The male gave a haughty laugh. “You guys are all the same, you know that? Busting us for using when you’re just as addicted as we are. I know you’re not dumping this shit or taking it back to your little playhouse as evidence. As soon as we split, you’re going to be popping the little rubber corks and downing it as fast as we were about to.”
Mateo tightened his grip on the guy’s friend. Sure, corruption in the Guardian ranks was prevalent down here, but he played no part in it. He kept his head down and didn’t get involved in any of that shady shit.
Rules were there for a reason. It drove his partner crazy sometimes, but Mateo knew what happened when you pushed things past the breaking point. They broke.
He touched the tip of the blade to the youthling’s neck and drew blood. “I haven’t wasted a vampire in, oh, twelve hours now, so I’m itching for an excuse to charcoal you.”
“Give it to him, Jonas,” one of the females hissed to the rich guy. “It’s not worth it.”
“This is bullshit,” a shorter guy said, glancing warily at the lightening sky. “Just give it to him. I’ve got to get home.”
“No,” Jonas argued with his friends. “He’s just going to—”
The events that followed happened quickly. Someone must’ve reached into Jonas’s pocket, because shouts, cursing and a scuffle ensued. Several glass vials of the addictive blood went flying and shattered on the cobblestones. The youthlings, unable to control themselves, pounced.
With the scent of Sweet thick in the air, Mateo’s grip loosened momentarily. The young man he’d been holding immediately slipped from his grasp and joined his friends lapping at the blood-spattered cobblestones.
It took a moment for Mateo to process the scent—he hadn’t smelled it in a long, long time—but not because he was addicted to Sweet. As a Guardian, part of his training had involved becoming desensitized to it, and now he routinely busted those who were selling it. But that scent—that particular scent—was familiar to him.
When Mateo made the connection, he staggered backward, feeling as if he’d been hit by a train. And then a white-hot rage surged through his veins, clouding all reason and logic.
On some level, he knew these kids had nothing to do with the collection of the blood or its source, they were just consumers, but he didn’t care. Fangs fully extended, he whipped out his silver blades, wielding them like extensions of his hands. Lunging, he intended to kill all of them. Spill their blood on the cobblestones. But before his weapons struck flesh, strong arms gripped him from behind, nearly wrenching him off his feet.
“What the fuck!” he yelled, struggling to free himself.
“Easy there, big guy.” It was Zeph.
“Get your hands off me, man, or I’ll rip your fucking head off.”
His partner ignored him, his grip vise-like around Mateo’s biceps. “Dude, they’re just mixed-up kids. They’re not the enemy.”
But Zeph didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand.
The blood he smelled was hers.
