by Anna Abner
Lukas glanced over his shoulder at the row of neatly packed rolling luggage next to the decrepit dresser that had seen better days. Like the 1960s. The bags belonged to his mother, his stepfather, and his little half-brother Oskar. Maybe it was macabre to keep their luggage, but it soothed him on hot, restless nights to catch their scents embedded upon their clothes and toiletries. As if they were still alive, just out of sight. Someday, he’d have to discard the bags. Toss them out or donate them. There was no family left in Stockholm who’d want them.
Lukas had been part of something positive and worthwhile once. He’d been important and valued. Now, he was unseen, invisible, and unimportant. Alone. But for the time being, he preferred it that way. He was too full of anger and pain to be good for other people right now. The rage was the fuel he needed to hunt vampires every night and spy on witches every day. If he eased up on the throttle, even a little, he feared he’d never find the vampires responsible for the murder of his family. He couldn’t calm down. Wouldn’t.
He grabbed a tennis ball off the bedside table and bounced it against the floor where it veered into the far wall, and right back into his hand. He repeated the move three or four more times. It helped keep the emotions at bay.
Twisting with the ball pulled at the curse on his ribs and renewed his irritation at all witches, Coven or otherwise. Roz may have helped him with the pain, but she was as manipulative and cruel as all the rest, she just hid it behind her perfect tits and big brown eyes. He reminded himself not to be fooled by her beauty or her raw sex appeal. She was a witch, and witches were evil.
He threw the ball at the wall, harder. Again. And again. Until it left half-moon divots in the plaster.
Chapter Seven
The human blood pulsing through Maks’ veins gave him the strength of ten men, maybe more. At last, he’d be done with the horde and free to be Ali’s dad again. If she’d have him.
Wiping blood from his chin, he returned to the uneven, rocky walls and climbed the mineshaft. He raised his head and shoulders above the lip before a tiny cold hand on his ankle stopped him in his tracks.
She pinched him. “Whatever happened to women and children first?”
Maks twisted and met his blood donor’s amber eyes, so cunning, so warm. He hadn’t felt warmth in a long time. In fact, a flashback of being strapped to a cold metal table for weeks at a time caught him upside the head, and he inwardly shivered. The army hadn’t been exactly kind in their treatment of the infected.
He dropped beside her with a splash.
“What is your name?” he asked, low and intense, for her ears only.
Slightly surprised, she said, “Violet.”
“Hm.” Violet with the amber eyes. “Pretty.” And then he stepped back, her hand dropped away, and whatever moment they’d shared vanished as the weak and trembling blood donors formed a line. Maks boosted each up with a toss onto the earth above. Finally, only he and Violet remained inside the pit.
“After you.” He gestured toward the jagged wall.
She raised her hands to go, but then changed her mind. “I hate you, Maksim Volk.”
Her fiery tone burned, but Maks was a professional pleaser. His condescending and smirking mask was so firmly positioned he couldn’t remember what it was like to be without it.
“I would expect nothing less,” he purred.
“Don’t give me that charming sociopath crap. You hurt me,” she continued. “You kept me prisoner, and you treated me like trash. For no good reason.”
True, all of it. He had no excuses.
“Doesn’t it bother you at all?” she asked.
Maks squelched the twisting of his stomach at her damning words and widened his smarmy smile. “Why would it bother me? Is a wolf bothered by the emotions of a rabbit?”
At her sharp intake of breath, he grasped her by the waist and threw her up toward freedom, not waiting for her reply or checking to make sure she landed unscathed. Her words cut too deeply and after everything he’d been through, he wasn’t strong enough to withstand any more of her censure.
Because she was right. He was a horrible person. A liar. A thief. A killer. But what she didn’t know was that it bothered him immensely. Losing Katya, losing Anya, living a hellish twenty years as a guinea pig for the US Army had shredded whatever remained of his soul. He didn’t want to hurt Violet or anyone else. He wanted peace and quiet and to close his eyes at night without suffering nightmares.
