As they walked, he couldn’t help but examine her with a more critical eye. Was this really what he’d believed would one day make him happy? No one could deny Simone was beautiful, more so than Vicky. She was sweet and kind and everything she was raised to be. She would be the perfect wife of a hunter leader.
And he felt zero desire for her. He’d never believed he would, but he found himself wanting to be annoyed, excited, challenged, and tormented by a woman. He desired a shorter woman with pale blonde hair and eyes the color of an emerald. A woman he could never have.
Vicky was the exact opposite of the wife he’d always imagined for himself, but he found himself wondering what it would be like to have her by his side. His shoulders slumped when he realized it would be anarchy as most of the hunters would riot against a vampire in their midst.
So absorbed in thoughts of Vicky, he hadn’t realized Simone was still speaking. Focus, he told himself.
“I’m hoping the new sewing room is completed soon,” Simone was saying. “I’ve kept up on all mine and mother’s mending, but I’d like to make some new clothes, and the trailer is too cramped to take on such a project with all the other ones I have going on.”
“What other projects are those?” he asked.
“Oh, you know, a bit of this and that,” she replied. “I’m trying to grow my own herb garden, so I don’t always have to go to the greenhouse for them. My sketches are also starting to progress, and, of course, mother loves to play her cello, but it does take up a bit of room.”
“Of course,” he murmured as he pondered what Vicky was doing now.
He should find someone to take his place on the hunt tonight so he could make sure she remained safe in the sewers, but he couldn’t neglect his duties.
“Nathan?”
He blinked, and his gaze shot back to Simone. Her mouth pursed as she stared questioningly at him. “I’m sorry, Simone, my mind wandered.”
“No, I’m sorry. You have much to deal with; I shouldn’t have taken up your time. Please, forgive me.”
Something sick coiled in his stomach. No, this wasn’t what he preferred from a woman at all. It wasn’t Simone’s fault she was like this. This was how she’d been bred and raised, but he sought something other than this hideous self-deprecation from her.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he replied. “I don’t have so much on my mind that I can’t listen to you, please continue.”
She blushed prettily as she ducked her head. Nathan almost groaned.
“Well, I was saying our book collection also takes up a fair amount of room in our trailer,” Simone said.
“You are extremely well-read.”
“I do try to be,” she replied. “But others are much better read than me.”
Nathan fought the urge to shake some emotion into her. To make her react with something other than a smile and humility. He’d never seen her angry, never seen her cry. Did she possess those feelings? She must, but the restraint she had over herself kept those emotions walled safely away.
What would she be like in bed after their wedding? Her beauty was enough to arouse a saint, but what would she be like in the heat of the moment?
He had the sinking suspicion she would smile and endure her wifely duties all while planning their next meal.
Nathan rubbed at the dull pounding starting in his temples.
“Have you spoken with Kadence lately?” Simone inquired.
Though they were complete opposites, Simone was Kadence’s closest friend while his sister lived in the stronghold. “I called her this morning,” he said.
“How is she?”
For the first time, he detected some excitement in Simone’s voice. Was there more to her than this automaton she presented to the world?
“She’s doing well,” he said.
“Is she still happy?”
“Very happy.”
“That’s wonderful,” Simone sighed and adjusted her basket.
“Let me,” he offered and took the basket from her.
She released it to him, and they continued walking to her trailer. “She was so unhappy before.”
“She was,” he agreed.
“I thought she’d get herself killed when she fled the stronghold, and then to learn she was in the hands of vampires.” She shuddered. “I can’t believe she’s actually with one of those beasts as well as happy with him.”
You have no idea how alluring one of those beasts can be. “She is one of those beasts now,” Nathan reminded her.
“I meant no offense. Please—”
“None was taken,” he interrupted before she could apologize again.
Simone ducked her head, and Nathan mentally kicked himself in the ass for being so brusque with her.
“Here we are,” he said when they arrived at her trailer. Taking her delicate hand, he helped her climb the stairs.
Pushing open the door, she held it with her foot as she turned to take the basket from him. “Kadence and I were good friends, but we are very different.”
“You are,” he agreed.
“I will make an excellent wife, Nathan.” Her face matched her tomatoes before she ducked into the trailer and closed the door.
Too bad it wouldn’t be for someone else. Turning away from the trailer, he headed back to the main house but was intercepted by Asher.
“Are you ready to go?” Asher asked him.
Nathan glanced at the setting sun and nodded. He hoped they encountered a lot of Savages tonight; he was in the mood to kill.
• • •
Vicky almost hit the ignore button on her phone when she saw the call coming in was from her sister Abby. Instead, she braced herself and answered it. “Vicky’s morgue; you stake ’em, we bake ’em.”
Just as she’d hoped, Abby chuckled on the other end. “Hilarious.”
“You know it makes you miss me.”
“Like a hole in the head.”
“Oh, come on now, when I took an unscheduled vaca, you missed me so much you hunted me down with that arrogant mate of yours.”
“I didn’t hunt you down because I missed you,” Abby lied.
“I notice you didn’t deny Brian’s arrogant.”
