by Leia Stone
“Let’s give them privacy.” Sage yanked on Sawyer, who didn’t move, he just glared down at me with fearsome glowing yellow eyes.
“You better save him or I’ll kill everyone you care about.” The alpha’s threat sounded real, but his voice was laced with hurt.
Sage pulled him backward and then it was just me and Luka. Tears rolled down my face and dropped onto his bare chest. He was so pale, so near death, and it was all because of me. His eyes tracked me, but he didn’t move.
A sob ripped from my throat. “Why didn’t you tell me? If you knew this whole time, why not tell me!”
Luka reached up with a shaky hand and caught a chunk of my red hair in his brittle fingers.
“I … thought your faith … was kind of beautiful. I didn’t want to be … the one to make you…” His voice was so soft and weak, I had to lean in closer to hear him. “To make you hate God.”
My throat constricted as I tried to swallow the tears, but I couldn’t; they flowed freely down my cheeks.
Did I hate God?
No. Never. God didn’t lie to me and distort things so that I believed the fabrication. If anything, God was my only source of comfort right now, my guiding light in this darkness.
It was Maz who I now reserved my hatred for.
My entire world had shattered, and she had to be in on it.
I nodded, unable to stop the flow of tears.
This man had saved my life more times than I could remember, and all I’d done was call him horrible things and try to kill him.
The app Izzy showed me could be fake, but I doubted it. Either way, I’d decided to save him. The empty feeling in my chest where he used to be was too lonely. I wanted him back.
“Drink,” I commanded, holding my wrist to his dry, cracked mouth.
His eyes flared orange, almost turning red. “Why?”
I looked down at him, searching myself for that answer. “Because right now I can’t imagine living without you.”
He was a blur of movement as he ignored my wrist and reached up to grab the back of my neck. Pulling me down to him, I felt the pressure of his lips on my neck, and then the addicting sharp pinch of his teeth sliding into my vein. Pleasure rushed through my system as I bit down on my moan. With each slurp, each beat of my heart, my headache eased, my thirst faded, and my bond to Luka opened up like a dam bursting.
Luka’s presence filled me up, enmeshing with the very core of me. It was like I’d gained a window into his soul. I felt him in a way I’d never felt anyone before. There was so much light in him, so much love and kindness, but also … a hidden darkness—a scared little boy who had been through unspeakable things. I gasped as his fingers wound into my hair, pulling me closer to him.
‘I see you, Aspen Rose.’ His voice was like a balm to a wound that had been festering inside of me for weeks. I felt him probing at the edges of my mind, my soul, my heart. It was hard to explain, but whatever this was … it was magic. Whether it was good or bad, I didn’t know, but I did know that it had tied me to Luka forever in a way that I wasn’t sure I really would ever understand.
Feeling the blood pour out of me, easing all of my symptoms, Luka started to slow his gulping. This was by far the longest feeding we’d ever had, and I started to feel dizzy. Just then, he pulled away from my neck but didn’t release his hold on the back of my head. I pulled back a few inches until I was face to face with him. My red blood coated his lips, and his honey colored eyes regarded me in a way that I couldn’t explain. He had never looked healthier and more alive; there was a pink to his cheeks, and his chest was plump with rock hard muscle, dewy with a light dusting of sweat. He’d gone from near death to looking like he’d just come out of the gym.
“Aspen?” he whispered and my brain went fuzzy.
“Yes?” I panted, unable to make myself pull away from his light touch. He reached up and traced my cheek with his fingers.
“I think we need to kiss now and get it out of our system,” he stated flatly.
My eyes widened. Kiss him? That was so far against the rules that—
The rules were a lie though, weren’t they?
“I’m sure it will be awful and then I can stop fantasizing about it,” he added, which caused a halfcocked grin to pull at the edges of my mouth.
“I’m awful at many things. Scrabble, drawing, eating with chopsticks. But kissing isn’t one of them,” I said, and his eyes went half-lidded.
