“So, it’s an illusion, a manipulation.” I sniffed the air. “Magic. I couldn’t smell it before, so maybe if we head in a direction where the smell is weaker …”
“Backtrack …” Nox nodded. “We can’t smell it, though,” he reminded me.
“Then we utilize my nose.”
I closed my eyes and focused on my olfactory sense. “Sariah, take my hand.”
Her fingers closed around mine. I began to walk. A meter or so and the smell got stronger.
“It’s getting stronger.”
“Intersection ahead,” Nox said.
Sariah led me left, and the smell was so strong it made me cough.
I shook my head. “No, not that way.”
She steered me right. The smell followed, lingering, but then it began to abate. “It’s working. It’s not as strong here.”
We continued like this for several minutes, using my nose as a guide, until the smell was all but gone.
We took another turn, and Sariah let out a sharp cry.
“What is it?”
A new smell hit me, coppery and fresh. Blood. My eyes popped open, and I stared at the ground, at the pool of blood. His scent was everywhere. Woodsy and pine. Grayson’s blood. He was hurt.
Nix ran up to the turn ahead. “This is it. The first corridor. This is where he scouted ahead.”
“How didn’t we see this.” I stared at the dark pool.
“Because the spell had us,” Sariah said. Her jaw ticked. “And now it doesn’t.”
I barely knew Grayson, but seeing his blood, knowing he was hurt, made something inside me snap. A cold determination sliced through me.
The vamps had Grayson, and I knew just who the fuck to shake down to get answers.
Chapter Fifteen
I spotted Killion by the bar, drink in hand, looking relaxed, and then he spotted me, and his lips curved in a smarmy smile. Anger rode each pulse of blood as it pounded through my veins. I strode toward him, and he pushed off the bar, eyes going wide because yeah, he could see the snarl on my face and the deadly intent in my eyes. My hand was around his throat before he could bolt, and then he was dangling off the ground in a pretty damn good imitation of what I liked to think of as an alpha hold.
I glared up at him. “Where is he?”
Killion kicked out, eyes bugging in his head.
“Where the fuck is Grayson?”
Because he knew. He had to fucking know.
“Fee, he can’t tell us anything if he’s dead,” Sariah reasoned.
But my grip didn’t want to loosen. I wanted to hurt him, to steal his air. “If he dies, then I’ll interrogate his ghost.” My smile felt jagged in my face. “I’m a Dominus, after all.”
Realization flitted across Killion’s face, and he made a desperate sound of protest. There was a commotion behind the bar, exclamations around me, but Nox and Nix could deal with that.
“Fee …” Sariah lightly touched my arm.
Fuck. The blood. Grayson’s blood. He was hurt. We had to get to him. I inhaled and exhaled, then carefully lowered the weasel to the ground and peeled my fingers from his throat.
“Talk, or I will gut you.”
Nox and Nix flanked him.
Killion hugged his throat protectively with his hands, droplets of sweat beading his brow. “I just look the other way. That’s all.”
“Bullshit. You’re in on this. You’re in deep. Where is their nest?”
His eyes widened. “You don’t understand. It’s not like it used to be. They’re fucking everywhere. They have power now, and if I tell, they’ll find a way to make me pay.”
“And if you don’t, I will slit your throat right now.” My blade kissed his jugular.
I meant it. I meant every word, because Grayson was hurt and taken and the clawing thing inside me would do anything to get him back. Fee, rational, empathic Fee, had taken a backseat.
I pressed the tip of my blade into his skin and drew blood.
“Okay, okay,” Killion said. “The portal leads to the old museums in the Southwest district.”
I slid a glance toward Sariah.
“Which one?” Sariah demanded. “There are several boarded-up buildings there.”
“The one that used to be the Natural History Museum,” Killion said.
I recalled that place. Aunt Lara had taken me as a child. I’d been fascinated by the artifacts from the time before. The museums had shut down a decade ago when the Department of Cultures’ budget was cut to pay for the upkeep of Soul Savers Inc.’s offices across the country.
Now museums could only be perused in an online virtual environment, every item carefully scanned and displayed in a pixelated world.
It just wasn’t the same.
The bloodlust inside me abated a little as the memory brought the Fee I recognized back to the surface. “If you’re lying to us, I will be back. I’ll find you, and I’ll kill you.”
