Fate of a Blood Moon (The Hades Blood Moon #2)

Chapter 29

Andrei

I should have killed her. She didn't even have the fucking ring!

“Drei?” Jackson’s voice snapped me out of my spiral, pulling my attention to him. “I need your directions. I don’t know where the fuck I’m going.”

Nodding, I rubbed a grimy hand over my blood-splattered shirt. Needles pricked over my shoulders and neck at how filthy I was. The urge to rip the damn thing to pieces was nearly unbearable. Forcing the thought aside, I focused on the overwhelming sight of blood staining my suit.

Once Liam collected our bags from the hotel and our travel identifications, we headed south. While Jackson drove, the GPS app on my phone pinpointed the last known location before the signal cut off.

“Yeah,” I finally answered. “While the villa collapsing on our heads was a setback, they can’t be that far ahead. Hopefully, we can track them down on the highway before we reach the airport. Of course, none of this would’ve happened if Liam hadn’t gone and killed our leverage and blown up the damn house.”

My fists shook with sudden rage, and I was half-tempted to reach into the backseat, rip out that smug asshole’s heart, and gnaw on it for a few hours. Before we left the States, I thought Liam would cooperate, especially since I had threatened his sister. But every so often, it seemed like he had his own agenda, especially after how uncontrolled he was at the house. Witnessing his power told me we may have been way over our heads bringing a witch with us.

Not to mention that the Black Onyx members didn’t play by the same rules as other covens.

My eyes turned up to the rearview mirror to glare at Liam, who looked utterly unfazed. He was twirling a piece of his cloak as he peered casually out the window.

“Sorry for what happened back there,” Liam said, glancing at me and meeting my stern gaze. “I usually have more control over my power, but Valentina was going to kill you. So, I had to do something dramatic. What can I say? The woman has thousands of years of fighting experience; I did what I had to do.”

“And yet you survived,” Jackson remarked, glancing in the rearview mirror at him, a dubious look in his brown eyes.

“Good thing she was more focused on saving herself and the rest of that clan,” Liam replied, before turning back to the dark world rolling by. “At least we discovered something we didn’t know before. Rachel isn’t the only dhampir. Quite a secret they’ve kept from everyone. The Black Onyx will love that. Unless they’ve known, too. In that case, we’ll be commended for reporting it.”

I was about to reply, but we were getting close to the last place the tracker had gone offline. Though she had removed the chip, we hoped to find clues pointing to where they had taken off.

“Exit here,” I said, showing Jackson the screen. “It stopped at the field near that building.” I pointed again, indicating the road he needed to take.

As we veered off the highway, Liam started humming some unrecognizable melody. I lifted my hand to fix my hair, grimacing as bits of stone sprinkled onto my lap. The same prickling tension rose, and my jaw clenched.

Don’t do anything reckless. I need my little dove back into her cage.

After a few blocks driving westbound, Jackson pulled the car onto a small paved road leading to several homesteads and an irrigation ditch.

“Here. Pull over.”

When the car stopped, I shoved open the door and sauntered onto the grass, scanning my surroundings. The breeze shifted, brushing over my face as I moved closer to a secluded, most likely family-run vineyard. After stepping over a broken-down fence, a scent hit me, and I froze. It was that mind-numbingly delicious scent that always drove me into a frenzy. The smell of dirt was dominant, but I knew her blood was everywhere.

“She took it out around here,” I said, using my heightened sense of smell to focus on the scent trail. Clearly, she had discarded it—the only way to lose the connection. But I needed confirmation first. “There.” I pointed to the shiny metal piece in the grass. Rachel’s blood was more potent now, the scent making my fangs burn against my mouth and the veins under my eyes swell.

Jackson and Liam walked up from behind me as I bent down to pick it up. She hadn’t only removed it but also crushed it in two, the metal pieces now reddish-brown. The tracker wasn’t the only thing soaked in blood; it was all over the grass and dirt, leaving me pleasant little reminders of her.

“The blood’s drying. Who knows how far ahead they are. Shit!” I tried to push the weight of the situation aside. I knew how to snare my little rabbit, but now I had to punish her more for this.

And my brother.

I grinned, tapping the call button and lifting the receiver to my ear. The ringing made my cock twitch in my pants. I didn’t care that Jackson and Liam were nearby—I wanted to play with her. If I could snatch Rachel’s mind again, like I had with the cage, it would be easy to hold her down until I had my hands around her thin little throat.

