Page 6 of The Crownless King
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been warned, but hubris was a motherfucker.
Levi had attained the Akachi to help his coven gain power. It had certainly done that and then some. There were days where he could fight through the chaotic power of the stone, but then there were other times when the beast that lived inside the Bayi vampires got the better of him.
That monster demanded blood. Greedy and insatiable, destruction and chaos were the only thing that could feed it.
Levi lifted his head as he realized the silence around him. His second-in-command was looking at him as though waiting on an answer. Levi didn’t even realize they had been talking. How long had they been in conversation? He was almost afraid to ask because both Sebastian and Lucas were staring at him. The two males were his top enforcers and closest friends. Hell, his only friends. Even before he was under the influence of the Akachi, Levi didn’t trust anyone except this very limited circle.
Lucas’s gaze flickered to Sebastian, carrying the worry of a friend unsure of what to say in an awkward conversation.
“What?” Levi growled, tired of the silent judgment.
Both of his friends’ eyes dropped to the ground in front of Levi. In deference? Certainly not, he never required it of them. Then why…
Levi stepped back and looked down. His hands were covered in blood, his claws extended. The trek of his eyes from his hand to the floor was the longest ever and shock kept him still when he saw the body in front of him. He blinked; unsure how much time had passed. Or, for that matter, who the body was in front of him.
He straightened and stepped back. Sebastian handed him a towel and Levi looked around to orient himself to his surroundings. He was in his office at his logistics warehouse, which he was thankful for. Had he been in his office downtown, getting the blood out of the carpet would’ve been a chore for the office staff.
Wait…
Why was he in the logistics office? Tugging on his ear, he debated how to ask the awkward question.
Lucas snapped his fingers and Levi’s warehouse staff materialized, dragging the body from in front of him. Levi moved to the battered desk and sat on the edge.
“Your Highness,” Sebastian started, sharing another glance with Lucas.
“Just spit it out,” Levi told his friend, suddenly tired as hell.
“Far be it for me to alarm you, but you’re three bodies deep and we’re no closer to the answers we’ve been seeking.”
“Which are?” Fuck it, he didn’t have the mental capacity to guess.
“Who stole from you,” Lucas supplied.
That answer had a fresh cloud of red obscuring his vision. Levi breathed through it, gripping the towel in his hand tightly.
“We should call it a night. Tomorrow is a new day,” Sebastian said.
Levi took another look around. “Have I been to the office at all this evening?”
Bas sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Briefly. We had a meeting with a couple of border mages.”
“The Buru,” Levi murmured in reminder to himself. “Have we figured out which border they were infiltrating?”
Lucas nodded. “We narrowed it down to the north of us, though we don’t know the exact spot. The Lathams control the eastern border and their record is impeccable. If anything or anyone gets through that border, they don’t make it far.”
Levi tossed the towel down onto the desk. “The north of us is Lucian’s men.”
Memories were trickling in, though they were spotty. The meeting he’d held in his downtown office was with a pair of border mages Lucas had…convinced…to talk with Levi. According to the males, their section of the border was suffering from increased breaches. Even that bit of information had been given reluctantly, and only once Lucas had enthralled them with his power. Lucian’s men were loyal and despite any concerns they may have had about the breaches, they refused to point a finger at a reason why.
“And they didn’t have answers,” he stated, standing straight.
“No. And barring torture, we couldn’t compel them any further if we don’t want to attract attention.”
Levi nodded and walked towards the door. “I don’t want Lucian or the Collective in my business, so we’ll increase our patrols of the city and deal with it our way.”
Sebastian and Lucas fell in behind him as they exited the office and the warehouse altogether. Levi owned the trucking company that occupied the space, using it to move both legal and contraband items across the Southern USA. The warehouse was where he conducted activities that he couldn’t at his downtown office.
Sliding into his armored SUV, Levi closed his eyes as Lucas pulled off. They were quiet the whole way back to their compound, which was a relief really. His head was pounding, and the disordered thoughts swimming around his mind didn’t help. Lucas was pulling through the gates of their compound sooner than he thought, but he was happy for it.