Quickly, he climbed the wall, leaping the last few feet and landing in a crouch upon the red earth.
The herd of human donors turned left toward the most obvious exit route, but Maks had been treated disrespectfully by both Damian and the remains of the Four Sons, not to mention Connor Beckett and Oleksander. He’d had enough. His hands fists, he swaggered for the largest meeting area and the last place he’d seen Sergei and his brothers.
Volk the Traitor. They had no idea how much shit he’d put up with in his life. He may be a traitor, but Oleksander had deserved everything he’d gotten and more.
As he stepped lightly through one tunnel after another, Maks found himself straining for the sound of Violet’s footsteps or a trace of her scent. Disgusted with his own weakness, he picked up the pace, leaving his blood donor behind. She’d escaped with the others. He’d never see her again, and it was for the best. Something about her wit and her amber eyes and the way her blood tingled on his tongue made her dangerous.
As he turned into a section of the cave with soaring ceilings, he found Sergei and some of the horde standing as if waiting for him.
Not a good sign.
“I expected you much sooner, pet,” Sergei greeted.
Whatever. Maks was done preening and bowing to assholes with overblown senses of self-importance. He walked straight toward Sergei, ducked a lazy grab, and swung his fist at the vampire’s jaw.
Sergei caught it, and with his other fist slugged Maks in the center of his chest with the strength of a battering ram. Stunned, his breath frozen in his lungs, Maks flew backwards and skidded across gritty earth, lying in a very ungraceful sprawl.
He couldn’t breathe. His heart wouldn’t beat. He was unable to move anything beyond an eye blink or a finger twitch.
He must restart his heart or he’d black out and most likely never wake up.
A memory of the year in his cell when his captors had done nothing but electrocute him returned. Stun guns, electro-convulsive therapy, jumper cables attached to a car battery, and torture with live wires. It had gone on and on, often leaving him feeling much the same—paralyzed and on the brink of death.
“Have I been too rough on you, pet?” Sergei stood over him looking fifteen feet tall and half as wide.
Sergei toed him with one oversized boot. That movement alone kick started Maks’ heart into an unhealthy rhythm. Maks inhaled in a shaky breath as his vision wavered, but all he could manage was a whistle. Something was wrong with his chest preventing him from drawing a full breath.
“Broke your sternum,” Sergei sighed, kneeling and running a blunt finger down the side of his face. “You were my brother’s faithful pet for years. Now, you’ll be mine. But I should warn you, I’m much rougher on my pets than my brother was.”
Maks found that hard to believe. Olek had killed his lieutenants with his bare hands, decapitated his followers, raped both male and female blood donors, killed for sport, and punished Maks until he could barely stand. If Sergei managed worse, it would be unfathomable evil.
He wheezed uncontrollably as he fought to breathe through the pain and fear.
“Sounds like you’re having trouble breathing.” Sergei ripped Maks’ shirt from his body. “Maybe this will help.” With an amused chuckle, Sergei drove the tip of his finger between two of his ribs. Deeper he pressed, tearing flesh and separating muscle until he punctured the left lung. The pressure forced Maks’ head back as blood pooled in his throat. He spasmed, unable to breathe, drowning in borrowed blood.
The finger wi
thdrew, and Maks vomited a gush of bright red, turning his chin just in time to keep from choking on it. He retched, impossible amounts of blood splashing onto the cold earth beneath him. Wave after wave of pain rolled through him until his vision clouded over.
“I wish more than anything to kill you,” Sergei continued, poking and prodding at his internal organs with his bloody fingers. “But I suspect you know exactly what happened to my brother and who is responsible. Don’t you?”
Maks couldn’t respond, all he could do was puke blood and gasp for any wisp of air that made it past his abused lungs and fractured sternum. Let Sergei read whatever he wanted into his involuntary responses.
His gaze swept the room, searching for the last two brothers. Were they additional threats or mere spectators? Stony faced, Ivan lit sticks of ancient dynamite from the days of the cowboys, lit one at a time, and sent them skidding down dark tunnels. Not all blew, but the ones that did rattled the walls and sent dust raining onto their heads.
