Page 1 of Crimson Mate

CHAPTER 1

Zachariah

Lycan territory feels a lot like stepping across a threshold and into a vat of quicksand.

The lycans granted my presence on their lands tonight to investigate a lead after gathering some information from Mrs. Zorin, but it’s no secret the lycan dogs hate us.

A sentiment I share. The king had made leaps and bounds with his alliances with the beasts, but I still haven’t caught up.

They aren’t what I’m here for though.

Mrs. Zorin told me about a bloodmad vampire trail, and I hope to find Samuel’s scent. I didn’t tell Saint because he’d been busy helping calm Aurora after an episode. Dagon had been in hiding, dodging Olivia's requests that he help uncover whether her niece was an elemental like him, and Ajax and Talon had been preoccupied with their mates.

Which is fine, because I don’t need backup.

Not for one bloodmad vampire. Especially not with all the powers I carry inside me. Powers that even the king doesn’t know about. We have to keep most of them under wraps, me and my brothers, because I’d be labeled as a threat. The fact that I absorb the powers of anyone I kill, or anyone who willingly givesthem to me, would be intimidating to even the most trusting of kings, let alone his assassins who are already wary of us.

Besides, solitude has been calling me since we’d awoken. Since I had to relive the memory of going into stasis and everything I gave up.

Lilac eyes flash into my memory; crystal clear as if I peered into them only yesterday.

I never stopped thinking about her. Never stop smelling her scent in the dead of the day while I slept.

She’s my first thought upon awakening, and my last as I fall asleep—a constant source of pain that grows stronger every night.

A branch creaks beneath my boot, and I curse myself for the sound, for getting distracted enough to not watch my footing as I traipse through the woods, hot on the trail of this vampire who sought refuge in lycan territory.

It doesn’t smell like Samuel, which leaves me feeling even more deflated than when I first started this hunt.

Either way, I have a duty to dispose of it. The thing has left a string of bodies from vampire to lycan territory, and it’s the one thing that I’ve been built to do.

A barrage of scents hit me as I clear a massive outcropping of trees, coming upon a wide-open cave that’s set straight into the base of a mountain. I scent at least three, possibly four, vampires. Each of them tinged with that bloodmadness me and my brothers have been trained to hunt and kill. The kind of vampire who is made two ways, either from toxic practices—denying blood upon transition and pairing it with physical and mental torture—or, from a vampire who stops towing the line with their thirst, gorging themselves on human blood so much they lose their moral center.

I’ve only taken one step toward the cave before they’re on me—not four, buteight—eight vampires with red eyes, bearing down on me in an instant.

Instinct takes over, and I draw my blades, slicing the necks of the two closest to me before dodging the hands of three more. My evasion tactics lead me deeper into the cave, something I know isn’t smart, but can’t avoid.

I dispatch another, taking the number down to five, but these things are relentless, attacking me with a mindless sense of malice that’s signature of a newly turned bloodmad vampire. There are slight hints of Samuel’s scent on them, and guilt fills my veins that my brother did this. Created these creatures in an attempt to throw us off his trail and to kill us at the same time.

And he might succeed, because I’ve never taken on this many by myself. Damn, I really shouldn’t have come alone.

Two of the vampires leap on me, taking me to the ground, baring their fangs, snapping at my neck as I hold them off. Hating how strong newly turned vampires are, I reach into my well of power, filling my hands with electricity and giving them both a shock that propels them across the cave.

Just as quickly, another two jump on me, and I turn my electric hands into fire, burning the two to ash as I find my footing.

A new smell slashes into the cave, as do the sounds of the screams of vampires as someone dances away from their clawed hands, stabbing two chests with one sword. The female wears the clothes of a huntress, something I haven’t seen in centuries. Black leather and a bright purple emblem emblazed across the back, which is all I can see of her.

“You take that one in the back,” she calls over her shoulder, and something about her voice jars me to my very core. “I'll handle these two.”

Before I can even think to argue or identify the familiarity in her tone, the vampire behind me wrestles me to the ground, and I struggle against its strength. I manage to throw it off, but in seconds, it has its fangs at my throat?—

The creature goes limp above me, a silver blade sticking through his back and out of his chest.

I shove the thing off. “Thanks—" My words die in my throat. “Talia?”

Lilac eyes lock with mine, shock radiating from them.

Mine.

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