Page 91 of Blood and Trouble

“Pleasure doing business with you.” Thurjin shook the other guy’s hand and turned back toward his bike. I stood from my perch, leaning up against my bike, and uncrossed my arms. The last deal was done, and I could finally go back to Poe and Ava.

Something squeezed my gut, and a burning sizzle shot down my spine for no reason. I glanced around, trying to locate any possible threat. My wolf had been pacing in my mind for the last hour like he knew something the human didn’t. But I didn’t smell anything. We were out in the middle of nowhere, and we hadn’t been followed. I was certain of that.

“Wait, what?” Bas said from behind me. “Slow down. What happened?”

He turned to look at me, and my heart dropped.

This.

Whatever my wolf had been trying to tell me, this was it—the other shoe dropping. The swan singing its death song. The worst-case scenario. Bas didn’t even have to say it. I already knew.

“The pack’s been attacked,” he said. “We need to go.”

The words settled in my veins like acid. I could have disintegrated on the spot. I reached into my pocket for my phone and turned off Do Not Disturb. Locust had called four times. Bow, too. My texts showed up first.

We got out. We’re headed to you.

He sent me a pin to a hotel on Fyn, about ninety minutes from my location. Thurjin shouted at me to wait, but I was already gone. They had to go back to the pack. I understood that. But I had other priorities.

I made the ride in forty minutes and parked my bike next to the only other three in the lot. I had just reared back to kick the door down when it suddenly opened.

Locust stood on the other side, freshly showered, rubbing the back of his head with a towel. He eyed me head to toe before moving back and nodding.

“She’s in the bedroom,” he said, pointing off to the left. “Through there.”

“We’ll just…” Bow walked up behind Locust and patted me on the shoulder before they both moved around me to leave.

The door closed, and the smell hit. Copper and decaying flesh, and under it something rich and territorial that raised my hackles for a different reason.

Bonding scent.

Not the whiff I’d caught off Poe through the window. Something settled. Damn near eye-watering. I steeled myself and walked to the bedroom, pausing just inside the door.

Ava lay on the bed under the covers, her skin clammy, her rosy complexion faded to a dull pallor. The bandage wrapped around her chest had a bloody spot just below her armpit, and after I assessed that damage, my focus caught on the bite mark on her neck.

Poe sat in the chair next to the bed with one hand in hers, the other under his chin to prop his head up. He was covered in blood—his hands, his chest, his chin. Most of it was vampire. Some of it was Ava. Then I caught the mark on his neck, and my lungs turned to concrete.

“How is she?” I asked.

Poe looked up and shifted his hips to straighten.

“She’ll live,” he said. “The healer did the best she could, being that we’re not part of their pack. Ava’s newly transitioned, and she’s got my…” He stopped and cleared his throat. “She’s healing quick. She should be fine in a few hours.”

I crossed my arms and leaned against the frame. “What happened?”

Ava furrowed her brows and stirred, murmuring something to herself before relaxing again with a sigh. Poe stood, leaned down to kiss her forehead, and let go of her hand.

I forced myself to watch it, swallowing the envy that licked up my throat and boiled in my gut. It hurt. Fuck, I wanted to kill him for touching her. I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat for daring to mark him.

He walked toward me and out into the living room. I followed him and closed the bedroom door behind me. Ava needed her rest, and what I had to say to Poe shouldn’t be the first thing she heard from me after getting shot.

“The vampires attacked the pack,” Poe said, walking over to the couch. He sat down and perched his elbows on his knees, hanging his head between his shoulders as he told me the rest. I settled in the armchair across from him and crossed my legs, balancing my chin on my fingers. I watched him as he spoke, the casual ease with which he talked about destroying our enemies with a steel root digger to protect her.

“The Copenhagen pack is okay. Their wards held. The bloodsuckers got us in between leaving their territory and getting to the bikes,” Poe said, picking at dried blood on his hands while he kept his gaze on the ground in front of him. “Locust called Kodiak. He’s working on a plan to get us out of here.”

I didn’t respond. Everything in me went very still as I stared holes through that fucking mark on his neck. Questions burned through my mind quicker than I could rationalize them away. How had that happened? Why? When? Did he bite her first? Did she? Did he force her? No, he wouldn’t do that. I knew him well enough to know he’d never take anyone without their consent. Then I really would kill him.

Time stretched between us while he squeezed his eyes shut and scrubbed his filthy hands over his face, back through his hair, pulling the ends, digging his nails into his scalp.