Chapter 9
Rasmus
It had been a while since I had fully unleashed my inner monster. Over the last hundred years, we vampires had become more civilized. Less inclined to kill with impunity.
Laying waste to Vane’s mage security force was more satisfying than I expected. It helped ease the sense of loss in my chest the longer my blood queen remained missing.
I knew she was unharmed for now because I’d have felt it if the soul-bond had been severed. I still recalled the day my Aunt Marietta lost her soul-bonded mate. She had clutched her chest, screamed, and then collapsed as her beloved’s ashes scattered in the wind.
The mage before me looked familiar. Rank? Rink? From memory, this was Vane’s aide. Skilled in dark magic and known for his cruelty.
He smirked before casting magic at me, but I ducked faster than the eye could see and appeared in front of him, snapping his wrists in tandem.
An unearthly shriek echoed through the room before the incubus chuckled and sauntered over.
“Not so easy to cast with broken wrists, eh?”
“You’re too late,” the mage sniveled, shocked at how easily I’d disabled him. “They’re gone, and you won’t ever find them.” He sneered and then screamed as I sank my nails into his neck. Not deep enough to kill him. I wanted answers, and in my experience, corpses had very little to say.
“Do you have fire magic?” I asked the incubus, but he shook his head.
“Sadly, no. But Brenda is still open for business.” He twirled his blade around and then stabbed the mage’s leg.
I usually loved the smell of fresh blood, but this mage’s blood stank of rot, like part of him had died already. Probably the dark magic he used. Necrosis was a known side effect.
“Tell me what you know.” The mage shuddered as he fought my vampiric compulsion. At full strength, he might have resisted my power, but the pain had weakened him.
“I…I…they…MageLab…” He bit down before black foam and scarlet blood spewed from his mouth. I shoved him back in case whatever cursed magic he’d succumbed to was lethal on contact. Even Zane grimaced as the male choked and then melted before our eyes.
“Gross.”
“Fuck,” the bear grunted. “Rink was Vane’s closest adviser. He must have triggered a suicide spell.”
I kicked the corpse away and uttered some curses under my breath.
This was something I should have anticipated.
Vane always insisted his acolytes signed a death pact in the event of capture.
Most were so enthralled by him they didn’t think twice about it.
It was part of what made the mage so dangerous.
“What’s MageLab?” the merman asked.
“Not sure, but I know someone who might,” the bear shifter replied before groaning in frustration. “Oh, fuck, I don’t have my phone. Let’s quickly search this place, and then I need to return to the club to find my stuff.”
I nodded and shot away. It wouldn’t take long to check all the rooms in Vane’s mansion. Not at my speed.
My senses remained sharp as I searched the upper floors. I found only one room of interest containing an emaciated female lying on a bed with a spelled metal collar around her neck. The scent of death clung to her skin, and her thin chest barely moved with each labored inhale and exhale.
This female didn’t have long. I leaned in to sniff her neck, trying to get a sense of who and what she was.
An avian shifter. Her gray hair held hints of blonde, and when at last she opened her eyes, they were a startling shade of green.
“Alaric?” The female’s raspy voice was barely a whisper in the stale air of this small room.
“Who is Alaric to you?”
“My son. Please help him!” Bony fingers grasped my arm with surprising strength. I pushed my magic into the collar around her neck, testing the complexity of the spell that sealed it. Dark magic slithered out, making me hiss when it burned my skin.
The cruelty of inflicting such a barbaric device on a shifter never ceased to amaze me. That Tiberius Vane had shackled this female did not, however. He’d done much worse in the time I’d known him.
Knowing she was Alaric’s mother forced me to act. My mate, with her soft heart and sweet nature, would never forgive me if I left the shifter to her fate.
The female weighed little more than a feather when I lifted her from a pile of threadbare blankets.
By the time I’d arrived back in the foyer, the others were waiting with grim expressions on their faces.
Maverick’s lips parted in surprise. “Who is that?”
“Alaric’s mother, I believe.”
He peered at the female in my arms and frowned. “This isn’t Brianna Vane.”
I ignored him. We didn’t have time to debate the identity of the avian shifter.
“Did you find any trace of my queen?”
The bear huffed but stepped back. “I found traces of her scent in a cellar room, but the trail went cold,” Maverick told us. “They must have used a portal spell to leave the estate, which means they could be anywhere.”
Kai cleared his throat. “In my vision, I saw a windowless white room. This ties in with MageLab. If we can figure out where it is, we will find Raven.”
Zane nodded thoughtfully. “Or we could live-stream on Magigram and threaten Vane if he doesn’t let my pet go.”
“Are you fucking stupid?” Maverick’s eyes glowed in annoyance as his bear came forward.
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Zane seemed genuinely curious.
The bear snorted incredulously. “We’d incriminate ourselves in a dozen different crimes, all of which would have the Supernatural Council’s security task force on our asses.”
Zane shrugged. “A stint in the penitentiary sounds like a fun vacation to me.”
“The kitsune could track her, surely?” the merman suggested.
“Possibly, but we can’t ask him, and besides, he’s gone again.”
“Adam Vane might know something,” I pointed out when it became apparent none of them were using their brains. At the mention of Adam’s name, the tiny female stirred.
“Adam,” she whispered.
“I don’t have his contact details.” Maverick glanced over at her before giving the melted pile of goo that was once Tiberius Vane’s closest associate one last kick.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here before we’re caught at the scene of a massacre.
With your rep, Zane, we can’t afford to take stupid risks. ”
“Excuse me? How fucking rude!” The incubus blinked us away, leaving the bear behind.
We landed just outside the wall. A few minutes later, a furious bear scrambled over and threw the incubus into a tree.
“My mate needs me!”
“Don’t get your panties in a knot, care bear. I need her too, and I plan to murder every mage within a hundred-mile radius if that’s what it takes to track her down. But first, we’ll go back to the club in Thornville to find your phone so you can call your butt buddy about MageLab.”
“He’s not my fucking butt anything, you asshole!”
“Tomato, tomahto.”