by Lara Adrian
Skeeter got up from the recliner and moved in closer to the radio as Tucker, reporting in with the State boys in Fairbanks, rattled off the coordinates of an apparent multiple death scene—probable homicide, he’d said—some forty miles out in the bush. Tucker was awaiting air transport from one of Harmony’s two resident pilots. He advised that the other one, Alex Maguire, had been the one who discovered the bodies while on a supply run and was presently on her way back into town.
Skeeter felt a twist of excitement as he listened. He knew the area in question very well. Hell, he’d been out that way just last night with Chad Bishop and a few other people. They’d been getting high and drinking by the river … right before they’d started tormenting Teddy Toms. In fact, the way it was sounding to him, the settlement the cops were talking about had to be the kid’s family’s place.
“No friggin’ way,” Skeeter whispered, wondering if he could possibly be right about that. Just to be sure, he jotted the coordinates down on his palm, then riffled through a pile of unpaid bills and other trash until he found the beer-stained area map he’d been using as a coaster for the past couple of years. He triangulated the spot on the map, disbelief and a sick sort of wonderment sliding through his senses.
“Holy shit,” he said, taking a long drag off his joint before snuffing it out on the burn-scarred Formica to save the rest of the buzz for later. He was too excited to finish it now. Too lit up with morbid curiosity to keep from running a tight pace back and forth across the cramped room.
Had Pop Toms or the old man’s brother-in-law gone off the deep end? Or had it been Teddy who finally snapped his leash? Maybe the kid had gone home and lost it after Skeeter and the others had driven him off in tears last night at the river?
He’d know all that soon enough, Skeeter figured. He’d always wanted to see a dead person up close. Maybe he’d just head out for a little detour on his way to the store for those beans and rice his mother wanted.
Yeah, and maybe he’d skip the errand-boy bullshit and just go do what he wanted for a change.
Skeeter grabbed his cell phone—the sweet new one with video capability and the cool skull-and-crossbones skin. Then he fished the key to his Yamaha sled out of the mess on his counter. He didn’t bother telling his mother where he was heading, just pulled on his winter gear and strode out into the bracing chill of the day.
CHAPTER
Two
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Heat blasted out of the Range Rover’s dashboard vents as Brock upped the temperature another few degrees. “Damn, it’s cold tonight.” The big male from Detroit cupped his hands in front of his mouth and blew into his palms. “I hate winter, man. Feels like goddamn Siberia out there.”
“Not even close,” Kade replied from behind the wheel of the parked SUV, his gaze fixed on the decrepit brownstone they’d been surveilling for the past couple of hours. Even in the postmidnight darkness, with a fresh blanket of snow masking everything in pristine white, the place looked like total shit from the outside. Not that it mattered. Whatever they were peddling inside—drugs, sex, or a combination of both—was bringing a fairly steady stream of human traffic to the door. Kade watched as a trio of frat boys wearing university colors and a couple of bundled-up young women climbed out of a piece-of-crap Impala and went inside.
“If this was Siberia,” Kade added once the street got quiet again, “our balls would be jingling like sleigh bells and we’d be pissing ice cubes. Boston in November is a picnic.”
“Says the vampire born on a friggin’ Alaskan glacier,” Brock drawled, shaking his head as he held his dark hands in front of the vents and tried to rub off the chill. “How much longer you think we need to wait out here before our man decides to show his ugly face? I need to start moving before my ass freezes to this seat.”
Kade grunted more than chuckled, as impatient as his partner on tonight’s patrol of the city. It wasn’t the humans that brought Brock and him to this address in one of Boston’s roughest areas, but the individual purported to be behind the illegal activity. And if their intel proved valid—that the vampire who ran the place was also dealing in another forbidden commodity—then the night was going to end on a very unpleasant, probably bloody, note.
Kade could hardly wait.
“Here he is now,” he said, watching as a pair of headlights swung around the corner and a pimped-out black Mercedes with gold trim and gilded hubcaps prowled to a stop at the curb.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Brock said, smirking as the spectacle continued.
Music throbbed from within the sedan, the rhythmic bass and punching lyrics vibrating impossibly louder as the driver got out and went around to open the back passenger-side door. A pair of leashed white pit bulls were the first to exit the car, followed by their master, a tall Breed male trying hard to look badass even though he was wrapped in a long fox-fur coat and had gone about ten pounds beyond the respectable limits of bling and guyliner.
“Forget about the shit Gideon turned up on this asshole,” Kade said. “We’d be in the right to waste him just for going out in public dressed like that.”
Brock grinned, showing the very tips of his fangs. “You ask me, I think we ought to waste him just for making us freeze our stones off waiting for him out here.”
At the curb, the vampire gave his dogs a harsh yank of their studded leather leashes when they dared to take a step ahead of him. He kicked the one nearest to him as he strode toward the door of the brownstone, chuckling at the dog’s sharp yelp of pain. When he and his driver and his pair of hellhounds had all disappeared inside the building, Kade killed the Rover’s auxiliary power and opened his door.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s find a way in through the back while Homeboy’s busy making an entrance.”
