Chapter 19
Rafe
Knox paced around the room. He had been so angry a few hours before. So angry that we had fought in the living room. A poor potted plant was collateral damage. Knox was no longer angry, he was murderous. He was seething in a slow burn of revenge. “If you don’t allow me to go after him, I will go insane.”
I held my hand up. “You are allowed to avenge Tracey but we will have to hunt him tonight. Tracey told Jade that she told him it was a girl’s trip. He thought they were all alone so I doubt he skipped town. He might go for Jade next.” The words hurt coming out. The last thing I wanted was to shift right now. My wolf and I would do anything to protect our mate, but that didn’t matter as much at the moment. What mattered was that Knox avenged Tracey and the rest of the men protected Jade while we did it.
Knox smoothed his hair away from his face and then pulled it into a ponytail holder. His arms shook with the effort like it took everything within him to contain his rage. His wolf wasn’t close to the surface. His eyes were still clear but his anger came off of him in waves. When he went off to train to be a Guardian they had taught them how to control and contain their wolves. They didn’t need to shift, it just helped to do so more often. Their power lay in their ability to control their forms. They were ruthless and cunning. They were everything most of the pack was not. They were willing to do whatever it took to ensure the pack’s safety. Including eating hearts.
Knox’s hands stopped trembling. He licked his teeth before he straightened his shirt. “I’ve never tasted a vampire heart before.”
Guardian training prepared my brothers for anything and everything. Knox cracked his neck and he inhaled outside of the bar we had been at the previous night. He peeked an eye open. “Just follow me, don’t ask any questions.” He turned around and marched down the street. His chin was just barely lifted and his nostrils would flare every few minutes. We took side street after side street until we made it to an apartment complex on the other side of the city. Knox rolled his head on his shoulders before he yanked the door open.
A woman stepped forward and blocked our path to the elevator. “Can I help you two gentlemen?”
Knox pulled his sunglasses down on his nose and looked deeply into her eyes. “You won’t remember us and you won’t notify anyone of our presence today. Once we leave you will delete all camera footage from the security software as well as the hard drive.”
I had never seen Knox or the other Guardians do anything like that before. Admiration rolled through me. The woman stood a step back and blinked a few times before she walked back to her desk and sat down with a dazed look. Knox punched the button on the wall and the elevator dinged open.
“Her scent is stronger than his, probably because she left this morning and he hasn’t left since.” Knox’s canines elongated and his pupils shrunk down to slits. Claws poked out from the tips of his fingers.
He was more than capable of doing all of this himself. He didn’t need me here. All I was here for was backup and because I wanted to see justice served. I wanted to make sure the bloodsucker was dead.
As soon as the doors to the elevator closed, Knox leaned forward to sniff the buttons. He punched the button to Floor 11. As we went up I wondered if we would have been better off taking the stairs. But there was no telling if the dickwad had ever taken them before. Even if it was one time, Knox would know. Either way, when the doors opened Knox grinned.
“Showtime.”
It took Knox at least five seconds to find which apartment was the vampire’s. His jaw elongated slightly as he listened to the door. He blinked and the whites of his eyes disappeared as his wolf took over completely. His boot connected with the door and it splintered inward.
Vampires were quick creatures but a Guardian was faster. I wasn’t sure of all the things that they did to prepare them but they honed them into weapons for an Alpha’s disposal. These men would protect me as Pack Law someday and they had to be the best of the best. Thankfully I still had a while until I had to take up my father’s seat. He wasn’t initiated into the Pack Law until he was a couple hundred years old. I hoped they waited that long for me too. I wanted to have kids and live my life before I had to be a judge and executioner.
I carefully stepped over the pieces of the door and followed behind Knox. Based on the sounds of struggling coming from the bedroom, Knox had found him. The bedroom was down the hall and to the left, past the kitchen. Knox had the vampire pinned to the bed.
“What did her blood taste like?” Knox whispered.
The vampire struggled against his hold. “She begged me to do it. Said she wanted to feel nothing.”
I pressed my lips together and leaned against the doorframe. I crossed one ankle over the other while I picked at my nails. “You see, I would believe you except I can scent your lies in the air, and there was no scent of pleasure on her skin when she got home this morning.”
The vampire scowled. “The only reason I let her go is because she did this to me.” Somehow he managed to maneuver his shirt up and showed the long thick claw marks across his chest. “What are you? What was she?”
I narrowed my eyes as I cocked my head. He still smelled slightly human. He had been turned recently. “Whoever sired you should have warned you about bigger and badder monsters in the dark.”
The creature looked between us and he struggled against Knox’s hold once again. Knox leaned forward. “What did she taste like?” His wolf was speaking for him now.
“Like honey and sunshine,” the vampire choked out.
I chuckled. “Wrong answer.”
Knox reared back before he plunged his hand into the creature’s chest. He jerked forward with the impact. The vampire’s eyes got big as he realized what was happening. “I would have drunk her dry-” Knox wasn’t having any more of his words. He yanked his hand out. Black blood coated his fingers and inside of his hand was a decaying organ.
Knox threw it into the sunlight streaming across the room. It immediately burst into flames. “Yuck, I do not want a bite out of that. Too dead for my liking.”
He hefted the body off of the bed without much effort and tossed him into the sunlight. It took a bit longer than his heart but after a few minutes, he was ash on the carpet.
“Do you smell that?” I hadn’t noticed it when we had first entered the vampire’s home but now the sickly sweet smell coated my nostrils.
Knox leaned over the side of the bed and cursed. “Bodies.”
“Looks like we did this town a favor.”
