by Jenn Burke
“And Priya is wiped off your list of most wanted.”
He glared at me. “Agreed.” This time, the word was growled.
I beamed at him. “Awesome. Okay. Let’s go inside so I can introduce you to Don. Have you guys visited any pubs while you’ve been here?”
Kurt blinked at me.
“Never mind. Don’s got some good brews on tap. You guys like lager?”
“I prefer India pale ale,” one of the soldiers to Kurt’s right offered up.
“Pretty sure he’s got some of that too. We’ll have a round and make some plans. Sound good?”
Kurt muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t make out. Whatever it was, I was pretty sure it wasn’t English and it probably wasn’t polite. But his men seemed to be on board with the beer and planning, so he had little choice but to give in.
Hudson leaned in close as we headed for the door. “Only you,” he murmured in my ear, “could turn an armed confrontation into a pub crawl.”
Chapter Twenty
Hudson stared at the phone on the kitchen counter as though it might bite him.
“I can do it.” I’d already offered once, but he’d given a sharp shake of his head. This time, he reached out for the device and woke up the screen.
“No—I’ve got it.” Except all he did was stare at the icons against his no-nonsense black wallpaper.
“Ren might not even be with him. You might be able to talk to Ren, and not...”
“Maybe. Fuck,” he muttered. “I wish I’d been able to help him avoid getting sucked into Pike’s orbit again.”
He set his jaw, pulled up his contacts, and selected Ren’s name. He put the phone on speaker and laid it on the counter again, so the rest of us—me, Lexi, Priya, Iskander and Evan—could hear what was said.
Despite my reassurances, it wasn’t Ren who answered.
“Havoc.”
Hudson froze and stared at the phone.
Pike chuckled. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” Hudson managed.
“I was debating how to get in contact with you now that I’d lost your little toy. I never expected you would call me.”
“I was calling Ren.”
“Ren is indisposed at the moment. I was not pleased with his actions the other day.”
Damn it. I hoped “indisposed” meant hurt and recovering and not dead.
“But let’s be truthful, shall we? You were calling for me.”
Hudson met my eyes. “Yes.”
“Because I’m your sire.”
“Because you’re an asshole who was supposed to have died twenty years ago.”
“And yet, I’m still your sire.”
Even I heard the rumble of power through the phone, and I grabbed Hudson’s hand to make sure he knew he was with us, and Pike wasn’t here. He squeezed my fingers.
“Why are you calling?” Pike demanded.
“I want to meet.”
“Do you?” I could hear the wry smile in Pike’s voice. “To carry out unfinished business, no doubt.”
“No. I want to negotiate.”
“Negotiate!” Pike laughed, a deep, hearty, pleasant sound that had no business coming from a deranged killer. “Negotiate what?”
“The safety of my band.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the line. “And yet, you didn’t give me the same courtesy. Why shouldn’t I come after you, and your delicious little toy, and everyone else you care about, Havoc?”
“Because you can have me, if you agree to leave them alone.”
Even though we’d planned this and I knew that Hudson was lying his ass off—hearing those words made me want to leap for the phone and disconnect the call. Pike was not allowed to have Hudson. Never. Hudson was mine—my mate, my love, mine.
“Intriguing. And you want to meet in person to discuss this?”
“At Alleys.”
“That’s a shifter establishment,” Pike snarled. “No.”
“Wes told me you’d developed a dislike for them.”
“They’re dirty, awful creatures. Dirty, nasty.”
“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
Pike paused in mid-dirty-nasty rant. “That...is a point, yes.”
“Just me and you, on neutral ground. No humans to worry about.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Hudson ignored that taunt. “Do we have a deal?”
“Name the time,” Pike said.
“Tomorrow, 2:00 a.m.”
“Tomorrow it is. It will be so good to see you again, Havoc. We have a great deal of catching up to do.”
Hudson jabbed the disconnect button, then rushed off, vampire-fast, upstairs.
I took in the concerned faces of my cobbled-together family. “Are we doing the right thing?”
“Bit late to worry about that now, innit?” Priya nodded in the direction of the stairs. “Go on, check on him.”
I found Hudson in our bathroom, wiping a hand over his mouth as the toilet flushed. His normally vibrant bronze skin looked lackluster, and his legs seemed none too steady as he sat heavily on the closed toilet seat.
“You okay?” I asked softly.
“No,” he admitted, his eyes closed. “He’s supposed to be dead. I’m supposed to be past this.”
I stepped in between his spread knees and embraced him, pulling his head to rest on my sternum. “I know. But it’s going to be okay.”
Hudson was quiet for a bit, before he said, “You need to promise me something.”
I tensed—whatever followed that lead-in couldn’t possibly be good. “What?”
“If he gets his claws in me again, run.”
“I’ll be out of there so fast—”
“No, I mean run away. Get out of Toronto. Take Lexi and Isk and Evan and Priya and go.”
“Stop. I’m not going to abandon you.”
“Promise me you’ll go.” His voice cracked, and my resolve to deny, deny, deny shattered along with it.
“If there’s nothing else I can do,” I whispered, “I’ll run.”
