Page 9 of Property of Mako
I sighed heavily. “Just go take care of her. I’ll find the other one, then head over to wipe her memory after I talk to them.”
He gave me a curt nod and walked off toward the small building we used as our infirmary.
Inside, my president was half-asleep in the common area lounge, one booted foot kicked up on the pool table. He looked up and raised a brow. “You’re back early.”
I tossed a bloody knife on the bar and ran a hand through my windblown hair. Then I grabbed one of the bar towels, poured some vodka on it, and started to wipe it clean. “Plans changed.”
Boomslang and Killswitch eyed me intently. “That bad?” Killswitch asked.
“Three enforcers. The rumors were correct—Covenant’s operating closer than we thought. I terminated them.”
Boomslang whistled low. “Shit. Anyone see you do that? Did anyone follow?”
“No.” I paused. “But there was a human.”
“A human?” Killswitch asked, leaning forward slightly.
Closing my eyes for a brief second, I sighed. “Actually two.”
That got Boomslang’s undivided attention. He sat up straight. “Dead?”
“No.” Fuck, I almost wished she was. “First one was a victim. Dexter is dealing with her now. Young. Too fucking young. Zeus or I will need to wipe her memory, or she’ll never lead a normal life. That is, if they didn’t already start the process. Dexter is going to keep her safe until we know. The other one—she saw too much, and they were after her. I had to intervene.”
“Since when do you play hero to strangers?” Niner, our treasurer, snorted. He was such an asshole. I really didn’t like him. He was the only one who disagreed with us helping the humans. He was of the mind that they existed for us to feed and fuck. I wish he had chosen a different chapter, but there weren’t a ton to choose from for people like us. He was also a wizard when it came to money and laundering it—hence his position as treasurer, even though he was a dick.
“Fuck off,” I grunted. Technically, he was right—I wasn’t exactly running around trying to save every human on Earth, but I refused to see them destroyed.
Boomslang stared at me to the point that I wanted to squirm. He knew me better than anyone in the club. We’d known each other for more years than most people were on Earth. He knew that wasn’t completely true either.
Eliska was living proof of that. She’d been a librarian I had befriended at one time. She’d reminded me of my sister in a way, and she was kind to me. Call it a slip-up, but I’d developed a fondness for her. She was probably the first person I’d truly cared about in ages. When she’d been abducted and I couldn’t find her, I had reached out to a hacker I’d worked with in the past.
That was before I’d run into Boomslang again. We hadn’t seen each other in over seventy-five years. We’d spent the evening in a dingy bar in a tiny town in Tennessee catching up.
I found it ironic that he was in a motorcycle club because, before everything with Eliska, I’d infiltrated a motorcycle club on a lead that they were tightly tied to a trafficking ring I’d been trying to destroy. Not out of any true noble motives, but because one of the vampires connected to my sister’s death was working with them.
At the end of the night, he’d asked me to follow him back to Louisiana and join his club. With Eliska safe and choosing to stay in Iowa, I’d taken it as a sign. The rest was history.
After I motioned to the prospect behind the bar, he hurried over. I pointed at one of the bottles, and he set it before me with a thump.
I popped open the bottle of blood whiskey and lifted it to my lips, throat burning as I drank. The memory of her lingered—wild, red hair, the fire in her eyes, and the blood spatter on her cheek—and it made something shift in my chest.
Fuck, I hated that. Dexter was right—I should’ve wiped her immediately. It would’ve been cleaner. Safer. Yet I’d hesitated, which was out of character for me. Not because of mercy, however.
But rather because something was very unusual about her, and something else told me that wasn’t the last time I’d see her. “I’ll deal with it all. Don’t worry. Killswitch? You still up for that ink we talked about?”
“You wanna start that now?” Killswitch asked.
“Unless you have something else going on.”
“Nope. Let’s go,” he got to his feet.
“I’ll call church for in the morning. We’ll discuss this turn of events more then,” Boomslang firmly announced, leaving no room for argument.
Lips flat, I nodded.
Stripping off my bloodstained cut, I walked down the back hallway to the room Killswitch and Zeus used for club ink work. As I pulled my torn T-shirt over my head, I caught my reflection in the mirror by the door. That BS about vampires not seeing their reflections made me chuckle darkly.
The bite wounds were already closing, but the burn she’d left in my thoughts? Not so much. It had taken extreme willpower not to taste her. The way her pulse had pounded through her veins had gotten my attention, but it was more than that. There was something in her scent—and I’m not talking about perfume. It was like I could smell something different in her very blood. It had called to me, almost like a song. It left me hungry.
