Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jax
Uncommon Allies
Waking up the next morning in bed with Shawn curled around me fills me with relief and peace, and hope.
I didn’t fuck us up.
I’m a lucky damned man and don’t think I take that for granted, either.
Shawn rolls toward me. “Good morning.”
I look into his face for a long moment before kissing him. “You are the best thing in my life. The most important thing. I need you to know that.”
He smiles, and it’s that beautiful, handsome smile that twists my heart around his every damned time. “I do. Love you, too. Even when you’re an asshole.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “But I’m your asshole.”
A sleepy smile. “Yeah, I know.” He sits up, stretching. “Do you want me to stop by Todd’s and grab the pup’s phone while I’m out running errands?”
“If you don’t mind, that’d be appreciated.”
“And as much as I’d love to, I’m not in the mood to fuck around with him today. Todd, I mean.” He paused. “I mean, I know that doesn’t make sense, now that I think about it.”
I climb out of bed and walk around to him, offering him my hands and pulling him up and into my arms. “We had a fight, you called me out, and you have every right to feel the way you feel.”
He tips his head back to stare at me. “Wow. Look at you being all insightful and shit. And you say you don’t think you’ll be a good father.”
I nip his bottom lip. “See? I do listen to you. Sometimes. Maybe not as soon as I should, either.”
He smiles, and that turns into an infectious laugh that brightens my morning.
We grab our showers and eat breakfast before heading our separate ways. He’ll return to the office before lunchtime, because he handles things for me not only as my mate, but as my business partner.
Because running the pack and our holdings is serious business.
I’ve only been there for about ten minutes when something pings my attention, and I look up from where I’m reading my morning e-mail at my desk. I hear a car approach and pull into the gravel drive that leads to our paved parking area.
When the engine shuts off, I sit back when I hear the car door open because I sense…something about the incoming visitor.
My hackles fully go up before the front door even opens and it can only mean one thing.
I’ve already darted out of my office and into the lobby before my AA has a chance to greet the newcomer.
“Who are you?” I growl at the man, who’s wearing a long, dark blue cloak that sweeps the ground with a deep hood that shadows his face, and long leather gloves.
He slowly pulls the hood back, exposing his head and face, and keeps his hands up in front of him. “I just need to speak with you, Jax.”
“How do you know my name?” I don’t bother drawing the gun holstered along my back waistband because it wouldn’t do any good. But I did grab a wooden pencil from my AA’s desk as I passed, and I keep it in my right hand.
“Because you’re the Alpha of the Ocala Pack. Mike Crowe told me to ask for you if I ever needed help, and I need help.”
“My father told you to ask for me?” Pops has never mentioned sending a vampire my way, and I’m certain that’s something he wouldn’t forget to tell me.
He keeps his hands up. “I met him two years ago out in Denver. At the time, I didn’t have any need to speak with you and never pursued it.”
“So what’s changed now?”
He looks grim. “I’m from Memphis. I’m one of four remaining vampire members of our nest. I come not only in peace but in desperate need and am throwing myself on your mercy.
Our nest was attacked. We have children, younglings, human mates, and familiars in danger.
Thirty-two in total. Whoever infiltrated our security knew exactly what they were doing, or had the money to buy the manpower and know-how to do it.
I’m afraid you may also be on their hit list. Along with others—shifters, fae, witches, and vamps. ”
I wrinkle my nose. To me, vampires have always smelled cold, sharp, like the dirt floor of a damp cave in winter. There are a lot of misconceptions about them, which they are usually fine with remaining unchallenged, because it means people fear them and normally steer clear of them.
The average human will never know they’re encountering a vampire indoors or at night, unless the vampire reveals that nature to them.
Or the vamp accidentally loses their cloak outside on a sunny day—that shit’s true. They can’t take sunlight, and more than a minute or two of direct sunlight will severely burn them.
And they definitely do not fucking sparkle.
Smoke, sizzle, scream? Yep, they do that.
Over the past couple of hundred years, what petty territorial disputes there were between shifters and vamps and other non-human species pretty much died out in lieu of each species focusing on our respective survival.
Live and let live, because humans are our common enemies.
But it’s rare for vampires and shifters to team up.
Looks like that’s about to change.
I indicate he can put his hands down. “Stand right there.” I pull out my phone with my free hand and, with it in speaker mode, I dial Pops.
He answers on the second ring. “What’s up, Jax?”
“Sorry for the early phone call, Father. I’m standing here in the office lobby staring at a male vamp from Memphis who said you referred him to me in Denver two years ago.”
“Bruce Marchman?” Father asks. “That you?”
The vampire’s lips curl slightly in what I assume is an amused smile. “Nice to speak with you again, Mike,” he says.
