Page 44 of Property of Mako
“You are not going to be able to wage war in there. The attendees are not mere Covenant enforcers. They are the most dark and powerful of all the creatures that live on our side of the world. You will be able to get in, retrieve the girl, and get out. Stealth will be your friend, not force,” she warned.
My brows pinched in the center as that didn’t sit well with me. I swore this time Thane would be mine and the rest of those devious fucks would burn. Then there were all those innocent young girls that were being held along with Lily. We had no idea how many there actually were.
“I—”
“She’s not kidding, Mako This is a battle for another time. You need to accept that you cannot save the world any more than you could save your sister. Some things have to be allowed to run their natural course. Worry not; several of them have debts that I will be collecting soon,” Haidyn explained with a dark smirk.
“This is for your woman. It’s on the house,” Octavia quietly added as she slid another vial across the table. The pale blue liquid had little dark bits in it that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about.
“How do you know I have a woman?” Unease settled in my chest.
The arch of one slender brow, paired with a knowing smirk, was my reply. Instead, she imparted this advice, “She’s going to need it. With who she is, you can’t expect her to waltz in there and have no one recognize her. Hell, they’d smell her before she showed her face.”
For a heartbeat, I pressed my lips flat. “Thank you,” I begrudgingly replied, knowing she was absolutely correct. I’d been trying to figure out how I was going to get Lyra to stay behind short of tying her up.
“Good luck. You’ll need it,” she somberly murmured.
By the time I stepped back out into the night, the weight of the suede-wrapped vial in my jacket pocket felt heavier than lead. The plan was already in motion—Crypt Keeper, Spook, and Dexter were on board. Lyra would come, but not as herself.
She didn’t like the idea at first.
“You want me to what?” she asked, crossing her arms as I explained the role.
“Dexter’s pet,” I said bluntly. “Humans are allowed in, but only as property. You’ll be marked as his. No one will touch you unless they want to challenge him. Which they won’t.”
Her eyes burned with defiance, but I saw the calculation there too. She wanted in, and this was the only way.
“Fine,” she bit out through clenched teeth.
When we rolled up to the rendezvous point outside New Orleans, we looked like we belonged there. I wore a charcoal suit, my hair pulled back, a black shirt open at the throat to show just enough of the ink on my chest to mark me as dangerous without trying too hard. Lyra wore a black silk dress that clung to her like smoke, her temporarily dyed hair swept to the side to bare the delicate line of her neck.
The potion was painted on each of our palms in the sigil Octavia had drawn—crimson-black strokes that shimmered faintly when the moonlight hit. As we approached the plantation, the world flickered and shifted. One moment it was a crumbling, moss-draped ruin. The next, we stepped through the veil and into another reality—golden chandeliers, velvet-draped halls, and an undercurrent of power so thick it made the air taste bitterly metallic.
The Crimson Auction had begun.
Chapter 20
Among Wolves and Vultures
Mako
The air inside the veil was heavy—sweet with perfume, sharp with blood, and humming with power so thick it felt like it was crawling across my skin.
Every creature here was a predator. Some didn’t even try to hide it. Vampires with eyes like molten gold, mercurial silver, or pitch-black voids. Demons whose shadows twitched independently of their bodies. Witches wearing sharp smiles like knives. And every one of them dripping wealth and power.
Lyra stayed close to Dexter’s side, playing her role better than I’d expected. The silk of her dress caught the golden light of the chandeliers, her lips painted a deep wine-red, her expression the perfect balance of obedience and boredom. Anyone watching would believe she belonged to him.
Anyone except me.
I could feel her pulse from here—steady, but a little too quick. Despite the glamour she was veiled behind, as my mate, her scent curled in my lungs, that mix of warm skin and wild hair that made my fangs ache. Not the time.
“Eyes forward,” Crypt Keeper’s voice came through the comm tucked in my ear. “We’ve got watchers at the stairs.”
I glanced casually toward the grand staircase. Two vampires stood there, lean and elegant, their eyes tracking us like hawks. Their auras screamed Covenant, but their suits screamed money.
Spook’s voice crackled in next. “I’m getting glimpses of a holding area. Far side of the east wing. It’s warded everywhere but the locked door. I can’t project into the room. Too many guards to just stroll in. We need a distraction.”
I swept my gaze across the crowd. It was a sea of black suits, glittering gowns, and masked faces. Waiters carried trays of crystal flutes filled with something far too thick to be wine. A slow, sultry violin piece drifted through the air, curling around the hushed conversations. Somewhere beneath the glamour of the room, I could hear a faint, rhythmic thrum. Heartbeats. Too many.
