Page 120 of Hunted

‘Despite our preferred aversion to interaction, our connection remains,’ I say, noting the strain in my voice. ‘Blood remembers blood. Distance dulls many things, but not all. Each brother’s scent is ingrained in my every sense. In my blood.’

She grasps it instantly. ‘And you felt one of them today?’

I nod. ‘I caught a trace in the alley that should not have been there. Familiar enough that I knew it before my mind named it. But I think it was an emissary rather than the sender himself.’

‘Would someone act without one of your brothers’ express permission?’

Highly unlikely.

Not unless whatever they sought was greater than their fear of having their heads torn from their shoulders by one of the Five Blood.

I do not say that aloud.

Not yet.

She feels the omission in the way I go still, and she twists slightly, trying to read my face in the Glass.

Clever thing.

‘So someone from your’ – she searches for a term and settles, predictably, on irreverence – ‘founding vampire club is in your city, killing contractors and investigators?’

‘Perhaps. Or someone carrying old blood, old scent, old allegiance. Do not simplify what remains unproven. I need to reach out to be certain. Assumptions are dangerous in my realm.’

‘But you think it’s connected. All the signs point that way, right? If it quacks like a duck…’

‘Yes.’

Her breathing has gone shallow now, not with desire but with the shape of the stakes. ‘Who, Valentin? Who do you think is behind the deaths?’

I consider my words carefully.

‘Someone with resources enough to build precision traps in my territory and conceal them in noise,’ I say. ‘Someone with access to old methods and modern cover, willing to eliminate peripheral actors before they become threads. That suggests fear, not bravado.’

‘Fear of what?’

‘Change. Exposure. Consolidation.’ I let the words settle. ‘And perhaps fear of what follows if I succeed.’

She turns her face more fully, enough that her hair brushes my jaw. ‘Succeed. In finding… her? Your f-fated mate?’

My mark throbs in protest, as though I could have forgotten it. ‘Yes.’

A faint shiver travels through her. ‘But why won’t they want you to bond with Lyra?’

And therein lies the true question beneath all the others.

I look away from the Glass, from our impossible reflections standing together like a warped prophecy. Misplaced, because the woman in front of me is not the right one, despite the unvarnished craving in my blood for her.

For the first time since I began speaking, the answer catches.

Here is where omission becomes strategy, and strategy becomes cowardice.

I have no taste for either when it concerns this.

My jaw tightens hard enough to ache.

I could evade. Name power and rivals and inheritance and leave the marrow hidden.

But she has already been drawn into bloodshed for my sake. Tezra is dead. The investigator was murdered. Eira is now a point of pressure whether I approve of it or not.