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We drove in silence until we reached our destination, which was the same neighborhood I had been hunting in with Castor and Arrow a few times already. So far, we had yet to come across another shifter, and I wasn't sure if that was because they were rare prey or because Castor was intentionally trying to keep me from encountering my own kind for some reason.
Did he think I would be more inclined to show mercy to the very beasts that had turned me, and who slaughtered people not just for food—which would have been bad enough—but simply because they could? If anything, the fact that I was one of them made me feel like I needed to prove myself all the more.
"You're drifting again," Castor warned as we got out of the car and walked down the mostly quiet street. That was his code for me getting lost in thought, which hadn't happened in a while, considering my nights were spent hunting and most of my days spent training. I barely had time to think about things those days, which was just as well, considering the melancholic nature my undirected thoughts tended to take.
"Sorry."
"You apologize too much. Don't be sorry, just don't fuck up," he said, his tone even more clipped than usual.
I started to apologize again out of habit, and just barely managed to stop myself.
As I walked in silence at Castor's side, I found myself looking for an excuse to break it. Part of me wanted to just come out and ask him what I had done to upset him, but that could go one of two ways. Either he would tell me it was nothing and then he would be annoyed at me for being high maintenance, or he would tell me and it would undoubtedly be something I couldn't fix since I already obsessively tried to please him. That had been a hell of a lot easier to accomplish in bed than anywhere else, and I very much doubted I was going to get to do that again anytime soon.
Castor stopped walking suddenly, and I almost bumped into him. He turned toward his left, his eyes sharpening. They were redder than usual. I listened, trying to figure out what it was he was responding to, but he took off suddenly in that direction, and I followed close behind.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Shut up," he answered.
Okay, then.
He started running and I picked up speed to keep pace with him. I followed him into another alleyway, which I had come to realize was a vampire's favorite spot for cornering their prey. This time, there were not one but six of them gathered around whatever unfortunate soul had ventured too far away from safety.
Two souls, I realized. They were both backed against the brick wall at the end of the alleyway, a mother and child. The boy didn't look like he could be much older than ten.
Rage twisted in my chest like a knife, but Castor seemed to anticipate my impulse and gave me a sharp, silencing look.
I stepped back, but it was difficult to watch as the vampires gathered around their prey. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Castor drawing his firearm.
"Left," he mouthed, nodding toward the two men closest to me.
I nodded, and the moment Castor fired the first few shots, I unsheathed my blade and ran for the vampires. Two of them hit the ground immediately from his efforts, and I managed to lop off the head of the nearest one easily enough.
The blood really was kicking in. That, and rage always seemed to have a focusing effect on me. Strange, considering it made me such an unholy terror in my other form.
The vampire to my right snarled viciously and lunged at me, pinning me against the wall. I had seen Castor get out of a similar bind on enough occasions to know what to do, but whether it would actually work for me was another matter. I brought my knee up and shoved my steel-toed boot hard into the vampire's knee until I heard something snap, forcing him back. He took another swipe at me and I barely managed to dodge what I was almost certain would've been a fatal blow.
There was too little space between us to swing my blade, so I thrust it into the vampire's chest right as he lurched forward, a stunned look on his face as he impaled himself on it.
I shoved him off and pulled the blade out of his chest before decapitating him, just in case I had missed the heart. Initially, I had asked Castor why they didn't just use wooden stakes, and he had explained that stakes didn't work on all vampires, but silver did. That was good enough for me.
By the time I looked up, Castor had dispatched all the other vampires except for one. She was a relatively small woman with dark hair and wide, blood-red eyes. Her fangs were poking into her bottom lip, but I wasn't sure if that was where the blood on them came from or if she had been feeding on the dead man I could now see lying on the ground next to the woman and child. The humans were both still cowering in terror.
"Please," the vampire said, holding up her trembling hands. "I'm only with them because they forced me. I didn't want to do this."
"There are others," was Castor’s only response.
She hesitated, confusion shining in her eyes. "What? I don't—"
"You come from a larger coven, I assume," he said, even if the certainty in his voice left little room for argument.
"Y-yes," she stammered. "I do."
"How many?" he asked.
She seemed hesitant to answer him, and I could certainly understand her predicament. Whether or not she had any loyalty to the other vampires, information was the only thing standing between her and a gruesome death, but if she complied, it might not go well, either.
"About thirty," she answered. "Maybe forty in total, including them," she said, nodding to the corpses on the ground.
