Chapter 17
AXE
The moment my eyes blink open, I find my forehead damp.
Silverfire, I’ve got to quit sleeping in my clothes.
My neck is stiff from my reclined position on the ground, but not nearly as agitated as the rock-hard staff in my jeans.
I turn over my shoulder. Vessa is dozing peacefully under the tufted headboard.
The influence of Ludone has long faded, thanks to Cora.
Last night’s dress has also vanished, replaced by a baggy grey sweater.
Within the confines of my chest, the wolf scrapes against my conscious, pleading to hop in bed and join her. The incessant whining is starting to piss me off. It’s all he does, making excuses to touch her in some capacity. It’s bizarre, given that most of my life, I’ve had an aversion to nuzzling.
My wolf pushes an image from the club to the forefront of my mind: Vessa’s hands trailing sensually down my torso. I peel off my t-shirt, balling it up in my fist. Knock it off, I growl at him.
Sensing a presence, her face begins to stir. I curse under my breath, scanning the room for something to quickly and conveniently tie around my waist. The t-shirt won’t do. I'm left with no choice but to grab the throw blanket at the foot of the bed.
Vessa sits up and rubs her eyes. As she squints at me, color returns to her skin. Her raspberry lips are full and puffy, ripe for a morning kiss. I wonder if that’s what they’d taste like. Raspberries . . .
Why don’t we find out? the wolf teases. On a shallow breath, I shove him back down.
Six weeks, I chide him. I’ll sit on my hands if I must. I’ll do whatever it takes to retain my dominance. One misstep, and she could run for the hills again.
Blinking twice, Vessa’s gaze sweeps across my bare arms and stomach. Her scent shifts as she studies my extensive tattoos. She likes what she sees. Damn it, that isn’t helping. Those pheromones fully awaken my senses, sending my wolf into a panting frenzy.
No, not raspberries. Something sweeter. Darker.
"Hi," she says. Vessa fiddles with the back of her hair but pauses when she realizes what she's wearing. And then looks back up. "Did you—"
"No," I gruffly insist. "That was Cora.”
She nods to herself. “Guess I’m not over that concussion yet."
"Do you feel up for walking me through what happened?"
Vessa reaches for her glass of water. "I can try."
Between the shots, cocktails, and hallucinations, she isn’t able to piece together much.
Mostly fragments here and there. However, one detail strikes me as imperative.
One that sets my blood boiling all over again.
Vessa explains that she wasn't offered the drug, rather it was blown into her face when she rejected the advances of a man with a scorpion tattoo.
Vessa frowns at her bandages. Meanwhile, I’m clenching the pillow hard enough to tear it in half. To my surprise, she changes the subject, inquiring if we had any success tracking vampires.
Qinnu’s team caught no wind of vampire scents in the fifty-mile radius beyond Bleeding Sun territory.
Meanwhile Demi and her trackers pursued the slain female’s scent southwest for nearly two hundred miles, losing it at the Iskut train station, a midpoint between our two packs, where Tesni waited to intercept them yesterday.
The vampire must’ve arrived in the province less than a week ago, for that is as long as the scent will typically linger.
A strange coincidence, considering Vessa’s timeline.
Could she have spotted her boarding the train here in town and followed her to Pinesdale? If so, why?
Packs in the western sector of the province are on high alert.
The Alpha of Raging River, our closest neighbor along the Belt, will rally more patrolmen to sift through the towns with more human foot traffic.
Several other Alphas residing within our region also declared they would follow suit and report any new movements.
But those further east . . . those wolves don’t pledge their allegiance as willingly.
Those are the same men who have lost the most of their land to human advancement.
Who advocate for attacks against humans to reclaim the Heartlands.
Many still harbor resentment for my grandfather, who stuck his claim on the commandership after forcing out a sadistic tyrant.
I hope to give Vessa peace of mind as I explain to her that I have eyes and ears everywhere. Except she isn’t satisfied with the latest intelligence.
