Turning away from them, Ronan didn’t look back as he followed Joseph out the door. The hunter woman was no concern of his; her relatives in the alley were.
CHAPTER 4
Ronan stepped into the alley, his eyes and ears attuned to his environment as he searched for Joseph and the hunters. Garbage pushed up the lids of the dumpsters lining the brick wall of the buildings across from him. The refuse flowing over the sides of the dumpsters helped to mask Joseph’s scent.
Declan’s and Killean’s booted feet thudded on the concrete behind Ronan as he turned to the left and started walking that way. A few lazy snowflakes spiraled from the sky. The club was close enough to the ocean that a shift in the wind brought the briny scent of low tide on the air with it. The alley was unnaturally silent; the predators lurking amid it had scared off the rats who resided within.
The end of his coat beat against his calves as the alley split off and he continued down another corridor. Tucked within the inner pockets of his coat were a couple of stakes and a small crossbow. However, he mostly relied on his hands and his fangs when in battle and didn’t like to weigh himself down with weapons. He also didn’t like to deny himself the pleasure of an up-close and personal kill. It was what kept the demon in him at bay after all.
He’d avoid killing the hunters if he could. He didn’t want to bear the stench of garbage and the increased vulnerability to the sun that their deaths would bring him. The hunters may not be entirely human, but their blood staining a vampire’s hands had the same effect a human’s did.
Although the hunters wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter any of them, he didn’t consider them his enemy, not completely. They were more of a nuisance that sometimes had to be stomped. The hunters meant well, but they didn’t know the difference between the vampires who killed humans for amusement and those who didn’t.
They’ve never known the difference, Ronan thought bitterly.
The hunters had killed many Savage vampires over the years, but they’d also destroyed some of the good ones. Thankfully, they hadn’t killed as many of the good ones as they had Savages. Vampires who didn’t kill tended to stay off their radar. They led peaceful lives, and unlike the Savages, they didn’t draw attention to themselves by leaving a trail of bodies or missing people behind them.
Ronan turned another corner, stopping instantly when he spotted Joseph at the end of the alley. Joseph stood before a ten-foot-high brick wall, studying the blockade before him. More garbage than before overflowed the dumpsters and spilled onto the asphalt. Most of the bags had been torn open and picked through by the animal scavengers and probably some humans.
Ronan clenched and unclenched his hands as he studied his old ally. Joseph could have easily cleared the wall and been out of here by now, so why did he remain?
Declan and Killean halted beside him as Joseph glanced over his shoulder at them. The grin that split his face revealed his lethal fangs as he turned to face them. The hazel of Joseph’s eyes briefly flickered through the red encompassing them as he gave a come-and-get-it gesture with his hands.
“Something’s not right here,” Ronan murmured to the others. “He’s trying to set us up for something.”
“What though?” Declan inquired.
“I don’t know, but stay alert.”
Declan and Killean spread out to the sides of him as the three of them prowled down the alley. Ronan didn’t know why Joseph had chosen to stay, but he wasn’t going to rush him until he knew what the Savage vampire had up his sleeves.
They had to approach this cautiously, but in his head, he heard the seconds of a clock ticking away. When they exited the club, the hunters must have gone the other way in the alley, but they would come this way eventually. They had to take Joseph down before the hunters arrived on the scene.
At one time, Ronan’s body would have been alive with the thrill of the impending kill. Now he experienced no excitement as he closed in on the fallen Defender. Joseph’s elongated canines sliced his bottom lip, and the scent of garbage grew stronger as blood trickled down his chin from the gash.
Joseph crouched down before launching himself at Ronan’s chest. It was a move Joseph never would have made before becoming Savage, but the increased strength he’d experienced with his kills made him far more brazen. Despite that increased strength, Ronan had no fear Joseph could take him down. It would take far more than Joseph alone to do so.
