Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MIKO

F uck that yeti for messing with my mate.

Thinking of her poked the hot coals of my rage. No one or nothing got to touch him.

Ever.

"Fucker," I grunted, picking up my pace after the cookie scent.

Soon I'd wrap Ori in my own brand of cotton wool to shield him from every evil thing. Or try to. He'd probably tell me off for doing so.

What can I say? I liked playing hero, especially with him.

Both Basil's scent and the metallic stink of blood magic intensified as we moved deeper into the western part of the forest. The trees thinned until we reached a clearing with a small house, its roof partially collapsed.

There was zero trace of Lance on the air, but it reeked of cookies to the point of a sugar rush.

"Be careful," Daria whispered, pointing out a set of glowing red runes on the ground.

They ran the entire perimeter of the clearing.

"How do we clear these?" I asked.

Daria's eyes narrowed, her fangs bared. "The spider waits for its web to be triggered." She pointed back to the trees. "Find somewhere to hide."

I didn't question the vampire. Judging by her expression, she had a plan. So, I followed it, taking cover behind a tree with Joe still on my back.

The sounds of the horde were still sufficiently far away for now. We had time.

Daria stalked the edge of the runes, her eyes on the house. Back and forth, back and forth, a panther waiting to strike. The house stayed quiet, no hints of life from sounds to visuals, only the smell of bodies and blood. Wooden boards covered every window and the front door, the glow of red runes on the knotted wood.

Daria stopped pacing, then crouched. After more staring at the house, she rolled onto her back, flinging her arm out to lay across the runes. Immediately, a circle of shimmering red light pulsed around the clearing, quickly evaporating. A stronger scent of blood hit me, its iron taint reaching my tastebuds.

Gross.

The vamp twitched a couple of times, her mouth slack, eyes wide and unblinking. I couldn't tell if she was acting or if the runes had really fucked her up. But I trusted in whatever plan she'd put in place.

Kind of.

Commotion followed. Voices, footsteps, the word vampire .

A woman appeared, dressed in red robes, her pale bald head covered in swirly, red tattoos. Gingerly, with the crimson mist of her blood magic dancing around her bleeding fingers, she approached Daria.

A man joined her, mirroring her stance, sporting similar tattoos, skin tone, and bald head.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Vampire," the woman responded, licking her bloodied lips.

"Is it dead?"

She shook her head, her cautious strides growing in confidence.

"What does it want?"

"How do I know?"

The man hurried to her side. "Be careful."

She elbowed him. "I'm always careful."

"We've lost too many…" He closed his eyes, shaking his head. "I don't want to lose you."

The woman faced him, cupping his chin. "I'm not going anywhere. All you have to worry about is staying strong."

He nodded. "I will be strong."

"I know you will." They exchanged a kiss, their chins smeared with blood afterwards.

"That was nice," the man said huskily.

Did I really have to watch this?

The woman's red eyes returned to Daria. "A vampire isn't fun nowadays. Fouled with the blood of vermin without humans around. But we can still harvest her blood."

"Extra blood is always good," the man added.

They laughed together as if his words were hilarious.

Dickheads.

The woman steepled her fingers. "What is she doing here, though?"

"Looking for shelter?"

"I'm not so sure."

Fuck. They were catching on already.

"Why wouldn't she seek shelter underground?" She drew a curved blade from within the folds of her robes.

Daria hadn't moved a muscle, practically a statue. What if the runes had fucked her up and I stood here watching her about to get beheaded or staked.

Shit. Shit. Shit. I pressed my fingers into the tree bark, torn between moving and spectating.

"She knows what she's doing," Joe whispered into my left ear.

The woman reached Daria first, the man holding back. "Stupid bitch broke the runes."

"Shall I fix them now?" the man asked.

With a dismissive wave in his direction, the woman bent down to inspect Daria. "Hello, you. What brings you out here?" She snorted, twirling her fingers, her blood magic building. "Shall we take a look inside that pretty head of yours?" Those stained fingers inched closer to Daria's skull, held out like a pair of claws.

It took a lot of willpower to stay put, especially with the noise of the horde rising.

"Where did you come from?" the woman said softly, fingertips almost landing. "Spill your secrets for me."

Daria moved with terrifying speed, on her feet and behind the magi within half a blink. The woman didn't even get a chance to be shocked, her throat already torn out, her body falling to the ground in a spray of blood.

The man yelped, struggling to formulate a spell. Daria snapped his neck, tossing him across the clearing.

Her eyes found me, her right index finger beckoning me to follow.

"Told you," Joe said.

I followed as more magi hurried out of the house. Some guy flung an orb of red energy at me. I dodged it, running at him full speed.

"Hold on tight," I told my vampire passenger.

The magi tried it again, missing like a complete tool. He yelped, turning to run. I leaped at the last minute, delivering a flying kick to his head. The fucker went down on his front. Before he could even attempt to get back up, I stomped on his head, cracking his skull like an egg.

My bloodlust stormed, these magi a hindrance to my mate's wellbeing. They loved fae blood; their friends had taken Ori and Basil to the Woolwich Ferry to hurt them, play with them, all the bad shit.

I grabbed another guy by his arm. He swiped at me with a magical fist, hurling a flurry of insults. He got his arm broken for his trouble, along with a headbutt.

"Down you fucking go!" I roared at him, stomping on his chest. His ribcage shattered like clay, his eyes bulging as life left them.

Joe slid off my back. "I'll give you some space." He sat on the ground, grinning.

"Bastards!" a woman screamed, charging at me with a baseball bat.

I waited for her, even let her take the first swing. My inner beast loved a scrap, this sort of activity the equivalent of blowing off steam.

"I'll take that." I snatched her bat, cracking her in the face with a brutal swing.

