Chapter Eleven
Chapter
Eleven
AZIZ
“What do you mean she’s not at the library?” I snarl into the phone.
“I’m tellin’ you, man, she’s not there,” Justice, the VP of the Spiked Raiders MC, growls into my ear. “Zavier and I were both there. We’re following the scent of her now.”
When I’d called him earlier to ask this favor of him, he agreed so long as I got Sibley to stop fucking with his head about a mate he did not want.
I didn’t blame him. I told him I’d talk to her, but I knew he’d do this regardless.
I could have sent Dreven or one of the others, but they wouldn’t be able to stand the sun without burning alive.
The only one who could is Dreven, and that’s because he’s nearly as old as I am.
I still had him by nearly eight hundred years.
A shifter was just the easier choice to go with on this matter.
“What about the librarian? Was she there?” I knew I shouldn’t have let her go there after finding out that witch was also at the library.
Sibley comes running in my direction, face pale and blood tears coating her cheeks. “She’s been taken, Aziz.”
My sister’s words are like a stake to my heart.
“Do you know where they took her?” Why couldn’t I feel anything through the connection between my mate and me?
We finished the process and did the goblet thing with Apollo.
Things for me felt different. I didn’t crave the need for blood as I had.
My skin no longer felt cold to the touch.
I had a pulse again, but I still had fangs, my speed, my need for blood, but I also found this morning I could also eat other things and feel full.
I should be able to feel her. I felt her this morning when I searched for it. I knew it was there, just now, I can’t sense it. Could something be blocking it? Dark magic?
“The librarian is still at the library. She’d given us a sneer and walked away,” Justice says at the same time my sister shakes her head to answer my question.
Fuck.
“Grab that witch and bring her to Dyrk,” I tell Justice and hang up. I didn’t need them to follow the scent of my mate. Not when there was someone, I knew we could get the answers from that we needed.
“She’s being kept from you by dark magic, Aziz,” Sibley says, confirming what I already know. “I feel the darkness surrounding her, but can’t tell where they’re keeping her.”
“I’ll find her, Sibley.” I snarl, wanting to hurl my phone. “They won’t harm my mate.”
“They can’t do to her as they would. Not now,” she whispers, shaking her head. “She’s bonded and no longer pure.”
Doesn’t mean they won’t hurt her.
“Justice and Zavier are going to bring the librarian here. She’s a blood witch.
I need to deal with her to find out what she knows.
After which I’ll go after my woman.” I shove my phone in my pocket and pace, ready to lose it, but I can’t.
I need to keep a level head. It’s what I’ve always been good at doing.
When it comes to Jett, it’s not that easy.
She’s mine, and I allowed her to be taken from me.
I should have focused more on finding the witches before now. I could have taken them out, and none of this would be happening now. They’ll all bleed for this, though. I won’t let them get away with it.
“Aziz, you need to get her before the peak of the moon tonight,” Sibley utters, her eyes going white, face paling. “She might not be the key they’re looking for, as they believe, but she carries it.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Orpheus demands, making his presence known.
“She carries the child within her. Blood of Apollo. Blood of Vampire. A true hybrid that can kill an immortal if it so wishes. If they take the child, raise it as evil, the end will surely come. The child is meant for beauty and grace, but with those, if not raised with love, it turns evil.”
A newfound rage consumes me. Never in two thousand years did I think that I would have anything as I do now.
A mate. A child. It wasn’t possible for a vampire, not without life.
I was a vampire. I was undead. But yet waking this morning, I knew something was different.
Apollo said the goblet was a gift of the fates.
They altered me somehow. Meaning I’d been able to . . . oh fuck . . .
Turning to Orpheus, I meet his gaze. “Apollo had us drink from a goblet last night. It had some liquid in it that he mixed my blood and Jett’s with. Said the goblet was a gift of the fates.”
“They made you so you are no longer just vampire, made you as I am,” he says, explaining what was now what I am.
What he is. Not just vampire. Not human, He was the Vampire King.
Fed on blood, but he also ate as a human does.
He was what some call a hybrid. Though he’s the most powerful one there is.
I nodded, understanding him because it made sense, and I did know what he was.
I’d been with him long enough to know what he lived off of and how he lived.
Though he did try to stick to the darkness to keep other vampires from knowing the truth about him.
If they knew, they’d try to take it upon themselves to become like him, and it was impossible without the elixir of life given by the Gods themselves.
As a child of Hades himself, Hades ensured that it was not just one or the other.
My nerves were on edge by the time Justice and Zavier stepped through the doors.
Behind them, Tucker and Dane were dragging in the librarian, and it shouldn’t surprise me, but behind them, Corbin stepped through with his mate, Karsyn, next to him.
Her eyes were focused on the woman in front of them.
Guess she was the reason they didn’t have her tied up.