"There’s something you’re leaving out," she breathes.
My lips pull into a straight line. I pause to admire the way her eyes sparkle against the remnants of last night’s smudgy makeup. Daylight catches glints of maple and rich honey.
"If you intend to gain my trust," she continues, "then you won't omit anything. I don't care if you think it's in my best interest."
I suck in a breath and stand. Vessa cranes her neck to study me as I try to find the right words. There's no way around it.
“There's been whispers of activity in the Ugruk Circle, particularly along the old Norgsik settlements. One of Tesni’s oldest contacts worries that vampires are starting to gather there again. Someone must've summoned them.”
Vessa's face pales. "The Blood Master . . . do you suspect it could be him?"
"We can’t say for certain. But odds are, the woman we encountered at Lake Verdant could have been sent on his behalf," I reply.
“I can't act without confirmation of that intel.
In a few days, I'll be sending a team to assess and report what's stirring up there.
If it looks like they are organizing an attack, we'll go straight to the Yinsew Council. "
"Who?"
“The Yinsew Council. A panel of twelve elders from each continent who are appointed to the serve in the capital senate to preserve peace, enforce the laws of our kind, and to punish anyone who threatens to expose the existence of lycans.”
Or, by my definition, a bunch of overcontrolling elitists who couldn’t care less about the bonds of loyalty.
Smoky pheromones wrap around her as her anxiety churns. "I take it they will be less than thrilled when they find out the next Luna Superior is a human."
My wolf nudges me to reach for her hand. At last, I cave, folding my fingers over her bandaged knuckles. "That's a complication we'll sort out another day."
Dominik
When I heard Vessa had fled Tukkon, I was relieved.
But then she slipped into my club wearing that dress dripping with diamonds, those arresting eyes magnetizing me. Strobe lights rippling off her skin, hips swaying as she danced. Taunting me with that handsy prick.
I couldn’t look away. Not until my wolf was a heartbeat from lunging out of my body.
Nothing could pacify him last night. Not a cigar. Not an entire bottle of Montrose’s finest tequila. Not even my last resort—another woman’s eager mouth.
“Did you say that you got a good look at the guy?” Jabir asks.
Reaching for the lighter in my pocket, I ignite my cigarette, leading Axe and his right-hand man to the security offices. Or, should I say, my replacement.
Axe is still pissed about last night’s confrontation.
It’s written all over his glowering face.
Most of the time, it’s nothing to worry about.
The anger usually blows off after a week and then we’re back to avoiding each other until someone needs something.
For as long as I can remember, our relationship has been transactional.
Instead of leaving the pack altogether, I get by with the mandatory obligations to keep Axe appeased.
Were he any other Alpha, my repeated defiance would get me exiled.
But it won’t come to that. Mostly because I’m his kid brother and he’s sworn to always have my back.
That, and he’s still holding out for me to have a change of heart.
Every once in a while, I enjoy ruffling his feathers.
And gods, does he make it painfully easy.
But today, there isn’t an ounce of leniency or amusement to be found.
Not now that his mate’s been attacked on my watch.
I probably should’ve considered that last night before I stooped so low as to imply that she nearly left this club with someone else.
Gods be damned, he’s right. Maybe I’ll never curb my inhibitions. Maybe I’ll always be at odds with this thing that I am. If I were to even remotely consider propositioning Vessa, I would no longer be Axe Skornokovy’s brother.
I would be a dead man.
Jabir is more urgent this time. “Well, did you?”
I exhale a hefty puff of smoke. “I don’t know.”
Passing the dance floor, the sensual vision of Vessa’s voluptuous body grinding up on the stranger sizzles in the spotlight of my mind. If only I’d paid more attention to what the asshole looked like instead of sulking there in all my envy . . .
Swallowing tightly, I elaborate for them. “Like I said, it was hard to tell if he was a lycan or just some lanky stoner. If you ask me, he kind of looked like Kiersten. If she was a dude.”
