Instead of cowering, the boy raised his chin, his lips drawn back, the youthful canines descending—proof his wolf lurked beneath the surface.
Neither vampire spoke.
“Not enough for you?” Mosbach asked.
A flick of a pale, long-fingered hand was the only answer.
Mosbach moved to the girl, dragging her to her feet. “How about you, sweetheart? You got something to show your new daddies?”
She spit in his face.
Mosbach hit her cheek with a full backhand swing.
Her head jerked.
The third boy lunged to his feet. The blade slashed across his face.
And Mace was moving, shifting into his wolf, the molten gold of the wolf’s pelt as hard, cold, and lethal as any ancient sword descending in vengeance. Devastation incarnate. A gilded demon from the pits of hell.
The vampires were mist, fleeing. Although the mist was blood-tainted, which meant Mace’s bite hit the mark, the wolf’s venom even now leaching into undead flesh and blood. They’d die slowly, no consolation for their crimes.
The night grew eerily silent, other than the pressure in the air expanding, as if driven by my wolf’s explosion upward from a coiled crouch. Mosbach turned, his wolf shifting into control, desperate claws scrabbling as he stumbled, ran.
My wolf outweighed Mosbach’s wolf by hundreds of pounds. The elder had no chance of survival against steel and snapping jaws. His skull cracked beneath the crushing bite force of my wolf’s jaws. Warm blood flooded. The pulse in Mosbach’s veins fluttered like something too eager to die.
And the moment felt strange. I’d always imagined the screaming going on and on.
But the sound lasted barely a second.
Not long enough for the debt Mosbach owed.
Not long enough to quell the black, destructive vengeance roiling in my blood. A king’s vengeance. A shit-show vengeance.
It would never be long enough.
“Gray,” Mace said.
But it was my wolf who stared back through empty eyes. Shook his head. Ran and kept on running… running. Endlessly.
Running…
CHAPTER 9
Noa
The view beyond the windows was spectacular. My private view of the Alpha’s Woods. The walled woodland space was over one hundred acres, spelled and warded. Reserved for the Alpha’s use. Some considered it sacred. A part of the wildwood, overflowing with pines, rhododendrons, thimbleberries heavy with fruit. A giant oak tree grew in the center. Mythic. Rumored to be centuries old; it took eight men with arms outstretched to circle the trunk.
I hadn’t explored far enough to see the tree, but this view—of trees in snow—was the one perk of my new apartment that I appreciated. Otherwise, the security did not differ from the Alpha Suite. Cameras monitored the exterior halls. Men in unobtrusive black uniforms monitored the building entrance doors. I disliked the feeling of being watched and needing a hall pass to leave. Even to visit Leo, or wander through the Farmer’s Market with Fallon and Laura—although Laura seldom left the rarefied quiet of the archive.
Her reluctance worried me. I’d always admired her resiliency, turned to her when life became overwhelming. But in the archive, she existed like a wraith. Found safety in old books and musty pages, and stories from long ago.
I’d wanted to talk to her today, but hesitated. Laura didn’t need the burden of my unease. Still, I couldn’t rid myself of the worry over what Fallon said. She’d told me about Mosbach. How Grayson, with Mace, had irrefutable proof he was the elder selling wolves to the vampires. They’d killed him last night. But they’d also rescued three teenagers, who were now safe at the Refuge. My stomach twisted each time I imagined what they’d gone through… three kids Levi’s age…
And I knew the killing had been… hard.
Knew because of the shadows in Fallon’s eyes as she spoke. I’d asked her if she was tired. All she admitted was a trouble sleeping from the ache in her leg. When she’d fallen, the bone had broken in two places, and because Grayson wasn’t here to help, the healing process was slow. It would continue to be slow as long as he stayed away.
Then she’d mentioned the archive and the boxes Anson stored there. Her private things, along with mine—my mother’s box from Theta Blake—she said Set had retrieved Amal’s private journal from the tunnels where I’d dropped the backpack, and perhaps I should look at it. Read it.