Hopefully he didn’t feel my fingers crossed behind his back.
* * *
Alleys looked a lot different when it was closed. Don had dimmed half the lights in the bar area. All the lanes were unlit, and I could barely make out the white of the pins in their places, waiting to be knocked down. Without the crash of strikes, the squeak of bowling shoes, the rumble of balls rolling down the lanes, and the shouts of success or trash-talk, the space seemed unnaturally silent, even though there were low murmurs of conversation as our people took their places.
The plan was simple. Pike would walk through the door, thinking he was the shit, and Kurt’s team would swoop in to capture him before he could use any vampire-sire mojo on Hudson. The participation of the Order of the Onyx Shield was our ace in the hole—something Pike couldn’t anticipate. The rest of us would be in hiding as backup, just in case.
In an hour or so, this ordeal would be over, and Hudson could move on. Again.
I stood next to him at the bar. He was almost vibrating with nervous energy, and I thought about suggesting he pace some of it off, but I doubted it would help. Instead, I put a hand on his, and he gripped it like a lifeline.
Kurt strode out of...somewhere, fully decked out in his tactical gear. A mask covered the lower half of his face. “We’re in position,” he reported.
I almost asked where, because none of his soldiers were visible, but I refrained. As long as they were ready, I didn’t need to know. “Good.”
“I have someone on the roof to alert us when he sees Pike approaching.”
“Awesome. Thanks.”
Kurt looked at the door, then back to me. “We could ambush him in the parking lot.
”
“Don’t be an idiot. He’d smell you as soon as he got out of his car,” Hudson growled.
“And he won’t smell us in here?”
Behind the bar, there was a crash and a hiss of pressurized liquid escaping a container. “Oops,” Don called. “My bad. Dropped a keg. It’s gonna smell like beer in here for a bit.”
I gave Kurt a crooked grin. “Problem solved.”
“Confronting him in here means fewer escape routes. And more privacy.” Hudson raised a brow. “We don’t need the neighbors seeing your men.”
Kurt tipped his head in a bare acknowledgment of Hudson’s point.
“Let us know when your man on the roof sees anything,” I said.
“I will.”
As Kurt melted back into the shadows, I turned to Don. “You’d better get moving.”
“Uh, no.”
“I appreciate you wanting to help, but—”
He growled. Actually growled. And it suddenly struck me that I didn’t know what Don’s animal was.
“My bar, my rules,” he said. “I’m staying as a neutral party.”
“But you’re not.”
He grinned. “Sure, but that asshole doesn’t know it.”
“Okay, but...” I blew out a breath. “If things go sideways, get the hell out.”
“No promises.”
Goddamn it.
“This is his territory, yeah?” Priya leaned on the bar next to us and gave Don a grin.
He puffed up. “Exactly.”
I rolled my eyes. “Territory isn’t worth your life.”
“Says the non-shifter.”
Iskander and Evan wandered over, and Isk gave both me and Hudson a serious once-over. “You guys ready?”
“I’d feel better if you all went the fuck home,” Hudson grumbled.
“No. Not a chance,” I said flatly. “You’re not doing this alone. Priya and I will be in the kitchen. Isk and Evan will be in the restrooms. If anything goes wrong—”
“Way to jinx it,” Evan cut in.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I said, willing the words to be true.
I was a god. I could do that, right?
Priya and I retreated to the kitchen and crouched behind the counters. Out of sight, but I knew we weren’t out of Hudson’s mind. I chewed on the nail of my index finger while we waited for the clock to strike two. Priya gave me a disgusted look, but she was tapping her fingers on her leg, so I knew she was as nervous as I was.
This had to work.
Something thumped against the kitchen’s back door.
At the sharp noise, I jerked to my feet. “What the—”
The words hadn’t fully escaped my lips before the door crashed open and vampires flooded the room.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Holy shit!” Priya screamed. In the next instant, her eyes bled to black and Jet took over. “Flank them,” she ordered in her flat, unaccented voice.
Flank them? What the fuck was I, the cavalry?
I reached for my magic and grabbed the closest vamp with it. He didn’t look like he was living his best life—his hair was lank and grungy, and he stank. There was the same wildness in his eyes that I’d seen in the vampires who’d attacked Colin, which made me think buddy was a newbie left to fend for himself. On the one hand—that was good. I’d fought experienced vamps before and it wasn’t easy.
On the other hand, there were at least six vamps in the close confines of the kitchen, and experience counted for shit if you had numbers instead.
I slammed vamp number one into the stainless steel kitchen cabinets. He was still moving after the first impact, so I hit him against them again. And again. Before I could check if he was out after the third strike, another vamp was on me. I recognized her—she was the one we’d fought briefly at Sam’s farm. She was in better shape than the first vamp, and proved it by raking her claws down my right arm. The skin peeled away like a banana.
“Fuck!”
I staggered back and refocused my magic to grab vamp number two. I flung her into the two vampires Jet was battling, and the three crashed to the floor in a mess of limbs.
Where had the other two gone? Had they gotten by us?
A hand grabbed a fistful of my hair, spun me around, and slammed the back of my head down into the edge of the steel countertop. Right where the bullet had exited not too long ago. I felt something crunch and everything got very wavery.