He was waiting, waiting for me.
Maybe he was right; there was obvious sexual tension between us, and one kiss could just smash it and get it out of the way.
I licked my lips, wetting them, and decided to just go for it before I could think on it any further. Leaning forward, I brought my lips closer to his.
“Oh good, you’re not dead,” Sawyer’s voice called from behind me, and I snapped my head back, my cheeks reddening.
Luka groaned, and I cleared my throat.
“Oh shit, sorry.” Sawyer seemed to have understood he interrupted something, which was beyond mortifying.
“I better check on Liv.” I stood as Luka sat up next to me. I stepped closer to the male alpha and pinned him with a glare. “Does this mean you won’t be killing everyone I care about?”
He grinned. “I’ve torn up my hit list.”
My brow furrowed, because I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not.
“You threatened to kill her family? Geez, man,” Luka said from behind me.
“She tried to starve you!” Sawyer shot back. My gaze flicked to a tattoo at his collarbone, one I recognized.
Five Crew.
My head swiveled back to a shirtless Luka, and there on his collarbone was the same thing.
Interesting. They had a little gang and it was kind of adorable. Walsh and Bennet had the same tattoo…
I stepped across the lawn and into the house, when I heard Liv wail. “Just go! You lying witches! Get out.”
Oh no.
“Livvie.” I strode inside and Liv broke away from where she was on the couch and threw herself at me. “They’re lying, the app was a lie. It has to be!” She broke into sobs and I met Sage’s, Demi’s, and Izzy’s gazes just behind her.
“I think you guys should go now,” I told them.
The truth was, I thought the app was real, but I needed more proof than that. Maz was … family … and I couldn’t believe she would knowingly lie to us like this. Maybe she was tricked too, and I had to find out who was doing this to us and put a stop to it.
The three girls nodded and moved to leave.
Izzy stopped, looking over at me curiously, her black glossy hair in stark contrast to her glowy white skin.
“Shall we bring Luka back tomorrow for his feeding or…?” She was making sure I wasn’t going to pull this stunt again.
“I’ll be back in Spokane tomorrow. I’ll come to him,” I told her.
She nodded curtly. “In case you were wondering how we found you, we had a witch track you. We can find you anywhere you try to hide.”
Great. Point taken.
They left then, the fading whirr of helicopter blades marking their absence.
Liv pulled back from me and wiped her eyes. “What if its real? What if we are hired assassins? Just killing bloodsuckers for other bloodsuckers?”
I swallowed hard. “Then we’ll find out who’s tricked all of us and take their head.”
Liv nodded in grim determination at that.
As we quickly packed our things and closed up the house, readying it for another stretch of long months unused, I started to think of hundreds of small little things. Connecting the dots.
Like the way that all of the House of Rose hunters were orphans. The way that Maz hadn’t really seemed to age the whole nineteen years I’d known her. The fact that there were no hunters at the House of Rose over the age of twenty-five—I’d assumed they all retired or died like Sterling said, but … what if they found out? What if they were silenced?
An ep
ic knot formed in my stomach as Liv and I started the three-hour drive back to Spokane.
I couldn’t stop asking myself the same question over and over.
What if I was the bad guy this entire time?
Chapter Thirteen
Liv and I agreed to say nothing to Sterling or Vasquez or any of the other hunters until we had more information. We arrived early the next morning back at the society and I started to make a plan.
“If you can make sure Maz is out of her office, I can sneak in and try to find something on her computer,” I told Liv, who was basically catatonic on the couch with red-rimmed eyes. She couldn’t believe our entire life might be a lie. I’d accepted it, and moved right on to the anger phase of grieving. I wanted proof, and then I wanted to hurt whoever was doing this. She was still in denial.
“Maz gets info on the marks with photos of victims. I can check her emails and see who sends them to her. Maybe the chief of police is the ringleader.” I really didn’t want Maz to be the bad one.
