Bane of the Bears (Born of Blood Book 1) Read online

  Something about the way he says that makes my skin crawl. The way his performative shock just melts away the angrier he gets. “Why do I feel like you’ve… known where he is this whole time?”

  “I ain’t in the mood for this,” Enzi says. He turns on his heel and storms out of the den, slamming the door shut behind him.

  Maybe I should give him a minute to cool off—or, better yet, give myself a minute.

  But I don’t.

  I chase him out into the kitchen where Cosmo is lingering silently by the knives. He doesn’t say anything to either of us, just keeps glaring down at the drawers, tapping his fingers impatiently against the counter. He doesn’t say much most of the time, just kind of… floats around, like most ghosts do, and intervenes only when absolutely necessary.

  Enzi might need to be saved by him in a minute, if what I’m thinking is true.

  “You knew!” I shout. “You knew this whole time and you didn’t say shit! You let me chase my tail for months trying to find him, and this whole time, you could’ve—”

  “Could’ve what?” he snaps back. “Sent you off the deep end after him? What’re you gonna do, kid, go play house with our sisters?”

  I hold my breath so I don’t blurt out my suspicions, my questions. He doesn’t deserve to know—fuck, he doesn’t even want to know. He doesn’t care, no matter how much I do. It’s always about him.

  “Yeah,” I say, instead. “I’m gonna go play house with my dad and my sisters, and take my place in the safe, wealthy lifestyle that you’ve denied me.”

  Hurt flashes across Enzi’s face, but he buries it as quick as it flares. He’s good at that. Not feeling anything, about anything or anyone, ever.

  “I’ve given everything for you,” Enzi says, his voice low and measured. “I’ve protected you. I’ve killed for you. I’ve worked my ass off to give us some semblance of normalcy.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I snark, selfishly wanting to hurt him like he’s hurt me with this omission. In my heart, I know all he’s sacrificed to keep us safe, but right now, it doesn’t matter. Right now, I don’t give a solitary shit about any of it. “We could’ve just gone to him and been safe. Always. Sheltered and fed and—”

  “And indentured like property,” Enzi snaps. “Are you really gonna stand here and tell me I could’ve done better by joining the mob family of shifters? It would’ve been better for you to be a soldier in a war you have no purpose in, to have all your choices taken away from you?”

  This isn’t a conversation. It’s not something we’ll ever agree on. I know it from years and years of arguing, begging, crying. He likes things how they are. And I want more.

  “I’m going to see him.”

  Enzi’s jaw ticks, eyes narrowing viciously as he gives a slow shake of his head. He dies inside, right here in front of me, his resilience burns out. He gives up.

  I broke him.

  “You wanna kill yourself, too? Fine,” he says. He throws the front door open and holds his arm out, showing me out. “I don’t have to watch.”

  He’s bluffing. He doesn’t think I’ll call him on it.

  Right?

  I square my shoulders and grab my jacket off the coat hook, storm past him into the front yard.

  He doesn’t stop me. He doesn’t say anything.

  He doesn’t even look surprised.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I say, even though my voice shakes, my fingers cold and numb with panic and hurt.

  Firing a bullet through my chest with his disappointed, frigid eyes, Enzi says, “Then go die with him.”

  It takes two weeks to fully move into the city. Vegas rent is steeper than shit, but it turns out some of the skeevier hotels are willing to rent out a room for cheap labor. The plumbing is slow and the locks don’t work great, but, hey, I don’t have anything of value anyway. If someone’s so bad off they need to steal my drawers, more power to ‘em.

  Now, the task is finding Ursula. I’ve run into a handful of, er, characters around here, but no one was so brazen as to tell me her exact location or what she does on a day-to-day basis. The closest I got to direct answers was from a dude in a trash can who pegged me as a grizzly shifter on sight, who told me Ursula owns the gym he’s squatting behind.

  He also said she’s actually a stack of bugs in a flesh suit and they’re out to rid the planet of honey bees because the plastic bear jars are offensive… So he might not be the best source for information.

  But hey. At least I had a starting point.

