by Lia Davis
They avoided my gaze, and I turned to the exit.
The smells of the busy grill masked the one scent I’d longed to smell for years. I didn’t pick up on it until I was a few feet from the doors. As soon as the first whiff of her drifted into the open doorway of the bar, my dick tried to harden in my pants, but I talked it down. The urge to mate with her was strong. It took all of my willpower to ignore it, which was the exact reason I’d avoided her since the first time I saw her.
She hadn’t scented me that night, I was sure of it, but it looked like my luck had run out. She stepped out of a black Range Rover and as soon as a gust of wind hit her face, she whipped her head around, glaring at me.
Busted. Her pupils were blown as wide as if she’d taken a huge hit of coke and her nostrils flared out. She definitely scented me.
Damn, she was beautiful with her long wavy chestnut hair and curves that begged for my hands to run over them.
Her sentries, who I’d dismissed, stepped in front of her, growling. She tried to push through, but they wouldn’t budge.
My dick was well and truly hard. Looking at the goons helped me soften it a bit. I tried to speak to them, but my instincts wanted to rip their throats from their necks. It took me a second to master myself. “What do you know about these attacks?”
Jillian
His essence smacked me in the face as soon as I stepped out of the Rover. I looked around for the owner of the scent as every hair on my body stood on end. For a few moments, I felt like I could feel the Earth turning on its axis. In those brief seconds, I knew I could count all the stars in the sky and feel the energy of all the living creatures around me.
It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Not even the mating pull of my two sentries was as strong as the one to the vampire advancing toward me.
When my gaze landed on his face, the moment passed, and everything settled back into place, except for him. His presence was definitely not settling, and it did a number on my insides.
He was my mate, and he was a fucking vampire. Son of a bitch.
My wolf was wiggling, jumping, absolutely beside herself inside me. She wanted him, and she wanted him right then, everyone around us be damned. I physically felt the blood rush to my inner vaginal walls, swelling them and causing intense pressure that could only be relieved by one thing.
One vampire’s thing.
Damn it!
What the hell was I supposed to do with a vampire for a mate? I’d been feeling similar urges toward Quin, but not this strong. I’d assumed those urges were my wolf telling me either of them would be a suitable mate, but my wolf flat out demanded the tall vampire. Was she waiting for the one, our true mate?
“Jillian?” Voss said, turning to face me. They’d been talking to the vampire for a few moments, but all I could do was breathe, his scent ensnaring my senses.
“Yeah,” I muttered as I craned my neck to see him. “What’s up?”
“Didn’t you hear him?” Quin asked over his shoulder, his eyes on the vampire.
“Not a word.” Fuck. I said it out loud
The vampire laughed. His voice was rich and sultry, and I finally got a better look at him from behind my sentries. He wore a hoodie with a cap so the bill shaded his face from the sun, but I could see the tips of his long black hair sticking out at the collar and his blue eyes. At least, I thought they were blue.
“Move,” I commanded them, tapping Quin on the arm.
“No,” Quin said.
One, two… I let out my breath, letting go of the vampire’s scent, and said it again, with more authority. “Move.”
They knew from my tone I meant business, so they both stepped aside. You can protect me, but you won’t smother me.
“I’m Jillian.” I held out my hand to the vampire as I moved closer, stopping about arm’s length away. That’s it, Jill, nice and calm.
“I know.” He took my hand, and I fought a whimper as tingles of awareness traveled up my arm. “I’m Kane.”
Kane. Wait. Kane?
“Kane?” I asked, eyebrows raised.
“Yes, Kane. Yes, Lilith is my mom, and yes I’ll be taking over the vampire covens soon.”
Of all the bullshit. My true mate is the future vampire king. “Pleasure,” I said dryly. “I’m not imagining this?” He shook his head, eyes twinkling, confirming he felt the pull as well. “Why isn’t this affecting you the way it is me?”
“I’ve had a few years to get used to it. But don’t worry. I’m not unaffected.” He didn’t look perturbed. Then again vampires were notorious about masking their feelings and remaining cool right up to the moment they struck.
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Quin crowded behind me, unable to leave me alone with the vampire.
“What do you mean, years?” I asked at the same time.
Kane looked from me to Quin, his handsome face amused. He didn’t answer either of our questions. “I was just asking Jillian here if she knows anything about the attacks on my vampires this morning.”
“We’re actually on our way to investigate an attack on our pack,” I said, frowning. “Your coven was attacked, too?” That was a strange coincidence. Maybe it wasn’t the vampires that attacked us.
“Yes, brutally.” His eyes narrowed on Quin, who tensed behind me.
“It wasn’t us,” Quin said defensively. “We want this war to de-escalate.”
“You don’t have any rogue packs?” Kane’s tone had an air of superiority.
My wolf might want to rip his clothes off, but that didn't mean he could act like he was better than us. I took a step closer and put a growl in my tone. “No more than you have rogue vampires.”
Rogue Para were dealt with swiftly in all circles. Nobody from any faction wanted spotlights from the humans.