Liv just nodded absently. “What if her computer is password protected?”
Shit. “Then I’ll guess a bunch of passwords. It’s probably something from the scriptures.”
Liv rolled her eyes. “You need a hacker, Aspen. One with blond hair, blue eyes, and is about six-four tall.”
Oh crap. She was right. Sterling was really good with computers, but our new friendship was fragile, and I didn’t want to ask for a favor so soon after rejecting him.
“Take one for the team, Aspen,” Liv said flatly.
“Fine. I’ll get Sterling to help, but no one else. We can’t trust anyone right now.”
Swallowing my pride, I went in search of my ex-boyfriend.
I found him in the gym lifting weights with Vasquez. He was shirtless, glistening with sweat, looking like a freaking bathing suit model.
When he saw me, he perked up. “Aspen.”
I ran a nervous hand through my hair. “Hey, can you meet me at my apartment in ten? I need to talk to you.”
He nodded. “Oh sure. I’ll shower and be right over.”
I bobbed my head and then left, hoping Sterling would take the news well.
“Are you insane!?” Sterling whisper-screamed as Liv and I sat around our dining table.
I’d just told him I needed to break into Maz’s office.
“No, and I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t of the upmost importance,” I told him.
He scowled at me. “No, not unless you tell me why.”
Bastard. Liv and I shared a look, Liv shaking her head no. “I think someone has been lying to us and I need proof,” I said vaguely.
Sterling wasn’t buying it. “Lying about what? Proof about what?”
I growled. “Sterling, it’s me! Don’t you still trust me?”
He barked out a laugh. “Don’t use our past relationship, which you are so clearly over, to talk about trust. I saw you get carried out by that vampire at the gala. I saw you order those wolves to save me, so tell me what’s going on or I’ll go to Maz.”
Shit. This had taken a turn for the worse.
There was no way I could tell him I’d bonded with a freaking vampire, but maybe I could make up a story that wasn’t too far from the truth.
“I went out to kill a mark at Bang and instead he saved my life.”
Sterling’s face screwed up in confusion. “Why would he do that?”
I waved him off. “It doesn’t matter. Through him, I … befriended those two werewolves who saved you, and one of them…” I figured Izzy didn’t need to be in this equation. “Showed me an app where vampires and other supernaturals, order hunters from any of the Houses to kill their bloodsucker enemies.”
Liv nodded. “I saw it. It’s like Uber Eats but you order a vampire head instead.”
Sterling’s mouth popped open and then he tipped his head back and howled in laughter. “Ridiculous,” he said.
I shook my shoulders. “Help me prove that. Maz has files on her computer from Chief Baker. We need to find out if the chief is even real.”
Sterling’s eyes bugged at that. “Why wouldn’t he be real? This is crazy.”
I stood, slamming my fist onto the table. “Then prove me wrong, Ster! Show me I’m crazy and this is all fake.”
He crossed his arms in defiance. “Fine. But I don’t need to go into Maz’s office to do that. I can do it from here.”
I went stock still. “Say what?”
Sterling let out a deep breath. “The entire House of Rose is on a linked network. I helped Maz update it two years ago. Get your laptop.”
Holy freaking crap, I scrambled out of the room so fast I nearly tripped.
Grabbing my laptop off my bed, I bolted back to where Sterling and Liv were waiting for me. Handing Sterling the laptop, he popped it open and I used my thumbprint to unlock it.
“Watch this.” His fingers flew over the keyboard and there was a network of names that he was scrolling through. Zia’s computer, Vaz the Stag, Livvie, the entire hunter network was here.
I pointed a finger at him. “You don’t spy on my computer, do you?”
He shook his head. “I have better things to do, but Maz had me build this backdoor in case she ever needed it for security reasons.”
I raised an eyebrow and Liv looked at me suspiciously. “Security reasons?”
