The minute we found my little mate, I’d kill the fucking vampire.
“Feel free to try,” he purred in my head.
Once Zane had finished laughing his ass off at my skintight leather pants, he threw his phone at me.
“You’re famous, care bear.”
What? I caught the device in mid-air, only to be greeted by a photo of a naked butt.
“Your ass has its own hashtag, care bear. #sexybutt is trending on every social media site, human and magical.”
“How?” I choked. Fuck my life. If the authorities knew we were behind the massacre at Tiberius Vane’s estate, they would hunt us down like feral shifters.
Boon claimed Vane had not reported the attack, but that had clearly changed in the time it took us to reach this safe house. I’d better call him for an update.
“Reddit thinks the massacre is the work of human supremacists,” Zane announced, apparently disgruntled that his creative kills were being attributed to human activists.
“Does Vane know it was us?” I barked when Boon picked up my call.
“Of course he fucking does, you moron.” My friend snorted. “Vane isn’t a fan of fancy security systems, but there was an old camera fixed to a tree. The local cops found it and downloaded the images. Unfortunately for you, there were some great closeups of your ass.”
“So I see,” I gritted out. “And how did those photos end up online?”
“A wolf shifter admin in the sheriff’s office took a liking to your furry backside. She posted it on her ShifterTok account, and it went viral.” I ignored his laughter. This was not at all funny.
If anyone identified me from the photo, we would have a problem. And the longer the mage bastard had my little mate, the more danger she was in.
“Are there warrants out for our arrest?”
“Yeah, ’fraid so. You’re going to have to lie low for a while, dude. I’m trying to get the photos wiped, but it won’t stop the mages from arresting you and your band of psychos. They’ll lock you in the magical penitentiary to await trial, regardless of the evidence. Or lack thereof.” Keys clacked in the background. “Vane’s really pissed you killed Rink. He’s been ranting to us all morning. He hasn’t mentioned the female you found, though.”
If the female currently lying on the sofa wrapped in blankets was who she claimed to be, I doubted Vane would report her missing. Not after he’d tortured her for fuck knows how long. If Adam Vane couldn’t remove the enchanted collar, I’d have to track down Magenta, my witch contact, but I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.
“I didn’t kill the mage,” I corrected. “He activated a suicide spell to avoid talking, but I’m not sorry he’s dead.” The fucker had played a role in stealing my mate from me, which meant he had to die.
From his snort, Boon clearly didn’t believe me, but his next words distracted me from my annoyance.
“I’ve been looking into the synthetic blood production facility, by the way.”
We needed more blood bags for Rasmus, but he could wait.
“It bothered me that the facility is still making product when there are no vampires, so I got my hacker friend to look at the records for the place. It turns out that a shipment goes to an address in Arizona once a month. Now that struck me as odd, so I dug deeper. The address is a dead end. There’s nothing at those coordinates but a derelict farm in the middle of nowhere.”
“Have you sent anyone to check it out?”
“Not yet, but I have a snake shifter agent in the area. He’s heading that way tonight.”
“Let me know what he finds.”
The mages wouldn’t go to the time and expense of making a product for no good reason. If they were shipping synthetic blood to a random address, at least one other vampire was still alive.
“I’m going to Texas shortly to speak with my mate’s guardian. If anything changes, let me know.”
“Will do. And, Maverick…no more shifting in front of cameras, yeah?”
“Fuck you,” I muttered, provoking more laughter before he hung up.
“Are we ready to ship out of here?” I barked at the others. The merman’s hair was still wet from swimming in a nearby pond, but he’d pulled some pants on at least. I wondered how he would cope with the warmer, dry air in Texas, and then decided I didn’t care.
