My brother turned his head, spearing me with a look every bit as feral as the Vampire Princess. “Should’ve been me who did that.”
I slammed the door behind me and felt the lurch.
“I’d leave nothing behind. Just like that bitch left me.”
X reached for his hand over the gearshift and the growl of the engine filled the space. The Huntress was dead at the hands of another, and Alpha’s uncle was next. The car veered, rubbed, skidded, and then caught. My best friend was hurting, and it fucking killed me to watch.
Stitch would've known what to say. He’d know the words—the affection. He was always better at keeping us together. Always better at being human.
I looked out the window as agony cut deeper than any knife could. Stars sparkled through a blanket of angry dark clouds and from underneath the billowing sight, the moon peeked through. I stared at the sky, consumed by the steel gray and pale silver as the car hugged the road.
I dragged in the thick scent of wolf, trying to rid my lungs of the rotting stench of that place.
Wolves. Dragons, Vampires, and dead mages.
Where did it end?
The way things always did around us…with blood and violence.
“You okay?” Alpha growled and glanced in the rearview mirror. “You get anything back there? You know…who…how?”
“She was a current.” The words slipped free as blackened fingers came to life. “Like some conductor of energy.”
“You think that’s what killed her, electrocution?”
I shook my head as the Princess filled my head. “No, that’s not what killed her at all. I think she used it as a defense—against someone stronger. Someone who wanted her dead more than she wanted to live.”
“Jesus…” he whispered. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He was silent for a long time, concentrating on the road before he whispered. “The wolves I can handle. Hell, even the Dragons I get. But the witches…the witches and the Vampires creep me the fuck out.”
I nodded. They creeped me out too.
“Did you hear what that Vamp Princess did? She stopped the kid from dying. Just like that, saved her from death and then consumed that death like it was a dose of bad chicken. How does that happen? How the fuck can someone manipulate death like that? And where the fuck was she weeks ago?”
When we needed her.
Those unspoken words clung to the darkness of my mind. I didn't want to think about Stitch down there in the cold dirt. I clenched my jaw. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t him.
My brother wasn’t gone—he was waiting.
Waiting for his team to arrive for one last mission.
The familiar hills reared in the distance. I mapped the speed, took notice of the routes and the terrain as we climbed the mountain and then slowed just before the peak and nosed the car into the overgrown drive.
I scouted this place over and over again, and then took up a vantage point east-southeast where the trees were clear and waited. I didn’t have to wait long. I was expecting the Huntress—I wanted the damn Huntress, but Eva stumbled in bloodied and broken, snarling like a wounded animal.
“I’ll just hang out here,” I murmured as Alpha pulled the four-wheel drive into the garage.
Alpha shook his head and killed the engine. “I need you in there, buddy. I need you to be my eyes and ears, ’cause I just can’t be subjective anymore. I’m too drawn in, and so is Gunny. I need someone like you…someone…”
…cold and calculated…
“…critical.”
I was the loner, and the only part of the team who stood separate. I didn’t like the emotion that came with this Guardian family and I didn’t like how we’d been dragged into their fight. I needed a target and my rifle—that was all, everything else just faded away.
Alpha climbed out, and X followed, but they waited, lingering just outside the car as I followed. The three of us walked into a thunderstorm. A hunger swirled around the house. Marcus paced the floor rubbing the five-day growth on his jaw and stole glances at the Vampire Princess.
“And you don’t know how she got there? You don’t know anything at all?”
“No,” she answered without moving, without taking that eerie fucking gaze off him. “I don’t know how she got there. If I killed her, don’t you think I’d remember?”
“Fuck, this shit’s a goddamn mess,” Marcus moaned and shook his head. “Your brother, the Prince?”
She flinched with the name. It was the first time I’d seen her show emotion. “Disappeared, along with what remained of the Lowest Kynd…believe me when I say, I didn’t know, Bloodletter…I didn’t know he planned on betraying me this entire time.”
“I know.” His voice hardened as he finished. “You wouldn’t be standing here if I thought you did.”
Her arms were almost healed now. The gash now nothing more than a raised line that ran along her arm. The scratch on her cheek was gone, as were the blackened burns on the side of her neck.
“And your circle?”
“Is by our Queen’s side.”
I turned to the Vampire Gabriel as he moved through the crowd. Tension grew as he cut a look to the Doctor and to the Guardian at her side. “Those who are left are loyal. We will find the betrayer, it’s only a matter of time. I promise you one thing—justice will be swift and very unkind.”
The betrayer? So not even Prince, anymore?
Marcus gave a nod. “And the two wolves from Haruin’s pack?”
“Taken care of.” His voice never wavered, as he glanced to the female Alpha at the Guardian’s side. “I covered their tracks as well as I could, nothing that will lead them back to you.”
I looked to Alpha and the words resounded. Seemed like betrayal was everywhere. Vampires…humans…kin. And as the words filled me, they also slipped from Alpha’s lips. “If we’re done here, we have one of our own we need to take care of.”
Marcus glanced to Alpha, Gunny, and then finally settled on me. There was a second where the Guardian stared a little too hard, as though he couldn’t quite figure me out before he murmured. “You’ll call if you hear of anything?”
“Yeah, we’ll be around,” Gunny growled and then turned.
The Guardian Evander followed her as she broke away from the heard. She gave Alpha a nod, and then me. We were on the move, doing what we did best…hunting.
“You want me to come with you?” Evander’s concern reached my ears. He reached out, brushing her arm with the back of his hand, and for the first time since I’d known this hard-ass woman, she let him.
“No.” Her voice softened. There was a shake of her head that didn’t look convincing. “Your place is here with your family. My place is with mine.”
I sidestepped the lovebirds and made for Gunny’s Jeep. We were down to one car now, but not for long. One call to Senator Artemas Roth and a black Escalade was waiting for us at Davonport.