Page 55 of Bite of Vengeance

“She might be important to you,” I growled, squeezing his throat until pain flashed in his eyes. “But she iseverythingto me. I’m not going to hurt her. And none of you are going to try to stop me anytime I go near her. Do you understand?”

My jaw clenched when his glare turned frigid. No matter what I did, the Shadows would never obey me. I wondered if they would follow Keeva as effortlessly as they did with Kali.

“Stand down,” Kali ordered sharply. “Zan, let him go.”

I turned my attention back to her. “Giving me orders now?”

My tone was teasing, but there was a note of curiosity too. I hadn’t been gone more than a week, but I could sense that she was so much stronger. Was her transition over?

Dropping my arm from the Shadows throat, I snatched her wrist and tugged her with me as I walked toward a different tunnel. Her small protest had the Shadows murmuring angrily. Before they could follow, I pushed a door open which led us to another tunnel.

“Where are we going, Zan?”

“Somewhere there won’t be ears on us.”

After a couple more minutes of leading her through the tunnels, I halted in front of a thick door. Just like the rest of this compound, it was metal. I knew from memory that this roomwas soundproof. Pushing the door open, I waited for Kali to enter first before I followed.

She glanced around, taking in the gloomy scenery. A small fireplace was to the left, and the only furniture in the room was a mattress sitting on an old metal frame. A frown appeared as she stared at the bed.

“It was a torture room,” I said quietly as she stared at the chains that were connected to the wall behind the bed. “They’d chain a vampire on the bed, and then let sunlight in.”

“Sunlight?” she repeated tightly. “We’re underground.”

I caught the small chain that was hanging from the ceiling above me and pulled it down. A loud scraping noise filled the room before sunlight filtered across the bed as I moved the grate.

“PARA?” she asked.

“No.”

She turned to look at me, and I pointed out the answer. On the wall above the fireplace, there was a large four-leaf clover painted in black. Shock swept across her face as she swallowed thickly.

“The Clovers?” she breathed out. “This was their compound?”

“At some point, yes,” I replied, knowing she wouldn’t like my answer. “Some vampires found it and drove them out.”

“You mean killed them” she muttered.

“It happened years ago. Your group was larger than I first thought. The Clovers have been around for decades and have only grown.” I moved toward her. “When they captured me, they probably would have brought me to a place like this if I hadn’t demanded to talk only to you. It probably helped that they also ran out of hawthorn. I escaped before they could get more.”

She ran her hand along the foot of the bed frame before staring at the dust on her fingers. “Vampires know about this place. That means Amaros does.”

“No, he doesn’t,” I told her. “Those vampires were deserters. Didn’t want to follow my father. We tracked them here and dealt with them. This place is my brothers’ and mine. That’s it.”

“Really?” she hummed out, her eyes burning with curiosity. “You know, you and the twins keep a lot of secrets from your father. The humans entranced on his property. This place. I thought you didn’t lie to him unless it was about me.”

“I didn’t lie to him. We just never told him.” I cocked my head. “Everyone has secrets, Kali.”

“Do I know all of your secrets?”

Stepping forward, I caught her chin in my grasp, tilting her face up. “If you don’t know them, then I’ll tell you.”

She was doing a good job hiding her thoughts like she always did, but I didn’t miss how her heart sped up when I touched her.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” she mumbled before hesitating for a second. “I was worried about you.”

“Really?” I grinned smugly. “Ready to admit it, Kali?”

“Admit what?”

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