“Why don’t we meet you in about an hour? We can compare notes and scent the scene.” My words were spoken through my teeth. Vampire senses were heightened, and their vision was typically better than the lycans, but they couldn’t beat our noses. Our hearing seemed to be on par with theirs.
A sensually wicked smile lifted it lips and he inclined his head. “That’s a gracious offer.”
Damn right it is.
“I would appreciate it,” he continued.
He gave us the address of the murdered bloodline, and we parted ways. I found it disconcerting to drive away from him as he stood beside an ostentatious sports car. My wolf howled to stay, but I shushed her. He wasn’t for us, no matter what the Fates said about it.
4
Jillian
“Are you listening?” Quin asked me.
“Yeah, sorry.” The encounter with the future vampire king had completely thrown me off my game. His scent clung to me, and he smelled like home. Something in my soul had snapped, and now my wolf no longer wanted to be single. She wanted the vampire. And once my wolf’s desires had awakened, suddenly Quin and Voss smelled amazing. The three men together…Yeah, I needed to stop right there.
I should’ve been focused on the coming murder scene, not imagining Kane’s face nearing mine, or his arms cupping my face before he… Get it together. You’ve got a long day ahead of you.
We pulled up in front of the large home that had housed the alpha family of Crane Pack. If the reports were true, there was nobody left alive inside. Voss turned the SUV off, and we sat in silence, staring at the house.
The energy surrounding the scene was so heavy I could sense it inside the vehicle. I’d never been that receptive to the emotional imprint of the past before. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end, giving me the shivers.
Voss looked at me from the driver’s seat. “You okay?”
They knew I was tense, but I hadn’t mentioned the fact that I’d just found my mate. “Yeah.” Best to keep that to myself for a while.
My wolf growled at me. You can’t have all three of them. She’d been pushing me toward Quin for years, and Voss for the few months since he’d started wo
rking with me. I just figured she was a horny bitch. Either we’re fated for Kane or pick Voss or Quin. We can’t be fated for all three. She growled again, until I gave her a mental shove to shut her up. I had to focus on finding out who killed my people.
“Let’s go.” I pushed open the door and jumped out. Quin rushed around the vehicle, apparently meaning to open my door for me. I didn’t have time for his protectiveness at the moment.
Usually I allowed it when nobody was looking, but in cases like at the bar, in public, I refused to indulge him. I didn’t need our enemies to see me as weak.
That’s when he’d argue the hardest. “If there are people around, that’s when it's even more important you let me treat you like the ruler you are.”
My reply was always the same, sometimes with more of a growl than others. “Sorry, Quin, but it’s embarrassing. I’m not alpha yet, and what kind of alpha will I be if I can’t protect myself long enough to get out of a car?”
He meant well, but I had to be the strongest wolf in the entire pack. My birth gave me extra strength, and when I eventually stepped into the role of High Alpha, I’d be hard to beat. I could already take Quin or Voss half the time, even though they were excellent fighters who had trained harder and longer than I had. Together, the three of us were a force to be reckoned with.
I was pretty sure Quin’s motivations had nothing to do with protection, anyway. He was half in love with me. Maybe more than half.
Focus. I stopped half way up the walkway that led to the front door and my heart sank to my feet. Sorrow tightened my chest. The two-story home was twice the size of my own and housed not only the alpha, but his wife and children, his mother and sister, and a few other family members. It wasn’t uncommon for whole pack families to live together.
This family had suffered like no one ever should. They were gone. My stomach soared at the thought, and I fought the bile that threatened to rise.
“It’s so quiet,” I whispered to no one in particular. I hated investigating attacks. The worst were like this one, when everyone was dead. Everyone. My heart sank and dread burned my insides. “Children?”
Voss nodded his head as he watched me carefully. Blinking back tears, I drew in a deep breath and braced myself. Time to put my mind to protecting my pack and finding out who attacked this family. To do that, I had to go inside and do what I was trained to do.
Damn it. I hate it when it’s kids. I prayed there weren’t any babies. That was the worst.
We started in the yard, crisscrossing the lawn, smelling and sensing the area. We couldn’t shift unless it was a full moon, no matter how much my wolf wanted out to get at Kane. Our senses were heightened at all times, though, and we could call on our wolves when needed to get the supreme senses and strength of our animal.
We did so as we searched. My vision sharpened, colors distinguishing themselves from one another, making anything in the grass easy to spot. My hearing turned on as if I’d placed a hearing aid in ears that didn’t need one, and my nose twitched from the overload of smells I was suddenly able to discern.
I didn’t like to stay like this for long as a human. When in wolf form, I was better able to filter my senses so it wasn’t overwhelming. As a human, my brain had to process every little sound, scent, or sight.
Quin, Voss, and I had practiced the process enough that we knew exactly what to do. Voss’s vision was the best of all of us, Quin’s nose was the most sensitive, but I was born with a little something extra. The firstborn of my family always was. Dad could catch snippets of what people were thinking or feeling. Just impressions or a few words, but it’d helped him out over the years. It was said my grandfather could smell a lie, the bigger the lie, the bigger the stink.