  I join said gym and go twice a day, try and sign up for some classes or buddy up with some of the buffer dudes who might not be human. No luck. For two straight weeks.

  Until tonight.

  I work the elliptical until my knees shake, waiting, hoping and praying for Dad to walk through the doors and sneak through some hidden passageway that I can stalk through. I still don’t have the slightest clue what I’m supposed to say, so it’s probably best that doesn’t happen.

  I shower in the locker room and change into clean clothes before heading out into the night. A pink haired girl nearly crashes into me when I exit, muttering a quick apology before carrying off toward the theater district, and that sets the tone for most interactions on my way home.

  Fuck, I miss Enzi… maybe this was a mistake. I’m balls deep in my search with nothing concrete to show for it. The hotel isn’t much worse than our cabin, but at least I wasn’t completely alone.

  Much as I hate being wrong, maybe it’s time to give…

  “Better luck next time, Skeeter!”

  “Luck runs out for everyone, Jelani!”

  The woman laughs at the angry street vendor, swiveling her hips seductively as she trots on and ducks into the next bar. She’s flanked by a scruffy bald dude, and I swear I’ve seen him before. Somewhere… He’s in a button up shirt and dark jeans, donning a bored expression and violent, dark eyes.

  Jelani…

  No fucking way, I’m not this lucky.

  I nearly break into a sprint to catch up to them, plowing into the bar like a maniac. Three girls at the front eye me warily, collecting their drinks and rushing to the dance floor.

  I find the woman and her little dress quickly. She’s tipsy, swaying back into her shadow of a boyfriend, a giant smile on her pretty face. Her black hair is straightened and shimmering under the neon lights, her dark skin glowing like northern lights over a pitch black sea.

  She’s… stunning.

  I smack myself across the face, shaking off the thoughts. She damn well might be my sister—at the least, she was raised by my father. If that’s not enough reason to shut down any weird mate calls, I don’t know what is.

  On top of that, her man is at her side, arm around her waist, looking at her like she’s the moon and stars. She’s clearly taken. And lightyears out of my league.

  This is not why I came out here.

  I’m not the only one who notices her ethereal glow, that’s for damn sure. The nanosecond she breaks from her guy to order two drinks at the bar, some bulky dude grinds on her ass, hollering like a moron to the crowd of guys egging him on.

  Her boyfriend’s eyes widen comically, and he backs away, keeping his eyes trained on her.

  For a minute, I’m so pissed I want to punch him in the throat. That’s her man—tough ass bitch or not, is that not his cue to defend her? It’s not her responsibility to fight off perverts.

  The Jelani woman looks over her shoulder and tips her head down, blinking owlishly at her assailant. “Can I help you, friend?”

  He chuckles and closes his hand over her ass, leaning in close and grunting, “Come on, kitten, does it feel like I wanna be friends?”

  Alright, that’s enough. She needs a better boyfriend, that’s for damn certain, but I’m not going to stand here and watch this—

  She gives the bartender a hundred dollar bill for the two orange drinks. She sniffs her own skeptically and takes a small sip, her nose scrunching sweetly as a shudder r
uns through her. “Ugh,” she sighs. “Just not the same as Tucker’s.”

  She slides both drinks down to her boyfriend, sat three seats away with his eyes on her feet.

  “Who’s Tucker?” asks the drunkard, still gyrating his hips against her ass.

  “A friend,” she says. She turns in his hold and kicks her leg up over his hip, arching her back and drawing his movements between her legs instead.

  He freezes, and so do I.

  “Now, how about we take this outside…” she purrs, raising a brow, but the look in her eyes is anything but inviting. “…kitten?”

  His friends whoop and whistle, and his smile makes my skin crawl, but she takes his wrist and yanks him forward and out the side door.

  Her friend is in my face before I can make it out the door after her.

  “Who are you?” he asks.

  “None of your fucking business.” I shove him back a step, growling at him so he knows exactly what he’s dealing with.

  “You’re stalking my girl,” he says, glowering. “It’s my business.”

