by Anna Abner
“It’s up to her,” Connor said, “but if we run into something a gaggle of vampires and a shapeshifter can’t handle, we’re going to be toast either way.” He looked expectantly at Ali. “Do you feel comfortable doing this? I’d keep you in my sights the whole time.”
“I’ll watch your back,” Maks agreed.
Connor grumbled, and then said, “I don’t need you to watch her anything. I’ll take care of Ali.”
“Enough,” Ali said. “Let’s suit up and do this. Julia can baby-sit Mercy.”
“Julia’s going to be here?” Kayla piped up, tucking a dark curl behind her right ear.
“She’s on her way,” Ali said. “She’ll be here any minute.”
Kayla continued, “I think I should stay behind, then, and make sure Mercy’s okay. When she gets moody, she can be a lot to handle for just one person.”
Maks smiled to himself remembering the chemistry between the pretty vampire and the German doctor. Maybe no one else had noticed yet, but he certainly had.
“Sure.” Connor nodded, dismissing Kayla with a wave. “Whatever you want.”
Maks chose an outfit in his size and changed right there in the kitchen. “Where’s Junior Wolf?” he asked.
Lukas grunted. “His dad’s a bit of a control freak.”
“And we’re a bad influence?” Maks guessed.
“Something like that,” Lukas said. “Plus, we recently discovered we may have been infiltrated by the Coven. Michael Hull is keeping all wolves off the streets when possible. Just until our people check out with the alpha.”
“Too bad. I know he’ll regret not being here to sit with Mercy.”
“Mercy?” Lukas repeated, clearly confused. “He doesn’t even know her.”
Maks didn’t push because obviously Lukas hadn’t seen the way Markus looked at the fragile woman, but Maks had.
“Anyway,” Maks said, I assume we’re going in armed? And we have enough bagged blood to feed everyone before we take off?”
“Choose the weapons you’re most comfortable with,” Connor agreed, tucking in his camo shirt and buttoning on a black jacket. “The blood and the gear is in the garage.”
Maks had to wait while the pit vampires stampeded the detached structure to grab the biggest and baddest firepower. Finally, it was his turn, and though there remained a pair of pistols and several shotguns, Maks chose a long Bowie knife and strapped it to his belt.
“That’s all you want?” Connor asked.
Maks shrugged. “I’m good with a blade.”
“Okay, then let’s load up,” Connor announced. “There are two black vans in the yard. Choose a team.”
Maks wasn’t much of a team player, never had been. So, he climbed into the nearest van and situated himself in the furthest seat in the back where no one could sneak up on him.
Maks watched as doors opened and people stepped into the van with him, but he became acutely aware of Ali’s entrance. His eyes followed her as she settled into the seat beside him with some trepidation obvious in her wary gaze and tightly clasped hands.
“Hi,” she greeted.
“Hello,” he returned smoothly, lifting his left ankle to his right knee. He didn’t know what to say, which annoyed him. He always knew the right thing to say to either put someone at ease or off balance. For some reason, though, conversation with Ali mystified him. Having sobbed like an infant in her presence didn’t make it any easier.
“I thought we could talk,” she said.
“Absolutely,” he answered, then cleared his throat. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about since I learned of it.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears. “What’s that?”
“You glow,” he said. There wasn’t information available regarding Ali’s so-called powers. The only details he’d been able to glean had been from Ali herself.
“Yeah, I do.”
“That’s my blood,” he said, suddenly aggressive over the issue. She was his child, damn it, and she needed to know it. “When I infected your mother, my blood mixed with yours and made you more than you were.”
“You polluted me.”
“I enhanced you.”
She didn’t seem particularly convinced. “I’m not human.”
“What’s so great about being human?”
She sent him a frustrated look. “How did you know, when you infected my mother, that your blood wouldn’t kill me?”
“I didn’t,” he answered honestly. At her sharp intake of breath, he added, “Ali, I told you, I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”
“Were you trying to create a baby vampire?”