Ronan swung out at him, catching him squarely beneath the jaw and flinging him into one of the dumpsters. Metal dented with a loud bang. Garbage spewed onto the ground and rats screeched as they scattered into the gloomy recesses of the alley. Joseph came up spitting blood as he launched off the dumpster.
“So you’re going to kill me now? You’re going to kill one of your own?” Joseph inquired. “So much for loyalty, hey, Ronan?”
Ronan circled him as Joseph moved toward the wall and Declan and Killean closed in on him. “You’re not one of us anymore, Joseph,” Ronan replied.
“You have no right to judge me. You’re closer to the edge than I ever was.”
Ronan didn’t flinch at the assessment; it was true after all.
“Obviously not,” Declan replied, “considering you’re the one we’re hunting.”
Hatred twisted Joseph’s features; Declan grinned at him in return. Joseph snarled, but this time instead of coming for Ronan, he charged straight at Declan whose smile only widened as he braced himself for Joseph’s attack. Joseph lowered his shoulder and crashed into Declan, sending him reeling into the wall.
Declan didn’t go down beneath Joseph. Instead, he clasped his hands together and drove them into Joseph’s back. Joseph grunted as he wrapped his arms around Declan’s waist, lifted him up, and bashed him into the wall again. Declan swung an uppercut that broke Joseph’s hold on him and staggered Joseph back a few feet.
Before he could fully recover, Ronan grabbed Joseph by the collar of his shirt and yanked him back. His hand encircled his throat, crushing Joseph’s windpipe as he pinned him to the wall. Pulling his arm back, Ronan fisted his hand in preparation to drive it through Joseph’s chest and end this.
“Ronan!” Killean’s shout alerted him to the threat he’d missed while focused on the kill.
A whistling reached him in time for him to turn to the side, but not in time to avoid the bolt completely. A piercing pain shot through his shoulder as the weapon impaled him from behind. Stumbling slightly forward, he nearly lost his grip on Joseph as a burning sensation spread through the thick muscle of his shoulder. Turning his head, he spotted three of the hunters at the other end of the alley. The black-haired one had an empty crossbow aimed at him.
Joseph grabbed the end of the bolt and twisted it. Ronan involuntarily released his hold on him when numbness spread through his shoulder. Joseph’s hands flew to his brutalized throat. Broken sounds issued from him as he clawed at his flesh and his eyes rolled in his head. Ronan had no idea what he was trying to say, and he didn’t care.
“Ronan!”
Declan’s shout enabled him to dodge the next arrow one of the other hunters fired at him, an arrow aimed straight at his heart. He plucked the arrow from the air and shattered it in his fingers before leveling the hunters with a murderous stare. Two of them took a step away from him, but the black-haired one held his ground as he focused on Joseph.
Without warning, the black-haired hunter barreled down the alley with his shoulder lowered. He plowed into Joseph, running him backward as he kept his shoulder buried in Joseph’s sternum. Joseph and the hunter tumbled into the dumpsters. Garbage spilled over them, momentarily burying them both beneath a wave of trash.
Ronan didn’t move as Joseph and the hunter thrashed on the ground. He wasn’t the only one startled by the uncharacteristically reckless display from a hunter. Declan and Killean remained unmoving as the hunter punched Joseph with enough force to crack a cheekbone. The next blow he delivered shattered Joseph’s nose. Blood splattered Joseph’s shirt and sprayed onto
the concrete within inches of Ronan’s boots.
He’d never seen a hunter behave like this. Whenever he’d encountered them, they’d always been methodical and careful as they worked together. They never let their emotions rule them or broke ranks. Even the hunter’s partners were thrown off as they had yet to attempt moving in for their own kills.
The hunters didn’t remain stunned into immobility for long. While what Ronan assumed was their leader continued to pummel Joseph, the other two inched forward. One held a crossbow at the ready, its arrow aimed straight at Declan’s heart. The other trained a 9mm on Killean. Unless the gun was loaded with wooden bullets, it wouldn’t kill them. However, it would still hurt them enough to slow them down and make it easier for them to be killed.
