Savage Sons
(House of WInterborne Book 2)
Luanne Bennett
Copyright © 2020 Luanne Bennett
All rights reserved.
The Word Lounge, Atlanta, Georgia
No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any written or electronic form without permission from the author, except for quotations and excerpts for articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
luannebennett.com
Edited by Anne Victory
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Cover by Deranged Doctor Design
Also by Luanne Bennett
THE FITHEACH TRILOGY
The Amulet Thief (Book 1)
The Blood Thief (Book 2)
The Destiny Thief (Book 3)
THE KATIE BISHOP SERIES
Crossroads of Bones (Book 1)
Blackthorn Grove (Book 2)
Shifter’s Moon (Book 3)
Dark Nightingale (Book 4)
Bayou Kings (Book 5)
HOUSE OF WINTERBORNE SERIES
Dark Legacy (Book 1)
Savage Sons (Book 2)
King’s Reckoning (Book 3) Winter 2020/2021
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Books by Luanne Bennett
About the Author
Chapter 1
“Don’t do this, Morgan. You love me. Remember?”
I gripped Samuel’s wrist tightly and held him against the wall, the blood flowing down his arm triggering a hunger that threatened to unleash the violence that had grown inside me overnight. I swallowed and closed my eyes as the urge to rip his wrist open consumed me.
“Let him go, Morgan.”
Still pressing Samuel to the wall with my forearm, I dropped his wrist and looked over my shoulder at Hawk. He was standing next to the terrace door with his eyes fixed on mine in a determined gaze, his body poised to come at me if I didn’t back away from my uncle.
Something clicked inside me, and I took a step back to release him. I began to calm down, but when I glanced at the blood on my hand, that same exhilarating rush hammered me again, but this time it was immediately followed by an intense feeling of shame.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said to Hawk, looking back and forth between him and Samuel. Would I be forced to choose between my boyfriend and my uncle if a bloodbath ensued?
Hawk took a step closer. “It’s all right. I was worried about you, so I went to see Jakob. He told me what happened at the council meeting last night and asked me to keep an eye on you. I guess it’s a good thing I did.”
Samuel went into the kitchen. When he returned a minute later, the bloodstained lower half of his sleeve had been ripped away and the cut on his wrist was already healed shut. “Wouldn’t want to tempt you again with all that blood, and I have plenty of shirts.”
He headed across the room and extended his hand to Hawk. “So you’re the shifter who’s caused such an uproar around here lately.”
Hawk hesitated but eventually shook Samuel’s hand. “Apparently I am.” He looked at me for a moment before turning back to Samuel. “What the hell’s going on here?”
Samuel grinned and walked back over to me. He gripped my chin gently and looked me in the eye. “You’re a Caspian all right, but you’re a Winterborne first. That’s the reason you’re still breathing right now.”
When Hawk came toward us, clearly triggered by the comment, I put my hand up to stop him. “Don’t. This is my uncle Samuel. I trust him as much as anyone, and he’s about to explain what just happened.” I gave him a questioning look. “Aren’t you?”
“It was a test. I provoked you by cutting my wrist to see how you’d react to the sight and smell of blood.” He arched his brows. “By the way, you failed miserably.”
I think that admission irritated Hawk as much as me. “You risked outing her to the clan! What if I hadn’t shown up to distract her from ripping your throat out? She could have killed you.”
“Ripping his throat out?” I muttered, suddenly horrified at the thought.
Samuel scoffed and headed back to the kitchen. “Do you have any scotch in this place?”
“Jakob told him what I am,” I said to Hawk.
“Then why would he provoke you like that?”
Samuel stopped and turned. “We all get tested before we’re allowed to enter.”
Hawk got a wary look in his eyes. “Enter what?”
Samuel gave me a warning look as I opened my mouth to speak.
“Hawk knows about the Circle,” I said. “If it hadn’t been for him following me on the last hunt, I’d be dead. You can trust him.”
Still hesitant, Samuel eventually let his guard down. “You do understand my concerns?” he said to Hawk. “I hear you’re more than just a shifter, and you know what we do to your kind.”
I set the record straight. “He’s not a Night Walker.”
“Clearly.” He walked up to Hawk and looked him in the eye, silently assessing him. “Actually, an alliance with a vampire may come in handy.”
Hawk refused to take his eyes off Samuel, but without warning, my uncle reached into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade, the one he’d used earlier. He sliced through his wrist in the same spot that had just healed. Then he put some distance between us. “Let’s try this again, shall we?”
