Page 56 of Call of the Blood

“It doesn’t really change anything,” he conceded before fully laughing. “But man, Callahan didn’t have to baby me.”

“Alpha Callahan,” I corrected. “For Lexi, it’s really better if you call him by title.”

“Good advice, vampire,” Yiva said, nodding behind Declan. She stepped closer, putting a hand on Declan’s shoulder. “Alpha knows when someone needs a gentle hand or a firm one. You need gentle right now. You’re not used to werewolves. You haven’t been around vampires regularly in a decade. And none of this is your fault. You’re just in a difficult position. So, Alpha Callahan is going to be gentle. It’s what makes him not a tyrant and inspires so many of us to follow him.”

“Thanks, Yiva.” He looked back at me, smiling. “And thank you for thinking of my safety when you saw the other vampire. Really.” Then it was back to Yiva. “Lexi isn’t going to leave me for not being manly enough? I mean…”

“My daughter loves you,” Yiva promised firmly, squeezing his shoulder. “Now, let me show you both what fun is to be had at a werewolf party.”

She dragged us both back inside, and for a second, I could watch Alexius leave with the two werewolves.

Good luck. Please don’t get hurt.

22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ALEXIUS

Alexius, Lucas, and Lexi took separate vehicles since none of them were going to leave at the same time. They rolled into the parking lot of Declan’s condo like a unit, and Alexius led the wolves to where he saw in screenshots that Everly had witnessed the vampire.

“She stood here.”

“She must have come out of this door,” Lexi said, pointing out the opening, her arm curving to mean the door leaving into the parking lot. “Caught the scent of blood?”

“Yeah. Our noses are sensitive to it,” Alexius confirmed. “She’s particularly sensitive because she’s still a young vampire, and it’s close to the end of the night. After being out all night, she’d want to feed a little before resting for the day. She would have caught it the moment she entered the open air.” Alexius went to where she would have been. He considered the timing. There had been a couple of hours or so before sunrise. She would have considered that before investigating. The vampire had a superficial injury, but the human had drawn blood. Everly had smelled both predator and prey.

He then did the walk from the door to where Everly saw the vampire. He didn’t like the positioning. From the angle, she was making a blind turn into the trouble.

“Walking her steps? Going to give her a performance review later?” Lucas asked, professional, none of the relaxed father stuff from the previous time they had seen each other.

Alexius privately wanted to be as far away from this werewolf as possible. He had thumped him like they were friends. They were not friends.

“Trying to understand what her reaction time could have been. From the blind turn, the vampire could have gotten the jump on her, but he was too focused on feeding. She was taken off-guard by how out in the open it was.”

“You can assume that?” Lucas again.

“Absolutely. Everly doesn’t feed on humans, not straight from the vein. She doesn’t hunt. She prefers blood bags from donations. Open feeding is also frowned upon. Exposure risk. And it was a kill. She wasn’t mentally prepared for seeing a crime punishable by death right in front of her. No one would be under the circumstances.”

“By death?” Lexi said, hanging near her father, as far from Alexius as she could get.

“That’s what Alexius the Hunter does, Lexi. He hunts down other vampires who break their laws and/or Tribunal Law and executes them. Everly is his protégé… assistant?”

“Both.” He saw no reason to try to argue what her title was or explain. She was both of those things, his only roommate, his friend, his lover. The object of his lust. She was a lot of things to him.

“Everly helps kill people? Or does she do paperwork?”

“She killed a vampire with a frying pan once,” Alexius said, staring at the spot where the vampire had been feeding on the human. His words were dry, clinical; the gore and violence he described was commonplace to him. “Pulverized his skull and brains and other bits into a meaningless pile of gore. He’d been leading his friends on a killing spree in Alaska that had started with a few human family members of the werewolf pack up there.”

“Well, you didn’t need to say all of that,” Lucas said, chastising Alexius, so Alexius turned around. “But I heard about all that. Didn’t know it was you and Everly, but then I manage things locally, not with other packs.”

“I still think I could take her in a fight,” Lexi muttered.

Alexius laughed. Softly and condescendingly, he laughed as he looked at the werewolf woman Declan was so enamored by. He couldn’t stop himself.

“It’s painfully obvious you have never fought for your life. Everly walks into every fight believing she might die at the end of it and leaves nothing off the table. You would lose. That’s why Callahan doesn’t want this escalating any further. She would severely injury or kill you. Your father would rightfully take issue. He’d come after Everly. I won’t let any of you have her, no matter who was or wasn’t at fault.

“Callahan is suddenly on the bad side of a battle he knows will destroy a good portion of his pack needlessly, even if the pack somehow kills me in the process. I’m too much of an asset for Isaiah and Maria, also Tribunal members, to lose, so they would be helping me, with the full backing of their nest. Then we have a war that risks our exposure to humanity, and no one wants humans to know that vampires are real and that other supernaturals have been helping them. Your father knows this. I can tell by looking at him that he knows this. So, if he’s told you that you won’t win the fight and to leave Everly alone, you should listen to him.”