That hit would've been a homerun in baseball. But seeing another magi twitching at my feet was more fun.

Between us, Daria and I slaughtered every magi who came out of the house.

"One more left," Daria said, flinging blood from her hands.

I sniffed, smelling the fear of the magi inside, which wasn't good for Basil. Fear made people dangerous.

"Let's rescue the poor fae." Daria moved around the side of the house.

I turned to Joe. "You coming?"

"Leave me here."

"You sure?"

He nodded.

I went after the vamp, heading through an open door into a kitchen area. I wrinkled my nose under the heady scent of blood, scanning the jars and bottles filled with it, noting the stains on the floor. The room resembled a crime scene after a massacre.

Daria waited at the bottom of a blood-stained staircase in the adjoining hallway. Basil's cookie scent wafted down at us, along with the magi's.

Before we went up, I quickly checked the two rooms on the other side of the hallway to be safe. Relying on my senses wasn't always enough for me. I liked to be thorough.

"Clear," I said, satisfied.

Daria darted up the stairs. I followed, joining her at a closed door at the end of a narrow landing. There were two other doors, all ajar. I checked them, finding nothing but more blood stains.

A whimper came from behind the closed door.

"He is the one holding your pack," Daria said, her voice cold steel.

I tensed, going to move past her.

She stopped me. "This door is runed on the other side."

God, that pissed me off. "Can you break them?"

She waved her palm over the wood. "No." The vampire faced me. "Strange, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"The ones warding this house were weak, easily disrupted. They value your pack and the fae behind this door more than themselves."

Probably Lance's orders. The magi were in love with him right now, seeing him as their leader.

Yeah. Whatever.

My chest rumbled with a growling response. "Right. What are we doing?"

Daria faced the door again, deep in thought.

I folded my arms and stepped back, thinking hard myself. How fortified was this room? How strong willed was the prick inside it?

Daria waved her hand across the door again as I moved down the corridor, searching for an answer, a weak spot.

My eyes found a loft hatch.

The roof had collapsed, opening a path to potential weakness.

Excellent.

With no handle or cord to open the hatch, I jumped up and punched it. The ceiling was low enough for my fist to go all the way through to the other side. I dragged the hatch open with the new hole.

I half expected a ladder to slide out, but only fresh air flowed into the landing.

"Leave here!" the magi cried. "Leave me alone!"

His fear was palpable and delicious.

I climbed into the loft, finding a sea of debris from the collapsed roof along with a lot of dust. Navigating a maze of crushed boxes and busted antique clocks, breaking through thick walls of cobwebs, I came to the area above the magi's room. The floor was patchy—part wooden planks, part exposed insulation.

Crouching, I checked for runes on the planks, finding nothing. But that didn't mean they weren't there.

Movement behind me, the vampire by my side seconds later.

"Foolish magi left himself exposed," she purred.

That was all the sign I needed. I pulled up the planks to expose the insulation beneath, the magi screaming as I worked. I tore through the fiberglass, cringing in that way I did whenever I touched cotton wool. I found the plasterboard beneath, made short work of it, then jumped through as the magi readied a spell.

I stomped over to him, grabbing him by the head, a spell on his trembling lips.

He died before he finished, his neck snapped like a fucking twig.

Dumping his body on the ground, I went to Basil on the grubby mattress over in the far-left corner. Bound by ropes and gagged with a dirty rag, he blinked up at me. There were cuts along his face, the upper half of his body exposed, open wounds under his rib cage.

Poor guy.

I removed his gag, undoing his binds. He coughed, choking on the influx of air.

"Let's get you some water," I said, scanning the room for a bottle or something.

"There is no water," Daria answered.

Only jars of blood, this mattress, and a pile of hardback encyclopedias.

Daria opened the bedroom door. "Clear."

A wave of relief crashed into me. My pack were free to leave.

Basil managed to sit up. I placed a hand on his back to support him.

"Th-Thank you," he stammered, struggling to catch his breath.

"No worries. We weren't going to leave you behind."

"Where is… Where is everyone else?"

"We'll talk about it later," I said, keeping my steely focus up for the shitstorm ahead.

"Orion…"

He didn't help my cause, the sound of my mate's name leaving chinks in my armor. But he also, inadvertently, made a good point.

What about Ori? How did I get to him? What was my plan to get through the Faery gates? I couldn't just knock and hurl demands to open up. That'd be as useful as a pen without ink.

Shit.

The sounds of the horde were getting dangerously close.

"Let's get out of here," I said. "Basil? You good with being carried?"

He sighed but agreed to travel on my back.

Back outside, a light rain began to fall. The woods stirred under the cacophony of marching biters, Dawn's laughter thunder in the night.

Joe, back on his feet, pointed behind the house. "We go that way."

I didn't argue, although I really wanted to circle back to the factory. With the horde almost here, there'd be enough time for me to get to my pack.

Trust them to get to safety, I told myself.

Of course, I believed in every single one of them and their capabilities. But that didn't do anything to dim my protective instincts. They were my responsibility, under my alpha wings, so to speak.

I followed Joe and Daria around the house into the trees behind it, Basil on my back.

After about half a mile, I picked up a new scent.

A familiar scent that made me wrinkle my nose even more than the death stink of Earth.

I slowed down, my scalp prickling. "Lance."

The vampires came to a stop, inspecting the trees.

I heard the werelynx move, picked up his position over to my?—

Joe's head exploded as gunfire cracked through the air. Gore splattered my face along with Daria's. Joe's body crumbled into ashes, scattering on the wind.

"He's dead," Daria said, as if she didn't quite believe it. She bent to touch the remaining pile of her friend. "Joseph?"

I spotted a flash to my right, then saw the cruel grin on Lance's face as he aimed the rifle.

He fired.