Page 69 of Call of the Blood

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ALEXIUS

Waiting through the sun wasn’t difficult for him, not really. He got tired, but it was a classic drowsiness he knew many people felt just trying to make it through their days. He’d talked to his humans enough to know that. The problem would be if he let himself fall asleep. Then it was far more difficult for him to wake and move quickly if anything happened. Recently fed, Alexius wouldn’t have that issue. He yawned several times through the midday, but he had books to read on his phone. He could also text Rupert and the rest of his staff to find out how the house was running, if anyone sent any messages there for him or Everly. He spent the day catching up on things he had been neglecting during the nights he was either looking for these vampires or he was with her.

Everly Abbott was a welcome distraction now that he could indulge the urge to make her scream and shake from pleasure and exhaustion underneath him.

Not the thoughts I should be having while stuck in a closet all day.

He sighed and waited. He actually hated that he wasn’t in the same building as her while she slept. She was far more vulnerable than him. While it was difficult to wake up during the day, he at least could. She was completely unconscious, locked into the powerless of a young vampire against the deadly light. He could count on one hand how many times he hadn’t been close enough to help her if something happened during the day. He owed her that, especially after she had worked hard to ensure his safety after his injuries in New York. He owed her that purely because he was the one who forced her to live the immortal life that put her in danger. He’d let her leave whenever she wanted, but she had not been alive when he’d decided she should have been a vampire. He owed her for that moment, and he wasn’t sure when that debt would be paid.

I can’t believe she wants me as that sort of partner. She wouldn’t have to suffer this life if not for me… It goes further back than the night Edwin killed her, and I killed Edwin, doesn’t it? I should have taken over Jacob’s nest to at least transition the vampires and humans to new places instead of letting the Tribunal vampires go down their list of vampires who wanted nests and could maintain them.

He’d made a lot of mistakes while drowning in the grief of Jacob’s death. That had been the first. It hadn’t been the last. She was the one he kept paying the debt to.

Isaiah would tell me to stop stewing alone on these things…

Fuck Isaiah.

Alexius knew he had limited time now before Isaiah finally realized he and Everly had left Savannah or lost his patience with waiting for them to tell him they did. The rumors were growing and would eventually spill. The countdown had always been there, but it was sped up by each event. The werewolves, Wren at Court of Coffee, Henry Abbott, the blood club—each event brought that inevitability closer because once there were too many rumors, someone in Isaiah’s nest would find the courage to disturb their locked-away master and report on it.

Alexius just wanted to get a couple of things done before that. He wanted to find these vampires for Maria. He wanted Everly to get closure with her uncle, which was also closure for him. While he was nosy and had seen Henry’s new name, James Bishop, he wouldn’t act on it. He had something else on his mind with that situation. Something about Henry scratched an old memory for Alexius, but he couldn’t remember what. He kept trying to think of something. It had to do with Jacob’s nest, something that wouldn’t have been written down. Or perhaps the file was naturally phased out from age and relevancy, and that’s why he hadn’t found it more recently in New York.

It was something he could have asked Isaiah if Isaiah hadn’t decided to ignore him for nearly a year. Now Alexius was being petty. He’d remember eventually and tell Everly when he did. If it mattered.

“Finally,” he whispered as the sun went low enough that everything was in shadow, thanks to the surrounding buildings. It wasn’t nightfall yet, but that wasn’t his worry anymore. So long as he was awake and out of direct sunlight, he could move as he needed. Blood had been left in a cooler nearby with a personal note from Maria, saying it came from her private stash and therefore would be safe, so long as the cooler’s seal wasn’t tampered with.

“She must have prepared this before sunrise. Wonderful.” He fed quickly and cleanly, making sure no evidence of the blood was left behind, then closed the cooler, taking it to his SUV for safekeeping. A quick text to Everly that he’d survived the day, just so she didn’t have to wonder, was the last thing he thought about doing before focusing on the hunt. The other vampires wouldn’t be able to do what he’d done, moving around an hour before the sun was properly down. He had time to find the perfect position to see them or, better, find them while they slept.

“This hunt has been going on long enough,” he said to himself as he climbed up to a rooftop that was shaded by the building next to it. He had to be careful still because humans were on the streets, but he had moved through urban environments like this before.

He found the spot he wanted to bunker down, looking over the spot that seemed central to many of the potential victims that Maria didn’t own. It was surprisingly close to one of her buildings, something he wasn’t sure was coincidence or not.

And so he waited. From waiting for the sun to waiting for the vampires, he spent much of the last several hours waiting.

It was twenty minutes after sundown when he was proven right. A vampire, male with blond hair as Everly described, came out, looking around, pulling his jacket tighter as if he was cold. He was gaunt, and if Alexius knew nothing else, that meant this vampire wasn’t feeding often enough. That kill in the parking garage may have been a last-resort kill to survive.

Interesting. It was all interesting.

Alexius had been around for some time. He knew more than many about their kind. There were a few reasons why a vampire would be in this starved, gaunt state, but it made little sense in the circumstances. There was a deeper mystery here. He trusted his instincts. This hunt had seemed more slippery than normal for the last three weeks. Something about the choices these vampires were making didn’t line up for him.

I don’t think I’m going to kill them when I catch them. Maria left it open as an option if I felt the need, but I think I need to question them. All of them.

He took a quick picture of the vampire with his phone, then texted it and his location to Maria.

I want a team. There are a few of these vampires, and if we can get them together, we can catch them all at once without spooking any into running and keeping this hunt going.

I want Everly. I’d trust her to be able to chase down any one of these vampires, if they’re all so starved.

He didn’t call Everly, though. She was focused on her uncle, and he’d felt bad for even asking her to help him the night before. He needed her because it would have been faster than asking Rupert at home to do the same thing but slower. So much slower. Or trusting that Maria’s team could get him the intel quickly without getting in his way and trying something without him, scaring the vampires off by being loud and obnoxious. With Everly, he knew the project was going to be done within an hour or two, and he’d have a perfect idea of what he’d missed.

And he’d been right. The vampire was right there, playing with a phone of his own, typing quickly as the screen illuminated his hollowed cheeks and deep-set eyes.

A team from Maria under his command was what he would make do with. She had vampires around the West Coast that worked like him, though none with his experience or expertise.

And yet she asked me to do this. Tells me how much she trusts the others right now. If she thought this was tied to anything in New York or with Jacob’s nest, I would be the only one trustworthy enough to allow free rein over the city. Everyone knows I believe in the rule of law… mostly.