I could feel the past. It was faint, and wasn’t exact, but it especially helped in situations like this one. It didn’t always work right, but the more traumatic or passionate the event, the more I could pick up.
“There were a lot of people on the lawn,” I said. If I really focused, I could feel them moving beside me, as if they flowed around me in present time.
“I can see that from the grass,” Voss said.
“We can all smell them,” Quin said. “Surely you do.”
Voss nodded, and I focused on my nose instead of my extra sense. He was right. “Humans. A bunch of humans.”
“How?” Quin asked. It was nearly impossible to believe humans killed wolves.
“I don’t know. Let’s move closer.” I trusted Quin to scent anything significant, so I focused on my special abilities.
We reached the door without any further information. We knew it was humans, and there were several. The way their imprints moved made me think military, but that idea had already been implanted in my head by Voss at my father’s house.
“Voss,” I said as we reached the front door. “When you came into my father’s study to tell us about this attack, you said the word militant. What made you use that word?”
“A neighbor heard the commotion and called the police.”
“Oh, then maybe that’s the imprint I’m getting. The human police moving in to investigate?” That would make sense. Their S.W.A.T. teams were trained to move like the military. Then again, why would S.W.A.T. come to investigate a home invasion?
Quin shook his head as Voss continued. “The human police never came. The only reason we found out is because one of the members of the Crane pack worked for a lycan-owned business and never showed up for work. The owner called us after he came here to see why his employee wasn’t answering the phone. Then the neighbor told him what he’d seen the night before.”
“Did the neighbor go inside?” I asked. If anyone had been in the house it could damage our perception and hinder our investigation.
“No,” Quin said. “He saw the door cracked open, peeked inside, then came straight to us. He’s an old friend, so he called me, knowing I’d know exactly what to do.”
“Good thing he did,” I said. “If this had gone up the ranks through our enforcers, this would’ve been immediately blamed on a vampire attack.”
“I agree,” Voss said. “This is humans.”
“How?” I parroted Quin’s question.
They both shrugged, and Voss pushed open the front door.
The smell of blood overwhelmed me. The scent of the humans disappeared under the scent of metal and terror. My extra sense went into hyper drive, almost overwhelming me with information. I had to close my eyes against the onslaught.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered before I even walked inside. “It was awful. Two...no. Three people were in here, and they were dead before they could cry out.” I looked around and saw three bodies lying on the floor, riddled with bullets and awash in blood.
“Do you see this or feel it?” Quin asked.
The stronger the devastation, the more clearly I felt the events, until eventually I could nearly see it happening as if in real time. “Both. This is the strongest scene I’ve ever experienced.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I can’t see them. The killers. There’s several of them around me, and some going upstairs.” I shuddered as my chest clenched in anguish. “Please don’t kill the kids.”
Strong arms wrapped around me. “Let’s go outside,” Voss whispered.
I shook my head and pulled out of his embrace. “No. We need to find out what happened to them.” I looked up the stairs, purposely not looking at the three bodies on the floor. “I don’t know if I can go up there, though.”
There was a baby up there, and she was dead. I was sure of it. After seeing one of the bodies on the floor, my memory had been jogged about the alpha family. I knew them, albeit not very well. The pack alpha and his wife had just had a baby girl a few months before.
“Are you sure they’re all dead?” Voss asked.
I shook my head. “I can’t sense that, but how could they not be?”
He took off up the stairs. “I’ll make sure.”
My nose began to differentiate the smells. The hu
man smell grew stronger, and I was able to ignore the scent of the blood. Quin already moved around the room, carefully avoiding the large puddles of red liquid. “There’s nothing here. They’d been shot with silver bullets, and I see several stab wounds. I’m betting with silver-plated swords since they didn’t heal before they bled out.”
Silver was our only real weakness. It ensured we didn’t heal from bullets or knives or whatever wounded us.
Entering the kitchen, I looked around but dismissed the room. My extra sense didn’t pick up anything. The room was empty and clean.
Voss walked in behind me. “Nobody’s alive. There is nothing left of this den.” He put his hand on my arm, softening his voice as he spoke. “I covered up the kids.”
I sucked in a breath at his words, my chest tightening. I had to go upstairs and see if I could glean any information. I so didn’t want to.
Making quick work of the rest of the downstairs, I opened my senses and walked up the stairs.
The bedrooms were as grisly as I’d imagined. The alpha’s sister lay motionless in her bed. Not much blood was visible in her room, and the best I could tell she was shot in her sleep. Not much movement assaulted my senses from the energy echoes. How she’d slept through the commotion downstairs, though, I’d probably never know.
The alpha’s mother was the other body downstairs, and her room was also empty. I went to the kids’ room last. My hand shook as I pushed the door inward.
True to Voss’s words, the kids’ bodies were covered on the bunk beds. The crib in the corner had a blanket draped over the entire thing.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t put a blanket over my ability. I felt the man that had entered the room. I tried to dull my emotions as the children’s deaths echoed in my mind, but tears poured down my cheeks anyway. My chest squeezed my heart.