Ilya stood against a wall, arms crossed, staring intently at Sergei’s back. Maks did not sense any assistance coming from him, though he didn’t sense any danger either.
“You withstood two decades of torture and never broke,” Sergei told Maks. “But maybe there’s something else to motivate you. Maybe one of these disgusting humans means something to you.”
Maks couldn’t look up long enough to see who entered, but he heard and smelled the group of blood donors he’d helped escape shuffle into the large room. Violet was among them. He didn’t know how he knew, he just sensed her. And it humiliated him for her to see him on his hands and knees puking blood, unable to stand, fight, or even speak.
“Some of your men tell me you favor one human over the rest.” Sergei shoved his fingers through Maks’ inky black hair and yanked him to his knees.
He swayed, blinking sluggishly, but he didn’t cry out. He didn’t whimper. He surely didn’t beg. Maks hadn’t cried in decades. He’d only survived so long by being colder, harder, and stronger than his brothers and sisters.
“Is it this one?” Sergei pointed at a man in the crowd and his brother Ivan abandoned his dynamite to grab the man by the face and drink him to death in ten seconds flat.
Maks refused to react, though he spotted her, a face in the middle of the group. She didn’t deserve to be there, let alone about to die. He should have been smarter. Been faster.
The dead human dropped to the hard-packed ground in a heap of pale white skin and dirty rags.
“No?” Sergei asked, gesturing to a woman. “How about her?”
With a grunt of pleasure, Ivan killed her too.
Maks slumped onto his heels, but Sergei yanked him back to his knees. “I know,” he growled. “Your favorite has your scent all over her.” He pointed into the crowd. “Bring her to me.”
It was her squeal of surprise and pain that roused Maks. Ivan dragged Violet by the throat across the ground and presented her to Sergei.
“Yes.” Sergei took a long breath in through his nose. “She’s the one.” His fingers tightened in Maks’ hair.
He’d lost the ability to speak. No matter how hard he tried, his throat was too bruised and swollen to allow speech. The one thing he was good at—talking his way out of trouble—had been stolen from him. Helpless, he watched the scene unfold.
“Have a taste, brother,” Sergei said.
Ivan bit into Violet’s throat, and Maks stiffened, but to show any emotion would only make the brothers hurt her worse.
“Delicious,” Ivan announced, blood frothing over his lips. “Do you want a taste?”
“I’d love one.”
Ivan passed Violet to Sergei who, one hand still restraining Maks, drank from the other side of her throat.
She was so close. Close enough to overwhelm his senses. Maks reached for her as if his hand was beyond his control, but before he could touch her to somehow reassure her, she was back beside Ivan and out of reach.
“Tell me,” Sergei asked into Maks’ ear, “is my brother alive?”
Maks shook his head a fraction.
“Then you’ll take me to my brother’s killer?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Maks bobbed his head once.
#
Roz hunched over The History of Witchcraft, breathing in the steam from her coffee, but not learning anything new. She pushed the book aside and opened A Magical Education, a memoir by a founding member of the Coven. Maybe if she read between the lines, there was helpful information to be found.
But thoughts of the shapeshifter continued to nag at her. Giving up trying to ignore him, she closed her book and powered on her laptop. She opened the two photos she’d snapped of his hex and arranged them side by side. Taking note of every detail, her eyes naturally wandered from the red and swollen X to the ripple of ribs along his flank. He had fine, blonde hair between his pecs and down his impressively chiseled abdomen. She imagined running her fingertips—
“What did the shifter say to you last night?” Connor asked, peering into the dining room at Roz’s mound of research materials.
For a moment, she floundered, but then remembered Connor couldn’t see her screen and didn’t know about her and Lukas’ impromptu spell casting in a café bathroom.
“He wanted me to fix his curse,” she said, closing her laptop. “But when I told him I wouldn’t do it for free, he split.”
