A small flicker of magick caught my attention this morning, with horrible timing, too. I was deep in a dream, my hand wrapped around a fistful of thick, luscious red hair, only to be interrupted. I woke to my hand around my cock and an ache in my balls that now had to wait.
Such a tiny use of power wouldn’t usually register to me; Kai, Eryn, and I set off enough low bursts that it was all background noise at this point. Unfortunately, the large, random-ass spikes of power Rani set off were enough to break the pattern, and I worried it would draw unwanted attention, so I’ve been on alert.
The gods knew we didn’t need any more scrutiny from the tribunal. The whole thing with Kol hadn’t exactly blown over yet, and my cousin walked on eggshells these days, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I tried my best to lessen his stress when I could.
So, small bursts and large in-your-face bursts of magick, got ’em. But the tiny fucker that interrupted thebestsexy-time dream? Suspicious. Even more suspicious was the location I tracked it to. I was toward the edge of the forest now, where the trees thinned in preparation to greet the sea.
The earth was mostly flat and clear of debris or large roots to trip over. The grass wasn’t smothered by leaves or overgrown vines, and the vegetation around me was anything but lacking. Buried right over there to my left, under the thickest concentration of plants we could find, were three dead psychic hounds.
If I could dig them up, kick them in the nuts, then bury them again ass up, I would. Those fuckers caused me a lot of problems and almost cost me my life two times over.
I sneered at the spot where I knew they lay. The ground was covered in new growth, dirt hardly churned, with no sign that a massive battle had taken place here only a few weeks prior. But I could feel their magick—it clung to their bones and seeped into the earth as they slowly decayed. Any supernatural worth a damn could feel it, which meant trouble if someone came near enough to sense it. Someone like this over-curious vampire with absolutely zero self-preservation and tiny feet.
She stood only a few yards away, completely clear of the trees and facing the ocean. Small in stature, hardly coming up to my shoulders, her rich mahogany hair hung down her back in one long braid.
My fingers curled in anticipation. Would she be a formidable foe, her size deceiving? Or would I be torturing information out of her before dinner time? That was another responsibility that fell on my shoulders. Kai did his fair share, but getting answers out of our enemies was my specialty.
No matter how much it darkened my soul.
I was good at it. Even enjoyed it sometimes. But not for the first time, I wondered how the broken, red-haired girl back on campus would react to the blood on my hands.
I shook my head clear of useless thoughts and crouched behind a thick summer bush. My prey stood clueless before me, doing only the gods knew what. She better have a good reason for sneaking past ourclearlymarked boundaries, or she would soon find herself missing digits in exchange for her answers.
With a barely audible breath, I forced my tense muscles to relax and pressed my palm to the ground. Pulling on just a thread of my magick, I allowed it to coat the dirt around my hand and gather there. Ice slowly crept across the earth in one long, thick arm, reaching out to do my bidding.
Freezing the intruder’s feet was as basic as it got, but a useful skill. There would be no running or breaking free until I chose to release her, and if I needed to extend my power further up the vampire’s body, I could in an instant—like a sneaky fucking badass. Onward the ice stretched, until it was less than a foot away.
The vampire spun with a supernatural swiftness, churning dirt over my approaching magick as she side-stepped the attack. Her braid swung behind her, and amber eyes flashed in amusement. Shit. Her slow smirk pissed me off, and the element of surprise was gone.
“You can’t sneak up on a vampire, no matter how talented a tracker, Ezra Alantes.”
I stood from my hiding place and met her confident gaze with one of my own. I would not fail at my duties, not this time. My name rolled off her tongue with familiarity, and my suspicions about her rose. Who was she? And why did it feel like I’d seen her before?
“How fortunate that the very man I was looking for is the one to find me,” she continued, like this was a planned meeting inthe park and not an ambush smack in the middle of this cursed forest.
I stepped around the bush, not taking my eyes off her until we were on equal ground. Her arms were lax at her sides, nonthreatening, but that meant nothing when her kind was known for their speed. Still, why trigger a fight when one might not be needed?
“As sexy as my name sounds coming from your lips, I’m afraid I can’t return the favor.”
I smirked at her, a real panty dropper I’d perfected over the years, and did a quick scan while I was at it. Her stance shifted as my gaze slowly raked up her legs, hips, and torso, then back down again. No obvious weapons, so I kept my charming smile on full blast. I should have scanned her before I even released my magick, a mistake that thankfully didn’t cost me this time.
I risked swaggering a little closer, confident that the barrier of ice on the ground around me would be protection enough should she choose to strike. One step on it and there would be no escape. It was like a deadly, frozen little virus, just waiting on my command to spread.
“Now, tell me, what’s a gorgeous little thing like you doing all the way out here, in another faction’s claimed territory?” That grin of hers grew until two delicate pinpoints appeared on her lower lip. Fangs out meant she didn’t fully trust me, yet she hadn’t moved from her casual stance. Interesting. “Aren’t you a little young for hunting on a college campus?” I asked, and that grin dropped into a scowl.
“No younger than my brother, who until only a few weeks ago was the heir to our faction,” she taunted. “I guess that’smytitle now, though.”
All flirty pretenses dropped immediately, leaving behind an empty shell. It used to take a while for me to separate who I was from the man I needed to be for these dirty jobs, but I was anexpert now. Like putting on a different suit, I became someone else entirely, and the easygoing Ezra everyone knew and loved was shoved so far back in my mind that none of the spilled blood could touch him.
The smirk that split my face now wasn’t cute and anything but inviting. It was the mask all my enemies saw in their final moments, an aloof killer who enjoyed the game. The vampire across from me didn't react to my sudden change, and alarm bells went off in my head. She should be terrified, if she indeed knew who I was. Perhaps she had back-up and wasn’t worried I’d reach her before they did?
False sense of security, honey. They wouldn’t stop me from doing what needed to be done.
“Now, now,” she drawled, then crossed her arms and pouted like I was ruining her fun. “There’s no need to be like that.”
“Ember Ashford,” I said it like a declaration. I knew why I recognized her now; she was the spitting image of her twin, Dalton. The vampire I helped Kaiaccidentallykill when he attacked our girls. “Coming out here on your own was a ballsy move, I admit, but stupid. Your brother was the bright one, wasn’t he?”
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide the pinch in the corner of her mouth that told me my insult struck home. It wasn’t like me to poke sore spots with a verbal stick, and the gentler side of me was tutting with disappointment. But he wasn’t in charge right now. He was too busy panicking about how we were going to warn Kai. Fuck, I needed to protect Rani.
