Claimed (Bound Mates #2)

Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

A lexei

Elena and I discuss the matter thoroughly, and following Dom’s visit, we come to the conclusion that the vampires might have wanted Anya dead to begin with. It is possible that now they simply want her.

“They could see her as a female at the very nexus between our kinds. Someone capable of killing and consuming, someone who has taken in their poison already and survived,” Elena says. “Most vampires are stupid vicious killers, but there are some older ones with more intellect, the more pure ones. It sounds like you’ve had an encounter with a potentially ancient vampire. Anya has managed to draw him out in a way I have never been able to in all my studies.”

She sounds excited, which I know is another cause for concern. Fascination with vampires is not a phenomenon limited to humans.

I always knew Anya was special, but this is even more intense than I imagined. Not only are vampires starting to rise again, but they are now inextricably linked into our pack because my young mate did something so incredibly impulsive and headstrong and wild.

She was supposed to be safe with me. I was supposed to keep watch over her. But I didn’t. I took my eye off her, and I let her get hurt. I let her become a tool of my enemies. This was a mistake. My mistake.

In the aftermath of the vampire’s visit, I am busy. I send Anya to our room, and that is where I later find her crying pitifully to herself, curled up at the foot of the bed like a miserable whelp.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpers. “I’m so sorry.”

“This isn’t your fault,” I tell her.

“Of course it is,” she sobs. “I did this. I did all of it.”

“That is true,” I tell her. “But I was supposed to protect you, and I failed to do that so many times in quick succession. This would never have happened if I’d kept you by my side.”

“It’s not your fault. I was bored. I wanted attention. And then I ate them…” she cries.

“Listen,” I say, taking her by the chin so she looks at me. It is sweet when she buries her head in my shoulder or chest most of the time, but right now I want her to look at me and understand that I mean every word I am saying.

“This is not your fault. I am your alpha, and your mate. You can do whatever you like, and I am supposed to handle you.”

“So I don’t have responsibility for my own actions?”

“I will hold you responsible, but ultimately, you are my charge. You are mine. Let me take care of this, and of you.”

She searches my eyes. “You really don’t blame me for this?”

“No. Now stop blaming yourself. You weren’t to know you were eating vampires. Nobody has ever done that before. And that’s impressive.”

I wipe the tears away from her eyes with the pad of my thumb and smile at her.

“This is not a bad thing,” I say. “The vampires have been an increasing threat. They were going to cross paths with us one way or another. You have made an impression, a positive one, at that. The vampire was impressed by you. And I was too; you acquitted yourself well.”

“I did?”

“Yes,” I say. “You did well.”

“He was scary. The way he looked at me. I thought he might be angry, but he wasn’t. It was like he wanted me.”

I feel a rage building in me. I know what she means. I saw it too. The vampire did have a very particular and pointed interest in her. He looked at her almost exclusively. Occasionally his eyes would slide to me for a moment or two, but I was not the most important thing in the room. She was.

“You won’t let him take me, will you?”

“Never,” I assure her. “You are mine, and nobody and nothing can take you from me.”

She presses into me for comfort and reassurance. I do not like that she has been made to feel unsafe in her home. I should never have allowed the vampire in, but my curiosity prevailed.

Anya falls asleep in my arms, just as a soft tap at the door heralds a messenger.

“Elena is here. She wants to talk to you, if it’s not too late.”

I settle Anya into bed, and I go to speak with my advisor. I am interested to hear what Elena thinks of all of this. When I meet her in the dining room, she is practically buzzing with excitement.

“I want to hear everything.”

I tell her everything I can remember, including the end of the interview, which was very much ignominious. I am usually much more composed than that, but I lost my cool somewhat.

“He took two kopeks away?”

“Yes.”

She nods. She does not attempt to scold or chastise me for the slight. She knows better. I am sure she would love to say something, but she settles for a thinning of her lips.

“You sent him away with an insult. They’ll have to return it, one way or another. Keep the gates closed. Double the patrols, and increase surveillance, or we will all regret it.”

“Alright, Elena. I’ve already doubled them. We’re on alert. The vampires won’t be given a chance to make up for any slight. If they want to do something petty in response, very well.”

“It won’t be petty. You have the attention of an ancient. Your mate ate one of the progeny of an ancient…” Elena gives a short laugh and swigs vodka. “There is not enough of this swill in the world to make any of that seem remotely sane. We are about to live in some very interesting times, Alexei.”

Alexei

The guards have been tripled, and are on high alert for vampires. There’s no real indication of extra activity in the area. The guards followed the vampire who visited us as far as they could, but at the border of our territory, he vanished. I don’t believe he actually did vanish. I think he used his speed to make everyone think he’d disappeared.

Three days go by, and the insult is returned.

At the height of the night, I startle to the sound of the pack baying. Anya makes a sound of complaint. She was nestled snugly in my arms, and now she is squirming in annoyance on the bed.