Connor grunted. “I don’t like that guy. I hope we’ve seen the last of him. Look, we did the charitable thing and rescued his ass from people who wanted to shower in his blood, but that doesn’t mean he’s my new best friend. We don’t know anything about him. And, as you well know, we’re on a mission. To be honest, we don’t have time to take care of him right now.”
She shrugged, unwilling to discuss it yet. Yes, Lukas was full of rage and inhumanly strong. But he was also hurting and sort of amusing. No matter how annoyed Connor was with the other man, Roz wasn’t ready to cut ties with the only shapeshifter she’d ever met. Not until she learned all she could from him.
“How’s the locator spell going?” he asked.
“Actually,” she said, “I’d like to try it again. Give me some quiet time?”
“No problem.”
She collected her things and swept them into her bedroom. If she’d learned anything in the last few years, it was that magic was emotional as well as physical. When she opened herself to the power in the universe and under her own skin, she always performed better. So, she set her books aside and dropped cross-legged onto the plush cream-colored carpeting with a red marker and a paper map of Nevada. In the margin of the map, she drew a circle and then closed her eyes, really concentrating on staying open and calm. She called her power.
Connor may not trust Lukas—hell, she didn’t trust him either—but he was fascinating, both as a shifter and as a man. She fought a smile at the memory of him crowded into the ladies’ room that morning. But the smile faded as she pictured a faceless witch somewhere out there hexing shapeshifters.
Pushing thoughts of the shifter from her mind, she exhaled long and deeply before whispering, “Locate the horde.”
She opened her eyes. The red circle sat staring back at her, unchanged. Rolling her shoulders, she tried again. “Find the horde. Show me the horde. Show me Maksim Volk.” Nothing happened.
“Fuck,” she swore. She’d love some help but apart from Sara the redheaded witch, Roz had no Coven contacts. No mentor. No witchy friends. Not even her books or sites covered locator spells.
It would be really cool if Sara turned out to be an asset who could help Roz unlock new spells and abilities. Maybe it was only wishful thinking.
Roz refocused, taking deep cleansing breaths. In her mind’s eye, she pictured Lukas standing impossibly tall in the coffee shop bathroom, and she smiled faintly.
On a whim, she said, “Locate Lukas.” The red circle quivered in the corner and then slid across the map as if not a part of it. It zipped straight for Las Vegas, circled the
Strip, and then settled down on Flamingo Boulevard not too far away. The circle became a mark upon the paper again. When she touched it, the dry stain didn’t budge.
Giddy with her first locator spell success, Roz re-focused her mind’s eye on the horde.
The blob just sat there on Flamingo like a jelly stain.
This wasn’t working.
Roz’s magic faded. The red circle returned to the margins of the map, which she folded into eighths and put away.
She couldn’t help wondering, though, as she returned to her research, what Lukas was doing just down the street from her. Could he be thinking of her too?
#
Giving the row of unopened luggage a last glance, Lukas left his shitty hotel room with nothing but a room key in his pocket and forty U.S. dollars. A glutton for punishment, he paid a cab to drive him outside the Le Sort Hotel. He couldn’t shake the witch from his thoughts and hoped they’d make an appearance simply so he could talk to her again. Verbally sparring with her was the most fun he’d had in weeks.
But the three stooges didn’t emerge from their French-themed palace. He waited near their truck until after midnight, growing ever more irritated as he seemed to smell nothing but the witch’s tropical scent clinging to the interior.
Finally, he gave up and steered clear of the hotel. He didn’t need them to find vampires. As a shapeshifter with enhanced senses, he was a walking vampire detector.
And he already knew where he was going. The abandoned St. Peter’s Hospital on the outskirts of Vegas. He hired another cab to take him to the northern edge of the city. As soon as the cabbie moved out of sight, Lukas hobbled through the smashed-open front doors.
He’d much rather shift, but it was too risky with a broken leg. The break wouldn’t heal and, by the wee hours of the morning, he’d be limping around and missing a cast.
It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to be a bear to hunt vampires.
The scent of blood was heavy in the air, blowing at him on a dry breeze. Old blood, new blood, rotten blood. The stuff was everywhere.
