through the needles shading her to the pristine, blue sky. The color reminded her of her brother Ian’s eyes. She ignored the twinge of longing that tugged at her heart. She would see them again.
Closing her eyes, she rubbed at them before opening them. At most, she only had two hours before the sun set. Even if there weren’t other Savages out there, it wasn’t enough time to hunt and heal before those assholes started tracking again.
Maybe she’d get lucky and they would call it quits, but she wasn’t feeling all that lucky. Or maybe she was the luckiest vampire alive. She could be dead or in the hands of the Savages. Sitting in a tree with a busted ankle and a rumbling stomach was a lot more fun when she looked at it that way.
Was anyone else alive?
She may never know the answer, and it was such a depressing thought that she pushed it away. However, thinking was the only thing there was to do in a tree.
To avoid getting bogged down in despair, she started singing a rousing rendition of the ants go marching in her head. As she sang, she tried to recall all the silly verses she and her sister Cassidy would make up when they were kids. Instead of the ant stopping to suck his thumb, they would sing about him stopping to play the drum or dying from boredom, kind of like she was right now.
She was on verse number eight, and instead of checking the gate, she was running late, or dropping the plate, or finding her mate. And then a twig snapped below, and she stopped being bored as the words of the song abruptly stopped.
Every muscle in her body tensed; she didn’t breathe as footsteps approached. Was it friend or foe?
She leaned over to see through the branches as voices floated to her. The fact there was more than one made her believe it wasn’t a friend. She didn’t have many friends, if any, left alive in these woods. Still, hope pulsed through her with every beat of her heart.
That hope vanished when two vampires she didn’t recognize walked under her tree. They were her enemy, but if they were out in the day, then they couldn’t be lost entirely to their Savage nature. However, there wasn’t a whole lot of direct sunlight in these woods.
Willow’s heart sank as they walked out of view. What if these woods were so thick all the Savages could stay out during the day?
Even with her ankle healed, these woods were so vast, and there were so many of them, she didn’t know how she’d avoid them.
By running, that was how. As soon as possible, she would run again, and she wouldn’t stop until free of this forest.
Declan studied the fres
h blood splattered across the ground. It had dried overnight, but patches of it still darkened the forest floor. Lucien had spilled enough blood over the years that Declan could recognize its scent, but no hint of who spilled this blood remained on the air. There weren’t any bodies, but he didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“I’ve got some ashes over here,” Logan said and waved at a pile on the ground.
More piles littered the clearing, but it was impossible to tell if the sun killed the Savages, or if someone else killed them and the sun destroyed their bodies afterward.
There had been a battle here, but there was no sign of anyone from the Alliance. Unlike the Savages, their bodies wouldn’t have burst into flames when the sun hit them, and he couldn’t see the Savages taking dead bodies away.
Whatever happened here, they managed to flee the area at least. How long they survived afterward was anyone’s guess.
Declan walked over to the circular hole leading into the shadowy interior of the tunnels below. Years ago, he returned here with Elijah—the hunter’s demolition expert—Roland, and a bunch of others to install the cameras and destroy what remained of the tunnels.
When they left, there was no way anyone could get back into the tunnels. But now, he gazed into the opening of the hell beneath. He didn’t know how far down this newly dug tunnel went, but the Savages had been busy during the short time between when the cameras went down and the Alliance arrived.
A large pile of debris sat next to the entrance. They’d been tossing whatever they removed onto the rubble, probably in an assembly line sort of way as they burrowed deeper into the earth.
Are the others down there? Why would the Savages do this? What are they looking for down there? Is there another demon in there?
His jaw clenched at the memory of that thing they discovered the last time he was here. With its pale, hairless body and red and black spine, it was hideous. He hoped never to see another one, but he didn’t think he’d be that fortunate.
Those things were plotting something with the Savages, and he didn’t believe the demon they killed was the only one in existence. It was only a matter of time before they encountered its brethren. He hoped the army they were building would be big enough to destroy the growing threat before it was too late.
However, he didn’t think there was another demon down there now. The new hole the Savages created was big enough to crawl through, but he didn’t see one of those bastards crawling on their hands and knees through anything.
He didn’t believe they’d trapped one in there when they collapsed the tunnels either. The Savages would have come for it sooner if they had. No, only one demon had ruled here, and they’d killed it, but were the Savages trying to create a home for another one?
“Do you think they were trying to repair these tunnels?” Asher asked as he came to stand beside him.
“Maybe,” Declan muttered.
“That can’t be good,” Logan said.
“No, it can’t,” Declan agreed.
“I brought enough explosives to make sure they never get back into these tunnels,” Saber said.
After their first encounter with the demon here, Ronan insisted more members of the Alliance have training in explosives. Saber was the first to volunteer. Declan still didn’t know what to make of the man. Saber was as standoffish as Lucien, but he didn’t sense anything evil from him. In fact, he barely sensed anything from Saber at all; it was rare when Saber revealed any hint of emotion.
“You can’t blow it up before we go in there,” Vicky said. “What if my sister or Lucien or one of the others is down there?”
Much to Simone and Kadence’s delight, and Nathan’s frustration, Vicky won the battle of wills and Nathan remained with their son. While collecting his money, Asher promised Nathan he’d stay glued to her ass. Nathan glowered at him in return.
