by Martha Woods
The Vampire’s Alliance
Book 14 Fatal Allure
Martha Woods
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
FREEEBIE
© 2019 - Romance Books 4 U
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All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Chapter 1
The morning had started nicely, a relaxing sleep in for myself and my two loves, after what had definitely been an overly stressful couple days. You can’t really be kidnapped, have your nose broken, find out your boyfriends long lost sister is alive again, then have to weed out the very spies that had sold you out before they give away anything else vital, and come out on the other side as anything other than completely exhausted.
But even now, even when I went to sleep fully aware that there was still a war on the horizon, fully aware that once I got up would have to deal with the consequences of pushing myself into this conflict, even now I wasn’t quite ready for the next installment in a seemingly never-ending series of twists.
“I’m sorry, his wife is coming?”
“Afraid so,” Claire sighed, tone utterly defeated and impossibly tired, “This definitely adds a pretty big obstacle to actually ending this peacefully.”
“And that obstacle wasn’t there before?”
“Oh it was, but you’ve got to understand the difference here. He hates these shifters, but he also just generally hates pretty much all paranormal creatures, killing these ones would just be… him being thorough. Her though, she remembers exactly who killed her father, she was there for the war, she was there to see him breath his last, and now she’s coming to town to face those people down herself. There’s definitely a difference in motivation here.”
“So far the fight has been rather cold, he’s more focused on sweating you and trying to get you to give them up willingly, he enjoys toying with people like that, it bothered me even before all of this.” Claire paused, obviously thinking over what she knew before she felt comfortable saying more, “I have a feeling that she’s just going to jump right into a fight with no real concern for who gets hurt in the process, she’s normally capable of keeping her head but when it comes to these shifters… I don’t know, I have a bad feeling about all this.”
“Me too, what would you recommend I do?”
“Personally I’d drag Anthony out into the forest and let them tear him apart, God knows that what he wants you to do anyway. Failing that… you’d best go and make sure that all of your friends are ready for a fight, call in whatever help and favors you can, and have a plan to run if you have to. She could very well burn down the city trying to get to you, if that starts then you need to leave as fast as you can and not look back.”
“Wonderful,” I sighed, letting myself fall back into my chair as I tapped the phone against my forehead, “I suppose I should go and get started shouldn’t I? I don’t want to be caught off guard and have to work from there.”
“I’ll be in contact again soon, I’ll do my best to see if I can find out anything that might help you out.” I was about to hang up, when Claire spoke up once more, voice smaller and softer than I had expected, “I’m sorry Amy.”
“Don’t be, it’s not your fault. Just be careful, we don’t need you getting hurt too.” Hanging up my phone, I took a moment to just sit and look around the room, trying to find something that I could focus on aside from the mounting panic of responsibility. Just once, just once, I want to wake up and know that my day is going to be normal, just once before I die.
Funnily enough, the thing that my eyes ended up resting on was nothing more than my refrigerator, standing there and humming steadily just like it always did. Simple, inelegant, no one ever expects a refrigerator to cook foot, or clean, they only ever expect it to chill food, that’s it, it’s one job, it had one function and everyone is comfortable with that. But suddenly when it comes to people, in this case me, they suddenly forget that not everything is universally equipped to handle every single job known to man. Perhaps if I was seen as more of a refrigerator than a human being this point would be a little easier to understand.
But deep down I know that this is exactly what I signed up for when I got us into this fight, and it was me who got us into it, no one else, I know that. This whole situation is such an astronomical clusterfuck that I can hardly see through the smoke to even know where we are, let alone know what to do about all of it. It’s not like everyone else isn’t pulling their weight, Alexis’ help last night was exactly what we needed to solve a very big problem, and the other hunters were more than prepared to cooperate with us even as we had two of their former brothers tied up in the next room, barely thirty feet away from them drinking and dancing. I don’t have a monopoly on sacrifice, but it’s hard sometimes to see that, given that you always see yourself first.
A yawn from the bedroom caught my attention, dragging me out of my mind and back to the present, the present which was turning out to be so much more complicated than when you planned on what was going to happen in your head. So many variables had been introduced that none of us could have even predicted, not least being that we now had a spy in their midst who also happened to be related to one of us, the relative in question stepping out of the bedroom and shuffling his way across to the counter.
