Page 8 of Master Oradea

I clear my throat. Because that short skirt and the way your nipples peek through that sheer blouse are driving me absolutely crazy does not seem like an appropriate response. “I need to find the rogues. I’m not going to leave you here. I can’t protect you if you’re not by my side.”

Her eyes go wide. “I thought I would just be hanging out here, maybe catch up on some reading or Netflix. You plan to take me traipsing around the world, looking for the same rogues who want to capture me and drink my blood? Have you lost your bloody mind?”

I smirk. “If you put it like that, it wouldn’t sound that appealing to me either. How about you think of it this way. Me and the other masters will be out looking for them. If I’m not here, and they come for you, they get past my security, then what? It’s safer for you to be with us. Okay?”

She swallows, and I track the motion of her creamy throat, shifting as my dick pushes against the seam of my pants for the umpteenth time since this confounding woman came into my life.

“I’ll leave you to settle in. My room is next door if you need anything. I’m going to get changed. Do you want to see if your brothers can have some of your clothes delivered? I’d like to grab something to eat and go out yet tonight. If you haven’t heard, we stay out of the sun and sleep during the day.”

She grins. “I do know that much about you.”

I turn away before she sees my smile, heading to my room to change. I’ve barely gotten my boots laced when boisterous voices outside catch my attention. Natalia hears it too and comes to her doorway. I gesture for her not to move. “Stay here until I come back for you.”

Her face turns white, and her heart begins to pound. My keen ears try to make out the conversation below, but the sudden smell of shifters tells me it’s not safe. I transport to the lower level, not caring if Natalia sees me or not. The rules of the vampire masters assimilating into the human world, adapting their behaviors is fine most times, but not when we have rogues to hunt and kill.

Romano, Campania, Sardinia and Botosoni are outside with two mangy shifters. “We caught them outside the gates as we were coming back. They must have been following upwind and thought everyone was in for the night.” Campania and Sardinia have each of them zip tied and held in a tight grip. I gesture to the large metal shed at the far side of the property where supplies for the vineyard are kept. “There’s space for our visitors there.”

I turn to the shifters. “Where is Lucas?” I ask, not expecting an answer this easily, but surprised when one of them speaks. “He’s gone psycho. The minute he finds out we’ve been taken he will have an order put out to kill us, whether we talked or not. We’re better off telling you everything and making a deal to save our skin.”

It’s either our lucky day or a stupid attempt at a trap, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth in case what they say is true. “Okay, why don’t you give us something of value, and we’ll contemplate a deal, but you should know that any negotiations we make will include you being returned to Sheba. What happens to you in the end will be no one’s call but his.”

The wolves exchange a glance and both nod. Clearly dealing with Sheba, the leader they deserted, is less of a threat than being handed over to a psycho like Lucas who seems to have put a deep-seated fear into these shifters. They both start to talk, but I point to the one who spoke first. “You’ll stay with me and tell me what you know.”

I turn to Romano and Campania. “Can you take the other to the shed and get whatever information you can from him? Better that they aren’t together.” They turn to take him away, and Sardinia and Botosoni follow me across the lawn and toward a clearing in the woods, with the shifter in tow. At least here, there is enough cover to keep us out of sight in case others are lurking. I turn to the shifter. “Now, tell us what you know.”

He doesn’t need to be prodded or given an incentive to divulge the whereabouts of Lucas or whereabouts of the dens the other wolves have used. When we’ve gotten everything useful from the mangy shifter, I give Sardinia a nod. “Take him to the shed. We can keep him with the others until Sheba can come for them.”

Botosoni gestures toward the back of the shifter as Sardinia leads our captive to his temporary home. “You think we can trust what he said?”

I wish there was a better answer. “It’s a good question, but the truth is that we won’t know until we check it out. Trap or not, it has to be done.”

Campania and Romano return with Sardinia after a short wait. “What did the mangy shyster tell you?” I ask, as we make our way back to the house.

