Alpha's Legacy (Black Moon Saga Book 3)

31. Whatever It Takes: Bria

I take Caz and Aspen with me to the location where Grayson indicated for us to meet with him again before the hour he gave was up. He left no further instructions, so I didn’t want to take too many people and risk him having a fit, and yet, it kind of feels like the two with me won’t be enough if he decides to try something again. Caz and Shy were with me before, and the three of us were no match for this warlock.

I still don’t know how to feel about that. I’ve only had to experience this sense of inadequacy twice before – once when I first met Tian’s Dorian, and the second was when we were up against the vampiric abomination crafted in part by Kylie’s old dark-witch foe. We stood no chance against either of them without Tian, but thankfully, Dorian eventually became our ally, and the abomination is now deceased. I won’t be able to rest until we can say the same about this Grayson fellow.

But of course, that’s not our goal here today. Not yet, anyway. First, we must figure out how to get Anna Jade away from him, and then it will be time to plan his funeral.

Tian advised me to do as the man says for now, considering the current time constraint. We can’t do anything that might jeopardize Anna Jade. So, I have to meet with him and agree to his proposal, all the while attempting to gather whatever information I can about him that might help us to come up with a better plan. Because you’re crazy if you think I’m really going to work for that egomaniac.

We don’t kill our own unless we must. They’re not vermin; they’re humans who’ve been having a rough time of things and have suddenly found themselves turned into mindless, bloodlusting vampires. Some are beyond even our help, most of them really, truth be told, but it’s our duty and responsibility to discover which of them can be brought back from the darkness. They’ll never be able to return to the lives they used to live, but with our help, some of them can find their way to a new sort of life worth living.

But first things first. We have to appease the villain and figure out where he’s keeping the princess. Then we’ll meet up with the other heroes so we can all plot the villain’s demise together. I’m thinking we should bring in the shady Alpha who rules the surface kingdom. He’s not exactly heroic, but he does appreciate money and having important people owe him favors. Plus, it’s his territory that the villain is trespassing upon. I can’t see an Alpha not wanting to act against someone encroaching on his territory like that, and besides, he’s the guy with the knowledge, access, and influence we’ll need.

But Tian hated that idea, so we’ll see. Honestly, Tian hated everything about the situation, and I don’t blame him. I’ve never heard him so angry and bent out of shape, especially not while also being strangely accepting of it all, like he was expecting it. He didn’t freak out when I first told him. No, first he wanted details. Then he freaked out.

Quite frankly, I’m worried about him. He’d never been responsible for children before hooking up with Kylie and basically adopting her offspring as his own. Makes sense that he would do that, since they’re mates now, but it’s been a whole new experience for us all.

I hate that I’m the one who screwed it up, though. My money was on Bo being the one. He was so close to proving me right too, only a few short hours ago. I think Tian would have beheaded Bo without a second thought when he thought he was flirting with his daughter, had Bo pushed it for even a second longer.

But losing her to a psychotic warlock is so much worse than making moves on her, and that rare honor goes to me. I think what bothered me most about my phone conversation with my sire was that I could sense his disappointment in me, and I haven’t had to experience that since the early years. But losing control of my bloodlust as a new vampire was understandable, predictable even. It happens to the best of us. This, though, this is unforgivable.

I have to get her back, and it must be soon. If anything were to happen to her between now and then, I might as well pack my bags and disappear. I won’t be able to handle the way Tian will look at me if I’m responsible for his baby girl getting hurt, or worse.

But I have to push all that nonsense in my head aside for now. I must focus on the task at hand. Find warlock, agree to warlock’s demands, get the girl back, betray warlock. That’s the plan, as far as I’m concerned anyway. It also wouldn’t hurt to figure out how the warlock managed to infiltrate our secure base, though that might be asking for too much.

“This is the place,” Aspen declares, stopping me in my tracks and pulling me from my broody thoughts. “The coordinates match. So now what?”

“Now, we wait,” I answer her, shaking out some of the tension in my shoulders. “Though it wouldn’t hurt to sniff around a bit, get a sense of this place.”

“We were here before,” Caz chimes in. “I remember it from this morning. This is where I got stabbed by something as we were brushing past that corner right there.”

He points just ahead of us, and now I remember this place too. We were pursuing three newborns who were chasing after two human girls. I remember Caz falling behind momentarily, and when he caught up with us, he showed us a spot on his arm that was already healing over but looked like it had been the wound from something sharp poking into his skin.

“It felt like getting prodded by a hot poker,” he’d said, though he also noted that he couldn’t find the source.

We didn’t have time to think much of it then, and once we got back to the base, it was already forgotten. Or I forgot about it, at least. I had to hurry and clean myself off, knowing that Tian was expected to arrive with Anna Jade at any moment. But now that Caz has mentioned it again, I realize that I should have given it more thought, and mentally kick myself for the oversight. Getting poked by something that can actually penetrate a vampire’s thick skin is a noteworthy occurrence, and we should have dropped everything and looked into it.