“I’m not a liar.”
Vicky laughed and settled onto the sumptuous couch in the living room of her suite. “So how are things in Byrne-land?”
“Same as always….”
“Chaotic,” they both said at the same time.
“You would thoroughly enjoy seeing how much fun our younger siblings take in torturing Brian, especially Willow. I think she’s trying to push him into choking her.”
“Do you think he will?”
“He might, and I wouldn’t blame him.”
Vicky started twirling a strand of hair around her index finger. She suspected her twin was doing the same thing on the other end of the line. “Neither would I. How does everyone like Maggie?”
Her brother Aiden’s mate, Maggie, was the newest member of their family.
“What do you think?” Abby asked.
“They’re as infatuated as Aiden.”
“You would be correct. How are things there?”
“Amazing,” Vicky replied, careful to keep her tone light. If anyone could detect the slightest difference in her demeanor, it was Abby. “I’m checked into the finest hotel in the city, enjoying room service, the spa, and tanning myself to perfection.”
“Sounds like a grand old time.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, some of the room service guys are cute. I might have to sample one of them the next time they bring me champagne.”
Silence met this statement, and Vicky wondered if she’d pushed too far. She hadn’t fed on a human since she’d killed that woman, preferring to use blood bags, and Abby knew this.
“You sure you’re okay?” Abby asked.
Yep, she’d pushed it too far. If she wasn’t careful, Abby would be in the car within an hour and on her way back. That meant she’d h
ave watchdogs again and no time with Nathan.
“I’m fine. Perhaps a little bored, but fine. Don’t worry about me so much, Abs, it will give you wrinkles.”
Abby laughed. “I can’t help it.”
“I know, but I’m good, really.”
“Why don’t you return to Ronan’s place if you’re bored,” Abby suggested.
“I will soon, but I’m not ready to give up all this pampering quite yet.”
“Okay.”
They spoke for a few minutes before Abby passed her phone off to their mother. Vicky gritted her teeth and made it through the conversation without feeling exceedingly guilty or like the most hideous child in the world, though she was most certainly the worst Byrne child.
The phone was passed to every member of her family, all their mates, her adopted uncles the Stooges, and then her nieces and nephews. Vicky was exhausted by the time they were done talking, and she hung up, but she felt confident no one would rush back anytime soon.
Rising, she removed her coat from the hook by the door and left to meet Duncan.
CHAPTER 20
At nine, they met Declan and Lucien at a neutral, designated spot. Declan smiled and pulled a lollipop from his mouth. “Howdy,” he greeted before tossing the half-finished candy over his shoulder.
Beside him, Lucien grunted. Lucien’s eyes were chips of black ice as they moved from Nathan to Asher and back again. Nathan stared back at him.
“Since you’ve proven yourselves capable of holding your own, I expect you won’t get us killed tonight,” Lucien said as he ran a hand through his sandy blond hair.
“Since I’ve saved your ass before, I expect I’ll have to do the same again tonight,” Nathan replied and turned dismissively away from Lucien’s scowl.
Declan’s gray eyes were the color of liquid silver when he laughed and slapped Lucien on the shoulder. “He got you there, my friend.”
“Asshole,” Lucien muttered and shrugged Declan’s hand away.
“Where should we go?” Asher asked.
“We haven’t hit the clubs in a while,” Declan said.
Nathan nodded, though the last thing he wanted was to go into the human clubs; he despised the places.
Half an hour later, he found himself standing on the side of a packed dance floor with Lucien at his side. Across the way, Declan and Asher weaved through the crowd and toward the bar. They weren’t going for drinks but searching for Savages.
“We used to encounter at least one Savage a week hunting the clubs,” Nathan said.
“So did we,” Lucien murmured as he folded his thick arms over his chest and surveyed the crowd.
“Joseph’s telling his followers to stay out of the clubs,” Nathan stated. “To avoid us.”
Lucien looked reluctant to join in a conversation with him, but eventually he replied, “The Savages have to be feeding and killing somewhere.”
“If they’re taking people and vampires to turn into Savages, they could be feeding on their captives.” His teeth ground together as his words reminded him of what Vicky endured.
“For a Savage, the drive to kill can’t be denied. Maybe they don’t have to kill every night, but they wouldn’t be satisfied with simply feeding for too long. They’d resent it and probably turn on Joseph for trying to suppress them.”
Nathan studied the crowd as he pondered Lucien’s words. “There’s no way Joseph could have control of the Savage’s minds and keep them in line that way?”
“Ronan doesn’t have the kind of power it would take to control a large number of minds for long; Joseph definitely doesn’t have it. Even if he had other vampires helping him keep the Savages under control, it would be too draining on them to do it for an extended length of time. He might be controlling some of the newest recruits, or those who resist him the most, but not once they become Savages. There would be no need for him to do so after that.”
“No vampire has ever come back from being a Savage?”
“None of us have ever heard of it happening. The descent into Savagery is a slippery slope that can’t be climbed again.”
“Then where is he getting people for the Savages to kill?”