Kiersten, my sister’s ultra-nerdy overprotective ex-girlfriend. Dead ex-girlfriend, I should add.
Cringing at the name, Axe grunts. “Don’t fuck with me.”
I crack my neck on each side and flag down our middle-aged head of surveillance, who’s having himself a smoke break. He nods to me and walks over to the office, punches the four-digit code in, and invites the two Bleeding Sun officials inside. Axe dips his head, curtly thanking him.
He hands over a sheet hot off the press. “Here is the document you requested, Alpha. Photos should be coming through to your email any minute.”
“Excellent,” he grumbles, just in time to hear the notification ping.
While Axe plops down in the nearest seat to start browsing through pack files and cross-referencing the names, the security manager signs into the computer bank, allowing Jabir to access last night’s footage on seven different monitors.
“You take left three, I’ll take right four,” Jabir orders. “Starting from 9:00.”
“Zoom in on anyone with tattoos. Specifically on the neck. We’re looking for a scorpion.”
Knowing what transpired here has my brother so on edge that his palms are clammy. On a good day, Axe is insufferably broody. But today, his eyes alone could incinerate this entire room. He’s ready to hunt down and carve up any male that so much as blinks at Vessa the wrong way on camera.
Hopefully I don’t make any surprise appearances.
I follow along with the footage of clubgoers silently until Axe barks an order. “I want names, shift schedules, and background check files of all the bouncers who worked last night. Then I’ll decide who can come to work tonight and who we’re terminating.”
My temper soars. This is my club. Not his pack. “These are my employees. I will evaluate them as I see fit.”
If anyone on my payroll has something shady to hide, I would be the first to know.
Snuffing out secrets is my specialty. I was born a divulger, one of the most highly sought augments that allows lycans to perceive whether someone is harboring false intentions.
I wouldn’t call it a gift. Once you learn that in truth, everyone lies, it becomes pretty difficult to trust or form attachments with anyone.
Nevertheless, Axe is determined to keep me on Bleeding Sun’s roster.
He grits his teeth, turning to face me. “It wouldn’t be necessary for us to step in if they were properly evaluated the first time, now, would it?”
I slam my cigarette down on the metal desk, extinguishing the flame an inch from his left hand. He doesn’t flinch.
Just when things can’t get any worse, four more of the Alpha’s dogs show up at the doorstep. Axe stands to address them, showing his back to me. “Alright, boys. Two levels, two pairs. I want this building searched top to bottom.”
“This is bullshit,” I snarl.
His focus returns to the documents that lay in front of him. “Don’t take it personally, Dom. For once in your life, just try to cooperate.”
Fuck this. I need another cigarette.
Without another word, I stuff my hands in my pockets and make to exit, nearly colliding with someone in the doorway. Kimberly, my newest bartender. Her cheeks flare pink, as they always do any time Axe pays a visit. “I—uh—sorry, sir. A package came for you. I set it outside your office.”
Hastily, I sidestep her and launch up the staircase.
The cardboard box is much smaller than I’d anticipated.
It sure took long enough to get here from the Volkenese anthropologist I bought it off.
After five weeks of waiting, I shred through the packaging and carefully set the snakeskin-bound book on my desk.
My index finger smears a shadow of dust away from the gold-foiled lettering, which reads, Drovniye Sredstva yt Likantropy. Ancient Remedies for Lycanthropy.
If there’s one thing I am grateful for, having grown up in Lupine Manor, it’s my rigorous schooling in Volkenese.
Had I not been tutored by my older siblings, I likely never would have stumbled across this text on the black market of supernatural oddities.
One that, curiously enough, was banned by the Yinsew capital archives eight decades ago.
Over the years, I’ve acquired nearly every prohibited book on the list, searching for what the Council has gone great lengths to disavow. What Axe and the rest of Bleeding Sun are certain is impossible.
A cure.