“Uncle Wes!” Jet’s shout sounded deeper but much less flat than her usual voice. Maybe it was the way reality was fluctuating around me. Everything seemed to be moving through molasses, or maybe water—something that prevented me from reacting as I should. As I needed to.
I crumpled to the floor, my arms and legs refusing to hold me up. There was something sticky under my head, and I was glad Hudson wasn’t here to see blood accumulating under me again.
Hudson.
The vamp, content that I was out of the fight, turned and ran in slow motion for the swinging doors that led into the main area of Alleys. That was strange. Hudson had once told me vampires wouldn’t give up a food source, and my blood smelled extra yummy. Not that I was complaining that he’d passed me up, I just...
I have to get to Hudson.
It took way too much effort to get to my hands and knees. I crawled forward a foot, then grabbed the counter—one that wasn’t smeared with my blood—to hoist myself up. Noise continued all around me. Clangs and hisses and grunts of Jet fighting. Shouts and screams from elsewhere.
A rage-filled roar I recognized.
Hudson.
I staggered to the doors and tripped over the threshold, barely managing to keep myself upright by bracing my hands against the bar. My eyes couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing at first. So many people. Way more people than there should be. My brain felt slow, sluggish.
It took flashing eyes and bared fangs for me to understand.
The vampires in the kitchen weren’t the only ones that had infiltrated Alleys. And that meant...
What the fuck did that mean?
A different roar shuddered through the bar and I watched in disbelief as a polar bear—a fucking polar bear—eviscerated one of the vampires attacking Hudson. I shook my head, trying to clear my vision, and immediately regretted it when the pain I should have been expecting hit.
Hud must have felt it over our bond, because he lifted his head and looked in my direction. “Wes!”
Behind him, rising out of the chaos like a cartoonish specter, was Pike. I tried to gather my wits enough to shout, to warn him. Before I could, Pike grabbed the nape of Hudson’s neck, his claws reaching around to pierce his throat. Droplets of blood welled up.
Pike grinned, triumphant. “Hello, Havoc.”
“No!” Evan’s shout rang through the cacophony. I tore my gaze away from Hudson in time to see Evan start to run in his direction—too slow. Too damned slow.
Pike jerked his head in Evan’s direction. “Ren, kill him.”
Ren separated from the rest of the vampire horde at a glacial rate, his resistance evident in every movement. But Pike’s order won out and he raced to intercept Evan. Fuck. Ren was over a hundred years old and had an army at his back, and no matter how much he might not want to hurt Evan, Pike would ensure he did. Evan was still a baby vamp, even with my magic blood boosting his abilities. He wasn’t a fighter.
I had to help. I had to stop—
I took a step forward and stumbled. Jet was suddenly there at my elbow, holding me up, her hands stained red with blood and littered with dust. I didn’t want to lean on her—I didn’t want to encumber her—but she was all that was holding me up.
“Help,” I gasped.
“I am—”
“No. Help—” Fuck, Evan or Hudson? Evan or Hudson? Hudson might escape—his will
might be strong enough to resist Pike’s mental tentacles. But Evan... “Help Evan!”
She abandoned me instantly. Which—okay, yes, great, she could follow instructions. But it meant I tumbled to the floor, and the collision made the world disappear for precious seconds. When my vision cleared, I looked up—
And watched helplessly as Hudson walked toward the main door behind Pike. As docile as a lamb.
“Hud!”
He turned his head in extra-slow motion, and I understood how much of an effort it must have been to resist Pike even that much. Hudson’s nightmare had come to pass—his connection to Pike as his sire was back, and Pike clearly wasn’t wasting any time in exploiting it. The polar bear—Don?—lunged at Pike, trying to prevent him from leaving, but four more vampires jumped at the bear, their fangs and claws trying to find flesh under his fur.
I struggled to get to my hands and knees again because fuck if I was going to let Pike simply walk away with the man I loved. My mate. But nothing wanted to work right. My hands were clumsy. The floor was too far away and then too near. The door might have been a kilometer away instead of a few dozen feet.
Hudson walked out. The sound of the door slamming shut echoed like a gunshot.
A snarl rose above the fights still going on, dragging my attention away from the closed door to see Iskander in wolf form lunge into the fight against Ren. Neither he nor Evan knew Ren well, but they’d met. I caught sight of Ren’s face as he sidestepped and parried strikes from Jet and Evan—it was complete, abject misery, totally at odds to the deadly actions his body was taking.
He grabbed Jet and swung her around, using her momentum to send her crashing into a table and chairs near the bar. As she lay there, dazed, Ren reached for Evan’s throat. Before he could connect, Iskander ripped into his arm, his sharp teeth shredding the skin and muscle. Another vampire shoved Evan back and faced off with him, preventing him from getting to Ren as Ren tried to fight off Isk. Ren screamed—but the pain didn’t stop him from using his other hand to grab Isk by the scruff of his neck and hoist him up. Over on the floor, Jet shook off the impact, grabbed a sharp piece of wood left over from the destroyed chairs, and pushed herself up, ready to leap back into the fight.