“Of course not,” he said. “I was trying to save the love of my life and whisk her away. I didn’t expect a symptom of my blood to be immediate labor. You were born, I held you, and I fell in love. From that moment on, I had two girls to look after.”
“Hm,” she said, turning to stare out the window for a long moment.
Maks didn’t like the silence between them. “Show me,” he said.
She whipped her face around. “What?”
“Show me what happens when you glow. Show me what my blood has done to you.”
“I don’t—” She shook her head. “I don’t have control over it.”
“I want to see.” When she continued to hesitate, he added, “Please. If you wouldn’t mind.” Still, she seemed ready to refuse. “Ali, you’ve seen me in a very vulnerable position,” he reminded her, thinking of the way he’d cried all over her and Violet.
She exhaled and settled into her seat. Her hands fisted and then flattened on top of her thighs. Though her face didn’t change expression, the flesh on her fingers began to glow a soft pink. Ever so subtly, the color deepened and spread up her throat. Another deep exhale, and her entire body went neon. The air seemed to warm in the back of the van, and the others in the front two rows all spun around in their seats.
Maks stared in awe. He’d made her something new. “Wow.”
Fisting her hands, Ali’s color faded away until she was composed of natural flesh tones again. “Well,” she said, “what do you think?”
“I think you’re beautiful,” he answered.
Ali glanced at him, about to say something, when Connor hopped into the drivers’ seat. “Everyone good?” he called out. “Ali?”
“All good, brother,” Maks returned. “You?”
Scowling, Connor started the van and pulled out.
#
Among a cluster of abandoned silver mines—the location Roz had plotted with the help of all her tablets and spreadsheets—Maks climbed out of the van with Ali. The barely roused pit vampires were all stomping around and raring to go. Maks, a little wearier, needed a stretch before following the shapeshifter loping east away from the highway and into the dark, lightless desert.
Taking a moment for himself, Maks paused and extended his heightened senses to read his surroundings. He pushed aside the scents of sagebrush, sand, the occasional scurrying mammal under foot, and the ever-present reptiles. No blood worth noticing. No sounds of human life.
About a hundred yards out, Lukas paused and took a knee. “Leave a couple guards to catch any runners. I suggest Caleb and myself. The rest of you will split between three potential mines large enough for grown adults to congregate in.”
Catching up to the group, Maks conceded it wasn’t exactly his idea of a good time, returning to the foothills honeycombed with abandoned mining tunnels. Not far from where they stood, Sergei had made Maks into a pet. He’d rather never return to this area, but, like the worst kind of fools, he was trying to be part of the team.
“This is a catch-or-kill mission,” Connor reminded them in a whisper. “Give any vampires you find the option to join our team before you take them out. Remember, they’re gathering an army to hurt innocent humans. Be stingy on the compassion. Okay? Let’s do this.”
Connor, with Ali at his side, jogged off immediately. Lukas and Caleb spread out. That left Maks staring at
a very miffed Anastasia and Daniel, cigarette smoke curling around his red hair.
Throwing up his hands, Maks preceded them into a mine stinking of blood and rotting flesh. Yep, they’d definitely found the horde.
Twenty feet in, the tunnel branched out. “Let’s split up,” Maks whispered, gesturing at the different paths. Besides, he was sick of baby-sitting.
He marched down a corridor sloppy with seeping groundwater. Sloshing through mud, he turned on a flashlight and traveled all the way to the end where a vertical cavity ended the corridor. By the sound of dripping water, at the bottom was a pond. He stood on the edge, peering into an abyss, and was caught off guard by the sound of footsteps behind him.
Anastasia snarled, “I’ve been waiting a long time to do this.” The shovel seemed to come out of nowhere.
Maks raised his hands to deflect it, but anger made her strong and she got the drop on him. The blow struck him against the side of his face. Bones crunched, his left eye blinked out, and he fell.
Wasn’t it just his luck? He tried to do something decent and got brained for it.
“Fuck,” he swore as he went airborne. He reached out his hands to grab the walls, but they whooshed past. He never heard a splash.