“It’s the truth,” he pleaded.
I stepped back, taking my dagger with me. “It better be.”
The reapers didn’t speak until we exited the club, and then Sariah stopped on the pavement, hands on hips.
“We can’t go get him,” she said.
I frowned. “Why not?”
“The museum is on the Rising Pack’s territory. It’s off-limits to reapers.”
Off-limits? “I thought we were in charge here.”
They blinked at me and exchanged glances, but it was Nox who spoke. “We have jurisdiction based on the contracts the Underealm has with the human government and the outlier factions. We aid in the clean-up, but we’re not the only ones hunting. The Rising Pack keeps their own territory clean. They monitor the outliers who live there, and they don’t recognize Underealm authority.”
My mind began to whirr. “There’s a vamp nest on their territory. I think they’ll understand if we encroach.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Sariah said. “We’ll need to get approval and—”
Heat flared in the pit of my stomach, sharp and impatient. “How long?”
“What?”
“How long will that take?”
“A few hours, maybe a day?”
“No.” I walked off around the side of the club. “Hey, Regency Pack.”
Two pairs of glowing eyes moved toward me, and then two hulking guys slipped out of the shadows.
They both looked over my shoulder, but the stockier one spoke. “Where’s Grayson?”
“The vamps have him. They’ve portaled to the Natural History Museum.”
“Rising Pack territory,” the other one snarled. “Fuck.”
More Loup Garou joined me.
I met their glares, unflinching. “I know what the protocol is. I know we need to get permission to encroach on their territory, but if we wait, Grayson may not make it. So, I’m going in. If you want to come with, then feel free. Otherwise, stay out of my way.”
“Why?” The voice stopped me.
I turned my head to look at the speaker—a smaller Loup Garou with soulful brown eyes.
“Why what?”
“Why would you risk your life for one of us?”
He had a point. I didn’t know Grayson. Technically, he wasn’t my problem. He was his pack’s problem. I could tell myself it was because I needed to stop the vamps, and an hour ago, that would have been true, but now that was simply a small part of it. I needed to save Grayson with a primitive, instinctual drive. And there were no words to explain it, and no way to fight it.
I clenched the back of my teeth to hold back all those words and gave the only answer that might make sense to them. “Because you don’t walk away from someone who needs help.” I needed to save him because there was no other option. “Because if I don’t, he’ll die, and I’ll never forgive myself.”
Growls erupted around me. “We can’t breach Rising territory,” one of the Loup said, and surprise, surprise, it was the one Grayson had choked earlier.
“You would say that, Bastian,” brown eyes said.
Bastian lunged, snapping his teeth at the younger Loup. The Loup flinched but didn’t cower.
“Leave him alone,” the stocky one said. His gaze was fixed on me. “I’m Grayson’s second on this mission, and I don’t leave my men behind.” He bared his teeth in what I guess was supposed to be a smile. “We’re coming with you.”
“Good. Then keep up.” I walked away down the street. I had a train to catch, and an alpha to save.
Chapter Sixteen
It turned out that the museum had three entrances all on different streets. The place was huge. We’d scouted out two and found no breaches. This was the last entrance. There had to be a way into the building via this street.
“Stay here,” Sariah said. “Nix and I will look for a breach.”
“I’m coming with you,” Grayson’s second said.
His name was Dean. I’d found out that much on the way here. The train car we’d ridden in had been empty of humans, and demons and Loup rode it together. There could be a joke in there somewhere, but I wasn’t feeling the humor right now. My mind was sharp, my insides seething, my muscles crying out for action. It wasn’t natural. It was something else, but my mind didn’t have the energy to detangle what the fuck I was feeling.
My team and Dean, the Loup leader, slinked off into the night toward the boarded-up monolith of a building.
“The vamps are probably on a lower level,” soulful brown eyes said. “They like being close to the earth. They prefer underground nests, usually.” He gnawed on his bottom lip, his huge eyes soaking in the moonlight.
“Shut it,” the dickhead Loup snarled.
“Leave him be,” one of the others said wearily.
Brown eyes tucked in his chin, and I resisted the urge to ruffle his messy dark hair. How old was he? Sixteen? Seventeen? He couldn’t be much older than that.