Hawk didn’t flinch when he spotted the blood running down Samuel’s arm, but just like before, the desire to rip him open consumed me. I felt like a stranger in my own body, starving and prepared to do anything to get his blood in my mouth.
Samuel met me halfway when I ran toward him, but this time it wasn’t so easy to overpower him. He slammed me against the wall so hard it left a small dent.
When he stalked toward me, Hawk stepped between us, his eyes beginning to glow red as his vampire side came out. “Touch her again and I’ll rip your throat out myself.”
“Easy, boy.” Samuel threw his hands up and stepped back. “I’ve been fond of Morgan a lot longer than you have, but I need to know how much effort I’ll have to put into guarding my jugular. You, however, passed the test with flying colors.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that?”
“Because my blood didn’t seem to trigger you at all.” He nodded to me as I fought to get control of myself. “Unfortunately, my niece hasn’t developed any willpower yet. That will have to change before she enters the Order.”
“The Order?” Hawk said. “What the hell is that?”
Samuel pumped his fist, and the wound on his wrist healed for the second time. He looked at me over Hawk’s shoulder. “We’re g
oing to sit down and have a talk, and you’re going to get a grip on that hunger of yours. Understand?”
All I could do was nod. I couldn’t take my eyes off the fresh blood covering his arm, so a civilized conversation was going to be difficult.
Hawk glanced down at it. “You might want to clean up first.”
Samuel wiped the blood on the front of his shirt. “No. It’ll be good practice for her. You’ll have to teach her how to control her hunger. Can you do that?”
He nodded. “She just needs something to sustain her while she gets used to her new reality, that’s all.”
I feared I knew how Hawk was going to get my hunger under control. A donor was in my future.
“Good,” Samuel said. “Now, let’s have that talk.” After getting the bottle of scotch from the kitchen, he joined us at the dining room table. Surprisingly, I managed to compose myself and not let his bloodstained shirt distract me too much. Although it was hard to take my eyes off it for the first few minutes.
Samuel opened the bottle. “Let’s have a drink before we dive in. I don’t know about you two, but I could use one.”
I refused the drink he offered me, feeling oddly queasy at the thought of alcohol. But Hawk was more than willing to accept his. Then we got down to business, and Samuel began to fill in the details about the organization he called the Order. He’d told me at breakfast that morning that there was another “Circle” even more powerful than the one the Winterbornes had led for centuries, but that was all he’d said about it until now.
“I take it Katherine never mentioned the Order?” he asked me.
“I’ve never heard of it before. Was she involved with it?”
He arched a brow. “She started the Order here. The Caspians have arrived, and if we don’t act fast, they’ll get a foothold in New York like they have in Edinburg and Paris. If that happens here, the city will be at war.”
“Caspians?” Hawk said, glancing at me.
I nodded to my uncle. “Tell him.”
Samuel downed his drink and poured himself another. “The Caspians are a dynasty of vampires that have walked the earth since the beginning. A race that every lesser vampire can be traced back to.” Hawk started to speak, but Samuel beat him to it. “Yes, even you, Hawk. I don’t know exactly what you are, but that blood in your veins can be traced back to the Caspians. But don’t worry. It’s so watered down there’s barely a trace of it.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He snickered quietly. “I haven’t killed him yet, have I?”
Hawk stood up and glared at him.
“Sit down,” Samuel said. “We don’t have time for hurt feelings. The Caspians are spreading like a virus, and Morgan is going to need your help.”
An uncomfortable feeling crawled over me. “Help with what?”
“Running the New York Order. Who do you think will be taking over for your mother?”
I glanced back and forth between them, hoping one of them would shed some light on how I was supposed to pull off leading an organization tasked with killing the deadliest vampires on the planet. “What about you, Samuel? You’re the obvious choice.”
“I’ll be here to help you for a while, but eventually I’ll have to head back to Edinburg.” He must have read the fear on my face, because he took my hand and explained in the gentlest way possible why he believed my mother really killed herself. “My sister was a force of nature, but she was so caught up in Ryker’s spell, so in love with him, she couldn’t fight what was happening to her when he made her drink that blood. But you can. Your mother killed herself so the clan wouldn’t find out what she was or what you are. To buy you time to grow into your powers.”
I shook my head. “Don’t say that.” She’d already revealed the truth in her diary about why she’d killed herself, but hearing him say it seemed to make it worse. “Now that Ryker forced that blood down my throat, her death may have been for nothing. The clan will eventually figure it out and come for me anyway.”