Chapter Fourteen
Ali panted as she returned to the mine’s entrance, exhausted and a little sore. They’d found a small group of violent blooddrinkers in their mine. She hadn’t entered hand-to-hand combat, but it hadn’t been easy avoiding it and at the same time watching Connor and her friends battling a bunch of hissing, growling, psychotic vampires who wanted to kill them all.
Slowly, her team gathered around her plus a few of the horde who’d agreed to join their ranks and fight the good fight. Connor. Lukas. Caleb. The rest of the pit vampires. Eventually, every one of them stood bruising and or bleeding in the sand.
Everyone except her vampire dad.
“Where’s Maks?” she asked the group at large.
Some grumblings, but no definitive answers.
She stared directly at Anastasia and then Daniel. “You were with him. Where is he?”
“He was ahead of us,” Daniel began to explain. “But—”
“We were attacked,” Anastasia interrupted. “We killed the vamp, but not before he took Maks out.” She glanced away. “Sorry.”
“He’s dead?” Ali burst out. Just like that? She looked to Connor for clarification. This was supposed to be a tough fight, but they were all expected to come home in one piece. Her sort-of father was not supposed to die tonight.
“Where is he?” Connor demanded. “We don’t leave people behind.”
“The tunnels,” Anastasia stuttered, “were like a maze. I’m not… I don’t remember.”
Lukas stepped up next to Connor. “No worries. We’ll find him.” He tapped on his phone. “Roz had me put trackers in all our gear so we could find everyone afterwards.” After a moment of searching, he said, “Follow me.”
Ali waited for Anastasia to join the group, and then fell in step behind her.
Lukas led them down a sloping, muddy tunnel wide enough for four of them to walk abreast. At the very end, he teetered at the lip of a crevasse.
“He’s down there,” Lukas said, his voice jacking up with concern. He put his phone away and turned on a flashlight, directing the beam into the hole. “I can’t see the bottom.”
“I’ve got rope, if you’re sure,” Connor said.
“I’m one hundred percent sure.”
“Then hold an end, will you?”
Ali didn’t like the idea of Connor going into a hole in the ground, but if Maks was down there, she needed to know whether he was alive or not.
She wouldn’t say she felt they had a father daughter relationship, or even whether she wanted one, but she definitely cared about him. Which was a seriously uncomfortable position for her to be in. He’d been an awful human being for so long, she wondered if he was capable of normal healthy interaction.
But what Violet had said about Maks being just as much a victim of the horde as she’d been had stuck with her. If it weren’t for Oleksander and the Four Sons, how differently would Maks’ life have turned out?
While everyone else preoccupied themselves with lowering Connor safely into the pit, Anastasia made a move to duck out unseen. Ali stepped into her path and pulled a handgun. Connor had insisted she carry one, and now she was grateful to have it.
“Don’t move another inch,” Ali warned. “You did something to Maks, and you’re not going to get away with it.”
“Are you insane?” Anastasia said. “First off, I’m not afraid of a human chick with a gun. Second, why are you protecting him? He’s evil. He deserves to suffer. Actually torture would be too easy for a guy like Maksim Volk.”
“That’s not up to you,” Ali said, starting to glow. She didn’t like the idea of popping in a narrow mine tunnel that smelled of rot and sulfur, but she didn’t take kindly to people insulting her friend. Which, in a weird way, Maks had become. Dead or alive, Ali was taking him home. “He’s a part of our team. He made the same deal you did. He deserves a fresh start.” Her glow intensified, illuminating the long tunnel with pink light. “Are you ready for all your sins to be counted? Cause I don’t think you are.”
“Pull him up!” Lukas shouted, taking lead position on the rope. The others filed in after him and helped drag Connor out of the pit. “He’s got something.”
“Lukas?” Ali called. “Watch this one. I want to help.”
The shifter growled at Anastasia. “Yep.”
Caleb reached down to haul Connor out of the pit.
“Take him first,” Connor’s voice echoed.
