Nine
Zan hated leaving his mate.
The pang of separation was much more difficult than he’d imagined it would be. He noted that the other mated Pack brothers weren’t faring much better as they said good-bye in the huge hangar, holding on to their better halves.
It might have been petty of him, but he took heart that Selene didn’t seem any happier at his leaving than he was to go. That had to mean she was attached to him, liked him at least a little. He longed to tell her how he felt about her—that he was falling hard, and it had nothing to do with wolf biology.
He admired her strength and courage. Her conviction. And her fairness. He admired her ability to put aside her vendetta against Nick and take a second look. That meant she was interested in justice, not vengeance.
And she had a soft spot for babies and for wanting to be accepted by her peers. She loved to make love and held nothing back.
Whether she believed it or not, there was a hell of a lot to love about Selene.
But he wouldn’t tell her. Not yet, when it might scare her away.
“Be careful,” she said, her voice shaking a bit. “Come back safe.”
“I’ll do my best.” He tucked a finger under her chin and gave her a slow kiss, with tongue. And kept right on kissing until someone cleared his throat nearby, signaling for him to wrap it up.
“Newly mated guys,” Aric drawled. “Sheesh.”
“Like you can talk,” Zan retorted. “Besides, your mate is on the team, so she gets to go with you. How unfair is that?”
“Very. She can kick anyone’s ass from here to the East Coast, including mine.”
The man had a point. Zan hurried along his good-byes, and then he was forced to let her go and walk away. They loaded onto three copters and then waited while the top of the building slid open to let them lift off.
Aric powered up their Huey, with hired pilots taking the others, as usual. The redhead could fly anything with wings, and he flatly refused to let anyone else pilot his craft. Nick took the front with him.
Zan rode with Jax, Micah, and Nix in the back. The big copter was a flying tank, really loud, but the ride was uneventful as they streaked toward Missouri.
For Zan, lost in his thoughts, the trip seemed to pass quickly, and soon they were landing in a field not far from the house where the murders occurred. From there they were escorted to the scene by federal agents, and Zan recognized some of them from the ranch killing. This time, they received no lip from the Feds, though they got plenty of sour looks.
Horror couldn’t begin to describe the scene at the house. The carnage was unlike anything Zan had ever laid eyes on in his life, and that was saying a lot. Part of the horror factor was the cheerful backdrop of the family gathering that had been interrupted.
There were checkered tables laden with food. Burgers, dogs, brisket, potato salad, chips and dips, beer. All going bad in the morning sun, providing a macabre accompaniment to the main course.
Bodies were literally everywhere. Young and old and in between. Lying by the picnic tables, under the festive canopy among folding chairs. One older man was sprawled across the threshold of the front door, another on the porch.
“There’s more inside,” an agent said, looking like he might lose his coffee any second. “This beats fuck-all I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ve seen something similar, back in oh-four,” another one put in. “Seven people all murdered in their beds, all drained of blood like these folks.”
“Where was that?” Nick asked, looking at him sharply.
“Let me think. Tulsa, Oklahoma, that’s where it was. Never caught those bastards, either. Could be the same ones, though ten years is a long spread of time.”
Not to a vampire, Zan thought. But he wisely kept that tidbit to himself.
The team spread out and catalogued the bodies, making note of every detail, no matter how insignificant it appeared. The most telling evidence of a rogue attack was the raggedness of the teeth marks on each neck. Rogues were vicious and messy when they fed. They were simply hungry, all the time, and showed none of the neatness and precision of a typical vampire feed.
Another sign was that none of the bodies showed evidence of sexual activity, unlike a regular vampire feed. These killings were swift and all business. Almost like a mission.
“This would have taken a large force of rogues to carry out,” Zan mused aloud. Only Nick and a few of their team were nearby, so it was okay to speak freely.
“Is it just me, or does this have the hallmarks of a well-executed op?” Nick asked.
Zan nodded. “That’s what I was just thinking.”
They finished the search and were just about to give up on finding anything really useful when Zan spotted a crimson drag mark on the back porch. Dried rust-colored blood trailed across the boards, down the set of wooden steps. He followed the trail across the lawn, and the more distance that was put between him and the house, the thinner and sparser the blood was. It was just enough to keep him going, though, and he was determined to locate the source.
He followed a slope down to a creek and across it. Then he looked up to see the trail had led him to an old wood pile that might have been a storage shed at one time. He skirted the pile.
And it was there that the rogue was waiting, beside a human body. Zan barely had time to register his presence before the thing sprang at him, yellowish fangs bared and ready to kill. There was no time to call forth his wolf, so he morphed his hands into claws and launched a counterattack.
They met in a clash of bodies, Zan gaining a slight advantage when he knocked the creature to the ground. He jumped onto the rogue, made a stab at its black heart and missed, sending his claws between the ribs and into a lung. The thing screeched, and he cursed, hoping the Feds at the house hadn’t heard.
The rogue did some slashing too, catching Zan across a thigh. It stung like a bitch but wasn’t life-threatening, and he raked his claws across the creature’s throat, severing its windpipe. While it was busy frantically grabbing at its throat, Zan delivered the killing blow to the heart, stilling his enemy instantly. It died, eyes going blank, and he plunged in his claws and tore out the shriveled heart, then sagged in relief.
