Chapter two
Anger consumed him.
Some days it felt as though it ate away at his sanity, while other days it was a simple buzzing in the back of his brain that blocked out other, productive thoughts.
Levi had quickly discovered that the unpredictable emotion was one of the side effects of the Akachi meteorite he’d acquired months ago.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been warned, but hubris was a motherfucker.
Levi had attained the Akachi to help his coven gain power. It had certainly done that and then some. There were days where he could fight through the chaotic power of the stone, but then there were other times when the beast that lived inside the Bayi vampires got the better of him.
That monster demanded blood. Greedy and insatiable, destruction and chaos were the only thing that could feed it.
Levi lifted his head as he realized the silence around him.
His second-in-command was looking at him as though waiting on an answer.
Levi didn’t even realize they had been talking.
How long had they been in conversation? He was almost afraid to ask because both Sebastian and Lucas were staring at him.
The two males were his top enforcers and closest friends.
Hell, his only friends. Even before he was under the influence of the Akachi, Levi didn’t trust anyone except this very limited circle.
Lucas’s gaze flickered to Sebastian, carrying the worry of a friend unsure of what to say in an awkward conversation.
“What?” Levi growled, tired of the silent judgment.
Both of his friends’ eyes dropped to the ground in front of Levi. In deference? Certainly not, he never required it of them. Then why…
Levi stepped back and looked down. His hands were covered in blood, his claws extended.
The trek of his eyes from his hand to the floor was the longest ever and shock kept him still when he saw the body in front of him.
He blinked; unsure how much time had passed.
Or, for that matter, who the body was in front of him.
He straightened and stepped back. Sebastian handed him a towel and Levi looked around to orient himself to his surroundings.
He was in his office at his logistics warehouse, which he was thankful for.
Had he been in his office downtown, getting the blood out of the carpet would’ve been a chore for the office staff.
Wait…
Why was he in the logistics office? Tugging on his ear, he debated how to ask the awkward question.
Lucas snapped his fingers and Levi’s warehouse staff materialized, dragging the body from in front of him. Levi moved to the battered desk and sat on the edge.
“Your Highness,” Sebastian started, sharing another glance with Lucas.
“Just spit it out,” Levi told his friend, suddenly tired as hell.
“Far be it for me to alarm you, but you’re three bodies deep and we’re no closer to the answers we’ve been seeking.”
“Which are?” Fuck it, he didn’t have the mental capacity to guess.
“Who stole from you,” Lucas supplied.
That answer had a fresh cloud of red obscuring his vision. Levi breathed through it, gripping the towel in his hand tightly.
“We should call it a night. Tomorrow is a new day,” Sebastian said.
Levi took another look around. “Have I been to the office at all this evening?”
Bas sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Briefly. We had a meeting with a couple of border mages.”
“The Buru,” Levi murmured in reminder to himself. “Have we figured out which border they were infiltrating?”
Lucas nodded. “We narrowed it down to the north of us, though we don’t know the exact spot. The Lathams control the eastern border and their record is impeccable. If anything or anyone gets through that border, they don’t make it far.”
Levi tossed the towel down onto the desk. “The north of us is Lucian’s men.”
Memories were trickling in, though they were spotty.
The meeting he’d held in his downtown office was with a pair of border mages Lucas had…
convinced…to talk with Levi. According to the males, their section of the border was suffering from increased breaches.
Even that bit of information had been given reluctantly, and only once Lucas had enthralled them with his power.
Lucian’s men were loyal and despite any concerns they may have had about the breaches, they refused to point a finger at a reason why.
“And they didn’t have answers,” he stated, standing straight.
“No. And barring torture, we couldn’t compel them any further if we don’t want to attract attention.”
Levi nodded and walked towards the door. “I don’t want Lucian or the Collective in my business, so we’ll increase our patrols of the city and deal with it our way.”
Sebastian and Lucas fell in behind him as they exited the office and the warehouse altogether.
Levi owned the trucking company that occupied the space, using it to move both legal and contraband items across the Southern USA.
The warehouse was where he conducted activities that he couldn’t at his downtown office.
Sliding into his armored SUV, Levi closed his eyes as Lucas pulled off.
They were quiet the whole way back to their compound, which was a relief really.
His head was pounding, and the disordered thoughts swimming around his mind didn’t help.
Lucas was pulling through the gates of their compound sooner than he thought, but he was happy for it.
Stepping out, he lifted his head in a nod of greeting to the night guard standing at the front door.
He frowned. Why was an extra guard at the door?
Out of habit, Levi’s steps took him to his throne room and the Akachi stone.
The meteorite had a hold on him. He could hardly go a few hours without touching it.
By the time he reached his throne room, he’d managed to calm the buzzing in his head. Until the moment he’d set foot inside and found the room in disarray.
“What the fuck happened here?” he turned and asked his friends.
Before either could answer, Levi tilted his head as he realized something. The source of all that roiling power beneath his skin was missing.
The loss of it should’ve been a relief, but it was as though a void had opened within him. Anger and indignation filled that space because who the fuck would dare steal from him?
“Who was last in here?” he asked Bas.
Sebastian frowned. “If you’re asking who’s responsible for the mess, it’s you, boss.”
“You don’t feel the fucking vacuum of power?” Levi snapped. “Someone has stolen my Akachi, that’s what I’m talking about.”
Lucas stepped forward. “Yes. That’s why you were at the warehouse. We questioned the workers that were at the big house today.”
“There were strangers on this compound today?”
“We managed to track down three of them. There are two more,” Sebastian told him.
Levi turned in a circle and shook his head at the damage.
The throne room had come with the compound he and his men had taken over when they’d defeated the Buru who previously occupied it.
The space was twice the size of a large dining room, not quite ballroom size but close.
He called it his throne room because of the gaudy gold chair the previous owner had placed on a dais in the front.
A red carpet ran from the entrance all the way to the chair.
Levi hadn’t cared enough to move it in the ten years they had occupied the mansion.
There had been piles of jewelry, weapons, and all the spoils of war in the corner of the room.
Now, it was strewn across the floor. A too-big chandelier hung in the middle of the place; a huge table was tucked into an alcove, big enough to seat twenty.
He supposed it used to hold the Buru’s old team, but it was just another thing Levi had no use for.
The chairs that were normally tucked under the heavy metal table were toppled to the floor, some broken.
The expensive paintings and tapestries that had previously hung on the wall were ripped and littered the floor. The whole garish room was nearly destroyed and Levi remembered none of it.
“The security footage?”
“That’s how we found out who had been in here. We’ll find the other two,” Bas promised.
Levi rubbed a hand down his face. “Why hasn’t the staff come in to clean up?”
Lucas chuckled. “‘Don’t let another motherfucker enter that room.’ Your words to the staff.”
Levi sighed. “Get this shit cleaned up,” he ordered his friends. “I’m going to my room. Let me know when you find those thieves.”
He was going to tear their limbs from their bodies. He only hoped he would be lucid enough to enjoy doing it.