High Society (The High Stakes Saga #3)

“Where are your friends?” Titus asked.

“What friends?” the vampire asked with a chuckle.

Suddenly, two vampires rushed us from behind. We staked them easily, but while we were distracted, our little friend moved. Titus and I stood back to back and circled in a protective stance, ready to take action, but he was nowhere to be seen. I had a sudden thought and looked up into the tree’s canopy. “Up there!” I yelled.

Titus cursed as the vampire pounced, landing on his back. I heaved the vampire off Titus easily and slammed him onto the ground, but he was scrappy. He kicked my legs out from under me and snapped at my throat as I landed on the ground beside him. I managed to hold him off me while Titus slammed a stake into his back. The vamp reared. He wasn’t dying. He clawed at the stake, almost catching hold of it. “It’s not in far enough!” I declared.

Titus tackled him to the ground belly-down and slammed him bodily against the earth until the stake sank into his heart. The vamp gasped and sputtered until the strength leached from his arms and legs and he went limp. As he withered, we kept a wary eye all around us. Titus rolled him over and removed his stake, rinsing the blood off in the stream.

“Watch your back, Eve. Blood in the water is known to attract sharks.”

Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. If they came to us, we wouldn’t have to hunt them down. Plus, we could have the upper hand.

Grass rustled just upstream. Titus froze and pointed toward the tree. I climbed it quickly while he hid along a steep section of riverbank.

The vampire was young, like the other three we’d slain. “Where are you?” he whisper-yelled. “Lads? I feel terrible. I need help.”

I dropped down from the limb on which I’d been standing. “There’s nothing they or anyone else can do to help you.”

“Who are you?” he asked, his eyes darkening as I pushed my scent out to him. My blood called to the feral part that his recent transition to vampire had awakened.

“Who sired you? Tell me, and I will make your death quick.”

He tossed his head back and laughed, his tawny hair glossy in the moonlight. “You can’t kill me.”

I pushed him backward into the stream where Titus caught and pinned him by the throat in the light trickle of water. The vamp thrashed in the flow, craning his head to get a breath. “Who sired you?” I asked again, walking leisurely into the water and putting my stake over his heart.

“We can do this the hard way or the easy way, dude, but you’re not making it past us alive,” Titus warned. He held the vampire tight. They were stronger than some of the vamps we’d staked in the arena, but not nearly as strong as the Nephilim.

Titus forced him under the water, letting him back up several seconds later. He repeated this until the man was worn out. “Tell us who sired you,” he gritted in the vampire’s face. I’d only seen Titus this aggravated a few times before and knew what would likely follow. He was about to give him the ass-kicking of a lifetime and then stake him for fun.

“I don’t know his name!” the young vampire cried out. “He talked like you, but wore… I don’t know his name. I’m sorry. Please, let me up.”

Titus looked over his shoulder at me. My stake was ready to hit its mark. At his nod, I plunged it in fast and we watched the life ebb from the vampire’s body. Titus pulled my stake from his body and washed it off. The vampire’s body bobbed along with the water’s flow.

My head began to throb, but I didn’t tell Titus. I hoped the adrenaline rushing through him would keep him from noticing.

Before we stepped out of the water, Enoch and Asa appeared. They looked around at the vamp carnage with brows raised, surprise splashed over their faces. And maybe, a pinch of respect swirled in Asa’s eyes.

Enoch was covered in blood, from the fabric tied at his neck, to his boots. “What happened to you? Did you find any?”

“We found five.”

“Abram sired them,” Titus told them.

“We know, which is why we left two alive, and my brother here,” Asa said as endearingly as he could, “told them to seek and kill their master.”

I tried to laugh. “At the very least, it’ll keep Abram busy for a time,” Enoch replied with a shrug. He made his way to me. “I want you to go back to Asa’s and wait for me there.”

“Why? Where are you going? What happened to you? You’re soaked in blood.”

“It’s not mine,” he said coolly.

I never thought it was, but couldn’t imagine the damage he would’ve had to inflict to coat his entire person in the blood of another.

“In addition to burning my home, it appears that they killed everyone who resided and worked on my land,” he replied, swallowing thickly. He took both my hands in his, gripping them tightly. I could see the sadness welling in his green eyes. His grip was sticky with blood.

“I want to help you this time.” Not only should he not have to bury his loved ones for the second time by himself, this was so cruelly reminiscent of the slaughter at his manor that I wondered if Abram somehow knew what Victor and Kael had planned from the start.