If I was a betting woman, and as it turns out, I am, then I’d put my money on whatever poked Caz somehow being connected to Grayson, and it might even be how he managed to track us down. He didn’t find our base; he followed Caz right to it using some magical tracking device or a spell with enough power behind it that we don’t have the equipment necessary to detect it. And the mystery of how he got into the basement? That’s where Caz was in the moment that Grayson chose to pursue us.

Maybe I gave him too much credit before. He didn’t come to us as part of some elaborate scheme. It was what he said that brought him to our basement – we “trespassed” somewhere that he has claimed as his own, and he went after us to make sure that we knew it. Being the opportunist that he is, he decided to turn the situation to his advantage, nabbing Anna Jade in the process. He’s clever and a quick thinker, I’ll give him that much.

But that also makes him dangerous. Any misstep that we make, now or in the future, he won’t hesitate to make us regret. We’ll have to tread very carefully with him going forward, and as for my own scheme to turn on him the first chance that we get? I’ll have to make sure that we do it in a way that he won’t catch on too soon, and even better would be if I can somehow manage to drop the blame in someone else’s lap. Alpha Miles immediately comes to mind.

“We can’t take you back with us until we get whatever he shoved in your arm out of there, or deactivate it somehow,” I whisper to Caz in response to his reminder that we’ve been here before, finally sifting through my thoughts enough to feel confident in my conclusion that the warlock has been tracking us.

“I was just thinking the same,” he agrees. “And we’ll need Eramund to help us devise some way to detect and monitor the magic that must be all over these tunnels, if we’re going to continue working here. Too much is at stake for us to keep leading the enemy directly into the heart of our operations.”

Eramund, that’s the name of Kylie’s warlock that I can never seem to remember. Who names their child Eramund, though? Of all the bizarre caster names that I’ve encountered over the centuries, that one takes the cake. Or it’s in the top three, at least.

“Are we ready to talk terms?” a familiar voice speaks seemingly from all around us, though I recognize the effect as one of the low-power tricks that warlocks tend to be particularly fond of.

I also know that he must be waiting and watching for us either in this same area or right around the next bend, considering the limited range of the spell.

“We’re here, we’re on time, and we’re ready to talk,” I answer him, raising my voice only slightly above a conversational volume. I know he can hear me. “So cut the crap and show yourself.”

“You’re lucky that I like my women a bit on the feisty side,” he retorts, though this time he uses his natural voice, sans the magic tricks.

It sounded like he was right behind us, so I turn myself around to greet him just as he materializes before me. I must have walked right past him, though I never sensed anything amiss. As part of one of my special talents, I tend to be a bit on the sensitive side and can usually sense when there’s powerful magic active nearby, and yet this guy keeps evading me. No wonder he was so easily able to tag Caz earlier. I just hope that he didn’t overhear anything he wasn’t meant to know. Eramund’s name, for instance, or the fact that we’ve figured out that he’s tracking us.

“So, you work for me now?” he asks, surprising me by cutting right to the chase. I figured he’d want to keep bantering for at least another round or two, as guys like him are wont to do.

I nod, as much as it pains me to have to cater to him, even if temporarily.

“We do,” I confirm. “We just need you to tell us the particulars of what it is we’re agreeing to, and of course, to show us proof that the girl you took from us is still alive and well.”

“Of course. Come with me,” he says, turning and gesturing for us to follow him back the way we just came.

Interesting. Apparently, he’s no longer in the mood to waste time toying with me, and as it turns out, “his” territory is more expansive than I realized. He’s leading us back toward where the newborns we neutralized earlier had been nesting. We haven’t found their master yet, so now I’m wondering if Grayson and the unknown vampire we’ve been tracking have been dueling over their claim to these tunnels, and that’s why he needs us.

Hopefully, we’re about to find out.

*************************

“We’ve called an emergency meeting in an hour,” Tian informs me as soon as he picks up my follow-up call. “You need to be there, along with whoever else you think might have information and perspective that might be helpful to our cause.”

“That’s great, and we’ll be there, but I think I figured out how the warlock found us, and we’ll need Eramund’s help with that before we can meet with anyone important,” I relay to him. “It should be somewhere neutral that we can risk compromising because he might still be tracking us for all we know.”

“I’ll confer with the others and send you coordinates for where to meet.”

“Perfect,” I tell him, less cheerfully than he’s probably used to from me.

I’ve been trying, but I just can’t seem to find my usual talent for humor and cheer to carry me through the tough bits. Perhaps this time it’s a little too tough, and a little too close to me. And perhaps he even appreciates that I’m not trying to turn his daughter’s k********g into a joke, the way that I would with pretty much anything else we go up against.

“And Tian?” I start again, waiting until I hear his hum of intrigue before continuing. “She wasn’t there. He didn’t bring her, of course, nor did he reveal any information about where he’s keeping her, but he showed me a video feed. She was still sleeping, but she seemed fine, and he seems to genuinely want our assistance, so I don’t think he’ll jeopardize his only bargaining chip.”

