Chapter Four

"What just happened, Draven? Where did they go?" Drac asks as he moves around the alleyway, grasping the air in front of him like he'll grab ahold of the girl he was drooling over.

Not that I blame him, the little pink hair Crow was beautiful even with curled horns growing from her head. But the one who spoke to me, the one with black and white hair, like a woman with two sides. Yeah, she's the one who captured and held my attention.

More than that actually, her beauty is from a different era; feminine yet fierce. She had tattoos all over her body like I do, only not as many. Her skin was pale like she'd been kissed by the moon, and I can only imagine her blush while in the throes of passion. Her eyes had been fully black when she first shifted from crow to beauty but it was her voice that pulled on the embers of my soul.

Yes, even when her eyes changed to sky blue as she looked upon my human form, it was her voice that caused the fire within me to grow hotter and the heat they caused to rush through me is one I haven't felt in many centuries.

"They teleported, Drac."

Drac turns to look at Draven with a sardonic look on his face. "You don"t say? I had no fucking clue!"

Rolling his eyes at Drac"s sarcasm Draven says, "They're scent is lost to us in our human forms. Shift so we can track their magic." Draven's eyes glow red just before his hellhound comes forth.

Draven has been our alpha since we were new pups in the supernatural world but before we were hellhounds, we were a family of hunters with latent magic in our veins.

We lived in a different era. A time where the stars were our GPS and the sun was our clock. A time where hunting food and growing crops was how we survived and not a lifestyle choice or a passing fad.

We lived a good life, even through the plagues and diseases of old. We never spent time trying to fit a fashion or threw away our coins on the newest devices, not that I can really blame humans for that now. It's what they know. But for me and my brothers, simple is what we know and what we're used to. The world today is filled with so many distractions, it"s a wonder the humans get anything done.

Although, I wouldn"t mind taking a selfie with my black bird. Pulling my hellhound to the surface I think about what I'm not used to; this Crow. Why did my soul claim her? Is it set in stone or can I cut the binding? Do I even want to?

Stuck in a realm where space and time doesn't exist, I didn't have anyone but my brothers. Sure, there's other hellhounds in Hell's Vincula, but there's no one there we have ever connected with on anything deeper than sex.

But my black bird... she saw me, all of me. Though I look like I"m still in my twenties, the same age range I was when I became a Hellhound, this Crow saw things deeper than my physical being. In the short amount of time we stood before one another, she looked into my pits of fire. She saw things no one has ever bothered seeing or was capable of seeing.

Feeling dead inside has been something I've grown used to but when her wide eyes touched my soul, I felt everything fall open like a book that had fallen from its place on the shelf. I felt when she sifted through all my pages, touching on each painful word of my past, reading each tear that's fallen in private.

Yet that's not the most shocking of it all. What truly had my embers burning brighter is when she liked what she saw, when she didn't snicker at my moments of weakness or show me pity. My hound laid claim without hesitation. I can"t quite place the blame on my beast though, my black bird has me in her talons and I"d be lying if I said I didn"t like it.

I growl at that. I feel weakened by this feathered beauty and these damnable feelings she"s caused me.

I shake my head when Drac head butts me as he passes. I can"t begin to explain what happened to me, did the same happen to them?

With Draven, who can tell, but Drac looks like he found a bone to hoard.

Pushing thoughts aside as best I can, I fall in step with my brothers, following the scent of old magic.

Jasmine and peppermint.

The smell would make anyone think of bath salts or aromatherapy but the witches of the past used them for brews. Non-lethal defensive potions contain these two herbs which makes me wonder why these powerful Crows are using brews that can be used by anyone without magic in their veins. The Crow sisters are rumored to be the most powerful Vocem Sanguinis, Blood Crows, because their kind was created with a witch"s blood. Therefore, they"re the only known immortal witches. That"s the rumor anyway.

You see, our great grandmother was the only one in our family who cared for the craft. My brothers and I lost our witchiness, as Drac calls it, when we became the beasts of Hell. Though we still have superior abilities such as immortality and Hellfire.

My mother and father never wanted to learn how to use the magic lying latent in their bodies because at the time, witch hunts were rampant. Risking their family"s lives for power wasn"t worth it to them. They denied themselves but it was all for naught.

My brothers and I were out hunting when our grandmother, Merelda, found us and said that William Crow, the leader of the witch hunt, saw our baby sister using magic. All of his kills were done because of hearsay but with our sister, Elsie, he actually saw her using levitation. Her magic was just coming in but she wasn"t in control of her own limb movements yet, much less her magic. The monster killed her along with other innocents. A baby, killed by a power seeking devil because she was giggling at a floating rock.

My mouth fills with venom at the thought of that vicious crime.