The one holding the crossbow kept glancing between Ronan and Declan, but the hunter didn’t aim the crossbow at him again. The two remaining hunters must have decided Ronan’s injury didn’t make him much of a threat. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Ronan scanned the alley behind them, but the woman and the other hunter they’d been with were nowhere to be seen.
He turned his attention back to the ugly situation they now faced. The black-haired hunter was dragging Joseph’s beaten form up behind him as he climbed to his feet.
At one time, seeing a fellow Defender so broken and bruised would have enraged him, but Joseph wasn’t one of them anymore. Ronan couldn’t help feeling a grudging admiration for the damage the hunter had inflicted on the Savage. If it had been any other Savage, Ronan would have walked away and allowed the hunters to have them, but he had to make sure Joseph died this night. The fallen Defender knew far too many of their secrets to risk him continuing to live.
Ronan’s lips skimmed back when the black-haired hunter’s azure eyes fell on him. At about six four, the hunter was a good four inches taller than him, and lean in build.
“This doesn’t have to happen,” Ronan said. “We don’t have to fight each other. Give us Joseph and walk away.”
The hunter bared his teeth and his hand clamped down on Joseph’s already crushed throat. Joseph’s head lulled forward on his shoulders before it snapped up. The black-haired hunter’s eyes were full of antipathy as they held Ronan’s. He didn’t have to say a word; Ronan knew the real fight was about to begin.
Signaling Declan and Killean, he moved to the side, putting himself in a better position to go after the hunter with the crossbow. Ronan charged at him just as the black-haired hunter’s command to kill them rang through the air.
The hunter holding the crossbow caught his charge out of the corner of his eye. Startled, he spun toward Ronan, but he was too late. Grabbing the end of the bow, Ronan ripped it from the hunter’s hands. He drove a fist into the man’s nose, shattering it before he shoved the hunter into a dumpster.
A gunshot rang out. Killean’s grunt could be heard over the ensuing echo of the shot as it reverberated off the brick walls surrounding them. Another shot fired, but this time it cracked off brick. Either Killean or Declan had managed to subdue the hunter with the gun.
CHAPTER 5
“What were you thinking coming here?” Logan demanded when she crept forward to stand at his side within the club.
Kadence barely glanced at him before focusing on the doorway Nathan and the others had exited through. Her hand slid to the stake in the inner pocket of her coat. “I should be out there,” she whispered.
Logan grasped her shoulders, spinning her to face him. Kadence blinked at him, startled by the harshness of his handsome face as he glared at her. “You have no business being here at all!” he barked at her.
“You have no business telling me what to do!”
“I have every right to tell you what to do. We’re to be married soon, and you’ve put yourself, your brother, and our entire way of life at risk by coming here. I will not have it!”
The one thing her instructors had always hated most about her was her willful streak, but she wouldn’t be ordered around by anyone. Not her father, not her brother, and certainly not the man who she had no choice about marrying.
“I will not have you talking to me in such a way,” she grated from between her teeth. “We may be getting married, but no one will order me around, Logan. Not even my husband.”
She jerked out of his grasp and gave him a scathing glance before focusing on the door again. Around them, people danced and swayed, the lights flashed over the walls and floor, but she tuned it all out to focus on hearing anything from the outside world. Her father’s line of hunters had always been the strongest; it was why their line had been the leader of the hunters since the beginning. She and Nathan were faster and stronger than the others, their senses more honed.
Because she was a woman, she would not have been allowed to lead even if she were the only living descendent, but she carried the strength of that line in her blood. If Nathan were killed before he could produce an heir, her husband would lead the hunters until she produced a male heir who would one day take control. If she had only a female child, her daughter would face the same fate. Only three times in their history had someone outside of their line been a leader until an heir was born.
“I am only trying to keep you safe,” Logan said.