They moved in behind the building and located a ground-level window half obscured by snow and street rubbish. Squatting on his haunches, Kade brushed away the ice and crusted-over filth, then lifted the hinged panel of glass and peered into the darkened space on the other side. It was a brick cellar, littered with a couple of rotted mattresses, spent condoms, used syringes, and a combined stench of piss, vomit, and various other expelled bodily fluids that assaulted Kade’s acute senses like a sledgehammer blow to his skull.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed, lips curling back off his teeth and fangs. “Homeboy’s housekeeper is so fired.”
He slipped inside, landing soundlessly on the rough concrete floor. Brock followed, 280-plus pounds of heavily armed vampire lighting as quietly as a cat beside him. Kade motioned past the revolting mess on the floor to a pitch-black corner of the room, where a short length of chain and a pair of shackles lay. A strip of silver duct tape had been cast off nearby, with several strands of long, light blond hair stuck to it.
Brock met Kade’s hard stare in the dark. His deep voice was more growl than words. “Skin trader.”
Kade nodded grimly, sickened by the evidence of all that had taken place in this dank, dark basement prison. He was about to head for the stairs and crash the party above when Brock’s low curse made him pause.
“We’re not alone down here, my man.” Brock indicated a barred door all but obscured by shadows and the rusted skeleton of an old box spring that leaned too neatly against it. “Humans,” he said. “Females, just on the other side of that door.”
Hearing the quiet, broken breathing now, and feeling the current of pain and suffering that rode on the fetid air, Kade moved with Brock toward the lightless corner of the cellar. They pushed aside the old box spring, then Kade lifted the thick metal bar that locked the door from the outside.
“Holy hell,” Brock whispered into the darkness. He stepped inside the small room where three young women sat huddled together in the corner, shivering and terrified. When one of them started to scream, Brock moved faster than any of the drugged humans could track him. Reaching down, he brushed his hand over the female’s brow, trancing her into silence with his touch. “It’s al
l right. You’re safe now. We aren’t going to hurt you.”
“Have any of them been bled?” Kade asked, watching as Brock willed the other two captives into similar states of quiet.
“They’ve been beaten recently, so there’s bruising. But I don’t see any bite wounds. Don’t see any Breedmate marks, either,” he added, doing a quick check of the women’s exposed skin and extremities, looking for the teardrop-and-crescent-moon birthmark that differentiated mortal females from their more genetically extraordinary sisters. Brock gently released the pale arm he held, then stood up. “At least none of these three is a Breedmate.”
A small mercy, and one that hardly exonerated the vampire scum who’d been making a business out of trafficking women to the highest bidder.
“Give me a minute to scrub their memories of what they’ve been through and get them safely out of here,” Brock said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Kade gave him a tight nod and a flash of fang. “Meanwhile, I’m going to head upstairs and have a little private chat with Homeboy.”
With aggression burning like acid in his veins, Kade crept up the steps to the noise-filled main floor of the building, bypassing the orgy taking place under a cloud of narcotic smoke, trippy industrial music, and flashing strobe lights.
In a back office down the hall, he heard the thin rasp of the scumbag he was looking for.
“Fetch me the female who just came in with those Ivy League losers—no, not the blonde, the other one. If she’s a true redhead, she’s worth twice as much to me.”
Kade hung back, grinning as Homeboy’s beefy driver-slash-bodyguard came out of the office and saw him standing there in the hallway. The male was Breed, as well, and menace flashed as amber light in his irises when he saw the threat before him now.
“Shh,” Kade said pleasantly, a dagger already gripped in his hand and ready to let fly.
He released the blade in the instant the driver reached for his own weapon, nailing the big vampire dead center in the throat. The bulky body sagged to the floor, and as the heavy thump carried over the din of music and moaning from up the hall, Kade leapt around the corpse to fill the open doorway of Homeboy’s office.
The pair of white pit bulls lunged faster than their master in the ridiculous fur coat could react. Snarling and snapping, the dogs charged Kade. He didn’t flinch; there was no need. He caught their wild eyes in an unblinking look of command that brought them both to a sudden halt on the carpeted floor in front of his boots.
All of the Breed were born with their own unique talents—or curses, in some cases—in addition to the longevity, strength, and bloodthirst that were traits of their kind. In Kade, his talent was the ability to connect psychically with predator animals and direct their actions with a simple thought. It was a power he had honed to lethal precision from the time he was a boy in the frozen Alaskan wild, and with animals far more dangerous than these.
“Stay,” he said calmly to the dogs, then glanced up at the Breed male who gaped at him from across the small room. “You stay, too.”
“What the—who the fuck are you?” Panic and outrage deepened the lines around the vampire’s mouth as he took in Kade’s appearance, from the black fatigues and combat boots that matched the dark color of his spiky hair, to the impressive collection of blades and semiautomatic weaponry he sported at his hips and on holsters strapped to his thighs. “Warrior,” he breathed, evidently not so arrogant—or stupid—that he didn’t know some measure of fear at this unannounced visit. “What could the Order possibly want from me?”
“Information,” Kade replied. He took a step inside the room and closed the door behind him, pausing to scratch one of the now-docile pit bulls behind the ear. “We’ve heard some disturbing things about this business you’re running here. We need to know more.”