“Hey Amy,” Damon yawned, scratching the back of his neck, “How’d you sleep? I’ve been wiped these last couple days, I just got down last night and pretty much just blacked out completely.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said, clearing my throat and tapping my fingernails around the back of my phone. Even though he’d spent almost half a day sleeping, and looked like he could gladly spend a few months resting further, he could still see clearly enough that something was wrong halfway across the room.
“Amy?” He asked, placing his glass on the counter and taking a step towards me, attentive enough to know to back off if need be, “Is something wrong?”
I tapped my fingers for a moment more, giving myself a minute to focus my thoughts and find the right words for what I needed to say. There was no point in not telling him of course, that was out of the question, but at a certain point explaining every little thing in detail just became unnecessary. “We might have more trouble coming our way, I’m going to have to make sure everyone else is ready for whatever it is. The shifters might get bolder soon as well, so be prepared to fight if you have to.”
“I would much rather sleep if I’m being honest,” He chuckled, cracking his neck to the side, “But if I have to you know that I’ll ta
ke care of it, Vincent too. You can’t really keep us out of a fight.”
“No, I really can’t,” I laughed, before dropping my smile and speaking seriously, “But depending on how things go from here… if we have to run, will you be able to do that with no arguments?”
“I never like to run from a fight, especially if there are others still fighting. But if it’s to protect you, to protect what we have?” He nodded. “Then yeah, no question, I’ll run wherever you need me to.”
“Good,” I said, stepping forward to wrap him in my arms, “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Busy, busy busy busy,” Joseph chuckled, barely glancing up from his book from his position on the couch, “I have no idea why it is that you insist on coming to me in person, I am in the twenty first century after all, I have a cell phone.”
“Maybe, but don’t you think that it’s more appropriate to talk about these kinds of things in person?” I walked further into the room, waving behind me, “Besides, I didn’t come here alone.”
“No, I know you didn’t,” He said, finally looking up as Alexis strolled in behind me, “So good to see you, looking as ravishing as ever.”
“I know I am, but I still like to hear it on occasion.” She took her seat easily, slipping in like she belonged fully. I imagine that she had no trouble fitting in just about anywhere if she so desired. “After how everything went last night I wasn’t expecting to hear from anyone so soon, I take it something happened?”
“You could say that, but I think we should wait until the others get here.” A deep knock echoed through the house, followed by the creaking opening of a door. “And I suppose that they’re here already.”
“Amy!” Tariq called, opening his arms wide and greeting me with an embrace, “So good to see you, I take it everything went well before?”
“Oh yes, everything went just fine. I’ll have to explain it to you properly sometime.” Looking behind him, I bowed my head in apology. “Sorry about that you two, come on in.”
“Yes please, invite them into my home,” Joseph drawled, more to make a point rather than out of any sort of irritation. I don’t think there is much at all that he really cares about that’s that small. “Help yourselves to drinks, God knows that we could all use them after the last few days we’ve had.”
“I’ll pass for now,” Julian said, nodding at us in greeting, “I’ve still got kind of a hangover from last night.”
“If you can call that something worth getting a hangover for,” Christine laughed, “I never knew all hunters were that weak.”
“I just know my limits, that’s all. Maybe when I don’t have to herd traitors out into the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night I’ll be able to enjoy myself a little more.” Leaning against the wall, he looked around the room and took us all in. “Must be something pretty important if we’re all gathered here completely sober and serious.”
“It is,” I said, sighing and crossing my hands behind my back, “I don’t know how much has been explained to all of you already, but the matriarch of the shifters is coming to lend herself to the fight against the people that we’re defending. Years ago, Anthony killed her father right in front of her, so I don’t know if reason is going to be the first thing that she’ll be reaching for when she comes.”
“Do you have any idea of how many people she’s bringing with her?” Christine asked.
“No, for all I know she’s coming alone and that’ll be enough to drive them all into a frenzy, Claire sounded worried when I spoke to her over the phone.”
“I’m sorry, who?” Julian asked, “I didn’t forget someone’s name did I?”
“No, Claire is… our insider in the enemy shifter’s group. And also Damon’s sister, but can we please go into that another time?”
Tariq coughed, stifling a laugh, “I think it would be much appreciated by some in the room if you did.”
“She’s dedicated to helping us, that’s all you really need to understand right now. To be honest, I haven’t really had the time to understand much else of it yet, but I can tell that she genuinely cares about trying to get us out of this war by whatever means necessary.”
