Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
My brother and I landed in the yard of Laikyn’s family home.
Her scent still loomed around us, but the vampire we were hunting overlaid everything.
“He’s been here and gone. We can trace him, but I think we’ll be chasing shadows.
He’s got to have some donors around that he’s left alive.
Let’s find them, and then we’ll find him. ”
Lucas bent and picked up a piece of dirt. Visible signs of several footprints were present. “We should split up. I’ll follow his trail, while you see if you can’t get a lock on one of the humans he has working for him,” I murmured, staring at the home.
My brother looked at the sky. The sun rising would work in our favor.
One thing we’d learned in all our very long years was not to underestimate an enemy.
“Maybe we should stick together until the sun is at its highest. Who knows what kind of nasty surprises this being has in store for us?” He tilted his head toward the home.
A feeling of being watched, even though we couldn’t sense a presence, was strong. “Don’t you feel that?” Lucas asked through our twin bond.
I turned my back, pretending to study the gravel drive, my brother was sure. “There is something, but I thought it was my overactive imagination.”
“Let us take to the sky as air, and circle back. See if whatever it is shows its hand.” Lucas followed me, becoming molecules. A crack split the ground we’d been standing on moments later. Both of us floated higher, waiting to see what happened next as a man came out the door, followed by another.
I didn’t recognize either one, but the fact that they were newly made vampires, or younger than a century, amazed me that they could control their powers. Not to mention, they were working together. Damn, we needed to inform the Council of Vampires.
“We need to talk to mom and dad.” My words echoed my brother’s thoughts.
Before Lucas could agree, wind whipped past us. He and I knew it was the beings below searching for a sign. We kept our cool, neither of us young and inexperienced fighters, although our instincts demanded we return to the ground and kill the puppets.
“They will lead us to him.” Lucas floated next to me. My dry chuckle entered his head.
“What’s that saying? Like shooting fish in a barrel?”
“Yeah, well, right now we’re like sitting ducks.” Lucas grit his teeth as the two shits below used what powers they had, aiming cracks of lightning at us. The slight stings felt like the pinching we’d endured as children from the little females whom my brother and I could give two shits about.
“In another five minutes, they’ll have to give up and head toward their Master,” I grunted.
What felt like more than an hour later, the men below stopped attacking the skies in the hopes of ferreting out my brother and me. Their voices carried in the wind.
“Do you think the boss man was wrong, and we were just tossing our power around for nothing?” One of the men said, sounding winded.
The younger of the two shrugged massive shoulders.
“Who knows, and who cares. We had a job to do, and we did it. You saw those men just as I did. Now, we can tell Mr. Watson we scared the baddies off and maybe be rewarded.” Unholy glee entered both men’s eyes that even the distance couldn’t diminish.
Lucas focused on the one who’d spoken last and eased into his mind.
The things both were guilty of since their turning gave them a death sentence.
We wouldn’t need approval of the Council for taking the bastards’ lives.
He forwarded the images to our father, knowing I was seeing them as well.
The sight of Nigel Watson performing blood rituals gave him pause, which tipped the vampire off that something wasn’t right and had him spinning in circles.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Ron?” The older vampire questioned.
Ron rubbed his temple. “I think I expended too much. Let’s go before the sun rises.”
Having formed a link with the soon-to-be dusted man, Lucas allowed them to leave. “Did you go into the other’s mind?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s not pretty. He’s been tried and found guilty as well.”
After the sun was up for a good fifteen minutes, we floated down to the ground.
The vampires had used Laikyn’s home as a base.
Lucas and I hoped the fuckers didn’t trash the place.
Of course, if it had been, we’d be sure to return it in even better condition.
No way would we allow those abominations to sour the shifters’ minds to our kind.
“You do know she’s not ours, right?” Lucas smirked over his shoulder.
With a glare, I opened my senses to make sure there weren’t any more surprises waiting inside the home. My brother’s comment didn’t sting the way I’d thought it would, meaning neither of us was nearly as invested in the she-wolf. “We need to get out more, brother.”
Lucas walked up behind me once we were sure the home was secure.
Inside, they’d only slightly messed up the interior.
Had they been human, the fact that someone had been there would have gone completely unnoticed.
