Page 15 of His Mate By Vengeance
When he re-emerged, showered and in human form, Vin was right where he’d left him, still staring up at the stars. Darkness had leached all the colour from the world, but he could see just fine and all the details his wolf side had failed to notice earlier came into painful focus. Vin was back in his original outfit, the fabric smelling faintly of the soap he must’ve hand-washed it with. The black skirt blended into the night but even so, he could make out the swell of the vampire’s ass as he traced his eyes up bare legs to his muscled back and took in the deceptively casual stance of a killer poised to react in a split-second to any threat.
“You said we’re going hunting. Where are we headed?” he asked.
Vin turned toward him, and his silver eyes flashed with desire before the sexy smirk he wore like armour re-emerged. “A club my mark visited while I was tracking him. I knew it was an unusual drop or meet at the time, but I just figured that was part of why Kyan wanted to off him. He hides his illegal dealings behind a reputation as a family man and he wouldn’t have risked being seen there unless there was a good reason. Kyan would’ve known his usual business contacts given he was a supplier, so it stands to reason whatever he was doing at that club was something he didn’t want Kyan seeing.”
Angelo gritted his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache. There was only one thing a ‘supplier’ would’ve been providing for someone in Kyan’s business—humans for sale, almost certainly unwilling. The fact this guy was a human himself only made it worse. At least the vamps had the excuse of needing them for food.
“Which club?”
“Hex-rated.”
Angelo groaned. Of course, it would be a gay bar owned by a fucking witch. At least it was located in the neutral territoryinside the Halo Road at the city’s centre and not associated with the Elemental Mayhem MC.
“They hate vamps. I thought they didn’t even let your kind in there,” he said.
“That’s probably why he went there. No chance of Kyan following him. Don’t worry. They won’t have any idea who or what I am,” Vin said, picking up a bottle on the patio beside him and spraying himself with it.
Angelo let out an embarrassing whine of distress that was pure wolf as the thick, cloying scent of designer cologne filled the air.
“You can’t screen your scent with human products,” he said, but for the life of him, he couldn’t catch a hint of Vin’s delectable smell anymore and it was driving him and his wolf crazy.
“I’m not screening my scent with it. I’m screening the high-grade magical scent blocker in the spray,” Vin said.
“You still look like a damn vamp,” Angelo growled, annoyed at how upset his wolf was at the block.
“Do I, though?”
Angelo turned away to stare out at the forest before he said something stupid. Vin was right. He didn’t look like any vamp in Kyan’s coven. Not with that slender build just begging to be manhandled and how short he was. Although, he could’ve been one of the unaffiliated vamps that paid protection to the coven.
Without the blood of his scent giving him away, it was only if you noticed his faintly glowing eyes, supernatural speed and strength, or too-sharp fangs that you would even suspect what he was. He looked like the kind of twink who’d be eaten alive in Hex-Rated and love every second of it. None of the clubgoers would realise he was the one who did the eating, and they were all his prey.
“You got a plan?” he asked, to distract himself from theanger he shouldn’t be feeling at the thought of anyone else touching the vampire.
Vin shrugged, the move drawing Angelo’s eyes to the elegant lines of his collarbone that he wanted to bite his way along until the vampire’s pale skin was red from his stubble like it had been that morning.Fuck. No.It took him a moment to process Vin’s reply, because he’d almost forgotten what he’d even asked.
“Poke around anywhere we shouldn’t be and see what turns up. And if that doesn’t work, make trouble until something interesting happens,” Vin said as he strutted toward the truck parked nearby.
“That’s barely a plan,” Angelo said, popping the bonnet of the truck so he could refit the spark plugs.
“Trust me. I’m very familiar with the location. I’ll figure something out.”
Trust a vampire. That went against everything Angelo believed, but apparently, his wolf was on board because the damn animal hiding deep inside him wasn’t even the slightest bit edgy as they got in the vehicle and headed out.
“Tell me more about the mark,” Angelo said as he navigated the narrow roads to take them back to the city.
“Derek Smythe. Forty-three years old. Five foot nine, but he always wears shoes that give him another inch. Brown hair. Scar on his eyebrow from a trampoline accident as a kid. His day job is chief financial officer for a shipping company. He’s got a big house, a fancy Mercedes, a wife, two kids, and a dog. The uncle who raised him is an enforcer for a human gang out west with a shitty rep. He’s used the shipping company infrastructure to move kidnapped and coerced people between countries for years.”
“Sounds like a great guy,” Angelo said, voice dripping scorn. The docks were in the Cruor Coven territory, and this kind of partnership was exactly why.
“Yup. Real charmer. He and Kyan have been working together for around ten years, but Derek started looking dodgy eighteen months back. Deliveries were late or not to the agreed terms. Just little things that individually could be put down to bad luck but started forming a pattern.”
“What made Kyan hire you to take him out?”
“Derek got too bold supplying a special order for one of Kyan’s human clients. When she turned up, no one realised she had a debilitating meth addiction he was supplying until she attacked the client. Even that might’ve been salvageable, but the client was the Chief of Police. She burned half his lip off with a lighter in an elevator with camera footage, and it turned out she was only fifteen years old.”
Angelo was gripping the steering wheel so tight he was worried it would snap beneath his hands. “He needs to fucking die. They all need to fucking die.”
“Agreed,” Vin said. “The Chief retired the next week and had a very sad accident on his boat. Got his tie stuck in a rotor and was slowly choked to death until he got caught up in the blades and sliced to pieces that washed up on the beach for days. Kyan killed the girl to keep things quiet before I could get to her. I won’t forget that. And Derek shouldn’t have lived out the day once I had him in my sights.”