Was Vicky onto something in her underground world? Was she even now walking into a nest of Savages down there? Removing his phone from his pocket, he called her, but she didn’t pick up. He forced himself to remain calm as he put his phone away.
“We dealt Joseph a large blow when we destroyed the Savages in the warehouse Kadence led us to,” he said to distract himself from his concern over Vicky.
“We assumed Joseph had more establishments like the warehouse because it’s better to be prepared for the worst. And a possibly large number of growing Savages out there would be the worst, but that place might have been his only establishment.”
“So, it’s possible we haven’t encountered many Savages recently because he’s working to reestablish his army.”
“Yes. Where Joseph’s getting those people and vampires from would be a good question to answer,” Lucien said. “There’s been a small increase in missing vampires, but many vamps up and leave somewhere without any notice to anyone. I believe Joseph is responsible for at least some of the missing, but not all.”
“What if Joseph has moved? What if he’s gone somewhere else to locate recruits?”
“We’ve debated this amongst ourselves,” Lucien admitted. “But Joseph is so hell-bent on destroying Ronan, none of us see him going far.”
When Nathan turned his attention back to the crowd, the familiar sense of time slowing came over him. The frenzied dancing of the humans eased until it became more like they were performing the robot.
All her life, Kadence had always known things. Her transition into a vampire had unlocked some deeper power within her laid dormant until Ronan’s blood altered her hunter DNA and her knowing had become flashes of premonitions, or things guiding her places.
All his life, there were times when the world around him slowed. Times when everything became distinct in a way it hadn’t been only seconds before. The odd phenomena had helped him eliminate his opponents in more than a few battles.
He’d told no one about his odd episodes; he didn’t know how to explain it, but as the dancers slowed, a new and far more disturbing idea occurred to him.
“What if the Savages really aren’t killing as much as they normally would?” he asked as the fast-paced rhythm of the world resumed.
“There’s no way Joseph could curb their appetites. I’m a purebred vampire, I know how difficult it is to control mine, and the Savages have embraced the darkness. They won’t be denied,” Lucien insisted.
“But what if he’s given them the promise of something bigger to keep them under control?”
“Like what?”
Nathan ran a hand through his hair as he contemplated this. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted.
“I don’t think there’s anything big enough to supplant a Savage’s bloodlust.”
“But what if there is, and Joseph is using it to control them?”
“Then we’re probably fucked.”
Pulling out his phone, Nathan texted Vicky. It didn’t matter that they owed each other nothing, he had to know she was okay.
Like Lucien, he didn’t know what Joseph could offer a Savage to keep their murderous impulses leashed, but he couldn’t shake the feeling something big loomed on the horizon. Something that would shatter all their worlds.
• • •
Vicky followed Duncan through the tunnels, alternating her beam from the ground to the gloom ahead. He’d taken her on such a twisted route that she had no idea where they were. Judging by the increasing number of tree roots poking through the walls, they’d moved closer to the surface.
“This group is smaller,” Duncan said. “It’s only a few young women who had enough of being abused on the streets. They go above to get supplies, but they’re mostly subterranean.”
Vicky flashed her light overhead when a r
ipple of movement caught her attention. A moth fluttered against the concrete before diving toward her beam.
Definitely closer to the surface.
“It’s Duncan!” he suddenly called out. “I’m coming closer!”
Vicky saw nothing ahead to warrant such a warning. Sniffing the air, she detected the faint hint of body odor beneath the growing aroma of saltwater. Then she realized that yes, they were closer to the surface, and this section of pipe ran beneath the sea.
She lifted her beam to the ceiling again, running it over the cracks there. She gulped when she saw beads of water forming on some of the fissures. Many of those beads were fattening into drops, and as she watched, one let go to plop onto her boot.
Maybe a cave-in wouldn’t kill her, but she wasn’t in the mood to be swept out to sea. Lowering the beam, she resolved not to look at the ceiling again. It wouldn’t do her any good to learn if the cracks became worse the further they ventured.
Pressure built in her chest when it hit her that she could be as trapped here as she’d been in the warehouse. Fighting the impulse to turn and bolt, she stopped and bent over to rest her hands on her knees.
You’re not there anymore! She closed her eyes and inhaled a tremulous breath as she cursed this weakness. It had been weeks since she experienced this crushing sense of panic over her captivity, but she couldn’t shake it.
“You okay?” Duncan asked and rested his hand on her shoulder.
Vicky involuntarily flinched from him. His hand fell away, but she didn’t worry her reaction would offend him. She’d told him what happened to her; he knew whatever was happening to her was because there was something wrong with her and not him.
“You’ll get through this if you just take it one step at a time,” he said. “It’s how all of us get through life, one foot in front of the other. Remember, you can only go forward in time, you can never go back.”
“Thanks, oh wise Gandalf,” she muttered.
Duncan chuckled. “My beard will never get that white.”
Vicky cracked a smile. “Jealous?”
“Yes.”
Inhaling another breath, Vicky stood and squared her shoulders. She would not let this weakness get the best of her. “Well, what are you waiting for?” she asked. “Carry on.”
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