“If she’s willing to turn against her own to do so, then I’m inclined to believe her.” Julian shrugged. “Hell, I just got rid of two spies trying to sell us out, I’ll be glad to have a spy that I can actually trust to help a little.”
“So long as we have her on our side I think that gives us an edge, they don’t know about her, they won’t know about her, and we just took out the two assets that they had that were the closest threat to us.”
“But they may not be the only ones,” Joseph said, raising his glass, “There are always rats hiding in the shadows, waiting around until they either steal or you snuff them out.”
For the first time since I’d come here I noticed the three drops of blood on his sleeve, and that told me just about all I needed to know about what had become of our two spies. “If any other spies become problems… we’ll deal with them then, though obviously now they would know all about Julian and the club.”
“Eh,” Julian said, waving his hand in dismissal, “They know that I’ll kick the shit out of them at the best of times, most people probably just think the two of them screwed up real bad.”
“Either way, I don’t want to put you or your men in any undue danger. I know that you make your living being thrown into dangerous situations, but if the choice came down to you fighting and living, I hope that you would choose living,” I heaved a heavy sigh, “Which is why I want you to make a plan to get every hunter out of the city, if things go that way.”
“A full scale retreat?” Julian asked, “That’s a pretty big ask, you know how stubborn we can be.”
“I know, but if this city falls and the only choice in battle is to lose, then I want us to lose as few people as possible.” I turned, regarding Alexis, Christine and Tariq. By now, Joseph needed no addressing to know what I was saying. “I want all of you to do the same, this city wouldn’t be worth all of us dying, it’s just a city. Worse comes to worst, we’ll pick ourselves up and start over somewhere new, it could be fun.”
“I hate road trips,” Alexis groaned, “Too much driving, never enough sleeping, and always something smelling. And moving to a new city on top of that… at least I could say that I was franchising the club.”
There were many things to think about, not least of all being how we would actually be able to organize something like this if need be, but for now we had other things to worry about. Namely the still deadly force of shifters camping right outside our city borders just waiting for us to drop our guard to attack. As far as urgency went, that was definitely the prime candidate.
“Also be prepared in case they decide to attack us, with their other leader coming in they might become bold and want to impress her, or maybe they’ll just whip themselves into a frenzy, either way they might be planning something, so be prepared to do something about it.”
“If you don’t mind me saying,” Julian said, raising his hand, “We could just… bypass the whole thing and take the fight to them, hit them hard enough and fast enough that they can’t even see straight to hit us back. It’s worked for most of us before.”
“Maybe so, but I don’t want to be the first to throw the first punch, not like that. It’s one thing to kidnap me and force me to have a conversation, but it would be another thing entirely for us to go out there and kill ten of them and then try to keep the situation controlled. If we do that then we lose just about every chance we have of this ending cleanly.”
“Don’t you think those chances went out the window when they slaughtered some of the shifters that we are taking care of? That field hospital isn’t for nothing, those shifters in there were a hair away from having their heads torn right off their bodies, one of them lost his arm, I think that they’ve stated pretty clearly what their chances of leaving cleanly are. And honestly? I don’t want any of my men dying
because we’re still pretending there’s a chance of that.”
“If they attack you, you hit them with everything you have. Kill everyone you see if you have to, at that point you’ll be fighting for your life. I’m not saying don’t fight, I’m saying don’t go out looking for one, if there is a chance then we should always take it, but if you see something even slightly out of the ordinary then you do whatever it takes to keep your people safe and healthy, ok?”
“I still don’t like it but…” He sighed, throwing his hands up, “Fuck it, you’re in charge. Whatever happens falls at your feet, you’ll just have to maybe remind me to say ‘I told you so’ if it goes tits up.”
“Trust me, you’ll be the first one I find if this goes bad, you don’t have to worry about that.” Scrubbing my hand down my face, I tried to run through every other possibility in my mind before I nodded to myself. “Their main target will likely always be the shifters, which means that the werewolf district is going to be a hot zone of activity. If you all could volunteer a few of your most capable and willing soldiers to guard the area twenty-four seven then that should make everyone a little more comfortable. I don’t really want to wake up one morning and find out the whole building burned down.”
“I sleep there, so I also would like to not have that happen,” Christine said, crossing her arms, “The shifters are welcome to stay under our protection for however long they want, but any additional help that you can give us is greatly appreciated. We have our ways of attacking and defending, no doubt the enemy are familiar with that, but I doubt that they’ve seen hunters, witches, vampires and werewolves fighting together as one before.”
