Chapter 31

Kat was like the cohort we didn’t know we needed. She was this treasure trove of little nuggets about angel weaknesses and she could easily point out flaws in our plan because she’d been in this exact facility before and had broken out before.

I mean, she turned us all into vampire snacks, but she had a damned good point. Everyone here had specific dietary needs that Hannibal was just ignoring, or the Coalition hadn’t bothered figuring out yet. The parasitic races had extra specific dietary needs and then you had vampires.

The Coalition had their vampires on an Edward Cullen diet long before Twilight was even conceptualized. Then you had the writers who did the blood bag vampires, but that also wasn’t how vampires worked. It would stop them from desiccating but it was like living off white sugar. Bagged or animal blood would keep them alive, but not in optimal condition. They needed fresh from a vein and they couldn’t drop fang for the longest because of the wards.

They didn’t need a ton of blood. All those stories of humans drained of blood were propaganda. The human body had about a gallon and a half of blood in it and they could lose fourteen percent of that before bad shit started happening. A vampire didn’t need nearly that much. Humans banned Everclear because they couldn’t handle Vodka and they thought a vampire could handle an entire body’s worth of blood. The whole thing was fucking stupid.

Anyway, Kat had a damned good point. Pax, Cas, and I were still healthy and strong because we hadn’t been here long. So was Kat if we could be her sippy cup. There was pretty much nothing we could do about getting everyone else here at full fighting strength, even with the extra calories, but we could help the vampires if we let them get a little bitey in a dark corner where some fake nun wasn’t going to clutch her pearls.

And Kat had another damned good point. She said pig’s blood was nasty. I didn’t drink blood, but it sounded like it was just as morally reprehensible to vampires as dino nuggets and bacon on pizza should be to literally everyone with taste buds.

Everyone was doing a damned good job keeping a lid on our magic creeping back. The Coalition kidnapped me when I was seven, so I didn’t exactly go to regular school and do the whole group project thing. I did know getting a large group of people to cooperate and keep a secret was pretty fucking hard.

We were doing so well so far and a vampire who had a tiny bit of fang now could blow it all up biting a fake priest because someone gave them pig’s blood.

Like, I couldn’t promise I wasn’t going to blow this and go on a killing spree if they gave us dino nuggets again, but I digress.

I was getting impatient. My magic was almost back. I could shift into my shadow wolf and have a little poof to the basement to get our mate. I could get her back home right before all the chaos started. I knew why I couldn’t, but I just wanted a little peek.

“I don’t suppose you remember when your magic came back the last time you dealt with angels?”

Kat cut me a scathing look.

“That was a horrifying time in my life where I lost someone I really loved. The only reason I’ve been talking about it with you chuckle fucks is that I have my suspicions about the people who hired you. If anyone is going to stop these people for good, it’s going to be them and you.”

“Do tell because I think Di is pack and his mate is ours, even if his hair is big because it’s full of secrets.”

“Spoilers, sweetie. I suspect they are having a bit of fun with you and I’m not fucking up that big reveal.”

“Seriously? You got all kinds of nasty with your fangs in my neck and you won’t even give me a little hint?”

“There are people who would pay good money for me to bite them, honey.”

“And I don’t kink shame. The mate bond is sacred, Kat. Don’t be stingy because one of ours might be pranking us.”

“No way. If I’m right, Di and his friends are not the kind of guys you want to ruin their punchline. They are scarier than you are and you’re kind of crazy. No offense.”

“Are you flirting with me? I thought you were gay.”

“Don’t make me bite you again, asshole. I’ve grown quite fond of you and your group. Whoever your mate is down there, she’s a lucky girl. This place fucks with your head. I don’t have to tell you that. The wards are fucking with your bond, but so is the trauma from this place, especially if she’s in the basement as punishment. I was down there once for the same thing.

“When you get her out of here, she’s going to need time, love, and maybe a little space to deal with all of this. You might have to back off and let her come to you. Don’t be an idiot and fuck it up or I’ll fuck all of you up. You’re all fairly young to have met your entire group. Some of us are one of the originals of our kind and still haven’t. People wait thousands of years to meet just one mate. You should all consider yourselves blessed,” Kat said wistfully.

“We do. And Kat, you’re going to find your nest and mates. It’s going to be all these bitching hot women who take no shit and are worthy of your awesomeness.”

“You’re a good kid, Benji. I’m glad if I had to get kidnapped again on accident, it was when the three of you idiots got kidnapped on purpose.”

Yeah, we were all idiots. And everything she said was true. Our nameless mate had probably gone through some shit in the basement, especially if she killed one of them. She would need all kinds of love when we got her out of here and space would probably be one of them.

We didn’t have all the information, but Di said his girlfriend was essential to stopping the Coalition. I was pretty Di also meant some of the more deranged angels whose plan we didn’t know yet.

I still didn’t know how a green witch was supposed to do that, even a god-touched one, but now that we knew she was our green witch, our three mystery benefactors who said she was important to them better have an iron-clad plan to do this without her even breaking a nail.