“What the fuck are you guys?” a voice blurted from behind him. “What was that thing?”
Fuck! Turning, he allowed his hands to shift back to normal, but not soon enough. This Fed, the one who’d mentioned the bodies in Tulsa a decade ago, was staring at him in complete shock. Nervously, he shifted his gaze from Zan to the vampire’s body, to the vampire’s kill, and back to Zan.
Zan sighed, wiped his hands in the grass, and stood. “I’m the guy who exterminates creeps like this one. Just think of me as the Orkin man.”
The Fed failed to see the humor. Imagine that.
“You—you tore out his heart.”
“Only way to keep them from rising again.”
“Rising again?”
His face was white.
“That was a rogue vampire,” Zan informed him. The horse was out of the barn anyway. “Some vamps are good, and some have gone bad. That one was bad. And there are a lot more of them where he came from, FYI.”
“What are you?”
Zan let his muzzle elongate, showed his fangs. The claws on his hands. Let them stay just long enough to convince the man he wasn’t having a nightmare.
“Holy shit!”
“I’m a wolf shifter, and my team is like me. This is what we do—we rid the world of paranormal bad guys before the general populace has any clue stuff like this really exists. But secrecy is getting harder to maintain, as you can attest.”
“What do we do now?” The man was regaining some of his composure, the agent in him returning to the fore to give him some stability.
“I go about my business with my team. You keep your mouth shut about your newfound reality. If you can do this, we might have an alliance at some point that’s mutually beneficial to both of our employers.”
Now he had the guy. He was all agent again, thinking on his feet. Assessing. “That could work. Okay. I’ll keep my mouth shut. May need to call on you guys sometime. My name is Kyle Garrett.” Fishing in his wallet, he gave Zan his card. “That’s got my cell phone on it.”
“I’m Zander Cole. I don’t have a card, but here’s my cell number.” He recited that while Garrett punched the contact into his phone.
As they finished up, Nick and Jax waded through the creek and came jogging over to them. As soon as Nick took in what was going on, he cursed.
“This is Agent Kyle Garrett, boss. He’s in the know.”
“Goddammit.” He pinned Garrett with a steely look. “You breathe a word about this to anyone—”
“I won’t. You have my word.”
“Good. Let’s get this shit cleaned up.” His gaze rested on the poor human’s body, and he cursed again.
The cleanup took longer than expected, so it was well after noon before they were ready to go. As the Feds prepared to take them back to the copters, Zan posed a question to Nick.
“Why did that rogue stay behind? What was his goal?”
“You’re assuming he had one. But yeah, that was odd.”
“Was he left behind to watch us from back there? And he was just stupid enough to leave the blood trail?”
Nick blew out a breath. “I don’t know. Seems more likely he wanted to lure someone else back there. Maybe he was working on his own, maybe not.”
There was nothing else to be gleaned from the scene. At the copters, another car arrived bearing a young man. He was dressed in jeans and a hoodie pulled up over his head, sunglasses on his face. To protect his skin and eyes from the sun, now that he was a new vampire. Poor kid.
The boy ended up riding with Zan and his group. Zan tried to engage him some, but between the noise and the young man’s trauma, it was a lost cause. He hoped the vampires would be able to help the kid start over.
What would it be like to be nineteen for eternity? What a strange thought.
The boy settled in and dozed, so Zan did the same. His thigh throbbed from time to time, but other than making a mess on the leg of his jeans, it looked worse than it really was. He could have it tended to at Prince Tarron’s stronghold.
He awoke fully when he felt the descent. They came in for a landing, putting down in a decent flat area close to the mountains. The sun was starting to dip in the sky, and the scenery was stunning. It wasn’t unlike where the Pack lived, but the prince and his coven lived in the mountains, not at the base of them, from what he understood.
The copters powered down and everyone got out, stretching. Zan was already tired and hoped they’d hold off on the meeting until tomorrow, but vamps were night creatures, so he didn’t count on it.
Within minutes, two stretch limousines appeared around the bend and drove up, rolling to a stop.
Aric whistled. “Now, that’s what I’m fuckin’ talkin’ about! Why can’t we have limos instead of SUVs?”
“Um, because we don’t want to attract attention wherever we go?” Nick said, lips quirking.
“Oh. There is that.”
Their banter was interrupted when a tall, impressive figure emerged from the first limo. If Zan had been expecting a dark cape, he would’ve been disappointed. The man he assumed could only be Prince Tarron Romanoff was dressed in a stylish dark suit and light blue shirt with a tie. His dark brown hair was touching his collar, all one length and tucked behind one ear. He had a youthful but handsome face and vivid eyes Zan could only describe as purple.
The guy looked like a movie star or a model. He was also wearing a wide smile, and his expression reflected genuine welcome. He strode forward to shake Nick’s hand.
“Nick Westfall? Tarron Romanoff. It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.”
“Likewise.” Nick smiled. “I’ve heard lots of good things about you from our mutual friend.”