A distant chiming sound interrupted my filthy thoughts. The three of us exchanged glances before Liam jogged toward a cluster of bushes several yards away. He kneeled and crawled between the branches.

“Looks like your dhampir ditched her phone, too!” He carried his voice over the field, raising his arm past the brush. Her cracked phone was in his hand, the caller ID lighting up with my incoming call. The ringtone sounded warped, though. She had tried but failed to destroy it completely. Liam tossed the phone toward me, and it landed in the blood-soaked dirt at my feet. I carefully picked it up, something lethal simmering beneath the surface, like an oily ink coating every vein.

“What about the guardian bond?” Jackson asked. “Can you tap into it and see where she’s going?”

“Without her hearing my voice I can’t get inside her head. Under normal circumstances, I should be able to feel her, at least, but ever since we landed, it’s been faltering. She must have a blocking spell or something on her.” I grated my teeth. “Dammit!”

My anger flared into a white-hot rage, and I squeezed her phone until the metal crumpled. With a grunt, I threw the device toward the parked car. The phone slammed into the side, leaving a massive dent in the driver’s door. The car rocked to the right from the impact before settling back on its tires.

“Come on, man. Calm the fuck down,” Jackson spat. “We already know where they’re going. Now, with her mom searching for her, too? Someone will fuck this up. As much as you want to throw a tantrum out here, we don’t have time for that shit. We have to get on the road now if we stand a chance of getting ahead of them. The Black Onyx has a plane ready. There’s no way they’ll get there before we do. It’s possible that they don’t know we have a witch with us, and they won’t take every precaution. We can still come out of this on top.”

Unfortunately, Crete had stopped direct flights to the island ever since vampires became public knowledge. Now, we had to fly to Athens and go through a screening process before getting on a ferry.

Liam walked back over, humming that infuriating tune again. His fingers played along the keys of an invisible piano, and I had half a mind to snap them all off.

I didn’t know if it was because I was smelling Rachel’s blood again, and I didn’t have her in my arms to take what I wanted from her, but tension slowly pressed down on my body again. The night felt heavy, thicker with haunting shadows, and every goddamn thing seemed to mock me.

And my clothes are filthy. I need to kill something to make it right.

Maybe I needed to feed from somebody at this point before I cleansed this world in my fire.

My mind spiraled into a dark frenzy. Control was my greatest strength—no one would take that from me. Liam’s hand fell on my shoulder, and my eyes snapped to his face. “Don’t lose your cool now, boss,” Liam said, almost like a purr. “At least Valentina’s not too far ahead. Once we close the gap between us and her, I’ll be happy to wrangle her and keep her in line until you get your dhampir back.”

I glared back at him. “How do you propose we ‘wrangle’ the original vampire, who still has fucking magic on top of her demonic powers, into submission?”

“A binding hex.”

“Binding hex?” I tilted my head. “How’s that work?”

“It’s an old spell the Spirit bloodline forged hundreds of years ago, allowing you to bind a body to your will through metal links, regardless of its species. My father stumbled upon it as a young man. He taught me when my powers first developed.” His smile broadened. “Not only will we be able to control her, but we can then suppress her element. She won’t be able to fight back.”

Jackson shot Liam a strange look from behind then turned to me to make the call. I could tell he didn’t like the idea of capturing Valentina and possibly missing Rachel. But Liam’s magic was powerful and fucking insane—it could work. The rage in my blood simmered down to a low boil. I shook my head, trying to clear the agitation fogging my thoughts.

“Fine,” I said. “Maybe taking Valentina first could work in our favor. Rachel might be more cooperative if we had her mother.”

As we were about to leave, Liam bent down and placed his hand on the grass where Rachel’s blood spilled, closing his eyes. “We can do a locator spell on Rachel, too, you know,” he said, looking up toward us. “It’s what I’m good at. We just have to have something of hers.”

I gave Jackson a look before I nodded. Instead of performing the spell right then, Liam gripped the bloody grass and ripped it from the ground, stuffing it into his cloak pocket. “But first, I have Valentina’s blood from her ripped shirt after the explosion. We’ll start with that spell first since she’s closer.” He stood and gave me an odd look. “It’s a shame you lost your magic when you turned, Andrei. Having the power to find something you lost is quite a feeling.”

Who the hell…?

My jaw clenched tighter, my teeth grinding at his remark. But before I could react, he smiled broadly. “We’ll find Rachel, I promise. With my help.”

My spiraling mind finally began to relax. Liam was right. Of course, he was. Everything was fine. We’d find them. And when we did … I’d make sure Rachel couldn’t slip away from me again.