The vampire lifted his shoulders and made a half-assed attempt to look confused. “What’s to tell? I dabble in a variety of ventures.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Nice little venture you’ve got going down in the basement of this shithole. How long have you been trafficking women?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Now, see, making me repeat myself is not a smart thing to do.” Kade crouched low and motioned to the pair of pit bulls to come up alongside him. They sat at his feet like squat gargoyles, staring at their former master and obediently awaiting Kade’s command simply because that’s what he wanted them to do. “I’ll bet if I told these dogs to rip your throat out, I wouldn’t have to ask them twice. What do you think? Should we find out?”
Homeboy swallowed hard. “I-I haven’t been doing it for very long. A couple months short of a year, I guess. Started out with drugs and whores, then I started getting certain … requests.” He fidgeted with one of the many gold rings that gleamed on his fingers. “You know, requests for services of a more permanent nature.”
“And your clients?” Kade prompted as he rose to his full six-foot-four height. “Who are they?”
“Humans, primarily. I really don’t keep good records.”
“But you do provide these services”—he hissed the word through his fangs—“to members of the Breed, as well.”
It wasn’t a question, and Homeboy knew it. He gave another shrug, the collar of his fox coat brushing against his diamond-studded earlobe. “I deal in a cash business, simple supply and demand. Breed or human, the money is all the same.”
“And business is good,” Kade guessed.
“I’m getting by. Why is the Order so interested in what I’m doing, anyway? You looking for a piece of the action?” he hedged, his smile little more than a slimy split of his lips. “I could cut Lucan in, if that’s what this is about. I am a businessman, after all.”
“You are scum,” Kade said, incensed but not surprised that a bottom-feeder like this would think that he or any of his brethren were for sale. “And if I told Lucan you said that, he would shred you open from chin to balls. You know what? Fuck that. I’ll save him the trouble—”
“Wait!” Homeboy held up his hands. “Wait. Tell me what you want to know.”
“Okay. Let’s start with this. How many of the women you’ve locked up in that basement and sold were Breedmates?”
A sickening silence lengthened while the vampire considered how best to answer. Even this worthless offal had to know that those rare females bearing the Breedmate birthmark were revered, precious to all of the Breed. To bring harm to a Breedmate was to bring harm to the entire vampire race, for there were no other females on the planet who could carry Breed young in their womb. To knowingly collect a profit from a Breedmate’s pain, or to benefit in any way from her death, was about the most heinous thing one of Kade’s kind could do.
He watched the other vampire as he would an insect trapped under glass, and in fact, he valued this Breed male’s life even less.
“How many, you disgusting fuck? More than one? A dozen? Twenty?” He had to work to bite back his snarl. “Did you sell them unknowingly, or did you make an even bigger profit off their suffering? Answer the goddamn question!”
With Kade’s outburst, the pair of pit bulls rose up onto their feet, their compact muscles taut and straining, both of them growling with menace. The dogs were as attuned to Kade’s anger as he was to them. He held the dogs back with only the barest thread of self-control, knowing that if the vampire cowering in front of him had any information of value, he was duty-bound to wring it out of him.
Then he could kill him with a clear conscience.
“Who have you been selling Breedmates to? Answer the fucking question. I’m not going to wait all night for you to cough up the truth.”
“I-I don’t know,” he stammered. “That is the truth. I don’t know.”
“But you admit that’s what you’ve been doing.” God, he wanted to waste this piece of shit. “Tell me who you’ve been trafficking to, before I rip your ugly head off.”
“I swear—I don’t know who wanted them!”
Kade wasn’t about to let it go at that. “Was it more than one individual who came to you for the females? What about the name Dragos—ring any bells with you?”
Kade watched with narrowed eyes, waiting for the vampire to take the bait. But the name Kade cast out to him went unacknowledged. Anyone having dealt with the Breed elder known as Dragos—a villain whose evil had only recently been discovered through the efforts of the Order—would surely register some amount of reaction at the mention of his name.
Homeboy, however, was oblivious. He exhaled a sigh and gave a weak shake of his head. “I only dealt with one guy. He wasn’t Breed. Wasn’t actually human, either. Not by the time I met him, anyway.”
“A Minion, then?”
The news didn’t exactly put Kade at ease. Though the creation of Minions went against Breed law, not to mention basic morality, only the most powerful of the Breed could create the human mind slaves. Drained nearly to the point of death, Minions were loyal to their Master alone. Dragos was second-generation Breed and held himself above any law, Breed or otherwise. It wasn’t a question of whether Dragos kept Minions, but rather how many, and how deeply embedded into human society did they go.
“Would you know this Minion if you saw him again?”
The animal carcass wrapped around the vampire’s neck lifted once more with another shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe. He hasn’t been around for a long time now. Stopped doing business with him about three, maybe four months ago. For a while there, he was one of my regulars, then nothing out of him again.”
“You must have been so disappointed,” Kade drawled. “Describe him to me. What did the Minion look like?”
“Tell you the truth, I never got a good look at the guy. Never really tried, either. I could tell he was Minion, and the dude paid in large bills. Nothing more I needed to know about him.”