Samuel laughed. “It won’t be so easy for them now. Ryker did you a favor by speeding things up. And despite your little display of uncontrollable thirst earlier this evening, you’ll have your cravings under control in no time.” He looked at Hawk. “Won’t she?”
“Damn right she will.” Despite Hawk’s confidence in my ability to become a well-behaved vampire, the suspicion in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed.
“What part has you looking so guarded?” Samuel asked him.
“I’m just trying to understand why you’re putting all this on Morgan’s shoulders. As powerful as she obviously is, she’s still trying to get her footing as an assassin.” He turned to me with a sigh. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Morgan, but you’re still very green.”
Before I could agree with him, Samuel explained. “It takes more than an ordinary immortal to kill a Caspian. You’ve both met Ryker, so you know exactly what I mean. Vampires as powerful as the Caspians require equally powerful adversaries. Cabot and his team wouldn’t make it through a single hunt. The Circle doesn’t know about us, and it’s going to stay that way.”
I liked to think all Winterbornes were exceptional hunters, but I knew without a doubt the twins were. “What about Olivia and James? There’s nothing ordinary about either of your children.”
A proud smile appeared on his face. “They are exceptional, aren’t they? And I never said they couldn’t play for both teams.”
Without confirming the twins’ induction into the Order, Samuel got back down to the business of the boxes. “With a little luck, we’ll have the key soon, and this will all be over.”
He’d mentioned this mysterious key that morning when he told me about the Caspians. Said it was connected to that box my mother had sent me containing her journal. “You said the boxes were the key. You’ll have to explain that.”
I got up and headed for my bedroom. A minute later, I returned and set the box on the table. “So what makes it so special?”
His eyes flashed with curiosity as he examined the box without touching it. Then he carefully ran his finger along the lines of one of the symbols, tracing it across the top and down the side. “There’s a connection between all these lines, but until we find the other boxes, we’ll never know what it is.”
“What other boxes?” Hawk asked.
Samuel glanced at him but hesitated. “There are three,” he eventually said, deciding to trust Hawk—and foster that alliance he’d mentioned earlier. “Ancient vessels that held the ashes of the three original Caspian vampires. The symbols hold some kind of code to their weakness and makes them vulnerable. If we can decipher that code, the Caspians can be destroyed. The boxes were stolen from the Caspian crypt in Mesopotamia. Then the ashes were dumped and the boxes were sold.”
“Stolen by whom?” Hawk asked, eyeing the box cautiously.
“Stolen by a young vampire who wanted her freedom. She had a child with a mortal and wanted her son to be free of the Caspian curse. When he was eight years old and about to be forced into the rite of passage that would have sealed his fate as a Caspian vampire, his mother stole the boxes. She offered them as payment to a vampire bounty hunter in exchange for his help in getting them out.” Samuel’s expression soured. “He got them out, all right, but then he betrayed her. He sold the boxes and killed her to cover his tracks. He held on to the boy for a few years, hoping he’d transition on his own and become a vampire. A human bloodhound for finding Caspians. But that never happened. The boy escaped before the hunter could kill him too.”
“How do you know all that?” I asked.
“Because that boy is one of us. He found us before the hunter could track him down and murder him. That hunter is dead now, and the boy’s new mission in life is to destroy the Caspians.”
The three of us sat at the table in silence for a moment, all staring at the intricate symbols that wrapped around the box in a continuous flow of indecipherable lines. Where one ended, another one picked up. Our only chance
of decoding that box was contingent on finding the others and hoping it would all fall into place when they were side by side.
“Where did my mother get it?”
“The box?” Samuel said. “She put out the word a while back to every thrift shop and antique dealer in town that she’d pay top dollar for old wooden boxes with symbols. After weeding through all the junk people offered her on a daily basis, she finally got a hit from some hole-in-the-wall shop downtown. It paid off.”
“Talk about luck. Did she find out where the owner of the shop got it?”
“The guy said he couldn’t remember, but you and I will be paying him a visit tomorrow to see if we can jog his memory.”
He glanced at Hawk and had a silent conversation with him. Hawk nodded discreetly, and I knew I was about to be inducted into the underbelly of Manhattan, to get something that required nothing more than a taste for blood and a willing donor.
Chapter 2
Hawk turned to me after Samuel disappeared into the elevator. “We should leave soon. The den opens at ten o’clock, and it gets pretty crowded on Saturday nights.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“To a blood den. It’s where humans hook up with vampires, and it’s pretty safe.”
“Pretty safe? What does that mean?”
“It means no one will mess with you because you’re with me.”
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