“He said that Lucas is hiding out near the base of the mountain, and that the shifters have several dens strategically located around the area to protect him and the rogues.”

Botosoni and Sardinia exchange glances with me. “That’s exactly what the other one said. So they either contrived the story before we caught them to send us to a trap, or they’re telling the truth. Either way, we’re not going to know until we go hunting, men,” I tell them as we enter my house.

Overmaster Descallia and Lucianna come out from the kitchen with the ladies as we walk in. He gestures me and the masters not so discreetly to the side. “Lucianna could see what happened with the shifters. She told me some of it as it was happening, but did they give you anything concrete that we can trust?”

I inhale, wishing I could be more definitive. “They told us they’re all hanging out at the bottom of the mountain base. We separated them to ask the questions, to see if we would get different answers and we didn’t, but still, it may be a well thought-out trap. We’re not going to know until we go exploring. My gut says we need to go fast before they realize that two of their own didn’t return and start wondering if they’ve spilled their guts.”

The masters all nod in agreement. Overmaster Descallia seems more than ready to go but he’s not going to like having to take a human along for the hunt, but still she needs to go. “I need to take Natalia,” I explain, more for the others benefit than Descallia’s since he already knows the situation. “After Lucas came to the club last night, he saw the Benzini brothers talking with Roman. He knows Roman is working with us, unofficially or not. Natalia was threatened by one of the rogues. She’s an innocent. You know they’re going to try to sacrifice her to make a heated point.”

I feel and hear the uniqueness of her heartbeat before she clears her throat. Fuck… I turn and take in the pallor of her skin and can feel the wildly beating heart beneath her chest from here, wishing I could take back the words that just came out of my mouth. Her eyes meet mine dead on. “I guess the sacrificial lamb has no choice but to go hunting with the mighty vampires if I want to keep my blood and virginity intact.”

Lucianna smiles gently at the young woman and comes to make her acquaintance, followed by Raven, Willow, Madria and Catina who within minutes have her smiling and feeling much more at home than she was moments ago. “No sign of your brothers or some decent clothes?” I ask, turning my attention back to her. She grimaces, looking at the others who wear jeans and long sleeve t-shirts under their jackets, observing them as they tuck weapons into their dual chest vests. She watches the ladies with their jewel-tipped daggers. “Anyone have clothes I can borrow?”

The ladies laugh. Raven flips her head and waves a wand that magically appears in her outstretched hand. In a blink of an eye, Natalia looks down, suddenly dressed in hiking boots, jeans, and a tight-fitting Henley with buttons that leave just a little too much cleavage exposed, drawing my attention to the creamy swell beneath her shirt. Raven grins. “That’s how we roll around here.”

Natalia grins back at Raven, but she feels my eyes on her. The slow coloring of her cheeks tells me everything I need to know. Natalia is as conscience of me as I am of her, this attraction, whether we want to admit it or not, whether forbidden by her brothers or my position as her protector is not something that’s going to go away. Touching Natalia could expand the war from vampire to vampire to us with the Benzini brothers as well. I drag my eyes away from the tempting little enchantress, because that’s what I should do, yet the heat of her gaze draws them back like a temptress in the night.

Chapter 8

Natalia

The men dwarf us, in an overwhelming stampede of dark-haired males with dark eyes. They are intent on one thing—hunting vampires and keeping everyone safe. An admirable goal, but still my heart beats with the enormity of being part of this war. I watch them gear up for battle, snugging swords and daggers into this loophole and that. They pay close attention to their mates, ensuring they’re prepared with not only weapons but stakes as well. When Oradea finishes passing items out to the others from a wall-length closet that seems to double as an arsenal storage, he turns to me, assessing me for a moment. “Have you ever wielded a sword, tossed a dagger, a star?”

I try not to grin at the situation. “None of the above. I’m a hopeless warrior.” He opens the other door to the closet and pulls out a box, opening it while balancing it in the ginormous palm of his hand. “This belongs to me. I assume your brothers taught you how to shoot?”

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