Justice came to me and tossed something in the air for me to catch. “Figured you’d like to have this.”
I look at it to see it’s the pendant the witch was wearing.
“Karsyn helped us in making sure she came without issue or causing a scene in town,” Zavier explains.
“If she knows where Corbin’s cousin is, she’s hiding it deep inside her mind,” Karsyn whispers, breaking whatever spell she held over the witch.
“What is the meaning of all of this?” Amelie, that’s what Jett said her name was, demands swirling around to look at each of us with a glare before zeroing in on Karsyn. “You,” she screeches. “You . . .”
“Don’t even,” Corbin snarls, moving to stand in front of his mate. “I’ll rip you to shreds if you so much as speak to my mate.”
“Where is Jett?” I demand getting back to the task and the reason she was brought here.
Amelie cast her glare in my direction, straightened further, and looked down her nose. “I refused to have someone working at my library who is with the likes of you.”
Did this witch seriously say she was judging Jett for being with me and fired her?
“You fired her?” I ask, wanting confirmation.
“She was a volunteer. You can’t fire volunteers. But you can dismiss them and that’s what I did,” she says haughtily.
“So, you’re what . . . prejudice against vampires?” I scoff.
“You all are an abomination that shouldn’t be allowed to walk this earth. The same goes for shifters,” she says and spits on the floor.
Growls fill the air, and I move, gripping the witch by her throat. “Where is Jett? You didn’t just dismiss her for your bullshit reason. You’re a blood witch.”
Amelie claws at my hand, trying to get me to loosen my hold. Her lips move, but no words come out.
“Aziz, you’ll have to let up your grip if you want to get answers,” Corbin says.
“Let her go, and I’ll get her to talk,” Karsyn murmurs softly.
“No.”
“Not fuckin’ happenin’.”
Corbin and Orpheus both say at the same time.
“Answer me,” I snarl, ignoring them, though I ease my grip just enough for the witch to speak.
“I will not tell you a thing,” Amelie manages to croak out.
Wrong answer.
Sibley comes up next to me and presses her hand into me, allowing her power to course through me. We don’t allow her to touch those we’re questioning. But as she touches me, it’s different. More powerful. I focus on Amelie’s mind while squeezing her throat.
“Show me what I want to see,” I command, her fingers clawing into my hand harder, nails digging in.
I force myself through whatever barrier Amelie has up in her mind, for a blood witch, she’s strong, though not strong enough, for my sister and me to get through her barrier.
This gift is something we don’t allow people to really see being used often.
The only ones who knew before today were Orpheus and Dreven.
The barrier breaks, and I can see into Amelie’s mind.
The hatred she has for us all is firmly in place.
Memories of hers flash in my mind, and I focus on her last memories.
The ones where she met with other blood witches in the woods.
Tightening my grip, I push harder to get more information from her.
Amelie’s life was waning away in my hands. Unlike other supernaturals, witches don’t have long lives as shifters and vampires. Or even others who are of the variety.
Finding everything I need, I pull from her mind and snap the witch’s neck, letting her go, her body dropping to the ground.
Sibley steps back, and I turn to Orpheus. “I know where to find her.”
Orpheus nods. “Where?”
“I’m doing this myself. You ordered me to take these witches out, and that’s what I’m going to do. And in doing so, I’m getting my mate back.”
“Can’t let you do it yourself,” Corbin says stepping forward.
“He’s right, my brother. I ordered you to do it, but now that they have your mate, it must be done as a group effort. Besides, your mate is family.”
“And family takes care of family,” Corbin adds. “The club will assist in this.”
“I’ll come too,” Karsyn states.
“No, Syn, you’re gonna get your sweet ass back to the clubhouse where you can stay safe,” Corbin growls, looking at his woman.
“Don’t even think about sending me away. You know I can help, and I want to. She’s your cousin. The Moon Goddess wants us to help save her, and I’m going to do my part.”
“I don’t give a fuck who comes or stays, but the sun is setting soon, and I need to get to Jett before the moon is high.
Time’s wasting.” This time of year, especially in October, but with the spell I’d done in Amelie’s head that the blood witches did, the night would come sooner than it usually does.
I walk past them all for the door.
“What do you mean the sun is setting soon?” Justice demands, following after me.
“They cast a spell to make it so.” I don’t stop walking to give them further explanation.
Jett and our child’s life is in danger, and I need to get to them before it’s too late. My woman might survive what they do to her, but she’d never be the same as she is now. I won’t let that happen to her. I won’t let her lose herself or the child she does not know she’s carrying within her.
I meant what I said to Jett earlier when she said she loved me.
She’s my heart. Without her, I’m only a shell of who I am.
Meeting her brought out something I didn’t know was hiding inside me.
In a way, she’s what others would call my humanity, and in truth, they’d be right.
If something happens to her, the streets of Redwich will bleed red.