“Thank you,” is the only response Tian gives, though I can detect his relief even through the flatness of his tone. “I’ll send you those coordinates momentarily. See you soon.”

Once I hear the decisive click in my ear that tells me our conversation is officially over for now, I snap to action. Everyone who was with me this morning is going to need to come with us to this meeting, which means I’m going to have to call the others back at the base as well as recall Bo and Mitham. Hopefully neither of them were tagged, but we’re going to need Eramund to know for sure.

Tian sends me the coordinates he promised only a few minutes later. I recognize them as the location for one of the Solace Hotels, the one in Utah, away from everyone and every place connected to Kylie and her family. Clever. Couldn’t have chosen better myself. Conducting this meeting in a neutral territory means that even if the warlock tracks us there, he won’t learn anything useful, and if he shows up, he won’t be able to do anything nasty without drawing unwanted attention from The Council. Neither will we, though, is the unfortunate backside of that same coin.

“Alright, ladies, we gotta go see Alpha Miles now,” I announce to my current crew of two.

We haven’t returned home, not knowing whether we’re being tracked or not. There’s still a chance that even though Grayson has already been there, he might not know where “there” even is, depending on the nature of whatever magic he used on Caz. And in that case, we don’t want to give him more opportunities to learn the location by going back there before we know we’re all clean.

I’ll call the others on the way to the Alpha’s penthouse. Tian did say to bring anyone I thought might be useful, and I think the Alpha twit might just be that, even if only as a pawn in my scheme.

Caz grimaces, probably in response to being called a lady, but it’s just as likely that it’s the idea of visiting Alpha Miles again that inspired it. Aspen, on the other hand, smiles coyly. She likes Alpha Miles, or at least she likes the way he looks and growls about everything. And luckily for us, he seems to appreciate her just as much. We might be able to use that in our favor. Perhaps she’s the one who should ask for his assistance.

“We’ll get her back, and he’ll agree to help, even if I have to promise to let him do unspeakable things to me to get him in the mood for it,” she promises, smirking as Caz groans his displeasure at the thought.

“He’s a mated man, you know,” he reminds her. “You’re stepping into a situation that might be too sticky to be worth it. I’ve heard that his Luna’s father is one of the higher-ups of a prominent local family that’s involved in running the criminal underground in these parts. You don’t want to be getting yourself, or us, on her bad side.”

“He’s right,” I agree. “There will be no pulling out of the feminine wiles for this meeting, got it? Save that for when it’s your own personal time and reputation you’re squandering.”

“You’re no fun,” she pouts, and then under her breath, she adds, “And you’re no good at taking a joke when you’re this stressed either.”

“Tian’s family is not a joke,” Caz reminds her scoldingly. “Anything else is fair game, but in this situation, it’s uncalled for. The girl was our responsibility, and we lost her. This is no time to be playing around.”

“Okay, got it. Geesh, sorry.”

I’m with Caz on this one, though I also understand where Aspen is coming from and what she’s trying to do. Even I was just thinking about how the Alpha likes to flirt with her, and there’s usually nothing we won’t joke or tease about, no matter how dark or disturbing it is. Oddly enough, it’s normally Tian in my current role, with the rest of us taking digs at him for always taking everything so seriously.

But I just can’t bring myself to even want to find the humor since it’s Anna Jade who’s in danger this time. “Auntie Bria,” she called me once, when she was still pretty young. She hasn’t done it since, and even then it mostly just made me uncomfortable, but it also goes to show what a warm, pure heart she has. She doesn’t care about blood; everyone is family to her if they’ll let themselves be.

That’s also what has me so worried for her, though. Grayson seems like the type of man who will take one whiff of goodness and resolve himself to spoiling it. I can just picture the things he’d enjoy doing to Anna Jade to try to dim her light. He may have promised to return her in the same condition as when he took her, but I know he meant physically. Psychologically is another story, and I don’t even want to think of the sort of warfare that a man like him is capable of waging inside her innocent, naïve mind.

Especially knowing how hard she took her break-up from a guy she’d only been seeing for a couple days. She gets attached quickly and falls hard and fast for anyone who will spare her a second glance. Grayson said he could smell the goodness on her, which I know was just the lightness of her magic he was sensing. Light magic stinks to a dark caster the same way that dark magic smells foul to a light caster.

But once he gets a sense of the person behind that light, I think it might be too tempting for him to resist tainting her in whatever way he can. I wouldn’t even put it past him to trick her into learning dark magic to dim that light of hers, which would be tragic. The lighter a healer’s magic, the more powerful her healing potential will be. That much I know, and probably so does he.

Which is why we need to be careful and stay on task with Alpha Miles and everything that comes after. No fooling around with important people to blow off steam, no accidental missteps that might jeopardize the entire operation. We’re taking Grayson down and getting Anna Jade back as swiftly and carefully as we possibly can, whatever it takes.