Declan sensed Vicky’s impatience to find her sister, but he wasn’t concerned that she would do something foolish. She wouldn’t leave until they had answers, but her main priorities remained her child and mate.
“I’ll go in and check it out,” Declan said.
His skin crawled at the idea of returning to the gloomy bowels beneath them, but he didn’t have a choice. He had to know if Lucien or Willow was down there before they destroyed the tunnel again. Declan glanced at the sky; a couple hours of the day remained, but that didn’t matter in the tunnels.
Chapter Eight
Declan pulled a stake from the inside pocket of his bomber jacket before shrugging it off and handing it to Asher. He removed the holster keeping his sai swords strapped in an X across his back and set them on the ground; he couldn’t take the chance they’d get caught on the debris jutting into the tunnel and hinder his retreat. He should take off his shirt to avoid getting it snagged on the wreckage of the tunnel, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m coming with you,” Logan said.
“No,” Declan said. “If it becomes necessary, I’ll have to retreat fast, and I can’t if you’re behind me.”
Logan clamped his lips against a protest and nodded.
“Here’s a flashlight,” Vicky said and handed him a small light.
“Thank you,” Declan said as he took it from her.
Kneeling on the ground, he turned on the light and shone it around the chunks of concrete jutting out like monstrous teeth looking to devour him. Now is not the time to develop an imagination.
Gripping the edges of the tunnel, he pulled himself into the opening. Before, a ladder descended into this pit of misery, but if that ladder still stood, the rubble had buried it.
The opening was bigger and easier to navigate than he anticipated, but it still had the stifling, claustrophobic feeling of a tomb. Hopefully, it didn’t become his tomb as he used pieces of concrete to keep his descent slow.
He could have descended feet first as the debris created hand and footholds that could be scaled, but this way, he would see if something came at him. With the concrete muffling all sound, it would be too easy for a hand to snake out, capture his ankle, and tear him away before he was aware anyone was there.
If Savages were hiding down here when Lucien and the others arrived, he understood how they were able to get out of the tunnel to overwhelm them. And that had to be what happened. It was the only thing that made sense.
They probably had a few hunters who could better tolerate the sunlight standing guard in the woods. Those guards would have alerted their cohorts to a threat and helped in the ambush. If there were enough Savages—and there must have been because the Alliance wouldn’t have gone down without a fight—they would have been overwhelmed.
After twenty feet, the ground leveled out, and he realized he was in the main part of the tunnel. Dust danced in the beam as he played it over the rubble littering the floor and the jagged pieces of rock, dirt, and tree roots over his head.
Propped against the walls, pieces of wood attempted to keep the structure from collapsing. How it hadn’t fallen yet, he didn’t know, but he prayed it held up until he was out of here.
He couldn’t quite stand in the space, but he could rise enough to walk down the tunnel in a crouch. The lingering stench of Savage rot hung heavily in the air, but he didn’t hear any noise or see any of them.
He was a hundred feet into the tunnel when a side tunnel opened on his left. Declan switched the beam back and forth between the side tunnel and the main one where he stood. He was right not to let Logan come with him, but no matter which way he decided to go, his back was unprotected.
“Shit,” he muttered as he ran a hand through his hair and tugged at the ends of it.
He debated going back for Logan, but they were losing daylight. Deciding to continue forward, he moved faster as he swung the beam between the wreckage in front of and behind him.
He only covered another fifty feet before the tunnel ended in a wall of debris. Running his hands over the rubble, he pushed and shoved against it to make sure he was
n’t missing something, but it didn’t budge. The Savages hadn’t tunneled beyond this point.
Turning back, he returned to the side tunnel. He crouched lower to avoid taking a piece of concrete to the head, but still navigated the tunnel with relative ease. And then, after thirty feet, the tunnel opened up, and for the first time, he could rise to his full six-foot-three height.
He stretched his shoulders back and turned his head from side to side as he flashed the beam over the closed doors lining the tunnel. He recalled the tiny, cell-like rooms from when they discovered Elyse’s father huddled inside one.
Recalling the battered, broken, and bloodied Raymond they pulled from here renewed his anger. Over the years, he’d grown to like the odd little man. Though it took Raymond a while to warm up to them after his torture at the hands of Savages, he eventually did. The man was a never-ending supply of corny jokes, good with the kids, and a connoisseur of fine brandy that he often shared with Declan.
Declan shone the beam into the window of the first room on his right. The beam bounced off concrete walls before settling on a cot. The room was small enough that nothing could hide in the corners, so he didn’t bother to open the door.
He strode across the hall to inspect the room across the way. He didn’t bother investigating this room as a pile of rubble filled the window. Making his way down the tunnel, he checked more of the rooms. Some of them were empty, and the tunnel collapse destroyed others.
He didn’t realize part of him was hoping to discover Willow and Lucien here, but as he neared the wall of debris at the end of the tunnel, it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. At the end of the tunnel, the last door on the left was open.
As Declan neared it, he scented the air, but the rot of the Savages didn’t increase, and he didn’t hear or sense the emotions of anyone. Still, he held his stake tighter as he prepared to drive it through the heart of anything in that room.
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