“Yeah, that sounds like him,” Father says. “What’s going on?”
“Let’s go into the office and we can talk,” I say, indicating for the vampire to walk ahead of me. I don’t want to turn my back on him even though, rationally, I know he won’t try any shit here. Or anywhere, as long as there’s no cause.
Still doesn’t alleviate my instinctive, visceral mistrust of the dude.
With my office door closed, I settle behind the desk while Marchman slowly and deliberately removes his cloak and gloves, then drapes them over the back of the second chair in front of my desk and settles into the first. I know he’s deliberately moving slowly so as not to spook me, because he could have done it a lot faster, meaning he is going above and beyond to stay on my good side.
Vampires move…well, supernaturally. Smoothly. Almost silently. Even the rustle of clothes one hears is largely absent.
Guess that’s another thing that creeps me out about them. Wolves are apex predators, but vampires are the apex predators of other apex predators.
I lay my phone on the desk. “I’ll let him talk, Father, because he just arrived and I don’t have the whole story yet.”
Marchman crosses one leg over the other, his khakis not even the slightest bit wrinkled. He focuses his dark green gaze on the phone instead of me, likely rightly guessing that to maintain eye contact with me would trip my Alpha instincts to run him out of my territory.
If I could keep myself from trying to kill him, that is.
“Two weeks ago, our nest was attacked, much as the Mobile nest was attacked three weeks before that. Somehow, someone obtained the updated details about our main compound—security systems, personnel, everything. They attacked during the daytime. Fortunately, all of our younglings and nearly all the children were in school. Most of the mates and familiars were at work or running errands. They killed three mates, four familiars, all ten of our full-time security detail, and fourteen vampires. There are only four of us left now—vampires—and a total of thirty-two children, younglings, mates, and familiars.”
“Shit,” Father says. “I’m sorry. Who did it?”
“We don’t know. We managed to kill seven of them, severely wounded several others.
But they took all of their wounded and some of the bodies with them upon their retreat, meaning no interrogations.
The only bodies left behind were humans.
We suspect those were mercenaries. It was impossible to identify the attackers in the heat of battle, but we suspect shifters allied with the Atlanta Pack and Randolph Sterling. ”
“What are you looking for from us?” I ask.
“We beg for sanctuary for our children, younglings, mates, and familiars.” Finally, the whisper of emotion shadows his expression as he swallows and his eyes go too bright.
He blinks. “We are all grieving, but especially so those who lost their loved ones. We can pay for your assistance but with only four of us we cannot adequately protect them.” Now cold rage tenses his sharp jaw.
“The four of us want to hunt the attackers and exact retribution. And if we lose our lives in the process, at least we would know those we love are safe.”
“Why not go to another nest?” Father asks.
“We tried. I had already arranged it with Albert Lemaire in Chicago. We were planning to move everyone there this weekend.”
“What changed?” I asked.
“The Chicago nest was attacked yesterday,” he quietly says.
“Fortunately, they’d already cleared their mates, children, and younglings out of the main compound and moved them to secret secondary sites for their safety.
They’d worried perhaps they would be attacked next, and those worries turned out to be well-founded.
Four vampires and three familiars were killed, along with two of their security agents.
But they killed eight of their attackers.
While the rest got away, most of them were severely injured, and they weren’t able to take the bodies this time. ”
“Could you identify any of them?” I ask. “The attackers or their dead?”
“No. But two of the escapees were shifters who smelled like Sterling’s pack, according to Albert.
Three of the bodies left behind smell like wolf shifters even though they’re in human form.
We’re speaking with sources, trying to identify them now.
They grabbed DNA samples before incinerating the bodies.
Also, he sent me pictures of the dead. May I retrieve my phone from my pocket? ”
Despite all of this I do appreciate the vamp deferring to me. He’s kept his hands where I can see them this entire time despite knowing he’s way faster than me and could have slit my throat five times already before I could even blink, much less move.
I nod.
He pulls it out and opens it to his photo app, then hands it to me.
I manage not to touch his hand and lay the phone on the desk to swipe through the pictures with one finger.
“Recognize them?” Father asks, sounding all business now.
“No,” I say. “I’ll have him text them to you on your burner.”
“Okay. Let me grab it and power it up.”
I use a finger to push the phone back across the desk to Marchman. A moment later, he’s texted the pics to my work cell as well as to Father’s burner phone.
“Stand by,” Father says as I hear a chime in the background that I suspect is his phone.
When Father next speaks, his voice sounds growly, angry. “Don’t know the humans,” he says, “but I’m certain one of the shifters is Sterling’s brother-in-law. The mate of one of his sisters. If not him, he’s a dead ringer for him.”
Well, fuck.
That certainly complicates my life.