Shifters would have smelled the funk long before even Lucas and me, since we’re half-breeds.
“Really? Funk?” Lucas raised his eyebrow.
“They smell like rotting cabbage. Who the hell likes that stuff?” I walked to the fireplace, staring at the pictures lining the mantel.
“Don’t touch anything,” my brother’s growl came before he could touch the family portrait. “Let’s just see if there are any clues of the vamps and then get out of here.”
The need to eliminate the threat and then leave rode us both hard. Taking to the skies again, we had a direction and a better idea of where to look. With the vampires traveling in packs, Lucas and I stayed close together even in the daylight.
“Did you pass the information we learned to the Alpha?” My eyes cut to my brother as I mentioned the other man.
“I thought you did?” Opening the link to Kellen, I waited politely—a term many didn’t equate with my brother and me—and then gave him the latest news.
“They were in my mate’s family home?” Kellen’s tone became what Lucas called deadly.
“There were only two there when we arrived, but we smelled the Master and several others. Her home luckily hadn’t been destroyed by the vamps, yet the stink was offensive to our noses.
You full-bloods would have been able to smell them long before us, and vice versa.
We left things as they were since they hadn’t destroyed it, and in case they returned, we didn’t want them to know we were on to them.
However, if they do damage anything, we will replace and or repair. ”
“Did you kill them?” Laikyn’s sweet voice interrupted my reassurance.
Shaking my head, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Again, we couldn’t, or we would have tipped our hand. They are our lead to the Master.”
“When you find him, I want to be the one to end him, Cordell.” Kellen didn’t ask.
I looked at Lucas but let him take the lead. “Mr. Styles, I’m afraid, until he does damage to you or yours, he is ours to take care of. He’s broken the laws of our kind.”
“What the ever-loving fuck does that mean?” I could imagine the Alpha was ready to rip his throat out.
Lucas stared at me, then shrugged. “Meaning, until the time comes when the crimes against one of your pack are more heinous than that of ours, my brother and I will be taking Nigel Watson before our King. There, I can promise you he will see his end, along with those who are following him.”
The growl that came through would have had lesser men pissing in their pants. My brother and I had faced bigger beasts and lived to tell the tale. “We understand you’re upset, but these are our laws.”
“Screw your laws. If that Kinger shows his fangs near me or mine, I don’t give no fucks about you and your King. I will kill him and all who stand in my way,” Kellen said.
Lucas nodded even though Kellen wouldn’t be able to see. “I would be disappointed if you didn’t. Rest assured, we hunt him while he sleeps, so the chance of him coming at you again is slim.” A grunt was his answer before the connection was cut.
“Well, that was fun.” Lucas glared at me as I was chuckling. “Hey, I would have been the one to reach out, but he seemed to like you better.”
Kellen didn’t like anyone other than his people, and now Lucas and me. The two of us were so far down his like list that we would need to go in with full armor. Again, it wouldn’t be the first time we had to do so.
My brother’s chuckle sent him bumping into me. We began our descent to the ground, coming in slowly to the rock cave where the two vampires we’d tracked had disappeared into. Opening my senses, I found several other beings inside the cavern, along with the being we came for.
Hitting the ground, my brother and I shifted into our wolven forms when a large net dropped from the tree, trapping us both.
Lucas tried to shift back to molecules, quickly realizing the netting was made of silver.
His wolf whined as the harsh metal bit into his fur.
I rolled out from under the enclosure, only part of my body having been trapped beneath.
I lay panting from pain, my dark eyes stared at my brother.
“I will get help.” Lucas tried to get up onto all fours, but the weight of the net, combined with the silver, made it impossible. “Call out to Kellen.” My last sight was of my brother shifting to his human form, and then darkness took me.
I felt the mental knocking again from the Cordell twins.
My first thought was to ignore the men. Anger at the bullshit they had given me about their rules of taking the man who had tried to take my mate before their Council ate at me.
A vision of an injured wolf trapped beneath a silver netting had me bolting upright.
“The vampire has set a trap. Lucas is injured. If I don’t get him free, he will die.” I couldn’t ignore the plea from Damien any more than I could from one of my own.