Sterling clicked on one called The Eagle and nodded. That must be the name of Maz’s computer. “Sometimes hunters leave the society, or they get married to humans, or they go with another house like the Thorns or the Ashes. In that case, she can wipe their mainframe from her desk the second she gets wind of them leaving so they don’t take trade secrets.”
I swallowed hard. I mean … I guess that seemed normal. We were a secret society after all. But it also meant Maz could spy on us and control information we received. The knot in my stomach grew as he pulled up a desktop identical to the one Maz had open the other day.
“There.” I pointed to the “Marks” folder.
Sterling opened it and there were hundreds—no thousands—of names of vampires we’d killed.
“What am I looking for?” he asked.
“I dunno, just start opening stuff,” I told him.
He opened one, Greggory Shores, and pulled up the bio.
Looks twenty-five, actually fifty-seven, wanted for murder, rape, and draining a feeder.
“Click on the evidence,” I urged him. There was a picture attached.
Liv went stock still and I reached out and grasped her hand. Sterling double-clicked the photo, and when it popped up both of them gasped.
“Sick bastard,” Sterling growled.
“He deserved to die,” Liv agreed.
I was frozen, mouth open in shock. It was the same picture of the redheaded girl Maz had shown me that proved Luka was guilty of rape and murder.
“Go to Luka Drake.” My voice cracked with emotion as the walls started to close in on me.
Liv must have noticed the change in my voice, because she looked up at me as my eyes filled with tears.
Sterling opened Luka’s file.
“Evidence photo,” I croaked.
He pulled it up and we all stared at the same redheaded girl, the same pose, the same wooded background.
“Wait, what?” Liv said.
“It’s a mistake,” Sterling said coolly, but I heard the unnerved tone in his voice.
“Open more,” Liv growled. “Open them all.”
We watched on in horrified silence as Sterling clicked through each and every picture. They all used one of three photos. The redhead, the brunette female, and the blond male. All of them.
All. Of. Them.
Someone had played us. They’d probably called each one of us into the office and showed us one or two pictures to instill our loyalty.
“I can’t breathe,” Liv said, as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Hang on, this … is a mistake,” Sterling offered.
“You didn’t
see the app! They ordered us like a fucking cheeseburger!” I cried out, pacing the room.
Maz knew … she had to know.
“The other houses?” I stopped dead. “Are they all in on it?”
Sterling looked like he might be sick. “I don’t know.”
“We’re Shadow Bloods. We’re hired assassins with no morals who do it for the money.” My voice was devoid of all emotion.
Liv sobbed, and I wanted to comfort my friend, but I was having my own mental breakdown at the moment.
“Money,” Sterling said, and then his hands went wild at the keyboard. He smashed away at the keys, pulling up window after window while I tried to keep up. He muttered a few curse words under his breath, but was going through things too fast for me to keep up.
“What is it?” I asked.
Sterling looked up at me like a little lost puppy. “Maz … she has millions. Millions. And all of the senders had offshore accounts. Not … local grieving families.”
No.
Liv’s crying just … stopped, and I could see the moment she went numb.
She peered up at me, and it reminded me of the look on her face when she was fifteen and made her first kill. She’d looked so lost and confused; the first kill was always the hardest.
“Aspen, I want to leave, right now. I can’t … I can’t stay here.” Her voice was so robotic, I knew she was at the end of her rope, her sanity cracking.
“Okay. Let’s pack a bag. We’ll stay at a hotel and figure this out,” I told her.
Sterling put his hands out. “A hotel? If this is true … if … Maz won’t let you just leave with this knowledge. You need a credit card to book a hotel, and then she’ll find you.”
Liv slammed her fist on the table, causing both Sterling and I to jump. “I’m not staying here a second longer!”
“I know where we can go. Maz won’t find us.” My eyes flicked to Liv’s, and she raised one eyebrow.
I had to go and feed the bastard every day anyway. Might as well hole up with Luka while we figured this out.
“Come with us,” I told Sterling. “We need to see how deep this goes. Does every house know? Every country? I need to know everything.”