“Why are they making so much noise?”

She’s too sleepy and feels too safe to realize that the sound of the pack’s defenders baying and howling is a very, very bad thing.

“Stay here. Don’t leave this room under any circumstances.”

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know, but that is an alarm. Stay here. Don’t. Go. Anywhere.”

She nods sleepily, and I have some confidence she will listen. Whatever is happening out there, she needs to stay safe and defended.

As I leave our bedroom, I find the castle in the kind of chaos that has never happened before in my lifetime. We have never been attacked before, not in hundreds of years. My ancestors have repelled invasions with these walls. I know I can trust in them. But the pack is untested in mass combat, and the enemies we are fighting are not another pack contesting territory. They are vicious vampiric creatures.

Being untested does not mean we are not prepared.

They are waiting for me to give them orders, some in wolf form, others naked and in their human shapes, but ready to shift. Blood is in the air.

“Into the war room. Now!”

I give the order, and am followed by those who need to follow it. A wolf pack is a beautiful thing in a moment like this. Creatures of instinct do not need to be directly told what to do individually. They know where they rank in the pack. They know whether they are to follow me directly, or if they are to wait for the generals to emerge. I am immensely proud of all of them.

The war room contains surveillance equipment, including cameras that reveal the entire grounds of the castle. It is impossible for so much as a flea to penetrate our defenses without being discovered. Those camera feeds clearly show a great number of vampires clustering around what they consider to be weak points in our defenses.

“Surveillance shows multiple vampires outside the castle,” I say, having taken stock of the situation. “Let’s remember, they cannot come inside. They have to be asked in. So, we’re going to hold the walls until daylight. Do not, I repeat, do not bite them. We do not need any more infections.”

There’s a rumble of what feels like dissent among the pack. I know they are frightened. When we are scared, we want to take our animal forms and rip into aggressors with our teeth.

“If you bite them, you take in their blood, you can become corrupted. You could become sick. You could die. Or worse could happen—you could become a thrall to one of them. Their slave. Unable to resist their will. Never. Bite. A vampire.”

“Didn’t your mate eat one?”

“Yes, and that is why we are here now,” I say. They’re not going to blame Anya, but I am not going to pretend that that incident was not the source of this one. “My mate made a mistake, and we are not going to keep making the same mistake, are we?”

“I meant she got to eat a vampire,” the wolf says, baring his teeth. “Seems unfair we don’t all get a bite.”

“Again, eating vampires is a bad thing,” I repeat myself, knowing that I am speaking to the less evolved parts of all our brains. “If we want to be rid of this threat, Elena has ensured that we have everything we need to repel the creatures. That means going to the arsenal, using garlic, silver weapons, human forms, and human armor. Go. Now. Hold the walls. Do not go outside. I do not want to lose any of you.”

As sunrise approaches, it becomes apparent that we are in a siege. A very casual, low-key siege. The wolves want to go out and fight. The vampires have to tolerate the sun, but they are doing that with wide-brimmed hats and the vampire equivalent of sunscreen. It looks as though the castle is surrounded by gardeners.

“Ridiculous,” Piotr says. “Sitting in here, hiding from the dead. We should attack.”

“That’s what they want us to do,” I respond.

“We need to wait them out,” Elena says.

“They could be here for hundreds of years. We have to get rid of them now,” Viktor interjects. “We should be firing those guns. Taking headshots. We should be wiping them out. Haven’t you been telling us for years now, Elena, that there’s a vamp uprising coming? Isn’t that why we have these special weapons?”

“If we kill these vampires, more will come, and in greater numbers. And they will have reason to attack. We could be at the start of a true war, a war we are unlikely to win. We have to handle this situation with some kind of delicacy and diplomacy. Sooner or later, the vampire who came here to see you, my alpha, will appear again. When he does, we will speak to him and settle this matter.”

Piotr and Viktor are not impressed, but I agree with Elena’s assessment. This is a powder keg, but it hasn’t exploded yet. We have to be careful. I do not want my whelps to be raised in a war zone.

“I thought you said the vampires wanted to end us anyway.”

“Yes. That’s the problem,” Elena says. “They want to obliterate the pack; it is as simple as that. We are natural enemies, and we have slept on their existence. They’ll target the alpha’s mate, because they know how the bonding works. If they can interrupt our powerful lines of succession, they can essentially destroy us. All of us. They can weaken us for generations. They can destroy bloodlines that harken back to the very first shifters. This is not a fight for territory. This is a fight for us. All of us.”

She is impassioned, and that, combined with her very solid argument, settle both Viktor and Piotr.

“Where is Anya?” Elena says. “She really shouldn’t be alone.”

“She’s in bed. She’s asleep. She could already be in whelp. I don’t want her up all night worrying about this.”