“I smell dark magic,” the vampire added just as I blinked us into the adjacent room, right behind a mage in a black suit.
Before he could react, care bear flattened him with his bulk.
“Tell me where she is before I bite your fucking head off!”
9
Rasmus
It had been a while since I had fully unleashed my inner monster. Over the last hundred years, we vampires had become more civilized. Less inclined to kill with impunity.
Laying waste to Vane’s mage security force was more satisfying than I expected. It helped ease the sense of loss in my chest the longer my blood queen remained missing.
I knew she was unharmed for now because I’d have felt it if the soul-bond had been severed. I still recalled the day my Aunt Marietta lost her soul-bonded mate. She had clutched her chest, screamed, and then collapsed as her beloved’s ashes scattered in the wind.
The mage before me looked familiar.Rank? Rink? From memory, this was Vane’s aide. Skilled in dark magic and known for his cruelty.
He smirked before casting magic at me, but I ducked faster than the eye could see and appeared in front of him, snapping his wrists in tandem.
An unearthly shriek echoed through the room before the incubus chuckled and sauntered over.
“Not so easy to cast with broken wrists, eh?”
“You’re too late,” the mage sniveled, shocked at how easily I’d disabled him. “They’re gone, and you won’t ever find them.” He sneered and then screamed as I sank my nails into his neck. Not deep enough to kill him. I wanted answers, and in my experience, corpses had very little to say.
“Do you have fire magic?” I asked the incubus, but he shook his head.
“Sadly, no. But Brenda is still open for business.” He twirled his blade around and then stabbed the mage’s leg.
I usually loved the smell of fresh blood, but this mage’s blood stank of rot, like part of him had died already. Probably the dark magic he used. Necrosis was a known side effect.
“Tell me what you know.” The mage shuddered as he fought my vampiric compulsion. At full strength, he might have resisted my power, but the pain had weakened him.
“I…I…they…MageLab…” He bit down before black foam and scarlet blood spewed from his mouth. I shoved him back in case whatever cursed magic he’d succumbed to was lethal on contact. Even Zane grimaced as the male choked and then melted before our eyes.
“Gross.”
“Fuck,” the bear grunted. “Rink was Vane’s closest adviser. He must have triggered a suicide spell.”
I kicked the corpse away and uttered some curses under my breath. This was something I should have anticipated. Vane always insisted his acolytes signed a death pact in the event of capture. Most were so enthralled by him they didn’t think twice about it. It was part of what made the mage so dangerous.
“What’s MageLab?” the merman asked.
“Not sure, but I know someone who might,” the bear shifter replied before groaning in frustration. “Oh, fuck, I don’t have my phone. Let’s quickly search this place, and then I need to return to the club to find my stuff.”
I nodded and shot away. It wouldn’t take long to check all the rooms in Vane’s mansion. Not at my speed.
My senses remained sharp as I searched the upper floors. I found only one room of interest containing an emaciated female lying on a bed with a spelled metal collar around her neck. The scent of death clung to her skin, and her thin chest barely moved with each labored inhale and exhale.
This female didn’t have long. I leaned in to sniff her neck, trying to get a sense of who and what she was.
An avian shifter. Her gray hair held hints of blonde, and when at last she opened her eyes, they were a startling shade of green.
“Alaric?” The female’s raspy voice was barely a whisper in the stale air of this small room.
“Who is Alaric to you?”
“My son. Please help him!” Bony fingers grasped my arm with surprising strength. I pushed my magic into the collar around her neck, testing the complexity of the spell that sealed it. Dark magic slithered out, making me hiss when it burned my skin.
