Leo
He knew. It was the first thing that flashed through my head seeing Ivan drop down out of nowhere into one of Ermengarde’s perfect shiny SUVs.
He glanced up at the attic. He knew Altair was here, and he knew right where he was.
Altair was in danger.
Yes, we were all in danger, but this was different. It occurred to me in that moment that my brother, too, had been victimized by this monster.
It needed to be me between this evil thing and my pack.
“The puppies have come to play, then,” Ivan announced from the top of the SUV, where he stood like a character in a fucking movie.
Who made a point of dropping out of the sky onto a car out of nowhere?
It was like he was desperate to make a dramatic display, like he needed everyone to know he was super cool. Which in itself was kind of pathetic.
Aleks took on his usual “I’m the alpha” stance, arms crossed over his chest, making himself the biggest target he possibly could.
“This isn’t a game,” he informed the insane ancient vampire.
“You’ve invaded Wildwood pack territory.
You don’t belong here. None of you belong here.
” He turned hard eyes on Ermengarde and held her gaze.
She, unlike the vampire, couldn’t meet his eye.
Instead, she was glaring at the ground as though it had wronged her.
That was chilling. Ermengarde had long been the thing that went bump in our night. The threat from outside, whom our own alpha was in league with. Now she was frightened enough of Ivan that she was letting him run the show. Hadn’t even said a word about him jumping on her car.
Ivan let out a laugh that sounded entirely unhinged, and next to me, Viktor started to step back, but he stopped himself and held his ground.
That was enough movement to get the vampire’s attention, as his ice-cold eyes snapped to my brother, and an equally insane smile filled his face.
“If it isn’t my very favorite puppy,” he cooed, leaning forward and staring at Viktor.
“Perhaps I will bring you home as well, with my little Altair. Make a whole new family.”
I almost shuddered at the very thought, and I didn’t know how Viktor continued to stand in place without so much as breathing.
Because I couldn’t stand still and quiet while this asshole threatened everyone I loved.
“I have a better idea,” I told him, stepping between Ivan and Viktor.
Viktor lifted a hand and put it on my shoulder, but it was too late, and the vampire’s gaze fell on me, interest in those crazed eyes.
“You take your pet witches and leave, now, and we won’t bite them all and stake you out to meet the morning sun. ”
Ivan sniffed the air, which I knew was probably bullshit from gauging Altair’s sense of smell as compared to a wolf’s, but I had to hand it to the monster. He had an excellent sense of theatricality, if somewhat overblown.
“I can smell my lost little lamb,” he purred at me, “all over you. And here you are, threatening me, as though you have any hope of defeating a creature a hundred times your age. Has my little bird flown into this puppy’s heart?
You wolves are always so quick to emotions.
So soft.” He looked me over, grinning. “This is why your threats are so sweet. So arrogant, so determined, but never the follow through.”
He hopped down off the SUV top like he was taking one step and not leaping over five feet to the ground. Then he stalked toward me, staring as he came, his eyes seeming to glow with light from within.
“You are my little bird’s new pet, are you?” he asked, so completely focused on me that he ignored the wolves he was stalking past. “How sad for you. I fear, little pup, that this means you die first.”
Aleks, being Aleks, shoved his way between us, growling at him. “You want to attack my pack, you go through me first.”
Ivan turned to stare at him as though he were a bug about to smack into his windshield, entirely disinterested. But then he shrugged. “If you need to die this day, very well.”
Aleks stepped forward, and a moment later they were on each other, Aleks with a jab to the vampire’s belly, and Ivan with lightning speed, trying to chop at Aleks’s throat.
My little brother was too fast for him, though, getting in his punch and then dodging back, Ivan missing him.
For a second, I thought maybe this whole fight had been overblown in my mind, but then Ivan took a step back, grabbed a random witch, and tore her throat out in a second of gory horror.
A young male witch gasped and slapped his hands over his mouth, staggering back until he hit the side of Ermengarde’s SUV.
Blood went everywhere, not just into Ivan’s mouth, and I couldn’t help but think that was the point, the intimidation factor of it all.
But then he dropped her lifeless body and when he came at Aleks again, he moved almost too fast to see.
Aleks gamely tried to stand his ground, but the vampire moved like a linebacker, charging straight at him and plowing into my brother, and a moment later, he went flying into the nearest tree, hitting it with a smack that worried me.
And then, again, Ivan was turning to me.
That was when Cash, of all people, came marching over from the direction of the latest work site, with the pack’s only chainsaw in his hands.
Frankly, even though I knew Cash was one of the least scary creatures in the world, he cut an impressive figure.
He revved the chainsaw’s engine and pulled it up to point at everyone.
“You get the hell off Wildwood property, now,” he told Ermengarde. “Or I start cutting down witches.”
“And I’ll bite them,” Evie added from the sideline, determined to have her say, even if this was utterly terrifying.
I got it. Cash was trying to get rid of Ivan’s power source. If he could just eat witch after witch, then he could toss Aleks into fucking trees.
Aleks, who was thankfully getting up, albeit somewhat slowly.
Cash, I noted, had positioned himself between Ivan and Aleks. I’d never thought of Cash as a badass before, but love did funny things to a guy.
Some of the witches took Cash’s demand seriously, and they started piling back into their SUVs. Or maybe it was the fact that Ivan had just messily murdered one of their own. It didn’t matter. It only mattered that they were gone.
Ivan didn’t seem to care, just turned back toward me with that unholy light in his eyes, smiling.
“You are,” he crowed. “You are special to my little birdie. You understand of course, the only proper answer to that.” He turned his face toward the attic of Mama’s house and said, his voice ringing with strange magical authority.
“Altair, you will kill this wolf. Right now.”