  “I’m stalking—?! Your girl is getting assaulted in the alley, and you’re worried about me?” I scoff, unable to keep the shock off my face. Is this guy fucking serious?

  He smiles knowingly, a dark excitement brewing behind his eyes. “What’s your name?”

  Up close, I realize where I recognize him from. Last year, when Enzi took me to the cabin and that guy fell off the edge of the clearing. Dude was crumpled up like a pretzel, but Enzi ripped his guts out anyway and caused a whole landslide over it.

  I can see the scars peeking from under his tee shirt now.

  “You’re that dude from the glen,” I say. “I saw you—I saw you die, how… How are you alive?”

  “Oh, is anyone really alive in Vegas?” he chuckles. He doesn’t sound the least bit concerned we’ve met before, or how, but there’s a tightness in his jaw I can’t miss now. “What’s. Your. Name?”

  “Bayne,” I hiss. “Bayne Stanton.”

  He squints curiously, like he’s heard my name before, then has the audacity to offer me his hand to shake. “Dov. You already know Ursula, I presume.”

  I ignore his hand. Motherfucker is gonna let his girlfriend get raped and try to have a tea party with me at the same time. “You gonna let me help your girl now, or are you gonna get off your dead ass and do something about this?”

  He laughs at me outright now, shaking his head and putting his hand in his pocket. “Follow me. We’ll meet her out back.”

  He closes his hand on the back of my neck and pushes me out the door, wandering the long way around the building. The girl—Ursula’s voice touches my ears once we walk around the back, her distress setting my blood on fire.

  “Stop it,” she whines, struggling to push the drunkard’s hands out from under her skirt. “Please, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  He doesn’t listen, grumbling something about how she’ll like it, it’s sexy when she fights. Again, I move to lunge, but Dov grabs my arm and holds me back.

  “God damn it, get off me!” I snap at him.

  “Watch,” he barks, digging his fingers in and stealing my breath. His touch is smothering, somehow, cutting off my words and freezing me in place, his two fingers dug into my elbow feeling akin to being crushed by a truck.

  Like clockwork, my silence is followed by a ragged scream. A very male ragged scream. I turn in time to see Ursula straightening while her attacker crumbles at her feet, clutching his bleeding crotch with both hands as blood spurts from his chest, wheezing air rushing out from his clenched teeth.

  “To be fair,” Ursula says calmly, “I told you I changed my mind.”

  “Crazy bitch,” he hisses.

  She snickers. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

  Her eyes roll back in her head, open palms flashing and crackling with electricity, two tiny black hurricanes brewing at the tips of her fingers. The clouds meet between her hands in front of her chest, and as she draws in a gasp, they crash down on his body like smoke, swirling out around her feet and disappearing into the air.

  His eyes are still open, his last breath gone with the magic she brought forth.

  “As I said,” Dov says, patting my shoulder in a form of mocking comfort. “She’s got it handled.”

  “Dov?” she calls, glaring down at the blood on her fingernails. “You here?”

  “Coming, baby girl,” he calls back, releasing his death grip on me finally, letting me breathe once more. “Nice to meet you, Bayne.”

  And then he walks away to meet his lady, leaving me to process the nightmare that unfolded in front of me.

  What have I gotten myself into…

  “He’s dead, you can come out now.”

  I toe the smelly corpse off my shoe and dust the bottom of my dress, like I can brush the feeling of this jackass’s hands off my body forever. I came out to have a good time, act like a normal twenty-something girl in Las Vegas for just five minutes of my life with my guy. But noo. Of course, being a normal woman in the city comes with its own set of challenges, and most of them look like drunk men with entitlement issues.

  He had not intended to piss off a bear shifter, I’m absolutely sure of that. But boo-hoo for him and his wandering hands. You don’t just grope women and drag them down dark alleyways and leave with your cock intact.

  “A bit harsh, don’t you think?” Dov asks, his voice dry, but the glimmer in his eyes betrays the humor he reaps from this whole event.

  ‘Kay, maybe I could’ve castrated him and sent him on his merry way or whatever. But he made me feel small, and I’m not in the mood for that in the slightest. In fact, I probably saved the next girl he’d try to force himself upon, and for that, I should get a gold star.

