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My instincts took over, and I clamped my lips around the wound, sucking the warm, luscious blood from Emric’s veins. There was nothing as delectable as fresh blood, still warm against my tastebuds. Unlike the bagged blood we stored for regular nourishment, this tasted divine, making it easy to get lost in the pleasure that came with feeding. My mind spun, craving more and more of the delicacy, my hands grasping onto Emric’s arm to tug it as close to me as possible. I relished the rush of power surging in my veins, bringing back strength to my tired muscles, sharpening my mind. Colors seemed brighter. Scents seemed stronger, the aroma of cinnamon drawing me in.
I looked up, finding the evergreen eyes I searched for. My heart thumped, body flooding with heat as we stared at each other. He’d no doubt seen someone do this before—in fact, he’d probably fed from someone plenty of times—but something about the way he watched me, as if engrossed by some performance I was putting on just for him, sent a jolt through my spine.
I didn’t know why it kept happening. When my impulses took over, my mind went to him, and I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
“That’s enough,” Beckett said, snapping me away from the tug Nolan had on me and solidifying me back into reality.
I pulled away from Emric’s wrist, my chest rising and falling heavily. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Emric gave me a quick wink, wrapping a cloth around his wrist to stanch the bleeding, the wound already starting to close.
“Here.” Nolan grabbed a few pillows from the neighboring bed and helped me prop them behind me, allowing me to sit up in a more comfortable position while keeping the wound available for Beckett to stitch up. After I was situated, Nolan sat on the edge of the bed by my feet while Beckett worked and Emric remained standing. “Alright, what is it?”
Finally. My mind sharpened, the details I had lined up only an hour ago rushing back to the forefront of my mind. “I think the hostage situation we had a few weeks ago is connected to Elliot.”
“What?” All three of them said together, their wide-eye stares directed at me.
I explained everything Ollie had told me at theBlood Moon. The words tumbled out, and for all I knew, in the haze of blood loss, they made no sense. Beckett continued to stitch me up, but his hardened expression told me he was listening to every word; Emric paced next to me, and Nolan was as still as a statue.
“It can’t be a coincidence,” I finished my longwinded explanation, my mind and chest feeling lighter now that I’d finally been able to speak it out loud.
“So you think Elliot isn’t working alone?” Nolan leaned forward.
“No, I think he has a Clan, and they all work together somehow,” I said. “Think about it, it adds up a few things: how there’s no definitive victim profile, how he can move an intricate operation from Territory to Territory so seamlessly. He’s not working alone, we just always thought he was because of the brandings.”
Beckett leaned back in his chair, pulling off his gloves, observing the thin stitching now running an inch up my side from my hipbone. “He must feed off of the homicidal tendencies of others, bringing them together and teaching them how to kill or attack without detection.”
“Exactly!” I threw my arms up. “We need to contact the other Factions again, see if they have the same pattern.”
“This could be so much bigger than we even realized.” Nolan rocked back and forth, his eyes glowing amber.
“This is only just beginning, it seems,” Beckett whispered, before the four of us dove right into devising a plan.
***
We only worked on the plan for an hour before Beckett pushed the other two out of the infirmary, insisting I needed to rest. He kept me overnight, staying with me and observing me as the wound healed itself at an accelerated rate.
By midmorning the next day. he was able to remove the stitches, but still insisted I stay in bed until it was nothing more than a scar, wanting to be safe in case any internal damage was still healing. I was in and out of sleep for most of the day, letting my mind wander with potential ideas on what I could do with the investigation when I was able to leave this bed. I could check missing person files, trying to find potential Clan members, maybe set up a canvassing search around the territory for any kind of wolfsbane farm that might have popped up, or I could—
My thoughts were cut off by the loud buzzing of Beckett’s Comms, sitting on his desk. Beckett sat forward, answering it immediately. “Yes?”
“Sorry to interrupt,Ar Dtus, but my name is Major Crillian of the Dornwich outpost.” The voice drifted to my bed. “We’ve found another body.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It took ten minutes of arguing that I was healed enough totravel to the crime scene, the rest of the Keturi unsure it was the best idea. Finally, we agreed to a compromise that I wouldn’t drive—which was how I found myself on the back of Nolan’s lectracycle, air whipping around us as we sped through the streets.
My blood pumped loudly in my ears, my mind going through all the possible horrors we might be about to walk into. They hadn’t given us many details about the victim, just that it was a male Varg, and they had found Elliot’s crest. Something felt off to me, and though it could have been exhaustion from everything that happened since yesterday, my mind still spinning over the whole ordeal…that wasn’t it. Something in my soul was unsettled, nagging at me and grating on my nerves. It felt like a warning, the alarms in my mind telling me to turn back, to not continue forward.
I pushed through the doubt and tightened my grip around Nolan’s torso, his abs flexing under my touch. He reached down with one hand, gently squeezing mine. Seemed I wasn’t the only one worried; my heart settled a bit knowing I wasn’t alone.
We rounded the corner into the outskirts of Dornwich, tall brick warehouses taking up the space. Officers and soldiers milled in and out, not many civilians in sight. We parked near the military wagons and walked straight for the group.
Major Crillian grabbed our attention right away, his cheeks flushed and eyes filled with haunted fear. What were we about to walk into?
“I don’t know how to explain it, so I think it best just to show you,” he said solemnly after introduction, leading us to a side entrance and through a storage area of crates and boxes stacked on top of each other. The faint scent of herbs penetrated through the cargo; we were in some kind of mass market apothecary, most likely for some of the more popular tinctures that local shops preferred to outsource in larger batches based on high demand.
We made our way to the back of the room where the victim had been found, all of us stopping instantly in our tracks, taking in the scene.