He broke her concentration on the outside when he rested his hand on her shoulder. His finger slid up to stroke her cheek. She resisted cringing away from the tender touch. She loved Logan as a friend, she always had and always would, but she was well aware his feelings for her were more than friendly.
He clasped his hand possessively around her nape, drawing her a step closer. Kadence stiffened beneath his touch, but it was something she would have to get used to if she were going to survive her marriage to him.
Her stomach rolled at the thought of their wedding night, and the many nights that would follow, before she blocked it out. If she pondered it too much, she would never make it through the wedding ceremony, never mind the next hundred and fifty or so years they could possibly be married, if Logan didn’t get killed on a hunt.
A gunshot from outside barely registered through the music, but she knew what she’d heard. Plunging forward, she slammed into the bar on the door and shoved it open. The cold air robbed her breath as the second gunshot sounded.
Logan grabbed her arm, pushing her back toward the club. “Get inside!”
Kadence staggered backward, but she didn’t turn toward the closing door. Instead, she followed Logan down the alley, running as fast as her legs would carry her. One vampire versus three hunters, her brother and the others should have easily taken him down. Yet, she could hear the sounds of fists hitting flesh, the twang of a bolt firing, and the scuffle of numerous feet from deeper within the alley.
Something had gone wrong.
Not my brother, please not my brother too. She couldn’t handle it if she lost her father and Nathan.
Her brother was the only family she had left. Nathan wouldn’t stand in the way of her marriage; as the leader, he would follow tradition, no matter how unhappy it made her. However, he would be there for her to lean on when she needed it. She hadn’t complained to him about her marriage—she couldn’t when he had enough weighing on him right now—but she knew he was aware she wasn’t happy about it.
Just as she knew that being the newly appointed leader wasn’t something he wanted, though he’d never said it to her. As twins, they had always been close. They’d been closer when they were younger, before Nathan went into training and she was forced to learn how to be the perfect wife and mother. They followed separate courses in life, but he’d still been her best friend over the years, her rock.
Legs aching, lungs straining for air, Kadence flew around a corner of the alley and skidded to a halt. The alley reeked of the coppery scent of fresh blood and garbage. Bile rolled up her throat, and it took all she had to keep from vomiting. The last time she had smelled blood so strongly…
Memories of her father’s broken body tried to drag her under before she lock
ed them away.
She found Nathan instantly, unharmed and holding the vampire in his grasp. Hatred blurred her vision as she gazed at the creature who had murdered her father and torn her life apart. The vamp was beaten and bloody, and though she scented him on the air, it was not his odor filling her nostrils now. This scent was different, spicier, and held no hint of the evil pouring from the vamp.
Her eyes latched onto a heavily muscled man shoving Asher aside. Blood poured from Asher’s broken nose, but it wasn’t his blood she smelled either. It was the blood of the man who had shoved Asher away. A man with lethal fangs fully extended and an overwhelming aura of power emanating from him.
Disbelief screamed through her as she recognized him as the man who had been standing on the balcony watching her. The man who had finally made her understand some of what she’d read in those romance novels. A man who was not a man at all, but one of the twisted freaks who thrived on killing.
How could his blood smell like that? All vampires smelled like rot! Over the years, the male hunters had captured some vampires and brought them to the stronghold for training purposes. They’d allowed the women of the camp to get close enough to detect the stench vampires emitted. It was a smell she would never forget.
As this vamp turned toward her, she saw the bolt protruding from his shoulder and the blood oozing from the puncture. His coat was pushed back, his black shirt ripped open to expose a slash of bronzed flesh across his broad chest.
His sunglasses remained in place, but she knew he watched her. Molten lava spread through her veins as those covered eyes exposed her and ripped her soul bare. He stared into her in a way no other ever had. Kadence shuddered while her heart leapt into her throat. Despite the fangs and the fact he was a creature she’d been born to hate, she couldn’t deny her pull toward him.
Eternally Bound (The Alliance, Book 1) Page 3