  “No means no?” I offer with a delicate smile. Dov stares at me as he passes me a wet wipe to clean my hands with, unimpressed with my innocent charade, so I shrug. “Take care of it for me. Dad’ll be happy to have another body to sell.”

  “Where are you going now?”

  “Don’t you hear the ruckus?” I gesture out into the street, where wet gurgles and angry girl voices echo like a siren song. My cries for help were fake, but this woman is in real trouble. What does he expect me to do? Go back inside for that subpar sidecar? Pfft.

  He sighs, pulling his fancy purple scythe out of thin air and spinning it lazily. Show off. “You don’t have to insert yourself in every problem, baby girl.”

  But I’m already walking away. Whatshisface—did he ever give me his name? Crap. We’ll go with Dick—already killed my vibe, so I may as well take a wander around the city and see if I can regain some sense of intrigue. Who knows, maybe something interesting is happening for once.

  I duck into a new alley, thinking I’ll cut to the other side of the casino before the yelling gets louder. My pointed heel catches on something soft, and worst of all, sticky, and I tumble hard, narrowly catching myself on the wall.

  The body is fresh, too, making it even nastier to have dug my toe into. He’s pliant and barely cool to the touch, unnoticed by the flies near the dumpster his head is unceremoniously propped on. His pale face is shriveled, eyes frozen in paralyzing fear. The holes in his throat accompanied by the red tinged spittle on his light hoodie are the only evidence of what super got ahold of this poor bastard.

  “Sonofa... really?” I plant my scraped hands on my hips, glaring down at the corpse like it’s his fault someone left him here like a potato that fell off the back of the truck. “Fuckin’ vampires. What happened to babynapping, guys?”

  As if the walrus lookin’ shadow hoppers are anywhere nearby to hear my griping. They’re probably a dozen blocks away, abducting children for their monthly sacrifice to the Bat Overlord.

  Or whatever it is that vampires do in their spare time.

  Well, hey. At least this is a clean-ish kill.

  I drag the skinny dead dude behind said dumpster and follow the screaming, finding a second body on the w
ay. Because it’s just gonna be that kind of evening, isn’t it?

  This one is bigger than the last, his dark skin faintly flushed and warm under my fingertips. I turn his jaw up, searching for the fang marks, and finding only pale scars in his jugular.

  Weird. Maybe he was a blood bag? Make out session gone wrong? From what I’ve heard, vamps like all that biting and blood-play in the bedroom, so maybe this guy got taken down by his femoral artery.

  Pretty as he is, nice to think he went down grinning.

  “Well, sir, as much as I’d have loved to see what you’re packing about an hour ago…” I muse aloud, studying his thick lashes fanned over his cheek. “Necrophilia just doesn’t do it for me.”

  “Get off me, I said no!”

  It really is just the night for non-consent, I guess. I leave tall, dark and deceased where he is, knowing no one will pay him any mind until I can come back and pick him up, and follow the noise. Six dudes surround the screaming girl, all dressed in tee shirts and khaki shorts, save for the one dude in a fancy suit.

  And I mean fancy suit. Fits him like it was painted on by the angels, hems glowing like they were hand-stitched by faeries with unicorn hair or something equally magnificent.

  Kinda gross that someone so fanciful would be hanging out with Neanderthals in khakis of all things. Disappointing.

  Fancy Pants proves he’s not with the lesser-thans by grabbing one of them by the hair and yanking him backwards. He puts the loser on his knees and cranes his head back, exposing his throat to his friends.

  “Unless you’d like to bathe in your friend’s blood this evening, I suggest you run along,” says Suit. He makes a shooing motion at the lot of them, dark eyes fixed on the girl as she adjusts her shirt straps back on her shoulders. “You, too. Go on.”

  “Dude, what the fuck is wrong with your eyes?” asks an imbecile. His voice shakes as much as his body does, but he doesn’t move to flee. “Are-are those contacts?”

  Humans. How this species has survived this long, I swear, it’s a miracle. Divine intervention. Gotta be.