A muddy and gasping Maksim Volk flopped onto the ground at the lip of the shaft. “Where’s that blood-sucking bitch?” he demanded, his fingers digging into the earth. “I’ll…I’ll…”
While he caught his breath, Ali laid a calming hand upon his mud-caked shoulder. “Are you hurt?”
Maks caught sight of Anastasia through the crowd. Slowly, with obvious effort, he stood and pulled his shoulders back. Ali didn’t see the stone in his hand until he threw it overhand with the speed of a professional pitcher. Faster, even.
It happened so quickly, by the time Ali spun to locate Anastasia, she was already collapsing against the wall of the tunnel. With an ungraceful jerk of her limbs, she rolled face down into the dirt.
“Jesus,” someone swore.
“What the hell?” another voice chimed in.
“She’s not dead,” Maks grumbled, swaying into Connor. “She’s lucky I’m turning over a new leaf.”
Connor grabbed Maks by the shirt to keep him on his feet. “You need me to carry you, sleeping beauty?”
Maks hissed something with an F and a you involved.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ali said, standing and wiping uselessly at her muddy pants, her skin fading to its natural color.
“Agreed.” Connor slung Maks over one shoulder.
Ali expected a struggle from the vampire warlord, but there was no fight. He hung limply over Connor’s back, and they all filed out of the mine the way they’d come. As he passed Anastasia, Caleb lifted her wrist and dragged her out behind them.
At the threshold, Ali added, “Lukas, would you do the honors?”
Lukas plucked a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the mouth of the cave. It blew with a belch of gray-brown smoke, completely sealing the entrance.
#
Violet rolled from one side of the king-sized bed to the other—bored and ready to climb out of her skin.
They should be back by now.
She reached for her phone on the bedside table and re-read her and Roz’s last exchange.
Everyone’s here at the cabin. No losses.
Maks?
Injured.
The next three messages were repeated pleas from Violet for more information, but Roz hadn’t responded.
So, Violet waited. Long ago, she’
d put Jackson to bed and exhausted her patience for reading. She wasn’t sure how long she could stay awake, but she’d try as long as it took to know Maks was safe.
Sometime after one, Violet lay on her side and opened her reading app once more.
The outer door of the suite banged open, and Violet sat straight up in bed. Maks stumbled into the bedroom covered in dried mud, wearing a single boot.
“Maks?” she hissed, scooting to the edge of the mattress. “Are you hurt?” He closed the door and fell onto the bed beside her. Violet scrambled to turn on the nearest lamp.
He winced at the sudden light.
Violet ran her eyes from the dried blood streaking his hairline to the ragged slashes in his grimy clothing. Though it appeared he’d attempted to clean his face and hands before making his way upstairs.
“I fell down a mine shaft,” he said, his eyes closed. “Or rather, I was thrown down a mine shaft.”
“By who?” She glanced at the door, half a mind to go after the person responsible. “Are they here?”
He smiled, despite the probable concussion. “Maybe Connor is rubbing off on me after all. I let the culprit live.”
“One of the pit vampires?” she guessed. Then, not waiting for an answer, she asked, “Was it Caleb?” That bastard was scary.
“Funnily enough,” he answered, “it was Anastasia.”
“I can’t even think which one she is.”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “She blended into the wallpaper perfectly, and I nearly lost my head on a rock.”
“Are you okay? Really?” Violet’s voice softened as his breathing grew more ragged. He might have cracked a few ribs.
“I believe so.”
Facedown, his eyes closed, he seemed appallingly vulnerable. He didn’t come around until her bare wrist brushed the tip of his nose.
“Drink from me.”
He hid his face in the comforter. “No.”
She poked him in the ribs, confirming he had, at the very least, a fracture when he clenched his jaws to hold back any sound of pain.
“That’s why you need to,” she argued.
“There’s blood in the fridge,” he said, tensing to rise.
She restrained him with a tiny hand on the center of his bruised and battered chest. “Please, I want you to. Don’t you…” Maybe she’d pushed him too far. Maybe he didn’t enjoy her blood. Too many bad memories.