At the time, mankind would have seen William"s deed as righteous. An act only allowed when the "criminal" is of the devil. But let me tell you something, I"ve seen the soul within William and the rest of those vile witch hunters and they are the very essence of evil.

Enough, brother. Draven speaks into my mind.

I guess I let my thoughts slip past the mental barrier in my anger. One of the abilities we gained when we became Hellhounds. In our human life, we were a family who actually had magic but we chose to be law abiding citizens in our humble village and yet, William still took our most precious. In rage and despair, our mother and father chose to show William what true magic could do by casting our first and last spell as humans.

I"ll never regret the curse put on those bastards even though our mother and father were lost to us. The spell took them and their souls; curses come with a price after all, and dark magic? That"s the heaviest of them all. The spell came with everlasting consequences but losing Elsie was the most painful thing to ever happen to us, the decision to use the craft was an easy one. For many years after becoming Hellhounds, I often wondered how my mother and father were able to create a curse when they never practiced the craft, I guess a mother's scorn has no limit to her vengeance.

After our parents died, our grandmother saved my brothers and I by binding our souls to the bodies of our hunting dogs. I don't remember my human name but my Doberman"s name was Drug so I took his name. Same with my brothers and their dogs.

During the transition from human to hellhound, we lost our witch abilities but we gained new magic. Hellhound magic and we became the hunters of the original Crows. We captured William and his followers but we let their children go free because they were innocent. It was the matriarchs of the Crows and the other families, who needed to suffer in Hell. Using Hellfire, we sent their souls to Vincula and we were to be their eternal guards, but somehow my brothers and I were released from our eternal guard post.

We"re not entirely sure how we got topside but we do know it took old magic to do so. Being that these Crow sisters are the most powerful immortals, they"re our prime suspects.

Why would these Crows release us from our post and how? They obviously don"t know how to use their magic... I don"t smell anything on them but rookie potions and a very faint scent of craft in their veins.I tell my brothers as we cross through the city.

The scent is leading us to the outskirts of Nola. I want to ask him about connecting with my black bird and feeling my hound"s claim over her but I"m not sure I want to acknowledge it to them yet. Plus, I can"t reach her mentally so I"m not sure if we"re truly bound to each other or not.

I smelled old magic on my—on the female who flipped us off.Draven sounds confused and his internal voice sounds like a snappy asshole. Oh shit. His words just registered.

Did it happen to you too?

Did your hound claim her?

Drac and I spout off our questions at the same time. Looks like we"ve all claimed a Crow for ourselves. What does this mean?

Answering my thoughts, Draven stops and spins around, facing us.

It means nothing brothers. They are still the descendants of our enemy, or did their pretty faces cause you to forget the suffering Elsie must have felt at the hands of William Crow? Stop thinking with your dicks so we can find these vampires. Perhaps they've released us so that they can tie us to them and be used in some nefarious plan.

The plumes of smoke coming from Draven"s nose and chest distort his face slightly but nothing can distort the anger in my words.

Fuck off Dray, you know damn well we"d never forget Elsie"s pain. Fuck you for even suggesting that. Elsie was our baby sister, I'll never forget her.

Drac paces back and forth between us. He hates it when we fight but it"s our way. All three of us are alphas, the only reason we let Draven lead us is because he is the oldest but don"t let that fool you into thinking Drac and I are omega and beta. Hell no. We respect Draven and love him but no one is true alpha over me.

Brothers, now is not the time for dick measuring. Draven, your words are foolish and said without thought or care. Drug is right, forgetting Elsie is an impossibility. Two, William and his followers are the cause of her pain not these very fucking distant relatives. Pull your head out of your ass and don"t lay the sins of one on another. We don't know how we were released so until we have actual proof I suggest you stop thinking with your fucking anger.

Draven and I stare at one another... in utter shock.

Drac never has a sensible thought nor does he have an ounce of sound reasoning. He"s a chaotic being filled with manic cruelty. Cruelty that he finds soothing and joyous to his soul. He has never once offered placating words and he has never played the level-headed man he"s being at this moment.

What?He asks with sincere confusion as he looks between Dray and I.

What has possessed you, a fucking monk?Draven"s laughter rumbles through our heads.

Ah, no. Not a monk but a pink haired devil has made me see the light and I have an itch to see if her insides are just as colorful. Now stop fighting and lead me to my meal.

There"s our lunatic brother.

Draven shakes his wide head before turning and following the trail once again. I understand Dray"s hesitance but if our hounds claimed them, I want to find out why.

You"re right, Drac. If there"s one thing history has taught us, it"s that one man"s bigotry is not another"s. I won"t judge them based on William but I will try them and if I find them guilty—Dray stops as the trail ends at a large black plantation house. He turns around to face us as he shifts into his human form before speaking—"I will kill them."